There is a magic to the rooms. The spaces, the theaters, the clubs, the bars, the back porches.
I came across Roddy Bottum’s “These Rooms,” which was an eloquent journey into all sorts of rooms, weaving the magic with the turmoil, and everything in between.
“The rooms of punk rock, don’t get me started. Where we are as a youth, as a celebration, as a rebel in our lives at the pinnacle of what matters, politically, protesting, being together and the sheer volume of the music as it comes off the stage, the pits, the shine of those shows, the drunk dumbness of becoming who we. become and the strength of that.”
I’m turning 50 this year and still remember the community centers and basements and feeling the floor shake in a second floor apartment in Brookyn that was for some reason accessible only via the fire escape.
Then a good friend sent me this video of the great Ian McKellen on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, talking about live theater, and doing anything to be in those places, and the magic that happens if only we get off our fucking phones.
It’s the rooms, the spaces, the theater of humanity that endures, that allows the magic to happen, the let me find these two different pieces on this morning and to put them into a blog post that is accessible around the world via the web browser that ships on every smart phone.