Does it get any better than first-snow photos of your neighborhood taken with a bad phone camera late on the Saturday night before Christmas? (Sure it does, but not this year and not this night: this year, this night, this is as good as it gets.)
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New York
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Montague Street, First Snow, 3:17 AM
Posted at 04:31 AM in Beauty, New York | Permalink | Comments (0)
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Quote of the Month, Or Possibly of the Year
Persephone to me, just now: "I think that you and black women get along well because you're both irritable."
Me: "Really?"
Persephone: "Yeah. Plus you both have creative hair."
(I'd been describing an interaction I had with a surly DMV woman whom I'd drawn out of her DMV shell this afternoon at the "express" DMV office on 34th Street: drawn her out, or maybe she was an uncharacteristically un-surly DMV person. She looked the DMV part, but then again she sort of didn't: she had a small teddy-bear sticking out of the little pocket in her polyester blue blazer where either a handkerchief or nothing usually sticks out. She wasn't jolly or anything, but, I mean, she'd taken the time this morning to stuff a small bear into her clothes. So perhaps she was just a good-natured retail bureaucrat -- some of these must pass the civil-service exam and slip unnoticed into government employ -- in which case I don't have some sort of special connection with black women after all.)
(As for the hair comment, I'm not sure what that was about.)
Posted at 02:08 AM in New York, Persephone | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Friday, October 02, 2009
Leaving New York
My cab driver this morning was another Italian-American guy. This one's name was Joe. He was about sixty-five. His face, and particularly his nose, implied a life of heavy drinking. He seemed like a sad man, in a tears-of-a-semi-happy-clown way. He told me that he'd lived in New York all his life and never thought he'd retire, but that he was going to sell his medallion in a few months and move to Knoxville, which is where his daughter lives. I asked him if he minded telling me how much he'd be able to sell his medallion for (a medallion is what you need to operate a car as a yellow taxicab in New York: the driver needs a hack license, and the car needs a medallion). He said that he'd paid $60,000 for his in the 1970s and would sell it for about $600,000 if he were to sell it today, which sounds about right based on what I've read about the cost of medallions. They're sold through brokers on some sort of medallion exchange, and people take out mortgages to pay for them.
He said that he'd grown up on the Lower East Side, on Orchard Street. He said that he'd belonged to a gang back then. What they'd usually do, he said, was put on their gang clothes and go up to Hell's Kitchen and beat up Irish guys. "That's how it was then," he said, laughing, his laugh giving me the sense that he didn't have a problem with Irish-Americans anymore. "That's how it was."
He talked about what it was like driving a cab here during the 1980s. "Once a rock band got in my cab, and they couldn't pay the full fare, so they paid me in marijuana. That's how it used to be!" I told him that my dad, a retired lawyer in Blue Hill, Maine, was paid in scallops once. "There you go! People used to do that. When I was growing up on Orchard Street, my mother used to cook Italian food for the Jews and they'd wash our linens for us. That's how it used to be."
In Chinatown, he told me that his father used to say that the food down in Chinatown was pretty good, but that "you didn't see any cats or dogs in the alleys!", and then explained the joke, which didn't really need explaining, but I didn't mind.
I asked him how he liked the Lower East Side now. It doesn't bother me that the Lower East Side has been gentrified, but I don't know how I'd feel about it if I'd grown up there when it was a very different place.
"It's alright," he said. "I drop kids off there sometimes. I see things and I remember things. Oh!" We were stopped at a light on Centre Street where it runs into Kenmare Street in what is now called SoHo, not too far from the Lower East Side. He was pointing at the far right-hand corner of the intersection and said that that's where he used to go with his father on Thanksgiving morning to buy a turkey. There'd be live turkeys there on the corner, and you'd choose one and they'd kill it for you, right there on the street. "Or chicken," he said, when they couldn't afford a turkey at Thanksgiving.
A beautiful black woman tried to flag him down, not realizing that he wasn't for hire because he already had a passenger. "That I'll miss: beautiful women waving at me in my cab! Smiling... You don't think about that, passengers don't, but I'm inside, I see things from in here, beautiful women waving at me. That I'll miss," and he laughed.
"All this New York," he said. "I need to take it all down to Tennessee with me, down to Knoxville. All these stories. I think they'd like them down there. I have to do that."
Posted at 04:44 PM in Beauty, New York, Taxicabs | Permalink | Comments (0)
Technorati Tags: lower east side, new york city, nyc taxicabs, retirement
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Back in New York: Sal Bongiorno
There are over 13,000 yellow cabs in New York. So it's very, very rare to get the same driver twice, and since you have to hail yellow cabs on the street (they are not allowed to be radio-dispatched, so you can't call them), the odds of getting the same guy twice are slimmer still. But I've had Sal Bongiorno twice in three weeks.
Sal is a throwback. Despite what you may see in the movies, Italian-American cab drivers are close to extinct in this city, and have been for some time. Cab drivers these days are from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine, Jamaica, west Africa, Haiti, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Lybia. They're not from Italy, and their parents and grandparents aren't from Italy either.
Sal, this morning, gigantic Italian-American guy, the kind who could smash in your face or mine with one hand and without really trying, after he picked me up on Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights: "Hey, I had you before! What are the odds! How was uh, Greenland!"
Sal: "Now, what's the weather like there?"
Me: "Well, it's a little nippy, but the great thing is, it really doesn't get dark there; the sun -- "
Sal: "Great to see you again, man. Really, I mean that."
Me: "Yeah, what are the chances? So, it doesn't get dark there -- "
Sal: "They like Americans there?"
Me: "Yeah, I'd say so... Sometimes you get a vibe in some countries where you think they don't like you so much, but yeah, I'd say --"
Sal: "They like Obama?"
Me: "Yes, I think they do."
Sal: "I like Obama." (This was not a given; this could have gone either way.)
Me: "Me too."
Sal: "Hey, great to see you again! I mean that. How long's it take to get there?"
Me: "Five hours. A little less than if you go to London."
Sal: "What airline?"
Me: "Icelandair -- seems to be the only one that goes there from here."
Sal: "You wanna take Centre Street?"
Me: "Yeah, thanks."
Sal: "Yeah. Yeah... So what are the people like in Greenland?"
Me: "It's Iceland; lots of people get them confused. Greenland is the huge country that goes almost all the way up to the north pole; it's almost completely covered in ice. Iceland is much smaller. And they've got more people there in Greenland, but not many -- 320,000 in the whole country."
Sal: "Jeeeeeesus, three-twenty?"
Me: "Yeah -- probably that many live in downtown Manhattan alone, not to mention --"
Sal: "Three-twenty???"
Me: "Uh-huh."
Sal: "They like Americans?"
Me: "I believe they do."
Sal: "How long it take to get there?"
Me: "Five hours."
Sal "...Jeez, I was had something to say; what was I gonna say. Jeez. Hey, great to see you again! I mean that."
Me: "Yeah, what're the --"
Sal: "They like Obama?"
Me: "They do."
Sal: "Expensive there?"
Me: "Yeah, definitely."
Sal: "What they pay for gas there?"
Me: "Like, eight bucks a gallon."
Sal: "Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeezusssssssss, eight bucks a gallon?????? -- Hey, you want Centre Street?"
Me: "Yeah, thanks. -- Yeah, expensive! Then again, I think the whole place is less expensive than it was before their economy crashed; when our economy crashed, back in the fall? Theirs really crashed. They had to --"
Sal: "How's the weather?"
Me: "Well, the sun stays up most of the time in the summer, but it's still a little nippy -- "
Sal: "They like Americans there? They like Obama?"
...And like that for another ten minutes, as Sal bounced us up through Chinatown, SoHo, the Village.
Me: "Perfect, thanks."
Sal: "Hey, great to see you again! I really mean that."
Me: "Alright, you too! next time I'll tell you about..." (Here I was a little stumped; I don't have any upcoming vacations planned.) "...I dunno, India. I think we're going to go there again soon."
Sal: "Okay. Now you take it easy. Please take it easy. I mean that. You look tired."
Me: "K, you have a good day; take care -- "
Sal: "Thank you! I mean that. What're the odds. You take care too. Really. You look tired."
I love living in New York.
Posted at 12:15 PM in New York | Permalink | Comments (0)
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Do You Remember, Dear Reader?...
Do you remember, dear reader, the spring of 2009, when it rained for 748 days straight? Of course you don't. I forget: I am ninety-eight years old and you were but a twinkle in a twinkle of the eye of someone who, himself, was a twinkle in someone's eye in 2009. That was before the National Weather Service abandoned the misguided idea that it was possible to passively predict the weather and got into the business of actively controlling it. That was in 2024, but I doubt you remember that either, nor do I expect that you remember Delaware. Delaware? Well, if you're like other East American children, you've taken a class trip or two to Very Large Fan Alpha. So, VLF-A used to be a state. It was called Delaware. The word "Idaho" probably doesn't mean anything to you either, does it... Jesus, don't they make you guys take history?
That's alright. Just know that you're lucky. Just know that when we used to get rain here on the east coast, it didn't arrive promptly at 5:30 in the afternoon and depart promptly at 6:05. Some days, it would rain all day, followed by another day of rain, and another. And that day would be followed by rain too, a day which itself would be followed by eighty-two days of rain, after which it would rain for maybe a week or two more before pausing for seven minutes at 3:47 in the morning before raining for another month.
I made the above image in the summer of 2004. (The original said "...or in a fucking rainforest." I took out the "fucking" before publishing this image on my site. Very unlike me; I wonder why I did that. It disturbs me a little that I did that. Also, I just can't imagine under what circumstances I would have felt the need to do that.)
Posted at 02:11 PM in New York | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Odd Commute
I took the subway to work this morning. As I was walking down into the subway station, a clean-cut guy asked me, "Have you ever shot heroin?" The question seemed meant to be taken at face value: it wasn't a slur of some type; the guy didn't seem to be fucking with me. The question also seemed to be an implicit offer: perhaps I'd like either to buy some heroin from him and shoot it, or perhaps to join him and shoot some of his.
"No," I said in a mildly incredulous, what are you, fucking nuts? tone of voice.
"Heh," the guy said, in the disgusted way one speaks to people who don't understand that you only live once, that life is meant to be carpe-diemed to the fullest.
Five minutes later, I was on the R train. Sitting across from me were three white kids dressed in very dirty clothes, each carrying large duffel bags. One of them was a guy; the other two were girls. All of them were very drunk, or high, or some combination of both, or something. One of the girls could barely keep her eyes open and was half-slumped over, drooping onto the floor. The other girl couldn't keep her eyes open either, but she wasn't drooling. The guy was more with-it than the girls.
He said to me, "Hey, give me a smile!" I gave him a smile.
"Oh, come on, that's a half-assed smile!" He turned to a woman who was sitting across from me and a few seats down from him, and asked her, "Will you give me a real smile?" She gave him a smile similar to the one I'd given him: a half-assed one.
"Jesus," the guy said, in the friendly but pitying way one speaks to people whose priorities are way out of whack, "you New Yorkers are so uptight! I slept in a Dumpster last night and I'm happy as a clam!" I thought about this for a second and decided that my priorities were doing okay.
"It was a alley, not a Dumpster," the non-drooling girl said.
The guy stared into the middle distance and thought about that for a while, then said, "Damn, I shit my pants this morning and I'm still happy as a clam."
Posted at 06:02 PM in New York | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Two Exchanges
Scene I: Yesterday. Two working-class guys are conversing on the street. One is a native-English speaker; one is a native-Spanish speaker. They are speaking to each other in English. They seem to be discussing a small construction project. Their talk is cordial; they don't seem to be friends, but they're friendly enough with each other. Their conversation comes to an amicable enough end; they shake hands, and the native-English speaker turns to walk away down the sidewalk. The native-Spanish speaker says, "muchos gracias, amigo!" The native-English speaker says, in an unmistakably hostile tone, "say it in fucking English," and shakes his head in disgust. He says this so that the native-Spanish speaker can hear him, and he doesn't look back at the native-Spanish speaker to smile and let him know that he's joking, because he's not joking.
Scene II: Today, a half-block away. I am in a deli buying some chewing gum and a cup of deli coffee. A man with a Greek accent is railing to the Asian guy behind the counter (I think he was Chinese) about the price of cigarettes, which have gotten very expensive in New York over the past few years. There is a line of five people or so at the register. Three of them buy cigarettes, and each time this happens, the Greek guy gets more worked up. "Ten dollars and thirty-five cents! You know how much those used to be?? Thirty-five cents!!! A quarter and a dime into the machine and you got a pack of cigarettes!!!! In 1980, this was!!!!!" It's my turn at the register, and I'm paying for my coffee and gum and being particularly glad not to be buying cigarettes, and the Greek guy decides to take off. In parting, maybe to show the Asian guy that there are no hard feelings about the cigarettes (which are so expensive now purely on account of taxes), he says, "God bless you. In your language, God bless you." And he smiles a big, genuine smile, and the Asian guy smiles a big, genuine smile back at him.
And the melting pot boils on.
Posted at 08:36 PM in Beauty, New York, Proud Bigotry, Ugliness | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
What You'll Find If You Go In Search Of Spring At The Brooklyn Botanic Gardens In February
What you'll find are, e.g., furry bud-things which definitely look sort of springy:

Also, you will see fish swimming around in water as opposed to not swimming around because they're encased in a large brick of ice and because they're dead:

As encouraging as the out-of-doors spring-style signs are the BBG, though, the real excitement, you're likely to find, is inside, in the greenhouses. I've been going to these gardens for almost two decades, but I don't think I'd ever gone inside before this past weekend. These here (in the "temperate/warm" greenhouse) are some Orange Flowers:

These guys, also in the "temperate/warm" greenhouse, are some Other Type Of Nice Flowerz:

Also in the "temperate/warm" greenhouse (although doesn't it look like it belongs in the "tropical" greenhouse? That's not where it was, though; it was in the "temperate/warm" greenhouse, so go figure, or, if you prefer, don't) is this flower, which looks like a bird:

I don't remember which greenhouse this plant was in, nor am I positive, actually, that it's plant and not animal of some sort:

This disturbingly phallic nature item depends menacingly from a bunch of unripe bananas in the "tropical" greenhouse -- if you were a child, wouldn't you go home and sleep with the lights on for like at least two weeks or perhaps months?

No? Here's what its shaft looks like up close...

...at least two weeks, right?
Thought so.
Now, here's what a cactus (found in the "desert" greenhouse) looks like after it's died. Disturbing, isn't it? These things are supposed to live for a long, long time on the water an nutrients that they store up, aren't they? But here's this skeletal, former cactus (and this really is sort of a skeleton, isn't it? And/but since when do plants have skeletons?). Or, I should say, here is what I believe to be a skeletal, former cactus, because if you go to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens with your girlfriend looking for signs of spring, you may be told that this dead cactus is "driftwood." When you ask what driftwood would be doing in the desert instead of by the seashore, you will be treated like a child who doesn't understand the ways of the real, grown-up world:

Posted at 06:23 PM in Beauty, New York | Permalink | Comments (0)
















