Flick Wrist, Turn Key

March 23/26 Update

For the original story: City Lights click here

More than 25 years later I found myself in a live VR walking tour of Manhattan. It was a mind bending experience. Sitting in the blue velvet rocking chair surrounded by puppies and paintings, I was walking on the street with these people. They were there, right now, saying the things they were saying, and I was here, listening. They have no idea I’m there but they don’t seem to know the person doing the walk is there either. 

Later when I went back to look again and I saw the same people on the same corners I realized that live might have been a lie. But the fact that I believed it was live made me have the full live experience anyway. It didn’t seem to matter if it was true as long as I believed it. A mirror of the time we're in.

Years ago when I first experienced VR it occurred to me how teleportation happens. VR will be so real, and environments will be so accurately replicated that we will be able to replace real life places with virtual spaces that we can fully interact with. Eventually, sensory tech will get so good that my experience going to Rome or Mom’s kitchen in VR will be indistinguishable from the real thing. 

We can already share VR spaces. I once watched a Giants game with my brother across the country in a VR pub. VR avatars gave me VR attitude if I was in their way just like their human controllers did. The only difference is I can switch to invisible and ignore. 

As I think about how easy it will be someday to live life entirely in VR I wonder if I am the sentient walker in someone else’s dream.

The walker takes me down Broadway and I find myself in the middle of all of those billboards with the one flashing Providence that I stood in back then. I wonder if this is the same spot. It could very well be, I look to the billboard where Providence might have been—maybe it was across the street—and I see a new word there, Evidence. The word was evidence. 

We kept walking through Times Square and there was a person screaming that Jesus heals all the cancers in the body. This was happening right now. As she screamed about Jesus in my ear I spotted a phone number on the building beyond her, it had 777 in it. Evidence. 

We continue to walk and there are three windows on the top floor of a building that are completely blacked out with the letters J O Y. Directly beside it there is billboard ad and the words at the top say Two Strangers. 

As I write this I Google two strangers and I see that it’s a Broadway Show. There was a time when I would have already known that.

Going now to go check it out.

***

Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York. I’m inspired by the 3 minute 22 second clip on their website to go listen to the soundtrack. 

In a story for another day, just yesterday I was trying to find significance in the date November 5th albeit 1975—it is not lost on me that this is the date the show premiered in 2019. When it premiered it was called The Season—I probably would not have noticed it if they hadn’t changed the name. 

I listen as I smooth a layer of impasto over the negative space in Lost in Hollywood, I hear my young grandfather singing to his unknown dad, and Robin, she’s a waitress, tells me Brooklyn is the place. I was just walking down Pitkin Ave this morning. Evidence. 

He’s educated about New York in the same way I was, from TV and movies. I hear the words green, red, and gold and I glance up at the gallery wall. The painting of the giant apple in green, red, and gold pops out—all the word is new and I wonder if Mae will be in that apple this year. When I was there this morning it felt unscary. 

I hitch a ride on the American Express as I imagine being rich in New York for just one magical night. This DJ’s a genius.

Zachary Stewart on TheatreMania mentions it was directed by Tim Jackson. Of course. Now I’m following Tim on Instagram. I didn’t know which one was the real Zachary.

Robin sings about Santa Claus as I examine the snap shot of Santa or Rick Ruben, that used to be a layer of Eden’s 80s party dress. My dad’s name is Rick, too.

I see that Travis Homer is going to the Seahawks and I think how cool it is that he will play with JSN. Only to realize it was actually the Steelers. At the same time my Homer barks profusely outside at the all lives that dare to live on the other side of the fence. 

I feel myself getting angry and anxious with the barking when I clue in that I have one of my headphones off one of my ears. Once I have both headphones on I can’t hear the barking I just hear the singer singing wake up wake up wake up. 

I tap my fingers over the damp parchment that has traces of powder blue from Smoke, the large one. I tap it over a spot in Lost in Hollywood, to the music, About to Go In. 

They remind me of Daron Malakian on Tetragrammaton talking about growing up in Hollywood in the conversation that inspired the current version of the painting as well as the name. The characters sing about how growing up in New York is like that. A world that everyone seems to know but know a version that only exists from the outside. Inside it’s different. The real people in New York and Hollwood are just living their lives, chattering about lunch and Jesus and dramatic new relationships. 

I hear the words “Like the whole entire universe is here in this small unremarkable town.” It’s Saturday night and I realize we’re in a different musical now. 

That leads me to wonder what another musical, String is about…

“In a world of cubicles and code, fate still pulls the strings—literally. Banished to a modern office tower after angering Zeus, the ancient Greek Fates now work in secret among mortals, spinning, measuring, and snipping the threads of life one by one, weaving the infinite tapestry of humanity.” Helene Clehr (Old Dominion University)

Interesting!

And now from a small unremarkable town I’m listening to Sondheim’s Saturday Night, Brooklyn,1929, and the breadcrumb path continues.

Later on I went to Toronto on the first day of spring.

As soon as I landed in Dundas Square a girl in high flat red boots like the ones I used to wear when I lived there scurried past the camera. Not a whole lot seems to have changed. The streetcars have got an upgrade in the last decade and a half. There are still overflowing garbage cans outside of strip clubs. 

The guy walking in front of the camera now looks like Zach Woods and I wonder if he was visiting Toronto on the first day of spring. He veers off at First Canadian Place and I’ll probably never know. 

In a weird coincidence, the next time I watched one of these videos, it wasn't Gabe (or Jared... or Donald) but Jim randomly walking down the street in Brooklyn, just living life outside the office.

There is a sign, I think at the Royal Alex, or is it The Princess of Whales that says Theatre is Life. 

I wonder how many times I’ve been in that Second Cup. 

There definitely wasn’t a weed store every block and a half and all of these bikes are new. 

I had a bike stolen from this very street.

I’m walking though the club district and it feels like I’m back there. I’m thankful that a decade and half ago there was not someone secretly recording everything I did on these dirty streets.

I accept I’m just a passenger and I have no control over this walk but without controllers in my hand I feel so out of control. 

And at the same time, it felt good to be back.