Les Dimanches a Bamako . . .
. . . probably wouldn’t be too much different from today in Central Park. Malian melodies aside, Summerstage could not have been more unfathomably hot. Today’s trifecta of Amadou & Mariam, Daby Toure, and some French DJ outfit that spun vinyl for really much too long, comprised my first ever forray into outdoor music in the Park. After weathering two hours worth of opening acts, Said and I finally cashed it in midway through the A&M(1) set, but not before they performed "Beau Dimanche" to a surprisingly disengaged crowd, not before Said could take in all the scenery(2), and not before I could sartorially memorialize the event with a concert t.
I love merch! Merch is the reason we even have live music. I bet Mozart had merch way back in the day. Maybe with Faberge eggs or some shit like that. Were Mozart and Faberge even alive at the same time? And it’s worth mentioning the mad mad props I got for my "Ana b’hib Nyoo Yoork" t-shirt from certain of the crowd. Alright perhaps not mad mad props, but a whole lot of eyeballing. Evidentally, it’s quite the political statement these days to engage with Arabic culture in a manner that does not involve missile strikes.
But I digress. My seven-hour stint as a marathon marshall notwithstanding, I think today was my single longest expanse of time in Central Park, an area of the city I interract with frequently but tend to avoid as much as possible. After an hour doing laps up at Lasker and the three-hour concert that followed, I expect to be a decidedly distressed shade of purple by tommorrow. And being that the heat (in conjunction with yesterday’s gut-busting post-race binge) flatly killed my appetite today, I expect I’ll be looking particularly gaunt for my efforts too.
But we’ve got ourselves a heat wave here in New York for the next few days. I expect my as yet non-air conditioned confines to remain characteristically unbearable. All the more reason not to bemoan the late hours at the new job. The agency I work for is a bureaucratic boondoggle of high comedic proportions, replete with jaded career civil servants, endless in-jokes, and a hyper-exagerrated sense of crisis. And you know what? I absolutely love it! Okay, perhaps "love it" is to strong of a term. Maybe perhaps not the kind of love between a man and a woman (exclusively in about 23 states, sad to say), or the love one might have for a fine Cuban cigar. More like the in-between size at Cold Stone, much as the allure of that place continually evades me.
We’ve been working around a series of deadlines in the past week that has bestowed on me decidely big firm-esque hours, complete with a dial car home. It’s quite an interesting turn-of-place for me: finding a job like this on craigslist of all places. Again, I’m in an office with no windows. But I’m equidistant from a Hale & Hearty and a Chipotle. And after this Wednesday, I can begin biking down to work. For the right now to November, this will more than do. This’ll be just what I need.
Now the challenge to avoid anything dismissal-worthy. Highly unlikely, but it’s only been one week on the job and those of you keeping track know perfectly well how stranger things have been known to happen in these here parts.
(1) BTW, I’m simply crestfallen that there are no more short-sleeve Aggie for Kinky t-shirts available for sale . . .
(2) L.H.O.O.Q., as the Dada-ists might say . . .
