(2023-04-05) Mod New York City

Craig Mod on New York City. Blossoms in the Big Apple

I was in NYC last week to run a gauntlet of meetings and to attend a little reunion conference — a conference of a certain subset of Old Guarde web people — and the trip was so short, and so — in many ways — manic, that I don’t know if I ever really arrived. But I’ve certainly returned.

In this state of total discombobulated disembodiment, vacillating between awe and horror, I engaged with the city. I saw people I loved

When I was sixteen I used to drive into NYC

I’d drive in, head to Cony Island High on St. Marks Place, and … play drums with a bunch of Jamaicans in a pot-smoke filled room?

I wanted to get away from my small town, and driving three or four hours through the night to one of the biggest cities on earth to play drums was one of the clearest options available.

the economics of NYC no longer make any sense; god forbid you also have a child or two) has whittled away the ability for the interesting people to make it their home.

In this way it feels like Tokyo should be the center of global artistic activity, a kind of Paris of the 1920s. I’m serious. And baffled... I lived here in my twenties precisely because of all of these reasons and more. Anything I’m doing today that is mildly interesting was seeded by what Tokyo enabled. For this, I am forever grateful... In my opinion, all of east Tokyo should be (even more) galleries and studios and an ever-churning collection of brilliant talent from around the world.