In 2005, I toured the interior of the now closed Music Palace Theater on Bowery in New York's Chinatown. Shuttered for many years now, the interior still contained the furnishings of a movie house. Even the manager's office was untouched as if the staff left work one day fully expecting to return to their labors the next day, but never returning. The take-out container filled to the brim with rubber bands waiting to be stretched into service; the tape dispenser patiently cradling the sticky roll cellophane tape ready for duty; the stapler prepared to connect the disconnected --- all standing at attention and frozen in the stagnant pause of history. The opposite of a eunuch really --- ready and equipped for action, but not discharged.
These resilient remnants of limestone cliffs stand stubbornly on the shore even as all around them have fallen to the sea. Echoing all that has washed away in waves. Indelible footprints refusing to be erased by the fast shifting sands.
I find the backs of statues sometimes more interesting than the fronts. Over the past decade, the Italian authorities have worked hard to remove the dirt and grime from the public statues all over Rome and restoring them so they don't resemble dirty, syphilitic creatures from a leper colony. But, within the folds and crevices of this statue, the accumulation of grime was not rubbed clean and it added a beautiful texture and depth.
