US here we come

Hi,

Ever since arriving I keep thinking of this trip as a kind of pilgrimage to a cultural Mecca. I understand this could be overstating the case but what I am trying to get at is a feeling, a connecting with so many things familiar, for Barry and I, if not for Joey and Hannah. You know growing up in 1950s, 60s Australia on a diet of American television and movies, so many things familiar. Joey and Hannah just can’t understand it’s not their experience. How many times have we seen ‘that’ Hollywood sign. In our childhood we (and I guess loads of people from around the world) saw footage of ‘those’ film stars leaving their foot, or hand, prints into cement outside the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and here we were walking over them; at times it’s surreal.

Today we caught the subway up to Harlem, that was great. Only about 15 minutes on the train away from 42nd street and yet what a different experience when we surfaced onto the street. After all it was Saturday shopping time. We were in 125th Street near the intersection with Frederick Douglas Avenue. We were walking up towards the Apollo Theatre and Barry kept singing the words from an Eric Burdon song – New York 1963 America 1968. Funnily enough I learnt the same words while listening to Burdon albums with a boyfriend in the late 60s . . .

And when I got to America, I say it blew my mind
And when I got to America, I say it blew my mind

The Apollo Theater on a 125th street,
The place was closed, it was pouring rain,
I had a feeling I’d go there again,
The taxi driver thought I was insane

. . . we looked across the street and here was the Apollo Theatre. Like most other things it looked smaller than either of us had imagined. The street was bustling. We weren’t the only white faces, though we were amongst the minority. It was the first time in the last weeks (since we arrived in America) that we saw street stalls selling books!! We saw a couple of music shops, clothes and shoes. And loads of stalls selling all kinds of oils – that, I presume, would be used to make potions, to bring love, health, wealth, or whatever anyone’s heart may desire. Loads of these stalls. Then we came across a group of black Americans (about 8 of them) that were dressed in an outfit that looked something like a Roman uniform, headress and all. And the leader was reading from a biblical text that was talking about the tribes if Israel, interesting. I pulled over to listen for a while but Barry was keen to move on. He felt uncomfortable amongst this militant christianity that was just a way up from another a militant Islamic group – the black muslems – whoes forebares were responsible for the death of Malcolm X. Barry felt that we weren’t welcome there but my strategy in places like this is to just blend into the background, walk like I am one of the locals, like I’ve been there many times before.

I’m so glad we went up there. We didn’t hang around for long. We walked back towards the northern end of Central Park, which is so huge, even half of it takes up something like 30 blocks; and so beautiful. New York is such a huge city with so many nooks and crannies to explore you could do so for many weeks, months, or years.

Last night, after the conference, I met up with a couple of others and went to a Hot Mama Burlesque Show that was terrific, very entertaining. The female compare was a daughter of May West, she was so witty, funny, talented and sexy. I hadn’t realised that Burlesque is another world for strip (though not of the full body type). So in between the wonderful songs and commentary of the compare we were treated to something like 8 performances. And because the event was to commemorate hot mamas, each of the women had a different and relevant theme from props that included brooms and dustpans, to a milk maid, who during the performance brought out a breast pump (pumped some milk and than drank it). One of the women did an Italian performance where her outfit included a dress that resembled something like a pizza and her song along the lines of her husband wanting some pizza every night. It was great fun.

Today, we went looking for a fea market (so that Joey might find some second hand CDs) we tracked down some terrific markets and soon found out that there were virtually no CDs but heaps of fascinating old and second hand goods that mesmerised both Barry and I. We came across a guy who was selling some old fur coats, including what looked like those mink coats that we saw those Hollywood stars were all those years ago. He said that the coats included some silver fox (he said worth $4-5,000), other kinds of fox ($3 to $4,000), and a long mink coat (that he said worth $10,000). Anyhow, I said would it be okay if my hubby takes a couple of photos with me wearing them, he said, sure – so here attached a couple of examples. It was fun.

Anyhow, enough for now, on the next blog I’ll talk about the Association for Research on Mothering, conference that was on yesterday.

take care and best, Joannie

Tags: Apollo Theatre, Eric Burdon, fea markets, Harlem, Mothering Research, Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 7:39 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.