Activities

This has been a busy week!

On Tuesday I went to Perth Amboy, on the New Jersey coast near Staten Island. A friend on Flickr had told me about a hot graffiti spot there, so I drove over and checked it out. Among the many pieces I found was this one, "Equinox," which is pretty great, if you ask me. Nice colors, nice lettering, nice proportion.

It was a fun drive. I always like exploring new areas, and I found several more graffiti sites along the way, so it was a productive afternoon of photography. At one point I found myself scrambling through brush on the side of a highway overpass, so it was kind of an adventure, too!

Then, yesterday, I had to go into the city for a meeting. When I registered to collect unemployment -- which as I understand it is paid by my erstwhile employer for a period of weeks on my behalf -- I was told I had to attend a mandatory meeting at an unemployment office. As you can imagine, it was bureaucracy in action.


I suppose if I knew nothing about how to search for a job, it might have been helpful. The presenters talked about the services their office could provide (mainly things like help with resume writing and basic training on computers). I filled out some forms. Then I met individually with an employment counselor who spent most of the time talking about the wonderful view of Central Park from Bergdorf-Goodman. (I was thinking, "I'm unemployed. Do I look like I'm going to Bergdorf-Goodman anytime soon?")

The counselor did tell me that she thought the print size on my resume was too small, and I should enlarge it. So I suppose that was something.

Then I went to meet my friend Dan for lunch. Dan's partner Jimmy is on the City Council in New York, and he was taking part in a press conference on behalf of our senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, who is emphasizing her support for gay rights as part of her reelection campaign. Dan and I stood on the steps of City Hall and watched the press conference -- in 20-degree weather. It was interesting because I'd never been to New York City Hall, and although I've been to tons of press conferences as an ideally objective reporter, I've never been to one where I could actually applaud and express support for the subject at hand.

We had lunch in the historic Woolworth Building in lower Manhattan, and then I caught a train back to New Jersey, carrying a heavy backpack containing all my dishes. (Dave decided he's sick of his own dishes, so I shlepped mine out from the city. Fortunately it's a small set!)

Received!

You know that check I was complaining about in yesterday's post? Well, it arrived yesterday afternoon. Mailed on the 13th, delivered on the 27th. I'd love to know where it's been all this time.

The important thing, though, is that I now have it. Whew!

(Photo: Steps in Greenwich Village, last Saturday.)

Check's in the Mail

There is a curious torture associated with waiting for something to arrive in the mail.

I've been waiting for almost two weeks now, and lately, as humans, we're not used to waiting at all. We usually get everything instantaneously, communicating with email and texts and cell phones. We have the information of our global cultures at our fingertips on the Internet.

What I don't have, and what I've been waiting for, is my severance payment from my erstwhile employer.

For some reason, they chose to mail me a paper check. Why, I have no idea. I've had direct deposit for a decade. When I was laid off, I asked how my severance would be paid, and was told it would be deposited just like my paychecks.

But it wasn't. It was mailed, via plain old, everyday, 44-cent mail.

Problem is, I no longer receive my mail in New York. I've been having it forwarded to Dave's, and its arrival has been sporadic at best. I get a piece here, a piece there. I still don't have my New Yorker from last week, though my Newsweek managed to arrive. I got a letter mailed from the Zendo within a few days; other pieces have taken much more time.

Of course, this is not a small check. It's tens of thousands of dollars, and it's just wandering around out there, probably shelved in some dusty corner of a New York City post office by moderately competent postal workers. I'm trying to be very Zen about it, reminding myself that eventually it will arrive and until then there's nothing I can do, but frankly it makes me crazy.

(A friend suggested that my company mailed me a check in order to hang onto the money for a few more days, thereby earning interest. If that's the case, they must be overjoyed that the postal service is keeping it in limbo.)

(Photo: Pigeons in Brighton Beach. Note the Cyrillic writing on the sign -- it's a very Russian neighborhood.)

Death of Reason

Sometimes I fear that reason, as a goal of society and humanity, is dying.

I'm not a philosopher or a student of philosophy, so I'm no expert, but I think it's clear that some of our great historical thinkers -- Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and others -- valued reason as a tool for navigating the questions of existence. Approaching issues from a reasonable, thinking perspective, with the ability to gather and weigh evidence and come to enlightened conclusions, helped society evolve from European feudalism to a more egalitarian model. It shaped our nation and our ideals.

Nowadays, there seems to be a worldwide backlash against this approach. We see it in the deniers of evolution, the so-called "family values" crusaders, the home schoolers, the evangelical Christians, the radical Islamists, the Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Faith, and fighting to the death for faith, has replaced a reasonable worldview for much of the planet's population and many of its leaders.

This isn't entirely new. The Scopes monkey trial took place nearly a century ago, and there have always been elements of society that denied the reasonable, rational approach. But I think there was once a respect for the great thinkers, the scientists and philosophers who advanced ideas about our origins and destinations. Now they are mocked, ridiculed, criticized as anti-God or anti-Bible, or labeled blasphemers or heretics.

When I was in school the word "heretic" seemed so antiquated -- something associated with the Inquisition. Now we see it used all the time by religious fanatics.

I've said it before -- I am not anti-religion. But I am definitely anti-extremism. I think the planet is drifting toward a more extremist existence, and away from moderation and reason. Why this is, I'm not sure -- I think it's grounded in overpopulation and a primal need to fight for turf. We're the proverbial rats in a cage.

People often muse about the death of empires, and whether the United States is in its descendancy as a world power. If we are, I think this is why. We're abandoning sensible, reasonable approaches to issues and to each other, and wallowing instead in extremist faith-based arguments that can only hinder our scientific, social and political progress.

(Photo: Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.)

Bathing Dogs

I spent this morning giving a bath to my four-legged pals, Ernie and Ruby. They're very clean dogs, usually, since they spend all their time inside and they're not a particularly malodorous breed (unlike, say, black labs). We can usually get away with bathing them every couple of months.

But lately they'd been smelling a little doggy. They have a nice, toasty smell -- Dave likens it to Fritos, and he's right -- but even that can gradually get too intense. There's such a thing as Too Much Frito.

They aren't particularly crazy about bath time, so the routine goes like this:

1. Lure the unsuspecting tail-wagging dog into the bathroom with soft approving noises.
2. Block its escape when it understands what's coming.
3. Hoist all 45 pounds into the tub.
4. Baste liberally.
5. Douse with shampoo.
6. Scrub, while simultaneously frontally blocking the dog's insistent push toward the edge of the tub.
7. Baste repeatedly, continuing frontal block, until all suds disappear.
8. Remove wristwatch you forgot to remove at beginning of procedure, and hope it will still work.
9. Grab towel and shroud dog before it has a chance to shake.
10. Allow dog to escape tub, and towel vigorously. Realize dog must basically air-dry.
11. Watch with dismay as dog shakes.
11. Repeat procedure (except step 8) for second dog.
12. Spend half an hour cleaning the bathroom.

I did the best I could, though it was hardly a professional job. They're far less Frito-ey now.

(Photo: Vent in a graffiti-covered shipping container in Brighton Beach. Not sure why the shipping container had a vent.)

Brighton Beach

Yesterday morning I took the train into the city and went out to Brighton Beach, in Brooklyn. I'd never been there, and I wanted to check out this area that Neil Simon made famous in his stage play "Brighton Beach Memoirs."

When Neil Simon lived there as a boy, it was a largely Jewish community. Now it's very Russian -- perhaps still Jewish, I don't know. Many of the signs are in the cyrillic alphabet, and the stores clearly cater to the neighborhood's Russian clientele.

I was surprised not to find much graffiti, at least down at street level. (There may have been more up on rooftops, where it could be seen by the passing elevated trains.) But there was still plenty to photograph, especially with such crystal clear light and a cloudless sky. The old Russians were out on the boardwalk, taking in the sun, even with temperatures that were far from balmy.


When I was done walking around Brighton Beach I made my way west to nearby Coney Island and had a hot dog at Nathan's. Then I hopped on the train and came back to Manhattan, where I stopped by the offices of my erstwhile employer to have coffee with my friend Kenneth. Both of us lost our jobs in the most recent round of layoffs, though Kenneth is working through February -- we just traded gossip and caught up on all the drama.

Dave came into the city last night and we went to see the pianist Markus Groh and the Tokyo String Quartet at the 92nd Street Y. It was an all-Beethoven program. I've never been a huge Beethoven fan (Schroeder would be appalled!) but I particularly enjoyed Groh's performance -- from where I was sitting I couldn't see the keyboard, but I swear the guy must have four hands.

Candy, Mandy and Sandy

I'm reading Adam Gopnik's book "Through the Children's Gate," about his return with his family to New York from Paris in 1999. He describes the ever-changing nature of the city, the buildings that disappear so new ones can be erected, the shops that close, the blandness that encroaches with gentrification.

I was reminded of the gentrification of my own neighborhood, which has undergone substantial changes in just the seven years I've lived there. The most vivid example of that gentrification is the story of Candy, Mandy and Sandy.

When I moved to East 29th Street in 2002, a rotating group of hookers used to hang out on a nearby corner, at 28th Street and Lexington Avenue. A friend who lived the next block up jokingly called them Candy, Mandy and Sandy. There were actually more than three, but several resembled each other very closely and we settled on that collective nickname.

I hadn't had much experience spotting prostitutes, and I always wondered if I would know one if I saw one. Well, let me tell you, with Candy, Mandy and Sandy, there was no question. They wore the most absurdly inappropriate clothing I've ever seen on the streets of New York -- stiletto patent leather thigh-high boots, miniskirts that failed to cover anything, cleavage-squeezing tube tops, sequins, feathers. They were cartoons of hookers. They were so blatant, I wondered if they were undercover cops.

Their behavior suggested not. I passed them on the sidewalk sometimes early on Sunday mornings, when they were finishing up their Saturday night shifts. They were often loudly and sloppily arguing or laughing with each other -- they seemed only capable of extremes. I wondered why they chose that particular corner, and assumed it had to do with the proximity of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, which funnels traffic from Long Island into Manhattan, and the taxi company offices on Lexington Avenue, where drivers would finish their shifts with pockets full of cash.

Within months of moving into my building, I had an alarming encounter with one of them: As I waited on the first floor for the elevator, the doors opened and inside was Candy, descending from an upper floor. She was counting money. I am not making this up.

Unfortunately for those of us who hate the tide of gentrification that has imposed a child-friendly suburban sameness on much of New York, Candy, Mandy and Sandy have all disappeared. I haven't seen a hooker on that corner for several years. It's possible they're still out there at odd hours when I'm in bed asleep, but I doubt it.

I hope they've moved on to greener pastures, however they define them.

(Photo: Street art in the Meatpacking District, with a rock tagged by Ricky -- perhaps a male counterpart of Candy, Mandy and Sandy?)