if you are coming to the city for the first time. It comes with maps and space to record your journey. Best of all, it requires no batteries AND it fits in your pocket.
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Took a little jaunt on New Jersey Transit to visit friends in Maplewood on Thursday. Nice visit in a cute little town 35 minutes from Penn Station. I can see this being a “get away from the city for some rest and relaxation – for about three hours” destination.
Maplewood Village, a 20-second walk from the train station, has about half a dozen restaurants from cafes to sushi, a bar and several small shops. All of them are CUTE.
On the other side of the tracks is a lovely park with a stream running through it.
How: “Direct or express to Dover” … get your round trip ticket at Penn Station because you don’t want to rely on the ticket agent in Maplewood. Total round-trip cost: $9.75. Check the schedule when you get there and set yourself an alarm because the train back to the city only stops about once an hour.
This is a town that works until you are ready to go. Once you’ve seen everything and had a bite to eat, it is time to go. You don’t want to be milling around the open-air station waiting on the next ride out. The schedule does seem firm though, so don’t expect you can tarry.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Going Goth, FIT style
The Fashion Institute of Technology has three exhibits running right now. I happened to be in the area and decided to wander over and take a peek. What the heck? It was free.
There were dresses, dresses and pics. In The Museum at FIT’s main gallery, “Arbiters of Style: Women at the Forefront of Fashion” was the fashion of the day (actually the exhibit runs until Nov. 8). There were bunches of dresses from the 1700s to the present, and I didn’t see the point to any of it. Once, I cross the sarong threshold, I’m pretty much lost to fashion. Pants and shirts keep cops away so I wear them. It goes no farther, for me.
I did get a chance, however, to hear the following exchange between two tiny old women looking at a Zandra Rhodes dress (dropped that name like a pro, eh?) from 1969:
OW1: That is goooorgeous!
OW2: Chiffon.
OW1: What do you wear under it?
OW2: Nothing.
OW1: If you wear underwear, you’ll ruin the line.
OW2: Pasties.
OW1: Nothing but pasties.
That image just about ruined beauty, forever.
Fortunately, I wandered downstairs to the “Gothic: Dark Glamour” exhibit. It forced me to look deep into my bruised soul and realize … I like Goth as a fashion choice if the skulls motif is buried in a crypt like the cold, mortal flesh of my only love.
Something about corsets, I think. And leather. … The dark lust of my vegetarian soul is a 23-year-old, whip-thin junkie chick in leather, apparently. And lace gloves. What can I do? It spoke to me in a breathy, hot and pained wordless song full of major chords.
It cut me.
“Gothic” runs through Feb. 21, if you want to see the objects of my latest desire.
And then there were the photographs. …
The FIT is distinctly unattractive, a gulag on 7th Avenue at 27th Street, hewn from gray concrete by slaves of fashion, worked to exhaustion … maybe even death. Across the courtyard – in which rebel fashionistas are executed, stiff-spined and prideful, at dawn -- is an administrative building that houses, for the time being, a photographic project of Coney Island shot by students in the last year.
True art, I think, is the ability to capture the universal in a distinctly arresting way. It seems a crime, then, to turn a bunch of students loose on the most pedestrian of topics and expect them to produce anything remotely interesting. Criminal, but that’s what happened.
The photos weren’t bad … in fact, they could be called good and certainly better than I could produce. A woman in traditional Muslim dress walking barefoot on the beach with the madness of the masses a blur in the background was particularly interesting. But, they weren’t worth a specific trip to FIT. The troika of exhibits wasn’t, but if you happen to be in the area and drop in, you could do a lot worse.
There were dresses, dresses and pics. In The Museum at FIT’s main gallery, “Arbiters of Style: Women at the Forefront of Fashion” was the fashion of the day (actually the exhibit runs until Nov. 8). There were bunches of dresses from the 1700s to the present, and I didn’t see the point to any of it. Once, I cross the sarong threshold, I’m pretty much lost to fashion. Pants and shirts keep cops away so I wear them. It goes no farther, for me.
I did get a chance, however, to hear the following exchange between two tiny old women looking at a Zandra Rhodes dress (dropped that name like a pro, eh?) from 1969:
OW1: That is goooorgeous!
OW2: Chiffon.
OW1: What do you wear under it?
OW2: Nothing.
OW1: If you wear underwear, you’ll ruin the line.
OW2: Pasties.
OW1: Nothing but pasties.
That image just about ruined beauty, forever.
Fortunately, I wandered downstairs to the “Gothic: Dark Glamour” exhibit. It forced me to look deep into my bruised soul and realize … I like Goth as a fashion choice if the skulls motif is buried in a crypt like the cold, mortal flesh of my only love.
Something about corsets, I think. And leather. … The dark lust of my vegetarian soul is a 23-year-old, whip-thin junkie chick in leather, apparently. And lace gloves. What can I do? It spoke to me in a breathy, hot and pained wordless song full of major chords.
It cut me.
“Gothic” runs through Feb. 21, if you want to see the objects of my latest desire.
And then there were the photographs. …
The FIT is distinctly unattractive, a gulag on 7th Avenue at 27th Street, hewn from gray concrete by slaves of fashion, worked to exhaustion … maybe even death. Across the courtyard – in which rebel fashionistas are executed, stiff-spined and prideful, at dawn -- is an administrative building that houses, for the time being, a photographic project of Coney Island shot by students in the last year.
True art, I think, is the ability to capture the universal in a distinctly arresting way. It seems a crime, then, to turn a bunch of students loose on the most pedestrian of topics and expect them to produce anything remotely interesting. Criminal, but that’s what happened.
The photos weren’t bad … in fact, they could be called good and certainly better than I could produce. A woman in traditional Muslim dress walking barefoot on the beach with the madness of the masses a blur in the background was particularly interesting. But, they weren’t worth a specific trip to FIT. The troika of exhibits wasn’t, but if you happen to be in the area and drop in, you could do a lot worse.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Geometry matters, or it should
I strolled past Father Demo Square on Bleeker Street and Sixth Avenue yesterday and all of the sudden it hit me like a belly full of bad fish.
Father Demo Square is a triangle.
Father Demo Square is a triangle.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Housing Works … and so does this coffee shop
With apologies to those who are about to hear the sounds of music, these are a few of my favorite things:
a) drinking coffee
b) sitting around in air conditioning
c) looking at used books
and
d) helping people – so long as it doesn’t inconvenience me to do so
Correspondingly, then, Housing Works Bookstore Café has been one of my favorite places in the city since I stumbled upon it several years ago.
I feel like Mother Teresa – but taller … and with prettier feet – just for showing up. The catchy slogan almost says it all: “Fighting AIDS, one book at a time.”
NOTE: I said, almost, because condoms also help. Get yours today.
Housing Works, at 126 Crosby Street*, is run by volunteers and all the money, including the tips you leave, goes toward working with homeless AIDS patients.
Buy a $1.50 cup of coffee. Help an AIDS patient. Leave the change. Help an AIDS patient. Buy a used book. Help an AIDS patient. Get yourself a cookie. Help an AIDS patient.
They also sell wine and Pabst, so. ... Catch a buzz. Help an AIDS patient.
Word to the Mother. “Beatify that, Bitch.”
*Housing Works is at 126 Crosby Street. Get to Houston Street between Lafayette and Broadway. Find Crosby Street (Easy because it is the only street between Lafayette and Broadway. Head downtown about three storefronts and you are there.
a) drinking coffee
b) sitting around in air conditioning
c) looking at used books
and
d) helping people – so long as it doesn’t inconvenience me to do so
Correspondingly, then, Housing Works Bookstore Café has been one of my favorite places in the city since I stumbled upon it several years ago.
I feel like Mother Teresa – but taller … and with prettier feet – just for showing up. The catchy slogan almost says it all: “Fighting AIDS, one book at a time.”
NOTE: I said, almost, because condoms also help. Get yours today.
Housing Works, at 126 Crosby Street*, is run by volunteers and all the money, including the tips you leave, goes toward working with homeless AIDS patients.
Buy a $1.50 cup of coffee. Help an AIDS patient. Leave the change. Help an AIDS patient. Buy a used book. Help an AIDS patient. Get yourself a cookie. Help an AIDS patient.
They also sell wine and Pabst, so. ... Catch a buzz. Help an AIDS patient.
Word to the Mother. “Beatify that, Bitch.”
*Housing Works is at 126 Crosby Street. Get to Houston Street between Lafayette and Broadway. Find Crosby Street (Easy because it is the only street between Lafayette and Broadway. Head downtown about three storefronts and you are there.
Breakfast at Papaya Dog
In a city where a diner breakfast can set you back $6, Papaya Dog on 14th Street and 1st Avenue is a welcome find. If you get there while the banner is still flying on the storefront, you can avail yourself of one of the specials – either two eggs on a roll, or … and this was my find of the day … two eggs, a mound of potatoes and two pieces of toast (white or wheat, because Papaya Dog cares about your health) – for 99 cents.
Take the L to First Avenue, stick your head above ground and look around. It’s right on the corner. Service ain’t much, and the decor is, to be polite, sticky. But the eggs are cooked in your face and in something I really look for in a cheap breakfast, I didn’t puke once in the three hours after I ate.
Because I have an unlimited subway card, scooting to First Avenue for breakfast before starting my wandering is reasonable. In fact, I just turned downtown and went on walkabout in the East Village with calories to burn.
Take the L to First Avenue, stick your head above ground and look around. It’s right on the corner. Service ain’t much, and the decor is, to be polite, sticky. But the eggs are cooked in your face and in something I really look for in a cheap breakfast, I didn’t puke once in the three hours after I ate.
Because I have an unlimited subway card, scooting to First Avenue for breakfast before starting my wandering is reasonable. In fact, I just turned downtown and went on walkabout in the East Village with calories to burn.
A little bit of Broadway about getting to Broadway
Took in a Broadway show Sunday night, and had a great time.
I know that’s what you are supposed to do at a Broadway show, but I usually just have an OK time. My fun center can be a little atrophied.
Part of it, I’m sure, is that I look for the wires and mirrors while the magician is performing. But part of it is that I like my theater a little less slick. If it flows too well, or, if you can tell the actors are doing a “job”, I’m unphased by the performance.
It’s like celebrating a great catch in a baseball game. Makes no sense to me. That’s the guy’s job. He gets compensated quite well for it. I may be pissed when he fails, but I’m not jumping around when he does his damn job. Just call me a member of management, I guess, but in my bitter little world, you get paid for doing your job. You don’t get points for it.
“(title of show)”, which is running at the Lyceum on 45th Street for awhile, is different. It has no right to be in the big leagues – small cast, no orchestra, no special effects -- but it is absolutely right for it to be there. I don’t laugh at comedies, but I did Sunday night. I don’t cry at drama, but I did … OK, I didn’t, but I could have, if it wasn’t a flaming comedy.
“(title of show)” is -- to flog the sports analogy a little harder -- as though a fan was called down to play the $1 million (insert brand of your choice here) homerun lottery and ended up with a contract to play out the rest of the season.
The actors – Jeff Bowen, Hunter Bell, Susan Blackwell, Heidi Blickenstaff and Larry Pressgrove (who didn’t get acting credits, but should have considering he had more stage time than anyone) -- managed to show wide-eyed “what the fuck? We’re on Broadway? Really?” fun, and the ability to knock the show out of the park.
Director Michael Berresse pulls a neat trick by rarely getting in the way. He deals with what appears to be a very light hand. The actors don’t trips over themselves, but no one looks directed either. He’s a respectable ballplayer (last baseball reference, I promise). He does his job without fanfare.
“(title of show)” is a Broadway musical about people creating a musical and getting it to Broadway. That’s stated, AND YET the book is accused of being too much Broadway geek and too little warm blood of American heartland. Idiots, of course it is heavy on theater-insider shtick. Screw it. The thing is fun.
Personally, I didn’t get a lot of the references. There was a lot of name dropping … I recognized Patti LuPone’s name (In most contests, one out of 10 sucks), but screw it. The thing is fun.
It is childlike and OH SO QUEER, but screw it. The thing is fun.
If “fuck fucking fuckidee fuck fuck” and “blow jobs” and drag-queen jokes and prancing and “didja get it, didja huh?” humor offend you, I’ve probably already offend you … sooooo … screw you. The thing is fun.
I promised to leave the baseball references alone, but I’m still free to make a medical reference. Here it is:
“(title of show)” could quite simply save your life. If you see it and can’t see the fun in it, you need some glee therapy stat. If you wait, you run the risk of getting all pruny inside.
I know that’s what you are supposed to do at a Broadway show, but I usually just have an OK time. My fun center can be a little atrophied.
Part of it, I’m sure, is that I look for the wires and mirrors while the magician is performing. But part of it is that I like my theater a little less slick. If it flows too well, or, if you can tell the actors are doing a “job”, I’m unphased by the performance.
It’s like celebrating a great catch in a baseball game. Makes no sense to me. That’s the guy’s job. He gets compensated quite well for it. I may be pissed when he fails, but I’m not jumping around when he does his damn job. Just call me a member of management, I guess, but in my bitter little world, you get paid for doing your job. You don’t get points for it.
“(title of show)”, which is running at the Lyceum on 45th Street for awhile, is different. It has no right to be in the big leagues – small cast, no orchestra, no special effects -- but it is absolutely right for it to be there. I don’t laugh at comedies, but I did Sunday night. I don’t cry at drama, but I did … OK, I didn’t, but I could have, if it wasn’t a flaming comedy.
“(title of show)” is -- to flog the sports analogy a little harder -- as though a fan was called down to play the $1 million (insert brand of your choice here) homerun lottery and ended up with a contract to play out the rest of the season.
The actors – Jeff Bowen, Hunter Bell, Susan Blackwell, Heidi Blickenstaff and Larry Pressgrove (who didn’t get acting credits, but should have considering he had more stage time than anyone) -- managed to show wide-eyed “what the fuck? We’re on Broadway? Really?” fun, and the ability to knock the show out of the park.
Director Michael Berresse pulls a neat trick by rarely getting in the way. He deals with what appears to be a very light hand. The actors don’t trips over themselves, but no one looks directed either. He’s a respectable ballplayer (last baseball reference, I promise). He does his job without fanfare.
“(title of show)” is a Broadway musical about people creating a musical and getting it to Broadway. That’s stated, AND YET the book is accused of being too much Broadway geek and too little warm blood of American heartland. Idiots, of course it is heavy on theater-insider shtick. Screw it. The thing is fun.
Personally, I didn’t get a lot of the references. There was a lot of name dropping … I recognized Patti LuPone’s name (In most contests, one out of 10 sucks), but screw it. The thing is fun.
It is childlike and OH SO QUEER, but screw it. The thing is fun.
If “fuck fucking fuckidee fuck fuck” and “blow jobs” and drag-queen jokes and prancing and “didja get it, didja huh?” humor offend you, I’ve probably already offend you … sooooo … screw you. The thing is fun.
I promised to leave the baseball references alone, but I’m still free to make a medical reference. Here it is:
“(title of show)” could quite simply save your life. If you see it and can’t see the fun in it, you need some glee therapy stat. If you wait, you run the risk of getting all pruny inside.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Walking through Greenwich Village
Yesterday was a rainout, so I stayed in and did some must-do work, but today the highs are expected in the mid-70s, the sun is out and the air is scrubbed. It’s time for a walkabout.
This morning I decided the thing to do was wander across town from the Lower East Side to Tribeca then up Greenwich Street, into the West Village until I hit Bleeker Street. Then I wanted to go East to the end of Bleeker.
I got to Bleeker and Morton before I got to sidetracked – not easy when wandering is all about sidetracks. On Bleeker, between Morton and Leroy (a short block), there is a butcher shop, a cheese shop, a fish market and a bakery.
I grabbed a loaf of sourdough from Amy’s Bakery, meandered to Sixth Avenue and sat across Father Demo Park from a bad opera singer filling the air with trills and scales. People are free to follow suggestions from the mad squirrels in their heads here, apparently. “Don’t mind the pain you cause your neighbors, lady. Trill on!”
It was ok, though, because visions of E.F. Schumacher
danced in my head.
Small really is beautiful, even in a big town.
This morning I decided the thing to do was wander across town from the Lower East Side to Tribeca then up Greenwich Street, into the West Village until I hit Bleeker Street. Then I wanted to go East to the end of Bleeker.
I got to Bleeker and Morton before I got to sidetracked – not easy when wandering is all about sidetracks. On Bleeker, between Morton and Leroy (a short block), there is a butcher shop, a cheese shop, a fish market and a bakery.
I grabbed a loaf of sourdough from Amy’s Bakery, meandered to Sixth Avenue and sat across Father Demo Park from a bad opera singer filling the air with trills and scales. People are free to follow suggestions from the mad squirrels in their heads here, apparently. “Don’t mind the pain you cause your neighbors, lady. Trill on!”
It was ok, though, because visions of E.F. Schumacher
danced in my head.Small really is beautiful, even in a big town.
Monday, September 8, 2008
The fall of Astroland
I’m not a huge fan of Coney Island. For one thing, it takes 40 minutes to get there on the yellow line. For another, I don’t eat hot dogs, not even Nathan’s Famous Hotdogs (gifted though they are with capital letters). Finally, it gives me the same sad stomach I get at casinos when I watch empty lives pass in front of insatiable slot machines.
But, Sunday was the last day of the last season of Astroland, a traveling carnival without the traveling, and I wanted to be there when it fell. Besides, it was a beautiful day for a trip to the beach.
I’m glad I went.
Beer at Ruby’s on the boardwalk. Kids diving off the pier into the green Atlantic as an international contingent crabbed and fished around them. A show by Circus Amok (more on them in a later post). A little time shirtless on a bench, face to Sol like an old-age pensioner or Russian expat. The flume rides and bumper cars and carnie tricks and skeeball arcades and sticky kids jacked up on sno cone syrup.
All OK.
Even the decay of “Shoot the Geek” -- an arcade game where a 20 spot buys you 75 shots with a paintball gun at a living, breathing human being just trying to make a living, while a professional asshole taunts you over the public address system -- seemed charming.
I was nostalgic for something that holds no memories for me. Astroland is falling before the developers’ bulldozer, and I wondered what the masses were going to do next summer without the relatively inexpensive escape of bad food, puke-inducing swirly rides and the outside chance of winning that special someone with a giant, stuffed piece of crap you won with ball-tossing, watergun-squirting, sledge-swinging skills you secretly always knew you had.
Where are the sheep to go? What are the shearers to do?
These are bigger questions for distant days. Sunday, it was all about grabbing that last gasp and riding that last Bobsled.
New York is the high-culture Mecca of the Americas (arguably, but you’d lose). Coney Island was all about wrangling the madness of the masses. Next summer, they will be released upon the city. Be afraid, be very afraid.
But, Sunday was the last day of the last season of Astroland, a traveling carnival without the traveling, and I wanted to be there when it fell. Besides, it was a beautiful day for a trip to the beach.I’m glad I went.
Beer at Ruby’s on the boardwalk. Kids diving off the pier into the green Atlantic as an international contingent crabbed and fished around them. A show by Circus Amok (more on them in a later post). A little time shirtless on a bench, face to Sol like an old-age pensioner or Russian expat. The flume rides and bumper cars and carnie tricks and skeeball arcades and sticky kids jacked up on sno cone syrup.
All OK.
Even the decay of “Shoot the Geek” -- an arcade game where a 20 spot buys you 75 shots with a paintball gun at a living, breathing human being just trying to make a living, while a professional asshole taunts you over the public address system -- seemed charming.
I was nostalgic for something that holds no memories for me. Astroland is falling before the developers’ bulldozer, and I wondered what the masses were going to do next summer without the relatively inexpensive escape of bad food, puke-inducing swirly rides and the outside chance of winning that special someone with a giant, stuffed piece of crap you won with ball-tossing, watergun-squirting, sledge-swinging skills you secretly always knew you had.
Where are the sheep to go? What are the shearers to do?
These are bigger questions for distant days. Sunday, it was all about grabbing that last gasp and riding that last Bobsled.
New York is the high-culture Mecca of the Americas (arguably, but you’d lose). Coney Island was all about wrangling the madness of the masses. Next summer, they will be released upon the city. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Hanna leaves me a present
My first Saturday night in the city in a very long time was cut short by a raging tropical washout called Hanna. Some people have all the luck and I wasn’t feeling like those people, but when I woke up Sunday morning early, it was like a grateful Hanna had left me a couple hundred bucks on my nightstand for my efforts the night before. (“Thanks, sailor. You be sure to remember me the next time you’re in port.”)
The sun was out. The smell was beaten back. The air was bright and cool.
It was a wandering kind of morning in my church. I decided to attend services in the East Village because it was, frankly, the closest pew and I had the itch, bad. … Real bad. (“Thanks again, sailor.”)
I could go on here about the feeling you get when you are in a place as it wakes up. I could continue the tawdry sex analogy about snuggling with a lover before the pressing needs of the day drive a wedge between you. I could …
But I won’t.
Instead, I’ll give you this snapshot.
I was walking on East 4th Street into the sun. As I passed a woman fussing with an infant in a stroller, she looked up at me and said in a thick Germanic accent, “Such beautiful a day. So many people missing it.”
I raised my hand to the crystal sky. “Amen, Sister, amen.”
I’ll be passing the collection plate now. Give what the Lord compels you to give.
The sun was out. The smell was beaten back. The air was bright and cool.
It was a wandering kind of morning in my church. I decided to attend services in the East Village because it was, frankly, the closest pew and I had the itch, bad. … Real bad. (“Thanks again, sailor.”)
I could go on here about the feeling you get when you are in a place as it wakes up. I could continue the tawdry sex analogy about snuggling with a lover before the pressing needs of the day drive a wedge between you. I could …
But I won’t.
Instead, I’ll give you this snapshot.
I was walking on East 4th Street into the sun. As I passed a woman fussing with an infant in a stroller, she looked up at me and said in a thick Germanic accent, “Such beautiful a day. So many people missing it.”
I raised my hand to the crystal sky. “Amen, Sister, amen.”
I’ll be passing the collection plate now. Give what the Lord compels you to give.
Getting my fix in Chinatown
Saturday was a quick, very wet, “get reacquainted” day with the city. I dropped my bags at the crib and set out to meet KC for a little food in Chinatown before being driven off the streets by Tropical Storm Hanna.
I’m pulled to Chinatown like shoppers are pulled to Harold Square or Saks or 14th Street and theater geeks are pulled to theater geek stuff.
No single group in New York lingers and mills about as well as the denizens of Chinatown. No single place in the city packs as many odd smells into an area, either. You can get a short travel fix (real travel is to Chinatown, what heroin is to methadone) just by getting off the subway on Canal and heading downtown, so when I’m jonesing, that’s where I go.
Chinatown is also my usual cheap-eats destination in the city. I’m sure there are other points of sustenance convergence and I have dedicated my life to finding them, but for a fallback, I can always count on Chinatown. It has everything from tourist favorites to hole-in-the wall dumpling shops to street carts. Prices can range widely and wildly, so check the menu on the front of the shop.
I’ll be coming back to Chinatown again and again in this blog, so let me just say in this post that the inventor of “Menu on Shop Window” needs to be canonized (if he/she is Catholic … or converted posthumously and then canonized if not) so I can wear his/her graven image around my neck.
I’ve heard it was an ancient Japanese thing where actual menu items and their prices were displayed in the window because the language was so damn complicated and the society so damn stratified that most of the populace was illiterate. I’m an egalitarian, but if ever there was a reason for oppressing the common man, it is “Menu on Shop Window.”
Of course, I was in Japan when I heard this creation myth, so it may be one of those spontaneous eruptions of genius. I don’t know. I do know I want to feel someone’s face on my heaving chest, and I’ll take what I can get. If you have a different story from a different culture, please let me know and I’ll let you in on a piece of the action when I start selling relics.
I’m pulled to Chinatown like shoppers are pulled to Harold Square or Saks or 14th Street and theater geeks are pulled to theater geek stuff.
No single group in New York lingers and mills about as well as the denizens of Chinatown. No single place in the city packs as many odd smells into an area, either. You can get a short travel fix (real travel is to Chinatown, what heroin is to methadone) just by getting off the subway on Canal and heading downtown, so when I’m jonesing, that’s where I go.
Chinatown is also my usual cheap-eats destination in the city. I’m sure there are other points of sustenance convergence and I have dedicated my life to finding them, but for a fallback, I can always count on Chinatown. It has everything from tourist favorites to hole-in-the wall dumpling shops to street carts. Prices can range widely and wildly, so check the menu on the front of the shop.
I’ll be coming back to Chinatown again and again in this blog, so let me just say in this post that the inventor of “Menu on Shop Window” needs to be canonized (if he/she is Catholic … or converted posthumously and then canonized if not) so I can wear his/her graven image around my neck.
I’ve heard it was an ancient Japanese thing where actual menu items and their prices were displayed in the window because the language was so damn complicated and the society so damn stratified that most of the populace was illiterate. I’m an egalitarian, but if ever there was a reason for oppressing the common man, it is “Menu on Shop Window.”
Of course, I was in Japan when I heard this creation myth, so it may be one of those spontaneous eruptions of genius. I don’t know. I do know I want to feel someone’s face on my heaving chest, and I’ll take what I can get. If you have a different story from a different culture, please let me know and I’ll let you in on a piece of the action when I start selling relics.
Confessions of a Jetblue pervert
I left Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Gustav … on time – despite his best efforts to keep me in the state – and intact, and was greeted in New York City by a weeping Tropical Storm Hanna. Wandering from one natural disaster into another seems to be a good way to start, or a start, anyway. I’ll leave the morality of nature to the philosophers.
Besides, this is a confession of my love and sick brand loyalty, not an intellectual screed.
JFK is my preferred gateway to the city for two reasons. First, it is Jetblue’s hub and I’ve got a thing for Jetblue – a not entirely wholesome thing when you are talking about wanting a long-term sexual relationship with an airline, but I’ve said it and I stand behind my statement. Jetblue offers good service, great prices and a casual attitude toward travel that causes my wanderer bowels to twitter a little.
“We’re here to get you there,” she whispers, hot and wet, in my ear. “Come, ride me.”
Yes, yes, oh sweet Jesus, yessssssss!
Sorry about that. Can I take a second to compose myself?
Better now.
My trip from New Orleans to NYC set me back $124, because I checked two bags. That was cheaper than a bus by almost $100 and I was in the air for less than three hours, compared to 36 hours on the road by bus. And, I got to watch “Groundhog Day” on TBS, in the air, on free headphones.
Besides, when we were all waiting to deplane, the pilot walked out of the flight deck, looked at us all standing there and said, “There must be something good on TV. You can all leave. Bye. I love you.”
I love you too, Jetblue. And I pine for the time I next feel the warm embrace of your wings.
The second reason JFK beats LaGuardia and Newark – the other choices – hands down is the ease of cheap access to the city. LaGuardia is a bitch to get to and from on public transportation (subway to bus to airport, hope to desperate prayer to despair). Newark is easier, but a little more costly because you have to play with the PATH train, so a trip to Port Authority will set you back $15 and you still have to catch the subway … unless you are staying in Time Square … so you are down another $2.
JFK is on the A train, so you are out $2 for the subway and $5 for the Air Train, which takes you from the Howard Beach stop to all the terminals.
These factors are, of course, not at issue if you have the $50 to grab a cab or want to spend the $25 for a private shuttle bus. I simply prefer to use that money for a day or two more wandering … on each end of the trip (you do have to fly out again, right? Right?).
Besides, this is a confession of my love and sick brand loyalty, not an intellectual screed.
JFK is my preferred gateway to the city for two reasons. First, it is Jetblue’s hub and I’ve got a thing for Jetblue – a not entirely wholesome thing when you are talking about wanting a long-term sexual relationship with an airline, but I’ve said it and I stand behind my statement. Jetblue offers good service, great prices and a casual attitude toward travel that causes my wanderer bowels to twitter a little.
“We’re here to get you there,” she whispers, hot and wet, in my ear. “Come, ride me.”
Yes, yes, oh sweet Jesus, yessssssss!
Sorry about that. Can I take a second to compose myself?
Better now.
My trip from New Orleans to NYC set me back $124, because I checked two bags. That was cheaper than a bus by almost $100 and I was in the air for less than three hours, compared to 36 hours on the road by bus. And, I got to watch “Groundhog Day” on TBS, in the air, on free headphones.
Besides, when we were all waiting to deplane, the pilot walked out of the flight deck, looked at us all standing there and said, “There must be something good on TV. You can all leave. Bye. I love you.”
I love you too, Jetblue. And I pine for the time I next feel the warm embrace of your wings.
The second reason JFK beats LaGuardia and Newark – the other choices – hands down is the ease of cheap access to the city. LaGuardia is a bitch to get to and from on public transportation (subway to bus to airport, hope to desperate prayer to despair). Newark is easier, but a little more costly because you have to play with the PATH train, so a trip to Port Authority will set you back $15 and you still have to catch the subway … unless you are staying in Time Square … so you are down another $2.
JFK is on the A train, so you are out $2 for the subway and $5 for the Air Train, which takes you from the Howard Beach stop to all the terminals.
These factors are, of course, not at issue if you have the $50 to grab a cab or want to spend the $25 for a private shuttle bus. I simply prefer to use that money for a day or two more wandering … on each end of the trip (you do have to fly out again, right? Right?).
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