Hey, it’s a new column! A web exclusive from our friend and yours, Arwen Curry. And there’s more where this came from, so stay tuned to this website…
Hello Again
“I feel no pain.”
—The Guilloteens, “Call on Me” (Memphis, TN, 1965)
“I feel the pain.”
—Big Star, “Try Again” (Memphis, TN, 1972)
I know it’s been a while since you’ve heard from me, but can we just not talk about it? I’m always working on three movies and one book. I always have a new band probably. Half of my friends moved to New York or L.A., and it’s sometimes hard to focus when they don’t come around to sit on the stoop. I had my reasons, and you’ve moved on, and that’s OK. But now I have my reasons again, so I hope you’ll read along. I missed you.
So let me tell you about New York earlier this summer. One night toward the end of my stay I went to see a band that used to be from Memphis. I ran into my friends playing foosball in the basement of the club. I was glad to see them, but I didn’t want to be in the basement, although the lighting was nice. They were engaged. Everyone was engaged. I’d spent hours walking up and down Broadway in the rain looking for red shoes to wear while preceding Megan down the aisle when I got home. Congratulations, Megan and John! I was learning to make boutonnieres from tutorials on the internet.
Upstairs, nobody was dancing, even though it was that kind of band. Their sound connects directly to major nerves. It’s organ-rich. Listening to the records, you can feel the heartbeats of the people in the crowd that must be gathering outside the studio to beat time with their heads against the doors. But now the band seemed tired, either that or just not loud enough; it was hard to tell. Their faces were etched, like caricatures of musicians, and their weariness, if it was weariness, made me want to take them out for milkshakes and fries. After a while, though, it became clear that it was not weariness but steadiness. They were in it for the full ride.
Still from Rudy Burckhardt's "Under the Brooklyn Bridge" from 1953
The dance floor thawed. Everybody was grinning, sweaty, packed in like sardines. The guy behind me seemed to be dancing pretty close, seemed to be touching me, was definitely touching me, lightly on the hips, like we were posing for a prom picture. It was a strangely anachronistic way to be touched. Was it just creepy, or also exciting? I couldn’t tell. I turned to face the groper and found him modestly good-looking, a total stranger. What the hell is this, I asked with my eyebrows. He smiled and shrugged. Pretty, he mouthed. The band wasn’t breaking a sweat. A gorgeous punk rock girl from San Francisco reached out her hand. I took it and danced off into the crowd. People, you can’t omit both a pronoun and a verb and still expect strangers to make out with you.
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