Tacky

Speaking of buying things, here are some of the unusual items displayed on the sidewalk outside an imports store on West 28th Street. First, a pair of fake cats sleeping in a basket ($3)...


Next, a grimy wall plaque ($1)...


Followed by my personal favorite, a plastic tree with fake birds that plugs in and lights up ($2)...


And finally, to top everything off, a plastic clock shaped like a house with a fake aquarium in the front window ($18).

Kind of boggles the mind to think that entire factories in China are churning this stuff out...although I really do want that tree!

Times Square, February 2007

I was talking to some folks at the Zendo on Sunday about the best way to improve working conditions for laborers overseas. A couple of people said they try not to buy much, reasoning that cuts the demand for sweatshop-produced clothing.

I said I wasn’t sure that was the answer - it reduces demand and may close the factory, but merely throws people out of work and leaves the exploitative labor system in place. The answer is to change the system, perhaps through unionizing or, as one person suggested, regulating labor standards for overseas producers of goods sold in this country. (Yeah, I know - fat chance. It’s an interesting idea, but what a nightmare to enforce!)

Anyway, I have to backtrack a little, because buying less (or buying used) is also smart. It preserves the environment, conserves resources and reduces waste, and selective spending can help change the market for the better.


I come from a long line of parsimonious protestants, so buying little comes naturally to me. (My Mom always jokes that if everyone were like her, the economy would collapse.) I’m fine with spending money on experiences - such as travel or eating out or a show - but I’m not very interested in stuff.

I guess ultimately, “selective” is the key word. Buying less is a good first step, but buying carefully is the ideal.

First Street, East Village, March 2007

Here's a novel idea: a thank-you note for the trash collector, written on a bale of discarded cardboard. A love letter, even.

I like this corner of the East Village, which I visited on my first trip to New York in 1995 and pretty much every trip after. I spent a memorable afternoon at One and One, a pub at First Street and First Avenue, bonding over beers with my old friend Arthur. And right up the avenue is Lucky Cheng's, where my friend Sue and I had dinner 12 years ago, at the recommendation of our elegant blonde bartender at Harry Cipriani in the Sherry Netherland Hotel.

Back then, Lucky Cheng's seemed crazy and urban, a restaurant in a former bathhouse where Asian drag queens waited tables. Going there, we felt very "in the know." But then I found out it's a multi-city chain, and when we went back - this time in New Orleans - we had terrible food (a sin in New Orleans) and bad service. I haven't been back since, and I've only been to One and One a handful of times.

I guess both are important to my past, but not really relevant to my present. I still like the neighborhood, though.

I went to see "Zodiac" last night. It's an interesting movie, though a little too long. Jake Gyllenhaal seems to be the poster child for the film, but the cast is pretty large, and Jake disappears for long periods of time. As far as I'm concerned, Mark Ruffalo wins the "sexiest actor" award in this movie, Jake or no Jake.

Elizabeth Street, NoLIta, March 2007

One day, Enkan called to his attendant, “Bring me the rhinoceros fan.”
The attendant said, “The fan is broken.”
Enkan said, “If the fan is broken, then bring me back the rhinoceros!”
The attendant made no reply.
Shifuku drew a circle and wrote the word “rhino” inside it.

This is a koan, one of those perplexing Zen riddles that some practitioners work with during their meditation. This particular koan played a prominent role in a ceremony we held Sunday at the Zendo as we concluded our retreat.

I don’t have much personal experience with koans. As I understand it, they are not meant to be solved with linear thinking, like you would solve a standard puzzle. Instead, they’re meant to lead you to a place beyond the boundaries of your usual thought process - outside the box, as they say - and bring you a spark of illumination.

This is a beautiful koan - a poem, really. The broken fan, the powerful rhinoceros, the unending perfection of the circle: Terrific images.

I don’t really have any business trying to explain it - I would be out of my depth. To dramatically oversimplify the explanation I heard Sunday, our minds are the rhinoceros.

After I left the Zendo, I walked home beneath a sunny blue sky, through streets running with slushy meltwater. I shot the photo above through a fence, which surrounded a yard full of garden statuary and kept the snow inside clean, white and even.

Hell's Kitchen, December 2006

In the far west 50s are several recording studios used primarily, I think, for Latin music. This is part of a mural on one of them, at 53rd Street and 10th Avenue. Such drama!

I was at an all-day retreat yesterday at the Zendo, and it turned out to be a really good day. Some retreats feel like slogging through quicksand, every breath a labor. But yesterday I felt really “on,” really in tune with the experience.

In Buddhism you often hear the term “monkey mind” used to describe the restless, ever-mischievous nature of our minds. Ideally, in meditation, you are aware of that monkey mind, and you just kind of watch its Curious George act as it grasps thoughts and ideas, turning them over in its little hands. You don’t let yourself get swept up in any of those thoughts. You just watch your mind bring them up, and then let them float away as your mind, in its monkeyness, finds something new to play with.

It’s amazing what comes up when I sit. Sometimes my mind wants to rehash a conversation I had with my boss earlier in the week, or it wants to mull over that morning’s exchange with one of my Zen teachers. Sometimes it wants me to think about the next picture I’ll use on my blog. Sometimes it wants to argue with people who aren’t there. Sometimes it produces a romantic fantasy, or even a sexual one. All of this happens on the cushion, completely unbidden, and I just let it all rise up and float away.

So yesterday, I was greatly amused watching my monkey mind put on a show every bit as dramatic as the singer in this photo. I actually described the day’s sitting as “fun,” which brought chuckles from some others in the group, but it really was. You just never know what Curious George is going to do next.

E. 30th Street, February 2007

I took this photo a month ago, but soon enough, our sidewalks will once again be rimed with this thinning layer of ice. Winter descended for perhaps its last gasp yesterday, sprinkling us with snow and freezing rain and turning the city to slush. We still haven’t seen much of a spring here, though we had a few tantalizingly balmy days this week. Yesterday was a reminder that we’re not there yet.

Making my way to the office in the morning, I wasn’t enjoying the weather at all. I had a lot on my mind, thinking about the coming day, and something about the chill and the bluster was a little hard to take.

But in the dark evening, on the way home, I had the opposite experience. The crystals of ice and snow glittered silver as they fell beneath the streetlights. The wind whipped around corners and turned my umbrella inside out. It was kind of wild and fun.

At the corner of 32nd Street and Lexington Avenue, I stood looking uptown at the lighted crown of the Chrysler Building, glowing through the white haze of the falling snow. Traffic was sparse on Lexington, and the neighborhood seemed unusually quiet and muffled. There weren’t many pedestrians out; the ice pattered softly on my umbrella.

I soaked up that moment, knowing that soon enough, spring will be here. I like spring, but there are things I’ll miss about winter.

Upper East Side, January 2007

I've been trying to experiment a bit with taking photos of people. It's kind of hard with my camera, because its wide-angle lens tends to make things seem more distant than they are. So the people wind up being pretty small, unless I get right up in their faces, which in New York is probably not wise.

I haven't had the courage to take a photo of a perfect stranger head-on and risk confrontation. I took these photos surreptitiously, standing or sitting near them and holding the camera down near my waist. Which sounds like a kind of silly, Dick Tracy way of taking a picture. But it leads to interesting, spontaneous composition!

The woman above was standing on 57th Street, having a smoke outside an office and wearing that awesome furry fluorescent green jacket.


This elderly lady was sitting outside a senior citizen home on First or Second Avenue.

I think more discerning people pictures will have to wait until I get a better camera, or develop more fortitude about approaching strangers. Meanwhile, at least you can see that there really ARE people in New York. It's not just a city of empty doorways and cool tree shadows - in case you were wondering.