Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Waiting Hell

In Ilya Kabakov's early eighties essay "On Emptiness"*, the artist carries on about how Russian railway stations are hell on earth, filthy disgusting places where one feels that one is stuck forever to sit and observe kitchy art. I've come to feel the same way about Newark Penn Station, where all too often I find myself stuck for 20 minutes at the end of the day -- 20 minutes that I don't get to spend with my kids. The place just sucks. All too often I find myself there, sweaty, pushing to get on a train, then standing all the way home. Why do I live in this shithole of a region?

*Between Spring and Summer
Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston, 1990
translated from the Russian by Clark Troy

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Think positively, use the 20 minutes of waiting to apply a liberal dollop of enhancement cream to your nether regions surreptitiously under your business suit!