2011
twenty years
maura @ 11:04 pm
This fall is a big anniversary of many events. We’ve been in NYC for 20 years now, which means we were here on 9/11. I don’t really know what to feel about the 10th anniversary. I’ve been thinking that I should have something to write about it, but even the things that I start writing in my head don’t get anywhere. Then I feel guilty that I don’t have more to say. But we were here and we were lucky and I am still grateful for that: I was 6 months pregnant, everyone we know was safe + sound (if scared). I was proud to be a resident of NYC* and to experience how well the city pulled together.
* I still am: thank you, Occupy Wall Street.
On a much much much lighter note, this fall is also the 20th anniversary of the release of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” album. I know it’s reductive to pin all of the changes in music since then to one record, but it’s always seemed like that to me. Before that record it was “college rock” — played on college radio, mostly on independent labels, small venues + shows. And after, after it was “alternative” — on all of the radio stations, big shows, etc.
For us it coincided with leaving college and coming to grad school (version 1.0), which I’m sure is at least part of the reason it feels like lots of big changes. I had a show on my college radio station with a pal; when we got to grad school, the station was much more professional and didn’t have time for us. I know it’s trite to complain about bands getting big — “I liked their first record,” said in self-mocking tones, was something we said often. But there’s a practical side to a smallish music scene, too. Big shows are more expensive for tickets + drinks. Big shows are harder for shorties like me to navigate; I’ve spent innumerable shows jumping up and down, not because I love to pogo but because otherwise I couldn’t *see* anything.
Of course music is completely different now in our internet world, some things better, and some things worse. It seems almost quaint to think back to a time when radio mattered that much, and when the freaky kids suddenly got popular.
3 comments on “twenty years”
p.s. Thanks for sharing a view on OWS. I kept thinking, poor you, having to get past that human roadblock every day! Being in DC a lot with my last job, I am pretty jaded & anti- protester of any sort. Plus, I just spent a week trucking (well, in a car) back & forth from the hospital, finally finding a way around the baby porn protesters.
I’ve been thinking about OWS — like, does it make sense to do that here, in comfy Piatt Park, which is far from WS, and when local stores ask me to donate stuff to send to Brooklyn I think nope, there are actual needy ppl right here…then again my friend’s boyfriend is their lawyer, and really I’m not fighting them just kind of like, que pasa? Time place & manner are sort of lost on me with this one.
Anyway, good to know what you think. I was wondering.
Ha, the pogo ball, hadn’t thought about that in an age!
Here in Brooklyn there’s not much OWS, though we had a war protest a few blocks away in the park last weekend that I couldn’t go to (like everything these days) because I have too much dang work to do right now. I would still like to go down there someday, but not sure if the weather will drive them out before I have time, sigh.
But I can see how dealing with lots of protesters would get old very quickly! And really I am kind of shy of just walking into a big crowd of people hanging out, so I might not be able to get up the courage. Though a pal of ours helped start the library, so I might know at least one person.
But you DO love to pogo! Or pogo ball.