Are we human?

…or are we dancer?



The epic song by The Killers now and forever holds a special poignancy in my heart thanks to the past couple of days spent at the majestic (others might say ridiculous) opening of the new Hollister flagship store in SoHo.

For those of you who don’t know Hollister, it’s a clothing brand. Think Abercrombie and Fitch on surf steroids. And the opening of this huge new radical store in Manhattan caused quite a stir, even in this jeweled city of steel jawed workers and slack jawed tourists.

On day one, we approached the store from the southwest, walking up Prince Street and then making a left on Broadway. In other words, we attacked the very belly of SoHo—right where it triangulates between the West Village and the Lower East Side, not too far from Little Italy and Chinatown. Our strategy was to blend in with the 10,000 people on the street corner before making a definitive move toward the store. I think it worked. No one noticed us.

We knew we were getting close to the store front when we could smell the store’s signature scent, the cologne of the unalone, two blocks away. We followed our noses and the trail led us straight to the front door where an impossibly hot model wearing a somewhat undersized bikini greeted us. This is why NYC is the numero uno tourist destination in the USA. I stared at her ass for 1/10th of a second and it just about justified every second of every 4 hour commute of every day of every week times every month of the past three years. Not to mention the years I spent partying there wondering when I would see such wonderous ass crack. Her boobs were just as impossibly spectacular, as well. And for the ladies, there was an equally carved shirtless dude joining her in welcoming us to the store.

I think they were both 17 and working for minimum wage. Not a bad gig if all you want to do is stand naked on a street corner and strike a pose.

*
We slide by the models who were born when we were graduating college and enter the coven.

*
It is dark and crowded like a Disney attraction from hell.

There is no oxygen in the building, only the cologne of the unalone. There is loud, throbbing pop music. They seem to be playing “Human” by the Killers nonstop. There is a wall of faux windows dedicated to a live video feed from Huntington Beach, where I cut my teeth on a surfboard. All we see is a large elderly woman in a green one piece with a hat on, thigh deep in high tide. Confusion reigns everywhere. Shoppers don’t know where to find the shit they’re looking for. Models are untrained in customer service, but are amazingly expert at pointing to another warren within the coven. The stairs are lit to be disorienting. The shape of the store shifts with each throb of the echoing chant heaving from the stellar sound system – “Are we human or are we dancer? My sign is vital and my hands are cold. And I’m on my knees looking for the answer.”

*
We’re all models posing. We’re forced to pose either as we are or as we aspire to be. We’re conscious of our presence among others—at least some of us are—and we act accordingly. We choose to pose, dance, shop, or point. More to come on this theme, I think, but this is it for now.