Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Calling all Artists

Are you an artist? Or do you just style yourself as such to get chicks and men? It doesn't matter! We here in New Rochelle, NY, will accept you, and all your hairy, unemployed brethren. Just think, here you get:

Unlimited wireless access!
Meals at the finest fast-food establishments!
Homes in great neighborhoods: cheap! cheap! With loads of character and big, high ceilings and lots of light whereby you can paint your masterpieces. And granite and maple and corian, all words which, according to the book I just read, Freakonomics, will make your new home worth a mint!
Old homes that were built to withstand surging seas or strange fluctuations in the housing market
Occasional squirrels
The chestnut harvest in fall (thems make good 3-D art! And good eats. Ouch.)

Brooklyn and Tribeca are so overdone. Populate our neighborhood with your interesting self and your weird art and you will find a home worthy of your talents. Plus, we don't have any of those peculiar artist's rules for living in Tribeca that demand you prove yourself. New Rochelle was once home to many a famous artist. It has several characteristics that will make an artist feel at home:

1. The smell of the sea, and the cry of errant seagulls (yes, think of your soundscapes/stinko-thon installation)
2. Older architecture that may feature in your "quaint city streets" paintings
3. Passersby who will add local color and verve to your sculptures
4. Lotsa liquor to fuel your creativity
5. Annoying rich people to mock and call "the man" in your invective treatises
6. Fresh veggies, to keep you alive
7. Fresh construction on which to spray-paint your so-called "graffiti art"
8. A fine library green for your impromptu guerilla dance interpretaion
9. Shopping carts in which to wheel your unwanted art about the area
10. New Ro's #1 blogger, rated by the critics (see below), as a local resident!

The Critics Rave:

"The Party Pony (not to be confused with the simple "Party Pony" of Canadian fame) seems to be behind the 25% uptick in property values around the area. Take note, investors, and get in before it's too late."
--Jay Marwillack, New Rochelle Financial Quarterly

"This is all very confusing to me. Are the drug addiction stories here for humorous purposes? Dialing your number now."
--The Party Pony's mommy, via email

"I frow food at you!"
--Wolfgang, younger child of The Party Pony

"That's easily the best thing I've read in a long while--well, of course you're preaching to the choir, as I am predisposed to look at this with a firm and flashing eye, thinking "Well, now we're past all the masks and into the pith of eternity, the plinth of heaven, that place where the north wind carries voices, that hard-to-find place where burly DeHavilland Beavers and puny Piper Cubs take you, the paradise on earth that you must walk or paddle to, as no funicular is going to make that voyage, now we're going home in this piece of writing, all of us, the funny-lookin' and the pretty, the writer is taking us, she saw it all and she remembers, all of it, all of us, all of us and all of love is going home--or rather, finding the home in ourselves." But even given my proclivity for this sort of thing, I was deeply, deeply touched to read this. This is the kind of people I always suspected we were. Nice work! Reads good! I loved it!"
--A famous military historian

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