Punk Rock Tights

'

 Ah, Lara.  Bad news abounds, doesn't it?  Every day there is death.  Some days there is slaughter. Maybe the truest music on earth is punk rock.  Maybe the most authentic way of being in the world is this punk rock girl in her shredded woolen tights on a steaming day, so hot the skies split would soon split open.  From Greil Marcus' Lipstick Traces via the May revolts of '68:  "LIVE WITHOUT DEAD TIME" (31).  And on the Sex Pistols, "This was music that refused its own name, which meant it also refused its history--from this moment no one knew what rock 'n' roll was, and so almost anything became possible" (39).

Anyway, I sat in the park again and listened to more bands commemorating the Tompkins Square Park riot in August of '88.  There were political speeches and verbal accounts of the night.

On the bench, I cradled my husk cherries in my skirt.

I watched this guy get arrested by a plain clothes cop, and then get perp walked by a uniformed cop.

Afterwards, I strolled past the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop and watched this charming male employee dressed like a milk maid (plus, tights) entertain and manage the long line that stretched down 8th Street.  These people were thinking, not of riots--not of violence and their own deaths--but only of soft homemade goodness.  Perhaps, the Bea Arthur?  The Salt Pimp?