Pat,
pat, pat. Pitter,
Splash! A car breaks and then the
rumble of the F Train overhead.
I’m back in Brooklyn. Rainy
morning. And the leaves of the
sycamore trees are waving about wildly out the window each in its own manner
but each somehow coordinated by the wind, reminding me oddly of the Atlantic
from the tip of Cabo Sao Vincente.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed to find out
something was for free as yesterday when I showed up yesterday at the MoMA, for
our planned assault to find out it was “Free Fridays.” Oh dear. People of all stripes, Korean tourists, Argentine tourists,
hipsters, septuagenarians, a peer in a gray blazer, and pink slacks who looked
sick in the bath room but is now strolling about confidently. Packed, our squad felt right at home. 水泄不通[1], it’s just like every day in China.
One daughter is not feeling well. The other has a headache. On the ride up after a lunch above Grand Central we used
Uber. I don’t have the app, though
having had people use it for me now in SF, Shanghai, and New York, I suppose
it’s about time I downloaded it.
There is always some trepidation getting in to a “private” car as
opposed the standard, predictable low expectations one has in a licensed
taxi. This gentleman, Gavin, was a
retired New York City cop.
Handsome, shaved dome, he quickly established himself as a friendly
sort, and I took him for a peer, which he was, hence my concern at his
retirement. But apparently New
York’s finest can retire after twenty years of service and that’s what Gavin
did. Now he’s driving for Uber,
raving about the money. Presumably
he’s well prepared for any knucklehead fares that New York might throw at
him.
Arriving at the Museum my strategy was simple. Go to the gift shop first. American Museum’s certainly set the standard for
commercializing their collections.
And, with experience I know that If I whet my daughter’s appetites with
something available in the gift shop that they then must track down and find
the original of, we will have that much more fuel in the tank, as we set out.
Everyone needed to go to the bathroom. “No. You can’t go past this point with the bags.” “Not even to the bathroom?!” “The line is over there for the coat
check sir.” I took all the daypacks and let others go pee, and got in the
imposing line to check them. “No,
no sir, you must first have a ticket.”
“To store my things? Why? Isn’t it “Free Friday?” “The free ticket line is outside.” The free ticket line is two
blocks long. What’s the
point? Open the gates. Let us in to what Ishmael Reed once
called the “Art Detention Center.”
Stand in a three hundred yard line for free tickets. OK. At least it is fast.
Then the bag-check line, which was shorter and much slower, was grinding.
Vibe now thoroughly depleted for everyone except yours
truly, we set out. By the
time we were in the second room full of Late Nineteenth Century masterpieces
most of the party was out of gas.
I feverishly raced around with my little one by the hand trying to cram
in Impressionism, and Cubism, and Pointalism and Naive works. And, to her credit, she was fascinated
and asked good questions that somehow made the whole effort worth it. Down in the gift shop, she recognized
(a mercifully small reproduction of) Henri Rousseau’s “The Dream.”
“It’s yours.” “Hey we saw
that guy too!” “Yes. OK. Fine. A post
card of Vincent van Gogh’s mournful “Portrait of Joseph Roulin”? You got it.”
Our family party broke up. Everyone was ready to do their own thing. Our unit headed back to Brooklyn. On the way we got good old-fashioned
yellow taxicab. In the back my
girls looked they were recovering from basic training. In front I met Emanuel, a lovely
gentleman, from Kumasi. And we
talked and talked and talked about Ghana as we cut down the FDR to the Brooklyn
Bridge. Ghanaian history,
politics, local international relations and of course, music. I mentioned CK. Mann and he reached for
a C.D., which would have been splendid but he couldn’t locate it. I recently taught a detailed case study
on Ghana and was so glad to be able to dig in. After my nineteenth point of inquiry, he had to remind me he
hadn’t been there for six years and knew more about New York these days.
I entered Ghana in 1992 en route from Burkina Faso and
traveled by bus down to Kumasi. On
the way, in every place I stopped I asked of the music, cassettes were all you
could find, though vinyl would have been better. In Accra I found a very cool looking cover “Funky Highlife” by
CK Mann and his Carousel. The
first tune was “Afaso Beesoun”, which is just about the single most funky
introduction to a song that is humanly conceivable. I remember feeling so excited hearing it. That special feeling where you know you
are going to blow the minds of every friend you know with good taste you, once
you play this tune at full volume, that no one else has and absolutely no one
could find in two minutes on Youtube, like I just did. It builds, adding a wah guitar and and
organ to a crescendo that flattens out into lovely, characteristic Ghanaian
highlife harmonies and a lovely swaying groove for the remaining seven minutes
or so, though, somehow, oddly the potential of the intro isn’t fully
realized.
It is the intro speaks to that apogee of rhythmic
sophistication uniquely positioned there, in the Volta region. Lyrics and
grooves and melodies and harmonies may build out differently to make songs, of
say Fela that I ultimately enjoy more. Everyone borrows something and just
about all popular music of the last century borrows from West African rhythmic
genius. But to my ears, nothing can
touch that Ghanaian rhythmic trigonometry that always seems like you’ve
stumbled upon a the seminal source spring for so much of the world’s fresh
water. You don’t need to go to
Accra these days. Just listen to
the opening yourself on the link below.
Emanuel was in full agreement.
[1] shuǐxièbùtōng: lit. not one drop can trickle through
(idiom); fig. impenetrable (crowd, traffic)
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