Wednesday, December 23, 2020 - Postcards from New York: Eighth Avenue (between West 34th & 35th). by Jordan Myers
Sunday, December 6th, 2020 was clear and bright, and on an impulse that morning I went walking down Eighth Avenue. I didn’t have a destination in mind; though I thought I might end up at the Strand. Ten months into Manhattan’s pandemic rhythm, I was still struck by the quiet of the streets here. Though more and more, I’m forgetting what this place felt like before this past March. I was drawn to this view because the buildings in the distance felt so far away; as though even crossing the street wouldn’t bring them any closer –––– they were too high up there; they were too close to the sky. I imagined the views from the windows facing Eighth Avenue; what the people who looked out at the city form inside those rooms and hallways and stairwells might see and feel. A city already at rest ––– sleeping in, and sleeping even more soundly on a quiet and sunny Sunday morning.
Monday, December 21, 2020 - It’s not loud; you can hear it without listening / closely. by Jordan Myers
The snow is thawing here.
You can hear the drip-drop
from the melting in the
courtyard below. It sounds
like rain. You don’t have to
listen very closely. It’s not loud;
you can hear it without listening
closely. It’s steady; it’s slow.
The snow is thawing here.
Sunday, December 20, 2020 - City facades: Hudson Yards, as seen from West 41st Street. by Jordan Myers
The smoke stacks from the skyscrapers that make up Hudson Yards blended with the grey clouds that stretched over Manhattan this afternoon, the city’s last day before the 2020/21 Winter Solstice. The blue glass held strong and still amongst the orange construction barriers and lines, which stood beneath the yellow lights, barely visible before the arrival of the night’s sky. And the cranes ––– tall and slender –––– as cranes are apt to do, lifted steel, lifted glass, and lifted concrete / forever upwards / and always closer and closer / toward the sky.
Saturday, December 19, 2020 - City facades: East 47th & Vanderbilt. by Jordan Myers
An intuitive impulse guided me to pull the color from this photo; which is a shot I captured earlier today, while walking around Midtown Manhattan. East 47th & Vanderbilt is a neighborhood where I’ve never spent time under purely social circumstances, or for curiosity’s sake. Instead, I’ve only walked these streets when heading to and from Grand Central Station.
Typically it’s a district that’s heavily peopled with men and women in business attire –––– wielding briefcases; speaking into cell phones; and jumping into and out of taxis ––– though like much of Manhattan (as well as the city in general these days (and this year)), there were more shadows and signs of former-hurriedness than actual hurriedness.
This gap in the skyline, as seen from the ground felt massive; as though a piece of the city had been pulled out and set aside for cleaning and repair. The change, of course, would only be temporary. I don’t know what buildings were here before; nor do I know, as of the writing of this post, what structure is being built here now. Something gigantic I’m sure. Commercial office space or a building of similar ilk, which is at once a lore from the past, as well as ––– perhaps, a stalwart for the future. We shall see, what will become of East 47th & Vanderbilt.
Thursday, December 17, 2020 - City facades: Lower Manhattan, as seen from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. by Jordan Myers
Here’s a view that anyone with a camera (or a camera phone) who has ever found themselves walking the Brooklyn Heights Promenade has tried on for size ––––– at least once.
I took this photo a little over three weeks ago, the afternoon before Thanksgiving, November 25th, 2020, as I was walking around Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo, and waiting for the word on my car, which I had left with New Xcell. One thing that living in a version New York, which has been buried and sacked by this virus over the last nine months has brought is the ability to see even familiar sights in a new light.
What’s a tourist trap if there are no tourists? And what’s to make of obligatory photo locales like this one; places that once attracted thousands of selfies each day, which have evolved ––– even if only for a little while, to the forlorn and the quiet; with the city for the first time in quite some time, taking a breather, and catching its breath.
Wednesday, December 16, 2020 - C.Q. - No. 8 - 2020
Hunkered down this evening amongst the snowstorm; chipping away at Issue No. 8 - 2020.
Tuesday, December 15, 2020 - City facades: Williamsburg’s Havemeyer & South 2nd. by Jordan Myers
I was sitting inside Blue Collar burger waiting for a veggie burger and french fries; and also waiting for tomorrow’s snowstorm, which I knew was aways away. First would come today’s lunch, followed by tomorrow’s snow. This afternoon in Williamsburg was the calm before the storm; and in this regard, it did not disappoint. Clear blue skies. The temperature n the mid-to-high thirties. And a humidity in the air that –––– despite the cold –––– felt a bit like a July afternoon.
Although tomorrow’s snow wasn’t in sight, it’s approach could be felt all the same. As I was sitting inside Blue Collar for a while, and waiting, the sight of the two red buildings in the first panel of this triptych caught my eye. It wasn’t just that they were boarded up, but even more so, the fresh look of the paint on these two buildings ––– fire engine red and basking in the glow of the mid-afternoon sun. Who knows how long their window frames had been boarded up for? Since November’s election? Since the protests broke out in May? Since Covid’s arrival in March? Or even before?
One thing I learned this year, more than any other, is the fallacy of time. With enough research and investigation ––––– knocking on the right doors, and making a few phone calls here and there –––– eventually, I could find out when, and why, these windows were boarded up. Then from there, I could go down the list: Time. Date. And rationale –––– check. But what would this solve? And who would it serve? The photographs speak of Tuesday, December 15, 2020 at 2:02pm. Any added facts would just be that, facts. They wouldn’t take anything away from these photographs; though they wouldn’t add anything either.
Sunday, December 13, 2020 - Thought Experiments. by Jordan Myers
Try imagining a city, any place, any place, or any city, without a deadly virus. See if you can feel the pulse of the city. See if it has life, examine its meaning. It has meaning. Now try the same thing -––– the same imaginative output –––– with a city, any place, or any city, that does have a deadly virus ––– one that’s spreading and comes in waves and in surges, first, second, and third and who knows how many more. See if it has life, examine its meaning. It has meaning.
Compare the first imaginative space to the second. What’s different about the two and what do the two have in common? Now take the deadly virus completely out of the frame. It’s not that it’s not in the second imaginative space (the second city), but that it never existed at all –––– that it was never a concept or an idea that could actually be conceived of by the mind and then articulated through language.
This is called the the third imaginative space, the third thought experiment –––– not the absence of the deadly virus but the the absence of its absence; a presence that never was. Now take New York City. Take Eighth Avenue or Third Avenue if you prefer. The east side or the west side. Or the Upper West Side or the Upper East Side. Or Lower Manhattan or Upper Manhattan. Or Midtown Manhattan. Or Brooklyn.
Take any one of the five boroughs and pick any one of the neighborhoods within the five boroughs and superimpose the three aforementioned imaginative spaces on any one of the street corners of the neighborhood of choice. Is it night or is it day? Is there sunshine or is there rain? Is it windy? And what day of the week is it? A weekend or a weekday? Is it a holiday and if so, which holiday?
Pinpoint the expression on the face of the woman exiting the subway station at the northwest corner of the intersection you’ve chosen. She’s wearing a forest green rain jacket and grey denims and black flats and she’s in a hurry –– walking quickly. She’s in a rush and in a matter of moments she’ll be ordering a double espresso cappuccino from a fancy bodega around the corner.
If you were wondering about the day of the week understand that it’s Thursday. And if you’re wondering why she’s in a hurry and whether there’s a virus spreading or not understand that she thinks she’s running late but she’s actually quite early –––– the person she’s going to meet has been delayed, for a while. He’ll be late. She’ll be early. She doesn’t know this. You do.
There’s a cadence and a rhythm to her thoughts as she’s waiting for her cappuccino. She’s going over her lines and thinking through her thoughts. Putting words to her decisions; rationalizing her rationalizations. Applying logic to logic.
The man she’s meeting doesn’t want to be late but it’s ten minutes until he’s supposed to be there and the train is still stalled in the station and as he looks down at his watch again he understands in that moment that without question he will, indeed, be late. Already he’s actual late. He won’t be there on time.
Superimpose any one of the imaginative realities upon the scenario described herein; and watch as the tide washes over and between and throughout each of them. Look, watch –––– notice how the city can hold each of these realities, equally. See how the city can hold them all the same. The city can hold them. They’re held by the city. The city is holding them.
Thursday, December 2020 - Reflecting on the three weeks remaining in 2020.
With less than three weeks between this evening and New Year’s Day all I can think about is January 1, 2020 ––––– well before whispers and murmurs of Covid-19 had fully-infiltrated New York’s collective consciousness. I stayed in the last New Year’s eve of the teens, December 31, 2019 –––– the decade after the Aughts and before the Roaring Twenties, take two.
So much had happened from 2010 through the very end of 2019, my first full decade as an adult; and the first time I witnessed ten years slip by while forming experiences and memories that I could fully comprehend and reflect upon. The Nineties carried me through age four through fourteen; and the Aughts pulled be across the bridge over age fourteen through twenty-four; but the tens (the teens): when I travelled from age twenty-four to thirty-four –––– those were the first ten years that I was all-in for.
Mostly what I remember about New Year’s Eve last year is a feeling of wonder –––– the absence of knowing. Knowing that I wanted Curlew Quarterly to continue and grow; knowing that I wanted to remain in New York –––– and to get to improve upon my ability to actually enjoy the city’s rhythm and energy; and knowing that I had grown, evolved and matured over the last ten years; though otherwise, not know much else about what the next ten years would hold.
I just kept thinking, “‘2020’, how is this even possible, can that date even be real?” I remember when Y2K was a thing! Not to mention B2K. I remember having a conversation with a friend while in middle school about the year 2010 –––– a year that felt as though it existed in a far away land, where it was resting just before the cusp of the abyss. Now that abyss is ten years long gone. And in three weeks’ time, the same can and will be said for this year.
What happened this year? Who was I? What became of this city? How does anyone decide what to write about when so much has happened and is happening all at once If New York became a ghost town this year, then these ghosts, my god, they’ve had so much to say. So much.
Wednesday, December 9, 2020 - Brooklyn Poets’ Annual Awards Gala: December 14, 2020 @ 7:00pm.
No other organization has been as integral to the vision and success of Curlew Quarterly as Brooklyn Poets. All the way back in October of 2016, I first heard the organization’s founder and executive director, Jason Koo, read his poem, “Morning Motherfucker,” which served as an important catalyst for the creation of our journal.
At the close of each year, Brooklyn Poets hosts an awards ceremony, wherein winners of poem of the month (crowned at monthly Yawp open mics) compete for the honor of poem of the year. Moreover, the distinct honor of Yawper of the Year is awarded to one poet who has not only created work that shows particular merit, but also, has embodied compassion and diligence in nurturing the work of fellow-poets within and beyond the organization’s ever-growing poetry community. This year’s gala is online via Zoom, registration details can be found here. We’d love to see you there.
Tuesday, December 8, 2020 - Postcards from New York: West Twenty-seventh Street & Eighth Avenue.
When you visit you’ll notice things aren’t the same this year as they were last year. This is old news but you should be prepared for the changes all the same. You won’t even get hints of what the city was like before. Maybe an eighth of the people who would just be out and about and doing things are now out and about and doing things. Weekends are slow; Sundays especially so. Keep everything in perspective. Although the memory of the virus’ arrival in New York in March feels as though it happened five, maybe ten years ago, it was just this past March –––– nine months ago. Nine months in the lifetime of this city is a blink, so it’s still taking time. And it will still take quite some time. There’s word that the vaccines are ready and that they’ll be distributed in small rounds before the end of the year. Though this is promising, it’s not everything. It’s true that New York the untouchable and indestructible has fallen. It’s also true that it can and it will get up.
Saturday, December 5, 2020 - Tenth Avenue & Fifty-third Street - Reflections on TQ’s “Westside” by Jordan Myers
Walking through the rain and drinking a decaf latte, TQ’s Westside came back to me. Maybe I’ve listened to the song two or three times since 2000; it was released in September of 1998. This morning when I listened to the song again for the first time in over a decade and a half, I nearly wept. The song’s lyrics are layered with emotion -––– reflections and memories of friends and family members who’ve been incarcerated, or have passed on.
This morning, it wasn’t just the song’s lyrics that hit me, but also the distance travelled from 1998 –––– when I remember listening to this song often, as a teenager growing up in Indianapolis, and gaining my first glimpses of what adulthood might look like, and feel like ––––– to one rain-soaked Saturday in Manhattan ––––– knowing more than I ever have before about the pain of loss; the value of patience; and the power of speaking the truth on a track, despite the pain: “One day everything's gonna be fine / But until that day my only reply / Is ‘Westside till I die.’"
Maybe it was the rain. Maybe it was the espresso, sprinting through my mind and softening my heart. Maybe it was the grey clouds hanging over this city, after almost a year of this pandemic that made this morning’s walk, as well as the rediscovery of TQ’s song so important. Something happened this year. And even if the lyrics in “Westside” don’t quite capture the facts of what this city has withstood and gone through, the emotional essence of the song without a doubt, does.
