The View From Scranton

Downtown Saturday Night

I make people nervous. They watch me from the corner of an eye, flinch when I say Hello, shy when I inquire. Maybe it's the suit; a suit suited more to a city of suits. Maybe it's the mug. I am a strange face, from a stranger place. It's gotta show. And maybe, just maybe, it's because I haven't been around civilians for nearly four years. None, except the far-flung family and friend. And they know me. Know no qualms. The cons in the joint knew me too, who I was, where I came from, what I meant and what I mean. And if they didn't know someone told 'em. Ditto the wild world before my fall. People always knew me, the better for worse.

Not so now. Here. I come without entrée, without introduction, without reputation. Even a bad reputation would add some perspective to my being here; perhaps even earn me some respect, 'cause all that badness would come contingent upon all that was good, or noteworthy, or at least noted. No reputation on a block braced by two halfway houses bursting at the seams with just-released bad guys means No Good. Period.

Such was the sorta sordid story last eve at Test Pattern, the only venue I've seen where once I would've hung, where I once would've been welcome. A storefront gallery, much like the storefronts of the East Village ‘80s, particularly Civilian Warfare or 101 St. Mark's, though with a peculiarly Chicago bent (this, after all, is America), the Pattern is ramshackle and charming and honest and most importantly, it's there. A haven and a showplace for Scranton's indie artist set.

But even among Scranton's most open minds, I was suspect. Heads turned and just as quickly turned away. Nerves jangled at my approach. Like a ring of keys held by a hand in a hurry. Like a haunt. Who is this unmasked man? Even a lone figure, pony-tailed and standing forever alone in the center of the gallery, chose to point me to a card rather than answer my simple question, forcing my gambit to fall flat on my face. Egg all over again. Of course I could get the artist's name from a flyer; I'd prefer though to get it from a human being.

Then Conor McGuigan, local gadfly, roustabout and proprietor of the joint, dashed to hide the tip jar near where I inadvertently happened to be standing. I hadn't even noticed the thing till he had it in his hands. By then I was mortified. I've done some mortifying things in my days; but nothing quite so scummy. And nothing quite so struck me. That I'd even be considered so below low was tantamount to a tarring. I wanted to tell the cat that I robbed banks, not galleries, especially not cool little indie galleries struggling to make their way through the morass.

But I didn't say any such thing. Why would I? I can't blame the guy. He doesn't know me from Badam. I'm just some slick in a suit lurking around the fringes of his center. An intruder in his midst. He's right to be wary. Who knows what evil might be lurking within.

And who knows if I'm even accurate. Nervy, I might’ve just nerved to a situation that never existed. Conor was nothing but a gentleman throughout my brief, suspicious stay; I, on the other hand, have yet to fully regain charm's favor. He had me as his guest, and that itself is a welcome. For that I am truly grateful.

As am I to the crafty Cassie Rose Kobeski, Test Pattern's artist in residence for the month of September. Her show, 'Nobody Kids On Me,' is a hodgepodge of cleverly assemblaged knowing, equal parts Belmar and Johns, all parts on display. These are the stirs of our souls. Beth B would approve, as would Marie Kennedy, two wily women artslingers of equally explicit strength. Since I'm of a more literal mind, I kept thinkin' of Mary Gaitskill’s Two Girls, Katherine Dunn's Geek Love, and Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry, and all the other knockout narrativists I dig so much but fail too often to recall. Kobeski triggered the recollection. Her work is that potent. That imploreful. Her show a wondrous welcome blast back to a place where a future exists, a future made to mean, a future with a vivid visual core.

And a future that surely would've been aurally compounded had I been allowed to stick around to watch and listen to Kid Icarus and the three other bands on Test Pattern's basement bill. This is the true underground, a place I used to know all too well. And this is where under gets over. Unfortunately, curfew killed my getting anything more outta what would've undoubtedly been an even more remarkable evening. Too bad. I would've luv'd to have stayed. Swayed. Spoken. Let the cool good people of indie Scranton warm up to a cold hard ex-con.

posted by John Hood. @ 6:55 PM