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A
Handmade Museum
Excerpt
The
Bowery Project is centered on the observations of activities
that occurred and of objects that appeared on a brief
section of the Bowery between Second Street and Houston,
an area that contains the remnants of SRO (single room
occupancy) hotels and the remains of the 1890s Bowery
that are slated to be demolished by The Cooper Square
Development Plan in the next year. There are several
endangered historic spaces: the artists' co-op (Kate
Millett lives there) that used to be McGurk's Suicide
Hall (so called because of the numerous suicides by
prostitutes that took place there. According to Luc
Sante's Low Life, in one sample year, 1899, at least
six suicides took place), the Sunshine Hotel, and various
soup kitchens are on the line. To date, the residents
of McGurk's are fighting to preserve their building,
which is an important landmark in women's history.
I lived a block from this section and traveled through
it daily. My intent was not to romanticize the suffering
or demonize the Bowery or its residents, but rather
observe the changes the Bowery was currently undergoing
and to write about my own dilemma and identification
as a citizen one paycheck away from the street.
The Bowery Project involves experiments in public character
as inspired by Jane Jacobs in her landmark attack on
urban planning in The Death and Life of Great American
Cities. Jacobs defines a public character as the person
on the street who knows everyone and whom everyone knows;
this person serves as the eyes on the street, and thus
lends cohesion to the community and serves to prevent
crime.
Another book that I took inspiration from was Sidewalk
by Mitchell Duneier, a five-year study of the lives
of black men who sell used books and magazines on Sixth
Avenue. Duneier draws upon Jacobs's insight into the
use of sidewalks and the role of public characters.
So I began to think about the possibility of leaving
the anonymity of the page and becoming a public character,
that is, a public poet. The results of two of my experiments
in public character are included in "The Bowery
Project."
-Brenda
Coultas, August 6, 2002
The Bowery Project
An
Experiment in Public Character
The
movie star lives in an old furniture store with huge
display windows covered with gold blinds. If you look
up, you can see the tops of his closets through the
2nd-floor window and you say to yourself with awe, those
are the suits of a famous man, those are the wire hangers
and sleeves of a famous man.
The
Bowery Plan goes something like this: there are explosions
and condos arise Las Vegas-like from the smoke. There
are floodlights and fireworks or helium balloon races
or ribbons cut or ground broken with ceremonial shovels
or trees wrapped in yellow ribbons or butterflies, freshly
hatched, flying out of boxes. That is the mayor's plan,
however mine is different, mine includes groupings of
tables and chairs and hanging plants, all portable,
public gardens and open houses and a faux suicide reenactment
by 5 bungee-jumping squatters at McGurk's Suicide Hall.
Do
you remember the stone soup story, how a beggar came
to town and began to boil water? Well, bring me a potato.
Bring me a story.
I'm
not a public character nor do I sleep in open spaces
or sleep on bum bed pads in public; rather I sleep and
toilet in private and think of public spaces. Inside
I eat it all and Sal, our homeless, says he's drinking
it all in before heading to Las Vegas. I'll miss our
homeless although we don't do anything for him.
Don't
like to be touched by ghosts except for invisible ones,
not cloudy kinds where you can make out the entire face
and hear them speak. Bowery Bum ghosts are real people
although they sleep in rooms made of chicken wire. They
are not apparitions of McGurk's Suicide Hall or tenement
life circa 1900.
I
squatted down to touch gray Gap T-shirt on street outside
Bowery Bar. I'd just seen an ad of 6 real people wearing
same gray T-shirt, thought I could wear this one. Was
damp with a liquid, got repulsed, dropped it.
I
take a break from the Bowery, on train to Hamptons to
see our Joe and Janice. Couple fighting, young man with
expensive gangster-rapper pants, hand-tooled 70s belt,
two silver mouth studs, perfectly in-your-face Hampton's
punk-gangster chic, saying to plain girl, "This
is the worst day of my life, you miserable bitch."
Dumpster
outside Fisher Sheet Music store.
Can't see into it, must be climbed.
Double-high
red dumpster with office debris and a promising office
chair, green leather & metal. Circa early industrial
60s, half buried in the rubble. (Astor Place & Lafayette.)
Trash
can by Film Anthology; a bright patterned dress pulled
out with fingers, label looked expensive, got creeped
out, dropped on rim of can, walked on. (2nd St. &
2nd Ave.)
I
have been obsessed with chairs lately. Mostly random
chairs and sitting spots, a hidden surprise plastic
Adirondack chair by creek, groups of chairs as if in
conversation therefore a need for close physical proximity.
In restaurants, if you are one person you cannot sit
at the 4-top or 6-top; you must sit at the 2-top and
they remove the other place setting but leave the chair
intact. In photographs of my dad's barn I notice chairs
where before I used to notice cats. This time only one
cat appears. Up in the hayloft are rockers with missing
woven reed seats and a couch that I covered with a sheet
against the bird droppings, a great place to sit and
look out the window. That is what I do best, sit and
look out windows.
Woke
up seeing garbage with new eyes and new fresh attitude.
Felt transcendental all day.
In
order to transform into a public character I need to
claim a public space. I will sit in a chair in the Bowery
at the same place and time for a season and participate
and expedite street life. I'm going to dump it all in,
everything that occurs to me or everything I see. That
will be my data, my eyes upon the street; the firsthand
observation of this last bum-claimed space, a small
record before the wrecking ball arrives. I'm taking
only pen and notepad. Everything I truly need will appear-I'm
not an archaeologist, but am a studier of persons and
documenters of trails. (Bowery & 1st St.)
She
said he lives here, pointing at the green building,
and I said what is he like?
"Intense," she said.
I said, thinking about his photographs and how he carves
words into his prints, "For a person like that
it must be hard to be in the world."
"Yes," she said.
I thought about the emotion of his pictures.
I said, "You can't see inside."
We walked on. (Bleeker & Bowery)
I've
cultivated a joy of dumpsters out of necessity, romanticized
dumpster diving in order to make hunting and gathering
interesting. I had a good attitude until recently. I've
become ashamed, developed a fear of being yelled at
for disturbing the recycling. That's where I get my
magazines. Some people say "You love garbage, I've
seen you get so excited about it." But really,
it's just a glamorous pose.
I
used to dream of yard sales, where I was the first person
there and every collectable I ever desired was on the
table, but I had to grab them before the others arrived.
I trembled, I tremble in real life before the good stuff.
A
Bowery Bum asked "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
He burped loudly in my ear. Later he asked me to look
up at the sun where he had written his name, then to
hug him. I did both. Why do I listen to Bowery Bums?
Peacock
fan chair on sidewalk. Another peacock chair lying in
vacant lot next to wet, matted rat.
No
notable garbage today despite big pile of rubble from
the destruction of a collapsed building on 2nd and Houston.
Big blue dumpster hauled to the scene. Would I see anything
worth recording? Will I have access to that dumspter
or will it remain behind the cops' yellow ribbon?
Later
remembered sadly that I hadn't thought about my revolutionary
idea of surprise chairs in public space. Or the accidental
overlooking of sitting space, such as rails without
spikes, or bum-friendly stoops like Joe's where Sal
lives. This is a new plan, reverse musical chairs. The
number of chairs increases every time there's a pause
in the honking, holey mufflers, brakes squealing, cell
phone conversations, sirens wailing and humans crying.
A new chair appears. The point of the game: to seat
everyone. The point is that there is a seat for everyone.
II
Orange
chair, 70s, metal legs; dirt ring in plastic seat; Apple
color printer; metal cig machine on top of dumpster,
front opened; air conditioner without a shell. (February
8, 2001, Bowery & 2nd St.)
Wooden
canvas cot folded up and chairs grouped by a fire hydrant
and a man explaining the function of formerly everyday
objects because we couldn't understand anymore and we
couldn't even see how the body fit into them nor how
they could possibly serve it. There was a metal dish
on a stand. It was a nurse's basin, he explained. I
examined it, turning it over.
There was a long metal cylinder lying on the ground.
"Is that an iron lung?"
"No, that's a midcentury Electrolux."
Puddle
of puke. (March 1, 2000, Bowery & 1st St.)
We
were talking about the garbage in the 1970s before people
got black plastic bags and ruined it. He said you couldn't
window-shop big trash night anymore. There was no way
to see what was inside the plastic without opening it.
He said you should have seen it before, copper pots
and pans, designer bric-a-brac, china, crystal, the
clothes from Bloomingdale's, no less! All in plain sight.
He said imagine the castoffs of the Upper East Side!
What glorious days.
Someone
said if you had a million dollars I know you'd still
work, that's the kind of person you are. What kind of
person is that? Then I was very angry at myself for
working as if I were a millionaire.
This
will be my museum. I'll put it all down here on the
page, a portable museum of the 1890s and the 1990s on
the Bowery, better'n film, no pocket projectors invented
yet, but real words to be copied and read and I write
slow cause I expect to live a long time.
What
I saw on the Bowery: A bum sitting in an early 20th-century
vault, a small vault, front door missing, on its back
filled with water and trash and now, a bum drinking
out of bag, his ass firmly planted, his arms and legs
sticking out. That's what I saw, a resourceful response
to chairlessness.
An
Experiment in Misery
"It
was late at night, and a fine rain was swirling softly
down," wrote Stephen Crane. "That is when
I began this experiment in misery." I lived on
skid row in Los Angeles in a Bukowski-esque building.
I was 20 and a welder by trade, left Firestone Steel,
took Greyhound to Los Angeles because in all the articles
I had ever read that's where everyone lived. And I had
never been much outside the state, knew no one who had
been, other than for war.
All
the mental hospitals had been emptied out due to a tax
cut and there were crazies everywhere or rather more
so than usual. On two separate occasions insane persons
asked if I had seen her/his identical twin and both
showed me a photograph of themselves sans glasses, and
said "She/he looks just like me only without glasses."
I hung out with an old bum who was a maintenance man
at the theater where I worked, who seemed normal but
must have gone on long binges where he burned all his
bridges. In 1978 I was the elevator operator and wore
a bandbox hat and jacket with double rows of brass buttons
in a club dedicated to reviving vaudeville. The club's
most popular act was the original singer of "Tiptoe
through the Tulips," a spunky 80-year-old who played
a ukulele.
We
went to The Old Pantry restaurant where bums and regular
folks lined up to get in, but the bums, who saved up
their change all week long, appreciated the bounty the
most. Meals were served family style and relish trays
of carrot and celery sticks, endless bread, big portions
of meat were on every table. There were portraits of
the waiters with their years of service listed on the
wall. I lived in a sudio apartment with a Murphy bed
and free roaches. Rent was $125 a month and I was the
greenest person ever to live there.
Flowers and graffiti at CBGBs for Joey Ramone. (May
1, 2001, Bleeker & Bowery)
A
tour guide was standing in front, he was saying that
it was better to tear down a building than to allow
the residents, artists and writers, to live in it paying
below market rates. He said that this was his personal
opinion and did not represent the views of the Bowery
Tour Guide Service.
2
homeless, relaxing inside a cardboard box 20 ft. away.
(June 9, 2001, 295 Bowery)
A
church lady rakes through trash for goods, man asleep
on sidewalk. (Noonish, June 10, 2001, 1st St. &
2nd Ave.)
A
lady sitting down in street said, "I like your
scarf." Saleswoman said, "I like your shirt."
And man walking by said, "That's the second one
today." Man on the ground said, "Take me home."
Then a man growled and flung a suitcase around in the
air. (June 12, 2001)
Two
Eames rockers with footstools in a Brooklyn dumpster
on Remsen St. I walked by, paused, then walked by again
to see if they were really Eameses. A man with white
hair said they were original, but no one wanted to pay
to have the springs repaired. I climbed to the top,
pushed the trash around, trying to decide if they were
worth calling home about, heard movement in the bottom,
jumped down. I told myself I never really liked Eames
rockers. They were uncomfortable, squeaky, and I didn't
have room at home for more broken things. (June 15,
2001, Brooklyn)
The Rat and the Flowerpot
The
rat was lying under the window beside shards of my flowerpot
and cactus plant on concrete. Some of the shards were
on top of the rat. I have some plants on the windowsill
one floor up and often find the roots dug up and flower
bulbs stolen, thought it was a squirrel. Maybe it was
this rat? He was heavy, obese. Maybe he fell and then
the pot landed on top? The plant's water dish was still
intact on the ledge. Maybe the fall killed the rat?
Could a rat climb a brick wall 30 feet up? Why would
a rat eat roots with so much fresh garbage on the ground?
Could a squirrel have knocked the pot off the ledge
just as the rat was walking underneath? What are the
odds of the squirrel offing the rat? I couldn't quite
put the narrative together. Then I was drunk and still
I could not solve the situation. (June 2, 2001, 75 E.
2nd St.)
New
machine on street, red body and silver feed shoot. I
studied it. Someone said it was June 8, and the year
was 01. (Houston & Bowery.)
Walking on the Lower East Side
I'm
the life-sized rag doll strapped to my master's shoes
dancing salsa in the subway. I'm naked in camouflage
paint as a minor detail in a mural of Selena. I'm a
brick from the former 5th street squat, I'm a flattened
cobblestone you can't see cuz of the trompe l'oeil.
Look at me, I'm a white puffy cloud, and now I'm the
letters of smoke from a skywriting plane. (February
8, 2001)
Some Public Characters
Old
Man Yearby, my grandpa, was a public character in his
own grocery store with coal stove, big brass cash register
and glass candy case. Inside were bonbons, horehound
candy shaped like bacon strips, stick candy in a jar.
He spent afternoons in a lawn chair by the meat case,
cutting bologna, making onion salad in a cup, and swatting
flies. His dog was public too. Minnie Yearby wore glasses,
sat upright, smoked cigars, and made change.
My
whole tribe/nation of my mother's side, my grandpa and
uncles were all public (politicians) characters. They
named our village after us, Yearbyville. You could just
say your name and "put it on credit." You
could just say, "I'm a Yearby," and be on
your way.
Then
my parents had a country store, the Midway Market, and
we went by my father's name. We were the public Coultases
living in full view of the school bus, doing homework
and drinking pop in lawn chairs in our place of business.
I
thought marriage would be my most public act and performance
or my baptism or once when I had taken an oath to defend
the public or when I was a Girl Scout pledging to do
my best to honor God and my country, and once when I
was in the newspaper because I was a welder and a fashion
model, and then I got stalked, and once when they used
to call me Puffy Coultas.
Bum Stash: Early 21st Century
The
lot had been emptied by the police/city who put up a
new fence and padlock, took down the trees and crops,
and replaced soil with gravel. This year some crops
pushed up again. Objects returned, this time under plastic,
a long, low stick of furniture with nine drawers, one
missing, a yellow mustard color. Someone built a lean-to
from mattresses, not steady, and positioned a hubcap
to shelter a plant from sun. Someone collected the brass
number 5, strung it on a wire, and someone added a brown,
chipped water pitcher.
Later
observed in secret, a man with magenta hair, adding
objects he found on the street. I saw him sitting on
a broken rowing machine and then on a broken stationary
bike; the exercise equipment rested on the gravel. When
he left he locked the gate with his own working lock.
Bum
stash tore apart. Lean-to pushed over, same objects,
but did the police or the magenta man tear it all down?
(May 15, 2001)
Lot
cleared and new gravel laid down, an orange shopping
cart chained to fence.
(May 25, 2001)
Orange
shopping cart unchained and rolled to street corner,
miniature boxed pie and particle board inside basket.
(June 10, 2001, 2nd & 1st)
Two
white 70s appliances/ On one corner, washer with an
oval window in the door, laundry inside w/ brown mold/
on the other corner, dryer./ No one can write much nowadays
because it takes money/ in the 70s people wrote all
the time/ now we don't have room to lay it all out,
so lay parts at a time, pick them up and then lay some
more/ I iron and bake that way and try to think of things
to do for money/ crochet and knit/ sell blood and hair/
pick garbage for copper and aluminum. When my husband
left, I thought I could start to lay it out, move it
around, until an alchemy took hold. /So I laid it all
out: 2 super 8s, a 35 mm, found photos, books of the
Bowery, poetry, and there was lots of poetry. / Artifacts,
flattened bottle caps, rusted cans, early tin cans,
many interesting screws and bolts, sometimes found machines
in enamel green, and sometimes bobbins and thread. /
I laid it all out/ stared at it/ moved it/ talked to
myself about it/ read it all again/ waited/ nothing
happened. / I put it all back. (April 27, 2001, 75 E.
2nd St.)
Diorama
An
army of Wal-Mart shoppers in flag motif sweatshirts
block the aisle. This is a year of flag displacement.
Dear
Diorama,
I'm swimming in a pool of milk becoming butter as we
speak.
Dearest
Diorama,
I have a dream complete with dirt and sage. It's a Texas
of the mind. Life-sized. It's all in my head: a whole
landscape made up, crushed and turned to powder. It's
a new filmstrip of the West: a bullet of multiple calibers.
It's a prickly pear and a sagebrush. A lonesome toothbrush
under the pines. I have a Waco of the mind. I'm an army
of Jonestown myself. It's in my pants. You know all
of it is in my trousers. All of Jonestown is at my lips.
I have a little vacation villa set on the edge of the
jungle. All of my weapons are secreted there.
We
passed the bullets around each taking a bite. The steel
between teeth, the chips fell. Empty shell, where you
from? No answer. Just a hollow core. A bullet with open
mouth, a toothless bullet speaking at the public.
Please
be my secret agent.
My A & T & F agent.
My F & B & I informant.
My C & I & A covert operator.
Please be my public servant.
My most private pubic serpent.
I
have a box of childs of all shapes and sizes for sale.
Some in wheelchairs or still nursing. Some to go or
some to stay. Do you want to eat them here?
The
children ride in large beetle-shaped carts with faces
painted on the front. They ride in a circle around a
large toadstool. As for myself, I ride a cart pulled
by dogs. It's a good cart with fine, strong dogs straining
against the leather. A bark here and a bark there. Up,
up, and over the hills and through the midway we go.
We are very unusual and good at being who we are but
no one will pay to see us.
One
day I was out walking and came upon a small container
of Janet Reno. She wears a nurse's cape and white starched
hat. She wears enough white to pass for Elizabeth Dole.
Janet is living in a box. She's in the shape of a TV.
All the world is on my TV. World, get off my TV. World,
are you listening? World, get off my TV. Well, if you
won't get off then please change the channel.
I
need a dream to give me some peace.
If I had money, I'd have some peace.
I had 400 dollars once and it gave me some peace.
If I had 450 dollars I'd really be peaceful. Please
give!
I
was swimming in a pool of milk becoming butter when
they approached. They offer 2 childs per milk. I was
very busy making the right sort of smooth stroke necessary.
I said someone give the childs milk. Someone come get
them. Please, please give these childs a home. The Davidians
offer 2 meats with toast. Do I want 1 egg or 2? I'm
in a shape of Texas.
I'm
in a shape of America, come and get me.
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