It used to be that when you told someone you were off America for a couple of weeks, they’d say: “Wow! Lucky you! I wish I was going.. etc.” Now they say: “Oh my God! It’s so dangerous. Look out for all those crazy people with guns. Don’t go near any schools or supermarkets!” Such is the popular image of the United States today in the eyes of the world.
Well I’ve been almost a week in New York and Washington D.C. and haven’t witnessed any mass shootings. Yet. But there are plenty of crazies. In the four years since I’ve been in New York, everything seems to have got madder and dirtier and more rundown. Needless to say, if you stay in the right parts of town it looks fabulous, but it’s apparent that the dark side is creeping into more and more of the city.
The area around Times Square was always a jungle, but I don’t recall so many beggars, so many people standing screaming on street corners, so much squalor. Everywhere one goes, the streets are packed with fast-food carts, serving a range of high colesterol specials. There’s constant loud rap music emanating from what used to be called ghetto blasters (surely there’s another name nowadays?). My personal nightmare was the sound of Turkey in the straw played on something like a stylophone, that seemed to follow me up a street. It was like being stalked by the forces of militant kitsch.
For the traveller, the fun begins at the revolting JFK, where the traveller is confronted with queues at customs that take an hour to negotiate. Upon getting to the front, at last, a customs officer is just as likely to be surly and aggressive, as if he hopes to catch you in some big lie. To transfer from the airport to Manhattan is a horribly expensive process, with no realistic public transport options. I fell back on a taxi – which was cheaper than an Uber – and paid more than $100. This is very easy to do if you’re spending AUD$, as the exchange rate means one may add a third to every transaction. The tipping process, which has become both streamlined and out-of-control, is another form of bloodletting. You are automatically prompted to add 20 or 25 percent minimum to every bill, regardless of the quality of service or product. It’s frankly ridiculous, and is the mark of a system that has come loose from its moorings.
When I used to arrive in NY, I’d go down to the Carnegie Deli and order a rueben, partly for the spectacle of seeing a sandwich that needed to be delivered with a forklift. The Carnegie is no more, although Katz’s is still kicking. I made the mistake of trying another place which produced a sandwich that would have looked scanty in a kindergarten lunch pack, and charged the equivalent of AUS$ 40.
I could go on and on. A lot of people will say I’m just another provincial tourist whingeing about money. I wish it were so simple. I’ve been in this city many times, most recently in 2019, and this time the difference is palpable. On this trip, I really feel as if I’m watching the end of an empire, with a spiralling cost of living that makes it hard for ordinary people to live, while the poor have the option of surviving in abject degradation, going mad or turning to crime. The problem obviously starts at the top, with a dysfunctional political system that has become the norm ever since the Trump years, although the roots of the problem go back much further.
It’s as if the size of tips has had to increase to compensate for the billions of dollars handed back to the wealthy, who dislike the idea of paying taxes. The result is a welfare system put under excessive and increasing strain, crumbling infrastructure that sees trains derailed and bridges falling down, and a society filled with hatred and division. The 2024 election is shaping up as a farcical contest between a sitting President who often gives the impression he doesn’t know what day it is, and a raving narcissicist who no longer bothers to conceal his fascist tendencies. That’s presuming Biden hasn’t been sent to aged care by then, and Trump incarcerated for the rest of his charmless life.
Nothing I’m saying here is remotely controversial or original, it’s just a shock to experience it at first-hand, rather than via the media. Naturally it’s not all bad, but I’m no stranger to the USA, and I’ve never had such a strong sense that the wheels are falling off. I’ll see if another week’s acclimatisation makes me more forgiving.
Meanwhile, back in Oz, the “white hands” saga continues to fester, with Dr. Nick belatedly announcing that he is postponing his big winter exhibition of APY art, and Tony Burke making noises about a broadranging inquiry. The issue has gone beyond the initial questions about white asssistants “juicing up” Indigenous canvases, as there are now accusations of fraud and deception involving substantial sums of government money. This is something that doesn’t allow Tony Burke to play Pontius Pilate.
A shocking story in the Herald revealed that the Powerhouse is set to close for the next three years while a ruinous, massively expensive rebuild is under way. Former director, Lindsay Sharpe, and others have rightly denounced this as untenable. To close a major museum for three years, sending the curators to offices in Castle Hill and Parramatta, dumping major parts of the collection any-old-where… only to re-emerge with a product that nobody wants at a final cost approaching $2 billion, is the most absurd act of cultural vandalism ever perpetrated by any government in this country. It was wholly the initiative of the Coalition, so Labor must be as good as their election promises and put a stop to this wildly expensive, incredibly short-sighted project. As it appears there is a concerted effort to push through with the plans, the new government has no time to waste making further inquries. Do you have to inquire about a tsunami when it’s looming over your head?
So much for the serious stuff. This week’s column is tidying up more art from Archbald season. I wish it was all exciting and different, but in fact it’s the same as every other year. One hopes the Salon des Refusés will be a slap in the face for the main exhibitions at the AGNSW, but it’s only an echo. There are, however, a few highlights, which I’ve tried to identify. If there were a prize for chutzpah, it would go to Wendy Sharpe for her no-pants portrait of performance artist, Emma May Gibson. It was obviously conisdered too naughty for an increasingly PC Archibald, and also for the Herald, which demonstrated the truth of my claims about our growing wowserism by reproducing the picture from waist -up.
The film being reviewed is Cairo Conspiracy, a taut, unsual espionage story set within the Al-Azhar Islamic university in Cairo. It’s one of those films that makes you stand back and wonder how it was ever made. Answer: by a Swedish director of Egyptian origins, who did his shooting in Istanbul. As I’ve found in America, looking from the perspective of an outsider allows a certain painful clarity.