Friday Random Ten. Period.

Out most of the day helping out on Cat's Cradle, which opened tonight, though I really wanted to be at home dealing with my own shows, which still need casting attention that I've been behind on as I've been helping out on other peoples' things. Sent out a bulk email quickly to 17 people who had expressed interest in the shows before I left, came home after running box for the show to 11 responses in my inbox, and have been making appointments. Now have 4 confirmed for times tomorrow, Sunday, and Tuesday.

No kitty pictures again this week. Need to spend time and get some good ones. Snow pictures and videos of the day coming up in a separate post. Tired . . . just want to list the songs playing and put up the photos.

Here's what's coming up out of 24,354 in the iPod today . . .

1. "Cherry & Raquel" - Igo Kanter & William Loose - Cherry, Harry & Raquel
2. "Break Time" - Dick Dale - Surfer's Guitar
3. "English Civil War" - The Clash - Give 'Em Enough Rope
4. "Bloodstains" - Agent Orange - Bloodstains 7" EP
5. "Dead Spot" - John Zorn & Naked City - Grand Guignol
6. "A Mellow Mood" - Floyd Morris - Soulin' vol. 1
7. "Listen to the Lyrics of This Song" - The Shoes - Nederbeat The B-Sides 1
8. "A Horse With No Name" - America -Those Classic Golden Years 08
9. "Elevator Man" - Kaleidoscope - Side Trips
10. "Let Her Go Into the Darkness" - Jonathan Richman - You Must Ask the Heart

Next, an annoyingly image-intense photo and video entry to make those with slow computers curse . . .

Driving Me Backwards

Long day today that involved a lot more slogging around in snow in a very heavy winter coat for long periods of time than I had anticipated (or certainly wanted).

It was, however, kinda pretty most of the time, even while I was sore and annoyed.

This is the second recent snow that has come down in big, puffy, soft flakes that blow attractively and collect softly. I think this has maybe happened only twice before (if that) in the nearly 7 years B & I have lived out here. Brooklyn doesn't quite always look as I think many of my family, friends, and other out-of-town readers may think it does.

It was lovely again on Avenue S when I went out to the Duane Reade on an errand this morning . . .

And also on East 2nd Street . . .

But I was still not all that happy about walking around in the stuff . . .

I was cranky, but I thought the neighborhood looked nice from the subway platform . . .

And, zoning out on the F Train, I looked out and felt myself flying over Brooklyn. I hadn't tried out the video mode on the Xmas Camera yet, so I decided to do so and attempt to capture the flying feeling of zooming over McDonald Avenue . . .

( Now behind a cut for easier loading . . . )

Once in Tribeca, I was sent off on an errand that wound up being, for the first part, a wild-goose chase as I walked up and down Broadway from Walker Street to 4th Street and back, finding one (pitiful) item out of six or seven needed. I was achy and unhappy, but a Broadway Snowman in Soho cheered me up . . .

And once the show was up and running, and my box office duties were complete, I was able to leave Walkerspace and go home -- and as I hit Walker and Church, there was one of those views that bring back years and years of NYC memories, and songs, and feelings, and make me feel oh so good about living here sometimes . . .

Sometime in December of 1987, I went out and bought Brian Eno's albums Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain (by strategy). I hadn't heard any of the songs from either, but I was familiar with his following two "song" albums, so I thought I should get the first ones. I decided to listen to them for the first time while on an evening walk - I was trying to lose weight by walking at least 90 minutes an evening; I'd bring two CDs and my immense, heavy, early-model Sony Discman, walk away from my dorm for the length of one record and return with the other.

So I started up Warm Jets and started out from Washington Square South.

When I hit Canal Street and Broadway, walking West, "Driving Me Backwards" came on, and music and view came together suddenly in a perfect synthesis. It pretty much looked like the photo above, but more so - more steam, more mist, more shafts of light, more reflections. And that, with the insistent piano driving the slowly-grinding song, sparse but wide, seemed to connect the NYC I was now living in with all those images from the movies I had seen for years. Most of all, I felt like I had walked into Taxi Driver. Scary, but alive.

Then, the beautiful "On Some Faraway Beach" came on as I walked around some beautiful buildings in Tribeca, and the spell changed.

A couple of years later, I got Eno's book of lyrics (with paintings by Russell Mills), More Dark Than Shark (but one deadly fin), and he doesn't say much about "Driving Me Backward," but I was surprised to see he does say that when he saw the film Taxi Driver (the song predates the film by 2 years), he felt a kinship to this song in the film . . .

Ohohohohohohoh oh

Doo doo doo doo doo doo dah

I'll be there.

Oh driving me backwards

Kids like me

Gotta be crazy

Moving me forwards

You must think that I'm lazy

Meet my relations

All of them

Grinning like facepacks

Such sweet inspirations

Curl me up

A flag in an icecap

Now I've found a sweetheart

Treats me good just like an armchair

I try to think about nothing

Difficult

I'm most temperamental

I gave up my good living

Typical

I'm almost sentimental

Ah Luana's black reptiles

Sliding around

Make chemical choices

And she responds as expected

To the only sound

Hysterical voices

And you - you're driving me backwards

Kids like me have gotta be crazzzzzy i-i-i-i-i-i-i

Doo doo doo dodoo dodah I'll be there