One surreal day

I have discovered that I am a lazy traveller. I wake up late, spend hours getting ready (undergoing various routines of personal hygiene as well as copious and unnecessary electronic communication) and by the time I'm on the streets it's usually 3pm. Today started in much the same way. I called Lucas, sat around waiting for him to call back, practiced my awful Czech (really, I have no idea what I'm doing) and finally called Lucas to discover he was not going to accompany me to Kaiju. And suddenly I felt the lightness of my being. I was once again alone in the city, free to go where I want. Yesterday I went to the Louise Bourgeois exhibition at the Guggenheim, and I remember a quote of hers: 'People are always afraid of falling, so we balance ourselves.' In the same way, people are afraid of floating away, so we weigh ourselves down. The weight of other people is like the heaviness of a winter blanket. It's comforting, and when we pull it back we feel exposed. But enough of this faux intellectualising and on with the story of my surreal day.

I caught the F to Brooklyn to see the Kaiju Big Battel. It was described in Time Out as American pro wrestling meets Japanese comic book monsters. In a lot by a river in an industrial area, a fighting cage had been erected. People set up their own chairs from a stack against an old brick building. I wrote in my Moleskine for a while before making friends with a Welsh & English couple beside me. To kick off the show, Japanese punk band Peelander-Z played a raucous set. The band members were colour-themed (yellow, red, green and pink). When they started handing out a kit full of drum sticks and metal bowls I jumped right in, following people up onto the stage. Later, I sung (verry badly) into the mic as it went around the crowd: 'Ninja highschool!' I joined the worst conga line ever (punk is too fast for a conga line) and looked on as they played human bowling. I guess I knew what was coming when the set started with the drummer climbing up the fighting cage, down a nearby tree, and flipping onto me, knocking my huarache to the ground. His punk attitude slipped for a minute when he apologised for landing on me. Japanese punks are quite polite.

The real insanity began with the monster fights. People in amazing costumes paraded onstage and proceeded to beat the shit out of one another, all with the typical commentary and posturing you can expect from a WWE match. Monsters include: the Sea Amigos, Dusto Bunny, Dr Cube and American Beetle. Around the fighting cage were styrofoam and cardboard crates which the monsters smashed on each others' heads. The fights usually involved more than two monsters at any time. Referees were knocked unconscious. Monsters climbed the cage walls and leapt from great heights to land on their opponents. The bad guys fought dirty and the good guys always found strength to fight back just before the count of three. Dr Cube united with a human fighter, Chris Hero, and they won! I felt conflicted - Chris Hero was on the side of evil, but I talked to him before the fight and he was a nice guy! As the sky darkened, the spectacle drew to a close. Released from this mad world of nightmare creatures and staged violence, I caught the F back into Manhattan to face the reality of the city.

I got off at Broadway/Lafayette and, misunderstanding the way the subway stations were connected, I decided to walk up to St Marks Place. I wanted more Japanese action so I went in search of the $8 jugs Dan had recommended, but all the restaurants looked the same. I tried to call Lucas, left a message, decided that I didn't want to drink a jug alone and walked on to the vegan bakery I'd been meaning to seek out. At Whole Earth bakery I didn't know what to choose. So many declicious things! I thought about Ryan and all my other vegan friends (I can name you: Eva, Melisa, Liam...) and how they would drool for these delicacies. I chose a blueberry tofu cheese cake. Walking back down St Marks I found the restaurant Dan told me about and, lo and behold, some people I'd seen at Kaiju were waiting out front. I tried to call Lucas again and then decided that the birds of fortuity had alighted on my shoulders and these people were my new friends. I went up and talked to them - they recognised me and the weirdness of our meeting at this place and time. I asked if I could crash their dinner party and they consented. We drank $8 jugs and a $45 bottle of sake. I ate rice balls with seaweed and I discovered Meg shared both my interest in astrology and the same Moon as me (Leo). We also have in common an inner struggle between liking and not liking astrology. Neither of us would defend it in an argument. But the personality stuff (not the horoscope stuff) seems to be uncannily true. I told her something Jarvis Cocker said in concert when I saw him, about how you can feel two exact opposite things at the same time, and this is actually quite normal. I feel I balance astrology with post-structuralist philosophy. Haha.

Meg decided to come with me to the show I was going to at midnight. I didn't call Lucas. We walked down to the Here arts centre, bought $20 rush tickets, drank a complimentary cocktail, and were relocated from the stools to the front row. Then the surreal shit started up again. There's really not a lot I can say to describe the weirdness of 'Arias with a Twist.' A guy in drag, in some kind of fetish outfit, spinning on a hoop and surrounded by aliens. In the show: puppets, cardboard New York City, screens with lights and pictures projected onto them, changing backdrops, songs familiar and unfamiliar, plush scenery - a sequined 'disco mushroom' provides the impetus for a very trippy sequence of events, involving at one point super tall satyrs with large, plush genitals. The staging was amazing, to say the least. The plot and character development - nonexistant. But it was still entertaining. Arias sang like an old soul singer, very feminine and also very husky and expressive. He worked the audience and even suggested to one guy that they get some enchiladas after the show. At the end he brought out the puppeteers. Meg said they looked like elves.

And that was the end of my surreal day. It was unique New York. Despite its dirtiness, this is certainly a city where everything is happening.