While there is beauty to be found even in the most desolate
of places, such as with the fisherman who kissed the fish he caught before
tossing it back into the waves, and the other black fishermen who insisted on
keeping the pier free of trash, Coney Island seemed empty to me – especially
after my April visit to Seaside Heights, which even at that early time, seemed
filled with life. I went back Wednesday to take another look, and realized that
it remained what it always had been, a haven for teens who needed to see and be
seen, before they moved into the broader world, beach bum men with muscles and
tans, striding along the boardwalk trying to impress people other than
themselves, and pre-season high school football teams there to get united
before they hit the grid iron.
Both places seemed remarkably lonely, as did the ruins of
the East Village I visited in between, the gutted fish of what had once been
the center of counter culture, now devoid of meaning as counter culture invaded
every other town like the extended waves of a nuclear blast, leaving lives in
ruins, and people confused as to what roles they need to play in a world that
no longer had room for them.
This last was particularly evident when I visited Liberty
State Park Ellis Island , while I
dodged bicycles on the walkway – the old symbol of American immigration locked
to pedestrian traffic so that people wishing to visit their glorious past had
to pay for the privilege.
This tourist vision of the world I took this week made me
realize that everything has become a tourist destination, specialized for
people who aren’t like me at all. My visit to Woodstock in April was far
different from those I took in the 1990s, when there was still life there among
the natives, and the aging hippies were still respected, instead of looked on
as a kind of aging beach bum going through the motions and seeking attention.
We walk in a limbo of time when changing generations means
changing visions for the world – and for the first time I truly understand the
frustration my father’s generation had with life, the survivors of the Good War
forced to deal with the rising tide of the British Invasion, our bulk pushing
them out of the places where they felt most comfortable, where they once
belonged, just as we baby boomers are being pushed out.
Tonight, I return to New York ,
to a museum of art that is no longer modern, seeking images that I can relate
to, cling to, finding immorality within their frames.
