I’m going to “Play The Building” today. I’m talking about the David
Byrne sound installation in a cavernous building near the Staten
Island Ferry. Read more here:
http://www.davidbyrne.com/art/art_projects/playing_the_building/index.php
Ruminating on the plan last night while trying to sleep I started to
think about David Byrne, the project and what it really means – what
it means to me that is, because that’s what matters, to me that is. I
began to wonder if there wasn’t some milestone, some profound
underlying lesson here, some grand statement or metaphor about me and
my life so far and New York and how it’s changed since I first moved
here in 1987.
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was an album released by David Byrne
and Brian Eno in 1982 (re-released in July of last year in
celebration of its 25th birthday). I used to always play it at
parties to show everyone how obscure and varied my music collection
was.
The album is named after a novel by Nigerian author Amos Tutuola.
Like many novels and movies about kids coming of age in troubled
times or as a result of trauma (think Chronicles of Narnia, Pan’s
Labarynth) this novel takes the reader on a journey from a real world
filled with trouble and fear, to an imaginary world of adventure, and
yes, trouble and fear, but where there is a sense of power over fate
and the opportunity to triumph – where good and evil are rewarded and
punished, respectively.
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is about a small boy forced by
political unrest to take an involuntary flight, alone, across some
rough terrain. This boy is, at a point early in the novel, forced
off the road and stumbles into a supernatural forest – the dreaded
Bush of Ghosts. The rest of the story chronicles the adventures he
has meeting and fighting off the creatures and monsters and, of
course, armies of dead babies.
Which brought me to this terrible metaphor…Maybe I was that little
black boy stumbling through the real world (New Rochelle, NY) in
times of strife (late ’80s) who stumbled into a magical forest (The
East Village) filled with mythical creatures (The Spin Doctors!) and
horrible monsters (alcohol, drugs, Milo Z, Coney Island High) who has
ultimately triumphed (401K, Health, Dental) and can now return to the
real world (affordable apartment) a hero (alive, disease free) albeit
with some battle wounds (single, poor).
Or am I the piano making the cacophonous noise and the Battery
Maritime building is the portal out of New York telling me I can only
afford to live in Staten Island and the noise is the sound of
everyone whining that the city has become too expensive to live in
and the strings are the Williamsburg hipsters – the new ‘Yuppy Scum’
and nothing really changes whether you live in the real world or in
the Real World…which is coming to Brooklyn by the way, how fucked
up is that…?
~Eileen Greene
