Public disdain. Or, disdain for the public.

I spent the last few evenings thinking about various perspectives i have, how those shift over time, things i am doing now that could affect them adversely, things to continue. Working in the restaurant industry, and specifically working for a clientele that i largely resent is changing me in ways i can’t even squish off from myself to evaluate. I just know that i am falling into that characteristic “front of house disdain” that is rampant with most of my coworkers. A friend said the other day, “I already think 75% of the people i pass on the street are impulsive, largely thoughtless, and not worth my time. Once i set foot at work that percentage jumps to about 95.” And mostly, i agree. So what? Maybe it’s true, maybe there’s merit in focusing your energy, especially in this city of 8 million, of filtering out who can get something from you and who can’t. You can’t relate to everyone, and everyone makes choices based on limited time and resources.

The problem is twofold. It seems arrogant to say that there are people not worth my time, as though my time is worth more than anyone else’s. As though people actually exist that i should not give the directions to if they asked me, no matter how much of a suit they were, or how entitled their behavior seemed. I’m sure suits are mostly people too, i’m sure they are just as lost and scared and lonely as the rest of us, maybe more, and therefore deserving of my time and eye contact. Because i’ve noticed that i have trouble making eye contact with the customers at work that for whatever reason attract my contempt, i have a very deep urge to not acknowledge their humanity by looking full in their faces. Certainly everyone deserves, unless they’ve committed something terrible against me, to be looked at, right? And yet several times a night i will speak to someone without looking at them.

Which brings me to my second point. Being around people that i would ordinarily not associate with for roughly 35 hours every week is eroding something that i can’t exactly name or understand. There’s a trust i used to have in people, you know, the idea that we’re all basically good but self-absorbed, trying to find our own ways. I think to create something for the public you have to believe this to some extent, believe that the people seeing a piece that you’ve spent a significant amount of energy and thought on are worthy of seeing it. Otherwise the work will probably be cynical to the point of meaninglessness. Even artists that dislike most people still trust and rely on those that “get it,” though that usually indicates a deeply suspect elitist and privilege-oriented attitude. For me, for the work i want to do, i need to see the public as important, even suits, even hipsters, even white boys hauling their powerbooks on their fixed gear bicycles. Lately, I see people that i have contempt for when i am not at work and where they with all certainty are not, which means i am taking it out of the restaurant and applying it to people that don’t deserve it. Not that even the suits do, but definitely the people riding the train don’t. And i have to get to a place where i trust that the people that could wander into an installation of mine or pick a piece up off the street can genuinely bring themselves to the art, can make it meaningful. Otherwise i’ll just be making art for myself, and that’s not why i’m doing this.

I’ve just been thinking about the work i’ve really been getting into lately, how vulnerable the artists are, how they ask the audience to let themselves into the pieces and trust them to go where they are gently led. This is the kind of work i want to come from myself, and i think if i stay in restaurants i’ll eventually be unable to see people with such love. I don’t know what the solution is in the short-term, how to guard against it while i still need this to pay the bills, but i do know that there is a count on the days i can be there. And, honestly, that gives me hope.

Whistlin’ dixie.

I saw The Blow (aka Khaela Maricich) perform on Tuesday, and it’s preoccupied me with the dynamics of performance and integration with the audience, giving what you get. Beneath her witty banter, self-deprecating jokes, and choreographed dances was a desire to connect that i hadn’t felt since seeing a Tracy + The Plastics show. There’s a level of respect there, even for people talking through the whole show, even for the arms attached to relentless digital cameras. Those are qualities i admire and want to incorporate into my own work, things i’m afraid i’ll forget the longer i work in food service, a genuine regard for people, even and especially the types of people that generally attend indie rock shows in the NYC.

After The Blow i stayed for a little of the Electrelane show. I couldn’t take my eyes off the bass player, not just because she was cute and queer, but to watch her work. She was completely at ease, occasionally lifting her eyes to the crowd, where her bandmates were either distant with the audience or erratically moving to the beat. But more than that i loved that she periodically checked in with the other musicians, not just to time difficult transitions but to see what they were doing, and i felt, to see how they were doing. Performing alone, like Wynne Greenwood, Khaela Maricich, and Miranda July afford certain freedoms, certain possibilities, but with a collaboration it’s so interesting to me how essential it becomes to read the people you’re up there with, to pick up on the subtleties in their movements and know when and how to support them. The potential there for complexity and nuance is really exciting, and where collaboration usually scares me (attributable to teacher-enforced “group projects” where no one ever knew what was going on), i think i could get into it at some point.

Otherwise, i’ve mostly been trying to adjust to living by myself. It’s proved more difficult than i anticipated, it seems i’ve become so used to being anxious in my living situations that i have it here out of habit. When i come home i try to remember that it’s just me and pup here, that there’s no drama. It’s a happy problem to have, but frustrating in that i’ve been here a month and am still not completely at ease here, in this space.

If you have not heard the song “Atlas” by The Battles, do yourself a favor and find some way to listen to it. One of the best songs i’ve heard all year.