[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: January 5, 2009]
I have always regarded myself as just the man for a good old fin de siècle, and here was my chance at last - perhaps my only one. I eased expectantly into the last year of the twentieth century. Actually, I was lucky to make it with my hearing intact.
The day after Christmas Day is a holiday in the land of my birth, known as Boxing Day. It derives, in Dickensian fashion, from the practice of handing out boxes of gifts to hoi polloi who had been of service during the preceding year, although it would be a bold New York resident who would withhold the customary munificent gratuities from doormen and supervisors until after the 25th.
In any case, I celebrated my own private Boxing Day ten years ago by attending Einstürzende Neubauten at the Bowery Ballroom. This German beat combo made its name in the 1980s, upping the stakes on the industrial music trend by importing actual construction equipment - pneumatic drills, piledrivers, and the like - into concert halls, and more or less reducing the stages to rubble. This sounds obnoxious, I know, and in many ways it is; but the group's gift for exceptionally loud destruction provided a context for the taut psychodrama and/or melodic baritone of their gifted frontman Blixa Bargeld - known to some, perhaps, as co-vocalist and guitarist with Nick Cave in The Bad Seeds.
In a darkened Bowery Ballroom, Blixa was in formal mood; he entered dressed in a neat black suit and necktie, and introduced each howling maelstrom in the manner of an easy listening DJ: "And now, ladies and gentleman, a song which features the sound of a jet engine..." And yet, melodies are always detectable, if you can bear the pain. Indeed, I was in a state of surrender as the band launched into one of their signature tunes, the aptly named "Headcleaner" (enjoy at your own choice of volume here). I backed up to the rear of the hall, and pressed myself against the wall. It was at this point that I realised everyone around me was wearing ear-plugs. Me, no.
We can safely assume there was a ringing in my ears the next day when, after a quite contrasting musical performance by Heather Macrae, singing songs associated with her father Gordon at the sadly extinct 88's club, I seated myself at the similarly vanished Chez Michallet. Chicken liver pâté was followed by rack of lamb with an apricot sauce, and some cheese.
The only other gastronomic episode of the week was dinner at the small, defiant bistro on Lexington, La Petite Auberge - one of few remaining restaurants outside the theater district which proposed duck with orange sauce, coquilles Saint Jacques, sweetbreads cooked in sauce, and even melon as an appetizer. I am old enough to remember when almost any fancy restaurant meal commenced with a wedge of melon. On this occasion, I ate onion soup, then the entrecôte marchand de vin (red wine sauce), and yet more cheese. Since the restaurant had a menu which would have been familiar to A.J. Liebling, I rinsed my mouth with his favorite wine, Tavel.
That desperate holiday, that unmistakeable sign of time passing, New Year's Eve, was up next, and again I sought music rather than food to accompany it. A raucous evening at Coney Island High on St Mark's in the company of The Fleshtones and The Priss-Teens. Well, it was ten years ago, and I suppose I had the residue of a spring in my step. Anyway, I was off to the Caribbean next week.
