Tales from the Big Onion

Museum of the Moving Image

2012-01-28T17:56:00.000-05:00

The Museum of the Moving Image can be found on an unassuming street in Astoria, Queens, hedged in by the tremendous Kaufman Astoria Studios complex. According to its website, the museum's mission is to advance the "public understanding and appreciation of the art, history, technique, and technology of film, television, and digital media." I stopped by on a rainy Friday afternoon to have my understanding of these things advanced.

The two current exhibits that grabbed my attention the firmest were Surviving Life: Collages by Jan Svankmajer and Jim Henson's Fantastic World. Svankmajer is a surrealist Czech puppeteer who blends the grotesque and the innocent into indescribable stop-motion films like Alice and Faust. Jim Henson, as we all know, was a Muppet.

This giant slab of building houses the Museum of the Moving Image.

A scene from Day the Earth Stood Still?

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching.

The following are scenes from the joyfully demented mind of Jan Svankmajer...

And now on to Hollywood...

Standard issue movie makeup.

From The Elephant Man.

"Na-Nu Na-Nu."

Rather convincing scale model of a theater.

As a kid you are told not to waste your time and money on foolish things like arcade games. As an adult you pay admission to visit them in museums.

The motherlode of Star Wars action figures.

My kingdom for a Hogan's Heroes lunchbox.

Film-related sheet music.

King Goshposh and Featherstone from the Jim Henson exhibit, taken before I realized photographs were not permitted in the Muppet gallery. Unless you visit the museum yourself this is all you'll get.

An early Chaplin film viewed through a handcranked Mutoscope. You can't see it very well, but Chaplin is about to brain a mustachioed villain with a wooden mallet. Ha ha.

A Mutoscope of Melies' A Trip to the Moon, featuring the famous scene where the creampie moon gets a rocket lodged in its eye.

A Victorian-era zoetrope, an early device for producing the illusion of motion.

This Regan MacNeil mechanical puppet from The Exorcist is responsible for the revolving head effect.

Miniature of the Tyrell Skyscraper from Blade Runner.

An RCA television from 1939. World War II put a temporary halt on the development of television broadcasting, which didn't get kicking again until after the war ended.

A Sony Trinitron television with built-in Betamax video recorder from 1975.

The Quester Submarine

2012-01-21T11:45:00.000-05:00

Amid the broken pilings of Coney Island Creek rests a strange sight—the partially-submerged wreck of a submarine, its corroded conning tower visible above the water's surface like a relic from a Jules Verne novel. Called the Quester I, this derelict craft was built in the late sixties by a local shipyard worker named Jerry Bianco. Its purpose was to salvage the remains of an Italian luxury liner, the Andrea Doria, that sunk off the coast of Nantucket in 1956 after colliding with a smaller passenger liner. Rumors of untold valuables aboard quickly circulated but the location of the wreck made conditions especially hazardous for divers.

And that's where Bianco comes in. He built the 45-foot craft from salvaged metal and coated it with yellow chromium which happened to be the cheapest paint available, thus unintentionally referencing a certain Beatles song.

The Quester was launched in 1970 using a crane, but problems with ballast caused the sub to tip sideways and become lodged in the mud. For years Bianco tried to convince locals to chip in enough money to have the submarine raised, but ultimately he was forced to abandon the project. The submarine was left with its hull jutting out of the creek as a unique local landmark, one which fishermen have been known to use on occasion as a pier.

Incidentally, the vault of the Andrea Doria was opened on live television in 1984. Among its contents was found an assortment of traveler's checks and bank notes, but nary a sign of treasure.

Flushing Meadows

2012-01-18T05:53:00.000-05:00

Flushing Meadows has come along way since referred to by F Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby as a "valley of ashes." It hosted two world's fairs, first in 1939 and again in 1964, and was home to the first United Nations until the iconic headquarters was completed on the edge of Manhattan. Today the area is a sprawling park, containing the Queens Museum of Art, the New York Hall of Science, the Queens Zoo, Botanical Garden, and several stadiums, as well as several artifacts from its heyday.

The New York Hall of Science.

Mercury-Atlas and Gemini-Titan rockets.

Arthur Ashe Stadium and Forms in Transit sculpture.

The Great Hall, built for the 1964 World's Fair.

Geodesic domed aviary.

Free Form sculpture.

The Unisphere, centerpiece of the 1964 World's Fair.

The New York State Pavilion and observatory towers.

The derelict pavilion is used as storage space by the adjacent Queens Theater in the Park.

The Unisphere symbolizes "Man's Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe."

Panorama of the City of New York at the Queens Museum of Art.

Brooklyn.

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

Manhattan.

Poster art depicting the Trylon and Perisphere, the central symbols from the 1939 World's Fair.

A relic from the 1939 World's Fair.

Scale model of the 1964 World's Fair.

Louis Armstrong's House

2012-01-16T16:43:00.000-05:00

Jazz legend Louis Armstrong and his fourth wife Lucille (a dancer he met at the Cotton Club) moved to Corona, Queens in 1943. There he lived for nearly thirty years, teaching the neighborhood kids to play trumpet and buying them ice cream. Lucille left the house to the city after her death, to be used as a museum. The garage where Louis kept his beloved Cadillac was turned into a giftshop and the basement game room into an exhibit hall. The rest of the three-story house was preserved as the Armstrongs had lived in it, filled with Chinese art and swinging retro-modern appliances. Many of the rooms feature built-in recordings of Louis speaking around his house. In one such recording, when asked about those upstart Beatles, Louis enthused "They're great! They've got a new beat there." In the upstairs den hangs a portrait of Louis painted by his friend Tony Bennett, affectionately signed "Benedetto."

Photography is not permitted on the residential floors (you can see photos of his kitchen at TheKitchn.com), but here's what I was otherwise able to get.

After his neighbors were evicted for nonpayment of rent, Louis had the house torn down and turned into this walled garden. The museum often puts on summer jazz concerts here.

The gold-plated Selmer trumpet given to Louis in 1933 by King George V of England.

"The property of Louis Armstrong."

Want more? Here's a great documentary of the man himself.

Satchmo.

Bear Hill Tower

2012-01-15T15:34:00.000-05:00

Seven miles north of Boston lies the 2,500 acre Middlesex Fells Reservation. A short hike beyond the popular dogwalking grounds of Sheepfold Meadow leads to the Bear Hill Observation Tower, constructed in 1910 for no discernible purpose. It is, however, an ideal spot for photography. Not to mention graffiti.

Cambridge & Somerville

2012-01-14T14:27:00.001-05:00

The Longfellow (aka Salt-and-Pepper) Bridge spanning the Charles River.

One of the salt shakers.

The Boston skyline from mid-bridge.

The gusting winds in Kendall Square have been known to sweep unsuspecting pedestrians off their feet, often with vaudevillian results.

The Ray and Maria Stata Center, designed by Frank Gehry. Yes, it was apparently intended to look like it was left in the microwave too long.

The Middle East in Central Square. Musical legends were born on its multiple stages. Also the beef kebab is highly recommended.

Cambridge City Hall.

The People's Republik, a Communist-themed pub. Inside, a bomb and giant military boot hang overhead.

At the Harvard Bookstore. No point in asking which authors tend to get shoplifted the most.

A Hungarian walks into a tobacconists...

The Harvard Square Pit, where punks and jugbands congregate during the warmer seasons.

Down in the Harvard Square station at midnight.

The Brattle Theatre, a cinephile's paradise. An ideal place to catch Marx Brothers comedies.

The Harvard Lampoon Castle. Not many buildings can claim to wear a Prussian pickelhaube.

The Weld Boathouse.

On the bank of the Charles River.

The John W. Weeks footbridge. Any self-respecting movie set at Harvard probably features this as its opening shot.

The First Parish Church, where I saw David Foster Wallace read from his book Oblivion soon after it was released.

Inside the Border Cafe, awaiting my lunch.

The wall outside the Harvard Loews Theater.

Harvard Epworth United Methodist Church.

"Gift of the Wind" kinetic sculpture in Porter Square.

The Rosebud Diner in Davis Square, where I was once admonished by a waitress for not finishing my clam chowder.

The Davis Square compass rose stone, a popular late night passing-out spot.

Davis Square.

Two of the "Ten Figures" sculptures that populate the square. The Somerville Theatre, behind them, is known for unique events such as showing silent films with live accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra. It also houses a branch of the Museum of Bad Art.

A stone field house in Powderhouse Square, built during the Great Depression.

Originally a windmill, the Old Powder House in Nathan Tufts Park was used to store gunpowder during the Revolutionary War. Later it was used for storing pickles.

Boston, Part II

2012-01-13T18:00:00.000-05:00

Picking up where we left off...

44A Charles Street is the former residence of Mary Sullivan, the Boston Strangler's final victim. Also, the Paramount makes a damn fine breakfast.

William Dean Howells, Louisa May Alcott, and John Kerry are a few of the luminaries who at some point claimed occupancy among the Greek Revival houses of Louisburg Square.

9 Willow Street was once the residence of tormented poet Sylvia Plath.

In Beacon Hill the cellar gnomes have their own entrance.

Steve McQueen's abode in The Thomas Crowne Affair. The Federal-style mansion was originally designed for Congressman Harrison Gray Otis in 1800 by the esteemed architect Charles Bulfinch (whom one could be forgiven for assuming designed most of Boston).

My idea of what a market should look like.

Central wharf overlooking the Boston Harbor.

I can't decide which angle I like better.

The Custom House Tower.

The historic Omni Parker House. Home to the Saturday Night Club, which consisted of literary heavyweights Emerson, Longfellow, and frequent guest Charles Dickens. Ho Chi Minh and Malcolm X were both spotted working in the kitchen in their formative years. The hotel is also the location of numerous reported ghost sightings.

The John Adams Courthouse, discreetly hidden behind the less ornate Center Plaza.

The Granary Burying Ground.

Paul Revere rests here. You may have heard of him.

Ice skaters in the Boston Common.

The John Hancock Tower rising in the distance. When completed in 1976 there was a minor issue of windowpanes dropping off during strong winds, which proved unsatisfactory to pedestrians below.

Next, we cross the river into Cambridge...

Boston, Part I

2012-01-13T07:44:00.001-05:00

For six years in the aughts Boston was the city I called home. Since I wasn't yet the shutterbug I've since become, however, my stay was never properly documented on film. Early this week on a whim I decided to correct this in a frenzied two-day kamikaze attack. Here are the results.

In Copley Square. Trinity Church, Hancock Tower, and an audacious bird who wanted in on the action.

The First Church of Christ Science, otherwise known as the Mother Church.

The Prudential Center, the R2-D2 Building, and the Christian Science Administration Building, respectively.

Abigail Adams stands guard in the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.

In the early sixties a vibrant section of town called Scollay Square was bulldozed to make way for the monstrous Boston City Hall. Brutalist architecture is brutal.

This used to be a hideous snarl of rusting elevated expressway. After years of unsightly construction and structural mishap the roads have all been diverted underground, freeing up the grounds for a serene public space.

The Paul Revere Mall leading to the Old North Church. "One if by land..."

Copp's Hill Burying Ground, the second oldest cemetery in Boston, makes an appearance in H.P. Lovecraft's short story "Pickman's Model."

The Custom House Tower at dusk. Until 1964 it was the tallest structure in the city. And is still one of the grandest.

Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park.

Joe's on the Waterfront.

Boston Harbor by night.

The Massachusetts State House, sitting majestically atop Beacon Hill.

To be continued...

Boston Public Garden

2012-01-12T21:07:00.000-05:00

The Boston Public Garden was established in 1837 in the heart of downtown and features as a setting in the stories The Bell Jar, The Trumpet of the Swan, and Make Way for Ducklings. The pond in the center is famous for the swan boats that carry riders during the warmer seasons, though there were few to be seen on a blustery day in January.

A Japanese lantern.

The footbridge.

The trumpet of the swan.

Bronze equestrian statue of George Washington.

A fountain, on holiday for the winter.

You've heard of a one-man band. This is a no-man band.

Historian and clergyman Edward Everett Hale looking properly dignified.

After an early morning snowfall.

Make Way For Ducklings.

Return of the Camera Spy

2011-12-23T12:16:00.000-05:00

National Museum of the American Indian

2011-12-10T17:05:00.000-05:00

On the cusp of Bowling Green in the financial district looms the National Museum of the American Indian, an imposing Beaux Arts backdrop behind many tourist photos of the Wall Street bull. Designed by renowned architect Cass Gilbert, the building was originally completed in 1907 as the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House and operated under this guise until 1974. I was disappointed to learn this wasn't the same Custom House where Herman Melville battled corruption and Chester A. Arthur basked in it. (Prior to 1907 the Custom House was located in the Merchants Exchange at 55 Wall Street, though Melville apparently worked out of another office on Gansevoort Street.)

Security is airport-grade, due to the museum's status as a federal building. After clearing the metal detector without incident, I caught the tail of a guided tour on Native American clothing piloted by a member of the Hupa tribe. On display in the Infinity of Nations exhibit were a Hupa dance skirt outfitted with beads and thimbles, a Lakota war shirt possibly belonging to Crazy Horse, an Inuit parka made from caribou hide, and a disconcertingly out-of-place Victorian wedding dress worn by an advocate for Ponca tribal rights named Susette LaFlesche Tibbles, who went under the nickname Bright Eyes.

A second tour focused on the architecture of the building itself and granted me access to the locked chamber of the splendorous Collector's Office, these days often used as a movie location. An events planner had commandeered the stately Rotunda, but our group was able to slip along the perimeter to admire Reginald Marsh's series of seafaring murals and the marble columns of solid Vermont marble which flank each end.

On display in the contemporary gallery was an exhibit for the Ojibwe mixed-media artist and sculptor Carl Beam, in which ravens, stencils, and cultural iconography meet at the crossroads of the spiritual and political. Photography was forbidden in this gallery but examples of his work are available online.

I should mention admission to the museum is free, always a welcoming figure.

The National Museum of the American Indian.

Formerly the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House (1907-1974).

The Custom House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

Entrance to the Infinity of Nations exhibit.

Tlingit spruce-root hat, ca 1900.

Nisga'a mask, British Columbia ca 1875.

Kwakwaka'wakw mechanical mask, ca 1900.

Nisga'a mechanical mask, ca 1870.

Alaskan Inupiaq parka, ca 1900.

This Lakota war shirt, decorated with human and horse hair, allegedly belonged to Crazy Horse.

Lakota square hand drum.

Aymara powder horn, ca 1910.

Kuna Kantule hat, ca 1924.

From a gallery of photographs of the Isleta Pueblo titled "Time Exposures."

The central Rotunda. The dome is, unsettlingly, made from concrete.

During World War II this skylight was tarred over, as was standard practice in event of an air raid.

Muralist Reginald Marsh deliberately obfuscated the name of this ship, the S.S. Normandie, after Joseph Kennedy protested the lack of America-centricity.

One of several solid Vermont marble columns.

Inside the Collector's Office.

Inaccessible to casual visitors, the Collector's Office is occasionally used as a movie set, most recently seen in Boardwalk Empire.

Glancing upwards from the base of the curved staircase.

A patriotic bald eagle newel.

"Future Clone" by Fritz Scholder, 1993.

Nautical ironwork ornaments the former Cashier's Office.

Pisces.

The Bronx Zoo

2011-12-03T18:31:00.002-05:00

November is an advantageous month to visit the Bronx Zoo. Though some of the attractions are closed for the season and many of the animals in hiding, the low density of screaming heathens more than compensates. The gorillas lay low and the Wild Asia Monorail is off its rails but there are still plenty of photogenic inhabitants roaming about.

The zoo, which opened in 1899 and boasts over 4,000 animals, is situated in the center of the Bronx, much like Central Park is to Manhattan, which means despite being momentarily convinced you are in the midst of a jungle, you can then round a corner and find yourself confronted by apartment buildings towering over the wilds. Which also means there must be nearby residents who can regularly glance out their living room windows at a meandering giraffe.

The southeastern Asia Gate entrance.

Asia Plaza.

Camels out of spitting distance.

The spotted hyena turned out to be awfully hard to spot. Eventually he emerged from his hiding place long enough for this shot.

Dwarf mongoose.

This one was a little shy.

The African wild dog flirts with endangerment by straying from the confines of Africa's national parks to nearby ranchland, where it finds itself at odds with armed ranchers.

Most giraffes despise tall jokes.

The Reptile House.

The Volcan Darwin tortoise was a key player in Darwin's formation of the theory of evolution after he observed the differences in subspecies among the Galapagos Islands

Tortoise wins by a hare.

A little boy worried about the strength of the glass between him and this gaboon viper. His parents assured him it was safe, but he sounded unconvinced.

I can only assume this is the same restless Egyptian cobra who caused the kerfuffle back in March when she pulled a Shawshank Redemption. She was found a few days later in a nonpublic section of the Reptile House.

Nile crocodile.

A stack of chuckwallas.

Gila monster.

Brown bear.

An alert polar bear named Tundra.

"Rawr."

The Zoo Center.

It was difficult convincing these ring-tailed mongeese to sit still long enough for a photo op.

A leisurely California sea lion.

In Germany the cottontop tamarin is known as "Lisztaffe" due to its resemblance to Hungarian virtuoso Franz Liszt.

Southern bald ibis.

Inca tern.

Tern on lookout.

Magellanic penguins.

The penguin in the center is poised in mid-trumpet. His cry sounded a little like a deflated Volkswagen.

American bison.

American flamingo.

The elusive snow leopard, hungrily eyeing a hapless photographer.

A fleet-footed red panda, who answers to the name of Bam Bam.

A peacock putting the moves on a fire hydrant.

Sleepy Hollow

2011-11-22T14:16:00.005-05:00

A scenic half-hour trainride up the edge of the Hudson River leads to a picturesque village known as Tarrytown. In 1996, North Tarrytown officially renamed itself Sleepy Hollow, which is a. a better name, and b. a cunning ploy to cash in on the notoriety from Washington Irving's famous short story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," which since its publication in 1820 has been both Disney-fied and Burton-ized.

The peaceful Main Street which runs through the center of town is dotted with antique and curio shops, and the majestic Tarrytown Music Hall. Venturing north along Route 9, however, is to follow the hectic hoofsteps of Ichabod Crane's last ride. Crane first encounters the Headless Horseman at the very spot where the Revolutionary spy Major John Andre was captured, thwarting the plot to turn West Point over to the British. Today a monument marks this site on the edge of Patriots Park, also described in the story.

The wooden bridge spanning the Pocantico River on which Crane meets his fate no longer exists, nor does the schoolhouse where he was supposed to have taught. However a mockup of the "Headless Horseman" bridge was constructed within the grounds of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, which agreeably looks the part. The cemetery, meanwhile, is the resting place for Washington Irving and his family, as well as such luminaries as Andrew Carnegie, Samuel Gompers, Walter Chrysler, and Leona Helmsley. The Sleepy Hollow Cemetery itself was not in existence at the time of the story's publication, but the adjoining Old Dutch Church Burying Grounds was, and reportedly contains the remains of those who served as the inspiration for the characters of Katrina Van Tassel and Brom Bones.

Tarrytown, the setting for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

The Tarrytown Music Hall. At the time I passed by, Olivia Newton-John was next scheduled performer.

Curios in the window of a barber shop.

Prior to 1996 this sign would have read "Village of North Tarrytown."

A memorial to the capture of Major Andre, who was hanged as a spy in 1780.

Patriots Park, the spot where Ichabod Crane first encounters the Headless Horseman.

The Philipsburg grist mill.

Philipsburg Manor, now a non-profit museum.

The original bridge on which Ichabod Crane faces the Headless Horsemen would have crossed the Pocantico River at just about this spot.

The Old Dutch Church Burying Grounds, where a terrified Ichabod Crane flees from his spectral pursuer.

Washington Irving's family plot.

The Hudson River in the distance.

The imposing grave of Charles H. Delavan, whoever he was.

An unfortunate surname.

Samuel Gompers, the influential labor union leader.

Andrew Carnegie's surprisingly modest grave marker.

Memorial to "Baby Girl Cleveland," dated 1970.

A faux-Headless Horsemen bridge erected upstream from the original location to give visitors with high expectations something to photograph.

The last view Ichabod Crane has before getting fatally bepumpkined.

Violators will be beheaded.

Umberto Eco

2011-11-17T18:28:00.009-05:00

Umberto Eco at B&N Union Square to discuss his recently published novel The Prague Cemetery with Antonio Monda.

Eco on conspiracies: "I'm not fascinated by plots. I'm fascinated by the stupidity of those who believe in plots."

He also made a distinction between love and hate. To paraphrase: Love is selective. 'I love you. I want you to love me. I don't want you to love anyone else.' But hate is general. It is social. It brings people together.

I would comment more on their conversation but both speakers' English was difficult to understand from a distance and Eco often forgot to speak into his microphone. It looked like they were having a very erudite discussion though.

The Impossible Girl

2011-11-13T19:50:00.002-05:00

The Impossible Girl herself, Kim Boekbinder, struck again at one of the most unique lofts in Brooklyn. Known as the House of Collection, the space is filled to the rafters with two decades worth of dusty acquisitions—vintage typewriters, cameras, clocks, cash registers, fossils, hats, nets, farm equipment, stuffed animals, and various other artifacts of yore. Nothing less than a museum of Americana.

As if to set the tone of the evening, I walked in on a lively circle discussion of lesbianism in Archie comics. Three-fourths of a whiskey sour later, the Girl emerged impossibly from a hidden alcove, a blur of aladdin sane peacock plumage and glitter. She mounted a corner platform framed by ferns and fronds and began to craft swirling soundscapes from guitar-powered strands of spun silk, rattling chains, birdcalls, and squawking rubber lizards, even at one point incorporating the roar of the J train passing outside the window. These shimmering loops she harnessed into songs about gypsies, nuclear physics, avocados, and fucking. She even boldly improvised two new songs on the spot, one a cautionary tale about falling in love with someone from distant Australia, the other an ode to cephalopods. (The word "cephalopod" has always sounded to me like a flavor of exotic tea.) For an encore she returned wielding a banjolele (or "ukelanjo," if you're left-handed) for some heartfelt warbles sans gadgetry. I was foolish enough not to bring along my camera and had to make due with the one in my cellphone, hence the unfortunate grainy quality of the accompanying photos. Still, better than nothing.

On the way home I passed a didgeridoo busker on a subway platform, which seemed so uncannily appropriate in tone that I wondered how his presence had been arranged as a fanciful nightcap just for my benefit. A parting reminder never to underestimate the powers of the Impossible Girl.

Socrates Sculpture Park

2011-11-06T13:04:00.003-05:00

In an unassuming and deceptively industrial-looking corner of Long Island City lies the Socrates Sculpture Park. The park opened in 1986 on what was previously landfill to serve as an outdoor museum for artists to exhibit multimedia installations and to function as a neighborhood park with scenic views of Roosevelt Island and eastern Manhattan. Weekends are devoted to the Makers Market, an open air marketplace of design and craft. The space also hosts creative workshops, kiteflying, and various other community-based programs throughout the week. A charming spot for a fatal sip of hemlock.

Brooklyn Museum

2011-10-23T14:30:00.002-04:00

Tucked behind the central library, the Brooklyn Museum has long gone under my radar. Out of sight, out of mind. One recent morning I sought to remedy this situation. The timing turned out to be ideal, as there was a minimal of crowd in the early hours as I navigated the five stories of African masks, Egyptian carvings, Asian ceramics, European paintings, and American period interiors. Many of the paintings in the third floor gallery are framed behind glass, which means the experience of viewing them mostly consists of hunting for an angle that avoids as much light glare as possible. Aside from that, the museum was an agreeable detour from the usual bustling Manhattan fare.

The glass Rubin Pavilion was added in 2004, which makes the museum look like a flying saucer crashlanded in its lobby.

"Sweet Funk—An Introspective" by Sanford Biggers.

The piano is functional.

"Fallen Bierstadt" (2007) by Valerie Hegarty

An art deco bicycle from the retro-future.

Watch your step.

The Beaux-Arts Court, restored in 2007.

Random Sightings

2011-10-21T17:59:00.006-04:00

Carrying around a smartphone is nearly as useful as sporting a concealed bowtie camera.

Edward Hopper's Studio

2011-10-15T20:37:00.001-04:00

For much of his life Edward Hopper painted his scenes of desolate city streets, offices, and bedrooms from a modest studio space on the north side of Washington Square Park. During the forties the building which housed the studio fell into the clutches of New York University. In a situation with alarming parallels to modern real estate clashes, the school attempted to boot out the inhabiting artists by raising rents and refusing to renew leases. Hopper doggedly fought to stay, and managed to remain in the building until his death in 1967. The Greek Revival structure, on the corner of Washington Square North and University Place, now houses NYU's Silver School of Social Work. They are the ironic caretakers of Hopper's preserved studio, on the fourth floor overlooking the park.

Ordinarily the studio is off-limits to the public, but as part of Open House New York, its doors were opened for the weekend. The room is kept in a similar condition as it was in Hopper's day. Within the stark walls are Hopper's easel, printer's press (which doubled as Hopper's hat rack), pot-bellied stove, fireplace, and even a kitchenette. An opaque skylight in the northern portion of the ceiling lets in a soft, diffuse light. Several photos of the artist in his element taken by Joseph and Evelyn Isaacson during the forties hang on the walls. The wooden floor still creaks and one can imagine Hopper lugging buckets of coal up the four flights of stairs to fill his stove in the winter even after more modern heating methods were common. A most absorbing time capsule.

Siren Songs at the Sidewalk

2011-10-14T13:22:00.002-04:00

This three-piece incarnation of Sweet Soubrette regaled the freshly-renovated Sidewalk Cafe with woeful tales of doomed romance, nautical musings, and heartfelt tributes to such luminary figures as Anais Nin and Keith Richards.

The woven strains of melody sent drunken trolls scurrying for the refuge of darkness. Passing ships of marauders off the coastline were compelled to divert course, entranced, only to be dashed upon the rocks.

All told, a grand outing.

The players:
Ellia Bisker: Vocals, ukulele
Heather Cole: Violin
Cecil Scheib: Trombone

Liberty Park

2011-10-02T20:42:00.009-04:00

This evening I dropped by lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, which has been commandeered by the Occupy Wall Street protesters and rebranded Liberty Park. There I found a peaceful and spirited community hoisting slogan-bedecked pizza boxes, the air charged with optimism and patchouli. The enclave included a food line, a makeshift library, drum circles, protective tarps, and at least one humble soul weaving through the crowds picking up litter. Another went around making sure no one lacked warm and dry clothing. All manner of lively political discussion abounded within earshot, from the sensibly informed to the manically crackpot. Blue-shirted police casually stood on the periphery with what, despite recent mass arrests, seemed to be little interest in interfering.

While troubled by the movement's lack of coherent demands, I've heard a few opinions that give me food for thought, such as these insightful words from a user named Thoreau away Account which I found in the comments section of a recent Reddit post:

I can forgive the lack of a call for specific reform. People who "work on Wall Street" fill several different positions, and all justify their large salaries with the claim that their jobs require very specialized knowledge and skills. You cannot at one and the same time ask to be rewarded because your skills and education are so unique and also complain that said knowledge and skills are not common to every person you bump into. It is sidestepping the issue of their wrongdoing.

As an analogy, imagine that, during surgery, your doctor forgets a clamp and leaves it bobbing about in your abdomen after suturing you up. You recognize from your own feelings that something is wrong. An x-ray technician is able to point out that the nature of the problem is a metal foreign object, and to show you its blurry outline on the film.

The surgeon is the Wall Street guru: his or her skills are rare and delicate, but possessing those skills does not make him or her incapable of error. The x-ray technician? The attorneys general of every state in the union have been investigating actions taken by major banks and hedge fund managers that contributed to the housing crisis, on charges ranging from niggling technicalities to ethical violations to outright fraud; though even after their explanations we, people unfamiliar with finance, with law, and with the shady regions where the two overlap, can only see the dim outlines of the problem, we can still see the traces, and can place some trust in their ability to recognize specifics. As the patient, you do not need to be a doctor to see that something is in fact wrong and that something needs to be done to rectify it, even if you are not able to talk another surgeon, anesthesiologist, and nursing staff through the exact procedures needed to clear things up. You are right to demand action, and everyone would immediately see an attempt to dismiss your concerns "because you're not a doctor" as the smokescreen that it is.

5Pointz Graffiti Factory

2011-10-01T15:18:00.001-04:00

5Pointz is a converted industrial complex in Long Island City, Queens which now houses artists' studios. The exterior is an outdoor art exhibit space which has achieved notoriety as a so-called "graffiti mecca." Talented graffiti artists from all over the globe flock to use its walls as a canvas. The 200,000-square-foot factory building is prominently visible from the elevated 7 train as it worms its way into Court Square, though the artwork is best admired at close range. Amazing what can be done with a spray can and a flat surface.

There are mutterings of bulldozing the place to make room for high-priced condos, which would be a shame because this is a real slice of quintessential New York. And such slices are too frequently being gobbled up by a profit-hungry real estate market.

Blackwell's Island

2011-09-17T18:52:00.001-04:00

Roosevelt Island is a narrow sliver of land in New York's East River, approximately forty city blocks in length, running parallel to Manhattan like some kind of growth-stunted sibling. The effect achieved is that of a quiet community of residences and hospitals with a dense photoshopped backdrop of buzzing skyscrapers. Once known more colorfully as Blackwell's Island, the land was used as a prison until usurped by Riker's in 1935. Notable "guests" over the years include William "Boss" Tweed, wizened anarchist Emma Goldman, drug-addled Billie Holiday, and racketeer Dutch Schultz. Mae West even shacked up for a week on (what else but) obscenity charges.

There are three means of reaching the island, aside from swimming. The Roosevelt Island Tramway, which opened in 1976, was originally intended to be a temporary transport until the much-delayed subway station was finished. However the tram caught on as an iconic tourist attraction and as a result continued operating after the subway station finally opened in 1989. There is also a bridge for automobiles which connects with Astoria, Queens.

Sidling up to the Queensborough (aka 59th Street) Bridge.

An approaching tram.

The Roosevelt Island terminus.

The 59th St Bridge (Feelin' Groovy).

At the southern tip of the island are the remains of the Smallpox Hospital, built in 1856 in a Gothic Revival style. Once abandoned it became known as the "Renwick Ruin," after its architect, James Renwick, Jr, who also fathered St Patrick's Cathedral and the Smithsonian Institution Building.

The aptly-named Octagon Tower, built in 1839, is a former lunatic asylum. A visiting Charles Dickens reported on its "lounging, listless, madhouse air." Undercover journalist Nellie Bly gained admittance by feigning insanity. Once released she wrote extensively of the dismal conditions. In recent years the Octagon was converted into residential apartments.

Lighthouse Park at the northern tip of the island.

Renwick was also responsible for the 50-foot Blackwell Island Light on the island's northern tip. This Gothic lighthouse was constructed from gray gneiss by convict labor to illuminate the dangerous waters of nearby Hell Gate.

The obstacle-free promenades that wind along the shore on either side of the island are hotspots for joggers and baby perambulators.

Downtown Main Street has a mildly unsettling atmosphere not unlike The Village from the surreal TV show The Prisoner. Each building sports identical red signs with identical white lettering. This includes the public library, a Roman Catholic church, and a senior citizens cultural center. The town flower shop is simply labeled "Flower Shop," and the nail salon, "Nail Salon."

Blackwell Park water fountain in front of Blackwell House, an 18th century farmhouse built by the great-grandson of the island's original namesake.

The Manhattan terminus.

Awaiting the next load of passengers.

Gas Works Park

2011-09-16T05:06:00.004-04:00

On a promontory jutting into Lake Union the Seattle Gas Light Company built a gasification plant to convert coal into gas. After fifty years of operation the plant shut down in 1956. Two decades later the land was opened as a public park. Rather than being demolished, the processing towers, boiler house, storage tanks, and various other machinery were left standing or converted into a children's play barn and picnic shelter. Political rallies, drum circles, kite flyings, chalk parties, candlelight vigils, solstice pageants, and film shootings are some of the goings-on that typically occur on the grounds.

Victorian Flatbush

2011-09-06T20:58:00.001-04:00

As early twentieth century New York crawled out from the remains of the Gilded Age, the gentry of noisy, polluted Manhattan longed for "a place in the country," as it were. Peaceful and isolated, yet conveniently located near a train for easy access to their banks and offices on weekdays. As a result, farmland in central Brooklyn was bought up and fitted with stately Victorian mansions. Today it would take quite a stretch of the imagination to consider Flatbush countryside, but many of the houses still remain in designated historical districts. The following photos were taken on Albemarle Road in the area known as Prospect Park South.

A Day in Seattle

2011-09-01T03:47:00.006-04:00

The iconic Space Needle.

An alien monster from Doctor Who.

"Mono means one. And rail means rail."

The monorail tracks plunge straight into the side of the EMP Museum.

The Smith Building, of Smith-Corona typewriter fame.

Pioneer Square.

A reservoir in Volunteer Park at the top of Capital Hill.

An unusual fountain in Cal Anderson Park.

Twice Sold Tales used bookshop.

The troll who lurks under the Aurora Bridge.

Skyline from the Bainbridge ferry.

Sitka National Historic Park

2011-08-25T01:10:00.003-04:00

The Sitka National Historical Park commemorates the 1804 Battle of Sitka between the native Tlingit tribes and Russian fur hunters. The collection of native totem poles on display along the trails are actually replicas, since the deteriorating originals are now kept in protective storage.

Juneau By Whirlybird

2011-08-24T09:36:00.001-04:00

In Juneau I rode out to a tiny airfield at the edge of the city, beside a stream which reeked of dead salmon. There I boarded a copter which flew me over the mountains and out to a remote glacier, entirely inaccessible to land vehicles. My boots were outfitted with a Gore-Tex slipover grip for walking on the ice with a minimal of slippage. Even with the grip a misstep could be treacherous.

The vivid blue color of the glacier is an illusion, I was told, because the ice absorbs every color except blue, which is reflected back at us. How this differs from any other material object we see, I don't quite understand, but who am I to raise questions?

We saw a waterfall in the ice and learned that moraines are ribbons of ground-up rock and debris carried along by the ice flow. The glacier's surface was fractured by many crevasses of indeterminable depth. The pilot dropped a rock down one of these shafts and we listened to the gradual decay into oblivion of its ricochets. He advised us not to fall in.

As the chopper took off from the glacier the pilot pumped music into our headphones for dramatic effect. This could've been a cheesy ploy had the tune not been the "From Russia With Love" theme, which at that moment felt oddly appropriate. Our breasts swelled with undeserved heroism.

Hurricane Ridge

2011-08-23T10:46:00.005-04:00

A scenic hike along Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.

USS Turner Joy

2011-08-22T09:25:00.006-04:00

The USS Turner Joy naval destroyer was launched in 1958. She spent a lengthy career on the Pacific seas and was awarded a total of nine battle stars. She was named after Vice Admiral Charles Turner Joy, a heavy player in the Korean War. Her motto: Esse Quam Videri ("To be rather than to seem").

During what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the Turner Joy and another ship called the USS Maddox fired upon what they thought was an attack by North Vietnamese ships but was later suggested to be false blips caused by weather conditions. This phantom attack led to severe US retaliation which shifted the Vietnam War into high gear.

During combat off the coast of South Vietnam a gun mount experienced a "hang fire," the condition when a shell is fired but fails to leave the chamber. The shell eventually detonated, killing three men and wounding several others. The ship was damaged again during Operation Sea Dragon. Designed to be quick and light, naval destroyers like this one were known as "tin cans" by their crew due to the unarmored hull being a mere 3/8 of an inch thick. As a result damage when sustained tended to be heavy.

Eventually rendered obsolete by computer-guided technology, the Turner Joy was retired in 1982 and is now permanently docked along a pier in Bremerton, WA, beside a well-stocked gift shop.

Glacier Bay

2011-08-21T13:01:00.008-04:00

The bulk of the day was devoted to navigating the Alaskan Inside Passage. Eveningtime we chugged into Glacier Bay, deep into John Muir territory. The foredeck, usually closed to the public to prevent Titanic-inspired "I'm flying!" imitations, was opened to provide a front row view of the passing fjords. The winds picked up as we steered into Tarr Inlet towards the sprawling Margerie Glacier and onlookers zipped up their jackets. Backtracking, we passed Gloomy Knob, rounded Jaw Point, and entered Johns Hopkins Inlet, the cobalt waters dotted with floating ice. Honestly, the only real way to take a lousy photo here was to forget to remove your lens cap.

Underground Seattle

2011-08-20T23:27:00.002-04:00

Downtown Seattle of the nineteenth century was built on tidelands, which wreaked havoc with its primitive sewer system. Toilet geysers of raw sewage were a frequent occurrence. When the city was devastated by fire in 1889, officials decided to rebuild at a higher grade to insure what was flushed down would stay down. Trouble was, the process of regrading would take much longer than the local business owners felt like waiting. What eventually happened is the businesses were rebuilt at the original level, then the streets were later raised, making the second floors the new first floors and the original first floors the cellars. For a time shoppers had to climb ladders in order to cross the streets until I-beams were installed across the gaps and sidewalks laid down at the new street level. The original first floors were used for storage and nefarious activity until vermin infestation grew out of hand in the 1900s and the subterranean spaces were closed off. Half a century later these dingy catacombs reopened as a tourist attraction. Unfortunately it turns out underground Seattle is not in fact plagued with sulfurous demons as depicted in the classic Scooby Doo episode, "A Frightened Hound Meets Demons Underground."

Sxip Shirey at the Cooper Square Hotel

2011-08-04T11:29:00.005-04:00

On a rainslick Wednesday evening aural alchemist Sxip Shirey plied his trade in a post-modern penthouse twenty-one stories above the Bowery, the azure glow of the Manhattan skyline serving as an ideal backdrop. While Joe's Pub undergoes renovation, the Cooper Square Hotel kindly lent their upper reaches to the occasional musical outing. On a wooden deck high above the city only a flimsy glass panel prevented guests from being swept overboard by the tempest to the concrete far below. The acrophobes stayed safely indoors.

Revving up the evening was the Raya Brass Band, their jumping brand of Old World Balkan dance music in stark contrast to the ultra-modern space. This hardly concerned the gathering crowd, who encircled the troupe as the percussionist drubbed his tupan and the trumpeter shook his instrument to dislodge more notes out of it.

When Sxip took the stage he hauled aboard various members of the Raya Brass Band and guest vocalist Xavier ("he's like Michael Jackson meets Lionel Richie, only taller.") to compliment his unique bag of bells, whistles and conjurer's tricks. To get the audience in the right frame of mind, he repulsed them with a gratuitous description of blood pudding, a taste for which had acquired on a recent trip to Scotland. He then launched into his usual fare of careening funhouse melody welded to a streetwise stomp. Midway through the show he unveiled the "Sxipenspiel," a conundrum of bicycle bells constructed especially for him by an appreciative Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer. Sardined in the small space, the crowd raised wine glasses and cameraphones in celebration and good cheer. A neophyte within earshot attempting to describe Sxip's music to his companion eventually gave up in defeat, surmising "the English language doesn't contain the words for it."

The Chelsea Hotel soon may die a gruesome death. CBGB was dismantled and chucked in the dustbin. New York City had better cling to Sxip Shirey's pleated trouserleg while it can before he is lured away by the dubious temptations of European cuisine.

The Raya Brass Band:
Greg Squared: Reeds
Ben Syversen: Trumpet
Don Godwin: Tuba
EJ Fry: Tupan
Matthew Fass: Accordion

Xavier: Vocals
Sxip Shirey: A chest full of toys

Existential Dentistry

2011-07-28T17:03:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I nearly cracked the secret of the universe while hallucinating in a dentist's chair. I wasn't there for a major operation, just a filling that needed replacing. After strapping the mask over my nose that would pipe in the nitrous oxide, the dentist explained in some detail what he intended to do, but all I heard was the song playing behind him. The last fairly lucid thought I had was "I didn't know Hendrix did a cover of 'Like a Rolling Stone'..." then I climbed into my bathysphere and descended into the roiling wet clouds, where oddly-shaped bubble creatures floated past, peering curiously at me through a porthole in the hull of my craft.

As the procedure commenced it occurred to me that this dentist's voice sounded exactly like that of every other dentist I've ever leaned back for. Sure, I expect the terminology to be similar, but these were even the same mumbled asides, the same random off-key hummings. I've had several dentists over the years of varying ages in different parts of the country. Yet at this moment they were all one and the same. A dentist archetype. The conversation between him and his assistant was the same as every conversation between every dentist and assistant that has ever taken place. Snippets of dialogue wafted into my ear, each one triggering bouts of deja vu. Something about how the assistant required five years experience before becoming a professional. Several dental procedures referred to as "intense." A gruesome hatchet injury once encountered in dental school. I recognized all of these conversations, especially the hatchet injury. I could even picture the setting, a cabin stocked with lumber somewhere up north. I've heard this dialogue all before, every time I've sat in a dentist's chair.

I then understood that the Dental Experience must be recorded on a tape and was now being replayed for my benefit. There is nothing to fear, the tape loop reassures me, because everything is familiar. This is all routine and your well-being is in good hands. You've been here before and you will be here again.

Which led me to reflect on the nature of control. Clearly I was not the one in control of this situation. I willingly handed over the reins fifteen minutes ago (or was it three hours?) when I stepped into this office. The dentist could, on a whim, swing a sledgehammer at my jaw and there was little I could do about it. In this impaired state of mind I might not even recognize that as something I would wish not to happen. I pondered what a powerful world figure would do in my place. How would Charles Foster Kane handle placing his fate in another's hands? Or would he simply not let himself be put in this situation? Perhaps Charles Foster Kane would sooner have a mouthful of rotting teeth than entrust his safety to another.

Then, like a camera filming itself, I thought of myself sitting there trying to make sense of everything. Consciousness is a detective, I realized, eternally puzzling over what is happening, attempting to make sense of its environment, to piece together meaning out of the clues it finds. But a detective is also a nuisance, a wrench in the machinery. In order to pull off any sort of repair work or self-maintenance such as this, a greater mechanism would have to decoy the detective long enough to work unobstructed, to prevent it from meddling. And that's exactly what the purpose of the nitrous oxide is, a wild goose chase to distract my thoughts from what is really going on. I've voluntarily come in and placed myself completely at the mercy of the dentist. Or did I? Certainly he is functioning under the same principle. Perhaps he is merely an instrument of the maintenance department. This whole thing could be taking place under the influence of some kind of metaphysical nitrous oxide.

A distraction, that's all this is. A distraction in the machinery. Then suddenly I understood everything. With an almost audible click the whole nature of the universe made sense. As if stormclouds were lifted and I could see into the distance in all directions and knew precisely where I was. The face of the clock was opened exposing the tiny mechanical parts underneath. Everything was so simple and so obvious. I nearly motioned for the procedure to be halted. I had seen the truth. To hell with my teeth, I needed to scribble down my vision of clarity before it became shrouded again.

And then I noticed the music playing was no longer Hendrix. It sounded familiar though. A descending melody like the song "Such Great Heights." Not the original, but it could have been the Iron and Wine version. And I thought something was wrong, this was not part of the script. That song didn't even exist the first time I went to the dentist. It would have been impossible to encode into the tape loop. Something must have short-circuited. An interference of signal. The song was a tip-off that the pattern had been broken.

I opened my eyes and realized I was in the same room I had originally entered. I had been sitting there the entire time. I hadn't gone anywhere. Certainly not for a subterranean ride in a bathysphere. The office around me looked unbearably ordinary. The mask was removed and I was ushered on my way.

Groggily I stumbled outside into the daylight. I crossed the street to the park where some jazz musicians were gathered. I sat on a bench while my head slowly cleared and the feeling seeped back into my jaw, trying to make sense of all this, to reconstruct the state of mind that had led to my recent epiphany. I had a pad of paper in my lap, ready to jot down the faintest hint of the secret, but my mind was a blank. I felt the despair that for a fleeting moment everything made sense and then was spirited away, like a dream whose wispy tendrils eluded my grasp, like a pearl disappearing into the murky depths of my soup. A tune whose melody I'd forgotten. Hopelessly I put away my empty notepad, feeling like the victim of a cruel joke. Why reveal the answer to me only to take it away again? What was the purpose in that?

And then a bird shat on my bag.

Biff Bam Boom

2011-07-27T10:10:00.004-04:00

Kamala Sankaram recently brought her Summer Music Project to The Stone, John Zorn's stomping grounds in a corner of the East Village. Her confessed intention was to challenge herself to write one composition a week and deliver the collected finished products to an audience within a given timeframe. The result was a cross-pollination of genres incorporating Hanna-Barbera sound effects, Bollywood noir, Saturday morning Crest Gel jingles, early Nintendo soundtracks, spaghetti westerns, as well as experiments in chance music and recontextualized noise. Her able-bodied crew kept up with even her most eccentric of ideas. What is especially notable about Kamala's music is its tendency to straddle the divide between experimental and tuneful. In other words, it keeps your brain and your toes simultaneously engaged.

The cast:
Kamala Sankaram (voice, squeezebox, bleeps, bloops)
Pat Muchmore (cello-fiddle, hairstyle)
Ed RosenBerg (duck call, tenor sax)
Jeff Hudgins (tubular bell, alto sax)
Drew Fleming (testosterone box, guitar)

Incongruity

2011-07-25T11:05:00.001-04:00

Dictionary, tell me about incongruity.

incongruity: the quality or state of being incongruous
incongruous: lacking congruity
congruity: the quality or state of being congruent
congruent: congruous

[hurls dictionary out window]

Dialogue on the Subway Wall

2011-07-22T15:08:00.008-04:00

You may need to peer closer for the succinct response.

Street Mouse

2011-07-19T02:06:00.008-04:00

Sad Stuff on the Street appears to have used this photo which I snapped on a Bushwick sidewalk back in May. They titled it "Puma preying on yellow mouse."

Earlier this year I tried to interest them in this ravaged teddy bear but it was considered too gruesome.

Ghost Train Orchestra

2011-07-16T13:58:00.006-04:00

Friday night the Ghost Train Orchestra caused structural damage to the roof of Barbes in Park Slope. Squeezing their crew of nine into a performance space the size of a steamer trunk, the band played a blistering set of tunes from their recent album Hothouse Stomp, prodded by ringleader Brian Carpenter. This meant plenty of Chicago and Harlem-centered big band swing from the twenties by the likes of Hartzell "Tiny" Parham and Fess Williams. Trombone slides and violin bows stabbed manically in all directions. Renowned "washboardiste" Rob Garcia thrashed his instrument within an inch of its life, in conspiracy with the crazed banjo brutality of Brandon Seabrook. Secret weapon Mazz Swift set down her violin at one point and leaned into the microphone for an earthy rendering of their one vocal number, "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You." After a brief intermission during which the stunned audience was allowed to sift through the wreckage, the Orchestra returned for a dizzying set of Raymond Scott and John Kirby numbers, an industrial age soundtrack to a demented cartoon that wouldn't stand a chance under Hayes Code scrutiny. Barbes never knew what hit them.

Ghost Train Orchestra:
Brian Carpenter (trumpet, harmonica)
Mazz Swift (violin, vocals)
Andy Laster (alto saxophone)
Petr Cancura (tenor saxophone)
Curtis Hasselbring (trombone)
Ron Caswell (tuba)
Avi Bortnick (guitar)
Joe Fitzgerald (bass)
Rob Garcia (drums, washboard)

The New York City Marble Cemetery

2011-07-10T21:18:00.002-04:00

The New York City Marble Cemetery opened its gates for the public this afternoon, something it only does a few times a year. Also known as the Second Avenue Cemetery, this half-acre of land squeezed between East Village tenements originally opened in 1831 and for much of that century was quite the fashionable place to be buried. Unlike common burial practices, concern for the spread of yellow fever meant the dead were buried deep in vaults of Tuckahoe marble. The grounds are surrounded on three sides by a high wall of rubble while an imposing iron fence separates it from the street.

The cemetery's most prominent member was President James Monroe, who was buried here in 1831, though his remains were later moved elsewhere. Other notable residents include one-time mayor Stephen Allen, financier Moses Taylor, archaeologist John Lloyd Stephens, and a shipping merchant known enigmatically as Preserved Fish.

The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

This monument to archaeologist John Lloyd Stephens incorporates Mayan glyphs into the design.

Possibly the greatest name in the history of New York City, Mangle M. Quackenbos.

Sweet Soubrette

2011-07-01T16:58:00.005-04:00

Sweet Soubrette beguiles the Parkside Lounge with songs about "Darwinism, public baths, giant insects, and famous dead women."

The East River Ferry

2011-06-17T20:24:00.003-04:00

This week New York launched a new ferry service along the East River, pingponging between the Manhattan and Brooklyn banks from 34th to Wall Street. All rides are free during the two-week trial run, after which a one-way trip will relieve the seafarer of four greenbacks. The ferry, a smaller, cleaner version of its elder Staten Island brethren, offers a leisurely cruise down the east side of Manhattan island, passing Hunter's Point, the Williamsburg waterfront, the Domino Sugar Factory, Empire Fulton Park, underneath three of our finest bridges, and finally coming to berth at the South Street Seaport. As I understand it the route will at times be extended to Governor's Island.

As far as the competitive mode of transportation which the city predicts, I don't see much practical value. The journey is entirely too slow to compete with the subway. And unless you happen to live near one of the several piers at which the boat stops, a ride on a bus or train will be necessary to reach the waterfront anyway. Once you've subjected yourself to the brutal indignities of the subway, I figure you might as well ride it out to your destination. The city claims ridership is higher than expected the first week, but of course a. it's currently free, and b. the novelty of seeing what it's all about is still fresh. Nearly everyone aboard when I rode was armed with a camera and clearly not commuting to work.

The ferry's fate is yet to be determined, and with any luck my doubts will be proven groundless. Anything which threatens to harpoon the MTA's stranglehold on the public has my support. Meanwhile here are a few sightings from my voyage.

Awaiting the ferry on an overcast morning.

The pier at 34th Street.

Our steadfast captain at the helm.

Hunter's Point.

The Greenpoint pier and eager gathering.

A backwards glance at Manhattan.

The Williamsburg pier.

The Domino Sugar Factory of South Williamsburg.

Beneath the Williamsburg Bridge.

The Manhattan end of the Williamsburg Bridge.

The Manhattan Bridge leading to DUMBO.

Bloomsday in New York

2011-06-17T15:00:00.006-04:00

Bloomsday in New York kicked off long before I did behind the library in Bryant Park, where breakfast was served to the assembled James Joyce enthusiasts. Arriving late, I failed to note if mutton kidney was the main offering, but anyone familiar with the Calypso chapter of Ulysses knows it would've been appropriate. Many readers recited lengthy passages from the novel and many of the audience wore period costumes. The Cyclops chapter was a real crowd pleaser. Uninformed parkgoers approached on tiptoe, curious as to what all the kerfuffle was about.

That evening another reading took place at the Brooklyn Lyceum. This one was headed by "resident Joycean scholar," Emmet McGowan. Many volunteers contributed and much Guinness was consumed. The evening was mischievously dedicated to the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.

Yet another event took place at the Housing Works Bookstore in Soho, the highlight of which was a humorous fifteen minute encapsulation of the weighty tome for those who may not have gotten around to reading it for themselves, or for those in need of a quick refresher. Music was provided by the indie all-star band, Bambi Kino. Unfortunately my phone decided not to save any of these photos, so you'll have to take my word that it happened.

Bushwick Open Studios

2011-06-05T19:04:00.002-04:00

The Bushwick Open Studios weekend is a good excuse to get inside artists' studios, snoop around and enjoy the complimentary olives. Some of the more eyecatching art, however, can be found outside, down a nearby alley known as Vandervoort Place.

How Books Work

2011-06-05T11:51:00.004-04:00

[From Demotivation.us]

Pollock's Toy Museum

2011-05-27T05:03:00.005-04:00

Pollock's Toy Museum in Fitzrovia takes its name from Benjamin Pollock, a designer of toy theater in the Victorian age. Inside is a warren of dusty rooms joined by impossibly narrow, winding staircases. Floorboards creak ominously underfoot. Imprisoned behind glass cabinet doors, forlorn wax dolls and broken robots watch visitors pass by as though powerless to warn them of a similar fate should they fail to escape the museum by nightfall.

"

A Visit to Sherlock Holmes

2011-05-25T20:03:00.007-04:00

Let's face it, the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221b Baker Street in the Marylebone district of London is unarguably a tourist trap. Yet one no devotee of the stories could resist.

Inquisitive schoolgirl: "When was Sherlock Holmes born?"
Curator: "He's a fictional character, so he wasn't born."

Detecting equipment.

Holmes kept his tobacco in the Persian slipper over the fireplace.

\
More paraphernalia.

A scene from "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual."

"The Man with the Twisted Lip."

Holmes always liked to keep a souvenir of his cases. In this instance, the dreaded Hound of the Baskervilles.

The Troubadour

2011-05-25T19:11:00.008-04:00

The Troubadour is a historic coffeehouse in Earl's Court that first opened in the mid-fifties and figured prominently in the British folk revival of that period. The main floor is a respectable restaurant where patrons sip and chat in relative peace, but down the narrow steps in back to the low-ceilinged cellar is another story. Here, driven solo artists wielding guitars or mandolins confront the mic while a gathered audience of aficionados downs tall brews and spicy popcorn. Bands shove their tottering equipment onto the humble stage and hope for the best.

Some notable names that have descended these stairs over the years include Richard Farina, Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch, and Linda Thompson. An unknown Bob Dylan played here the first time he visited London. The place fairly reeks of musical posterity.

The Troubadour on Old Brompton Road.

This soulful young viking maiden performs under the name Mallie.

Broadstairs

2011-05-24T08:06:00.005-04:00

Broadstairs is a coastal village in England about 16 miles northeast of Canterbury. In the nineteenth century smugglers dug elaborate tunnels in the chalk cliffs to hide their swag. Charles Dickens was a frequent visitor and finished writing The Pickwick Papers in a house overlooking the sea, now a museum. He also wrote David Copperfield here. John Buchan came to Broadstairs to recuperate from an illness and was inspired to write his novel The 39 Steps, based on a set of wooden stairs he found in the cliff face near his nursing home.

Highgate Cemetery

2011-05-24T00:19:00.005-04:00

Highgate Cemetery, near Hampstead Heath in North London.

The Andy Monument

2011-05-06T15:24:00.008-04:00

I could've sworn this chrome statue of Andy Warhol ornamented with Campbell's Soup cans and flower stems wasn't there last time I passed through the northern perimeter of Union Square.

The statue, designed by Rob Pruitt, is located near the Decker Building at 33 Union Square West, which was the location of Warhol's Factory from 1967-73. It was also where Valerie Solanas, brainchild of the Society to Cut Up Men, delivered to Andy a near-fatal critical review. The building now houses a Puma shoe store.

Marvelous Stories

2011-04-29T18:06:00.007-04:00

This Wednesday Neil Gaiman curated an evening of magical realism called "The World of Marvelous Stories" at the Upper West Side's Symphony Space. "Magical realism," he began, was often defined as "stories written by people in Argentina," and conceded it is one of those things where you know it when you see it. He described its effect as looking across a room at a strange and unfamiliar figure, only to realize suddenly you are looking at yourself in a mirror.

The event kicked off with a story called "A Life in Fictions," written by one of Gaiman's former Clarion students named Kat Howard who happened to be lurking in the audience and was promptly outed. This was read by Marin Ireland. Gaiman tackled his own story "The Troll Bridge," a modern update of the Three Billy Goats Gruff folktale. Also on the program were Jorge Luis Borges' mesmerizing "The Circular Ruins," read by Boyd Gaines, and, to conclude the evening, Gaiman's "The Thing About Cassandra," performed by Josh Hamilton with Marin Ireland returning for a dramatic cameo.

Neil Gaiman was charming and affable, and from my balcony vantage looked like a somewhat ghoulish version of Harpo Marx. "He's so talented," I heard the woman behind me gush before the show. He indeed turned out to be the ideal narrator for his own tale, voicing his troll with more vulnerability than one might expect from a matted, salivating creature who lives under a bridge. The audience clung to his every word and I was amazed by how few cellphone glows were visible across the darkened theater seats as he spoke. After the program ended half the population of Manhattan lined up to have their books graciously autographed by the man himself. I stuck around long enough to watch him approached bashfully by the little girl in pink who headed the line.

The evening was recorded and will undoubtedly soon turn up on the Selected Shorts website. Worth a listen.

Underage Chicken Smokers

2011-03-28T13:52:00.003-04:00

I think this photo speaks for itself:

[From 50 Unexplainable Black & White Photos]

Omar Comin', Yo

2011-03-25T13:46:00.001-04:00

[From The Quintessentially Victorian Vision of Ogden's "The Wire"]

Oyster Bay

2011-03-19T12:07:00.005-04:00

Across the way from Sea Cliff lies the sleepy hamlet of Oyster Bay. Though known as the summer residence of Theodore Roosevelt, it was also the childhood home of the writer Thomas Pynchon and likely inspired the setting of his short story "The Secret Integration." Other notable figures associated with the area include Captain Kidd, Typhoid Mary, and Robert Townsend of the Revolutionary War-era Culper Spy Ring.

Moore's Building on a downtown intersection. Originally a humble grocery store, later the location of Roosevelt's Summer Executive Offices.

Snouder's Drug Store, for decades the location of the town social center, aka soda fountain.

Oyster Bay Harbor.

The Raynham Museum, originally known as the Townsend Homestead where the Culper Spy Ring allegedly thwarted Benedict Arnold's plot to surrender West Point to the British.

The Derby-Hall Bandstand. The base of the civil war cannon was fashioned from scrap metal taken from the USS Maine, the sinking of which led to the Spanish-American War, a subject close to Roosevelt's heart.

A house across the harbor on Centre Island, as viewed from the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park.

Moments after I snapped this photo a seagull dropped an oyster from a great height which smashed against the pavement close enough to pelt my pantleg with shrapnel. The winged perpetrator acted like it was just a standard technique for getting the food out, but I saw the cold-blooded glint of murder in his eyes. He was hunting bigger game than oysters.

Cove Neck in the distance.

The Theodore Roosevelt Monument Assemblage. Each rock represents a chapter in his life. There were a lot of chapters.

Sea Cliff

2011-03-18T21:39:00.005-04:00

Sea Cliff is a small picturesque village perched atop a bluff on the north shore (or "Gold Coast") of Long Island. It lies just over an hour's trainride from Manhattan. Architecture ranges from Victorian and Queen Anne to Carpenter Gothic styles. There's even a Frank Lloyd Wright hidden somewhere in the midst. Quiet and sleepy, at least in late winter, the place veritably reeks of arts and crafts.

This wasn't the first thing I spotted as I strolled into town, but I figured it deserved top billing.

I think this qualifies as a typical "painted ladies" style of architecture.

An irksome hedge.

All centers of town should be indicated by an old clock.

Hempstead Harbor.

The original wooden staircase which led down to the boardwalk was destroyed by a hurricane in 1944. The town finally got around to replacing it in 2007.

This witch tree will strangle that house one day, if the power lines don't get to it first.

At just about this spot some dude pulled up in his car and asked if I wanted a ride. I couldn't tell if he was being neighborly or creepy, but a solid Brooklyn glare took care of the situation.

This house is for sale if you're in the market. A woman indicated no sign of leaving the porch any time soon, so I stood where a tree blocked her out. Crafty, no?

The main entrance to Sea Cliff is admittedly a little impractical.

No shortage of winding roads.

When Teddy Roosevelt died in 1909 he was entombed in this tree.

The Gate to Nevermore.

Ye olde train station.

The Significant Otter

2011-03-04T14:29:00.004-05:00

What distinguishes the 14th Street/Eighth Avenue subway station in Manhattan from all the others is the whimsical bronze sculptures of Tom Otterness, peaking out from strange corners to amuse the commuters. Titled "Life Underground," the 2001 installation was inspired in part by the 19th century caricatures of Thomas Nast published in Harper's Weekly. To me they've always suggested an amalgamation of the troublesome brooms from Disney's Sorcerer's Apprentice, Gyro Gearloose's lightbulb-headed helper, and Rich Uncle Pennybags from the Monopoly board game.

Recent Listening

2011-03-04T07:34:00.003-05:00

Here are the recent albums that, according to Last.fm, compel me to keep hitting repeat.

PJ Harvey: Let England Shake
Darkly-bruised folk battle hymns. Her first album to really grab me since Stories from the City.

Radiohead: The King of Limbs
Lulling and hypnotic.

Sufjan Stevens: The Age of Adz
A concept album in which I have no idea what the concept is. Something vaguely apocalyptical, I figure, with all its mentions of volcanoes and ghosts. The arrangements remind me of an electronic wizard version of the controlled chaos orchestrated by Van Dyke Parks for Joanna Newsom's Ys album.

Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
I'm not qualified to speak for his emcee skills, but production-wise the dude knows his business behind a mixing console.

Arcade Fire: The Suburbs
You've probably never heard of them.

Torn and Forlorn

2011-02-20T23:38:00.004-05:00

Alas, this unfortunate young cub was found lying on the mean streets of Brooklyn, his face mauled by wolves. By the time I reached his side it was already too late for anything but last rites.

Dada at the MOMA

2011-02-18T17:27:00.005-05:00

I swung by the Museum of Modern Art this morning to catch up on the latest exhibitions, notably Abstract Expressionist New York and Weimar Cinema, 1919–1933: Daydreams and Nightmares. Here are a few snapshots of what I encountered.

The Abstract Expressionism exhibit, thataway.

"Gothic," a lesser-known Jackson Pollock.

One really must experience "One: Number 31, 1950" in person to understand the visceral assault of Pollock's atomic-powered technique. Replication does not do it justice.

Sorry, I just don't get you, Mark Rothko. I faintly recall painting a blurry television set just like this one in grade school.

Matthew Barney's attention-getting "Cremaster 3: Gary Gilmore."

Rousseau's "The Sleeping Gypsy" has always been a favorite. Placid and haunting.

Alexander Caulder and his patrons.

Daydreams & Nightmares of the Weimar Republic, kicking things off with Peter Lorre's disembodied hand.

Nosferatu emerges.

No Man's Land. Haven't seen this one, but looks like a predecessor to The Grand Illusion or All Quiet on the Western Front.

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, a film I never tire of.

Das Alte Gesetz (The Ancient Law).

Mother Krause's Journey to Happiness and Faust.

Curtain call.

Toast

2011-02-08T14:51:00.009-05:00

Sometimes when you're strolling to work one fine morning and you happen upon the charred remains of a firebombed minivan parked with almost nonchalance alongside the road, you gain a hint of insight as to what living in New York during the punk years may have been like.

Sheepshead Bay

2011-02-07T18:09:00.008-05:00

Located northeast of Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay was named not after the leftovers at a local butcher shop, but rather a type of edible fish once found in its waters. Pollution soon put an end to that. Its golden age was the late 1800s, when opulent hotels were plenty and prosperous fishermen frequented the area. Later the bay became a haven for horseracing before finally settling into the modest residential and seafaring community it is today.

The blue wooden Ocean Avenue footbridge which connects Sheepshead Bay to Manhattan Beach. It actually lies slightly west of Ocean Avenue but who's to quibble?

Plenty of wildlife, but you'll notice no sheep.

One of the many piers that prod the north side of the bay.

A wintry Manhattan Beach.

Brighton Beach lies in the Russian sector, where English is decidedly not the dominant language overheard in the streets. Certain areas like these seem designed to make the Cold War refugee feel at home.

A park near Manhattan Beach.

This ornery swan tried to nab my wallet but I was too fast for him. I distracted him with a cookie and made my getaway.

The food at Roll-n-Roaster has nothing on Arbys, but few can compete with their snappy commercial jingles from the eighties.

Typical Brooklyn signage on this bait and tackle shop.

Many of the boats can be chartered, but taking their photo is free.

The bay, looking east from the Holocaust Memorial Park.

Interested in an unnecessary root canal? Give S&M Dental a call.

The Brighton Beach boardwalk, with the neglected amusements of Coney Island looming in the distance.

Hell Frozen Over

2011-02-07T01:04:00.002-05:00

It had been snowing relentlessly for days and the cars parked along the streets of Hell's Kitchen were buried up to their side mirrors. Coming down the brownstone stoops, owners gripped their shovels with gloved hands and growled at the work that lie ahead. Scarfed and hatted pedestrians kept their heads low against the wind and tried to circumnavigate the pools of slush which formed at every intersection without getting a bootful of chilled water. Newscasters on the radio were having fun coming up with names for the storm that referenced the end of the world, then chuckling at their own wit.

Two children, exiled from a shuttered schoolhouse, busied themselves by building the snowfort to end all snowforts. It had taken them the better half of the day to burrow in from the bottom using an old coffee can, and out the top, forming a combination turret and observation post. Their little blue knit caps peeked conspicuously out from the mounds of white as they prepared to do battle with an invisible adversary. Their armory of snowballs was well-stocked. An ambitious photography student slipped on a patch of ice and broke her camera. She sat with her legs splayed, gazing mournfully at the wreckage.

As the clouded sun quietly toddled off to bed, the blankets of snow took up the task of reflecting the city lights with enough intensity that the sun was hardly missed. The evening sidewalks were lit by a moonglow, as though they had somehow become gently radioactive. A stooped woman in a green parka took her dachshund for a walk. The dachshund sniffed the frozen ground at the base of a tree, uncertain. It lifted a hindleg without much enthusiasm, but conditions didn't seem right. The dog abandoned this attempt and continued along in hopes of finding a more suitable spot to conduct its business farther ahead. The stooped woman just wanted to get it over with so she could go inside and bathe her feet in scalding water.

An Irish youth came bursting out the entrance of the corner pub. Without hesitation he bounded across the icy sidewalk and dove headfirst into the snowbank with a muffled crunch. His short legs flailed in the air, like a vaudeville clown wedged in a barrel. His companions who followed him out of the pub doubled with laughter at his sudden lunacy. He pulled himself out, shook the snow from his wet hair and grinned.

"What if there'd been a hydrant there?" a laughing girl exclaimed.

He shrugged. "There wasn't."

Swing Street

2010-11-27T00:59:00.004-05:00

Strolling down 52nd Street between Fifth and Seventh Avenues, one notices the plate glass windows and steel frames of banks and hotels, the numerous revolving doors and loading docks. Though the signpost on the corner designates this as "Swing Street," even the casual observer must note that there is nothing remotely swinging about this particular stretch of concrete and steel. Aside from the banks there are a few clothing shops, a FedEx store, a Sheraton Executive Conference Center, The Paley Center for Media, and a certain well-known coffeeshop whose origin can be traced to the northwest coast. The only thing within sight that seems even mildly historic is the 21 Club, a former speakeasy, with its balcony of cast iron lawn jockeys.

From the nineteen thirties to the fifties it was a different story. The streets were lined with Victorian brownstones ablaze with ghostly neon, thriving nightclubs with names like The Onyx, The Three Deuces, The Famous Door, the Downbeat, the Yacht Club, Jimmy Ryan's, and, later, Birdland. On any given night one could drift from venue to venue, falling under the spell of such jazz legends as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Sidney Bechet, Lennie Tristano, Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, Coleman Hawkins, and Lester Young, a pantheon of the greats. Bird's tortured flights of freedom. Monk staggering over broken keys. Tristano's tempered trapezoids. Dizzy's musical puns. Every night up and down the block it all came pouring from the entrances.

As bebop gradually infiltrated mass consciousness, 52nd Street was its headquarters. This was serious music to be listened to, to be studied and understood. Never mind that corny dance jive of yesterday, the syncopated high hat seemed to proclaim, the real questions were being asked right here. Glenn Miller had been lost during the war and this was his replacement. And it spoke in a language better equipped to deal with postwar existential terror, a jagged dialogue of flatted fifths, not known for nothing as the Devil's Interval. Blackclad femmes with cocaine eyes watching from the front tables. An audience of hornrims and goatees, nodding in rhythmic conspiracy. A few undercover narcotics agents towards the back attempting a low profile. Where there's smoke there's fire, and the room is smouldering. A tousle-haired trumpet player comes tottering off the bandstand in a heroin haze, beats a fast exit up the fire escape as a cigarette girl creates a diversion. But everyone listens.

By the mid-fifties the street was in decline. Many of the clubs had adapted into strip joints where the music decidedly took a backseat to the action. Rock 'n' roll was the new kid in town. Jazz was doomed to be usurped by rock, as youth discovered it didn't want to analyze from its chair, it wanted to shake, rattle, and if possible, roll. And youth has in its possession the disposable income, so naturally it will be targeted by those whose business it is to dispose of it. Ma and pa still remember the Depression. They're going to be much harder to separate from their savings. But their affluent offspring are ripe for the taking. So if it's a simple beat and a curled lip the kids want, a simple beat and a curled lip is what they'll get.

In 1959, Miles Davis made headlines after getting roughed up by a cop in front of Birdland for refusing to be pushed around. Miles' name happened to be on the marquee but the cop was more concerned with the white woman at Miles' side. A photo circulated showing the musician bleeding from a head wound as the police took him into custody. A decade later he was to corner rock music on his own turf and have his way with it on the infamous Bitches Brew album.

But by then the last jazz club had boarded its doors and the whole place sentenced to the bulldozer. Swing Street in any recognizable form disappeared without a trace. Its heyday can only be glimpsed in surviving photographs of the period, and as a fondly recreated set in Clint Eastwood's tribute to Charlie Parker, Bird. Some shots of a washed-up Swing Street can be spotted in the film Sweet Smell of Success, as Lancaster and Curtis are leaving the 21 Club. The western end of the row is now affectionately known as "W.C. Handy's Place," though who in midtown today even remembers who W.C. Handy was?

Maestro of the Maelstrom

2010-11-21T20:32:00.003-05:00

He makes his entrance. Sxip Shirey, the mad impresario in the pinstriped suit. The great maestro of the maelstrom. An unholy alliance between Dr Caligari and Archimedes, between Svengali and Gyro Gearloose. Equal parts lion tamer, carnival barker, vaudeville buffoon, gypsy fortuneteller, madcap inventor, and serious composer. A table at his side contains a hodgepodge of junkyard toys transformed into musical instruments through some devious form of alchemy. Mutant harmonicas, dented music boxes, marbles spun in a bowl, dinner bells, bicycle chimes, a megaphone, pennywhistles duct-taped together. When piped through his assortment of pitchshifters and echo units the most docile of flutes becomes a catastrophic pipe organ, bellowing straight from the bowels of a demon.

Sxip Shirey has been a fixture on the New York avant-garde music scene since the glory days of Coney Island, where he entertained the rubes at Steeplechase Park. As a dashing young snake oil peddler, Sxip offered the gathering crowds a mysterious elixir which for mere pennies would cure both halitosis and impotence. He befriended the local fire eaters and stiltwalkers, and palled around with Gummo and Chico Marx before they struck it big. Some claim to have been present at afterhours jam sessions featuring Chico on piano and Sxip on a secondhand accordion. Some have even suggested Sxip had a hand in originating Chico's signature shoot-the-keys trick. He performed for such luminaries as Roosevelt and Freud while sultry gangster's molls watched from the wings. At night he slept behind the carousel and dreamt of bigger things.

Sxip firmly aligned himself with Nikola Tesla during the great debate between alternating and direct current. On catching wind of Edison's infernal plot to electrocute an elephant and therefore demonstrate the alleged danger of Tesla's alternating current, Sxip rushed down to the boardwalk just in time to witness the poor creature collapse in a sizzling heap. He had been too late to stop it. Glowering, he cursed Edison soundly and ever since has harbored a disdain for the electric lightbulb. To this day he prefers candlelight.

During the twenties Sxip visited Berlin to absorb the thriving cabaret scene. He stayed in the same hotel as Christopher Isherwood and in fact makes a small appearance in the novel Goodbye to Berlin. He once notably performed a birthday toast to Marlene Dietrich at the Wintergarten. In return she gave him his first ocarina, which he still cherishes. Although Sxip felt at home in the decadent Weimar Republic among the flappers, transvestites, and dope fiends, he was convinced by an apprehensive Fritz Lang that the political situation was getting out of hand. He soon returned by steamship to America.

Sxip settled in Hollywood in the early fifties to compose soundtracks to various science fiction films. Some of his scores include instrumentation commonly assumed to be the theremin (predating Bernard Herrmann's landmark use of one in The Day the Earth Stood Still), but which are actually conventional horns recorded with varispeed techniques. Though proud of his work in film, Sxip left Hollywood embittered by the assembly line mentality of the studio system which he felt devalued the artist. Nor did he like what the California sun did to his complexion. However, his lengthy correspondence with electronic pioneer Raymond Scott dating to this period is due to be published next year by Oscillator Books.

Surprisingly, Sxip mostly sat out the sixties. One would assume his often eccentric and irreverent stylings would fit in seamlessly with the psychedelic aesthetics of the time period. But Sxip took that decade to lay down his tools and do some serious soul searching. He traveled extensively in Eastern Europe and became fascinated with the Balkan and klezmer cultures he encountered there. On returning to New York he drew on these influences to form the Luminescent Orchestrii, a popular attraction on the Lower East Side with their unique brand of Romanian gypsy punk.

Which brings us back to today, with Sxip in the role of master of ceremonies for the strange and wonderful Evelyn Evelyn sisters at the Lucille Lortel Theater deep in the groin of the Village. He entertains the crowd with tales of sharing a toilet seat with Bertolt Brecht and displays his talents at silhouette puppetry. Then he lifts an instrument from his wunderkammer and erupts into another tune. He is an urban witchdoctor, dancing on footpedals and conjuring locomotives out of the stage and jet engines out of the baffles. Images of whirling carousels and gold teeth fill the theater, of bellydancers and swordswallowers, of vapor trails and teakettles and lids of steamer trunks slamming. And with his blessing he sends us back out into the streets of New York, a little better prepared for what we will find there.

A Wandering Space Mutant

2010-11-18T00:52:00.002-05:00

The great electric worm burrows beneath the East River in the direction of the city. Morning commuters try their damndest to avoid eye contact with each other, hiding behind newspapers, novels, makeup kits, and eyelids. An ageless woman wrapped in a blanket tosses pistachio shells on the floor underneath her seat. Three separate people are wearing eyepatches, unrelated. A mustachioed businessman stands with his crotch as conspicuously close as possible to the face of a seated girl who closes her eyes and wishes herself elsewhere.

The door at the far end of the subway car slides open and the roar of the tunnel comes whooshing in. A character has arrived. He wears a shimmering spacesuit with antennae on his head and carries a gleaming saxophone made from an unearthly metal. The genetic result of George Clinton of Parliament-Funkadelic mating with a Teletubby. He pushes back his cape and speaks.

"People of Earth, I have come bearing a message and the message is this."

Then he presses the instrument to his lips and unleashes a cascade of cacophony. It sounds like a madman driving a jeep through a cheese grater. Those unprotected by earbuds or headphones hastily cover their ears. Those with some kind of prop quickly bury themselves deeper in it. At the other end of the car, two resourceful young commuters escape through the emergency door into the successive car. After nearly a minute of this, the unendurable squawking mercifully lets up and the interloper announces, "Now, if all of you will contribute some money I will promise to stop playing."

Hands dart into change purses and wallets, prayers there is enough change to send this wandering space mutant back to the planet from which he came.

The Disorderly House

2010-11-16T00:49:00.004-05:00

The Bridge Cafe gets its name from being located in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. In one form or another the wood-frame building has been serving drinks since 1794. First as a grocery, then as a "disorderly house," which was a polite way of referring to a brothel, then as a series of taverns and watering holes. The interior still retains a twenties' speakeasy atmosphere. It is one of several bars in Manhattan that lays claim to the title of "New York's Oldest Drinking Establishment." And it is reportedly haunted by the ghost of Gallus Mag, the notorious bouncer who kept a jar of severed ears she'd bitten off some of the more unruly patrons.

An old man hunches over a corner table beside a family of tourists, chatting at them over his steak dinner with a little too much aggression than the setting calls for. The young daughter performs ballet pirouettes for her own amusement, often using the far wall to brake her momentum. Sepia photos of old New York threaten to drop from their mountings. The old coot watches the girl with a little too much interest. Police have been summoned for less instigation than the glint in his eye. The mother looks concerned. The father hastily signals for the check. The daughter is lost in her twirls. They escape to the safety of South Seaport and the salty old lech returns his attention to his steak, stabbing it with glee. Somehow he suits the cafe's decor perfectly. He may well have occupied that table since the days of bootleggers and bathtub gin, a river pirate with gold teeth and a knife tucked in his boot.

Outside the cobblestone streets are slick with rain. They seemingly haven't changed much since the days when Herman Melville strode them in search of a ship leaving port. Nearby is the location of the mansion George Washington lived in while he was President and New York the temporary Capitol. The mansion no longer stands, as it was stepped on by one of the Brooklyn Bridge pilings. As I understand it, there is a plaque commemorating the site, though it is blocked off by a construction fence and no longer accessible to the public. Some wish to have the plaque moved to a more visible location, but so far their request has been ignored on grounds that the plaque should mark the exact spot regardless of whether anyone can see it or not. Until that situation gets sorted, those longing for a whiff of Washington's spectral presence will have to make due with the Fraunces Tavern, where the former general did much of his presidential carousing.

[Oil painting by Janet Ternoff]

The Abandoned City Hall Station

2010-11-14T00:35:00.002-05:00

"This is the last stop," calls out the train operator in a tone not to be trifled with. But myself and a light sprinkling of curiosity seekers remain seated. We know better and will not be daunted. She calls out again but we sit firmly in silent protest. An amiable college student approaches her to ask if he might be allowed to remain aboard as the train loops back to make its return trip uptown. But she's not having it. He can very well take his puppy eyes and pleading tone and get the hell off her train. And that goes for the rest of us too. A standoff. Then an orange-vested worker comes to the rescue. He pokes his head through the doors and urges her to let us ride the loop. The train operator shrugs and steps back into her compartment. A moment later the train jolts to life. The stubborn passengers smile to themselves, a bloodless battle won. Collectively yet independently we keep watch out the right side windows, seized with a giddy anticipation that we are soon to witness something rare.

The subway station located beneath New York's City Hall first opened in 1904 and was abandoned in 1945. The powers that be determined the station didn't receive enough traffic to pull its own weight. A pity because its elegance put all other stations to shame. This was the dinstinguished gentleman's means of travel—brass chandeliers, stained glass skylights, tiled archways, brass fixtures. Everything but a grand piano. A Roman bathhouse of a station, by all accounts.

One intrepid young adventurer has his point-n-click readied. How he intends to get a decent shot of anything but his own reflection in the grimy window is beyond me, but who am I to discourage? The train slows as it heads into a curve and we are rewarded with our first glimpse of the forgotten station. From the perspective on board the train it is impossible to glimpse much of the station's rumored splendor. The chandeliers and skylights are above the range of sight. The dusty platform itself, illuminated by the murky glow of a series of lightbulbs that look straight from Edison's workbench, could pass as the lair of some unknown breed of subterranean prowler. A flight of stairs lead up into mystery. There are no visible footprints in the dust.

And then it is over. The train passes through several yards of darkened tunnel then emerges in the brightly-lit Brooklyn Bridge station, poised for its uptown run. We stagger out as though from a sinister carnival ride into the daylight, emotions stirred by what we have seen. Or did we see it? The kid with the camera is fidgeting with the playback mechanism, eager for evidence that it wasn't some sort of fleeting hallucination. He managed to capture a blurred image of a green tiled sign that can just be discerned to read "City Hall." It was there after all.

To be honest, the City Hall station is far from forgotten. Photos are in abundance all over the Internet. To the train operators who pass through it everyday as part of their route it is just another tedious part of the workday, much like an elevator or a water cooler or the gated entrance to a parking ramp. If anything, a nuisance to attract goggle-eyed history buffs with their cameras and persistence. To those of us with limited access, though, it remains an urban Atlantis, its existence spoken of in hushed reverence like a closely guarded secret.

McGurk’s Suicide Hall

2010-11-13T00:29:00.002-05:00

New York's Bowery at the end of the nineteenth century was nothing if not a colorful avenue, and one of the more prevalent colors was red. Blood red, to be specific. This was the era of clip joints, blind tigers, and groggeries with names like Tub of Blood, The Morgue, and Hell's Gate, which were frequented by unsavory characters such as Piker Ryan and his Whyo gang, Monk Eastman, and Owney Geoghegan, a former pugilist turned "brewer, barkeeper and brawler."

The most notorious dive to be immortalized in urban folklore was owned by an Irish immigrant named John H. McGurk. Born in 1853, McGurk immigrated to the United States at the age of seventeen. Sources are sketchy about his early days in the country. He may have attended school in Providence, Rhode Island in 1880, or worked as a "heater's helper" in Reading, Pennsylvania. By 1885 he was in New York, where he fell in with the Tammany Hall crowd and opened a succession of clip joints around the Bowery such as The Mug, Sailor's Snug Harbor, and The Merrimac. All of these suffered frequent police raids under Mayor Hewitt's administration and each one eventually shut down. There was nothing to indicate his next venture would be any different.

McGurk's Saloon, as it was originally called, opened in 1895 at 295 Bowery in a brick five-story tenement building that had once been a hotel frequented by union soldiers during the Civil War. Located in the heart of the old Red Light District, the saloon had the distinction of sporting one of the first electric signs in the city. The clientele typically consisted of sailors, pickpockets, panhandlers, waterfront thieves, gang members, morphine addicts, and prostitutes—or as the police reports frequently described them, "women of no occupation." Entertainment was provided by singing waiters and a small band. Whiskey was the drink of choice, selling for five cents a glass. Liquor was often mixed with water and liquid camphor (also used as moth repellent and embalming fluid) to strengthen the drink—sometimes fatally. Waiters were armed with chloral hydrate (the ever-popular Mickey Finn) for doping unsuspecting guests as preparation for back alley robbery, or worse. Secret passages provided a means for hasty exits in the event of raids. These emptied out behind the saloon into Horseshoe Alley, which was reportedly pitch black even in the daylight.

The saloon was run by a lively staff who more often than not boasted criminal records. The headwaiter was Charles "Short-Change Charley" Steele, once arrested for burglary and attempted murder, but released when none of the witnesses could identify him. A bouncer named John Sullivan, alias Charles Moon, would be charged with illegal voting and sentenced to Sing Sing for two and a half years. The manager, Bart O'Connor, was arrested for illegal registration, having promised men free lodging and all the drinks they wanted if they voted for the Tammany ticket. According to rumors another McGurk employee was Commodore Dutch, a freeloader and con artist later famous for his forty year stint chairing a "society" whose sole purpose was to collect funds for himself. He later became a regular at McSorley's Old Ale House. Also on the roster was a piano player named Ray Walker who later gained fame as a composer of pre-World War I popular songs such as "Funny Bunny Hug," "Yiddisha Rag," "Fido is a Hot Dog Now," and "How Do You Like Your Oysters?"

And of course on hand as "mayhem specialist" was a pock-marked ex-prizefighter with cauliflower ears known as Thomas "Eat 'Em Up Jack" McManus who, according to a newspaper account of the time, wore "a flaming cerise tie and a derby at a tilted angle." His official role was that of "sheriff," which was essentially an armed bouncer. He was regularly rounded up by police as a suspicious character, and arrested numerous times for assault, but always released when the victims refused to press charges. Once he nearly tore the ear off an opponent whom he accused of squealing to the police.

What distinguished McGurk's Saloon from the other roughneck dives on skid row was that it soon became the suicide den of choice for Bowery prostitutes down on their luck. Figures are hazy, but there were reportedly from six to a dozen self-administered deaths in the year 1899 alone. Swallowing carbolic acid was the most popular method of offing oneself. Later known as Phenol, carbolic acid was typically used as a disinfectant and was easily available at pharmacies. As it causes severe chemical burns when coming in contact with skin, ingesting carbolic acid is not the most pleasant way to die. Eyewitness accounts of such suicides often include the description "writhing in agony." Phenol injections would later be used as a mean of extermination by the Nazis at Auschwitz-Birkenau, first injected into the veins of the victim, then later, perhaps in a time-saving gesture, injected directly into the heart.

Blonde Madge Davenport and Big Mame were two such prostitutes who chose the carbolic acid route, possibly mixing the acid into their booze to make it more palatable. Blonde Madge died of internal chemical burn. Big Mame was less successful. She spilled most of the acid on her face, disfiguring herself, which got her permanently barred from the saloon. Another casualty named Tina Gordon soon followed and still others may have thrown themselves from a high window. The suicides "got to be quite a fad," an observer later recounted, and the saloon was quickly rechristened McGurk's Suicide Hall as a shrewd marketing ploy to attract the morbidly curious. John McGurk even strung together a speech to recite over the bodies: "Most of the women who come to my place have been on the down grade too long to think of reforming. I just want to say that I never pushed a girl downhill any more than I ever refused a helping hand to one who wanted to climb." The waiters and bouncers got to be fairly astute at spotting the potential suicides ahead of time and developed tactics for ousting them off McGurk property before they could succumb.

The suicides were not just relegated to the saloon and newspapers of the time were chock full of such accounts. A woman was found dead in a hotel room at the Oxford Hotel, just up the street at 303 Bowery. There was a nearly empty bottle of carbolic acid beside her, and her male companion was nowhere to be found. The Oxford Hotel was believed by the police captain to have been owned by McGurk.

With this kind of reputation the police couldn't be kept away for long. There were countless raids on the saloon, often led by an Inspector Cross. Newspapers gave lurid accounts of sailors and gamblers, women "conducting themselves indecorously" and all manner of "indiscretions" happening in the upstairs rooms. McGurk was frequently charged with "running a disorderly house."

By 1899 reform was in the air. Governor Theodore Roosevelt and Republican state legislators established a committee headed by Assemblyman Robert Mazet to investigate corruption in Tammany Hall. It wasn't long before they turned their attentions to dens of ill-repute. The Mazet committee got a lot of mileage out of the testimony of a sixteen-year-old streetwalker named Emma Hartig who had survived a carbolic acid suicide attempt. In 1902 Seth Low was elected as reform mayor and under his administration McGurk's Suicide Hall shut down for good.

Tom McManus, by now having acquired a second moniker of "The Brute," opened a music hall of his own called Eat 'Em Up Jacks. By 1905 he was back to working as a bouncer at a dive appropriately called The Folly. That year he got in a dispute over a woman with a notorious gangster named Chick Tricker who owned a joint of his own called The Fleabag. A pistol duel left Tricker with a bullet in his leg and one of his associates with six knifewounds. The next day, as McManus was leaving The Folly someone crept out of an alley and cracked his skull with an iron bar wrapped in newspaper. His murderer was never arrested, nor his identity satisfactorily revealed. A boxer named Tony "Kid Tuths" Cio was arrested under suspicion and later released, though some accounts say the killer was probably an associate of Tricker's named Sardinia Frank. The most likely suspect, Chick Tricker, had an airtight alibi—he lay recovering in St. Vincent's Hospital.

Philip McKenzie, who was McGurk's nephew and a business partner, understandably had a falling out with McManus after McManus kicked out one of his eyes in a dispute. McKenzie and a bartender were arrested in 1900 after following a man out of the Suicide Hall, after presumably slipping him a mickey, where they proceeded to beat and rob him. He was sentenced to a reformatory and died of heart disease in 1905.

During the Suicide Hall's heyday a woman known as the "Pride of the Stevedores" and her husband Big Barney were regulars at the saloon. They would waltz down the middle of the saloon as everyone would push their tables against the wall to clear space. Big Barney and the woman later disappeared. She resurfaced many years later with a new husband named Billy the Gink, called so because his right eye had been knocked out. By then the woman was known as Deaf Lilly, and in 1910 Billy the Gink beat her to death in their apartment and fled.

As for John H. McGurk, he made a killing in the real estate racket. Among his property was the Avondale Flats apartment on 77th Street, which suffered $4000 in damage when a fire broke out, and the Raines Law Hotel at 110 Third Avenue, which was described by Magistrate Henry Brann as "a resort for disorderly women and thieves." In 1902 he absconded to Riverside, California with his wife Louisa, his daughter Martina, and $500,000 in tow, presumably to escape conviction. He forfeited $1000 in bail when he didn't appear for court after being charged with "keeping a disorderly house." His counsel explained to the court that McGurk was ill in a sanitarium, though it was common knowledge that he had fled to the west coast. McGurk died in California on January 29, 1913 at the age of 59.

The Suicide Hall was a natural for literary material. Soon after it closed a play appeared by Theodore Kremer called The Bowery After Dark, which was partially set there. The Hall also provides the setting for Mae West's novel Diamond Lil, in which the second chapter is titled "Suicide Hall." In 1994 a theatre group called Elevator Repair Service performed a play called McGurk: A Cautionary Tale.

As for the building itself, from World War I until the 1950s it was known as the Liberty Hotel, a Skid Row flophouse with a sign above the door that read "When did you write to mother?" During Prohibition the demise of McGurk's was exalted as a sign of prohibition's success. In the mid-60s it was converted into an artist co-op and became a refuge for women artists, such as the feminist writer and sculptor Kate Millett and the photographer and furniture maker Sophie Keir. Millett lived there for thirty-eight years until the tenants were evicted in 1999 by the Cooper Square Urban Renewal Project who wanted to demolish the building and put up a modern residential-business complex.

In the nineties the legend of McGurk's Suicide Hall was revitalized by its appearance in Luc Sante's Low Life. Still, the Landmarks Preservation Commission denied landmark status to the building, after deciding that it did not have "sufficient historical, cultural or architectural merit."

During the building's final years a wheatpaste poster of a skull talking on a cordless phone hung from the fourth story of the outside wall. It was later joined by a large sign which pleaded "Save 295 Bowery," as well as laminated articles describing the history of the building, stapled at eye-level.

In 2005, the building which housed McGurk's Suicide Hall was bulldozed by Avalon Bay Communities to make way for their Avalon Bowery Place apartment complex. Avalon Bay advertised their new development as "one of Manhattan's finest locations in Soho," despite the fact that the site lies a block north of Houston. A relocated Millett derided it as "housing for yuppies." Future residents should not be surprised to discover their crisp new apartments haunted by the ghosts of women of no occupation, rifling through the medicine cabinet in search of an antidote.

"If McGurk's is turned to dust and supplanted with blank high rise market housing, official power will have buried its past in order to expunge it. Then it will be as if it never happened. No one will ever have to notice these deaths, mysterious folk reason that this building has stubbornly remained notorious for a hundred years, a landmark of gossip and legend repeated in every nook about the city of New York, an eerie and appalling specter never dealt with, formally and publicly never acknowledged." — Kate Millet, former 295 Bowery resident

Brooklyn Transit Museum

2010-10-29T18:55:00.007-04:00

The Brooklyn Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn, housed inside a former subway station. Where old trains go after they die to be preserved like mechanical mummies. Worth a trip if you're into vintage New Yorkia.

A 5443 Lo-V from 1924. Like riding in a German tank.

And interior.

A BMT 1407 dating from 1907. Classy ride, eh?

An R-11 #8013 prototype from 1949. Looks like the interior of an aqua-submarine. Note the portholes.

A BMT Q-Type #1612C. Originally from 1907, rebuilt in 1938. Paint job by the Crayola Factory, presumably.

Advertising was so quaintly earnest in those days.

The IRT R-15 from 1950, the first to contain an air conditioning unit.

Inside an IND R-7A / R-10 1575 from 1938.

The Authors

2010-10-21T19:35:00.001-04:00

The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who have always influenced you and will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes, and they don't have to be listed in order of relevance to you.

Alright fine. (Like I don't have better things to do... grumble... gripe...)

In chronological order:

Carl Barks
Margaret Sutton
Robert Arthur
Arthur Conan Doyle
Dashiell Hammett
Raymond Chandler
Jack Kerouac
Henry Miller
Ernest Hemingway
Franz Kafka
James Joyce
Thomas Pynchon
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Louis-Ferdinand Celine
David Foster Wallace

Brainstorming Session

2010-10-10T14:56:00.002-04:00

Considered titles for my novel:

The Happy Dirigible
Entertain My Fiasco
Womb Puppet
Empire State Bildungsroman
The Man Who Shat in a Minefield and Blew His Ass Off
The Elephant Chair
The Mexican Hat Rack
Blind Man in a Lightbulb Factory
Tubercular Bells

Also in the works, an off-Broadway musical about the rise of Lynyrd Skynyrd, tentatively entitled Don't Cry For Me, Alabama.

Hollywood Formula #76

2010-10-09T14:03:00.002-04:00

HERO: I discovered your secret hideout and found out all about your nefarious scheme. You're not going to get away with it.

VILLAIN: Then I guess I'm going to have to kill you before you reveal my secret. [Pulls out revolver]

HERO: [muses] Perhaps I should have thought this through a little better.

VILLAIN: So long, chump. [Fires]

HERO: [clutching chest] Wait, I already sent copies of the evidence to all the major newspapers. [Collapses]

VILLAIN: Well, you probably should have told me that first.

Greenwood Cemetery

2010-10-08T19:15:00.005-04:00

The imposing entrance to Greenwood Cemetery in the Kensington area of Brooklyn. Notable residents include Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, Samuel Morse, William M Tweed, Leonard Bernstein, William S Hart, & Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Valley Water.

Boss Tweed's gravesite. Wonder how much of the construction cost went to line the pockets of the fat cats.

The luminous morning sun made these a little too cheerful for my taste. I'll have to return on a gloomier day.

As good a name as any for an avenue.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Corpse

2010-10-05T15:31:00.003-04:00

My first album is a set of youthful, energetic songs celebrating youth and energy. Boys copy my hairstyle and girls mail themselves in packages to my hotel room. The whole world is a feast of Dionysian delights.

My second album is loaded with weary songs about life on the road, drug addiction, and sketches of the eccentric characters encountered along the way. The word "mature" is the common denominator in reviews. Sales are high. So is the band. I fire my drummer for substance abuse.

My third album is a self-produced concept album entitled Bok and the Toad People, ostensibly about the role of a musician in society but most listeners find the plot largely impenetrable. Epic in scope, soaked in obscure metaphors, it was dubbed "commercial suicide" by the record company and critics alike. Frequently used in elitist circles as a device to shun undesirables who do not "get" it. More talked about than listened to.

My fourth album is an attempt to return to my roots. Critically lauded, commercially modest, quickly forgotten. Soon to be a deleted title.

My fifth album is a contractually fulfilling greatest hits package. Soon afterward I retreat from the spotlight into an extended retirement of woodcraft and botany. I spend ten years crafting my memoirs which, at the time of my demise, remain unpublished. A month later a box set retrospective hits the shelves. A memorial concert hosted by the ghost of Elton John is aired on TV. Sales of my back catalog skyrocket.

Is it Art?

2010-10-03T09:34:00.000-04:00

-Is it Art?
-Depends. How much did you pay for it?

Har-Money

2010-09-30T22:28:00.001-04:00

Hunched at my desk, listening to the twilit chaos of the metropolis far below sieved through the slats of the music in my headphones. A firetruck careens down the avenue, its siren rising to perfect pitch with the song, its pulse in perfect syncopation. Today the universe is harmonious. Tomorrow will be a different story.

Choice Quotes

2010-09-26T17:18:00.003-04:00

"Mirrors are the doors through which death comes and goes. Look at yourself in a mirror all your life, and you'll see death at work, like bees in a hive of glass."

~ Jean Cocteau, Orpheus

"There's the Devil to pay and he can keep the change."

~ J.G. Thirwell

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

~ Upton Sinclair

"The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost."

~ John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley

"Her father was not a coherent human being, he was a roomful of old echoes."

~ DH Lawrence, Women in Love

"There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist."

~ Terry Pratchett

"I shit on God, on Jesus, on the cross, on the carpenter who made the cross, and on the son of a whore who planted the pine."

~ Old Catalan Curse

"Genius is the recovery of childhood at will."

~ Arthur Rimbaud

"The future is already here; it's just not evenly distributed."

~ William Gibson

"Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember."

~ Oscar Levant

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."

~ Mark Twain

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."

~ George Bernard Shaw

"Every snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty."

~ Stanislaw J. Lec

"Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up."

~ GK Chesterton

"Drown in a cold vat of whiskey? Death, where is thy sting?"

~ WC Fields

"We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true."

~ Robert Wilensky

The iCar

2010-09-18T06:14:00.002-04:00

Automobiles in the fifties aimed for a space-age design — sharp angles, tailfins, a built-for-speed aesthetic, anticipating a future of jetpacks, conveyor belt skyways, transparent domes, moon patrols, and personal android servants. Today our autos are functional but shapeless and drab. What happened to the Jetsonian future we were promised?

Not all of our technology is a disappointment though. iPads are reasonably futuristic. You can whip one of those out for some quick calculations traced on a fluid screen, a sleek little device Buck Rodgers himself might have endorsed. But Apple probably should stay out of the automobile industry. You would look very fashionable driving your iCar to, say, Miami, but as soon as you pointed it toward mountainous terrain your request would be flatly denied.

"We don't do uphill."

"But I want to go to Denver."

"Sorry, uphill was deemed too dangerous by our designer."

"Don't you think as owner I should be the one to weigh the risks and make the decision?"

"No, and furthermore due to your insolent manner your driving privileges are revoked until further notice."

On second thought that does rather sound like the future I've come to expect.

Vinegar Hill

2010-09-07T18:49:00.006-04:00

Found myself with some unexpected time off the other day so I crossed the river into Dumbo and ventured into a quaint section called Vinegar Hill, where I remembered I was carrying a camera and so emerged with the following...

Dumbo from the Brooklyn Bridge. DUMBO is an acronym for "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass" and as far as I can tell has little to do with flying elephants.

A quiet street on Vinegar Hill.

The Commandant's House overlooking the Brooklyn Navy Yard. This was about as close as I could get to it without having bloodthirsty hellhounds unleashed on me.

A storefront on Vinegar Hill.

Manhattan Bridge as seen from the Brooklyn Bridge walkway.

Brooklyn Heights and suspension cables.

St Vincent in Central Park

2010-08-19T07:58:00.004-04:00

St Vincent live sounded not unlike Regina Spektor and Sufjan Stevens crumpled into a spitwad and aimed at the head of Thurston Moore. The set started out a little bass-heavy but the capable soundperson soon got the thunderous WOOMPF under control. Meanwhile the thunderstorm was courteous enough to hold off until after the show.

Half the audience appeared to be bona fide St Vincent fans, gathering near the stage. The other half must have wandered in from their leisurely weekend parkgoing to find out what all the rhubarb was about. One enthused fan veered through the crowd, shirtless and wielding a fly swatter, which quickly attracted the attention of several security members who either suspected him of being under the influence of unnatural stimulants or disapproved of him for having so much fun.

I Write Like Who?

2010-07-16T04:59:00.008-04:00

This I Write Like analyzer that's making the rounds is good for fifteen minutes or so of amusement. I plugged in some of my own prose and was informed my writing style resembles that of Ursula K Le Guin, whom I've yet to read. Things got more interesting when I read online that Mel Gibson rants in the style of Margaret Atwood, while Margaret Atwood herself writes more like Stephen King.

This sparked some ideas, so I tried plugging in various texts with the following illuminating results:

The Declaration of Independence - H. P. Lovecraft
Christian Bale's infamous Terminator tirade - James Joyce
Hitler's Mein Kampf - Mary Shelley
The King James version of Genesis - Kurt Vonnegut
Barack Obama's Inaugural Address - H. P. Lovecraft
Hamlet's "To Be" soliloquy - Mark Twain
Nixon's Checkers speech - H. P. Lovecraft
Brando's monologue from On the Waterfront - William Gibson
Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech - Margaret Mitchell
John Lennon's "more popular than Jesus" quote - Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Cobain's suicide note - Dan Brown
Christopher Walken's watch monologue from Pulp Fiction - J. D. Salinger
This blog post - David Foster Wallace

A few snickers, a few tears. Politicians seem overwhelmingly to evoke the name Lovecraft, which would indicate Cthulhu mythos pervades the corridors of power. Little surprise there.

Keep Door Closed

2010-06-26T16:35:00.003-04:00

[from RiotClitShave]

Extremists

2010-06-24T04:21:00.001-04:00

Lousy environmentalists! They went too far, as extremists often do, with their technological meddling and ended up causing what they intended to prevent. Now it's summer all year round and my snowshovel business has gone bankrupt.

Today's Drink Specials at the Hipsterama Club

2010-06-19T11:06:00.003-04:00

Living in New York, especially off the L train, makes it not entirely possible to avoid the contention between hipsters and normalfolk. Feigning obliviousness is usually the wisest tactic should a tense situation arise and an escape route not prove immediately possible. Sometimes ignoring differences is the most effective way of rendering those same differences inconsequential. Remember, you cannot capture stupidity by assigning it a category. It's like grabbing a fistful of smoke.

I can sympathize with the aggravation of having to tolerate those who are so easily definable by their very resistance to being defined. But, to be honest, were I to find myself trapped on an endless cross-country roadtrip with one faction or the other, I would gladly take the hipster's album collection of Brooklyn-based art rock and seventies-era obscurities over mainstream's obnoxiously bland chart-topping dance hits any day.

Colson Whitehead Goes To BookCourt

2010-06-16T22:32:00.006-04:00

Colson Whitehead strolls into the BookCourt in checkered trousers. He is an Author. One with talent, published works, acclaim, admirers, an iPad, and an exciting hairstyle. He offers a trajectory of his existence as a writer. His description of himself suggests that you and he are kindred spirits as antisocial introverts. But you have your doubts. He clearly knows how to work a crowd. As he reads from his latest novel, Sag Harbor, he holds the audience at rapt attention. They laugh and cry in the appropriate places. Surely he is not familiar with your utter ineptitude for social interaction.

Here is a figure who knows the Answers which you so desperately seek. What you want is to approach in so incredibly witty and profound a manner that he will eye you with reverence, as one genius recognizes another. "Why, how incredibly witty and profound," he will say. "Come, sir, join my inner circle. We shall have incredibly witty and profound conversations till the morning hours in secluded taverns and ice cream parlors of literary yore. And if you kindly buy another round of absinthe, or rocky road, perhaps I will slip you a few of the Answers."

Instead, of course, what would happen is you would sputter, "I liked your book," or "all that pop culture stuff about New Coke and stuff is funny," or "I liked the font. It's really... crisp." Your attempts to be clever don't go over so well either. "It's like Ray Bradbury wooing Beatrix Potter... in John Cheever's woodshed." What?

Face it, you have nothing of interest to offer him in return for what he has given you. So you keep your distance to preserve your feeble dignity. As usual you remain an observer rather than a participant. But if becoming a writer is your ambition, perhaps this isn't so bad. It's entirely possible that, despite appearances, Colson Whitehead may not possess all of the Answers either, or at least they may have been gradually acquired, not inherent from birth as you had assumed. Didn't he even admit to once being a writer who hadn't written anything? Which means there's still hope for your sorry ass, and still a chance, however slim, that someday that may be you up there in the checkered trousers.

Lost Duck

2010-06-12T12:12:00.002-04:00

I hope whoever lost their duck finds it before it is claimed by the treacherous streets of Gotham.

The Unlawful Pickle

2010-06-08T14:10:00.005-04:00

Highlights from Fifty Bizarre U.S. Laws:

I'm probably responsible for at least six of these crimes against humanity. (Though I must say North Carolina's sounds pretty reasonable to me.)

Alabama
It's illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church.

Arkansas
It's illegal to mispronounce the name of the state of Arkansas.

California
You may not eat an orange in your bathtub.

Connecticut
A pickle cannot actually be a pickle unless it bounces.

Florida
If you tie an elephant to a parking meter, you must pay the same parking fee as you would for a vehicle.

Illinois
It's illegal to take a French poodle to the opera.

Indiana
The value of pi is 4, and not 3.1415.

Iowa
One-armed piano players must perform for free.

Massachusetts
No gorilla is allowed in the backseat of any car.

Minnesota
It's illegal to paint a sparrow with the intent of selling it as a parakeet.

North Carolina
It's against the law to sing off-key.

Oklahoma
It's forbidden to take a bite out of another person's hamburger.

Rhode Island
You may not bite off another person's leg.

South Dakota
It is illegal to lie down and fall asleep in a cheese factory.

Tennessee
Selling hollow logs is strictly forbidden.

Texas
You may not shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel.

Wyoming
Unless you have an official permit, you may not take a picture of a rabbit from January to April.

Heart of the Nation

2010-06-05T13:37:00.003-04:00

The geographical center of the U.S. contains a utility pole and an abandoned basketball hoop? It's like peering into the nation's soul.

[From Images from the Center of the Contiguous United States]

Famous Last Words

2010-06-03T04:44:00.002-04:00

"I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis." - Humphrey Bogart

"Where is my clock?" - Salvador Dali

"I just wish I had time for one more bowl of chili." - Kit Carson

"That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted." - Lou Costello

"I am dying. Please... bring me a toothpick." - Alfred Jarry

"Born in a hotel room, and goddammit, died in one!" - Eugene O'Neill

"Don't worry... it's not loaded..." - Terry Kath

"Codeine... bourbon..." - Tallulah Bankhead

"Die, I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him." - John Barrymore

"Van Halen!" - Dimebag Darrell

"Get my swan costume ready." - Anna Pavlova

"You got me." - John Dillinger

"I've never felt better." - Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.

"Applaud, my friends, the comedy is finished." - Ludwig van Beethoven

"Tomorrow, I shall no longer be here." - Nostradamus

"I can't believe, after all this time, it was a bloody banana that killed me." - Ivanka Perko

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." - Pancho Villa

"I did not get my Spaghetti-O's, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this." - Thomas J. Grasso

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dis--" - General John Sedgwick

Orpheus

2010-06-01T16:43:00.001-04:00

"Mirrors are the doors through which death comes and goes. Look at yourself in a mirror all your life, and you'll see death at work, like bees in a hive of glass."

- Jean Cocteau, Orpheus (1949)

Chelsea Vortex

2010-05-30T13:40:00.003-04:00

Chelsea Ghosts

2010-05-29T16:21:00.007-04:00

I took this photo in the stairwell of the Chelsea Hotel. Funny, but I don't recall anyone else being on the floor at the time. And yet, who is that reflected in the glass of the door?

Jazz in Columbus Circle

2010-05-28T16:21:00.003-04:00

No Pussyfooting

2010-05-28T07:50:00.004-04:00

Lindy West takes on Sex and the City 2 in possibly the best movie review I've ever read.

"SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a woman and as a human—working hard, contributing to society, not being an entitled cunt like it's my job—and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car."

Down a Well

2010-05-27T07:04:00.004-04:00

Gideon fell down a well. It's not entirely clear how this happened. Alcohol may have been involved. Frankly, it's not one of those things that require reconstruction. Once you find yourself trapped at the bottom of a well, how you got there is irrelevant for the most part.

"Could be worse," Gideon thought, crumpled up in a muddy puddle. "At least my leg isn't broken." Then he tried to stand and discovered his leg was, in fact, quite broken. That pretty much ruled out climbing out by himself. The soupy brick walls of the well hadn't looked promising in any case. Footholds were far and few between.

He decided to call out for help a few times, in case someone might be within earshot. His first attempt sounded too desperate, the second too self-reliant. By the third attempt he got the balance just right. My dignity is intact, his cry suggested, but I could still use an assist.

"Hello down there?" A woman's moony face appeared in the opening at the top of the shaft, peering down at him and cutting off the sky.

"Hello," he returned.
"What are you doing at the bottom of this well?"
"Calling for help."
"So I heard."
"My leg's broke. Can you find a way to get me out?"

The woman thought about this. "I can't reach you from here. You're too far down. Maybe I could find a ladder?"

"Yes, a ladder would be very effective."
"Or possibly a rope?"
"Yes, either a rope or a ladder would be fine."

"There's a hardware store not far from here, I think. They must sell ladders." She pursed her lips in thought. "You'd be able to reimburse me for the cost, won't you?"

"Yes, of course."

"Good, because my budget is tight, what with my gym membership and the cable bill and whatnot. Very expensive living on your own these days, you know."

"Yes, I can imagine it is," Gideon sighed. "Look, I'll pay whatever you want, just please get me out of here. I'm getting very soggy and I can't feel my toes."

The woman glanced at her watch. "Oops, it's time for my show. Today we're going to learn if Betsy is really going to leave Jim for the mullato carpet salesman. I don't think she is, but I must know for certain. I'm afraid you'll have to sit tight for an hour until it's through. Bye for now."

"Wait!" he called, but the face was gone and with it the woman.

An hour went by. Then several. The woman had forgotten about him or lost interest or something had befallen her. He felt terribly alone. Then it started to rain. It rained with a fury and an anger not seen in recent memory. The downpour lasted for several days and several more nights. The well flooded and Gideon's limp, waterlogged body floated to the surface. The ladder was no longer needed.

Rejected Album Art for Pink Floyd's The Wall

2010-05-26T04:34:00.003-04:00

[From Rejected Version of Famous Album Covers]

Lost: The Long Con

2010-05-24T15:47:00.010-04:00

A heap of mixed feelings on the Lost finale. I fall squarely in the emotionally satisfied, intellectual disgruntled camp. I'm not complaining about the way it ended. That was apt, iconic, symmetrical, etc. Well done there. A bit speechy in the church, but I can live with that. When the show wants you to know something, it always highlights it in neon.

My complaint is with the gross mismanagement of the entire series. I haven't been with it since the beginning. I watched the whole thing mostly in a caffeinated marathon run in the hiatus between seasons five and six. As a result I'm freshly aware of the myriad of dead ends and enough plot holes to fill the Albert Hall.

The writers have been trying to cover their tracks by insisting "it's a character-driven show." First of all, it's not. These are flimsy characters who are moved around like chess pieces to serve the plot. A character will get angry for no other reason than the story needs an angry character at that point. We're not talking Madame Bovary here. But even if it was true, this excuses nothing. There's no reason to have an entire episode devoted to Jack's tattoo, meanwhile you can't take five minutes to show who was in the other outrigger. That's just poor planning. The reason I got sucked into the show was because of the elements of mystery. What's under this hatch? Who were the Dharma Initiative? What's with all the Egyptian motifs? That's what made the show unique. Without it, Lost is just another piddling soap opera.

While season six may have ended powerfully, I accuse the writers of pulling a bait and switch. They ended with a grand flourish of explaining what the Sideways world was, but that's not a question I was asking until this season. They were counting on their audience to have short attention spans. I'm fine with mysteries being left unexplained. But I want that to be an artistic choice, and not because the writers concocted a mystery without knowing the answer and then, when they couldn't figure out how to wrap it up, decided it wasn't important. Ends remain loose not because of any artistic integrity but because they were set into play with no knowledge of where they were going. That's disingenuous, and because of it I feel vaguely conned. And so does a large portion of the audience, if the internet message boards are any indication. It's like a detective story in which the plot became too convoluted for the author to figure out, so in the last chapter he kills off an entirely new character and has his detective dramatically solve that murder, then stand back triumphantly and hope we are sufficiently distracted enough to have forgotten what drew us to the story in the first place.

I feel towards the show like I do the New York subway system. Glad it exists but pissed off at the bad management, endless construction, fare hikes, & complete disregard for its customers.

Dio brainstorming session

2010-05-19T05:13:00.006-04:00

You've been left on your own like a...
~~pigeon in the park~~
~~meadow in the lark~~
~~dog without a bark~~
~~jumper of the shark~~
~~raider of the ark~~
~~hunter of the snark~~
rainbow in the dark

Top Five Old Time Radio Shows

2010-05-07T08:09:00.002-04:00

The Goon Show
By gluing Wodehouse-style humor to the surrealist movement, Spike Milligan inadvertently spawned John Lennon, Monty Python, and Firesign Theater. Peter Sellers went on to cause a bit of a commotion in Hollywood. Nutjobs with names like Neddie Seagoon, Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, Major Bloodnok, and Bluebottle run amuck through WWII-era Britain.
"For thirty years Caesar ruled with an iron fist, then with a wooden foot, and finally a piece of string."

Suspense
Some of the greatest writing ever to traverse the airwaves. Stories adapted from the likes of Louise Fletcher, John Dickson Carr, and Cornell Woolrich. Top-notch acting never hurt too.

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
The insurance investigator with the action-packed expense account. Great writing, great sound effects. The end of the Golden Age of Radio.

The Shadow
There were several Lamont Cranstons, but Orson Welles was the creme de la creme. Its dabblings into the occult must've at least partially inspired the Indiana Jones films.
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"

Nightbeat
Chicago reporter Randy Stone wanders the streets at night looking for a scoop. Taut stories stocked with compassion and charm.