2.5 Cents (from Conversations over Stolen Food)

From antiquity to the present, social theory has often fused critical and creative discourse, esoteric and exhibitionistic tendencies. Socrates and Diogenes first announced many of their most radical propositions from the Athenian marketplace. Thoreau sowed his solitary beans while remaining (as scholar Stanley Cavell suggests) just barely within his neighbors' view. And now, as archivists of evanescent urban experience, as grazers of the public space (commercial, aural, textual), we have recorded forty-five-minute conversations for thirty straight days throughout New York City.

Half these talks took place at a Union Square health-food store, which we call "WF." Other locations included the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera House, Central Park, Prospect Park, and a Tribeca parking garage. For this special issue on the "market," we have prepared a WF conversation.

6:43 p.m. Friday, January 26 Union Square WF

J:

How should we begin tonight?

A:

Any suggestions?

J:

The man behind me with heavy eyelids—looks like he had a rough day.

A:

Yes, it seems hard to have a stiff neck and such loose lips simultaneously. He's tried to stretch himself out of confusion.

J:

What did he tear to pieces?

A:

Foil. He'd bought late lunch before going under. Does the brown bottle contain beer? Could this be a nervous … or or chemical reaction from antibiotics?

J:

I think he bought a ginger beer. Though WF has started stocking a handful of beers near the juices.

A:

Yeah I remember slipping beer into coat pockets as I'd shop at the Twenty-third Street branch, Twenty-sixth, whatever …

J:

You lifted beers from there?

A:

I've had one brief shoplifting phase independent of this project. Before flying to Berlin I'd felt a survivalist need to save every cent.

J:

Perhaps you hoped to treat Kristin …

A:

But it was in relation to Kristin that I stopped stealing. There's nothing else I don't tell her about—that I withhold, and would want to deny if asked about. Staying dishonest sounds lonely.

J:

Because you'd get left with who you are. You can't come fully across to meet someone else. Now what would this guy keep in his bag? It appears more stuffed …

A:

Than …

J:

any bags packed by a cashier downstairs.

A:

I could only imagine, since it does look stuffed: compressed clothes or paper scraps. Torn-up scraps can always be compacted.

J:

Or could he have visited from New Haven?

A:

Last last night I crossed a block entirely covered with goose feathers. Cats had ripped a bedspread. I wonder if he retrieved the … oh his arms just soared above his head.

J:

Right, he may realize now and then that he's in public and can't doze off.

A:

Does it exhaust you to watch eyelids flutter?

J:

No.

A:

Approaching someone stylish I'll feel well dressed myself, or horribly self-conscious.

J:

So did …

A:

My clothes comment could be subliminal. I heard three cymbal beats while passing the Turkey's Nest (that Bedford bar) and now can't forget the song "Sharp Dressed Man."

J:

May I take a sip of tea?

A:

Has your cough …

J:

I've, I'm back at 100 percent.

A:

Okay. I need to avoid a cold right now. This nostril pimple hurts to wipe.

J:

Did the the man purposely deprive himself of sleep? Could he soon hit his seventy-second hour, at which point people turn clinically insane?

A:

He started packing his bag, then stopped—much as that drugged guy in the East Village several years ago tried to make a phone call. Both drained themselves instead of rallying.

J:

Hmm. The East Village guy abandoned that call, yet thought he'd fix his hair in a shop window. He pulled a comb from his pocket and combed his bangs but couldn't get them right. He tried again and again: nearly dozing …

A:

[Muffled] unprecedented …

J:

Yes, hopefully we caught that on...