New Old City

Dedicated to a different generation.

So for a class we've been discussing (and by that I mean I played hookie and had to get with the prof to catch up) Samuel Delaney's Time's Square Red, Time's Square Blue.  Before I go into all the things that this fantastic book brought up, I have to preface it with a few things.

First off, I need to remind you of my self-diagnosed and untreated ADHD.  When I am reading, I am always listening to music, as well, so there is not a real integrity of pure literary work.  It's kind of like that concept of sociology that you cannot take an aspect of an individual completely out of its context. (i.e. I am a woman and ambidextrous, but I don't represent all women, nor all ambidextrous people; the combined total of all the things I am make me who and what I am, and you can't separate each thing out...)

Okay, second, this book is a little graphic (but fabulous) when it comes to the sexual description.  It is, however very nonchalant about the whole thing.  Delaney writes about public sex in the theaters of Time's Square in the 1980's as an aspect of social and contemporary culture.

The book is broken into two main "essays," Delaney's own personal accounts with people he's met in the theaters, and their interaction, and the second half, sections where he analyzes the atmosphere and culture as it relates to his own philosophy/views.  In the second half, he repeatedly draws upon what Jane Jacobs says in Death and Life Of Great American Cities. Jacobs explains the value to all aspects of the population of larger cities, including what she refers to as "winos" and junkies. She does, however exclude the public sex scene from this rhetoric.

But is there really value in a bunch of grimy old movie theaters that feature porno films?  Delaney says yes, and I'm inclined to agree emphatically.  I believe in any process that creates a sense of unity and forms anastamoses in society, where otherwise the divide between class, race, gender, and everything else we humans use to persecute one another.  If gangs weren't violent, I'd probably be for that, too, only it would look much more like a Rotary Club meeting.

At any rate, when I was sharing my (admittedly naive and idealistic) interpretation of the book with the professor, two things popped into my head. First, I was immediately curious if Delaney had published anything on the subject in the last decade or so that might be comparable to this generation's transition to more internet-based resources like Craigslist and Adultfriendfinder, etc.  (He has not.) I am also wondering if there is any sort of comparable "underground" place for women to have the random public sexual encounters.  (I'm pretty sure there is not, and if there is, I've certainly not yet found it...)

At any rate, I'll come back to this topic later, I can almost promise it!