Friday Night at 8: Backalley Blogging

I shall first note the irony of backalley blogging on the front page of a blog.  There, that’s done.

Sometimes while prowling back alleys you find things that don’t bear the light of day, brass ritual cymbal turns out to be a trashcan cover, exotic seafood dinner is really rotten fish guts.

Yet perhaps there’s some truth to these lies.

Here in NYC the sun has gone down.  That’s the time to prowl.

Ever watch the old teevee show Bewitched?  All those times Samantha would do her magic and poor Gladys Kravitz or Larry or whoever witnessed these feats would have the most puzzled odd look on their faces, reality had shifted for them and they were stunned (well except for Gladys, who had her suspicions!).  And then either Samantha or Darren would cook up the most unbelievable alternative narrative to explain what had happened, it would be accepted, and normality would resume.

The audience of course was in on the joke, and we all knew WE’D never fall for that lame explanation.

There’s lots of corners in the back alleys, corners you can turn and never know what you’ll see around the bend.  The first glimpse is often magic!  Whatever shines is a jewel, or gold or silver.  Whatever makes noise is a big monster.  Whatever sounds like music is from the spheres of heaven.

Then, of course, after a closer look, the shine is some tinfoil or fallen sequin off a hooker’s drag, the noise is rats in the garbage cans and the music is just folks playing a gig at a dive club.

That first apprehension, though, isn’t always wrong, sometimes the second look is the illusion, yeah.

Can’t get settled when prowling the alleys, always have to see everything new when you turn the corner, can’t count on what will appear, can’t navigate the winding narrow pathways using yesterday’s knowledge, oh no.

Main Street has its facades of duration, the banks and churches, movie theaters, schools, hospitals, all solid and real and you know what they are the moment you see them.  But at night, in the back alleys, it’s dark and unpredictable, a different view, crazy slant angles.

Things go on and events whoosh like big tides as we apprehend the changes and almost, we almost see it until some folks decide to tell us we didn’t see that at all, THIS is what’s happening, really, and we look at each other and see no disagreement save at the edges here and there but no big disagreement so we say oh yes, that’s what is happening, what I saw was just my own confusion and fear and ignorance, and we move along, we walk ahead of the tide not seeing it raise behind us in big watery curls.

The very way we receive and process information, ah that’s changing, it’s a new wave.

In the back alleys, we learn to leap.  And to land.

Happy Friday to all.

And for lagniappe, here’s a magic lesson!