Between Two Whiles

While I am never surprised to stumble upon a new restaurant in New York, I am continually amused by the relevance with which particular places waltz into my life.  This week I had the pleasure of dining and drinking with one of my dearest friends, Amara.  Unforeseen events, which shall remain unknown to the internet consciousness, spurred a last minute change of plans, necessitating a choice of restaurant other than the one I had tentatively planned for our order-in evening.  Ever the adventurer, Amara proved yet again to be a more skilled player in the where-to-eat-in-Manhattan-tonight game.  And, much to my delight and–as previously mentioned, amusement–we ended up at Moustache!

Yes, moustaches are just generally amusing, however, the word, the sight, the mere idea of one has tickled a particularly personal funny-bone of mine for about a month now.  My hirsute boyfriend, Jim, is now a week into the Movember campaign, after an entire month of thinking, linking, and indulging in not shaving.  ”Movember (the month formerly known as November) is a moustache growing charity event held during November each year that raises funds and awareness for men’s health.”  Check EnemyOfPeanuts daily to watch the moustaches of Jim Gibbons and his Movember ‘mo growing teammate Matt Lubicky grow, in effort to change the face of men’s health!  Together, as The Venerable Gentlemen…from Space, Jim and Matt have already raised over $550 and there are three weeks to go!

So, if you are a man, or you know and love men, click here and donate now!  And, why not click here and buy a Jim Gibbons original t-shirt to support The Venerable Gentlemen…from Space!  (All proceeds go toward the fundraising efforts!)

So…back to dinner at Moustache, now that you better understand just how perfect the choice was that lead me here–thanks Amara!

Moustaches, bringing together friends, food, and the fight against cancer!

Moustaches aside, I must say that this dinner (delicious middle eastern food and wine) was truly about love and friendship and the inexplicable passage of time.  I am blessed to have an intimate number of friends that represent the very best of what people can be in this world–an intimate number, and still more than I can imagine I deserve.  So let me, in the midst of this silly post, thank you each for your individual way of embodying love in its undeniable truth. I find silliness works its way into each of these unique incarnations, a statement by which I now hope to flow seamlessly into my own bit of silly fun…

Falafel, Fighting Cancer

With this fusion of all that “Moustache” now means to me, I leave you with this thought…

Don’t let these chickpeas outdo you!  Everyone knows that moustaches are chick-pleasers!  (No? Really bad?  Sorry…No, no I’m not.)  Go grow one and tell everyone who asks “Why?” why!  And send your spare change or awesomely generous gifts here!

Residuum

…Remembering them will not suffice: there must,

from all those moments, still remain a pure

existence in my depths, the sediment

from a measurelessly overfilled solution.

For I am not recalling: what I am

moves me because of you.  It’s not that I

discover you at the sad, cooled-off places

you left; the very fact that you’re not there

is warm with you and realer and is more

than a privation.  Yearning ends so often

in vagueness.  Why should I be desperate while

your presence still can fall upon me, gently

as moonlight on a seat beside the window. 

-Rainer Maria Rilke (To Lou Andreas-Salome, III)

We all know that oil and water do not mix (i.e. They do not react chemically to form one new substance, or alter the molecular composition of either constituent).  However, add a third component, light, and this stalemate pair appears to undergo a transformation of sorts!   To my rusty AP-Chemistry/Physics recollection, the magic is explained away by the variant lightwave lengths being reflected by layered oil and water, separately, and simultaneously. (*Note: This is not a science blog!)

I know the oil and water are separate substances, and that the liquid rainbow is not actually a third substance I can distill from the mix, bottle up, carry around in my pocket–and dispense as hope to those in need– but I also know that in that oil slick along the curb I see a lot more than oil and water.  It is in my seeing, in my eye as a mechanism  to perceive the interference of lightwaves, that something else is made.  In a way,  I am the third component of this work.  (And by extension, sight, a kind of currency of hope…Thus, a little insight into the impetus for this blog!)

As is the case with most situations in my life,– insert lovingly annoyed testament of friends, family, and more than a few strangers– a metaphor inheres!  In the curbside masterpiece, composed from “natural” materials by “natural” processes, the potential of interrelated media is exhibited.  The spectral illusion of the light upon the oil and water is the amorphous experience of the viewer of a work that defies the nomenclature of the traditional arts.  Dance, music, painting, theatre, video projection, object, etc. may all be identified as elements of a work, but the experience of the work as a whole is not described by any of these terms.  Familiar species of art, layered, result in ever-changing displays, colored as much by the vantage point of the viewer as by any other element of the work…The slick is more than oil glazed water, a work is more than dance in front of video projection.  One is left wanting of more than categorical descriptions in trying to express an experience of a work of art–the oil and water may be identified and defined, but a process must be explored in order to understand the rainbow.  

The rain dances down upon the oil stained street, painting the asphalt stage where a series of scenes occur between people who live in the building along that curb, and the people who visit those people, and the cars that wait patiently in the wings as the focus follows the actors indoors.  The sun’s rays reach the live-action painting, continuously projecting the teeming atmosphere that fills the space between the slick puddle and it’s own smoldering surface.  I happen to walk by, entering the scene as audience, or perhaps as player.  I have no relation to the people, or cars, except my own dependence upon rain, and sun.  I did not contribute to the making of this particular oil slick painting but  I stop and gaze into it’s iridescence, dancing around the circumference to take in the dynamic composition from every angle.  In bringing my senses to the scene/work/event as viewer, perhaps I become part of the work to another passerby…Perhaps even to the owner of the leaky car, who played a role in the making of the piece and may never notice the rainbow puddle as he looks down from a window upstairs.  And who’s to say what’s the art, and whom the artist?