A Brie Grows in Brooklyn

The Moonrise Kingdom Is Not In West Savannah

When I was little, I lived in a lot of different fantasy worlds. The best one could be accessed through a portal in a tree in my friend’s backyard. I never actually went there, but I dreamed of it often. It was a castle with hundreds of rooms, all catered to my desires. Closets full of the most beautiful dresses. Shaded pools lined with waterfalls. Banquet halls full of all kinds of sweets. Hand maidens that followed me around, and obeyed my every command. A boy, strange and handsome, who would give me my first kiss. 

I’m pretty sure my friend with the tree had autism, but I would beg my parents to go to his house anyway. There, we would sit on his tire swing, and construct elaborate plans to get to the top of the tree, where we were sure that we could find the doorway to our enchanted kingdom.

Looking back, it’s pretty clear that my favorite fantasy was actually just an elaboration of the song, “There Is a Castle In A Cloud,” from Les Misérable. Nevertheless, it was so real to me that to this day, I can still taste what it smells like. I can still feel myself opening the carved wooden entrance.

Read More

Submarine: A Review, But More, The Wall That I Keep On Hitting

Yesterday, I spent the day on my front stoop with a few friends, trying to sell off some of Caleb’s things to make room for my own. These things included a fancy cassette player and an ASR drum synthesizer, both outmoded objects that in Williamsburg—where a generation of people raised on Wes Anderson are still trying to figure out ways in which they, too, can appropriate from the past in order to be original in the present—would have sold like wildfire. In Carroll Gardens, adult Brooklyn, people didn’t even know what they were.

“Dude, that’s for the garbage,” my friend’s boyfriend said, pointing to the cassette player.

“People still use cassette players!” Caleb protested. “Bands are starting to release their records on them again.”

“Bands that you should be ashamed of listening to,” I reminded Caleb. 

Read More