Some Ramblings on "The Block"
Neighborhood Narratives “Performance Art? on the Block”
33rd and Pearl is the beginning part of the block that Luke and I chose. It’s where a MOVE Organization shoot-out occurred, one police officer was killed, before I was born. My parents lived down the street from the house and remember having to show their IDs to police officers to be able to cart wagon-fulls of their goods to and from home as my father was moving in at the time. 33rd and Pearl, incidentally, is also a block away from where I grew up and recognition of this as a major point was somehow slow to come to me(where my father was moving in = where I grew up). Now, how does this, in turn, relate to Luke? And how does this translate as a visual, relatable art form?--which then, in turn, relates to the block in it’s present state? One of my ex boyfriends lived at 33rd and Pearl(Yuri). I filmed a video on the street of 33rd and Pearl. I used to skate board down 33rd and Pearl. It was the tiny two way street that shouldn’t be two way, it should be one way. “To avoid accidents.”
There was a shotty car repair place there, I never trusted it, even before I understood what it meant to “trust” a car repair place.
I always liked the tiny little block. Somehow, with it’s dirt and mess and broken down homes, I found it to be friendly. Maybe because I knew my friends and I could play in the street, without worry, because cars rarely frequented it. Or, they did, but they always went slowly---the drivers probably wondering whether or not they were traveling in the proper direction on this “one way street” (It isn’t one way, driver). The street was kind of like looking at the underside of some mahogany table and finding that the bottom is unfinished and somebody stuck gum on it. The street at 33rd and Baring, one block down, is clean and elegant. Big homes and families.
Pearl has two homes, and some large unattended to backyards. Garbage. An incomplete, bumpy tarmac. Un-usable brick sidewalks, cracked and broken and, in the rain, muddy. I didn’t know Yuri then, but I did know his home. Tarnished. Piles of garbage, an old car covered in all sorts of collected crap—buried in it’s chain link fence garage.
Years later I met Yuri, who lived in that home, I went out with him for a short time. Turns out that his father collects garbage, predominately old toys, but all sorts of things. And the inside of the house wasn’t much different than the outside. Full of toys glued to the walls and ceilings and floors, various pieces of plastic, metal, garbage, shaped into an art form and covering the inside of the house. Christmas lights. Pictures. I remember thinking, “I could NEVER live here” though I was fascinated by it. Turns out neither could they, Yuri and his parents moved a year after I met them. To a different part of University City. I haven’t seen any of them in years, though my friend has caught glimpses of them, says they’re still around in the city, still in University City.
...
That's where I stopped...and that still doesn't explain what it is we're going to do. I have some ideas, but I want these ideas to be relevant and in relation to the Block, Luke and I and relatable to both past and present...and future? Why not?
Hm.
33rd and Pearl is the beginning part of the block that Luke and I chose. It’s where a MOVE Organization shoot-out occurred, one police officer was killed, before I was born. My parents lived down the street from the house and remember having to show their IDs to police officers to be able to cart wagon-fulls of their goods to and from home as my father was moving in at the time. 33rd and Pearl, incidentally, is also a block away from where I grew up and recognition of this as a major point was somehow slow to come to me(where my father was moving in = where I grew up). Now, how does this, in turn, relate to Luke? And how does this translate as a visual, relatable art form?--which then, in turn, relates to the block in it’s present state? One of my ex boyfriends lived at 33rd and Pearl(Yuri). I filmed a video on the street of 33rd and Pearl. I used to skate board down 33rd and Pearl. It was the tiny two way street that shouldn’t be two way, it should be one way. “To avoid accidents.”
There was a shotty car repair place there, I never trusted it, even before I understood what it meant to “trust” a car repair place.
I always liked the tiny little block. Somehow, with it’s dirt and mess and broken down homes, I found it to be friendly. Maybe because I knew my friends and I could play in the street, without worry, because cars rarely frequented it. Or, they did, but they always went slowly---the drivers probably wondering whether or not they were traveling in the proper direction on this “one way street” (It isn’t one way, driver). The street was kind of like looking at the underside of some mahogany table and finding that the bottom is unfinished and somebody stuck gum on it. The street at 33rd and Baring, one block down, is clean and elegant. Big homes and families.
Pearl has two homes, and some large unattended to backyards. Garbage. An incomplete, bumpy tarmac. Un-usable brick sidewalks, cracked and broken and, in the rain, muddy. I didn’t know Yuri then, but I did know his home. Tarnished. Piles of garbage, an old car covered in all sorts of collected crap—buried in it’s chain link fence garage.
Years later I met Yuri, who lived in that home, I went out with him for a short time. Turns out that his father collects garbage, predominately old toys, but all sorts of things. And the inside of the house wasn’t much different than the outside. Full of toys glued to the walls and ceilings and floors, various pieces of plastic, metal, garbage, shaped into an art form and covering the inside of the house. Christmas lights. Pictures. I remember thinking, “I could NEVER live here” though I was fascinated by it. Turns out neither could they, Yuri and his parents moved a year after I met them. To a different part of University City. I haven’t seen any of them in years, though my friend has caught glimpses of them, says they’re still around in the city, still in University City.
...
That's where I stopped...and that still doesn't explain what it is we're going to do. I have some ideas, but I want these ideas to be relevant and in relation to the Block, Luke and I and relatable to both past and present...and future? Why not?
Hm.
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