I go to sleep

I Go To Sleep – The Pretenders

The voices slowly spiral closer.
- ‘Is it real?’
- ‘Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t see the chest go up or down.’
- ‘It moved! Did you see that? I think she moved.’
- ‘Wait, let me just… Real careful now...’
- ‘Please refrain from touching the art!’ a kind, unwavering voice loops from across the room.
I know that voice. Calm, cool, collected, master to all the other voices in the room. My body is made of syrup. I am light-headed. All is soft and good. The voice is watching over me. I am a snail in a warm bath. I trail back to sleep.

Click. Click-click. Click-zap. Click-zap. Where did those flashes come from? For a second time I slow-motion my way out of an ocean of slumber. I carefully keep my eyes closed – bright light! – and gradually turn onto my back.
- ‘You are allowed to take pictures of the art, but please do not use flash photography!’ the voice bubbles again, gently reverberating in my cotton-candy head.

More people stop beside my bed: women, children, guided tour groups. Their breaths travel to the far depths of my subconscious. They speak English, French, Spanish. I feel the warmth of their bodies as they arch over me, the watchful eyes of the warden scrutinizing their every move.
- ‘In this work by Chu Yun we see a paid volunteer, transformed into a piece of living sculpture. Her sleep is induced by sleeping aids. The artist wants to pose questions like: What is the role of the female body in the history of art? What is the role of the museum as a platform of self-display?’
The participants are islands of enviable calm. They seem to exist in a charmed atmosphere, unperturbed by the fast pace of contemporary life or the exhibition around them, the sign on the wall of the New Museum exhibition room informs the non-guided visitor.

- ‘She looks so vulnerable.’
- ‘Not at all! She’s protected by the covers, isn’t she?’
- ‘Sure, but to be out there, for everyone to see…’
- ‘I think she’s just fine. She looks perfectly comfortable to me. Completely relaxed.’
- ‘She’s not relaxed, she’s drugged up! I think it’s weird. And a bit creepy.’
- ‘There, see? She moved again. I’m taking a picture.’
- ‘I kind of like it. And she still has the privacy of her dreams and thoughts. We might see her body sleep, but we still don’t know who she is.’
- ‘Whatever. I’d never do this. She's totally exposed.’
- ‘So what? She’s making money, isn’t she?’
- ‘Ten bucks an hour! That’s more than I make.’
- ‘Where do I sign up?’
- ‘I don’t like it.’
- ‘I wouldn’t mind a little snooze. You think there's room for one more?’

Could we perhaps turn down the volume a bit? I muse, half on my way to nowhere land again. The Art is trying to get some sleep here.

'This is Carlijn' is part of the exhibition 'The Generational: Younger Than Jesus', April 8 - July 12 2009 at the New Museum, New York City.

Going underground

Going Underground – The Jam

I love the subway. To plunge underground, burrow through the blind earth and come back up for air in a different place, I think it’s magic - however dark. Especially in wintertime. Late in the afternoon the trains are packed with heavy coats and stoic faces. They drone past bleak, dreary science fiction stations. Something is always leaking, seeping through the ceilings, leaving dark wet spots on the platforms. A concrete future of high humidity and quiet desperation. Think Blade Runner, or, better still, 1984. The subway as a brick version of Orwell’s boiled-cabbage smell. Eye contact is to be avoided at all cost while on the train. Only beggars and fanatics will try to fix their eyes on yours, looking to dig out the soul inside for fast cash or salvation. To answer the call of the crazy is at one’s own risk. The message of the commuting crowd is clear. You keep to yourself or you’re on your own.

I am on my way home. Above ground, an icy January afternoon is paper cutting its way through the streets. Underground I find line 1, the local train that stops at every station from South Ferry to 96th Street, where I get off. At Lincoln Center a young family gets on board: a man and a woman in their late twenties, and a toddler. The boy wraps himself around his mother’s legs and presses up against her as the doors close and the train starts moving.

The man takes a deep breath and clears his throat. ‘Can I have a moment of your attention please?’

As I am writing this, there are 100.000 homeless in New York City, 75.000 of whom are families roaming the streets. Couples with children, single parents, pregnant women. Every night there is room for 38.000 individuals somewhere in the city’s shelter system. Some 34.000 people are eligible for financial and other assistance from the New York Department of Homeless Services – a wonderful initiative to get people back on their feet, says the government. Just another temporary scheme to keep the poor out of sight, say the critics.

‘My name is John,’ the man says. ‘This is my wife Samantha, and the little man down there’s our son Michael. I am a technical engineer. I was laid off four months ago. We lost our home four weeks ago. The Department of Homeless Services is providing us with shelter, and for the time being they are paying for my wife’s tuition.’ The man speaks in a low voice, but I am pretty sure everyone in the car has heard him. When he mentions his wife, I can’t help but look at her. She nods in recognition as she looks back at me, and then continues to look at everybody in the car. One by one. ‘We are very grateful for their help. It means we have a roof over our heads, at least for now, and food every day. What we need is a future. I need work. I need to buy diapers for my son. I want to be able to buy flowers for my wife. If there is anyone who can help us out…’ I look around me. All eyes are on the couple. By the time the train starts slowing down for the next stop, nearly everyone has reached into their wallets. One dollar bills, five dollar bills, business cards. ‘Call my office in the morning,’ one man says as he gets off the train. ‘Maybe we can work something out.’ He pulls up the collar of his coat, puts his hands deep in his pockets and disappears to the nearest exit, outside, skyward.

Love in an elevator

Love In An Elevator - Aerosmith

I am staying in today. It’s time to conquer the proofread that has been staring at me all week. Nonetheless, procrastination demands that laundry be done first. For the second time this morning I flip-flop into the elevator and push the button for sub-ground level C1 – off to collect a first round of clean clothes in the laundry room. There’s a boy and a girl already inside, going down. I give them a nod of neighborly recognition and settle into the far corner.

As the door closes, the boy says: ‘It just grosses me out to see two people all over each other like that in public.’ Me, too! I think. Nothing worse than having to endure a couple of outdoor smoochers – it’s the kind of thing you really can’t tolerate unless you’re the one actually doing it. The girl isn’t pleased. She snorts at him and says: ‘Hmph. You know, some people like to see other people happy.’ There is something in the girl’s tone of voice that isn’t as mild as it could have been. The boy seems oblivious to the undertow in her comment. He flounders on: ‘Yeah, well it grossed me right out of the room.’
They both fall silent for a bit after that. Ten, nine, eight… The boy moves his lips as he helps the elevator count down the floors. But the girl is brooding. When we pass the fifth floor, she has reached a decision. ‘I am giving you a two week warning,’ she announces. ‘After that, if you’re still the same person, I’m gonna start seeing other people.’

A two week warning? Fortunately, the boy knows the idiom. ‘You mean you’re gonna see that other guy again?’ Oh boy, I think, here it comes. ‘No, it’s not the guy you know about. It’s someone else,’ the girl says matter-of-factly. The boy nods. And that’s the end of it. Four, three, two… I guess there is really nothing more to say. But shouldn’t some kind of further explanation be required? Where are the hot tears of misinterpretation? They both seem to understand perfectly what turn their love affair is taking from here. I, on the other hand, am left struggling. I speak the language, I hear the words, but I have no idea what just happened. Did they break up just now or didn't they? Is he planning to be a changed man in two weeks? Will he start seeing other people, too? Not as of now, mind you! Not for another fourteen days. And then what? She won’t mind him being the same guy he always was as long as they’re not exclusive? He won’t mind her dating other guys as long as it’s been properly announced?

The elevator touches ground level. The boy gestures for me to step out first, but no, I am going further down. ‘Oh, right, you’re just hanging,’ the boy states as they dart past me, into the lobby. The door closes again, and I’m off to a decidedly flooded laundry room with a superintendant shaking his head in dismay at a machine filled with my still dripping delicates. Why would I be hanging out in an elevator? I wonder. Is that something people do around here? Or was the boy trying to tell me something else? Was he in fact including me in yet another coded message, well understood by the locals, but completely lost on me? And if so, how will I ever know what it all means?

Almost Cut My Hair

Almost Cut My Hair - Crosby, Stills & Nash

It’s two thirty on a Thursday afternoon, somewhere halfway through December. I figured it was time to get myself some New Yorkian career hair, and have ended up in a somewhat expensive salon on the second floor of a building on 35th Street and Broadway. My assigned stylist sighs as she rakes a comb through my hair, thoroughly unimpressed with the result of 20 years of do-it-yourself dye. I decide to take the fifth and slowly sink into a slumber as she works her magic. ‘So I say to him,’ the ageless lady in one of the chairs behind me suddenly honks, stirring me from my haircut stupor. ‘I say, not Martha’s Vineyard again! I want to do something fun for our anniversary for a change!’ The lady is quacking away at her reflection in the mirror. With a seasoned flick of the wrist she downs a glass of champagne. The assistant-stylist rushes to refill her flute as she waves it in his general direction. To keep up with the ageless look of her oldest daughter, the lady must at all times feel at least one and a half times younger than she actually is. And have a weekly ritual drop-by at her stylist.

The stylist standing behind her chair struggles to angle a pair of scissors into the flawless do – to no avail. The lady has so much to talk about that it makes her head shake. From the moment she stilted into the shop and set off on her endless anecdote, it was the already coiffed friend in the chair next to her who has been listening so intently she seems transfixed to her seat. The stylist, secretly pining for the friend’s petrified head, barely manages to dodge the lady’s right ear. He decides to step back and wait for a window of peace and quiet.

‘I mean, our surgeon friend X gave me the new insides of my thighs for crying out loud,’ the lady seems to wrap up her story on a revealing note. I am on the edge of my seat, hanging on to every word. The friend has started to nod triumphantly. She starts: ‘I know, I had the…’ But before she can finish her intro she is cut short by the lady. ‘Then again, I deserved a present after my little incident the other day,’ she natters on good-naturedly. The undisputed queen of mini-pause.

The stylist lets out a near inaudible sigh, only noticed by his shoulders. Overpowered once more. He routinely waves the scissors over the lady’s head a couple more times before he holds up his little mirror and declares: ‘There. All done. What do you think?’

‘Perfect’, announces the lady. The friend nods in agreement. The two women slowly sink into their chairs. The lady steals one more glance at the mirror. She raises her hand to rake it through her hair, but changes her mind in mid-lift. The fingers hover, aimlessly stuck at shoulder-hight. They tremble a little. A vain rivers its way to the hem of her blouse, changing its course every time she moves a tendon. The lady swallows hard; the image disappears. Did anyone else notice? The stylist is staring stoically into oblivion, the friend seems to be studying her nails. With an unexpectedly swift turn, the lady's gaze suddenly meets mine. Caught in the act! I am so startled my head jerks to one side in abrupt panic-reflex. ‘Don’t ever do that again!’ I hear my stylist hiss. I stumble an apology, then carefully glance back at the lady. I’ll never tell!, I pray she reads the vow in my terrified stare. I try a feeble smile. The lady glares at me long and hard. Then she draws a careful breath, winks at me and turns away from me. ‘Sure, why not – I’ll have another sip’, she continues to steer her glass towards the assistant. One more ageless year.

Smiling Coyote

Coyote – Joni Mitchell (feat. The Band)

Smiling Coyote is freelance writer, translator and editor Carlijn Urlings. As a master in philosophy and Dutch literature Carlijn spent eight years in Rotterdam (aka The Dutch Manhattan) working as a copywriter, editor and communications teacher. In November 2008 she and her sweetheart traded in Rotterdam for that other Manhattan.
A B1/B2 tourist visa in one hand, and a suitcase filled with her favorite books and high heels in the other, she landed in the upper west side of New York City, where she now lives and works as a freelancer, a piece of art, a lab rat, a gastronaut, and a people watcher. In these blogs she observes small town adventures in the big city.

Resume (ga voor een Nederlandstalig cv naar Lachende Wolven)