By HannaH Allen, Tessa Allen, Shani Bekt, Samantha Clark, Jesse Strauss, and Ryan Wuestewald
Lately I’ve been watching a lot of videos of people performing elaborate and pointless feats. Speed stacking dice, building card towers atop sleeping pets, croquet trick shots, Rube Goldberg machines that deliver a ping pong ball into a plastic cup from across the house. The creators of these videos are very bored and guilt-wracked for feeling bored, the way all us non-essentials and recently unemployed are. In that way, we are alike and these videos bring us closer together. But when I watch them, I cannot help but feel envy. The entire time I am thinking: look at all that space.
TESSA : How do you tell people you are doing? How do you talk to them about what’s going on with you- or how are you actually doing? SAM: It’s going SHANI:Hanging in there.RYAN:Strange. A lil’ stir crazy.SAM: The first thing I have to point out is there are six of us living here- it’s a lot. I mean, I prefer it, but it’s New York we’re sharing a tiny place together. For the last six weeks, I have lived in a four bedroom apartment filled with six people and a loving, slightly neurotic small dog. The dog is having the time of his life. Everyone else, less. To answer some FAQs about this quarantine situation: no, it’s not my apartment it’s my girlfriend’s and her three roommates, yes there are two bathrooms. There is a washer/dryer. The common area, including the kitchen, is the size of a small motel room. The bedrooms have a real window or two. The common space, medieval arrow slits.
We are restless in here, but there is a lot to assuage that. We are six creative people and there are lots of silly body-weight workouts to do, play readings to stage and brick-sized novels to finish. Childhood-favorite movies that you did not remember being so creepy to be watched. When we want to do these things in the common area, we have to do it on top of other people who maybe wanted to do their own activity. That can be stressful and exhausting, but it is manageable. The worst part is not that we are restless and stressed and exhausted and in a small space, it’s knowing that everyone else in New York is too. It is not a New York I recognize.
TESSA: Why do you choose to live in New York? Or why did you? Is that the same question? I don’t know- SHANI: It feels like home, there’s community, there’s diversity, an upfrontness, a bluntness. That and all the local spots[HANNAH enters and is mad that we started talking about this before she was out of her room]HANNAH: I live in New York cuz I moved here and never left. JESSE: Yeah moving is a pain in the ass. That’s why I’ve never done it.RYAN: The reasons I live in New York don’t exist right now, social outings and art-SAM: Busy-nessSHANI: YeahHANNAH:New Yorkers aren’t made to be kept inside. Even the most introverted ones are social creatures. On a usual day in New York you are interacting with hundreds of strangers. SAM: -the idea I can walk down the street to the thrift store or, go grab a bagel-SHANI: New York has a bond. I know that people say New Yorkers are rude- but real new yorkers are not fucking rude- they are happy to help you. SAM: Yeah, of course I am going to say something if you are texting on the subways stairs- get the fuck out here. [Everyone agrees. Sam burps. Everyone laughs.]HANNAH: It’s weird to be in the hot spot of the pandemic but also so far away from everything right now. New York is its people, and, with everyone stuck in their own letterbox, the city is only a postcard of itself, some two-dimensional foreign place. I miss the real thing. My girlfriend Tessa and I continually speak of this loss. We all live in New York and endure these tiny apartments because the city is where you spend your time. There are things to do and places to be. Both the cultural institutions and the neighborhood bars are world-class. More importantly, they are filled with adventurous, inventive, interesting people. They have wild experiences they want to share with you, or sometimes they are that wild experience. The people of New York—each a co-witness of this enormous fast-moving thing—talk to one another because we live on top of each other, jolting around, bumping into, dare-I-say grinding against others who also see New York happening. We need to share, lest we get swallowed by it. But it’s not only a survival technique. We share common spaces and secret knowledges with one another, and we relish it. We are enriched by experiencing the strange with strangers. Right now that does not exist. Outside is quiet, shuttered.
SAM:I’ve never heard so many birdsHANNAH: And the bells, every 15 minutes for 8 hours every dayTESSA:The people cheering out the windows at 7pm for the shift change.SHANI:And sirens [Everyone agrees]HANNAH: I’m used to hearing a lot of sirens but now it feels different. I am much more aware of each siren I hear. TESSA: I used to be able to hear the steel drums practicing from my window. I miss that. The stillness reverberates back in the apartment, and makes the space we share even smaller. I am grateful for my health and the health of my friends. But if I’m not going to get to experience the best part of living in New York, strangers, I sure wouldn’t mind a fucking backyard.
Description by Jesse Strauss. Dialogue by Tessa Allen, HannaH Allen, Samantha Clark, Shani Bekt, Ryan Wuestewald. All are artists, acting, writing, dancing, drawing, and sneaking up the fire escape for fresh air in Brooklyn, NY.