This is Not a Love Song

It's been a while.  Sorry.  (That apology is probably more to myself than anyone else, as I figure that I am most likely the primary beneficiary of this blog.)  Life was temporarily on hold while I studied and sat for the New York Bar Exam.  All non-essential functions paused.  Of course, the minute I hit the "play" button, the world whooshed back in.  (You like that onomatopoeia?)  And, of course I got right back to work.  Literally.  And, of course, right back to procrastinating in the face of work, during which time I unearthed from the clutches of the Internet an old favorite piece of poetry by the immortal T.S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  (It's a bit long to include in-line, so I tossed it down at the bottom there for those who are interested.)

T.S Eliot was not a New Yorker, but he could have been.  His poetry is that of someone thoroughly modern, complicated, and residually malcontent -- just like everyone else in New York City.  And, accordingly, J. Alfred's "love song" is anything but one.  Rather, it seemingly laments the listless impotency of modern man in the face of love, which J. desires just enough to form a thought around it, but not enough to muster action. 

The poem opens with a quotation from Dante's Inferno (roughly translated):  "If I thought my answer were to one who could return to the world, I would not reply, but as none ever did return alive from this depth, without fear of infamy I answer thee."  Among the layers of significance this opening has in relation to the poem, what could be more New York than this: the anonymity of Prufrock's despair (at his seemingly incurable timidity and inferiority) in relation to a city whose vastness rivals the seas.  His unnamed (but nevertheless perceived) "overwhelming question" remains unanswered because he perpetually reasons that there is more time to decide, that nothing (least of all people) ever change, that the cycle of day into night into day again is one long amorphous journey that would subsume any small moment of boldness on his part along with its reward -- so why act?  

At the least, he prays to be a crab on the ocean floor, rolling fragments of strength and sweetness up into one ball ("I should have been a pair of ragged claws/Scuttling across the floors of silent seas").  A scavenger creating something beautiful from scraps.  But, in the heavy yellow smoke of Prufrock's city, this desire is fleeting, and he returns, once again to a supporting role in the drama of his own life.  The entire saga of question, quest, and dejection is all confined to his own head.  And, in the end, he is defeated before he begins.  He retreats into the dark-cornered city, an ocean of humanity full of mermaids who will not sing to him.

In a city like New York, I feel the same way all too often.  The potential of the city to energize and inspire me with its swelling frenetic pace is the flip side of its equally matched ability to flatten me ("like a patient etherized upon a table") under the weight of obscurity and inadequacy.  When it comes to love in New York, it is easy to lapse into a defeatist mode, to go through the motions of aging stoic and alone ("Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?"), to give up the answers we seek to indecision, comfort, and fear.  At times, I also find myself a pair of ragged claws, attempting to gather bits of affection and connection strung out across the city and wind them into a tiny ball of light on the dark ocean floor.  And so methodically do the bits not fit together, with such regularity do they unravel, that I begin to believe that the problem is me, and I retreat so as not to have to admit to it. 

J. Alfred and I have much in common, having both "wept and fasted, wept and prayed."  Our tender sensibilities seem to have no place in this world.  Prufrock reacts to the futility of his struggle by retreating into a cocoon of acceptance and submission, protecting his vulnerabilities, not daring to disturb the universe.  And this is where I have determined our similarities must end.  Yes, the world is in some ways stagnant, critical, and pretentious ("In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo").  Yes, it can be daunting to feel impotent, inadequate, and invisible.  Our feelings make us vulnerable to the world, but vulnerability is an equal opportunist.  We are just as exposed to possible rejection and pain as we are to possible connection and joy.  To have any of it, we have to let it all in.  To "disturb the universe" and see what settles. To accept the chaff with the grain.  (And then, probably shake it up again.)  This city can be dark and discordant, but if approached with an open heart, maybe everything's a love song.

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As for the dark-cornered city: "Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,/ The muttering retreats/
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels/ And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:/ Streets that follow like a tedious argument/ Of insidious intent/ To lead you to an overwhelming question …"  which you can ponder here:

Double Down Saloon
Avenue A between 1st and 2nd Streets
Dive. Dive. Diiiiiiiive.  If it's grunge you want, then it is grunge you shall receive.   The dark, dirty, graphic-porn-on-the-walls, suspect-odor kind of grunge that makes you wonder where that beer bottle was before it was in your face.  It's a punk rock dive bar, I don't care what the name implies.  You're either in the mood or you aren't.  I wasn't.  But, don't let that discourage you.

Mars Bar
Corner of 1st St. and 2nd Ave.

Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiivvvvvvvveeee.  Out of the frying pan and into the fire.  Smaller and smellier than Double Down, if graffiti were recognized as a more mainstream art form, this place would be the f-ing Louvre.  The drinks are strong, and he bartenders mean business.  If you don't feel like a dirty bird when you get there, you will by the time you leave.  And, yet it has an air of pop-historic integrity about it.  Interesting.

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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

By T.S. Eliot

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.


For I have known them all already, known them all:--
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the
floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."

. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . .I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Me vs. You vs. Us

Throw a few million people together on an island like Manhattan and the truths of human interaction become immediately intensified.  One of those truths is the constant power struggle that persists between and among people as a matter of course in daily life.  The pedestrian versus the cyclist.  The shopkeeper versus the haggler.  The speed demon versus the meanderer.  The boss versus the underling.  The struggling versus the successful.  The hipster versus the Man.  The tenant versus the landlord.  The New Yorker versus the tourist.  Each one of us versus the other.

Finagling for the upper hand is a mindset that is particularly pervasive on our tiny island, especially when it comes to interpersonal relations.  It is pretty much a universal assumption among daters in New York City (and, to a lesser extent, the world over) that the person who holds the power in a relationship is the one who cares less.  Over the last few months I have seen my girlfriends (and myself) carefully plot and deliberate over every move in fledgling relationships, artfully side-stepping any action that might indicate a level of interest above "lukewarm" in an effort to maintain an appearance of aloofness and elusivity. 

It's all a big fat lie, of course.  We play our hands close to our chests in public.  But, behind closed doors, we analyze every text, deconstruct every email, and agonize over every interaction, trying to glean from them some indication that the feelings we have (but refuse to express) are returned.  If we convince ourselves they are, then we play another card.  Always careful to maintain the status quo, careful to preserve our perceived power, we live and die by the script of greatest mystery. 

The truth is that each of us, no matter how jaded our affectation, is afraid of being hurt by the object of our desire.  The prospect of disappointment and rejection is so painful that we jockey to maintain our hold on the upper hand.  Of course, this practice is ubiquitous (and it takes two to tango), so we end up in a contest of wills to see who can underplay their emotions the most.  After all, the only thing more seductive than someone who likes us is someone who might like us.  The saddest part is that, eventually, we convince ourselves (and our partner) that we really don't care (or come off as arrogant or disingenuous) and end up rejected anyway.  What kind of "power" did we really have if we weren't able to keep from happening the one thing we sought the power to avoid?

Sometimes we even believe that we play this game to avoid becoming too enmeshed with another, to maintain our "individuality" -- as if our individual constitutions were so ephemeral that, being too near another person, the slightest intake of breath might completely consume us. (If that is the case, then we've got more to worry about than mystery.)  We maintain our distance so that love cannot change us.  But where is the strength in an individuality that is so easily compelled to pretend to feel something it does not?

In reality, the sort of "power" that we achieve by misrepresenting our emotions creates only the illusion of the upper hand.  On the battlefield of love, this sort of strategic positioning may allow us to win the battle, but we will still lose the war.  In order to win in the game of love, we need to harness the sort of true power that transcends mere manipulation.  That is:  the power of knowing ourselves and of knowing what we want, and the courage to demand it from others.  My very wise friend RK once told me that we can only expect men to treat us as well as we treat ourselves.  If we give short shrift to our feelings, how can we ever expect another to respect them (and vice versa)?  How can we expect a someone else to be honest with us if we are not honest with ourselves?

We have to acknowledge our vulnerabilities where they exist if we are to be completely honest with another person.  (Even if it means getting tipsy and blurting out "I like you" a la the ever classy JK.*)  Exposing our true feelings, including the ways in which we are vulnerable, ultimately comes off as genuine and wise (because that's what it is, even if you're drunk).  Embracing who we are and how we feel empowers us to expect honesty from others.  And, that honesty will prove more efficient in ferreting out who really cares for us and who does not than any amount of maneuvering.  Plus, all of this angling and vying for position creates a lot of stress, stress that ultimately prevents us from just enjoying being happy to have found someone we care about enough that we might actually be hurt by their leaving.

The end result of approaching a relationship honestly and openly as regards our feelings may look a lot like it would had we approached it from a power perspective.  We may still distance ourselves from people without sufficient feelings for us, but not in order to get the upper hand.  Rather, it will be because we know that we are deserving of a devotion that is not honestly returned.  Admitting to our own sensibilities encourages and allows others to admit to theirs, because in surrendering the upper hand, the struggle becomes moot.  And, what insight into another's character might we achieve in seeing what they do with the power we give to them.

Ultimately, the joy in relating is rooted in the preciousness of our connections with one another.  In making ourselves vulnerable to each other, we are better able to bond than we would be through thicker skin.  Emotion is what binds us to others, not strategy or manipulation.  And, the more we attempt to manage or contain our feelings, the more we diminish them.  In the end, endeavoring to care less may buy us more power, but at what cost?

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Regardless of how I handle relationships from here on out, I'll gladly share my true feelings on these NYC hotspots, where the cost is always justified...

Angel's Share
Stuyvesant St. at 9th St.
From the outside looking in (at the giant second floor windows), it seems warm and cozy.  If you can manage to find the super secret entrance up the stairs and tucked to the side of the Yoko Cho Japanese restaurant behind an unmarked door, then you'll find that it is indeed.  (Apparently an Angel's share is not a very big one.)  This place has the mystery element down pat, not least of all because of the location.  But it also has the snooty we-only-serve-cocktails-that-use-ingredients-you-can't-identify element down pat as well.  The staff wasn't all that friendly.  And the giant mural of multicultural cherubs is a little creepy if you really look at it.  But, Angel's Share oozes pretense, and sometimes that's all you're really looking for.

Motorino

12th St. between 1st Ave. and 2nd Ave.
Motorino may be tied with Luzzo's (which I'll review another time) for the best authentic Italian wood-fired pizza in town.  Or at least in the East Village.  It's small and packed pretty much any time of year.  Although, I hear that, in the summer, the line's down the block.  They stick to a handful of the pizzas that they do best, from the basic fresh mozz and basil to the tangy Brussels sprout and pancetta.  Whatever you get, I have a feeling you can't go wrong.  The crowd ranged from groups of young people to intimate dates to older foodies.  Although, I would limit your party to no more than four -- space is limited.

10 Degrees
9th St. between 1st Ave. and Ave. A
It's a wine bar for people who don't drink wine.  I don't mean that in a bad way.  10 Degrees has a nice wine selection and a fair knowledge of their stock.  But, they also have a complete cocktail list that they execute very well.  (I had one of the best Moscow Mules ever at this place a few weeks ago.)  There are even a few beers on tap and some gastropub-type tapas.  Like I said -- something for everyone.  The bar is almost as big as the room, so it can get crowded rather quickly on a weekend, but is perfect at happy hour on a weekday. 



* I have been informed that it was actually "I love you" but she'd been drinking Great Lakes Christmas Ale, which naturally makes everything bigger.