New York Stories: Jami Attenberg

But why did I need saving exactly? I had gone big and bold for a year, exposing my fresh and dewy brain to cities all over Europe. I could not go back to the town of my youth. I was certain everything about me had changed. I was practically vibrating. New York City was the only place that could hold me.

Everything in America had changed, too, it seemed, at least from a cultural perspective. Before I left, all the bands I liked – the dirty, cranky, smart, anxious, loud ones – had felt like my own special secret. But one year later, Nirvana had broken, cracked open on the universe like a sticky egg, taking so many of my favorites with them. People now knew who the Screaming Trees were. All of a sudden, it seemed like everyone had heard of the Afghan Whigs.

If they had emerged, so had I. I had slept on trains. I had seen the artwork I had studied in my art history classes in museums all over Europe. I had let my hair grow very long and, in general, had stopped shaving everything. I had slept with men – not college classmates, but actual real-life older men. I had started smoking cigarettes and also hash, and I liked them both a great deal. Even my writing supplies felt more interesting: I tracked all of my adventures in quadrille-ruled notebooks I had bought in France.

Now I had a vastly different set of memories than most of the people in my life. I was one giant possibility and yet, with only one year left of college, I had no idea of the answer to the big question: Who was I going to become?

The answer, it felt at the time, was nothing much. I had no real-life training besides waiting tables and a rough understanding of the Microsoft Office suite. But I had an ear to the ground, and the ability to listen should not be disregarded. Through a friend, I heard that Sonic Youth would be playing at CBGB. They were billing themselves as Drunken Butterfly. I was ecstatic. Here was the show that would save me; I could drown in their guitars. I did not feel like coming up for air. I wanted to be consumed.

The show was to start late, well after midnight, 1 AM, 2 AM. Who really knew? It was hot. Unlike these days, as we contend with the grand mystery of climate change, summer was consistently shit back then: the subways were rank, the streets smelled like pee, and there was no chance of escape from the swelter and stink. We waited outside in line. I had my same fake ID as always, from a college friend of my brother’s who had my same big brown curly hair. I was wearing an orange-and-purple baby doll dress. I had, I suppose mercifully, started shaving my legs again. The bums on the Bowery were too hot to hustle. The streets were edgy. You had to watch yourself. People got shot in Manhattan all the time. The police state had not yet willed itself into existence. I wasn’t scared. I loved it. I could wait in line all night.

Would I wait now, in 2013? No. But at the age of 20, I would wait for hours and hours to see a band that was part of something bigger than myself. I would wait forever to be connected to a specific moment in time, especially in New York City, where everything felt more important, and still does. (Can a city have an ego? This one does. Can a city give you an ego? This one does that, too.) Every rock show felt important. How long would you wait to hear something great? How long do you wait before it’s too late to leave? The answer, at that time in my life, was that I would wait for Sonic Youth forever.

Maybe more specifically I would wait for Kim Gordon. Kim Gordon got it. She didn’t have a life plan, as far as I could tell, except to play her music. She made life work around her. I didn’t have many female role models because I had no idea what I wanted to be besides a writer, which did not seem like a thing you could actually be. But could you be a rock star? That year, that summer, it seemed like a possibility.

Eventually I got inside the club. CBGB, so dark and sticky – something always felt pornographic about it to me. And then there was Sonic Youth, at last. They throttled us with feedback for what seemed like much of the show. I had been wrong in thinking the challenge was to stay up late. The challenge instead was to make it through the entire set, noise blasting in my face. Life was about both: the waiting and the passing through to the other side. I was melting.

I kept my focus on Kim. Her hair went in her face when she was playing. She disappeared into the noise the way I had disappeared onto the trains in Europe. Did she know what she was doing any more than I did? She must have. It gave me hope to know that someone on this planet knew what they were doing. I gasped in the middle of that show. I gasped for air. When everything is unstable, music is there for you. It asks only that you listen.

Buildings get renovated, rock clubs turn into clothing stores, bums are replaced by rich people. New York City, dependably, changes all the time, but I choose to live in this place that changes. One of the greatest lessons I have learned in my life is that I have no one to blame for anything but myself. If there is turmoil, I have caused it. Every decision I make is mine. Every train I hop on, every line I stand in, every fuckup I make is mine, and mine alone. I hope I live long enough to see the Bowery turn into something else. I will learn and unlearn for eternity. I hope I never stop learning. I hope I never stop listening.
 

A version of this article appeared in The Daily Note, a free daily newspaper distributed in New York during the 2013 Red Bull Music Academy.

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