Mezzrow
Posted: September 30, 2014 Filed under: Greenwich Village | Tags: TUESDAY TOILET TALK Comments Off on MezzrowHe had the same baby face, only with a full beard and long dreads, and his big eyes widened as he scanned the room and saw me sitting at one of the little tables. It was pianist Victor Gould’s gig at the new venue Mezzrow and the late set Friday was the first that I had really heard him play since we graduated from the arts high school in Los Angeles.
At the end of the night, Victor introduced me to his sweetheart as having been the student director for the vocal jazz ensemble back in high school. I had all but forgotten and was dumbfounded that this was what my classmate would remember about me nearly a decade later. What I remember about Victor was that he walked slowly and had a nut allergy but I’m sure that he has not forgotten about his allergy.
I was always amazed that he made the two-hour train ride commute each way from Simi Valley to school. I lived ten minutes away and got placed in detention, affectionately called Lunch Bunch, for being tardy every day. I thought about these things, listening to the duo and taking sips of my tea. All the musicians hanging out and the fact that my tea came in a San Antonio mug painted with red peppers and flames made Mezzrow an endearing venue and I felt moved to donate a mug to their collection.
The bathroom is located to the right of the bar with the door framed by bead curtains. If you pull the hot water faucet forward in the conventional fashion, you will get an anemic trickle of not-quite-hot water. To get an adequate flow of water going, push the cold water faucet away from you. And please press down on the tank lever to ensure that the toilet flushes completely. I heard through the grapevine that there is a secret bathroom in addition to this one.
Mezzrow is a piano room so I didn’t quite understand why it was named after a clarinetist. I looked up Mezz Mezzrow and read on Wikipedia that he insisted on being put in the colored section of the prison while incarcerated. Do you recall what happens to One-Sixteenth Black of The Mau Maus in the film Bamboozled?
Victor called standards as they went and when he called “Easy to Remember,” bassist Eric Wheeler couldn’t remember it so they segued to “Con Alma.” For the second set, a saxophonist joined them. This tenor player had a way of making you trust him through his playing—when he played out, you didn’t feel that he would abandon you for cerebral nonsense and when he played in, you knew that he wouldn’t resort to clichés. I was like—who is this guy? It turned out he was Tivon Pennicott and I was glad to catch him again at a house concert Sunday with the Smalls Monday night quinet, one of the few truly enthralling bands I’ve heard. Anyway, if you want to hear jazz piano, go see Victor Gould, go to Mezzrow.
Today’s translation of “Where’s the restroom?” comes from Sheng from Malaysia. Sheng, who is ethnically Chinese, told me his Malay sucks but that he did receive an A+ in Malay class. If you trust grades to be an accurate reflection of one’s abilities, then say this —
People’s Climate March
Posted: September 22, 2014 Filed under: Ken® | Tags: EXTRA EDITION Comments Off on People’s Climate March“Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.”
I often paraphrase these words from Mary Schmich in the Chicago Tribune when discussing the ineludible influence of unique cities on individuals. Having lived in the Bay Area for several years, I know what it means to start turning soft. And now that I’ve lived in NYC for a few years, I’ve begun to catch my facial expression hardening instinctively at a passerby’s beckon.
So when a stranger offered us bananas as we passed Riverside Church at the onset of our walk down to the People’s Climate March yesterday, I refused and relented only when my friend accepted after an “Are you sure?” But by the end of the march at 34th Street and 11th Avenue, I was grabbing a homemade vegan sandwich and cookie from some lady without hesitation or a second thought.
I think my faith in humanity began to be restored during the 3.8 miles marching in the tremendous crowd. As soon as we reached the rear end of the organized march at 86th Street and started wading through the groups of people preparing banners and rallying, my eyes began to well up in the same way they can at the beauty of an orchestra or a great chorus of voices. And when the timed silence was broken by the palpable roar cascading forward — that — that was something you can’t watch on YouTube or replicate without hundreds of thousands of people.
Hundreds of thousands of people, of course, means very long lines for the limited number of toilets. There were porta potties, called “Port-o-Johns” on the People’s Climate March website, usually in clusters of two. The organizers also provided giant water coolers at a handful of locations and did an excellent job of coordinating such an enormous event. They did a remarkable job getting the word out too. It may have been because I was already looking with interest but I noticed their advertisements all over, including in subway cars and community centers.
There were many spectators for the quasi-parade: bewildered families trying to make their way across for a leisurely Sunday morning in Central Park, photographers and journalists there to report on a historical moment, and people sitting on the sidewalk in front of Upper West Side apartments in lawn chairs I didn’t know they had. I had seen cool things like a 3D chocolate printer and a giraffe robot at the annual Maker Faire the day before, but nothing came even remotely close to being as fascinating as the people at the People’s Climate March.
There were people I didn’t understand, like the woman marching in three & a half inch heels and the man who brought his bicycle along. Then there were people cashing in and selling souvenirs for an event where many of its participants are calling for the end of capitalism. It’s the kind of unsurprising and ubiquitous paradox that I still find jarring. It also brings to mind a guest with an “Occupy Wall Street” pin on her messenger bag who I noticed in the elevator at the Trump Soho. I questioned her presence there then wondered what I was doing there.
There were others still holding signs with topics unrelated or only tangentially related to the cause such as the Red Sox, ISIS and Esperanto. I requested a translation of “Where’s the restroom?” from Neil, who was holding the Esperanto sign, and learned that the restroom translates into the “necessary room” in the constructed language. It seems an appropriate translation for an international movement where toilets are vital to the mobilization.
I hope the heads of state at the climate change summit are listening. I hope future generations have the chance to experience the distinct differences between currently sinking cities, Manhattan and San Francisco.
The Flatiron Room
Posted: August 19, 2014 Filed under: Flatiron | Tags: TUESDAY TOILET TALK Comments Off on The Flatiron RoomApparently, everybody hangs out on 26th Street between Broadway and 6th on Friday nights. Passing the time with a friend, I saw five other friends while strolling around the block on the weekend. One of them was my bass-playing pal Jeff who was about to go play at the Flatiron Room. He told me our friend and guitarist Adam would also be playing and convinced me to come to the gig with his characteristic unabashed and genuine enthusiasm. So I showed up to the posh room, feeling underdressed in jeans and boat shoes.
Even though the Flatiron Room sounded familiar and boasts live jazz nightly on its announcement outside, it hadn’t made it onto my radar of venues. The retro room felt upscale and like a solid place, not a shoddy spot covered with faux-luxurious decorations. Classic heart-shaped bistro chairs circled the tables toward the front and bottles of whiskey were visible overhead and all around.
The jazz quartet framed by the lush curtains on stage felt like an extension of the decor, a life-size piece of artwork with choreographed figures creating ambience. Or sort of like a cuckoo clock but with jazz musicians appearing for forty-five minute sets on the hour. I naturally thought of Erik Satie’s furniture music, music as wallpaper, music not to be listened to. From where I was in the middle of the venue, latching myself onto the wooden standing table inconspicuously so that I wouldn’t be prompted to order overpriced tea, I struggled to hear the band.
But the muted volume mattered not. With a gardenia over her ear, the anonymous singer called to mind images of Billie Holiday and made gestures stereotypically associated with jazz/cabaret singers. While everyone seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere, most seemed oblivious to the music. I scanned the crowd and saw that there was a gentleman that appeared attentive—it turned out he was Jeff’s dad.
For such an elegant place, the Flatiron Room had subpar toilet paper of the cheap variety. The thin toilet paper clashed with their lavish paper towels and the sepia portraits on each of the three stall doors. You can see in the photo that the paper towels were overflowing from the trash. An employee came in to tidy up the restroom while I was in there so the mess may have been because the basket does not have the capacity to hold an adequate amount of trash and spills over between cleanings. I would recommend a larger wastebasket there to maintain a neater restroom.
I was giddy to find that I could take adequate pictures of the dark room on my phone using my keychain flashlight on the impromptu review and discovered that the music from the stage is clearly audible through the speakers while in the bathroom. Taking in nostalgic melodies that teetered between keys, I admired the nice wall lamps and vintage portraits with the same potential for creepiness as porcelain dolls.
Sutong, who majored in Albanian language in China, studied abroad in Albania and came to NYC for grad school, tells us how to say “Where’s the restroom?” in her adopted language, Albanian —
Takeaways from MuseumCamp
Posted: August 12, 2014 Filed under: Ken® | Tags: voicekwon 1 Comment »I recently went to camp at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH) and spent several days and nights with museum professionals, arts consultants, community organizers and the like, convinced that this year’s theme of social impact assessment would have something to do with the themes I explore on this toilet blog. After breaking up into teams, each team identified a social outcome to measure at a local site in Santa Cruz. Teams tested hypotheses ranging from watching films at the Del Mar Cinema increasing civic pride for locals to people with a shared affinity in a specific artist being more likely to interact with strangers at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center. You can read about the projects here — my team project is the one with the typo that says “pubic art” instead of “public art.”
I found that many of the questions that the teams raised to formulate the hypotheses were of the sort that I think about when I review sites for JAZZ TOILET: Who is coming to these places? How is the organization serving its community? How is the community defined and who is excluded? Is this venue positively or negatively impacting the arts economy? How does the location and layout attract/repel certain populations? What relationship does the listener have to the music, to the venue?
My head is full of questions, some seemingly too fluffy to be answered with hard data. MuseumCamp has taught me though that we can answer those questions by formulating hypotheses in response, identifying indicators, developing and using creative evaluation tools to measure the indicators, and analyzing the results.
Moreover, conversations and moments at the Santa Cruz MAH have resparked my career as an artist, which has been largely dormant in my early retirement as a resigned twenty-something this past year. Place and posture can exert great influence on creativity and I discovered the museum to be an inspiring home. Feeling tired, I sat down on one of the two painted chairs in its three-floor elevator; the act of sitting in a museum elevator spurred me to think that my Brazilian Jazz duo should perform in elevators.
A term often applied to bossa nova in a derogatory fashion, it would be interesting to turn “elevator music” on its head and provide world-class bossa nova to anyone that enters the elevator. Live elevator music would be the antithesis of elevator music. If you see a person with a MuseumCamp patch on her backpack scoping out elevators in Manhattan, that’ll be me. Please feel free contact me if you have suggestions for elevators or are interested in having me in your elevator. And as they say on Craigslist, serious inquiries only.
Other than learning that the immeasurable is measurable and feeling rejuvenated creatively, I came back from camp thinking that when I grow old, I would like to be one of those people that pronounces the words humor and human with a Y instead of an H sound, just like my team mentor Paul Harder. My sister advised against it, however, and said that I would have to also pronounce the word schedule without the hard C sound so now I’m on the fence about it.
Finally, my only regrets from MuseumCamp are the following: not walking to the beach to see the seals; forgetting the proper pronunciation of the word lanyards; and not getting to meet all ninety-nine of the other happy campers. Thanks to Fractured Atlas for sending me to camp, Nina Simon and Ian Moss for being the best camp counselors and fellow campers for sharing much of themselves. Camp buddies for life!
Everybody needs a vacation.
Posted: July 29, 2014 Filed under: Ken® | Tags: voicekwon Comments Off on Everybody needs a vacation.
Feeling a bit burnt out after last month, I’ve decided to take a summer vacation and so there will not be a post for July and maybe even August. A bit of a personal update, but what’s not a personal update on here?
I’m thrilled to be heading home to California tonight for MuseumCamp at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. I hear we will be learning about social impact assessment and exchanging lanyards. I’ve never done formal research in social impact and haven’t made lanyards since elementary school, so I’m sure it will be an enriching experience.
I hope that you, too, are having an enriching and enjoyable summer.