Ah, the joys of an early morning ride.
You can almost hear the overture from Sprach Zarathustra in the background
or, perhaps one of those early Infiniti TV ads.
Believe it or not, I chanced upon this scene along the Malcolm X Promenade—about half a kilometer from LaGuardia Airport,
From there, I pedaled out to Fort Totten and back—40 kilometers on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear. I’d say it’s a respectable “beat the heat” early morning ride.
The way things are going, I might be called upon to sing. And trust me, you don’t want to hear that!
Two months ago, Tina Turner passed away. Last week, we lost Tony Bennett. And, a couple of days ago, Sinead O’Connor was found dead in her London apartment.
They were as different from each other, in their singing styles and what they sang, not to mention their personal styles, as any three singers could be. I believe, however, that what they had in common are the hallmarks of singers who I could listen to all day.
Tony Bennett with Lena Horne, 1972
They had beautiful voices, of course. (So does Mariah Carey, but I find her boring, boring.) More important though, is this: They sang from the heart because, well, they couldn’t sing any other way—and I suspect they wouldn’t have wanted to. (Tony Bennett said as much.)
And, for each of them, “the heart” was a place of pain as well as joy—and passion. Tina Turner’s struggles during her childhood and during and after her marriage to Ike. So is Sinead’s history of abuse from her mother and subsequent mental-health issues. And while he didn’t express it directly, it’s hard not to think that some of his energy as an artist came from the loss and pain he experienced early in his life.
Sinead O’Connor
And, as different as their stage personae, if you will, were, they channeled their sexuality in different ways. Tony Bennett has been described as a “crooner,” which I have always interpreted as someone who looks and carries himself like a Hollywood leading man but seduces with his voice. Tina Turner, on the other hand, was not shy about her sex appeal but showed how that it could empower her (or anyone) against the kind of exploitation she experienced. And, finally, Sinead O’Connor knew how beautiful she was enough to keep the notoriously-rapacious music and entertainment industries from defining her by it.
I will miss them all. But at least we have recordings of them. Oh, and their songs sometimes play in my head while I’m cycling. That, for me is proof enough that they have been important in my life!
After a perfect summer weekend, another heat wave has swept over this city.
Now, those of you who live in places like western Texas or southern Arizona might chuckle when folks like me complain about the heat in New York. I’ll concede that we don’t know (at least not yet) what it’s like when your nighttime temperatures are like ours in the afternoon. But our hot days come with humidity that turn our streets into saunas.
Anyway, knowing that we are heading for The Nineties (in Fahrenheit temperature and humidity), I went for a morning ride that took me back and forth between Queens and Brooklyn.
Street destruction (Why do they call it construction?) detoured me onto Hewes Street, one of the narrow, warrenlike thoroughfares in the part of this city that most closely resembles a pre-war stetl: the Hasidic part of Williamsburg, where it borders Bushwick.
One way you know a neighborhood is changing: You see “ghosts.” I can’t help but to imagine the lives that filled and voices that echo walls of bubbling, flaking bricks and shingles. But I also notice another kind of “ghost”: a long-concealed sign or banner from a business that served as past residents whom current residents will never know.
“Ghost” signs like the one I saw today on Hewes Street have led me down a rabbit hole or two. What kinds of “beauty preparations” did Nutrine make or sell? Who used them, and what image of “beauty” were they trying to achieve.
That image, I imagine, might have burned as brightly and hazily as a heat-wave afternoon in the imaginations of those in whom it was inculcated it—and those who inculcated it.
