I wanna dance with my baby
last chance to grab your JUNE GUNK, upcoming shows we're excited about and more
I wanna dance with my baby
I have been trying to find the same thing in shows.
I am nine and become obsessed with a tape recorder lying around the house. I record layer after layer of re-used tape onto a cassette to catalogue my stream of consciousness in a closed world game. I write songs about a face in the rug at the bottom of the stairs; a woman at the store with my own face.
When you grow older do you remember the feeling? What you were seeing?
My mom overhears once from the other room. I rewind the cassette, press record, dissolve a second life onto magnetic tape. i never record on it again.
I am still nine and land on the idea that i am a bad dancer, dropping out of ballet classes at the ymca, picking up soccer - a place where i realize my body is a shield rather than a point. I am an edge tangled between legs and cleats.
Defender.
But, my friends dance. Release, that is all they seem to know. You just have to see how it feels, Hannah.
I am consumed with watching them transform. A palm of a hand angles fluorescent light onto a cheek, a body molds into a wooden support beam, they all collapse into the brilliance of concrete. I lie next to them on the floor of an unfinished basement and i consider unfolding.
Would they see it?
Their movement continued into coding xanga sites with a single finger prodding at a key, running through backyards, spinning, spinning, falling apart, screaming. i let them teach me how.
How:
it is too much, is overheard, it is watched,
it is performance.
Performance becomes all i can think about.
At nine, i realize the way to do it is
Madonna on cassette
In a carpeted basement dancing
in the dark
I wanna dance with my baby she sings to me
Of course.
I drive her through the closed world when i am seventeen. It is hard to point out the importance when the key is about all the wrong things, now. I’m not actually sure if the coffee is good here, but we can find out. I will later realize how important this is to her.
The cassette player in the car has never been used, but she connects a cord to her phone and puts on Lana Del Ray, acts like I’m supposed to know who that is. I think it was the first time Allentown, Pennsylvania had heard someone singing Born To Die out a car window.
You never sing in the car, do you?
It feels offensive, but
I’m not alone
she would hear it
It becomes my religion.
We are a few years older in a place that feels like just ours for the first time And she asks me to sing. It is dark and hot (our apartment, naturally, has no windows) and we sit on tile floor in what has become my bedroom and i sing the words she wrote to a song she won’t sing.
I think I
we
Find it again
It has been the hardest level to beat, really. We convert.
I realize i have been trying to find the same thing in performance for years There are times when i cannot bear to be seen unless it is her
Or now,
a handful of others
Usually, i just want to watch
Sometimes a show is just that i wanna dance
sing
with my baby
And it can be seen
-Hannah Pruzinksy
:’)
If you haven’t scooped your copy of June GUNK yet, now’s your chance! They flew right out the window and we have just a few more. Hit us up, and remember that you can also subscribe to get it mailed to you (or a local delivery). Please make sure to send us your mailing address, if you want gunk mailed and you choose to subscribe. Other perks of $10/month membership will be announced next month including merch drops etc.
some upcoming shows we’re excited about and/or missed the print edition:
June 23 Kingfisher, Dorée Gordo, Maya Keren @ Stone Circle Theater
June 23 Youbet, Iceblink, Crossleged @ TV Eye
June 23 Asher White, TV Buddha, Or Best Offer @ Bowery Electric
June 23 ‘Touch Grass’ Ridgewood Mini Festival (Music! Readings! Zines! Food) @ 61 -14 Linden St. from 2-7PM
June 24 Claire Ozmun, Léna Bartels, Virginia Creeper @ Gold Sounds
June 29 Temporary Day Party’s 12 hour show @ Party Connection in Ridgewood - Hannah and I are helping w organizing this one and it’s going to be soooo sick (more on that next week)
ˋ°•*⁀➷ GUNK CLASSIFIEDSˋ°•*⁀➷
I am currently seeking alto and soprano singers to complete the harmonic trifecta in Krissanthemum's live band for a show at Brooklyn Made on 7/27!
krissanthemum.musica@gmail.com
Is your band (or solo act) looking to connect with other bands or performers to put together a bill for an upcoming show? Do you have a sick piece of gear you want to give to a good home? send GUNK a little intro to you & your music (if applicable & no links, sorry) including an email address for a reply and we’ll publish the listings! We also love a good missed connection ;)
->thegunkyard@gmail.com
we had so much fun dancing with u at the gunk party, ty for making it so sweet
and DJ KP and Secret Riso. thank u also to Sav for bringing me warm socks and cute shorts for me to wear when I got drenched in the rain.xx
ceci and hannah
Thank you for this gorgeous bit of impressionistic memoir - and the illustration is beyond perfect!!