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?)

Boundaries

I was reading an article in Newsweek yesterday about children of privilege who go on to become terrorists, guerilla fighters or outright criminals: Leopold and Loeb, Che Guevara, Osama bin Laden, and the recently detained Detroit underwear bomber, the son of a wealthy Nigerian doctor. There were other examples, too, and as I recall the ringleader of the 9/11 terrorists grew up in relative privilege in Egypt.

This got me thinking about the link between the freedom that comes with wealth and corresponding feelings of sadness or emptiness. It's not a new idea -- Edward Arlington Robinson wrote "Richard Cory" more than a century ago. A core feeling that money has failed to produce fulfillment, which presumably led Richard Cory to kill himself, may also lead some jihadists to turn to their fanatical ideals.

If you talk to teachers or parents, they'll tell you that children want boundaries. They want direction and discipline, even while they chafe against it. The same is true of dogs, who often seem happier with the attention and direction they get from good training than when their neuroses are running wild.

I think the same is true of all of us. We need the structure and discipline of boundaries and rules, even if only the rules we set for our own conduct. People have an inherent ability to prosper and flourish in difficult circumstances -- how often have we heard older couples say the leanest years of their marriages were the happiest, or heard elderly people look back with nostalgic longing for difficult periods like World War II or the Depression? The rigors imposed by those circumstances helped guide their lives, reducing their choices and their opportunities for wallowing in destructive emotions like self-pity.

I'm not saying we need less freedom. But it's interesting that we yearn, by nature, for some level of discipline and maybe even austerity. When we don't have it, we become Paris Hilton -- particularly if wealth and excess become substitutes for any real human emotion.

(Photo: Aliens in Chelsea, last Friday.)

I Made This!

OK, it looks like a train wreck, but I'm happy when I make anything. And it tastes great, I gotta say.

This is known as a Paris-Brest Cake. We were watching an old episode of one of Jacques Pepin's cooking shows last weekend when he made this cake, which is supposedly shaped like a bicycle wheel to commemorate a historic annual bike race between Paris and Brest, France. It's made of a pastry known as Pate Choux, and filled with pastry cream and whipped cream.

It's basically a huge, round eclair, without the chocolate.

When Jacques made it, I said, "Wow, we should do that!" So we picked up the ingredients and with Dave's guidance, I made the Pate Choux and shaped the cake. (Technique: After filling a pastry tube with dough, and using the circular impression made by a pot lid as a guide, the cook squirts the dough in layered rings.) We baked it and Dave made the pastry cream and whipped cream (ok, so I didn't do all the work). We cut the top off the cake and layered the cream inside with roasted hazelnuts, and put the top back on. Voila!

The recipe was hilarious: a dozen eggs, two sticks of butter. Any doctor would blanch.*

But that hasn't stopped me from eating several pieces over the past few days. Is it any wonder I ran five miles yesterday, and went to the gym again today?!

Our only mistake was pulling the pastry out of the oven a tad too early. This caused the cake to fall a bit, making it harder to cut and layer with filling (and making it far less photogenic). But the inside was cooked enough so that the pastry is formed, and I was pleased with the results!

*The linked recipe is not the one we followed, which was from Dave's culinary school books. This one is significantly lighter, or maybe just smaller.

Kid Acne

When I went walking in Chelsea on Friday, I found seven pieces of street art by Kid Acne. They all followed this theme, a woman with a sword. I didn't know whose they were until someone on Flickr tipped me off to the artist's name. (This is why we call Flickr a "hive mind," with everyone working together to flesh out the knowledge offered there!)

Zambia

I can't remember the name of the capital of Zambia.

I used to know all the countries and capitals of Africa. I studied the map for hours as a child, fantasizing about the exotic places it depicted, the zebras and hippos and vast rivers, the palm trees that are used to make wine.

And then I went there. I even went to Zambia, though only across the border from Zimbabwe at Victoria Falls. I walked in, walked out again, just to see the falls from the other side.

Isn't it strange how our brains let go of things, particularly those academic factoids we don't use? I probably couldn't do algebra now. I couldn't begin to name the periodic table of the elements. (I suppose there may even be new elements, discovered since I learned the table -- just as some countries and capitals on the map of Africa have different names.)

I remember reading somewhere that living means learning to let go -- to deal with loss. Those losses speed up as you get older. The fact that I can't remember the capital of Zambia makes me feel older. But then, that's not such a serious loss, is it?

(Photo: Sticker by Canadian street artist Charlie Green. I never take street art -- I always photograph it and leave it for the next person to find -- but in this case I boosted the sticker. It's now in my photo album. I have a soft spot for Charlie Green's wise, whimsical creatures, with their third eye.)

Suitcases

One of my goals while in the city yesterday was to meet with my friend Sybil, from the Zendo. Sybil used to work in photography and publishing, and has written a few books herself. I was interested in getting her advice about possibly publishing some of my photos.

As you know, I've produced two Blurb books of my favorites, but that's not really publishing -- not really. What I'd ideally like to do is find an agent and produce a real book, or maybe postcards or greeting cards or something. Sybil had some useful ideas about individuals and publishers to talk to, and I hope to follow up on some of that in coming weeks.


I'm especially interested in figuring out the commercial potential for all this material now that I'm not working myself. Several people have suggested I put together some graffiti books, but I shy away from that for legal reasons (I think I'd have to get permission from all the artists, which would be a laborious process) as well as ethical ones (should I be profiting from someone else's art, which they've given away for free on the streets?). I'm more inclined to publish "city life" photos like these.

Sybil thought reaching out to publishers specializing in books about New York and those with a Buddhist bent would be a good idea. I've long thought of my photography as an expression of the impermanence and fleeting nature of life that Buddhism emphasizes. So maybe I'll start there.


Yesterday I walked around Chelsea with my little point-and-shoot camera and took these shots, before meeting Sybil. I took the top photo first, then zoomed out for a wider angle with and without pedestrians. I actually took about ten shots of this wall; these are my favorite three.