Want to keep it? (part two)
If there was any doubt that things that wouldn't ordinarily grow legs do in NYC:
September 30, 2008
November 02, 2007
Johnny Appleseed Pays a Visit to Brooklyn
So we have been keeping plant boxes for the past two summers which has been both challenging and rewarding. We started out with two boxes of basil last year and this year upgraded to:
Box inside window, far to near:
- Rosemary
- Catnip
- Sage
- Oak Tree (mysteriously appeared this summer and we thought we'd try to bonsai it)
Box outside window, far to near:
- Thyme
- Mint
and oh... what's this? This isn't something we planted. Free lollypop for the first dude or dudette who can identify the bonus plant that "blew in in the wind" while we were out one weekend.
October 23, 2007
DIY: The original wealth generator
Eating out will always be nice for the convenience and ambiance but I realized today how much you can elevate everyday things like dinner with a little DIY.
Right around the corner from my apartment is a fresh fish market, a butcher and a vegetable stand. For under $6 I procured the following ingredients:
- 1/2 lb fresh salmon filet
- a sweet potato
- asparagus
Using a few other ingredients lying around the apartment I assembled what would have been a $30-$40 restaurant dinner (grilled salmon, mashed cinnamon sweet potato, steamed and buttered asparagus) for the price of a McDonald's meal.
With everything being so accessible on the internet there is no reason not to seek out a few recipes that you'd like to try (or have paid a lot for dining out) and make them happen. It's an easy way to work your mind, increase your health and elevate your standard of living without costing you any extra money.
July 29, 2007
Convergence City, What Happens When Lots of People Get Together
Here is a great example of why I love living in NYC.
July 24, 2007
Children's Creativity is the Constant, Not Environment
Sometimes I think back to childhood memories that could only happen in the suburbs or country like the summer my younger brother and I cut the grass really short and strung up our badminton net low to the ground to recreate wimbleton and think that would be a terrible thing to deprive a child born in the city of. But then again, everyone creates their own memories wherever they are and even in the 'burbs my children would surely have a very different experience than I did. Also, parents are generally not particularly fond of coming home from work to see their kids have applied creative landscaping to their yards.
July 17, 2007
Want to Keep It? Then Keep It Locked Up!
Here in NYC even the homeless lock things up. Today I observed a stolen laundry cart (like the ones they use at hospitals to collect robes) tethered to a parking sign using a bicycle U-locked in Hell's Kitchen.
June 24, 2007
Subways Are Still Busy At Night, And Also Weird
Late Evening. CL and I had finidhed up with our thursday night dinner in park slope and were waiting at the park slope train station. Across the way there was the usual crowd waiting for a manhattan bound train, sitting on benches, standing, leaning on walls.
There was also a guy digging in the trash for something. And I don't mean just casually glancing and poking. He would repeatedly jump up on the steel container and stuff his body in past the shoulders and dig. Every one in a while he'd surface with something and put it in a black plastic bag he had on the ground. Other times he would let out an audible huff over not being able to reach something.
Apparently he was more odd than threatening as nobody made any attempt to move away from him (and a few were literally 5 feet away leaning against the wall).
June 21, 2007
Babies or Supplies? You Make The Call.
Until a year or two ago you would see just as many baby carriages here in NYC being used by homeless men to carry supplies as you would by parents shuttling babies.
April 28, 2007
Not Only In New York, Only In Brooklyn
Jason, Aaron, Neils and I were returning from paintball on Long Island as part of a day of bachelor party festivities and got stuck in traffic near the Atlantic shopping center in Brooklyn.
Sometimes you'll see peddlers taking advantage of a captive audience by walking between cars selling things like bottles of water or flowers.
The guy that came up to our car was not selling either of these things. He was selling a full set of shrink wrapped knives (chefs knife, bread knife, filet knife, steak knives). Yes. He was selling knives on the street.
January 09, 2007
Wet Pain
Due to the amount of graffiti in my neighborhood they paint the train station walls (parts of them) every single day.
Here is one of the walls as observed as CL and I were heading into Manhattan to shop for spiked leather bracelets. You can see that not only did the MTA only use the paint to cover graffiti and not wall rot (which is just as unsighlty or more), but that the "wet paint" sign has been re-engineered to be part of the constant expression that the wall is an unwitting participant in.
November 14, 2006
Error -3412, Wrong Language Loaded
Had another night of vivid dreams, most of which I've forgotten by this point. I do remember having a rather heated discussion with an Israeli general. He was speaking in his native language and I was speaking in English. At one point I had to stop and laugh because not only could I not understand a word he was saying, but the subtitles that I could see near the bottom of my vision were also in his language!
November 02, 2006
Snowballing Stiches
Seems to me that fashion, in large part, exists due to younger people's inexperience and adhd. They need to dress themselves up not just to differentiate themselves from adults (who tend to steer clear of the newest crazes), but also to keep themselves looking fresh and new for each other b/c their own natural beauty would become old and boring in short order. I mean seriously, we figured out how to follow the natural contours of our bodies and make each other look really good to each other centuries ago but we just can't stop messing with it.
Not "Them Bones", MY Bones
I had one of those moments of realization the other day about my bones. usually the division between the mechanics of our body and our experience is protected by a layer of familiarity and fat/muscle. I was feeling the elbow joint in my left arm and I could trace the shape perfectly and actually picture my arm bones lying there on the table.
October 12, 2006
Tea Really Does Have Caffeine...
It takes something really disruptive to begin to notice the caffeine in drinks when you have built up a strong tolerance to it. Like being under attack by bacteria and being off caffeine for a week.
Since I'm an espresso drinker I almost never notice a buzz or any increased levels of attention when drinking tea, but today I knew I couldn't handle the coffee today so I tried a cup of black tea. I could feel the caffeine like "voltage" from head to toe. Very strange.
I was also was thinking more about the marathon coming up in a few weeks and was describing my role as an escort for the wheelchair racers like this to a friend:
"My task, basically, will be to keep up with these guys/gals (who average over 18mph!) and knock witless pedestrians out of the way who don't notice them coming. We'll be followed by the Kenyans, then the rest. Should be good fun."
October 05, 2006
Beyond Iceland and France
Bought the new Flunk album today (Morning Star). It's kind of Coldplay meets Bjork meets Ivy. Best description I've heard is "Folktronica" which I think is pretty fitting. The main reason it won't be big in the
'States is that warbly Norwegian accent on the singer. A few like me will find it charming. The rest will find it grating.
September 28, 2006
Brooklyn Water: Also Keeping It Real
Tried some NYC water w/o the faucet-mounted water "purifier" today. Tasted kind of campy/mineraley. Going to go back to the filter.
September 26, 2006
The Big Three Oh
Birthday today. 30th. Little brother called me an "old head" via voicemail.
Had a dream I could fly -- I had artificial bird wings that I was perfecting. My arms grew to nearly the size of my legs due to all testing and flapping. I probably had this dream because of an article I was reading in Wired the night before about a 79lb flying bicycle plane that was built in the 1970's and flown across the English channel.
Overall a day of food and relaxation; made whole wheat pancakes with blackberries, blueberries, bananas and strawberries (blueberry syrup) for breakfast. Also had scrambled eggs with fresh basil and french sea salt on the side. Tall glass of orange juice.
Had some espresso and went to Pier 17 in the afternoon to relax and read with a nice view of Brooklyn and the East River. It was sunny and warm and nice to have no agenda during business hours on a weekday. Not too much air and water traffic; just a few water taxis, the coast guard, a few yachts and barges, and the usual planes on their approach to La Guardia and JFK.
Went to the Oasis Day Spa for an hour long couples massage followed by wine and cheese in the evening. CL and I did a quick survey of our dinner snack and came up with the following origins:
From NJ: Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, Peach Chardonnay
From Iowa: Maytag blue cheese
From Vermont: Cheddar Cheese
From Denmark: Havarti Cheese
September 19, 2006
Most Apartments Are Smaller Than Tennis Courts
Played tennis with Justin today. Looked like it was going to rain from today straight through Friday but it quickly passed overhead.
Observed that though I have, according to my tax measurements, over 500 sq feet to myself that nowhere in my apartment is big enough to swing a tennis raquet safely.
First time playing on clay courts and the first time playing tennis in almost 10 years. Not sure how that happened, but my swing came right back and had a great time.
My old grip tape started to deteriorate within the first 15 minutes of playing. The red dye "bled" onto my hands and looked pretty dramatic.
Definitely used to more "ventilated" sports like cycling. I did not think it was possible for me to sweat through clothes like I did. Note to self: Get headband. Also consider a tennis raquet that wasn't manufactured in the early 1980s...
September 17, 2006
Conflict Free Diamond Sellers Still Want Blood: Yours
The following sentence contains profanity. This has been done on purpose to fully express my feelings: The Diamond District is populated mostly by sick fucking vultures.
Who, with any sense of class, puts aggressive young women (with partially exposed chests) into shop windows to entice guys into the store who are looking for a ring to represent monogamy to the one they love?!
To their credit, some of their old-school watch repair guys are pretty skilled. They took an off-the shelf wristband and cut it and brushed the steel clasp to be a near perfect match to my old Kenneth Cole watch, finally closing out my search for a replacement (after two unanswered order forms were sent to the company's service center).
September 14, 2006
English for Short Order Cooks
In bodegas and diners around the city you can see how positions are staffed by the level of English spoken; the hosts and hostesses have the greatest handle on the language, followed by the waiters, then the chefs, then the bus boys and girls.
Two of my favorite food order relays overheard at a local diner are:
Sandwich, "all the way" (all the toppings) and
"french fries, two times" (two orders)
Love it.
Karma Often Wears Strange Disguises
Recently I ordered a new computer on eBay. The price was a noticeable notch lower than other comparably equipped machines but there was something strange about it; the listing used a photo from Apple's website, not a photo of the actual machine being sold. I went with a gut feeling and decided something was going to be a little off but that it would turn out ok.
When the machine arrived it looked like it had been hit by a truck, not delivered by one. Many would be outraged by this but since it was insured I decided to follow the path and see where it led. Outside of higher level offices in large companies it seems that nobody has any follow through and it took some effort (and 60 days) to coordinate between the seller, the shipper, and a local repair shop to get a check to cover the damages.
After I sold my old computer and collected the insurance I had enough money left over to buy a Treo 700p that I had been eyeing for a while. So for a little time and energy I got a computer upgrade and a new top-of-the-line smartphone and broke even financially. Not bad.
(I'll eventually buy a G5 case on ebay (when they're cheaper) and swap the guts myself, but for now the machine is happily whirring away under my desk where it's blemishes can't be seen.)
Taking a closer look at my office, it is a wealth of fortune, actually; the two Herman Miller Aeron chairs were built from the parts of three such chairs found discarded on sidewalks around the Park Slope area within a two week period (only needed to buy one chair frame and a hydraulic lift), the deeply-discounted and stylish "floor model" leather furniture, the bookshelf that I found in the alley that is the same make and model as another one I already had, the corkboard donated by a neighbor who was moving out, and the stacks of matching black milk crates that were collected over the course of monts in the city are perfect for stacking and storing magazine collections in. I have no complaints.
If you put good things and energy and work out into the universe it WILL find it's way back.
September 09, 2006
Everyone Should Be a Writer
Writers are some of the most interesting people. They want to learn about the world and want to get into other people's heads. They listen. They have stories. Everyone should be required to keep a journal because I think it gives those who do it perspective on their own lives and better defines them as people.
When writing you are forced to NOT gloss over your life. You pick out details like cinematographers do. You remember things that would have ordinarily forgotten. You laugh. You get upset. You feel. You work through (or at least vent about) problems you experience. You learn how to formulate linear thoughts and proper sentences. You also learn how to spell. You get a better understanding of yourself, who you are, what kind of life you lead, and what kind of person you want to become.
Even if nobody has access to your journal you will at least be able to take your more organized self out of your home each day and into the world to share with everyone.
September 07, 2006
City Sounds, They Are 24/7/365
Though the sounds at night are not multi-layered like the day (cars on top of trains on top of people yelling on top of construction on top of planes on top of...), it's still an all-night-every-night thing.
I am glad to have an air purifier in the bedroom as it makes a nice white noise that takes the edge off most everything happening outside. While I bought it mostly to help CL's allergies and to do battle against NYC's famous particulate-level count, in retrospect it sure could have come in handy in trying to sleep through the dogs.
Last summer we were tortured by the howls of this/these crazy dog(s). The crazy dog(s) next door would wail all night as if it/they were trying to gnaw it's/their own legs off to get out of a bear trap, and I mean all night. All night every night for about 3 months. They were right across the alley from us and there is not much we could do. I think the neighbors called the cops on them. Others tried screaming out the window to "shut the f--- up". To no avail.
Eventually they moved out or died and we were able to sleep a little more soundly.
Tonight at about 1am I heard a horrendous screaming coming from the sidewalk in front of my apartment. Unsure what it was but it was at full volume -- kind of like what you might expect to hear if someone just witnessed a murder before their very own eyes. The screaming was constant with the exception of this person taking breaths of air every once in a while. I rushed to front window to see what was going on.
The screams are coming from a middle-aged woman standing at our crosswalk. Nobody else is responding (and there are a dozen people on the sidewalk in the area). The light turns green and she stops screaming and walks down the road. A half block later she starts again.
September 06, 2006
Riding the Rapids of Wine
When you start a new hobby later in life it is a really strange thing -- there is a sense of urgency, a self-conscious realization of how far "behind" you are, of how much you have to learn.
Wine is one of those things, like life, that you just can't rush. The only way to taste a thousand wines is to taste a thousand wines. The only way to learn what one grape is like is to spend some time with it, it's neighbors, it's friends, and it's transplanted friends of friends.
I remember thinking to myself, when I was just 4 bottles into Shiraz that I longed to know more. I wanted to know the vocabulary of wine and to speak about it from a place of confidence and excitement -- but the only way to get there was simply to get going, and to just pay attention along the way.
We're getting there. We've gone to many wine tastings (that are so popular around NYC) and have tried grapes from around the world and love them. I've shed my worries about the vocabulary and openly disagree with wine labels and have gotten back into my old "free association" right-brain days and will make offhanded remarks like "if you could juice tree bark this is what it would taste like" and "it smells just like this label looks -- I am at this chateau playing frisbee with the owner's dog".
There is still much to learn, and like technology it is always changing -- next years grapes will be different than this years; the vines will be one year older, maybe there will be a drought, maybe rain. Maybe the vineyard will use computer sensors to monitor the crops, maybe the grapes will be crushed by bare feet.
Such are the raging rapids of life.
September 02, 2006
Hot Dogs, The Presumed Snack, Dinner
Hot Dogs in America have somehow come to defy manners. It's one of those foods that people just prepare it (because it's easy?) and let you know you can start eating. They don't ask you. You don't ask them. They are just there and you become the jerk for turning them down.
Hot dogs are not for everyone. As a matter of fact they shouldn't be for anyone. They are vile, terrible things.
September 01, 2006
My Bank's Robot is Programmed to Hate Me (and how)
Got a funny notice from citibank today. It came in the usual unmarked white envelope from some nondescript place in San Antonio, Texas. It was my personal loan statement. Before I reveal why the note is funny, a little background about this loan;
One of the defining moments of my young life was when my apartment was broken into in the late 1990s. I had finished art school and was in that uncomfortable lurch of trying to apply my blossoming talent into some form of career. I was struggling. The closest thing I could get to a design job was a reception position at a small branding firm in the warehouse district of Minneapolis. At night I worked at a bakery in a high-end grocery store.
Along with answering phones I also had the opportunity to enter in time sheets and poke my head in on weekly progress meetings for the company. In my down time I would attempt to use the internet to learn more HTML and to IM with this young lady I had taken a liking to. The computer was excruciatingly slow so I asked the CEO for a new one. I said it would not only help me do my work quicker, but a sexy new iMac would be a very stylish addition to the entry to their office. He agreed. The office manager was irate that I went direct to him instead of consulting her - but that's office politics and that's the way I worked back then.
The new iMac did everything I had hoped. After installing Dreamweaver I was allowed to create a company newsletter in HTML. It had all kinds of fun items like the hot projects for the week, who was working on what, who was going to be on vacation, and more. As far as I could tell everyone hated it and never wrote to the "editor" with any questions, news, or anything, really.
But it was good enough, after making it a dozen newsletters in I was getting a very good handle on HTML and building up a small portfolio. I decided that despite being debt-ridden I would have to take out one last loan and get a computer so that I could take this work home with me.
Apple obliged and a week later I had a brand-new Tangerine iMac on an Apple loan. I loaded it up with software and started designing as many web interfaces and sites (mostly for aarondeutsch.com) as possible. I started to make progress. The web was becoming a very real possibility for me.
One day I came back from work, unlocked my door, and immediately felt that something was off. One of the doors for my stereo cabinet was slightly ajar (yes, I'm the kind of person that notices that kind of detail) -- but it could have been the cat. I took a casual walk around my small studio+ apartment, head tilted slightly to the side in a curious fashion. Kictchen looked ok... When I entered the bedroom nook I found my computer and webcam gone, my climbing backpack on the floor, and a chef's knife on my desk. My heart sank.
Though I still had half of my computer loan to pay, my first reaction was one of relief; if I had caught the theif in the act he/she would have been trapped in my apartment with only one way out, through me with a knife. After this was the feelings of confusion, anger, disappointment.
There is a law in MN that all keys to all apartments must be kept somewhere on the premesis in case of fire. We had a steel box in the boiler room that contained all of our keys. Though it was kept locked today it was forced open and everyone's keys were missing. The police had been notified. Everyone was getting new locks. Mine was the only apartment they had broken into.
The scenario is easy to recreate: get keys downstairs, quick scan of apartment for valuables, find computer and backpack. Think to put computer in backpack so it seems less suspicious, find it doesn't fit, get knife to cut it open, abandon and run out of apartment with the most valuable item you can find.
I knew it probably wansn't a terribly prudent choice, but just giving up was not a consideration for even a moment. I would spite not only the theif and fate, but I would spite myself and my debt by getting the dreaded credit card. I would not only buy another computer, it would be an even better computer, the recently released Powermac G4. A computer actually listed on the 'restricted for export' list of items by the US Government because it was considered a "supercomputer" and could be used to create nuclear bombs or God knows what.
And you know how the story goes. You add a few "necessities" to the credit card, like, say, a bed. Maybe some new cloths for work. Then if you don't pay off your balance each month a funny thing happens over time; despite paying the monthly minimum (or even more), your balance ceases to decrease over time. You actually fall into a money vortex and your bill is always the same amount. I had stopped using my credit card for well over a year and yet I had virtually the same balance every month. I owed almost $11,000.
It was tough to get a loan in the first place. I had borrowed $6000 from Citibank when I first opened an account with them upon moving to the city, in an effort to stay here without a job and get established. That wasn't a problem. But $11,000? A lot of people were afraid to take the risk. Banks who were advertising loans to anyone with a pulse turned me down. I had to apply at my own bank, from where I paid off my first loan early, almost three times before they said "yes".
The stipulations: payments had to be auto-deducted from my checking account each month. Additional payments were to be mailed with these funny little forms you could only get from the bank itself. No matter, the CC would finally have an "end date" for final payoff. At long last.
A few months ago we started taking in more work and were on the path to getting ahead financially. I noticed that my "personal loan" appeared on my online interface which meant that making additional payments meant only selecting it from a menu and pressing "go".
After two huge rifle-shot payments the loan was gone. The messgage on this month's bank statement read:
08/24/06 PAYMENT ACCOUNT FORCE CLOSED -THANK YOU
Account "forced closed". I love it. No, I really do.
August 29, 2006
Flogging For Change
The Democrats called this am. Since I've been expecting a call from "unknown" (aka Cingular) I took it. They asked for money. Lots of money. Their script is pretty tight these days -- it allows for lots of twists and turns and their writer is to be commended for that.
While I empathize with telemarketers (to a very small extent) and try to disengage from them gracefully and with no hard feelings I had to hang up on this one. They could be alienating some of their friends with this campaign if their call list is big enough.
For the record, I guess the standard donations for the dems is $100 and "modest" donations are $50 these days.
The 2006 US Open, The Non-hate Version
Here are some random notes from the day of my failed US Open visit:
- The light rain mist looked like Star Wars or the HBO television intro when looking up a light pole to it. Thousands of whispy floating dots of light.
- Saw a pretty impressive red spider with black stripes on it's legs weaving a web. We took pictures with our cameraphones and a small crowd gathered.
- There was a gaggle of teen girls that piled into a subway car across the tracks from us on the way home. I think they may have mistaken me for someone famous or were pulling a prank of some sort. They were waving and blowing kisses at me. I looked around (to make sure it was me), acknowledged them with a nod, and the train was off.
- For no apparent reason I got to thinking about people who travel our country (and the world) and are so intersted in the people they meet, and who are so liked by the people everywhere they go. You know, you just can't fake that kind of thing. The only way to be genuinely interested in something/someone is to be genuinely interested.
The Untold Drama of The US Open: The USTA Hates Its Fans
While sports commentators recount with joy the wonderful moments on court, there is another untold drama of the sports fans and the Flushing Meadows ground crews.
You see, the US Open, for some reason, is always scheduled for the most volatile week of weather in New York. In three years of going to the US open I am 1/3 for 3.
The day of our first visit had weather forecast for storms. As one might have predicted it did, indeed, rain most of the evening. Apparently (we didn't actually go to the stadium), the grounds crew were able to fight off the wet and allow tennis players to play something like 15 minutes of tennis, which was just enough to prevent the USTA from being obligated to exchange or refund our tickets, according to the fine print on their website.
Our second visit the following year was mostly rained out, but they got the courts dry in time to be able to watch a full match with Federer and somebody else. It was ok, but an early round so not a lot of action and the stands were nearly empty.
This year rain was forecasted again but we were watching the radar all day long and predicted it would pass and at least one full match would be played. We wanted to get *some* form of tennis for our money so we went to the stadium where it misted straight through the evening. The USTA would NOT consider play rained out until 9:45pm so we had to wait. My friends bailed a half hour early and I stuck it out. Of my predictions one of two came true.
Prediction one, true: USTA worked extremely hard, especially from 9:30 to 9:45, to do anything in their power to get at least one serve performed by a tennis player. They had dryers, squeegies, AND young kids with bath towels on the court to make it playable.
Prediction two, untrue: Just as dry spots were beginning to appear on the court the efforts of the grounds crew collided with nature and the clock. They had finally run out of time and game play was officially suspended.
In the end I spent $60 to take a train out to the end of Queens, have a beer and hamburger in the rain, and generally be damp for five hours -- all of this just to be sure that I wasn't going to get robbed again by the USTA.
Not that they will make it easy for you. Oh no. The box office at the stadium conveniently closes at 9:00pm so by the time you could get an exchange everyone has gone home. You must come back to the stadium to get an exchange. If you do come back you will NOT be issued a ticket for that day, it will be another day later this year or next year so you'll have to come back a THIRD time to actually watch tennis, which as far as I knew, was the reason that people buy tickets to watch tennis.
Clockwise from top: crews work frantically to dry the courts so the USTA can steal our money (or charge us for the "entertainment" of court cleaning, which clearly is worth a $40 ticket price, fans in rain panchos watching the action, a giant spider on the grounds (red arrow)
August 23, 2006
Brooklyn: The Melody of a Sit-Com
Strange cast of characters ringing my buzzer this am. Group of 3 or 4 young cops at 7am, then Keyspan Energy at 8 trying to get in basement to read meter (didn't know we have a super).
Then chorus of beeping horns on Flatbush Ave -- literally dozens of gypsy cabs and vans at lunch driving in circles, beeping their horns about 4 times per block to attract fares.
August 16, 2006
Fate Intervenes to Confound, Entertain
Cara was just about to walk out the door and take the subway back to Manhattan when we got a call from EZD with free tickets ($100 value each) to the night's Yankee's game. Made a few frantic calls and determined that it was just the three of us, and that we should take EZD's Jeep. At first it was unclear as to why I suggested that as anyone who thinks they're going to fight rush hour traffic against a subway train and win is downright crazy.
The answer to this came a quarter of the way into the trip when we made it over the crest of the hill on Flatbush avenue and saw the Manhattan bridge "twinkling". There were so many emergency vehicles and helicopters that it went well beyond "blink".
A quick lookup of ny1.com on the Treo 700p revealed that there was a two-alarm fire at the Dekalb avenue station and that some people were seen being carried out of the station on stretchers. We had missed the thick black plumes of smoke. Cause of fire: unknown, though they believed there were no fatalities.
Crazy.
Speaking of fumes, the Jeep was a model from the 60s in fairly good shape and with all windows open with the exception of the windshield (which did fold down if desired). Due to the shape of the vehicle the exhaust out the back got recycled into the cabin. The engine was from an old gremlin and the lack of a catalytic converter was apparent. EZD was used to the fumes, which was good -- I told him to wake me up when we get there if I pass out during the ride. After returning home my clothes smelled like unleaded gasoline.
Our seats were about 10 rows off of third base. While the view was great, agreeing to walk into this chained off section of seats is to also accept the way that the game is watched here. Our section mostly consisted of two groups: Die hard Yankee fans who spent the entire game standing, hooting, cheering, and giving everyone around them high-fives when the Yankees did anything remotely good and Jewish families with spoiled kids, many of whom spent the entire game complaining out loud that they couldn't see because someone was in their way or whatever.
August 11, 2006
Satan Handing Out Life Preservers in Boat Called America?
I was thinking a bit today about economics and what a thin, frail line we have between order and chaos here. While I take the slant of "we are an organized society. since we expect everyone who lives here to play by the rules and not fuck shit up we should provide basic services if they find it hard to do so themselves". No this doesn't mean giving them a free ride, but it does mean food, shelter, health care.
My concern is about how close to the "end of the rope" we let large populations go. I mean, I am white, come from a loving middle class family and grew up with trees. After leaving school I had a very hard time making ends meet for a few years. I was working two, and at one point, three jobs. Due to my good job experience I was able to get a credit card and a "reserve line" on my bank account. If I did not have those I would have hit 0 balance before the end of each month and I might have seriously considered stealing, coercing, selling drugs.
Now think about all the minorities that get turned down for bank loans, are passed over for good jobs, grow up in semi (to fully) violent families, and only see hot, sweltering pavement.
As crazy as this sounds, I think that one of our most loathed and predatorial industries (no, not the government) may be what is holding our down-and-out population at bay (if not captive): the credit card industry.
They will give credit to anyone with a pulse and these people may legitimately use these cards to float between paychecks (but also, sadly, like I did, buy a few too many things with it over time. How I finally dug myself out of that one is another story altogether).
Screen shots from ironic commercials run by Capital One (as lifted from youtube.com). In this series of ads Capital One imples, essentially, that their competitors rape and pillage their customers with outrageous interest rates when in fact, they target some of the heaviest-risk customers due to their increased likelihood of missing payments and incurring this very interest.
August 07, 2006
Notes on Buffalo, NY
Had an opportunity to tour Buffalo, NY with CL August 2nd through 7th and here are some notes about this fine city:
While many speak of the "lake effect" snow in the winter (we passed a "Lake Effect Diner" in the artsy part of town, the cooler summer weather was much appreciated. When we left New York City it was 104 degrees outside. It was comfortably in the 80s when we arrived in Buffalo.
The food here is absolutely, positively, 100% carbs. They even manage to get carbs into salads here. Resistance is futile. Here are some of the fine carb-laiden foods we were able to enjoy:
SPONGE CANDY:
Our friends at Fowler's make this thing called "Sponge Candy". It has a few mysterious qualities about it. To visualize it, imagine spray-on wall insulation dipped in chocolate. It's light, crispy, and has a subtle takes-a-backseat-to-the-chocolate-but-you-can-still-kindof-taste-the-essence flavor and a firm, dry crunch to it. The experience of eating sponge candy goes something like this:
1) Address the little cube and bite it in half to see the insides.
2) Eat the rest of the cube to get the flavor.
3) Try another one
4) Acknowledge that it's not bursting with chocoloately goodness like other candy you've had, but feel compelled to try another, just to be sure
5) Eat a half a bag before you realize it. Put the bag away after having "just a few more"
6) Deny to the person you're sharing the bag any idea that you could have possibly eaten that much of it -- or any at all, really. Three pieces. Tops.
BEEF ON WECK:
Though not impossible to find in NYC, the German Kimmelweck is much more abundant and was quite tasty.
BUFFALO WINGS:
No trip to buffalo is complete without buffalo wings. The four of us got a bucket of 50 spicy wings with blue cheese dressing from the Anchor Bar. It appears that my years of training with CL eating various forms of hot peppers has paid off as this, their most spicy version, didn't even produce a slight sweat on my brow.
MOJITOS:
Our hostess grows herbs in her back yard. They seem to be both for landscaping and for eating so a casual glance might have you miss a few giant mint stalks just off of the porch. We gathered up the rest of the ingredients (as fresh and natural as we could find) and made homemade mojitos and had them at dinner. It reminded me of a bar on the LES that CL and I went to a few months back where they made the margaritas from scratch (no simple syrup, no premix -- turbino sugar, slices of fruit, top shelf tequilla, etc). Nothing beats fresh.
So Buffalo is considered part of the midwest and it shows in many ways:
- There is always a response to something you have said even if the response must be "don't you know it"
- Silence is generally regarded as uncomfortable. As such, the weather is a topic of conversation brought up many times a day
- The pace is much slower and oddly, as advertised, almost everything is "just a five minute drive" away
- The things that are maintained are done so with an excruciating level of detail and done as if there is no other way to do it. The home we were staying in has been perfectly maintained and has many original art-deco pieces of hardware and furniture including light fixtures, hand railings, doorknobs, and end tables. Buffalo, like Minnesota, is an excellent place for antiquing and I am now beginning to see that the Midwest doesn't import and sell antiques -- they actually originate here.
- Odd taste in fashion. There are still mullet sightings. People own denim sofas. I don't think I counted a single button-down shirt during our six day stay.
Buffalo is as I remember it from my one short afternoon passing through en route to moving to NYC -- it's kind of a combinatin of Milwaukee, WI and Duluth, MN in size and general makeup. Buffalo is a port city that has a great history of industry, most of which has left. What remains is being choked to death by their local politicians. Instead of giving tax breaks to encourage big businesses to move to Buffalo, they are raising them causing not only normal businesses to look elsewhere, but their very own football team, The Buffalo Bills to pick up and move as well. I guess this will be their last season in the city.
We took a driving tour of old 'hoods where CL's parents and their relatives grew up and lived. Most had experienced "white flight" and had digressed to absolute ghetto. I felt really odd eating a gourmet box of chocolate treats while observing families too poor to buy plastic garden chairs sit around on the ledges and floors of porches attached to their dilapitated houses. We got a lot of strange looks.
On the flip side, there were very charming waterfront townhouses complete with sailboat marinas on the penninsula on Lake Eerie on the opposite side of town, and glorious victorian homes just off from the park and modern art gallery where free jazz music was playing on Sunday.
Discovered that our hostesses' last name is Cinelli, which is a very expensive brand of racing bike. I did not get to find out if there was any relation. She also has 12 grandchildren. Over the course of the first few days I think we saw about half of them plus their parents. It was enough to completely exhaust me.
July 27, 2006
The Cost of Living the American Dream
I don't really spend money like most people I know. I shop less for clothing than most guys. I still do not own a TV or a gigantic DVD collection. I don't have a gaming console of any sort. I don't buy a lot of food.
Generally I live as inexpensively as possible and then drop a bunch of money on a big (but 100% useful) item like a racing bike or an expensive computer. Then back to living a frugal lifestyle.
The water story made me think of how some other people would have responded to the situation (hint: rage) but what should I really expect? I'm getting more space for half the price of a comparable Manhattan apartment and besides, management is trying, they just haven't succeeded yet.
So the theme is: keep it tight. I own as few things as possible, and the things I do own need to work very hard for me. (examples: my bike puts on 1000-1500 miles a year with me and my espresso machine draws 3-4 double shots a day on average. Items do NOT get purchased and not used, like most of America's treadmills, for example) There isn't much I don't have that I really want for. Despite that, I made two very odd purchases recently, both of which made me think to myself: "Do I really want to spend this much for that?" In both cases the answer was a resounding "yes".
The first was a $300 DVR that I can use to record TV onto my Mac. It arrived just in time to work flawlessly through the World Cup. I didn't miss a single game that I wanted to see. Of course it Didn't beat being at Halo Berlin for the 3rd place match or The Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden in Queens for the final game (with hundreds of loud and enthusiastic fans), but was a great lead-in and has earned it's place in the stack of heavily used "tools".
The other item was a $400 smartphone. This one only took about an hour before I realized it had already paid for itself. I won't go into details here as I'm chronicling them at bronzefinger.com, but it makes it possible for a business person to actually leave the office. Amazing.
So following tonight's linear flow-of-consciousness this made me think a few things about money that I hadn't before:
- Being frugal/poor gives you the advantage of only be abstractly aware of "what you're missing out on". After many years of trying, pretty much all of my friends have stopped trying to "sell" me things because they know I'm just going to do my own thing and be perfectly content with it. What you don't experience first hand can't hurt you. Note to self: that's a good phrase -- will have to remember to use that one again in the future...
- In getting a glimpse of what you can add to your life by spending more made me secretly wonder: Am I poor?. Have I been poor this whole time and just been living in ignorant bliss?
A Few Stories About Water
The water situation is kind of weird in my apartment. Since our building got a brand new boiler which broke in the first week and was then repaired we finally have reliable hot water and heat (now that it's summertime), but curiosities still abound. Here are a few notes I've taken recently:
THE LEAKING CEILING
May 23: Mushrooms growing out of ceiling in bathroom. Wonder if they are edible. Decide that they are probably not and avoid tasting them. Noticed leak last Saturday and mopped/cleaned carpet, waited for drainage hoping it would be ok. It was not.
May 31: Today my bathroom ceiling started raining so I walked upstairs and harassed my neighbor. She says her sink pipe is leaking, which is possible, though I overheard her son say "mom, there is a huge puddle in the bathroom" -- I wonder why... Anyway, she said she would call management to bug them (again?) about fixing it. Took bath mat to laundromat to wash/dry. Called management and left a message to see if they have been in touch with my neighbor about this problem and asked them to follow up and let me know.
June 5: Called management again and talked to them live about how to deal with the leak and encouraged them to get up there to fix this at the source!
June 6: raining in bathroom again. Wait for it to stop. Mop floor, bring bath mat to laundromat for wash/dry.
June 7: Management showed up and was very impressed by my mushroom and mold collection. Last time they were here they just plastered a few holes in the ceiling and part of my wall, covering my hand-done paint. The time before they had only taken the cover of my light fixture off, dumped the water out, and put it back on. This time they replaced the entire ceiling and said they found the source of the leak and fixed it. I also had them remove the florescent light fixture from the ceiling since I had a very bright one over the medicine cabinet that didn't fill with water and drip on my head while seated on the toilet. The construction guys asked if I wanted them to come back and paint it and I said "no". I found out later this was the best use of everyones' time.
June 8: Swept and vacuumed debris left by construction workers. Bathroom smells like a new apartment, but only looks like one if you look straight up to the ceiling.
Early July: Heard water running above my new ceiling. Appears to be running across the length of it and down the wall next to my mirror. Paint bulges a bit. I figure it will hold.
Mid July: Tape on corners of ceiling starting to yellow. Two new mushrooms poke through seam between two pieces of sheet rock taped to form a seal.
Embedded in the sheet rock appears to be these little, round, plastic... caps for lack of a better term. I don't know why they're there, but they are coming into view after a few weeks of the ceiling being soaked in water. There is one directly above my sink that has soaked through and it is acting like a cute little drain, allowing all of the water to dribble through it. The good news is it drips right into my sink and down the drain. Time to call management and let them know that the drip is alive. Note to self: buy new toothbrushes.
Later in July: Black mold begins to form across the entire ceiling. The dripping is becoming more constant -- there must be a more serious leak feeding it. This is a problem because before I could count the time between drips and use that to coordinate grabbing things from the medicine cabinet and spitting while brushing my teeth. Any other kind of front-of-mirror grooming or shaving is out of the picture.
July 27: Management stops by and I invite them in to take a look at my spores and they exclaim "This is no way to live!". While many would agree, I find it a bit amusing, but am glad that they are committed to solving this problem. They promise they will be back tomorrow to fix the leak they are SURE they've found this time and replace my ceiling again.
THE CURIOUS SINK
Last winter my kitchen sink took to clogging every once in a while. There was no pattern to it, really. About half way through doing dishes it would clog and the sink would start to fill (we always use a strainer to keep it from gumming up with junk), and then as quickly as the clog started it would disappear and the water would swoosh down the drain, generally a half hour later when we've completely lost interest in dishes and are doing something else entirely.
I tried some heavy-duty drain cleaner one day -- an entire bottle of it -- to absolutely no result. I guess I've either got some form of moody rodent in this sink or the clog is further down the pipes somewhere. Maybe too many of my neighbors are showering at the same time. Maybe the storm drains out front are full. Whatever the case is, today is July 27 and I have fruit flies and gnats and these dishes are getting done one way or another.
Since it has a much larger reservoir and the same water supply I move my supplies and dishes into the bathroom and wash them in the bath tub. My jeans are rolled up like Huckleberry Finn and the water is a controlled splash thanks to my tub faucet being a single dial -- you only control temp, NOT the velocity -- kind of like what you find in hotels.
After I put the dried dishes away I tapped out the drain screen. What normally looks like a little hairy animal curled up for sleep looked, in it's food form, kind of like a little animal threw up on my sink.
July 22, 2006
True Canvas Size
At the time (and to a certain extent also in retrospect) art school seemed like a good idea. Problem was that my trajectory towards the cruising altitude of adulthood was more like that of a butterfly than a jet airplane. I understood early on that I had actually put myself in a great position to submerge myself in art. I was surrounded by experts in a variety of fields and while they would lecture us students from time to time, the true value would be in having access to them so that I could ask questions and propel myself forward academically.
For whatever reason the questions did not come to me. I had very little money and handed in my photos mounted on cereal box cardboard because I could not afford matte paper. I ate ramen noodles with peanut butter. Everything but my charcoal was uninspired or satirical.
In one anatomy class we were to draw a life portrait of a model and identify where parts of the skeletal system were visible on the surface. I studied the lines and the negative space around our subject. I used my thumb to measure distances and angled. I layered the drawing to produce a believable volume with shadow. When all was said and done it did not look like a "Life drawing", it looked like a caricature. A kind of funny and eerily accurate one, but a comic nonetheless. I got 0 credit for it.
Things continued on like this for the duration and I left school with a smaller body of work than many of my classmates. This bothered me a bit as our lessons would feature all of these prolific geniuses, many of whom were also philosophers and scientists now that I look back on it... (funny that we didn't have any philosophy or science classes there...). I felt like I had failed as an artist in some way.
My goal was never to be an artistic superstar (I hate giving presentations to large groups and the pressure of being a spokesperson for a group of people), but this couldn't be the end of the road -- I had to redeem myself. The only thing I knew to do was to just put my head down and start working with the blind faith that I would still be somewhat potent when I am finally able to look back and see a respectable body of work.
The work seems to be paying off, as evidenced by the select work that is available online through the websites linked from this one. Nothing is award-winning or a gallery-show-sellout, but that is fine with me. I can see when people view my work, and occasionally get letters from them with feedback.
I came to realize that an artists "canvas" can be many shapes and sizes; It can be like a painted canvas, measured in x-y, it can be like a horn with sound expanding as it radiates outward, or it can be organic - the word-of-mouth spreading of ideas through people and the internet like a fungus.
Basically my canvases come in two sizes these days: my 5x7 Moleskine sketchbook that I carry almost everywhere (I have a shelf that has seen the collection grow every year) and 1024x768pixels. Both are close to the same size when you hold them up to one another but when you look at their added dimension they are both very different indeed. The Moleskine is freeform, and private (though even if you were to get your hands on it, it is very unlikely that you'd be able to decipher my frantic scrawling) and the other expands into other dimensions crossing boundaries of geography and culture in milleseconds.
All things considered I am very happy with my current predicament, I've got a little book to record my internal world and multiple digital canvases to share it with the world.
July 05, 2006
Taking a Break
If you own your own business or are a workaholic there really is something to be said for taking a break every once in a while.
Up until the 4th I was doing a lot of multi-tasking, a lot of caffeine drinking, and a lot of hard cycling and was starting to feel the effects.
- My thoughts were cloudy with trying to keep up with the changing lists of priorities and projects. Much of my day was spent keeping track of everything rather than DOING anything
- Work progress was slow due to ADHD
- My knees were feeling a little stress from all the speed workouts
Decided to "unplug" for the 4th: no caffeine, no work, no riding. Slept all night/day/night.
This am I awoke feeling refreshed. I did not feel rushed, thought the amount of work was the same as before the holiday. There is clarity and order. My knees feel better.
May 17, 2006
The Public Journal
Recently I was thinking about journaling and how many people make a habit of doing it, but don't tend to think or make much of their journals. They are kept on shelves, tucked under beds, and locked in little chests only to be found post-humus.
Sometimes a journal of a famous politician or army general will be unearthed and used to illuminate life in the past, giving archaeologists clues as to how we once lived, or how important events unfolded in their eyes. But what about life right now?
Many of us may not think of a journal as a creative outlet, but isn't that really what it is? We recall our epic adventures here on earth (and embellish a little at times), struggle over what we think about this life we've made for ourselves and puzzle over how to solve our life's problems. This process, I feel, is just as creative as sitting down to draw a picture, compose a song, or write a poem.
Our journal topics range from the mundane to highly personal. In every event lies a story, a moral, a set of choices or opinions. All of these help us to move forward as individuals.
When we think about who our friends are and why, no matter what the details are, it always boils down to this: these are people with whom we share our experiences with, and to a certain extent, opinions.
By journaling publicly you are really extending your circle of friends, except that some you will never meet or never even know of each other anything other than a tick on a webstats counter.
I'm the first to admit that most of my ideas are nothing new, but for one reason or another, I seemed to think they bore repeating in my journal. Some ideas are juxtapositions of observations, and others are reminders. This, then, is a slightly less stylized creative outlet for me (compared to my other websites), the public journal of Aaron Deutsch.