“La Passegiata”: Red Hook. Private ‘art’ walk(s), in which I don’t look for art. June. part I.

Date: June 29, 2010, late afternoon (with some mention of the previous night, almost at dark).

Location: Van Brunt and environs

Hot-as-heck, high humidity. Oppressive sun. Criss-cross-the-sidewalk-to-find-shade weather.

Leaped-to conclusion: I’m wandering into Red Hook so often (and so enjoyably now), I think I deserve that “wandering-into” privileges be granted me officially—by the locals. Perhaps my new title could be in the form of “Resident-Observer,” or “RH: Chronicler-of-Note.”

In any case, the place is looking damn-near cinematic perfect, its ratio of industry-to-residential juuuust right for the casual, arty observer: huge warehouses looming over low-lying dwellings; a billboard canted at just the right angle to block the clouds, and yet pleasingly draw the eye; that “R” marooned up high, and adding funny punctuation to most every scene it kisses, in today’s case, a mixed-racial conversation I witnessed between a business-suited white man and a sun-dress-wearing African-American woman (no, I didn’t snap their picture). True, they were waiting for a bus, but they were also clearly enjoying each other’s company. As I watched them, that lone, silly letter seemed to move with me as I passed. R: For ‘right on.’