Tag: moving

It Happens

On July 6, 2011

Today marks the 104th birthday of Frida Kahl o.

I’ve expressed my love and admiration for her work in past posts. But lately I feel a particular kinship with this most incredible of painters. She was many things through her short 47 years: wife, artist, daughter, sister, rebel, political figure. She was a supremely feminine figure as she reveled in masculine archetypes, and played with gender roles, power roles, expectations of what and how a woman “should” look and express herself, and always, always, she seemed driven by love: of craft, of country, of ideals and desires and of joining the utterly ethereal with the deeply earthy.

She was a victim of ill circumstance, health problems and outright tragedy… but she was never, ever a victim. Her paintings are so alive with her life, her experiences, her… Frida-ness, they draw you into their present moment, drowning you in a gorgeous rush of blues and greens and reds and always, always black.

I thought about Kahlo and her fierce spirit recently. A few weeks ago I had my cell phone stolen. It was taken stealthily, right out of my bag. As is to be expected, I felt stupid, angry, and violated. It was the start of me looking at New York in a different way. I’ve been coming here for years, reveling in its culture and creative spirit; I’ve never once been the victim of a crime. Why now? Why did it coincide with my three-month anniversary here? What was the universe trying to tell me? As I kept telling people online and in-person, that phone (which I got my first week living here) contained over 3,000 photographs, a visual diary for all of my experiences. Maybe it was time for the gritty sheen of the city to fade; maybe it was time to wipe the ego-driven slate clean. Maybe it was time to return to Toronto.

As I looked out over the green carpet of Central Park this past July 4th (my first in the Big Apple), two thoughts came to mind: I want to drink champagne up here, and, I want to paint up here (also: why can’t I do both?). The roars to resume painting again are growing louder, and I’m not sure what to do. All my equipment’s back in Canada. Artists have relationships with the tools of their craft, and you can’t simply go and use someone else’s and have everything be just fine. It may be a kind offer, but it’s like giving me a size 0 dress and expecting me to be comfortable. Since my phone’s been stolen, the howls to get back to using my own tools have been more shrill than ever. I come to understand my experiences through both words, and, I’ve discovered, images. The act of expressing them, moment to moment – whether photographically or with paint -is what matters, not the finished product.

So the shapes, faces, moments, all the “you would“s and the street art – all the stuff I lost and can’t leave behind – isn’t what brings comfort at the end of the day. “They’re just passing fancies… and in time may go…” This sense of living squarely in the moment (is it something akin to love?) has most keenly been experienced via culture for me -in a theater, through hearing music, seeing film, staring at art -those things that have an alive “present”-ness within them. One gives so much to art, and one gets back so much in return. Not so people; sometimes people simply take, whether figuratively, or, in the case of my long-gone phone, literally. Why cry over the past? Why cling? Seems like a recipe for terrible art, if not a terrible life.

And so, I thought of Frida: a victim of a awful circumstance, but not a victim. Horrible things happen, period. Lately it feels as if they’ve been happening to me more often than not, but there’s always tiny stars of goodness to balance it out: invites to the ballet or the theater, or the gallery or museum are always met with a sense of jubilation and glee. They feel like home – a new home, an old home. This home, NYC.

New York,
you’re a drag, a dig, a drab bitch of skulduggery
and wait-for-no-one, can-do, keep-up perversity.
You’re ragged, you’re filth,
you’re falling apart and put back together in gilded thread for the billionaires in the black SUVs. You’re thunder, lightning, sunshine, wind and rain.
I think I’ll weather you just a bit longer.

Now, if only I had my paint brushes and easel, and access to that beautiful view all the time.

“Sometimes I Feel So Happy”

By Catherine Kustanczy

On April 4, 2011

At this time last week, I was on a bus racing towards the Canadian/American border, luggage in tow and pie-eyed with worry, anxiety, sadness, and excitement. It was a strange feeling, to zoom by all the familiar sights -first the CN Tower (bathed in red in honour of the city’s various charity efforts for Japan), then the low-slung buildings and depressing box malls of the suburbs, and finally the vast vineyards of Niagara. I wasn’t sentimental so much as impatient, though I kept telling myself it was a long journey ahead – both literally, on the damn bumpy bus, and figuratively, in the oh-my-gawd-what-am-I-doing? sense.

What lit my resolve through that long, dark ride was the thought that I was seeing Patti Smith soon. Looking back on it six nights later, it feels like a beautiful illusion. Did I really ride 11 hours, sleep barely 2, haul 3 suitcases up 4 flights of stairs, madly clean for 4 hours, rest for (maybe) 1, and then run out the door 7 (or so) subway stops to (le poisson rouge)? Yes. And hallelujah.

To Japan With Love was announced a week before my departure. It featured Cibo Matto, Antony (Hegarty), Patti Smith, and Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono band, which included son Sean Lennon. I knew precious little about Yoko, but she’s always been a woman for whom I have a deep and abiding respect. It can’t be easy to live with the musty old you-broke-up-The-Beatles moniker for decades, much less the ‘Shrieking Weirdo Artist‘ one (tho I suspect she’d like that). I made sure to leave early and line up outside the Bleecker Street club for a prime spot, and soon began chatting with enthusiastic New Yorkers who not only knew Yoko’s work well, but who were big fans and admirers. One Japanese fan even identified a club across the street – Kenny’s Castaways – as being a spot where she’d played an important gig in 1974. Everything -and everyone -has a story, especially here in New York.

After 2+ hours of a cold, impatient wait, I wound up being stuck behind one of New York’s tallest and most obnoxious (oh, and gassiest) photographers. I managed to angle next to a group of cool women with similarly-small builds but gigantic oodles of rock-and-roll enthusiasm (one of whom’s husband kindly provided the photos), and they provided me with good intros to both Cibo Matto, who were on first, and Yoko Ono, who came on later. It was a refreshingly diverse crowd, with nary a hipster or glamazon to be found (though Sean Lennon’s bass-playing model-girlfriend definitely threw some good pouts). I kept pinching myself that I was standing there, though the coughing jags provided painful, regular reminders. A constant was my wish that my health could’ve been better to more fully enjoy the splendor of what was unfolding before me.

Still, the coughing took a definite backseat when Patti came on. With her long, grey-streaked hair, bright eyes, broad smile, thick socks and big army boots, she looked utterly glamorous, strong, defiant, and beautiful. Her voice was like caramel: rich, deep, solid, the sort you want to swim in through a cold, rainy evening. She and her band (which included original members Lenny Kaye and Jay Dee Daugherty, along with Tony Shanahan, as well as her daughter on piano and son on guitar) held the room’s rapt attention as they launched into slower hits, as Patti gently, elegantly reminded the audience about the purpose of the evening. She showed her annoyance with that obnoxious photographer in front of me, as her eyes flashed with anger after he kept madly snapping past the fourth song. During an angry, passionate, spit-inducing performance of “Pissing In A River” (one of my all-time favorites), Patti folded her hands, bowed her grand head, and went… somewhere else. Somewhere very deep within herself physically, occupying a private space within a public context, showing herself to be both deeply theatrical and deeply veneered, all at once. Captivating.

As the soft, meandering guitar-rich intro for “Beneath The Southern Cross” was played, I let out a huge, audible sigh, clasping my hands together and shutting my eyes: “Oh to be / not anyone / gone / this maze of being / skin…” When I opened them, Patti Smith was looking at me and smiling. I still recall that look almost a week later. We held that gaze for a while and something in me said, don’t look away. Maybe it was a test. Maybe not. Later on, I exchanged a smile with Yoko, who beamed a huge, broad grin right in my direction. When Lou Reed came onstage to play a loud, fantastically raucous version of “Leave Me Alone”, us small ladies upfront couldn’t help but rock out – and it was apparent Lou liked the input. He kept extending the song, one, two, three times, a false ending, a stare with the Plastic Ono Band’s drummer, and then… more. He looked directly at me and… yep, smiled. The spirit was infectious.

Another memorable moment came when Antony and Yoko sang “I Love You, Earth” -another song that continued past its original ending, as Antony’s beautiful, eerily ethereal voice floated above the din, the sweat, and the feedback. He towered over the elfish, clearly-awed Yoko, as the two exchanged the words of the chorus, acapella: “I love you… / I love you / I love you… / I love you / I love you… earth.” At the song’s eventual end, Antony remarked, “that’s a fucking punk rock lyric.” Hell yeah. Hallelujah. A warm fuzzy goodness enveloped the room as a result and I’ll never forget the embrace he and Ono exchanged before they left the stage.

But that look from Patti -that smile, from someone I hold as a hero -quietly whispers to me a week on. It breaths an inspiration not yet discovered, an energy not yet channeled, a path barely begun but already so, so hard. It soothes all the bitter tears of homesickness, the sleepless nights of worry, the crying out for community and the sentimentality over small acts of kindness from strangers. Seeing her majestic goddess-like energy, coupled with a casual, comfortable, confident unpretentiousness, still feels like a dream. But it was real. And hearing her – being mere feet from her – my first night in New York was the best landing-gift I could’ve possibly asked for.

All photos by Jon Rosenbaum.

Benefit

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 30, 2011

In writing

My first night in New York was spent at (le poisson rouge), a fantastic live arts space in the Village. As soon as I heard the lineup announced last week for a special Japan benefit show, I knew I had to be there. It was my long-awaited chance to see Patti Smith.

Amidst moving, cleaning, and dealing with a bad cold that won’t let go, I haven’t really found the right headspace (or indeed heart-space) to blog, but I’m looking forward to sitting down, collecting my thoughts, wiping the bleary-eyed dust bunnies away, and offering up thoughts, reactions, and observations on seeing one of my very-favorite and most beloved of all artists live, mere feet away.

Right now there’s too many “to do”s and “must get”s and sneezing. My head’s too full of everything, literally and figuratively, to think straight, much less write with any clarity, but it was, for lack of a better term at the moment, a true NY experience, as the mischievously elfish Ono hugged surprise guest Lou Reed before explaining, “We’re old New Yorkers.” No kidding. I couldn’t help but let out a big whoop. Being delayed by service one-night-only service changes en route to my new home wasn’t so much an annoyance as a part of the whole grand plan of the evening. Welcome to New York indeed.

“The world is getting smaller, each passing day…”

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 21, 2011

In opera

On this, the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, this track, by the incredible Solomon Burke (who would’ve been 71 today), feels particularly apropos.

I listened to this track even as news of Libya, Japan, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Yemen, Bahrain, New Zealand, and so many more, ran (on mute) across my television, a whirlwind of flag-waving and fires, broken homes and watermarked family photos. As I watched those indescribable images, and guiltily bounced between them, email, status updates and moving arrangements, a series of thoughts presented themselves, especially one: I hate change. I mean, it’s good, but… it’s frightening. This thought coincided with another coughing jag, tied to a violent re-appearance of asthma, a condition I thought I was rid of long ago. My worries and resistance to change have taken on a suffocatingly physical form. I’m moving to a strange (if deeply beloved) city in a week’s time, and already I’m feeling pressed -for time, resource, air itself. The deep-seated worry has started about not having enough. But… enough for who? Within what context? Why am I worrying?

Grappling with freedom within the context of something new is exhilarating, if scary, both in a personal and political sense. Change isn’t comfortable, but it is a stepping stone. I had to consciously step away from the computer more than once today, turn off the telly and the radio, put the phone down and just remind myself to breathe, deeply, and frequently. And I slowly dissected what my lack of breathing-freedom really means. It’s true, we make mistakes. We’re guided by ego. We frequently accept the visible over the visionary. But the possibility for regeneration and renewal spring eternal, as befits this day, and, like the astrological sign it corresponds to, I keep ramming home the idea that change is possible, in our hearts, our heads, our homes, whether it’s the front door or the farthest corners of the globe. Or in our lungs.

The Greek historian Thucydides wrote, “The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.” And it takes courage to choose freedom for one’s self in both physical and figurative senses, to not look back in anger, to be the change, to use the force. Martin Luther King understood this deeply. It’s what inspired him to lead over three thousand marchers from Selma, Montgomery, on a trek that was nearly 60 miles and took five days. That courage was contagious; by the time he reached Montgomery, marchers numbered 25,0000. Staring fear in the face, making space mentally and emotionally for your enemies, staring change in its giant question-mark-shaped face because it’s far, far better than the slit-eyed, greying alternative… this is courage, fueled on a steady diet of faith.

And it’s this faith that I see celebrated in art, in the graffiti on a Libyan city wall, in the pencil line of a sketch shared round the world, in the rhythm and melody of music – the breaths, the wavering, wailing voices, the pressed keys and reverberation of strings and amps and snares, reaching for something higher, where not just a few of the well-read, well-connected, well-fed and well-meaning are free but… everyone, everywhere, spreading a hope-full, joy-full melody of liberation, a Song of Solomon in motion, a confirmation of collaboration with not just ourselves and our little clubs, but even (or especially) those we disagree with, write off, roll our eyes at, avoid, don’t call back, backstab, ignore, or, of course, feel suffocated by. I’m staring my own fears in the face right now, figuring out how much freedom is worth, what I’ll sacrifice, and how much a reset on my perceptions is possible. It’s easy -maybe even trite -to believe faith might overcome doubt in the face of fear.

But, we are -all of us, whatever our circumstances -free to choose something else, something broader, something bigger and bolder. Something that doesn’t just smell, taste, feel or look like freedom, but actually is that very idea in and of itself, embodied within the walking, breathing, spitting, bleeding masses of flesh we are. We have a deal with the universe, a deal that clearly tells us, in every shape and form: love thine enemy. Judge not lest ye be judged. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. To deny any of these an acknowledgment and indeed, a manifestation in our busy, over-stimulated lives, where we preach to the converted and sing loudly in our online choirs, builds a lonely prison of our own devising, brick by brick. It’s easy to judge others; it’s even easier to judge ourselves. None of us is free indeed.

But perhaps George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic said it best, at least for those of us who see a very thin line between the sacred and the profane. Within the confident crooning of Solomon Burke and the incredible Blind Boys Of Alabama, there thrives the encouraging spirit of survival, awareness, and even growth. “None of us are free”, it’s true, but we’re working on it. Change comes slow… but it comes -if we choose it. I am, and I’m terrified, and I’m thrilled. And I’m walking on, and taking very deep, slow breaths.

Spreadin’ The News

By Catherine Kustanczy

On January 1, 2011

In personal, writing

Taking a break from writing, broadcasting, and interviewing has been healthy.

Even with all the stress the holiday season brings, it’s still been good to get a proper break from the normal routine. It resets the brain cells. A lot of changes feel like they’re afoot, and through this break I’ve been able to embrace and explore them, amidst the hub-bub of shopping, wrapping, cooking, baking, drinking, socializing, and… sleeping. The changes aren’t part of a 2011/new-year-resolution thing, but are, truly, a sweeping, every-aspect-of-life thing. It could mean a shift in career objectives; it most certainly means a change in locale.

If you’re been following me on either Facebook or Twitter (or both), you’ll know I’m moving to New York City in the spring. It’s slightly hard to get my head around it, because I’m so happy with my life here in Toronto, but at the same time, a change is very overdue, and I’m definitely the go-big-or-go-home type. You can’t get much bigger than New York. It was with bemused affection that I watched lastnight’s Times Square spectacle; when Sinatra’s version of the immortal theme song of the city came on, I actually got a lump in my throat (and it wasn’t the mix of foie gras and champagne, honest). There’s something about change that’s both inspiring and frightening; it’s built that way for a reason, I reckon. I’m off to the Big Apple in a couple weeks for a reconaissance mission. Expect interesting writings, observations, photos. And may your new year be happy, bright, prosperous, and full of … change, in the best way.