Swoon'd

On a recent stroll down both memory and Bergen Ln. I met an ex-girlfriend, Liz, for a cup of coffee and a little chitting and a little chatting. She happened to be in the enwhysee and I happened to live in the enwhysee, this worked out well for our coffee-getting plans.

Unfortunately I, being the baby New Yorker that I am, did not know that there were in fact TWO bergen stops, one on the lime green G train (yes the very same crosstown Brooklyn train of ill-repute) and one on the 1,2,3 near flatbush. I emerged from the stop and found that the once drizzle was now made out of cats and dogs. So there I stood beneath an awning of a Dunkin' Donuts, miserable, wet, cold, waiting. Thinking and thinking that Liz would materialize like extra bars on my dying cellphone. Neither would come to pass.

We discovered my blunder and realized that the fastest way for me to get to her was to walk seven blocks. I purchased an umbrella from a tiny asian lady in a shop smothered in dollarful junk. She laughed at my dripping hairs, I grimaced at the prices of all but one umbrella. Having purchased it, I emerged onto the road and into my slushy expedition through Park Slope.

Three quarters of the way to Liz I was pleasantly surprised by this:


It was, yes, a piece of paper pasted to a tiny metal door that maybe went to Narnia (hmm two mentions of narnia in as many days...) but probably went to some industrialated parking lot. I swept my brains aside and sloshstepped in front of several moving vehicles to see if I was correct in my assumptions. It was a piece by swoon(!!!) the cutout artist who wheatpastes her work all over Brooklyn not to mention has a piece in the MoMA and an exhibit in the Brooklyn Gallery.

I blithered my way down the street to meet Liz and brought her back to appreciate what I'd found. we fixed the piece's face and got a close up. She looked like this:

It was too close to swoon to not be. The smudged outlines and sepia paper. The tight persepectives. The intricate cuts. I was, and still am, buzzing with static.


As a baby New Yorker I've been determined to frown the bricks and avoid the blathering crowds and crowds. And yet moments like this occur, in which I step down from my Virginian high horse and taste the grit and gumption of this city made out of drear and nightlife. It was as enlightening as it was frustrating to my determination to snoot my nose at this place.

The rain stopped and I folded my umbrella to hook it to my jeansloop. Somewhere between swoon and Liz it fell out, and I didn't care.