A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
(This isn't my blog anymore. Go not to Byzantium, but to http://redadmirable.wordpress.com/ and blush at my grandiosity).
17 May 2007
16 May 2007
Strange (Hospital) Bedfellows
I knew a lot when I took a drafty bus down to DC to protest W. Bush's first inauguration--I was sixteen, so of course I knew a lot. I knew that I really wanted All Things Considered to call me and not only be a Youth Radio reporter (so embarrassing and yet so rad), I knew that it was likely the FBI would be surveilling my vinegar-soaked handkerchief self, and I knew John Ashcroft was a Confederate apologist, woman-hating defeated Senator. In fact, I think the sign I made for the demonstration said something negative about him, instead of about Bush. (Remember the luxury of domestic politics?)
Much has changed in six years--Barbara, Jenna and I have all grown up, and at least one of us has never been arrested for trying to drink with a fake ID. The moral terrain has shifted so dramatically in the direction of egregious, malicious corruption during Bush's presidency that, this morning, Ashcroft seemed like a victim.
The mad-cap race to Ashcroft's hospital room would strike me as a thrilling, political-noir drama if it wasn't so repugnant. Bush tried to take advantage of an incapacitated, doddering Attorney General who had clearly shown himself willing to bend the law to satisfy politics--that's the kind of Attorney General you shouldn't have to drug up before program reauthorizations.
But, then, anomaly of anomalies, a weakened Ashcroft staggered out of his bed and took a stand. When the line between the good guys and the bad guys has veered so far over into the bad, it's hard to predict who our bedfellows will be. Compassionate Conservatism really backfired, eh? Wanton promiscuity and bed-sharing all around--and if Robert S. Mueller III is impregnated with Ashcroft's baby, he still has time to abort it.
Much has changed in six years--Barbara, Jenna and I have all grown up, and at least one of us has never been arrested for trying to drink with a fake ID. The moral terrain has shifted so dramatically in the direction of egregious, malicious corruption during Bush's presidency that, this morning, Ashcroft seemed like a victim.
The mad-cap race to Ashcroft's hospital room would strike me as a thrilling, political-noir drama if it wasn't so repugnant. Bush tried to take advantage of an incapacitated, doddering Attorney General who had clearly shown himself willing to bend the law to satisfy politics--that's the kind of Attorney General you shouldn't have to drug up before program reauthorizations.
But, then, anomaly of anomalies, a weakened Ashcroft staggered out of his bed and took a stand. When the line between the good guys and the bad guys has veered so far over into the bad, it's hard to predict who our bedfellows will be. Compassionate Conservatism really backfired, eh? Wanton promiscuity and bed-sharing all around--and if Robert S. Mueller III is impregnated with Ashcroft's baby, he still has time to abort it.
13 May 2007
Take Another Sip
So, I fear that I inadvertently bad-mouthed Devendorf/Dressner/Berninger & co (The National, to people who don't feel guilty about Technocrati searches (I am so ridiculous)) when I said that they played unremarkably last Tuesday. "Boxer" is all I've been listening to since my epic walk on Friday, and everytime we (being Ingrid the iPod and I) reach the end of "Gospel" I react like there's been a malfunction and stare at her as though there must be more. Honestly, I wish there were. It's a morose album--also about love, which exacerbates the discomfort--but I spent the weekend in New Jersey: it wasn't all Journey cover bands at O'Reilly's.
12 May 2007
Artistically Challenging Stirrup Jeans
Time Out New York did a feature this past week on the best walks in the city, which I was psyched about. I super love walking, and exploring at a pedestrian pace, on a human scale--I think it comes from travelling in countries where I don't speak the language, or at least not very well, and my social anxiety and fear of embarrassing myself make taxis and buses prohibitively intimidating. Ask a dusty, taciturn, big-bellied bus driver how to get to Sololá? Pienso que no.
Also, now I have a pedometer. Leeeee! And I have finished finals. So there's lots of good sunny time in Brooklyn. But was I going to do one of the ToNY walks?
"Ulysses S. Grant's final resting place is a hot walking spot."
My decision was made.
I chafe against predetermined exploration, anyway, (even though Max and I have grand plans for a Stoner's Walk) and it would definitely have been impossible to drink the Milanese cappuccino from a defunct Madison Avenue cafe to which ToNY aimed walkers, so I evaluated my priorities. I considered my ultimate destination--Gowanus, starting from Williamsburg--and also my ultimate preoccupation on any May morning when the air's already sultry: pretty dresses.
You should do this walk. You should not do this walk wearing consignment Grasshoppers. They will smell irreversibly atrocious.
The route is about five and a half miles and took me--with stops and an extended mournful look at my bicycle, which was robbed of its seat and rear wheel in Prospect Heights (it looks ridiculously undignified, like a senior citizen who forgot to put his pants on)--about three hours. Also, there's no reason for you to go all the way to Gowanus, even though if this were a magazine and especially if this were a cool magazine, I'd probably advise "catching" some "artistically challenging material" at the "Issue Project Room." Also, guess I'd do that if I wrote for Zagat's.
So. I started south on Bedford Avenue and walked through Williamsburg, the real Williamsburg, where everyone was scurrying around on foot or in minivan getting ready for Shabbos. If they were really rushed, they probably didn't have time to eat and just picked up a little drive-thru Glatt kosher chinese food at "Chinese Checkers." (I think keyboards explode if you spell "through" with all its letters in the context of mono-saturated fats).
I turned right on Rutledge, which turns into Classon, at which point the neighborhood begins to change. Blue Bass was started across the street from Pratt by some pretty young ladies last fall, and I really love their things, especially the things that are wee sweaters and sailor shirts for babies. I touched one, and something Lego-ish fell off. Sara Hodges, proprietress, was very nice about it.
I kept walking down Classon, hellooo western fringes of Bed Stuy, and turned right on the little spit of Quincy street that ends in the old Brooklyn Trolley building turned Broken Angel, the eerie building that needs an urban arts patron to the tune of $1.4 million. (Site-Meter indicates that I have a fabulously wealthy readership that loves sea glass). The Salvation Army at 22 Quincy isn't anything special, just several dank moth-bally rooms where I seriously considered buying a yellow bathing suit with white buttons. Honestly, it was the yellow and not the potential salvation (read: private-part skin falling off due to mysterious used bathing suit disease) that finally convinced me to walk away. A series of courteous gentlemen, though, did inform me in turn that all furniture was half-off. Another one told me my fly was down. All very helpful.
I trudged along, one teeny acid-washed skirt wealthier. My armpits were nearing super-saturation, so I dripped all over the counter and ordered a beverage at Muddy Waters, just north of Grand Army Plaza. Hootie Couture, on Flatbush, has lovely gowns and dresses that probably thrill the pubescent crowd that descends after it gobbles up American Apparel across the street. Everyone writes about Allison Houtte so I don't really need to, but on Friday she was keeping her store icy cold like a mint julep on Kentucky Derby day (she's from Florida/I'm out of my element here) and charming everyone who came in. Also, she kept trilling "If anyone wants some goooodies, come right up! I have caaaandy!"
At the (second, yes, second) Salvation Army down the block there was a different sort of lady clientele, exemplified by a sturdy old woman in a very sensible polo shirt who was paralyzingly confused about whether she'd purchased the other identical polo shirts on the counter before her.
"What?! They're yours! Take them!" the cashier kept repeating, and the woman didn't respond, just kind of jabbed her finger at the price tag. Finally, she used a very, very small voice to say "I want to pay less," even though she'd already paid--more.
By that point, I wanted to pay less, too, but I kept the dream alive and paid $2.99 debit for a smoking hot pair of Ralph Lauren STIRRUP JEANS. I was smelly and redeemed.
Also, now I have a pedometer. Leeeee! And I have finished finals. So there's lots of good sunny time in Brooklyn. But was I going to do one of the ToNY walks?
"Ulysses S. Grant's final resting place is a hot walking spot."
My decision was made.
I chafe against predetermined exploration, anyway, (even though Max and I have grand plans for a Stoner's Walk) and it would definitely have been impossible to drink the Milanese cappuccino from a defunct Madison Avenue cafe to which ToNY aimed walkers, so I evaluated my priorities. I considered my ultimate destination--Gowanus, starting from Williamsburg--and also my ultimate preoccupation on any May morning when the air's already sultry: pretty dresses.
You should do this walk. You should not do this walk wearing consignment Grasshoppers. They will smell irreversibly atrocious.
The route is about five and a half miles and took me--with stops and an extended mournful look at my bicycle, which was robbed of its seat and rear wheel in Prospect Heights (it looks ridiculously undignified, like a senior citizen who forgot to put his pants on)--about three hours. Also, there's no reason for you to go all the way to Gowanus, even though if this were a magazine and especially if this were a cool magazine, I'd probably advise "catching" some "artistically challenging material" at the "Issue Project Room." Also, guess I'd do that if I wrote for Zagat's.
So. I started south on Bedford Avenue and walked through Williamsburg, the real Williamsburg, where everyone was scurrying around on foot or in minivan getting ready for Shabbos. If they were really rushed, they probably didn't have time to eat and just picked up a little drive-thru Glatt kosher chinese food at "Chinese Checkers." (I think keyboards explode if you spell "through" with all its letters in the context of mono-saturated fats).
I turned right on Rutledge, which turns into Classon, at which point the neighborhood begins to change. Blue Bass was started across the street from Pratt by some pretty young ladies last fall, and I really love their things, especially the things that are wee sweaters and sailor shirts for babies. I touched one, and something Lego-ish fell off. Sara Hodges, proprietress, was very nice about it.
I kept walking down Classon, hellooo western fringes of Bed Stuy, and turned right on the little spit of Quincy street that ends in the old Brooklyn Trolley building turned Broken Angel, the eerie building that needs an urban arts patron to the tune of $1.4 million. (Site-Meter indicates that I have a fabulously wealthy readership that loves sea glass). The Salvation Army at 22 Quincy isn't anything special, just several dank moth-bally rooms where I seriously considered buying a yellow bathing suit with white buttons. Honestly, it was the yellow and not the potential salvation (read: private-part skin falling off due to mysterious used bathing suit disease) that finally convinced me to walk away. A series of courteous gentlemen, though, did inform me in turn that all furniture was half-off. Another one told me my fly was down. All very helpful.
I trudged along, one teeny acid-washed skirt wealthier. My armpits were nearing super-saturation, so I dripped all over the counter and ordered a beverage at Muddy Waters, just north of Grand Army Plaza. Hootie Couture, on Flatbush, has lovely gowns and dresses that probably thrill the pubescent crowd that descends after it gobbles up American Apparel across the street. Everyone writes about Allison Houtte so I don't really need to, but on Friday she was keeping her store icy cold like a mint julep on Kentucky Derby day (she's from Florida/I'm out of my element here) and charming everyone who came in. Also, she kept trilling "If anyone wants some goooodies, come right up! I have caaaandy!"
At the (second, yes, second) Salvation Army down the block there was a different sort of lady clientele, exemplified by a sturdy old woman in a very sensible polo shirt who was paralyzingly confused about whether she'd purchased the other identical polo shirts on the counter before her.
"What?! They're yours! Take them!" the cashier kept repeating, and the woman didn't respond, just kind of jabbed her finger at the price tag. Finally, she used a very, very small voice to say "I want to pay less," even though she'd already paid--more.
By that point, I wanted to pay less, too, but I kept the dream alive and paid $2.99 debit for a smoking hot pair of Ralph Lauren STIRRUP JEANS. I was smelly and redeemed.
09 May 2007
Feliz Cumpleanos a Lee
I made cupcakes for Lee's (ten hour long) birthday party last Friday. Lo era una celebración de Cuatro de Mayo, y por eso--just joking! I made Mexican chocolate cupcakes out of a mix of things, and I'll send the recipe along the next time lovely Whisk & Ladle proposes a recipe exchange. Until then, I'll say: there was orange zest, cinnamon & coffee in the cake part, and the vanilla icing was, ideally, like a Creamsicle, with orange juice & then more orange zest on top. Even though I know I'd really be a chiller person if I could, I can never restrain myself from forcing my baking on Amanda (and Josh, this time), because I think she'll be just as psyched as I am, and then I made Mark & Danielle eat them, too. I didn't say anything, because then we'd all have salmonella, but I felt like the batter tasted better than the baked result.Before I iced them, Lee said "I love zest!" and so I took him at his word. I'm just a literal woman. Thatz's all.
Working Uptown
I went to the see the Arcade Fire at the United Palace Theater last night. I’d had big plans to show Max the Elder the apartment where my parents & I lived when I was small, but some pork tacos and the persistently tourist-stymied walk through midtown meant we didn’t really have time. Seven-eighteen one seventy-first, fourth floor facing west, forgive me. I know that the relevant chattering classes have been writing about the United Palace and my limited architectural knowledge doesn’t enable me to contribute anything meaningful, but I will say that it struck me as big & drafty—but that’s probably a function of my similarity to that aNYthing fellow in that I never see shows above, well, Summer Stage. Ani rocks! Put your legs together! Your male privilege balls aren’t that big! aNYway, you might say I’m similar to him. The theater kept reminding Max of Salomon, the biggest lecture hall at Brown, one that’s cemented itself in my mind as (a) where Cathy cried as we unfurled a banner calling Richard Perle a war criminal and (b) where the lighting meant that everyone, however well nourished they were, looked sallow enough to indicate kidney failure.
We had general admission tickets, which meant that we queued up obediently (Max is much better at behaving obediently than I), waiting our turn to fill up the narrow aisle to the right of all the seats. We stood there for awhile, shuffling & leaning against each other and squinting at the stage.
“Silver cello!” I yelped. And, a minute later, “that pipe organ looks a little bit like Oz.” Which it did, squished into totally disorienting perspective up on a platform to the rear of the stage. As a matter of course, I talk far too much during shows, and I was trying to get some of it out of my system.
The National played beautifully, if unremarkably—we, like just about everyone else I saw, sat down during their entire set, which was presumably what Matt Berninger wanted to do after he, like, broke his ankle when a mic stand fell on it, or something. It wasn’t clear what had happened, and he’s a relatively tortured vocalist anyway so it took me awhile to realize something was off. “Max!” I whispered, “this is the time to do the Lisa Turtle Sprain!” And he was, to a certain extent, doing just that, only with less of a curly brown ponytail. Who would be his Screech? The big glasses and David Byrne-suit wearing Dessner/Devendorf?
Anyway, they rocked hard. I’ve read that people think the Funeral songs are more successful live than Neon Bible ones, but I’d completely disagree—the show was choreographed, basically, (Regine, por lo menos, was choreographed) around a biblical theme & an active church was an ideal place to milk the haunted, mournful verbosity of that album. The opening video sequence (replaced during the set with images of the band) showed Aimee Semple McPherson--I think, I think--looking like a Kiss member preaching the Four Square Gospel in a mildly discomfiting and also extremely appealing atmospheric shift. During "Intervention" one of the young men not playing drums ripped pages out of what I took to be a Bible—that was a slightly silly move, right? Like something Zach Kline would have done in eighth grade for an English class presentation of Fahrenheit 451? On the momentary lack of sophistication scale, he scored close to Regine crooning, during "Haiti," what struck me as “my family tree-eees/losing all its leave-eees” (but wasn't) through her Madonna-gloved hands—even though that was my fault, not hers. I never felt embarrassed for the band, though, because I was madly loving them and also I was tangibly aware of the effort they put into and the glee they clearly get from performing.
And then they invited everyone on stage! Again, a refreshingly ego-less gesture! (Does that sentence deserve to be an exclamation?) This meant, of course, that until Win Butler surfaced again, those of us who [se boyfriends] had been waylaid early in the show by a MoMA internet calamity were perfunctorily presented with the lumpy bottoms and saggy messenger bags of a crowd that I persistently sensed was composed primarily of elementary school teachers who worked in the Bronx.
If only those teachers—the actual ones—who really are working downtown for the minimum wage could rock as hard as Butler & co. There’d be a revolution, and
03 May 2007
Babies, Part II
I'm disgusted. Hilary Clinton is so bad at saying she's sorry, she just wants to go back in time and REVERSE the Senate vote authorizing funding for the war! I'm so disgusted I'm Basil Fawlty telling his handsome, gleaming young guest that he really should have visited a chemist's shop earlier in the day. Hilary Clinton is a large-faced baby.
An easier way for Hilary to accomplish her shifty, calculating goal? She could build a time machine! That would work! I was talking my dear old friend James last night, and I learned a lot. (He still lives in New Jersey, so I don't get to benefit from his tutelage as much as I should). I learned that May '77 was a crazy good month for the Grateful Dead--some of the hottest Scarlet Fire jams--and also that it wasn't overambitious of us to plan to see their shows. See, I learned that James has been reading some stuff on the Internet about the government's research into time travel.
Call me a physics nerd (you'd be an idiot to call me a physics nerd), but I exclaimed "James, you'd burn up! You can't go faster than the speed of light!" He said, no, no, Emma, maybe they were looking into doing the traveling a different way. There was a facility in Montauk, he told me, where all the experiments had happened. They razed it recently (apparently the tests weren't panning out) and found, like, body parts from the future stuck in the walls.
Quarks. Effing quarks. Who knew?
Luckily for the state of my cell phone minutes account, James and I both agreed that actually traveling into the past could have frightening repercussions.
But I don't think Hilary Clinton would think that far. She'd probably still want everyone to think she'd never been wrong about anything. Another person who wants to use that Montauk time machine? Robert Byrd, Clinton's co-sponsor on the measure, who got all sorts of college students to swoon for him during the Iraq debates and all sorts of black college students to (presumably) loathe him during the 1940s when he was a registered KKK member and accomplished organizer.
An easier way for Hilary to accomplish her shifty, calculating goal? She could build a time machine! That would work! I was talking my dear old friend James last night, and I learned a lot. (He still lives in New Jersey, so I don't get to benefit from his tutelage as much as I should). I learned that May '77 was a crazy good month for the Grateful Dead--some of the hottest Scarlet Fire jams--and also that it wasn't overambitious of us to plan to see their shows. See, I learned that James has been reading some stuff on the Internet about the government's research into time travel.
Call me a physics nerd (you'd be an idiot to call me a physics nerd), but I exclaimed "James, you'd burn up! You can't go faster than the speed of light!" He said, no, no, Emma, maybe they were looking into doing the traveling a different way. There was a facility in Montauk, he told me, where all the experiments had happened. They razed it recently (apparently the tests weren't panning out) and found, like, body parts from the future stuck in the walls.
Quarks. Effing quarks. Who knew?
Luckily for the state of my cell phone minutes account, James and I both agreed that actually traveling into the past could have frightening repercussions.
But I don't think Hilary Clinton would think that far. She'd probably still want everyone to think she'd never been wrong about anything. Another person who wants to use that Montauk time machine? Robert Byrd, Clinton's co-sponsor on the measure, who got all sorts of college students to swoon for him during the Iraq debates and all sorts of black college students to (presumably) loathe him during the 1940s when he was a registered KKK member and accomplished organizer.
02 May 2007
Glossy, But Only Semi-Glossy
I walk through Harlem a fair amount and have been seeing, since the last rainfall, xeroxed signs packing-taped to street lamps and stapled onto telephone poles. The signs are on glossy, but only semi-glossy, 8 1/2" by 12" paper, and have a picture in the center of a wee ClipArt baby wearing a massive baseball cap, sunglasses, a clunky medallion and droopy diapers.
The signs are advertising an album release--permit me the hypothesis that it is a debut album release--of the artist "Nickelz." Nominal similarities to another New York City rapper aside, that's not such a bad name. Except that I just found out Curtis Jackson's little cousin Michael Francis raps under the name "Two Five." Whatever, that's Nickelz's problem.
My problem--as a PEDESTRIAN I believe I am entitled to one--is the title of Nickelz's debut, written in bold Helvetica at the bottom of the sign:
"Put the baby to sleep!"
I have some questions, young buffalo-head. Are you the baby? Are you the inevitable outcome of the already annoying enough Lil' Bow Wow phenomena? Are you not the baby? If you're not the baby, why did you have one with your high school sweetheart if you're obviously going to be totally famous and end up kissing Joy Bryant? And, perhaps most importantly, why would you buy your baby such out-sized bling if you can't afford a babysitter?
I just have some questionz. That'z all.
(Full disclosure. I possess approximately three, no, exactly three movies. They are, by date of release and nothing else: Casablanca, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, and Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Also some yoga DVDs).
The signs are advertising an album release--permit me the hypothesis that it is a debut album release--of the artist "Nickelz." Nominal similarities to another New York City rapper aside, that's not such a bad name. Except that I just found out Curtis Jackson's little cousin Michael Francis raps under the name "Two Five." Whatever, that's Nickelz's problem.
My problem--as a PEDESTRIAN I believe I am entitled to one--is the title of Nickelz's debut, written in bold Helvetica at the bottom of the sign:
"Put the baby to sleep!"
I have some questions, young buffalo-head. Are you the baby? Are you the inevitable outcome of the already annoying enough Lil' Bow Wow phenomena? Are you not the baby? If you're not the baby, why did you have one with your high school sweetheart if you're obviously going to be totally famous and end up kissing Joy Bryant? And, perhaps most importantly, why would you buy your baby such out-sized bling if you can't afford a babysitter?
I just have some questionz. That'z all.
(Full disclosure. I possess approximately three, no, exactly three movies. They are, by date of release and nothing else: Casablanca, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, and Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Also some yoga DVDs).
29 April 2007
No Intention of Moving
My ears are still ringing, and instead of finishing my last physics quiz of the semester I'm looking at pictures of East Harlem apartments on Craigslist. My lease isn't up until August, and I have no intention of moving.
The muted funk in which I find myself is the result of last night's Apes & Androids show at Studio B. I stood near the back for most of it, jerking my hips around intermittently in a way I hoped would pass for dancing, and in my drunken, sound-addled state came up with what I knew would be the best description of the Apes & Androids sound ever.
I found myself so irrepressibly clever that, despite the stunning decibel level, I turned to Gabe and screamed "I've got it!" He smiled indulgently, even though he definitely had no idea what I was saying, and I took that as a cue to yell "They're the Disco Biscuits meets Boston meets---" and then I forgot the punchline. Who else did I imagine them meeting? Maybe it was Lightning Bolt? Is that too easy?
All of this is to say that I thought the show was super. I drew the analogies simply to illustrate the exact style in which Apes & Androids played too loudly, for too long, with incredible passion. Also there were puppets. And the music was great! I used to love swaying to the Disco Biscuits, I am currently crazy for Boston and, in a Pitchfork interview from last December Brian Chippendale shot down one of the interviewer's questions about "music celebrity art shows" by informing him that he "really shouldn't open Artforum. It's meant to be on your table when you are photographed for things."
The muted funk in which I find myself is the result of last night's Apes & Androids show at Studio B. I stood near the back for most of it, jerking my hips around intermittently in a way I hoped would pass for dancing, and in my drunken, sound-addled state came up with what I knew would be the best description of the Apes & Androids sound ever.
I found myself so irrepressibly clever that, despite the stunning decibel level, I turned to Gabe and screamed "I've got it!" He smiled indulgently, even though he definitely had no idea what I was saying, and I took that as a cue to yell "They're the Disco Biscuits meets Boston meets---" and then I forgot the punchline. Who else did I imagine them meeting? Maybe it was Lightning Bolt? Is that too easy?
All of this is to say that I thought the show was super. I drew the analogies simply to illustrate the exact style in which Apes & Androids played too loudly, for too long, with incredible passion. Also there were puppets. And the music was great! I used to love swaying to the Disco Biscuits, I am currently crazy for Boston and, in a Pitchfork interview from last December Brian Chippendale shot down one of the interviewer's questions about "music celebrity art shows" by informing him that he "really shouldn't open Artforum. It's meant to be on your table when you are photographed for things."
24 April 2007
Outdoing Myself
Remember how good I was at even calling myself racist? Well, it didn't take me very long to do better. I wish Rush Limbaugh were a housing development outside of Aspen. Then we could Earthfirst his huge, huge ass.
Swooning Idiocies
I'm still a college student, which means that (despite two years of a life that was acutely real), my principle concerns rotate on a semesterial schedule. Currently, they revolve around rape, war, trauma and sub-atomic physics. The final one is simply the unhappy result of a core curriculum, but the first three are the title of one of my seminars. We've studied Rwanda, and Bosnia, and Bangladesh and Japan, among others, and probably haven't covered half of the war-time rape systems that have been documented. This afternoon, though, we talked about the Columbia student who was tortured and repeatedly raped & violated at her apartment last week.
(Brief glimpse into real life and realer life colliding: I was dancing--bopping, shuffling, and also looking sideways--after a comedy show last Wednesday and wishing that the allegedly tasteful and inarguably confident man holding the iPod would put on something other than Outkast when someone cute asked me how I spent my time. I told him where I went to school, and he grinned at me. I grinned back, as he was pretty cute indeed. He said "I hear you've got yourselves a rapist up there!" And then one of us kept smiling).
Part of the conversation in class had to do with the fact that the man charged in last week's rape was black. His conduct was so atrociously inhumane that I'd assumed everyone would see him simply as a psychopath, but someone else in class said that she'd been concerned that his photograph plastered on warning posters all over campus would only exacerbate existing prejudices. Despite the fact that I see racism just about everywhere, I didn't really buy her argument--we had to know what he looked like. He was a completely dangerous maniac. Her fears were relevant, though, in that almost everyone in the class acknowledged that we feel differently about walking through Harlem at night than we do through Morningside Heights or the Upper West Side. Everyone looked at me weirdly when I yelped "I walk through Harlem at night! I have to get to the train!"
In my family and maybe among my friends, I'm kind of an infamously a reckless risk-taker, like how I went alone to Champerico after all these Guatemalans I knew had been robbed there at machete point and how I liked to walk home to Fort Greene after parties in Bushwick in the summer. Not like I'm tough, or exceptional, but I don't like to feel inhibited, especially by fear that I think is socialized, subjective, and frequently gendered and racist. (See? I even found racism in my own blog. Someone, please, pay me to be an antiracist! Please).
I'm reckless because I like proving points. I like proving points even to the extent that I may put myself in danger. But my class this afternoon and a dinnertime conversation that I had with my favorite mom of one of Young Max's friends last night made me want to wise up.
As dinner was ending, right before she paid for my delectable ceviche, Maya asked me about my neighborhood. I told her and she apologized for not asking before, because she's usually very careful about where women live? I hadn't really heard that before. She told me that when she was my age--the era of the Central Park jogger and, I imagine, a palatable St. Marks and an unembarassing Bedford Avenue--women would never go home alone. One time she'd been jogging--in Central Park, yes--and dusk had settled. She'd just run up to a male jogger and asked if she could run next to him.
"He said of course I could." I must have looked incredulous. "He knew!"
I wasn't surprised that he'd known, I was surprised that she'd asked. I find yuppie joggers just as intimidating and loathsome as, I don't know, any other strange man except one who's wearing thick glasses and Chuck Taylors and corduroy, but that's just my personal swooning idiocy.
Who do we trust? Everyone or no one at all? I'm not even sure where I fall on that question. But I did go running tonight. Around Prospect Park. And I have a pedometer. I ran 2.8 miles, and about 2.5 of it was in the dark. I don't know. I wasn't scared. I wasn't brazenly Champerico defiant, but I wasn't scared.
And then I got home in the middle of the seventh, no score, and Shawn Green has been really serving us well tonight and Gary Cohen just taught me that Willie Randolph puts six pieces of gum in his mouth before each game. I'm drinking a Brooklyn Lager, and I'll probably make some cheesy toast later. Things are okay. I'm just still not scared.
(Brief glimpse into real life and realer life colliding: I was dancing--bopping, shuffling, and also looking sideways--after a comedy show last Wednesday and wishing that the allegedly tasteful and inarguably confident man holding the iPod would put on something other than Outkast when someone cute asked me how I spent my time. I told him where I went to school, and he grinned at me. I grinned back, as he was pretty cute indeed. He said "I hear you've got yourselves a rapist up there!" And then one of us kept smiling).
Part of the conversation in class had to do with the fact that the man charged in last week's rape was black. His conduct was so atrociously inhumane that I'd assumed everyone would see him simply as a psychopath, but someone else in class said that she'd been concerned that his photograph plastered on warning posters all over campus would only exacerbate existing prejudices. Despite the fact that I see racism just about everywhere, I didn't really buy her argument--we had to know what he looked like. He was a completely dangerous maniac. Her fears were relevant, though, in that almost everyone in the class acknowledged that we feel differently about walking through Harlem at night than we do through Morningside Heights or the Upper West Side. Everyone looked at me weirdly when I yelped "I walk through Harlem at night! I have to get to the train!"
In my family and maybe among my friends, I'm kind of an infamously a reckless risk-taker, like how I went alone to Champerico after all these Guatemalans I knew had been robbed there at machete point and how I liked to walk home to Fort Greene after parties in Bushwick in the summer. Not like I'm tough, or exceptional, but I don't like to feel inhibited, especially by fear that I think is socialized, subjective, and frequently gendered and racist. (See? I even found racism in my own blog. Someone, please, pay me to be an antiracist! Please).
I'm reckless because I like proving points. I like proving points even to the extent that I may put myself in danger. But my class this afternoon and a dinnertime conversation that I had with my favorite mom of one of Young Max's friends last night made me want to wise up.
As dinner was ending, right before she paid for my delectable ceviche, Maya asked me about my neighborhood. I told her and she apologized for not asking before, because she's usually very careful about where women live? I hadn't really heard that before. She told me that when she was my age--the era of the Central Park jogger and, I imagine, a palatable St. Marks and an unembarassing Bedford Avenue--women would never go home alone. One time she'd been jogging--in Central Park, yes--and dusk had settled. She'd just run up to a male jogger and asked if she could run next to him.
"He said of course I could." I must have looked incredulous. "He knew!"
I wasn't surprised that he'd known, I was surprised that she'd asked. I find yuppie joggers just as intimidating and loathsome as, I don't know, any other strange man except one who's wearing thick glasses and Chuck Taylors and corduroy, but that's just my personal swooning idiocy.
Who do we trust? Everyone or no one at all? I'm not even sure where I fall on that question. But I did go running tonight. Around Prospect Park. And I have a pedometer. I ran 2.8 miles, and about 2.5 of it was in the dark. I don't know. I wasn't scared. I wasn't brazenly Champerico defiant, but I wasn't scared.
And then I got home in the middle of the seventh, no score, and Shawn Green has been really serving us well tonight and Gary Cohen just taught me that Willie Randolph puts six pieces of gum in his mouth before each game. I'm drinking a Brooklyn Lager, and I'll probably make some cheesy toast later. Things are okay. I'm just still not scared.
17 April 2007
I Made My Bed; Now?
Fatty Sow, Part II.
You thought this post was going to be a continuation of my much celebrated opening weekend review of Fette Sau. Not true! Not true at all. What do girls really like to talk about? BOYS! So, ladies, have I got a story for you. Max and I had such a fight this afternoon!
Lucky for you, readers, we're not geriatric, so it was on Gchat. (NYT Modern Love, here I come). To wit:
Max: I wonder what I'll do for dinner.
me: I can't wait to find out
Max: I'm thinking some pulled pork
me: oh seriously?
from where?
Max: both the alan richman AND calvin trillin books refer to carolina chopped pork
So I've been craving it.
Pies n Thighs
me: that's one of my top meats, babe
on the list of meats I will eat
Max: This sandwich is the way to start.
me: sandwich?
I would just want it plain
or with okra or collard greens
or cornbread
that's how I'd want it
Max: Stop fronting.
me: no joke, babe
I don't think I'd like it in a sandwich as much
Max: Why not?
With cole slaw and a pickle and hot sauce?
Mmmm.
me: sandwiches need to have very tidy things on them
or else I have to take them apart
Max: These are not tidy.
me: to fully enjoy each component
Max: They fall apart in your mouth.
NO
NO
NO
me: yeah exactly
Max: You're making me mad. Stop it.
me: really?
Max: Sort of, yes.
Not mad. Disappointed.
Disappointed?? Shit. In the grand spectrum of how people feel about me, I prefer them to remain consistently clustered around the marker labeled "impressed." That's pretty far away from disappointed. Another confession? I super like looking hot. At a party the other week, I had a conversation with a (hot) young lady about how she gave up her vegetarianism following a freak car accident several years ago. Her boyfriend at the time took advantage of her "sprain of the buttocks" to feed her a hamburger, and she hasn't gone back.
I nodded and smiled while she told me that her recovery was quick, she feels good, WHATEVER, but then:
"And my parents?"
"Yeah?"
"They say I look much, much healthier. You know, parents are always worried, too skinny--" I decided it was time to get to the point.
"Do you think you look better?"
"Definitely."
I believe her! She had shiny hair, a woolly gray cardigan, tight little pants--honestly, that's all I remember. But my mom has been telling me that I look "wan" ever since I started smoking pot in high school. And moms are basically the arbiters of truth, especially when it comes to their offspring's appearances.
File this under the "things that are not true" tab, will you?
You thought this post was going to be a continuation of my much celebrated opening weekend review of Fette Sau. Not true! Not true at all. What do girls really like to talk about? BOYS! So, ladies, have I got a story for you. Max and I had such a fight this afternoon!
Lucky for you, readers, we're not geriatric, so it was on Gchat. (NYT Modern Love, here I come). To wit:
Max: I wonder what I'll do for dinner.
me: I can't wait to find out
Max: I'm thinking some pulled pork
me: oh seriously?
from where?
Max: both the alan richman AND calvin trillin books refer to carolina chopped pork
So I've been craving it.
Pies n Thighs
me: that's one of my top meats, babe
on the list of meats I will eat
Max: This sandwich is the way to start.
me: sandwich?
I would just want it plain
or with okra or collard greens
or cornbread
that's how I'd want it
Max: Stop fronting.
me: no joke, babe
I don't think I'd like it in a sandwich as much
Max: Why not?
With cole slaw and a pickle and hot sauce?
Mmmm.
me: sandwiches need to have very tidy things on them
or else I have to take them apart
Max: These are not tidy.
me: to fully enjoy each component
Max: They fall apart in your mouth.
NO
NO
NO
me: yeah exactly
Max: You're making me mad. Stop it.
me: really?
Max: Sort of, yes.
Not mad. Disappointed.
Disappointed?? Shit. In the grand spectrum of how people feel about me, I prefer them to remain consistently clustered around the marker labeled "impressed." That's pretty far away from disappointed. Another confession? I super like looking hot. At a party the other week, I had a conversation with a (hot) young lady about how she gave up her vegetarianism following a freak car accident several years ago. Her boyfriend at the time took advantage of her "sprain of the buttocks" to feed her a hamburger, and she hasn't gone back.
I nodded and smiled while she told me that her recovery was quick, she feels good, WHATEVER, but then:
"And my parents?"
"Yeah?"
"They say I look much, much healthier. You know, parents are always worried, too skinny--" I decided it was time to get to the point.
"Do you think you look better?"
"Definitely."
I believe her! She had shiny hair, a woolly gray cardigan, tight little pants--honestly, that's all I remember. But my mom has been telling me that I look "wan" ever since I started smoking pot in high school. And moms are basically the arbiters of truth, especially when it comes to their offspring's appearances.
File this under the "things that are not true" tab, will you?
13 April 2007
News You Really Must Know Now: NY Newsday
Hey! I was going to talk about how effing freaked out I am that New Jersey Governor Corzine broke his leg and a bunch of ribs and his face, too, while he was trying to prove to kids, once and for all, that not wearing a seatbelt doesn't pay, but then I read this Newsday article and I realized how inappropriately focused my concern had been.
I'd initially been thinking about New Jersey's budget shortfall, the on-going corrpution investigations, the precarious national Democratic Senate majority and the governor's responsibility to appoint replacement legislators in the case of an emergency or resignation. However, following my enlightenment by Long Island's finest journalistic minds, I've found a better cause for alarm: Corzine is the third consecutive elected New Jersey governor to break his leg in office!
No shit! Seriously, no shit. I can't even believe it. Thank you, Newsday. Also, thank you for your website's consecutive headings, under "About Newsday," that offer first, a "History of Newsday" and second, "Newsday History." If I hadn't just absorbed such a glut of helpful information, I might even have the energy to read both of them.
I'd initially been thinking about New Jersey's budget shortfall, the on-going corrpution investigations, the precarious national Democratic Senate majority and the governor's responsibility to appoint replacement legislators in the case of an emergency or resignation. However, following my enlightenment by Long Island's finest journalistic minds, I've found a better cause for alarm: Corzine is the third consecutive elected New Jersey governor to break his leg in office!
No shit! Seriously, no shit. I can't even believe it. Thank you, Newsday. Also, thank you for your website's consecutive headings, under "About Newsday," that offer first, a "History of Newsday" and second, "Newsday History." If I hadn't just absorbed such a glut of helpful information, I might even have the energy to read both of them.
12 April 2007
Seven Days in the Two Weeks Too Late
My roommate, Kyle, works for Knopf, and as such, amazing things happen on our kitchen table. (I mean, collard greens make us both a little kinky, but I speak of grander events). They include the appearance of free (plundered? donated? perked? I've never asked) copies of the new Leni Riefenstahl biography, Jane Smiley's sexy and relatively inconsequential "Seven Days in the Hills," and assorted other titles of general interest.
As far as I'm concerned, though, the best part of Kyle's job is that she gets to bring home a copy of the NYT Book Review a week before it's published. Before I was informed, probably at a hip party and most definitely snidely, that just about everyone in the publishing world enjoys such a delight, I thought we were about the most fortunate people in the outer boroughs. When I went to friends' houses on Saturday and read their paper, I made a point of explaining why I could skip the book review. Kyle told me that she would read it on the subway, keeping the front cover visible, waiting for someone to exclaim about her amazing ability to know the literary future. Truthfully, no one really cared. But I keep loving and reading the Book Review two weeks in advance, which means that this post is woefully tardy and painfully irrelevant.
NEVERTHELESS, dear readers, I would like to make an announcement regarding the April 8, 2007 review, written by Kate Roiphe, of A.M. Homes's new memoir "The Mistress's Daughter." In the book, Homes discusses the experience of being contacted by her birth mother, who gave her up for adoption after she was impregnated by her older, married boss.
Roiphe's review is entitled "Two Mommies." This was an obvious allusion to "Heather Has Two Mommies," the children's literary sensation that swept San Francisco and certain high-rent neighborhoods of Manhattan off their well-shod feet about ten years ago.
That was a dumb title for a book review, especially given the options. If we're going to make dated references and show a modicum of effort to recognize the darkness of much of Homes's work, we need to search farther afield for titular inspiration. What did Homes have, especially in 1997?
Mo' Mommies, mo' problems.
As far as I'm concerned, though, the best part of Kyle's job is that she gets to bring home a copy of the NYT Book Review a week before it's published. Before I was informed, probably at a hip party and most definitely snidely, that just about everyone in the publishing world enjoys such a delight, I thought we were about the most fortunate people in the outer boroughs. When I went to friends' houses on Saturday and read their paper, I made a point of explaining why I could skip the book review. Kyle told me that she would read it on the subway, keeping the front cover visible, waiting for someone to exclaim about her amazing ability to know the literary future. Truthfully, no one really cared. But I keep loving and reading the Book Review two weeks in advance, which means that this post is woefully tardy and painfully irrelevant.
NEVERTHELESS, dear readers, I would like to make an announcement regarding the April 8, 2007 review, written by Kate Roiphe, of A.M. Homes's new memoir "The Mistress's Daughter." In the book, Homes discusses the experience of being contacted by her birth mother, who gave her up for adoption after she was impregnated by her older, married boss.
Roiphe's review is entitled "Two Mommies." This was an obvious allusion to "Heather Has Two Mommies," the children's literary sensation that swept San Francisco and certain high-rent neighborhoods of Manhattan off their well-shod feet about ten years ago.
That was a dumb title for a book review, especially given the options. If we're going to make dated references and show a modicum of effort to recognize the darkness of much of Homes's work, we need to search farther afield for titular inspiration. What did Homes have, especially in 1997?
Mo' Mommies, mo' problems.
05 April 2007
One Man's Lapdog
You can, obviously, understand a lot about a neighborhood by looking at its trash. That's if you happen to have that selective kind of blindness where multi-paned windows, wrought-iron railings, and purebred lapdogs are imperceptible.
(Do you know the trouble I just had with imagining what one would see in a nice neighborhood? I do not live in a terribly crummy place, but was forcing myself to recall exactly the block of East 79th, between Madison and 5th, where a boy I made out with once lived. He'd, like, not gone to Yale in order to hike around Nepal, so I'm pretty sure his house was the fanciest I've entered.)
Anyway, it's clear that I can't paint the word picture, so your first assignment is to go visit the aforementioned young man and take a gander at his surroundings. Then, and only then, will you be able to proceed:
I bet the trash on that block, and the surrounding blocks, is pretty refined. Organic dog food containers, leftovers from the East Side equivalent of Citarella, Frédéric Fekkai shampoo bottles, tags ripped off the Marc Jacobs spring line--things I would throw out if I were richer. (What do you do with them now, Emma? I KEEP THEM. FOR EATING).
And then there are other neighborhoods, where you'd find cans of Pathmark brand tuna, Pathmark brand laundry detergent bottles, tiny containers of Pathmark brand apple juice, coupon circulars with all the good offers snipped out--the things my family threw out when we were poorer.
But I was walking through Gowanus yesterday, and passed a really interesting quality of trash. My neighborhood is, undoubtedly, going through a transition, and perhaps its proximity to Home Depot (and Pathmark!) makes it particularly appealing to handy house-improvement type folks. For years, though, the area was the province of old people whose families had moved away, the kind who still sometimes peer at Young Max and I through their lace curtains & grimy windows. Now the new, richer families are throwing out their stuff, and on Wednesday nights the streets are awash in all kind of linoleum furniture, puce and mauve accoutrement, and the occasional desiccated Italian grandfather.
(Do you know the trouble I just had with imagining what one would see in a nice neighborhood? I do not live in a terribly crummy place, but was forcing myself to recall exactly the block of East 79th, between Madison and 5th, where a boy I made out with once lived. He'd, like, not gone to Yale in order to hike around Nepal, so I'm pretty sure his house was the fanciest I've entered.)
Anyway, it's clear that I can't paint the word picture, so your first assignment is to go visit the aforementioned young man and take a gander at his surroundings. Then, and only then, will you be able to proceed:
I bet the trash on that block, and the surrounding blocks, is pretty refined. Organic dog food containers, leftovers from the East Side equivalent of Citarella, Frédéric Fekkai shampoo bottles, tags ripped off the Marc Jacobs spring line--things I would throw out if I were richer. (What do you do with them now, Emma? I KEEP THEM. FOR EATING).
And then there are other neighborhoods, where you'd find cans of Pathmark brand tuna, Pathmark brand laundry detergent bottles, tiny containers of Pathmark brand apple juice, coupon circulars with all the good offers snipped out--the things my family threw out when we were poorer.
But I was walking through Gowanus yesterday, and passed a really interesting quality of trash. My neighborhood is, undoubtedly, going through a transition, and perhaps its proximity to Home Depot (and Pathmark!) makes it particularly appealing to handy house-improvement type folks. For years, though, the area was the province of old people whose families had moved away, the kind who still sometimes peer at Young Max and I through their lace curtains & grimy windows. Now the new, richer families are throwing out their stuff, and on Wednesday nights the streets are awash in all kind of linoleum furniture, puce and mauve accoutrement, and the occasional desiccated Italian grandfather.
31 March 2007
Fatty Sow
There's something I've wanted to talk about for awhile. It's how many pickles you can eat in a night before you've eaten an odd number of pickles. Not odd as in eighty-seven, fifty-one, et cetera, but odd as in abnormal. Or perhaps even slightly gross.
I went out to a neat barbeque place the other night, but I'd had a late lunch and am a vegetarian, so instead of ordering nine links of glistening, flesh-pink sausage I decided I wanted pickles.
Fette Sau, by the way, reminded me of a fish joint that my family used to go to in our beach house town before my parents remembered that they weren't obese white Philadelphians like the rest of the patrons, or something. Anyway, I loved the fish place. We could buy creamy macaroni and cheese and baked beans by the pound. By the pound is exactly how Fette Sau (fatty sow? that's what a horrendous husband--I can't even say it) sells their food. Naturally, I asked Max to get a pound of pickles. That was what it said on the menu! A pound.
Max didn't even blink, because he is occasionally tolerant and also, I presume, because he was aware that we were patronizing an overwhelmingly meat heavy establishment. The woman behind the counter took our order, listening obediently as Max named all these meaty dishes that he and everyone else were going to eat, and it wasn't until he got to my dinner that she interrupted.
"Pickles? Do you want a half pound?"
"Oh"--I'd heard her question, and I was silently urging Max to not turn around and relay her question to me, but he did--"hey, Emma, do you just want a half pound of pickles?"
What was I supposed to say?? No, babe, no I'm famished for salt and brine and things that used to be cucumbers so I want a whole pound? There were so many other people around, and none of them were my friend Lee, who can also polish off a jar of half-sours in an afternoon.
"Uh, yeah. Half a pound, sure."
When the pickles arrived, I demanded that no one pay attention to how many there were then and how many there would be by the end of the meal, but later that night as I was gnawing on my chapped, brine-dehydrated bottom lip, I had to ask myself: how many pickles is an odd number of pickles?
But don't worry, I wasn't conflicted for long. One. That's the answer! The oddest number of pickles would be only one.
I went out to a neat barbeque place the other night, but I'd had a late lunch and am a vegetarian, so instead of ordering nine links of glistening, flesh-pink sausage I decided I wanted pickles.
Fette Sau, by the way, reminded me of a fish joint that my family used to go to in our beach house town before my parents remembered that they weren't obese white Philadelphians like the rest of the patrons, or something. Anyway, I loved the fish place. We could buy creamy macaroni and cheese and baked beans by the pound. By the pound is exactly how Fette Sau (fatty sow? that's what a horrendous husband--I can't even say it) sells their food. Naturally, I asked Max to get a pound of pickles. That was what it said on the menu! A pound.
Max didn't even blink, because he is occasionally tolerant and also, I presume, because he was aware that we were patronizing an overwhelmingly meat heavy establishment. The woman behind the counter took our order, listening obediently as Max named all these meaty dishes that he and everyone else were going to eat, and it wasn't until he got to my dinner that she interrupted.
"Pickles? Do you want a half pound?"
"Oh"--I'd heard her question, and I was silently urging Max to not turn around and relay her question to me, but he did--"hey, Emma, do you just want a half pound of pickles?"
What was I supposed to say?? No, babe, no I'm famished for salt and brine and things that used to be cucumbers so I want a whole pound? There were so many other people around, and none of them were my friend Lee, who can also polish off a jar of half-sours in an afternoon.
"Uh, yeah. Half a pound, sure."
When the pickles arrived, I demanded that no one pay attention to how many there were then and how many there would be by the end of the meal, but later that night as I was gnawing on my chapped, brine-dehydrated bottom lip, I had to ask myself: how many pickles is an odd number of pickles?
But don't worry, I wasn't conflicted for long. One. That's the answer! The oddest number of pickles would be only one.
22 March 2007
The Voice Making Announcements in M*A*S*H*
I really love Alison Bechdel.
Watch out for that dyke. Seriously. I think if I say that you might actually follow the link.
That is all.
Watch out for that dyke. Seriously. I think if I say that you might actually follow the link.
That is all.
Edward Said on the First Day of Spring
This story is about Young Max and "Arabian II," a certain genre of music that may be familiar to those of you who are so cool you live at the bottom of the Gowanus Canal or that putrid stream in Greenpoint.
Indeed, it was atop the aforementioned canal--we were walking on the Union Tree Bridge, which was maybe maybe maybe the Union Street Bridge in the early eighties--that Max stopped kicking the unfathomably dirty snow crust and said "Emma? You know what my favorite kind of music is?"
I thought I did know. I already knew, for example, which Mets player Young Max thought was the greatest, and which of his after-school teachers he was aware are objectively hotties: because I tell him. I tell him about music, too, and even though I tried super hard last summer to plant in him a love of either 50 Cent or the Mountain Goats, we managed to come to a truce on The Beatles.
Not a bad truce it was, especially when you remember Blackbird and also finally have an excuse to listen to Eddie Vedder's cover of You've Got to Hide Your Love Away. I bought him some CDs for his birthday, along with a Yellow Submarine poster, and I thought that might be that. The boy might just, you know, listen to The Beatles in perpetuity. That's basically what my mother's done.
So, smirking, I asked "What kind of music is it, Maxman?"
"Arabian!" He was triumphant.
"What kind of music is that?" He didn't seem to know how to answer. "Like, where is it from?"
"ARABIA!" Oh, no. Arabia? I cook dinner for an Orientalist every night? I reacted the way I would have if Young Max were an ignorant twenty four year old who'd succeeded in taking me home the night before.
"I'm not sure I know what you mean, Max." I was being Extremely Serious, like I am when I am lame and ask dbags whether they mean something is literally homosexual when they've just called it gay. Young Max need more clues than some dude drinking Heineken, though.
"Arabia isn't a country. A long time ago, some people might have called a certain area of the world Arabia, the peninsula where Saudi Arabia is? Or maybe that means countries where people speak Arabic?"
He still wasn't answering, and I wasn't relenting. The boy goes to a Montessori school, for pete's sake. He's always, like, teaching me about ethical rocket fuel. But I did feel kind of ridiculous.
"Where did you hear about it?"
"On RUNESCAPE."
Runescape is the very preteen's tutorial in electronic interaction. Also, they appear to trade capes a lot. Max has recently graduated from Club Penguin. I can't say I'm not impressed.
Max continued, "It is one of the OPTIONS. There are a lot of options and my favorite is Arabian."
He was fine. He wasn't a cultural imperialist, and if he was I didn't want to be terrible enough to preach it out of him. I am, however, terrible. For even thinking such an annoying thing. That much should be clear.
But, then, Max seemed to get as uncomfortable as I'd been. "Emma, actually? It's Arabian two. So I guess Arabian Two is my favorite kind of music."
I was suddenly reminded of what Young Max had said as we'd bought a four inch-square, seventy-five cent package of Gushers this afternoon. He'd commented that seventy-five cents sounded like a great deal. I told him that at the other deli, the one right near the Gowanus projects, I remembered them being, like, thirty cents or something. (I hate Carroll Gardens and thus I exaggerated). But then I explained that really, that deli guy was just doing smart business because people in public housing might have less money to spend on candy.
We burst out of the deli door, which is how we leave places inside which there are also strangers, and Max made a stunningly perceptive observation.
"Unless you're a STREET PERSON! Then you don't even have not one dollar." The various white mothers and their white babies on the sidewalk looked aghast. I wondered which homeless guys Max had heard cussing each other out, because he sounded exactly like one of them. Super. I hate Carroll Gardens, anyway. And all was right with the world.
Indeed, it was atop the aforementioned canal--we were walking on the Union Tree Bridge, which was maybe maybe maybe the Union Street Bridge in the early eighties--that Max stopped kicking the unfathomably dirty snow crust and said "Emma? You know what my favorite kind of music is?"
I thought I did know. I already knew, for example, which Mets player Young Max thought was the greatest, and which of his after-school teachers he was aware are objectively hotties: because I tell him. I tell him about music, too, and even though I tried super hard last summer to plant in him a love of either 50 Cent or the Mountain Goats, we managed to come to a truce on The Beatles.
Not a bad truce it was, especially when you remember Blackbird and also finally have an excuse to listen to Eddie Vedder's cover of You've Got to Hide Your Love Away. I bought him some CDs for his birthday, along with a Yellow Submarine poster, and I thought that might be that. The boy might just, you know, listen to The Beatles in perpetuity. That's basically what my mother's done.
So, smirking, I asked "What kind of music is it, Maxman?"
"Arabian!" He was triumphant.
"What kind of music is that?" He didn't seem to know how to answer. "Like, where is it from?"
"ARABIA!" Oh, no. Arabia? I cook dinner for an Orientalist every night? I reacted the way I would have if Young Max were an ignorant twenty four year old who'd succeeded in taking me home the night before.
"I'm not sure I know what you mean, Max." I was being Extremely Serious, like I am when I am lame and ask dbags whether they mean something is literally homosexual when they've just called it gay. Young Max need more clues than some dude drinking Heineken, though.
"Arabia isn't a country. A long time ago, some people might have called a certain area of the world Arabia, the peninsula where Saudi Arabia is? Or maybe that means countries where people speak Arabic?"
He still wasn't answering, and I wasn't relenting. The boy goes to a Montessori school, for pete's sake. He's always, like, teaching me about ethical rocket fuel. But I did feel kind of ridiculous.
"Where did you hear about it?"
"On RUNESCAPE."
Runescape is the very preteen's tutorial in electronic interaction. Also, they appear to trade capes a lot. Max has recently graduated from Club Penguin. I can't say I'm not impressed.
Max continued, "It is one of the OPTIONS. There are a lot of options and my favorite is Arabian."
He was fine. He wasn't a cultural imperialist, and if he was I didn't want to be terrible enough to preach it out of him. I am, however, terrible. For even thinking such an annoying thing. That much should be clear.
But, then, Max seemed to get as uncomfortable as I'd been. "Emma, actually? It's Arabian two. So I guess Arabian Two is my favorite kind of music."
I was suddenly reminded of what Young Max had said as we'd bought a four inch-square, seventy-five cent package of Gushers this afternoon. He'd commented that seventy-five cents sounded like a great deal. I told him that at the other deli, the one right near the Gowanus projects, I remembered them being, like, thirty cents or something. (I hate Carroll Gardens and thus I exaggerated). But then I explained that really, that deli guy was just doing smart business because people in public housing might have less money to spend on candy.
We burst out of the deli door, which is how we leave places inside which there are also strangers, and Max made a stunningly perceptive observation.
"Unless you're a STREET PERSON! Then you don't even have not one dollar." The various white mothers and their white babies on the sidewalk looked aghast. I wondered which homeless guys Max had heard cussing each other out, because he sounded exactly like one of them. Super. I hate Carroll Gardens, anyway. And all was right with the world.
Sexy. Safe. Texan?
"Emma." When my mom says my name like that, I get a weaselly little stomach ache and purse my lips together. It mainly happened in high school, and it was usually because I missed someone's birthday, left my pot in plain view, cursed at my sister or had premarital sex.
This last time, though, it wasn't so bad. She just asked me if I was planning on getting the HPV vaccine, officially known as Gardasil (if pharmaceuticals weren't so evil I'd think their branding departments came up with adorable drug names).
I was kind of embarrassed that I didn't really know how to answer. "Uh, I mean, I guess I will. Should I?"
"Well," my mom's voice was very sweet, as though she were informing me that my younger sister was getting married before I and it was to Mark Ruffalo, "Hannah did."
Basically, even though I was slightly jealous that Hannah got there first, I felt impressed. My mom told me some things about it that I didn't know or had forgotten after reading articles about the controversy surrounding Texas's mandatory vaccinations for all girls entering sixth grade.
I still wasn't convinced, though. My friend Becky gchatted me this morning. "Question:" she wrote, "what do you think about the HPV vaccine?"
I told her that my mom wanted me to get it, but I kept "looking for a reason it's bad." Almost simultaneously, she wrote "I am trying to find something wrong with it."
That's weird, right? Neither Becky nor I is, like, particularly averse to taking drugs. We imbibe, inhale, eat store-bought cookies and take birth control. I thought seriously about what my problem was. Wasn't it great that Christian Conservative Rick Perry kept all those little Texas babies from getting cervical cancer?
But, wait. Isn't he supposed to keep his laws off my body? (Hold it: I'm not as brilliant as you think--my neighbor in high school had that on a bumper sticker. Her bumper is the root of most of my wisdom). Seriously, maybe Becky and I are less paranoid than I thought. Remember Tuskegee? How no one's been working on a sickle cell vaccine because, in this country, that disease primarily affects blacks? Remember forced sterilizations of institutionalized populations? How difficult generic AIDS drugs are to come by? There's even the Vioxx cover-up, for pete's sake. There's a shared historical memory in this country of dis-empowered populations not getting the full truth about their bodies.
This doesn't mean that Becky and I and everyone--even boys, thank you Australia (the only country that, however unfortunately, doesn't seem to be endorsing rampant lesbianism)--shouldn't get the vaccine, I guess. But Merck is getting a, uh, pill jar full of golden papiloma coins from Gardasil.
This last time, though, it wasn't so bad. She just asked me if I was planning on getting the HPV vaccine, officially known as Gardasil (if pharmaceuticals weren't so evil I'd think their branding departments came up with adorable drug names).
I was kind of embarrassed that I didn't really know how to answer. "Uh, I mean, I guess I will. Should I?"
"Well," my mom's voice was very sweet, as though she were informing me that my younger sister was getting married before I and it was to Mark Ruffalo, "Hannah did."
Basically, even though I was slightly jealous that Hannah got there first, I felt impressed. My mom told me some things about it that I didn't know or had forgotten after reading articles about the controversy surrounding Texas's mandatory vaccinations for all girls entering sixth grade.
I still wasn't convinced, though. My friend Becky gchatted me this morning. "Question:" she wrote, "what do you think about the HPV vaccine?"
I told her that my mom wanted me to get it, but I kept "looking for a reason it's bad." Almost simultaneously, she wrote "I am trying to find something wrong with it."
That's weird, right? Neither Becky nor I is, like, particularly averse to taking drugs. We imbibe, inhale, eat store-bought cookies and take birth control. I thought seriously about what my problem was. Wasn't it great that Christian Conservative Rick Perry kept all those little Texas babies from getting cervical cancer?
But, wait. Isn't he supposed to keep his laws off my body? (Hold it: I'm not as brilliant as you think--my neighbor in high school had that on a bumper sticker. Her bumper is the root of most of my wisdom). Seriously, maybe Becky and I are less paranoid than I thought. Remember Tuskegee? How no one's been working on a sickle cell vaccine because, in this country, that disease primarily affects blacks? Remember forced sterilizations of institutionalized populations? How difficult generic AIDS drugs are to come by? There's even the Vioxx cover-up, for pete's sake. There's a shared historical memory in this country of dis-empowered populations not getting the full truth about their bodies.
This doesn't mean that Becky and I and everyone--even boys, thank you Australia (the only country that, however unfortunately, doesn't seem to be endorsing rampant lesbianism)--shouldn't get the vaccine, I guess. But Merck is getting a, uh, pill jar full of golden papiloma coins from Gardasil.
20 March 2007
I Trim Them
I was out tonight, in Williamsburg, which means that unless I'm (1) with someone who will coddle me, (2) had an atrocious amount if whiskey, or (3) forgotten to wear shoes, I take the G train home. I didn't exactly think about the fact that I could take the G train all the way home until I read the party invitation my roommate sent to our friends a few weeks ago. She told everyone to come the ways I would have told them, and then she mentioned that they could get off at the Smith & 9th Street G stop, too.
No eff-ing kidding, I thought to myself, but only to myself because if I'd thought it to anyone else they would have wondered what my huge lazy problem with walking five extra blocks was, anyway. And, you know, they would have been right. Because I love walking. I also, as conscientious readers may recall, love the feeling of fear.
Lucky for me, fear is right up there on the list of feelings one might have right after a bus pulls away and she finds herself standing at the midpoint of a deserted 24-hour "super"market and an equally empty 24-hour "hard"ware store.
(I found out those are called scare quotes. How scared are you? My teeth are chattering).
But, I mean, whatever. I walked. To the potential chagrin of my mother, father, boss and maybe even my Madeleine, I took a short cut across the aforementioned hardware store's parking lot.
(The Pythagorean Therom is one of my favorites and I like it even when it's misapplied).
Everything was going fine. I'd looked butch enough to be ignored by the sinister-as-a-dodge-neon-can-be Dodge Neon patrolling the parking lot, and I had 2nd Avenue in my sights. Then: I jumped. Almost literally. There was a massive, fat, abused looking Great Dane reclining below the loading docks opposite the store's lumber yard!
I'd eaten dinner, mind you, only hours before, and if ever a dog could smell the lingering aroma of soy protein it was this one.
I tried to keep my fear pheromones (fearomones?) in check while I walked by, but I just knew the dog could smell me. Truth is, with Tom's of Maine deodorant, you probably could have, too.
But, okay. The point is, none of my inside chemicals outed me to the dog as someone who decidedly didn't belong near any sort of hardware store at midnight on a Tuesday. And I was pretty psyched about that, you know? Like, maybe if the dog didn't notice me the kids playing basketball at the courts a couple blocks west of my house thought I blended in, too? And the ladies at the Wyckoff projects pool really did think that young Max was my son and not a rich whitey with a full time babysitter?
My delusional ego keeps telling me that this is true. It keeps telling me that my pheromones identify me as Gowanus, through and through. (As long as they don't make me G-Slope. Shudder). Another reason I know this? As I was leaving the parking lot, I saw a young man wearing a boldly striped Greg Brady-esque ski jacket, squinting through his barber shop-picketing bangs and pushing a rattling old-lady cart in my direction.
I squinted back, but not through my bangs because I Trim Them, and I kept walking. A few seconds later, though, I heard Mr. Dane. Man, he was putting up a fuss. Either he didn't like the squeaking of the shopping cart or he was sounding the throaty 2nd Avenue Gentrification Alarm.
No eff-ing kidding, I thought to myself, but only to myself because if I'd thought it to anyone else they would have wondered what my huge lazy problem with walking five extra blocks was, anyway. And, you know, they would have been right. Because I love walking. I also, as conscientious readers may recall, love the feeling of fear.
Lucky for me, fear is right up there on the list of feelings one might have right after a bus pulls away and she finds herself standing at the midpoint of a deserted 24-hour "super"market and an equally empty 24-hour "hard"ware store.
(I found out those are called scare quotes. How scared are you? My teeth are chattering).
But, I mean, whatever. I walked. To the potential chagrin of my mother, father, boss and maybe even my Madeleine, I took a short cut across the aforementioned hardware store's parking lot.
(The Pythagorean Therom is one of my favorites and I like it even when it's misapplied).
Everything was going fine. I'd looked butch enough to be ignored by the sinister-as-a-dodge-neon-can-be Dodge Neon patrolling the parking lot, and I had 2nd Avenue in my sights. Then: I jumped. Almost literally. There was a massive, fat, abused looking Great Dane reclining below the loading docks opposite the store's lumber yard!
I'd eaten dinner, mind you, only hours before, and if ever a dog could smell the lingering aroma of soy protein it was this one.
I tried to keep my fear pheromones (fearomones?) in check while I walked by, but I just knew the dog could smell me. Truth is, with Tom's of Maine deodorant, you probably could have, too.
But, okay. The point is, none of my inside chemicals outed me to the dog as someone who decidedly didn't belong near any sort of hardware store at midnight on a Tuesday. And I was pretty psyched about that, you know? Like, maybe if the dog didn't notice me the kids playing basketball at the courts a couple blocks west of my house thought I blended in, too? And the ladies at the Wyckoff projects pool really did think that young Max was my son and not a rich whitey with a full time babysitter?
My delusional ego keeps telling me that this is true. It keeps telling me that my pheromones identify me as Gowanus, through and through. (As long as they don't make me G-Slope. Shudder). Another reason I know this? As I was leaving the parking lot, I saw a young man wearing a boldly striped Greg Brady-esque ski jacket, squinting through his barber shop-picketing bangs and pushing a rattling old-lady cart in my direction.
I squinted back, but not through my bangs because I Trim Them, and I kept walking. A few seconds later, though, I heard Mr. Dane. Man, he was putting up a fuss. Either he didn't like the squeaking of the shopping cart or he was sounding the throaty 2nd Avenue Gentrification Alarm.
19 March 2007
I Saw Her In The Anti-War Demonstration
Spoiler alert: I am a hater. Case in point:
I went to the UFPJ rally (rally? stroll) yesterday with my friends. We dutifully trudged around the mid east side and gaped at the gorgeous, objectivist, clearly pro-war sky scrapers. Also, we were handed yellow stickers and sometimes poetry, too.
Demonstrations are important for a host of reasons, and because I'm not a white boy in a keffiyeh trying to sell you a smallish news-pamphlet for fifty cents I won't go into them here, but one reason I enjoy them is because there are signs. And crazy people. And a ton of crazy people with signs.
The problem was, yesterday, that the crazies? That was everyone. There was no rally, actually, no speakers, nothing. The most highly organized aspect was the bull-horned UFPJ volunteers (who, it was pointed out, are all between the critical and traditionally radical ages of forty three and fifty eight) asking for money and giving the occasional shout out to Judson Memorial Church. West VillAGE!
I was talking to someone who works for Democracy Now! (or, so sayeth my boyfriend and I with the greatest of affection, Democracy, uh, Someday! Democracy Eventually! Democracy Last Week!) and she'd been on the phone with the UFPJ people all week trying to find out when the demonstration's press conference would be.
Some woman kept picking up and saying that she really wasn't the person to talk to about the thing, and by 3pm on Friday there still wasn't a firm plan. All there was, in fact, was...a walk. A walk around Bryant Park and then to the UN park and then: a festival. A, uh, festival? Like when I went to Bonnaroo in high school and had sex in a tent? Yep. I was expecting no shirts and body paint, but it was my spring break, so I was slightly biased.
Anyway, I wish I were still an activist. I wish the activists who are still active would at least, like, give Al Sharpton a call.
I went to the UFPJ rally (rally? stroll) yesterday with my friends. We dutifully trudged around the mid east side and gaped at the gorgeous, objectivist, clearly pro-war sky scrapers. Also, we were handed yellow stickers and sometimes poetry, too.
Demonstrations are important for a host of reasons, and because I'm not a white boy in a keffiyeh trying to sell you a smallish news-pamphlet for fifty cents I won't go into them here, but one reason I enjoy them is because there are signs. And crazy people. And a ton of crazy people with signs.
The problem was, yesterday, that the crazies? That was everyone. There was no rally, actually, no speakers, nothing. The most highly organized aspect was the bull-horned UFPJ volunteers (who, it was pointed out, are all between the critical and traditionally radical ages of forty three and fifty eight) asking for money and giving the occasional shout out to Judson Memorial Church. West VillAGE!
I was talking to someone who works for Democracy Now! (or, so sayeth my boyfriend and I with the greatest of affection, Democracy, uh, Someday! Democracy Eventually! Democracy Last Week!) and she'd been on the phone with the UFPJ people all week trying to find out when the demonstration's press conference would be.
Some woman kept picking up and saying that she really wasn't the person to talk to about the thing, and by 3pm on Friday there still wasn't a firm plan. All there was, in fact, was...a walk. A walk around Bryant Park and then to the UN park and then: a festival. A, uh, festival? Like when I went to Bonnaroo in high school and had sex in a tent? Yep. I was expecting no shirts and body paint, but it was my spring break, so I was slightly biased.
Anyway, I wish I were still an activist. I wish the activists who are still active would at least, like, give Al Sharpton a call.
16 March 2007
And Do You Know What? I Love It.
I went home last night, home meaning my parent's house on Glenside Road, on the twinkling hill of any basically Jewish suburb within a ten mile radius of the city.
I met my father in midtown around 9, and then we drove back together (listening, uncannily, to his Neutral Milk Hotel). We bent our heads while we ran in from the garage, because if sleet doesn't see you it won't get you, and then I unlocked the door and my mom kind of, like, chimed "hello!" from the den.
She was at her laptop, wearing her blue plaid bathrobe, and watching college basketball. None of that was strange. Her eyes--one is blue and one is green, no joke--got really big while she was talking about a potential snow day.
"Well, first I heard six to 12 inches. Then I only heard four. But then..."
Daddy & I wait for it.
"THEN, Gary Cohen said he heard six for New York." Gary Cohen is the Mets' announcer. He's not a meterologist, and, last night, he was watching the Metsies beat Boston (no thanks to Billy Wagner) in Florida.
"Mom." I said. "Mom, Gary Cohen probably just heard the same forecast you did at first. I mean, right?"
Whatever. Still, none of this was strange. Until: my mother realized she had a serious debate on her hands, what with Cohen's geographical and professional lacks of credibilities, and muted the television.
She didn't get up, she just Muted The Television.
My parents got a remote! And when I looked, I saw that they'd gotten some sort of giant cable box, too! It is earth shattering. For years we had no remote, and only the cable channels that broadcast baseball. Then someone gave us an old TV and we had one very pygmy-ish remote that only controlled the volume.
Last summer my parents called Cablevision because they were being charged a "remote control" fee. My dad complained to the customer service representative and she was incredulous.
"You don't have a remote?"
"No!" My father's voice is strong and I bet it was theatrically straining at this point. "No, we don't have a remote."
"But," countered Tanya down there at Cablevision HQ, "but how do you change the channel?"
"We get up," said my father, who was telling the WASPy God's honest truth and oozing with that deity's chilly contempt, too, "we get up and change the channel."
My parents love that story. They are incredibly proud of themselves. And yet, following my complete freak-out about the number of buttons my mother had at her fingertips (she won't hold the thing, just lays it on the arm of the couch and presses), she looked up at me, all coquettish & grinning like she'd just received a personal phone call from Weatherman Gary Cohen. She said "and you know what? I love it."
I met my father in midtown around 9, and then we drove back together (listening, uncannily, to his Neutral Milk Hotel). We bent our heads while we ran in from the garage, because if sleet doesn't see you it won't get you, and then I unlocked the door and my mom kind of, like, chimed "hello!" from the den.
She was at her laptop, wearing her blue plaid bathrobe, and watching college basketball. None of that was strange. Her eyes--one is blue and one is green, no joke--got really big while she was talking about a potential snow day.
"Well, first I heard six to 12 inches. Then I only heard four. But then..."
Daddy & I wait for it.
"THEN, Gary Cohen said he heard six for New York." Gary Cohen is the Mets' announcer. He's not a meterologist, and, last night, he was watching the Metsies beat Boston (no thanks to Billy Wagner) in Florida.
"Mom." I said. "Mom, Gary Cohen probably just heard the same forecast you did at first. I mean, right?"
Whatever. Still, none of this was strange. Until: my mother realized she had a serious debate on her hands, what with Cohen's geographical and professional lacks of credibilities, and muted the television.
She didn't get up, she just Muted The Television.
My parents got a remote! And when I looked, I saw that they'd gotten some sort of giant cable box, too! It is earth shattering. For years we had no remote, and only the cable channels that broadcast baseball. Then someone gave us an old TV and we had one very pygmy-ish remote that only controlled the volume.
Last summer my parents called Cablevision because they were being charged a "remote control" fee. My dad complained to the customer service representative and she was incredulous.
"You don't have a remote?"
"No!" My father's voice is strong and I bet it was theatrically straining at this point. "No, we don't have a remote."
"But," countered Tanya down there at Cablevision HQ, "but how do you change the channel?"
"We get up," said my father, who was telling the WASPy God's honest truth and oozing with that deity's chilly contempt, too, "we get up and change the channel."
My parents love that story. They are incredibly proud of themselves. And yet, following my complete freak-out about the number of buttons my mother had at her fingertips (she won't hold the thing, just lays it on the arm of the couch and presses), she looked up at me, all coquettish & grinning like she'd just received a personal phone call from Weatherman Gary Cohen. She said "and you know what? I love it."
15 March 2007
The Meltdown
I'm a nanny for a nine year old named Max. I am also a girlfriend for a twenty-four year old named Max. Is it confusing? Not if you don't mind a little inadvertent pedophilia.
Anyway, I enjoy spending time with both Maxes a great deal. They're both hilarious, except Young Max doesn't always intend to be. I tell stories about him, and one of my stories is about how freaked out he is by global warming. My friend might want to make a movie about it, so I started writing. To wit:
I love the feeling of fear. Young Max does not. A garage door has just opened, suddenly, mechanically and to our right. We are both startled. I look away for a moment and wait for the the rush of adrenaline that I can cultivate for even the most mundane of events. Other people may know it as the nausea that washes over the passengers of the first car on the Coney Island Cyclone. Young Max, for instance, would he consent to ride that roller coaster, would certainly recognize it as such.
Right now, though, we're both calmed by the emerging white Taurus and Max starts talking about Scrat again.
"It was scary when he almost died!"
"Uh, but he didn't, right?"
"NO, he didn't!" Max corrects me with the kind of bellow I sometimes think will burst his larynx. I should have known. We only finished watching "Ice Age 2: the metldown" fifteen minutes ago. "He was in HEAVEN, remember--"
"Oh! With the acorns!"
"He was in HEAVEN," Max's exhilaration makes him talk like a breakless freight train, "and he was getting to the biggest acorn and then he was SNATCHED by Sid! And Sid didn't realize that Scrat didn't want to die. He thought he was HELPing! But then Scrat was so sad." At this point Max decides to breathe. We walk for almost a whole block, past pinkish brownstones and wrought iron gates, until he speaks again.
"Imagine if that HAPPENED."
"What, if a squirrel came back to life after acorn heaven?"
"No! If the Arctic MELTed."
"Well," my eyes light up, mirroring the light in the eyes of Brooklyn parents borough-wide, "well, that is kind of happenning."
Max looks stricken.
"I mean," I have to be fast, "not at this moment. But the world is getting warmer, because of humans, because of the chemicals we use and the oil that we burn, and so the polar ice caps are melting, a little."
"Like in the movie?!"
"No, no, babe. Not like in the movie. I mean, there aren't even mammoths anymore. So, um, more slowly." I'm not making sense. "It's called global warming."
"So will we die?" Cue Max's otherwise roller coaster-induced nausea.
"We will not die. We will not, there will not be one massive flood or anything. But people do need to change how we live. Sea levels will rise, but little by little. Tiny, tiny amounts."
"What about Brooklyn?" The key concern.
"Max, baby, Brooklyn will be fine." I'm not sure if this is true. Regardless, "I promise. But remember how Manhattan is an island?" The look of panic returns. Max's mom works in Manhattan.
Anyway, I enjoy spending time with both Maxes a great deal. They're both hilarious, except Young Max doesn't always intend to be. I tell stories about him, and one of my stories is about how freaked out he is by global warming. My friend might want to make a movie about it, so I started writing. To wit:
I love the feeling of fear. Young Max does not. A garage door has just opened, suddenly, mechanically and to our right. We are both startled. I look away for a moment and wait for the the rush of adrenaline that I can cultivate for even the most mundane of events. Other people may know it as the nausea that washes over the passengers of the first car on the Coney Island Cyclone. Young Max, for instance, would he consent to ride that roller coaster, would certainly recognize it as such.
Right now, though, we're both calmed by the emerging white Taurus and Max starts talking about Scrat again.
"It was scary when he almost died!"
"Uh, but he didn't, right?"
"NO, he didn't!" Max corrects me with the kind of bellow I sometimes think will burst his larynx. I should have known. We only finished watching "Ice Age 2: the metldown" fifteen minutes ago. "He was in HEAVEN, remember--"
"Oh! With the acorns!"
"He was in HEAVEN," Max's exhilaration makes him talk like a breakless freight train, "and he was getting to the biggest acorn and then he was SNATCHED by Sid! And Sid didn't realize that Scrat didn't want to die. He thought he was HELPing! But then Scrat was so sad." At this point Max decides to breathe. We walk for almost a whole block, past pinkish brownstones and wrought iron gates, until he speaks again.
"Imagine if that HAPPENED."
"What, if a squirrel came back to life after acorn heaven?"
"No! If the Arctic MELTed."
"Well," my eyes light up, mirroring the light in the eyes of Brooklyn parents borough-wide, "well, that is kind of happenning."
Max looks stricken.
"I mean," I have to be fast, "not at this moment. But the world is getting warmer, because of humans, because of the chemicals we use and the oil that we burn, and so the polar ice caps are melting, a little."
"Like in the movie?!"
"No, no, babe. Not like in the movie. I mean, there aren't even mammoths anymore. So, um, more slowly." I'm not making sense. "It's called global warming."
"So will we die?" Cue Max's otherwise roller coaster-induced nausea.
"We will not die. We will not, there will not be one massive flood or anything. But people do need to change how we live. Sea levels will rise, but little by little. Tiny, tiny amounts."
"What about Brooklyn?" The key concern.
"Max, baby, Brooklyn will be fine." I'm not sure if this is true. Regardless, "I promise. But remember how Manhattan is an island?" The look of panic returns. Max's mom works in Manhattan.
The Flâneuse
So, I've been thinking about writing a blog (in the same way that I've been thinking about starting the revolution, going back to my internship at Witness, and finally returning one of Ali Robinton's emails) for some time. I didn't want to, necessarily, because I had some wisdom that anyone else lacked, but because I'd come up with a really super name: The Flâneuse. It's French, fine, and I speak even less French than I can make a blog (?) but I felt it would be highly apposite.
A flâneur is, as I understand its conceptual presentation by Baudelaire, an urban observer. A lot of definitions on the, you know, Internet would have it that flanerie--seriously. that's apparently what it's called. a word that makes me think of flailing with streamers in both hands--is a state of idleness, passive spectating.
Instead, I'd say that the flâneur and flâneuse (masculine & feminine) are active members of the cities they observe; as though by walking down Third Avenue near the Gowanus Canal I have inexorably altered that environment. Or at least reified it, carrying it with me as an interpreted image.
One reason the term has experienced a scholarly resurgence of late--I mean, since 1848, or whatever--is because Baudelaire only wrote of a man walking the streets, leaving the existence of a flâneuse unexamined. That's a question that resonates with me; can I walk down the street, relatively unobserved, engaged only in the act of looking? Because that means that I'm not engaged in the act of averting my eyes from middle aged businessmen, bawdy teenagers, and hard-hatted construction workers.
I walk all the time. I look all the time. But do I believe that I, or anyone, can be a flâneuse? Undetermined. Anyway, the blog name was taken by some professor on WordPress. That's cool. I like the name Red Admirable, too. It's a butterfly.
For further elucidation: someone is more educated than I.
A flâneur is, as I understand its conceptual presentation by Baudelaire, an urban observer. A lot of definitions on the, you know, Internet would have it that flanerie--seriously. that's apparently what it's called. a word that makes me think of flailing with streamers in both hands--is a state of idleness, passive spectating.
Instead, I'd say that the flâneur and flâneuse (masculine & feminine) are active members of the cities they observe; as though by walking down Third Avenue near the Gowanus Canal I have inexorably altered that environment. Or at least reified it, carrying it with me as an interpreted image.
One reason the term has experienced a scholarly resurgence of late--I mean, since 1848, or whatever--is because Baudelaire only wrote of a man walking the streets, leaving the existence of a flâneuse unexamined. That's a question that resonates with me; can I walk down the street, relatively unobserved, engaged only in the act of looking? Because that means that I'm not engaged in the act of averting my eyes from middle aged businessmen, bawdy teenagers, and hard-hatted construction workers.
I walk all the time. I look all the time. But do I believe that I, or anyone, can be a flâneuse? Undetermined. Anyway, the blog name was taken by some professor on WordPress. That's cool. I like the name Red Admirable, too. It's a butterfly.
For further elucidation: someone is more educated than I.
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