The Cool School

This Saturday in Williamsburg felt like re-enacted existence. I allowed myself to remain on the verge between the dreamt and the real: pancakes with maple syrup while Tom Waits was playing, knowing that every junction holds a very different life to be led. It is hardly surprising that being with different people turns you into different persons. What is worse is to find yourself changing in ways that prevent you from accessing your own personality.

Yet, at least in the past, I was a firm believer in the possibility of “breaking on through”, of finding that Ekelöfian common ground deep beneath it all. That possibility, however, requires a willingness to be exposed that seems increasingly rare in these atheistic times.

Anyhow, the sun burned away the fog in the best Californian manner. Despite the “burn relief gel”, I can still feel it in my skin. After hours in Brooklyn, we went to the movies for Cool School, a documentary about Beat generation artists in Los Angeles. And then again remembrance – but this time in a more playful register – at L’Express on 249 Park Avenue South.