About 2 years ago I was in the Penn Station area of Manhattan waiting to meet a friend. We met at a Starbucks near there and were hanging out having coffee when we were approached by this kind, well dressed, old white man. He told us his name was Zeit Geist (rhymes with “right-heist”). He invited me and the girl I was with to come see his show, right around the corner, in less than an hour. He claimed the tickets to be worth $50 but he would sell them to us for $5 a piece. He was really quite dashing. Probably in his mid to late 70’s, well dressed in an old fashioned suit, the kind that includes a vest and hat, like William Burroughs style.
Always up for an adventure I bought us each tickets, we went and grabbed a late lunch, then followed the address on the tickets to a doorway a few blocks west of Penn Station in a fairly uninhabited area of the city. It was a Sunday afternoon and all of the stores were closed. Very few people were around walking the streets. The building that his show was supposedly taking place seemed wrong, like we were at the wrong address. It was an unmarked black door, and as I remember, the only clue we had that it was the correct address was because the addresses on either side of the door left us no choice.
Then another couple showed up, and then a guy. All of us seemed a little confused, each of us having dealt with the same, kind, blue-eyed old man selling tickets to his show to strangers on the street. So in we went. It was a dark, anonymous place. We followed the directions on our tickets down a hallway, up some stairs and into a tiny theater where the old man was to greet us.
It was only him. No ticket-takers, no other actors, no crew. Just him. It was a little awkward, to say the least. But we each found seats and waited for whatever he had in store for us. And sure enough, Zeit Geist took the stage by himself and began to talk. He told us of himself being the Chosen One. He was the next stage of the evolution of mankind. He was the missing link. Our connection to future man. He explained to us all that we were in fact in the presence of the next Noah, if you will.
Have you seen the movie Being John Malkovich? Remember that white haired old man that played John Cusack’s boss? The one who drank the carrot juice until his piss turned orange? That character was exactly who this old man was. He was based on Zeit Geist. His style, presentation, sexual undertones and everything. The same guy. It was immediately clear where those writers got that character.
His show was amazing. Two hours long, and I was riveted through the whole thing. He explained how one who rises into the sky and looks down sees people and cars as if they were toys. And if one rises even higher he will see the earth get smaller. And higher still our planet will shrink from the size of a basketball to a grain of sand, then utterly disappear. And higher still the same happened with our solar system and the universe, until it all utterly disappears, as we also disappear from it. We become one who has seen something no other eyes have seen, and the keeper of information that no one else keeps. We become a god, of sorts, looking down on everything from a viewpoint like no other. And then we decent, back to the planet, feet touching back onto the earth’s surface with information that no other human has ever had. And this, this is Zeit Geist.
I left that show dazzled. He’d given us his home phone number so that he could answer any questions that we might have! He was completely serious, and he was there to share his knowledge with anyone who wanted it. He was the deliverer of each person’s next step up in the evolutionary chain.
Anyhow, two years later, and I’d never seen this man again. I had lost the ticket he’d given us, and there was nothing about this guy online, or anywhere else that I could take others to see him too. Not until last week. Last week Zeit Geist came into my coffee shop to sell more tickets to his show. I couldn’t believe it. I recognized him the second he walked in the door. And funny, when I saw him, the first thing that popped into my mind was “21st Century Noah.”
I immediately told the people he approached about tickets to buy the tickets, and that his show was amazing. Then I bought tickets for myself as well. I only had $2 on me, and he let me have 2 tickets, a dollar a piece! I knew that if I didn’t get them right then it would probably be 2 more years before I saw him again, or maybe never see him again!
Anyhow I just returned from seeing him a second time, and he’s still incredible. A completely different venue in another part of town, a new performance, same message, absolutely riveting. If you can, you have to see his show, titled “How High Is Up?” This time I have the address, and times. The Sandra Cameron Dance Center , 199 Lafayette Street, 2nd Floor NY, NY 10012 every Sunday, 3pm until August. After that, he’s gone, and the only chance you have after that is if you happen to get asked by him directly wherever you might happen to be hanging out, somewhere in Manhattan.
