Last summer I wrote about a Butoh dance performance I witnessed at CAVE, a performance space and gallery located in the industrial area of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, over by the river (you may remember the piece). I felt changed by it. (You can read the original dispatch I wrote last July down below at the end of this message). Next to the buildings falling down a couple of months later it was the phenomena that most affected me last year, shit, who knows, maybe indeed the most so.
Atsushi Takenouchi returned to CAVE this August to perform once again, one of his pieces a duet with Kaesha Kathi called "RISE". This performance, true to form, and quite frankly, blew my motherfuckin' mind. It began with the two dancers curled up together in a corner of the room immersed in a pile of sand, dirt, or perhaps fine rocks. Atsushi's, the "ascetic", head poked from the pile, as did part of Kaesha's body. They lay still in the pile wrapped around each other for minutes. The musical accompaniment, live, was provided by a young Japanese woman, Hiroko Komiya, who sat on the other side of the "stage", the performance space, and sang, a beautiful, tribal, guttural shrieking (something ancient and Japanese?). The sounds came silently at first, then forcefully, bewildering in how deeply they emanated from within her, something of a melodic primal bellow, a cry.
The couple lay without movement for five or ten minutes. Then they began to move, the woman emerging from the sand pile. They intertwine and roll over each other and out of the sand. They were both naked, or rather, in thin loincloths, the woman topless. He, as noted in my previous piece, is a thin and muscular "ascetic", with long hair, kinda a Bruce Lee-like monk, thin, thin, thin, but "muscularly" so, as if he had complete control over every muscle and bone in his body, endlessly fasting but "powerfully" so. The woman's body was perfect, that of a dancer, muscular with shapely, sensual hips, and firm, luscious breasts. They move and intertwine and roll over each other, slowly, forcefully, that improvisational contact movement that seems at once both reckless and passionate and yet choreographed with emotional precision-Butoh movement. They rolled until they reached the edge of the performance area (in CAVE's cramped quarters some of the audience sits in the actual performance space). When they reached the edge of the space they pulled apart from one another, forcefully and full of emotion, and began to gyrate and writhe alone.
During the course of the piece the music, or rather, "sounds" created by Ms. Komiya progressed from her singing voice to earth instruments she had lain before her: a homemade circular box filled with stones, drums, wands, trinkets. The two dancers stood and writhed and spun and jumped, possessed, keenly aware of the other, of the missing warmth, of the gained freedom. The ascetic moved as if every millimeter of his body-fingertips, stomach muscles, eyelids, shoulder, were searching for a "realm". Atsushi produces an expression over his face that looks like the very epitome of madness personified, a universal madness, of one who has searched the galaxy for God, found him, or at least a facsimile thereof, or found nothing at all, and gone made in the process. To behold his body in this state is like watching someone wretch through satori, die, or "physically" lose their mind. Powerful stuff. Ms. Kathi's movements were less subtle and more physically stalwart, distinct, wondrous. She hopped around the stage and spun herself, dancing, an earth mother (or so I thought). It seemed that it was always she who took the intensity of the dance to another level. Listening closely you could hear her begin to yelp, growl almost. The two would bump past each other and then twirl around, hop, writhe through a moment of improvisational spiritual movement and then search for additional moments. At one point Ms. Komiya began to play drums and the pace of everything seemed to jump forward. You could feel the tension in the room thicken, not only from the music and dancers but from the audience, many seeming almost baffled by the level of energy rushing through the room off of the performers. (I know this because I spend a good amount of time watching the reactions of the audience, vibe-ing off of they too-it feels part of the performance).
The dancers moved to the walls and rolled along them, feeling them, trying to climb into them, rubbing their bodies against. The woman threw herself onto the floor and began writhing along it (you could hear her limbs pound and scratch against the floor). They met up again against the back wall and reunited twisting against one another, connecting, caressing but not, renegotiating their energy. They felt the wall and then the pace increased, the beating of the drums going and going, the dancers themselves now yelping and moaning and hopping around the room. They began to pick up the sand and toss it into the air, it raining down upon them. Atsushi's hair swung into the sand as he bent down to grab handfuls and then swung his torso tossing it into the air, his hair flinging sand also. So much of his movement at this time reminded me of Rave dancing, as if Jung, no longer an analyst but a monk, had re-interpreted the electric boogaloo, but as a Pagan, relating it all somehow to the universe as a whole. They went off unto their own selves again, bewildering in their ability to moment after moment find new places for their bodies to inhabit, movement to inject into portions of their physical selves.
They again reached the edge of the performance area and began to scream and utter choking, guttural sounds, dancing and circling and flailing their way up the isle. They began to move amongst the audience, people getting up and moving out of their way as they walk. They touched people as they passed, he leading the way. When he worked his way to the rear of the room, near the door, I figured that they had reached the "barrier". He looked at the door, bewildered, as if a foreign object, almost tilting his head to stare at it. I thought, "Well, he is aware that there is a door to the outside, another world out there." He opened the door, took a peek outside, and I figured he wanted to acknowledge that there was indeed this other world outside the performance space. But he moved out the door, and she followed. I had already left my seat to better view their moving to the back of the room, and I think I was the third person to follow them outside the door. Again, I thought, "Well, they're outside, they'll perform a little on the sidewalk and that'll be it." I mean, they were naked. But after some further movement together, they dancing on the sidewalk ecstatically, seeming released by the air of the streets, Atsushi, the ascetic as I call him, walked right out into the street. He went ambling out into the middle of the road, twisting and writhing, and we, stunned, went out after him. I swear to god-a SUV came riding by and had to stop because there was a naked Japanese man flailing through the street in front of them, blocking their way. The people in the car looked like they'd just seen something out of "Carrie", a naked man, drugged up in their mind, wandering through the streets with a large group of people watching him. The woman was only a few feet behind him, her breasts shining in the car's headlights. Witnessing all of this was simply mind-blowing, completely liberating, as if breaking through the "fourth wall". He went stumbling/dancing down the street (Grand Street near Kent over by the East River). When he made it to Kent he walked right out into the middle of the road, right into the Saturday night traffic. Those of us around him spied the cars coming, wanting to block any vehicle from getting anywhere near to hitting him. We were in good shape in that a moment arose (though he didn't care) where he had a clear path across the street and into what turns into a park at the end of Grand, where the street ends. But he had no cognizance of any of this, did not care, danced on, buckling and contorting in the middle of Kent, cars screeching to a halt and slowly driving past him. And then he lay down in the middle of the road, thrashing, crawling, moaning, and all of the cars just came to a stop. He halted traffic. It was simply incredible. And if the people in their cars where not freaked out enough by this sight then the woman quickly followed and began dancing and twirling around him. She began ambling up to us in the streets, rubbing against and twisting around us.
Then they moved on to the road to the park, obviously on the way there, but then things really got interesting. Yes, of course, the COPS SHOWED UP, sirens came whirring, and a cop car came streaming down the road leading to the park. Moving down the street first there was the ascetic, a group of us following him (I was practically right in his face, staring at him in bewilderment), and then the woman, writhing naked, and then the rest of the entire audience following. The cop car waded its way through the crowd and was instantly besieged by members of the audience explaining that it was a performance. The dancers never, ever, stopped writhing and gyrating, performing, dancing their dance of release, "rising". Atsushi walked over the rocks and refuse strewn about the parking lot, through the grass of the park, and then down to the rocky shore that lines the East River there. And then he jumped in. He walked over the rocks and jumped into the East River and began swimming out into the water while some of us stood stunned and others just began applauding, speechless. I don't know what happened to the cops, I heard one of them say something about how it had better, "Wind the fuck down" or something to that effect. I sat on a rock at the edge of the river, my feet in the water, and watched him swim out into it. By the time the performance was finished I was so stunned that I had forgotten all about the police. People began to hug the woman, who sat on the rocks too. The performance was officially ended when Atsushi swam back from a little dock under which he had disappeared and then crawled back up a rock and onto the grass and gave out a guttural, "AHHHHHH", refreshed, completed, the performance over.
I've written about Butoh before, created in the aftermath of WWII it was a reaction to the brutality and chaos of the war, to the horror and physical destruction brought upon Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It attempted to express the modern Japanese consciousness resulting from the post-war period. In contemporary times it aims to express a universal consciousness. Very expressionistic and beautiful, almost a hyper-conscious physical theater, avant-garde, powerful. An abandonment of form it conveys a very simple image of nature through expressionistic abstract art. Twist and slide, scream and dance.
Afterwards I work my way back to the theater, tingling, confused, elated, smiling at some of the others who had witnessed it all with me. I picked up my bag and went back out into this, what we call the world.
"RISE" A duet as performed by Atsushi Takenouchi & Kaesha Kathi, August 10, 2002 at CAVE. Music by Hiroko Komiya
[Atsushi Takenouchi will remain in New York for most of August, you can still catch one of his performances if you are interested.]
Japanese Butoh
text Douglas Singleton
July, 15, 2001
One night last weekend I witnessed something very spiritually moving and special, a performance of Japanese Butoh dance at an underground performance space, CAVE, off the river in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was magical and life re-affirming. An ascetic/teacher/dancer in his forties appeared in the space wrapped in a long canvas bag and slowly poked his head and arms out until it was like a cape draping over him. He stood before a small tree trunk that had a small boulder sitting on top of it. He stood silently for almost 5 minutes. Then very low sounds began to emanate from him (I thought they were from the streets outside at first) and grew louder in intensity until he was almost singing these beautiful sounds and guttural utterances. Screaming? Crying? It was just some wonderful primordial tonal shout singing. Sitting on the "stage" along with him was another man kneeling before a blanket that had "earth" instruments on it. These instruments were made from basic things: a bowl of water, sea shells, hollowed-out pieces of tree, bags filled with beans, pieces of metal, a drum, stones, and tubes. This man accompanied the performance with an array of sounds and tribal music. The "ascetic" moved from behind the tree trunk and began to "dance" and move and jerk his body around as if some religious state of mind. Some of it was shocking, some of it was extremely beautiful. He extracted himself from the bag and simply moved around the space dancing and crawling and contorting his body. Some of these movements seemed like traditional "steps" and "contortions" of Butoh-I'd seen some of them before (at some Raves nonetheless!!). He was naked but for a loincloth. There was much play of lighting and shifting to semi-darkness and spotlighting of him in different parts of the room. He crawled from the stage during one point when the room had been filled with darkness and re-appeared in a magnificent garment of many colors, it sweeping through the room. At this point his contorting increased in intensity, as did his vocal moaning and singing. He began this twisting of his facial muscles and eyes that made him look like a madman priest trying to draw the heavens into his body as he did the "robot" or let his body collapse to the ground. It was so beautiful. Crushing. Shocking. Sick. Kind of grabbed your soul. Some of the audience went to sleep. Or began to cry. Some began to slowly dance in their own space, eyes closed. The "music" was so intense it urged you to movement yourself as if a trance. It was very tribal. The dancer crawled up the wall. Then he crawled into the audience and began touching some of us, placing his hands on shoulders, crying, screaming, and he had such a look of madness and horror on his face, a sick happiness, shifting light and darkness as his body contorted that you were just spellbound or frightened. I saw one woman crying. People exited and then returned. And then finally as the lights cooled and the tone of the music "wound down", the dancer, by now stripped back to his loin cloth, jerked and crawled to the tree trunk and picked up the boulder/rock. He struggled to carry it some, his face that of a bemused madman. His body was filthy from crawling on the floor and the little streaks of sweat that poured down him looked like blood as it mixed with the dirt caked on him. He screamed and laughed and cried as he stood before us with the rock. And then the lights faded slowly and it was done. A little over an hour. I have not seen anything of such brutal purity in a long time. When the man came out later to take a bow I was shocked by how simple and "nice" he looked. His face had gone back to that of a simple man who smiled as we clapped. He took the time to look at least a dozen of the audience in the eye and thank them with a little bow. I've written about Butoh before, created in the aftermath of WWII it is a reaction to the brutality and chaos of the war, to the horror and physical destruction brought upon Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It attempts to express the modern Japanese consciousness resulting from the post-war period. Very expressionistic and beautiful, almost a hyper-conscious physical theater, avant-garde, powerful. An abandonment of form it conveys a very simple image of nature through expressionistic abstract art. Twist and slide, scream and dance. I was so affected by the whole thing that I couldn't go out the rest of the night, just walked for blocks. Here I am worrying about how I'm gonna make money as a "writer" or whatever, attempting, no matter how virtuously, to "tap into the economy" so to speak, and this man, this ascetic genius, comes to New York and performs for free in an abandoned warehouse his lifelong devotion to pure dance emotion. Who are we? Perhaps I will abandon many of the revisions to my script, and simply leave it at its most raw and honest. Who am I? Who cares.
Review of "Stone", a Jinen Butoh dance as performed by Atsushi Takenouchi, with musical sounds by Kensuke Mela, at the CAVE Gallery, 58 Grand St. Brooklyn, NY.
In these times of sagging economies (especially here in New York) one has to be wily and creative to continue to get one's "eat on". I am a whore when it comes to food, a low-down dirty slut really. Doug considers himself something of an expert when it comes to affordable haute ghetto cuisine. Though broke most of the time I am always out in the streets on the prowl for that heavenly illuminati tasting of a thing-the most exquisite meals I can find. At little cost though or rent doesn't get paid-I'm talking 8 bones, $3.50, or if one is splurging thirty "dolla" or so. I love food and need good, spiritually uplifting meals to get me through most weeks. I'm not talking Nobu, Gramercy Tavern, DB's Bistro or Jean Georges' new "66" here-I'm talking establishments recession smacked souls like myself can hit on a whim when that itch comes and you need to get that food groove on. Here are some places where I often do, with splendid options, that won't break you:
Where to begin? Perhaps with Lucien, 1st avenue and 1st street, which I hit on my 35th birthday a few weeks back for the roasted rabbit and fettuccine in Dijon mustard sauce. Superb. I walk in, sit at the bar, order a glass of Sauvignon Blanc or Cotes Du Rhone (it's a versatile dish) to go along with. The bartenders are always cool. This superior gamy dish in rustic creamy mustard sauce always lifts the spirits. The dish isn't actually cheap-21 bones, but it exemplifies the delicious victuals one can hunt down while continuing to pay off one's credit card bills. The escargot at Lucien ain't nothing to laugh at either, they do great specials too. Oh yeah, get the goat cheese and mesclun greens-simple, elegant, tasty.
Crown Fried Chicken, near Flushing & Broadway, on the border between Williamsburg and Bushwick.
The story goes like this: Late, late one night last summer I'd hit a loft party somewhere in that no man's land separating Bushwick from "east Williamsburg". Trying to find my way to the Flushing stop on the J train I passed a Crown Chicken, hungry as hell. It's very late and the joint is packed with thugs, the homeless, terrified Williamsburg hipsters, hustlers, you name it-it's 3:30 in the morning. Chicken, ribs, the whole lot, you get the idea. I gotta get something, spy a sign that reads, "Fish & Fries--$2.99" and figure that's the way to go. I'm sure it'll be one of those frozen fish filets but, whatever, that shit can be good at three in the morning, plus some Crown's have really tasty, not-too-greasy fries, sometimes. I'm a little worried the place is gonna get robbed or somebody jumped outside before the guy under siege behind the bulletproof window calls out my food order and I grab it and head to the train. While waiting for the J to come I start scarfing down fries (to the chagrin of some of those waiting with me) and realize the fish is by no means one of those frozen fish filets. It is actually fresh fish (note: on one subsequent visit it wasn't so fresh, be forewarned), skin on, light breading, tasty as hell. I mean, really tasty. (I think I actually said, "Shit", out loud.) It was some of that whiting fish you find endlessly at fish markets throughout Bushwick. What I'm thinking is that somebody, smart, probably a little cheap, figured it'd cost a lot less to just buy fish from the local market (whatever fish they might have) and bread and fry it themselves instead of buying those processed fish filets you find at so many places. They're saving a shitload of money and as a result people in the neighboring projects get killer fish sandwiches at the local 24-hour Crown for $2.99. I stood on the train platform chomping down like a damn madman eating an amuse bouche at Aquavit.
Village Yokocho, upstairs at 8 Stuyvesant St. (that little square where 9th street meets 3rd avenue).
This is a joint serving Japanese "tapas" that Ryo hipped me to: Pan fried monkfish w/ sliced daikon radish, a dipping sauce made from soy (& sake?) and minced green onions is always one of the specials posted on the walls. Grilled sardines, rolls of asparagus wrapped with bacon, skewers of grilled chicken & scallions or grilled squid, fried oysters, enoki mushrooms, broiled barracuda. They have this crazy "egg pancake" thing made with cheese and chicken and a slather of tomato "sauce" that tastes suspiciously like something you'd find a bunch of jocks eating at a late night diner if the diner was in Osaka I guess. Raw tuna or other fish over noodles or rice. Lots of exotic grilled whitefish in bite size portions: mackerel, bass, and some others whose names I'd never heard before. There are tables in the back with grills for Korean barbecue. The selection of sakes is pretty comprehensive-the only place I know that has more quality sakes is that Decibel sake "speakeasy" bar in the East Village (not to mention Nobu). Oddly enough I've never had sushi at Yokocho but there are so many places where you can get sushi and not a whole lot where you can get traditional Japanese cuisine. There's another place right around the block on St. Marks that Ryo is partial too also that serves these kind of Japanese "appetizers" that is always packed as hell also but I don't enjoy as much. Yokocho is open 24 hours.
Bereket is a Turkish kebab eatery on the corner of Houston and Orchard that is open 24 hours and has a grilled ground chicken kabob that often has me rolling in at 4:30 or so some nights. Diced lettuce, tomato, onion if you want, yogurt sauce, hot sauce, $5. The chicken is ground with Middle Eastern spices and then grilled. Sublime. They also have a $3 lentil soup with which they give ample pita bread, felafel and hummus sandwiches, dolmeh (grape leaves), and a sweet pastry dessert topped with minced pistachio nuts that is one of the top three desserts I've ever eaten in the city.
Gnocco is a little northern Italian restaurant (or at least a mixture of Northern Italian and Sicilian, where the chef comes from) on 10th street between A and B, a couple of doors down from Life. They know what they're doing-a great selection of wines by the glass, cozy, great food that is extremely affordable. They have this one dish, a veal "Saltimbocca", thoughts of which have woken me up some nights (they run it weekly as a special now but it should be back on the regular menu come summer). Saltimbocca is a way of cooking meat that roasts it in some kind of (egg?) and wine batter that gives it something of a soft crust, extremely flavorful. Lupa in Soho does it with things other than veal. At Gnocco they slice the veal Saltimbocca up and then wrap the pieces in a bacon jacketing and stick toothpicks in it. The sauce is made with white wine and sage. On the plate they place just a little broccoli and roasted potatoes. The first time I had it I almost cussed the waiter out for not warning me how good it was. The do a tuna carpaccio appetizer with cracked coriander that's pretty damn satisfying too. The wine is great, off the Italian beaten path-Veneto, Puglia, Sicilia-and still reasonable at $6 to $9 a glass.
Hillary's Urban Eatery (in Chicago, Division near Milwaukee) has this house made corned beef hash (only on weekends though--bah humbug). I love this shit so much-it is like culinary crack to me-that when my friend June came to visit me in New York she brought me a pound and a half of the hash in a metal tin. Shredded homemade corned beef, roasted potato hash, peppers, onions, carrots, all simmered until it is God's gift to the working class. They throw a sunny-side up egg on top of the hash just to keep the cholesterol level down. The humongous tin of hash that June brought me was supposed to last a week and a half-I mean, I instantly froze most of it. It was gone in three days. "You are insane", June said. "Takes one to know one." I replied.
The spicy squid ink linguini with lobster, corn and pear tomatoes from (R.I.P.) Wyanoka, $19, with so much pasta and lobster that I sometimes thought chef Chris Santos was out of his mind. Wynoka has now passed on to that culinary place in the sky (alright, purgatory-those of you who ever hung out there late late-night know what I mean). But it's okay because Peter and Chris have just started up a new joint:
The Mexican Sandwich Company (322 5th Ave between 2nd and 3rd streets) is their new joint in Park Slope. Not only does the spot benefit from Chris' culinary imagination and talent, but from a conceptually strong idea (almost like art): quesadillas, "Mexican sandwiches". The genesis of the establishment and its focus lies in the quesadilla specials Chris would periodically run at Wyanoka. When he got the commission to draw up the menu for the kitchen over at Happy Ending many of the must have items were the selection of quesadillas he placed on the menu-charred hanger steak with Roquefort cheese, wild mushroom and poblano peppers with goat cheese-both of which have made the menu at Mexican Sandwich Company. Add to this mix a barbecued duck confit quesadilla with spicy mango salsa & cheddar, one made with chipotle shrimp and spinach, and another of sesame roasted chicken with hoisin glaze (one of my favorites) and you get the idea. You can do them in either a 6-inch version (almost like pizzas) or a 12-inch version. Three layers of "fillings" with flour, corn, or whole-wheat tortillas. Reasonably priced (I don't think Chris knows how to overcharge people), fine products (they have spinach and tomato tortillas) and little surprises all over the place-white wine sangrias, red and blue tortilla chips, beautiful photos along the walls of Tulúm, Mexico (um, did the dog Bear go too?), "Jarritos", blood orange cocktails. Peter and Chris have simply taken the idea of the quesadilla to a logical extreme. Conceptual artists almost, but fuck that, the shit is mad good too. More that just the quesadillas also: Chris' crispy red snapper tacos made it too. Extremely vegetarian friendly (peep the jicama and tomato salad as an appetizer). A reason to visit Park Slope.
Associated Foods, Bushwick, Brooklyn. It's extremely hard to find decent meals in my neighborhood, ones that don't clog the arteries. One destination I go to for a proper meal is the Associated on Broadway (near Gates) where on Fridays (and now not every Friday for some godforsaken reason) the deli in the back bakes fish, usually cod, which you can have with the Jamaican rice with olives and peas that they make daily, and then a vegetable which is usually broccoli, sweet corn, or some mix thereof. The fish is covered in a spicy breading, topped with lemon, and then baked. It tastes exquisite. Everything is $4. I usually get a half a gallon of orange juice along with it. Sometimes the vegetables are frozen (Why? You're a grocery store?!!) and so I'll just get the rice and fish and pick up something in the produce aisle and steam it at home-asparagus, spinach, carrots, or brussel sprouts.
La Casa Del Pollo in Jackson Heights, Queens has this half of a Peruvian roasted chicken with barbecued ribs and friend rice (!) combination dish. This is another place that Ryo hipped me to-he used to live in Jackson Heights. The place, night or day, is mobbed, and once you eat there you discover why. The meat is so tender and flavorful that conversation at the table comes to a halt the moment you begin eating. The fried rice (how does that work-marinated Peruvian meat with Chinese fried rice?) is light, fluffy with green onions and bamboo shoots-way better than most I've had in Chinese food restaurants in the city actually. I took my food whore of a friend (ten times more so than I am) June (yep, she of the corned beef hash debacle) here when she visited from Chicago. All the way out to Jackson Heights. (We actually stopped off at PS 1 and then the Noguchi Museum, which was closed, but we were like, "Whatever, fuck it, I'm all about feng shui and art but we only out here to eat in Jackson Heights anyway.") I thought June was gonna hurt herself eating. "Calm down, tiger", I said.
Open late, Lil' Frankie's on 1st Ave. between 1st and 2nd streets is an offshoot of "Frank", the Italian eatery on second avenue that exclusively does brick oven pizzas, those thin crusted numbers baked in one of those all-the-rage brick ovens. (They say a "third generation Neapolitan oven builder" built it brick by brick blah blah blah.) The usual suspects: Pizza Napoletana with tomatoes, garlic, oregano, capers, olives, and Sicilian salted anchovies, Pizza Margherita with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basilico, Pizza Salsiccia with homemade sausage, tomatoes, mozzarella, and wild fennel. Thin as paper, simple, tasty, divine. You can make your own too. 12-inch pizzas run around $7.95 and 14 inches around $10.95. Share with someone and you are in good shape. They have wine and Italian beers also, in addition to a small selection of antipasti and salads. Homemade panna cotta and tiramisù too.
Mama Duke Southern Cuisine, at Flatbush and Bergen street in Fort Greene (or whatever neighborhood that is along Flatbush avenue) is a to-go restaurant with really great down home southern soul food. Killer po' boy's with catfish, chicken, whiting (of course), turkey meatloaf (!), or vegetables. Smothered pork chops, ribs, crab cakes, collard greens, candied yams, cornbread (the real kind), catfish fritters, black eye peas. They have desserts too: sweet potato pie and peach cobbler. I'm told they do a Sunday brunch with salmon and grits too. Why can't Bushwick have places like this!!!
Teriyaki Boy, 216 E. 10th street. Don't laugh, this place might save your life one night or lunch. They just opened one in the East Village and I'm always hopping my ass in there to get the cheap sushi rolls (as low as 2 bones), which are fresh (they only go through something like a thousand an hour). The sushi is crazy cheap but it's really the Japanese combination dishes I go for: chicken teriyaki, California roll, and salad-$5.99. Add vegetable tempura for 75 cents more. Salmon teriyaki is a dollar more. Served with white rice. It's a cheap, grilled, light, tasty meal. They have all kinds of shit too, extremely vegetarian friendly when you're in that mood (or always in that mood). Miso soup for a dollar. Endame. Egg bowls. Curry rice. Noodle soups. Cooked seaweed (hijiki). None of this costs much. You'd be hard pressed to ever spend $10 dollars in this joint. Teriyaki Boy is a Japanese chain and the only chain restaurant I'd do a commercial for if called. I'd turn Common for Coca-Cola on your ass for Teriyaki Boy!
Mama's Food Shop, 200 E. 3rd street (between B & C). This is Jenkins' spot, I've been there with him maybe, oh, twenty times or so, and he always gets the fried chicken. I ain't gonna front-Mama's fried chicken is mad good. Add a couple of side dishes: mac & cheese (only joints up in Harlem match it), beets, green beans, cauliflower, roasted potatoes, couscous-whatever vegetables and starch are happening at markets in the city that day. A massive amount of food, around $8 or so. You can bring your own bottle and eat and drink like a king. They serve grilled salmon and roasted or grilled chicken as a main also, not to mention a meat loaf that has me constantly on a 12-step program to get off red meat-it is addictive. They just opened a new Mama's over in Greenwich Village too.
Step Mama, across the street from Mama's Food Shop, focuses on soups and sandwiches. Their claim to fame is a grilled tuna steak sandwich, medium rare, rye bread, cheddar, blackpepper parmesan mayo. If I had a 10 dollar bill for every time I'd rolled in here with a half bottle of Sancerre and got this sandwich I'd have enough to almost buy one of those new monthly MTA subway passes.
Kai Kai, 1st street between 1st Ave. and Avenue A, is one of the places of comfort in which I eat here in the city, one of my favorites. When I want to "right things" in my life I go here, because I can trust the food, experience, and overall energy will do so for me. Phicha Tharavanith, who creates the dishes and designed the space, is one of those quietly creative geniuses who people like me yearn to be near. This particular Kai Kai used to be another restaurant of Phicha's called "Rice Box". The day Rice Box closed I took a special mid-year trip out to Coney and cried into the ocean. Rice Box did a red snapper wrapped in banana leaf dish which I'd planned on using at some point in my life to woo a wife. A version of it survives at Kai Kai, but ooh la la, the version at Rice Box. The original Kai Kai is an eatery on Avenue B across the street from Tompkins Square Park (Phicha just opened another in the West Village). My Kai Kai, the one on First street, is a mixture of the original eatery and then some dishes (and creative focus) left over from Rice Box. Just off the top of my head: Tom Yum soup, with shrimp, onions and tomato. (There is a secret society of people addicted to this soup who gather to "shoot up" on occasion.) You can do it with green lip mussels also. Another version is made with coconut milk that I refuse to comment on it is so good. "Mataba" is a ground chicken pastry appetizer that always knocks people on their asses. It comes with a dipping sauce that is sweet and vinegary with chopped cucumber that I tried to smuggle home one night. There is a grilled vegetable appetizer (though I do it without the sweet sauce it comes with) of yellow squash, zucchini, and tomato. Phicha does a grilled squid salad that is very fine, greens, shredded carrot and onion, sweet vinaigrette. It is very fine. I usually get the flat noodles with shrimp, Chinese broccoli, a little egg, and tomato (pad see iew). The sauce is both spicy and a little sweet. I try not to order this dish in that I've had it over a hundred times. That's enough, I'm not going to go on about this place anymore because I could, for days.
Café Himalayan, next door to Kai Kai on 1st street. Karma Dolma, the chef, is a friend who Phicha helped open this Tibetan & Nepali home cooking café. I don't know a whole lot about Tibetan food, surely not enough to say if this is "authentic" or not, but I enjoy this establishment a great deal. It is very peaceful, everything white-they have this couch where people sit and drink ginger tea. The odd thing about it is how "clean" and temperate the food is. Everything is made to order, even the soups. If I could describe it I would call it something similar to a mixture of Thai and Indian cuisine, though that does it no justice. Basmati rice, steamed and pan fried dumplings stuffed with vegetables, potato, or minced chicken. Some of the freshest soups I've tasted, "water" based, or I should say clear broths made with tofu, spinach, tomatoes, peas, corn, ginger. Most are vegetarian but a couple are done with meat. The lentil soup defies explanation-is like tasting a spoonful of monkish ancient contemplation. Noodles with vegetables, lamb curry (luksha shamdey), tofu with Tibetan herbs and vegetables. I went through a period where I became obsessed with Karma's breaded spicy chicken with bell peppers, tomato, onions, and ginger sauce served over basmati rice. Simple, nothing too complicated, but delicious in its simplicity with a spiciness that sneaks up and kisses the nape of your neck. The dumplings all come with a sauce that is similar to a spicy, albeit temperate, salsa. I'd sneak some of it home if ever there was any of it left. Café Himalayan, in addition to doing mango and banana lassi-yogurt shakes, also makes some of the most incredible smoothies-I get one every time I'm in: mangoes, lychees, yogurt, raspberries, peaches, or coconut milk, much more, mixed how you may. Splendid.
The Soup & Smoothie Place (formerly just The Soup Place) on St. Mark's Place serves up about 8 to a dozen soups everyday. Elaborate, hearty soups: Carrot ginger, chicken & corn chowder with roasted peppers, lobster bisques, butternut squash & apple, New England & Manhattan clam chowders, Hungarian mushroom. These soups kick ass and all come with bread and a banana, which makes for a nice meal. The women behind the counter are always in great moods too, joking and taking the piss. I'm yet to try any of the smoothies.
The Elephant, French-Thai restaurant, 1st street between 1st and 2nd Ave. Shouldn't really be on here, I mean, with wine you can easily drop $50 or $60 dollars (for our purposes here expensive) but because it's been my favorite restaurant for so long I just have to toss it in. I've been known to lose a woman, my soul crushed, go in here depressed, have the salmon tartar, a tad spicy, along with a glass of Macon-Villages, and then go outside into the night refreshed and subsequently sex with 3 women that night (joking). No, they do a nice five spice duck dish and often some fish cooked in Thai spices. I think the salmon tartar is the best I've ever tasted. When Mr. I've-worked-at-Jean-Georges-and-Windows-of-the-World Ryo dismissed the tartar on one of our trips to Elephant we almost got into a fistfight.
Diner, Williamsburg, near the Williamsburg Bridge. At Diner's Sunday brunch (not one of my favorite meals) they do smoked salmon with cream cheese, greens, capers, and pumpernickel bread. They've been doing a variation of this dish since they opened and it is still the item you can most count on in an establishment that has often created brilliant dishes that have had me crying with joy and at other times depressingly mediocre fare that have had me getting a double cheeseburger on the way home. (When chef Caroline Fidanza is in Jean Georges grilled fish in tasty sauce mode things can get pretty interesting too.)
Café Gitane, Prince and Mott street. Gitane does this cool chicken and couscous dish with diced peppers that is unassuming and pretty damn near perfect. It's a really creative Moroccan inspired dish. I think it costs $7. You can't beat the wine deals here either. The loose-leaf mint tea is and brilliantly aromatic.
Manna's Soul Food & Salad Bar, 125th and Frederick Douglass Blvd., Harlem. This is actually one of those salad and hot food buffet bars where you order food by the pound. They do so much business though that everything is always fresh and tasty (and cheap). Jerk Chicken, baked Cod, okra, collard greens (crisp and fresh), oxtails, fresh roasted turkey (one of my favorites), baked salmon, curries, smothered chicken, chilled salads of green beans, broccoli, mushrooms, cantaloupe, spinach, an/or red beans. The place is huge and always bristling with Harlem's throngs of workers, politicians, artists, Nubian queens and princes, hustlers, musicians-the place breathes life. The dining room upstairs looks out onto 125th street and gives you a view of that beautiful stretch of Harlem. My only complaint is that they close so early, at 7, that you can't really do dinner unless you are having an early one. The flip side is that everything on the hot bar is always fresh. You can do some serious eating damage at a place like Manna's.
New Saigon Vietnamese. When I have $7 to my name, no Metrocard and am desperately in need of stamps, I hit New Saigon and get a small shrimp or deluxe friend rice. $3 to $3.50 for a huge plate of rice. Because it's Vietnamese the rice is light and "cleaner" (less greasy) than its Chinese counterpart, and spicier, closer to Thai fried rice. (If you've ever had Southeast Asian rice this is what it is more like.) When I'm splurging I do a side of sautéed Chinese broccoli, spinach, or bok choy, all with garlic and all really, really, good. The other day I got a small order of scallops with basil leaves that cost $5 and was more than enough to get me through the night. One of the soups they serve with their lunch specials is called "chicken corn soup" and should be outlawed: it is really chicken and corn egg drop soup, which is kind of sadistic if you think about it. It must have coke in it too 'cause you can't stop eating it. They have enough room in this restaurant for at the most 5 people to sit.
$1 Gelato Carts. These Latino ices carts (Dominican? Mexican? And what is the name they all have printed on the side of them? I can't recall.) roll through the streets (and on the beaches) of New York all summer long and are one of my cheap pleasures. These fruit flavored gelato/ice cream/ices concoctions served in little cups are so good that a pretty much non-dessert person like myself will get 2 to 3 of them some summer days, especially at a dollar a pop. They sell 'em in Bushwick, they sell 'em at Coney Island, they sell 'em at the West Indian Parade, even in Manhattan (and still for a $1-who's doing the price point!!!?). You know how you're in a line of six people trying to get one of these at the beach with some snot nose kid in front of you where every person has to ask the guy what flavors he has though everybody has heard him say he doesn't have pineapple 10 times and then the kid gets up there and asks if he has pineapple and you're like, "Do you think Scotty beamed down some fuckin' pineapple since that fat dude asked him a moment ago? MANGO-CHERRY-COCONUT!!!". I hate that.
Oznot's, Berry at N. 9th street in Williamsburg. The lamb burger on foccacia bread with mixed greens and a little potato hash is insane. I think it's around 8 bucks. Moroccan spices, bursting with rich flavor. They use the same ground lamb in an egg and potato dish they serve at brunch (again, not a meal I'm a fan of) that is almost silly in its simple exquisiteness. This is one of my secret lunch spots when I want to spend more that six dollars on lunch. I'm not sure if it was Ke Ke or Laura who first hipped me to lunch at Oznot's.
Okay, that's enough.
There are so many places I'm leaving out of this dispatch-off the top of my head: Café Habana, Yaffa Café, Dragon Gate in Chinatown (those frog's legs), Rice, Native in Harlem, Barry's hummus, tomatoes & feta with pita from the kitchen (RIP) at Happy Ending, L Café's mussels in a tomato broth and "Joni Mitchell" sandwich, Lucky Chen in Bushwick, Fish in the West Village, Funky Broome and those fried oysters in red wine, Titou, Noop, the deli on Gates and Evergreen where the gentleman behind the counter always makes me the same impeccable honey turkey sandwich with muenster just-the-way-I-like-it and has for years without me ever having to tell him what I'm there for or how to make it. "The same?" he always asks. (When I went in Thanksgiving afternoon and replied I'd actually take pastrami instead the two of us laughed so hard people thought we were crazy.) Some more of the forgotten: Lucky Strike, Planet Thailand, the sushi place Jeollado where I've eaten sushi combinations with miso soup and seaweed salad almost weekly for over 3 years, not to mention the dollar menu at Wendy's-by far the best of that lot though the Burger King $1 menu is pretty inventive and damn good when you can find one that does the stuff fresh (McDonald's dollar menu sucks, with the exception of their double cheeseburger, which is excellent but only done on a regular basis at the one up in Harlem). Kate's Joint on Avenue B's veggie burger is hefty, rich, and satisfying too. Daily Chow, M&G Soulfood Diner, Angel Fish Market in Bushwick (steamed Salmon, saffron rice, veggies, Panna II Indian Restaurant on First avenue (the one on the "right" with psychedelic Christmas decorations up all year 'round). . . . The list of places I failed to speak of is endless, mainly because I just forgot to include them or whatever just wrote about other places instead-I could have went on with this list for months and months. (And I should have put White Castle on here too-you be damned, Ryo!!! )
Note: I'm just gonna admit I'm not sure if all the prices and info here is up-to-date-most of this was done from memory. I wasn't about to fact check-it would have been a humongous undertaking. Check for yourself. If the places are gone, the prices different, or god forbid, particular dishes gone-don't blame me.
Note II: there is no Mexican on this list. Why not? Because all Mexican taquerias in New York City suck (I'm from Chicago, so superior when it comes to Mexican as to put New York, the culinary capital, to shame). I've been up to Spanish Harlem, I've been out to Jackson Heights, and though there were some good, authentic joints, there was nothing exquisite. (Those trucks can be okay sometimes.) If anyone can lead or take me to a Mexican joint that is exemplary, reasonable (like a taqueria should be) and where I don't have to act like I'm at some "Mexican Patria" or something-I'll treat them to dinner at said place.
By the way, I do cook at home sometimes, but that's another dispatch.
Early one morning summers ago I and someone I cared deeply for decided to take a day trip out to Fire Island. We took the Long Island Railroad out to Long Island and then a ferry ride from there out to the island. Here we bought some bread and cheese, some tomato, and then walked out to the beach where we remained the whole day. We swam intermittently, ate, read, and lay out together. It was a warm day and the swimming was good. She wore yellow. When the sun began to set we folded up our blankets and skipped back to the ferry and then slept on the train ride back to Manhattan. It was a fine day, one I'll never forget. I think of it now as I recall some of my favorite beach haunts here in the city. That's what this "dispatch" is about, my favorite beaches-"la playa". Opening story notwithstanding, I prefer beaches here in the City.
Rockaway Park
This is my favorite beach in all the city, not to be confused with Far Rockaway on the other side of this stretch of island. To get to Rockaway Park you simply jump on the A train and take it all the way through Brooklyn to what is technically Queens but feels more like Brooklyn. The first time I went out I was simply amazed by the portion of the trip where you cross Broad Channel and are out on a small sliver of land with endless water on both sides of your subway train. It's pretty disconcerting to jump on a subway train in Lower Manhattan and then find yourself a half-hour later still on that train but in what looks like a small East Coast seaport. There's a few places where you can get some decent, cheap food (though a really nice Chinese slash sushi place closed there two summers ago), and a killer Italian ice stand. There are never too many people out on this beach-I think only Brooklyn and Queens residents go out here. The sand is as nice as anything out on the Long Island beaches too. For more than a few years I've had dreams of getting a summer place out here, kinda my own ghetto Hamptons, and still plan to some day, present sell-out summer share status. I go out here at least a dozen times during the summer.
Far Rockaway
This isn't really a "beach" as much as it is a place to go walk along the ocean. This is where all the surfers go to ride the big waves amidst the complete lack of swimmers willing to lay out on the rocky sand. The swimming is dangerous (this is where those two girls drowned a couple of summers back). On clear days you can look clear across the water over to Long Island. Far Rockaway is desolate. Walking along the boardwalk, or more so inland in the nearby part of Queens, feels like someplace that could simply not be anywhere near New York City, not to mention a part of it. Some of it looks like a fishing town. Other parts are just dirt poor. There is a part that a friend and I once walked through that looked like the poorest part of the deep South, a southern ghetto; we were amazed. You can walk on the boardwalk here for 40 minutes and not come across a soul. The lifeguards look like Zen masters alone out on their chairs with no one around for half a mile. I've only really sat out on the sand here, and it is very rocky. I swam in the water once when a friend and I were testing out an underwater camera. You usually only see groups of surfers, people alone taking walks, and street people out here. It's great to get a feeling you've gotten at least somewhat out of the city, though.
Coney Island
Though Rockaway Park is my favorite beach in the city I go out to Coney Island far more during the course of the summer, mainly because of easier proximity to my place in Bushwick. I don't care what anyone says-I love Coney Island and I love the beach there. I don't know, perhaps it is where I was brought up in Chicago and the types of beaches I went to as a kid, but to me summer at the beach means loud, noisy families running and splashing all about. You can buy a beer, water, fruit, cotton candy, Mayan bracelets, CDs-everything is sold right there on the beach, from your blanket. There is life teeming at Coney Island. Take a swim in the ocean and you feel alive, come back and lie on your blanket and life breathes all around you. At least the kind of life that means anything at all to me.
Brighton Beach
Joke: How do you know when you've crossed the invisible line that separates Coney Island Beach from Brighton Beach? On Coney Island there are a score of little Puerto Rican kids running around in their underwear. When you've made it to Brighton Beach you get scores of old Russian men running around in their underwear. Brighton Beach and Coney Island are really the same beach but if you walk farther and farther northwest along Coney the beach becomes Brighton. When you go to the boardwalk you find that the beach restaurants are filled with Russian cuisine. It's really nice to take the train out to the Brighton Beach neighborhood. The Russian community there has some of the best bakeries, fruit stands, and fish places in the city. It's all really cheap and very fresh. If the overwhelming crowds on the beach at Coney Island bother you, or the occasional plastic bag floating in the water gets your goat, you might want to try Brighton, a much more tranquil experience. When you get to the end of Brighton Beach there is also a small hidden beach on the other side of the rocks where some people lay to get away from people. There are a lot of solo beach goers here. The swimming is really nice because the surrounding rocks calm the waves. I know people who only go to this small, unnamed beach.
Manhattan Beach
This is a difficult beach to get to using public transportation. It's technically still a part of the Coney Island/Brighton Beach stretch of beach but much more farther out, near Sheepshead Bay. If you take the Q train out to the Sheepshead Bay stop you're about a twenty-five minute or so walk from this beach. It's completely local, only people from the neighborhood go there. It's actually pretty small, but quality-wise it's similar to Brighton. It gets packed during the summer because everyone from the neighborhood frequents it. I made the mistake of going on a weekend once and it was like getting caught in the West Village during the Halloween Parade. During the week it makes for a good change of pace.
Long Beach
The easiest of the Long Island beaches to get to, you can walk from the LIRR train. It's a nice beach, not too crowded during the week, and "cleaner" than your average city beach. I challenge anyone to compare Long Beach to Rockaway Park in Queens any day. I haven't spent much time inland of Long Beach but I have friends who love it and actually spend most of their summers out there. The beach can be busier than Jones sometimes because it's closer to Manhattan and easier for people from the city to get to. There are a lot of people who refuse to frequent NYC beaches and claim Long Beach as being the first acceptable beach they'll even consider going to.
Jones Beach
Jones beach is huge and very "busy." It has the added benefit (if you call it a benefit) of an open-air concert venue nearby where there are shows all summer long. It can get as busy as Coney but is filled with Long Islanders instead of Brooklynites, whatever that might mean. Lots of families, lots of kids, lots of beach posing. Volleyball nets are everywhere. It's like an amusement park: swimming pools, tennis, golf, basketball, softball, picnic areas. Name it and you can probably find it somewhere out at Jones Beach. If MTV did anything at a NYC beach it would probably be at Jones. I know some snobs who don't like it but I think it's a fine beach indeed, especially when it's not too crowded. Unlike Robert Moses, you can actually get here without a car, though it's usually better to get a ride out.
Robert Moses Beach
When people who have been swimming most of their lives in the Mediterranean ask me where they should go to swim, the first place I tell them is Robert Moses. It's the cleanest, nicest beach this side of Fire Island (its northernmost edge is actually near the southern edge of Kismet on Fire Island). It is a part of the Robert Moses State Park where there is hiking and cooking. There are a number of different beaches between here and Jones Beach, how to find the various ones tricky to navigate. I was once out at Robert Moses with some friends and we actually cooked some food on a grill (shrimp and squid on the Fourth of July, and it was very fine), though I'm not completely sure such activity is actually allowed. No one said anything to us. You can't really get away with anything like that at any of the other beaches. Robert Moses is really the most beautiful public beach I've been to in the metropolitan area.
Fire Island
Fire Island is nice because it's pretty much a day trip out of the city. You have to take a ferry from Long Island to get there. The island is quaint in that there are no cars allowed. People walk and bike everywhere and drag carts around (some people drive golf carts). The houses all look like grandiose beach shacks, many intricately designed but homey. There are no streets or addresses, just quirky names on houses like "Loony Dunes" and "Blues & Sun." The beaches are some of the most beautiful in New York and rarely have many people on them. Fire Island is tricky in that many of its beaches are "open communities," meaning that anyone can go out to them, but others are "private communities" with private beaches (where the wealthy live).
Some friends and I often stay out in Kismet, the earthy community at the bottom of the island. I don't want to say working class but Kismet is very down-to-earth, and there are very few "rules" there. Other communities on the island are like country clubs. Ocean Beach is the biggest town on the island and is the place to go for fun. The beach near there looks like something out of southern California and the "town" itself is really one of the few places on the island where there is a selection of seaside restaurants and "clubs" to frequent. There is even a movie theater there. Along with the gay towns of Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove, Ocean Beach is the place people go out to the most for day trips. All I can say about Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines is that the one summer that I found myself out there I witnessed one of the wildest parties I've ever seen in my life-and I've seen a lot of parties. Many of the other communities seem a different world though-you hike, lay on the beach, swim, cook. The lighthouse at the tip of the island separates Fire Island from the strip of land that leads to Robert Moses State Park and is a really nice visit. To take a walk around this patch of land is to reach a consciousness most unlike anything you ever experience being in the city, which is the point I guess. I can't express enough how calming it is to be on a beach taking in the sound of the waves. It is a natural form of yoga, and I live for it.
Note: a version of this piece was published in the summer 2003 on-line edition of the Brooklyn Rail. me that cinema, film, could be music. Not musical, like Welles or Chaplin, but actual music. That film could be a piece of "art" itself. (Many of his altering film stock pieces have more in common with Jackson Pollock than they do with cinema, like "motion" drip paintings.) Mekas recalled that Brakhage once related a story to him in which a "spiritualist" had told Brakhage that he could beat the cancer eating away at him by "channeling into his body" and confronting the cancerous cells one a time. Brakhage said that eventually he was able to get inside of himself and confront the cells eating away at his body but that when he did so found them so beautiful that he could not destroy them, they were too beautiful. He let them alone. I suspect that somehow even these made it into his work, perhaps they are the stars of his last films.