Three months ago, I discovered I'd been an unwitting scofflaw for two decades. Devoted readers may recall the beginning of this story. Now that my misadventure and record have been resolved, the details are about to unspool in a Lord Zim first, a serialized narrative.
Welcome to the beginning of the end of the story of the longest-lasting minor infraction of my life.
Back to Monroe
"If the bus left at 9:10, why did you tell me 9:05? You lied to me."
He was joking. Bored and hating the bus ride, he was hassling to kill time. Probably. But he was right. I had lied. I tried honesty. "OK, I did lie. Yes. But I lied to myself to make sure I got there on time. And then I couldn't tell myself one thing and you another."
"Oh ho. You couldn't tell you one thing and me another. That's good." He smiled and looked away again. I smiled too, nodded, then turned to look out the window. Snow was melting all over outside, from the shopping centers to the slender third-growth trees to the rustic motels passing by. The blizzard had been huge but the sun was already erasing it.
"But ... you still lied to me." He wasn't quite done.
I didn't want to look at him again, but I turned anyway, slowly, to face him. "No more than I was lying to myself."
"But you lied to me."
"Yes."
Why had I lied? After the policeman stopped me for taking a walk in the wrong neighborhood and revealed my license had been suspended in New York State for 20 years because of a speeding ticket I don't remember getting, I went home and made some calls and determined that I had to go back to the scene of the crime to pay my debt to society. I had to go to Monroe, NY, to post bail. I couldn't just plead guilty to the speeding charge, because then it would go on my record. Big deal, I thought, until the court clerk said it might affect my insurance and my insurance agent back in LA agreed. He wasn't sure, but it was possible -- even likely, he allowed -- that insurance rates might be determined not by the original citation date but by the conviction date.
Usually, those two are just months apart. But in my case, the citation and the conviction, if there were indeed to be one, spanned a period in which the Berlin Wall had fallen, families had formed, children been born and educated and shipped off to college, computers and cell phones had nearly taken over the world, and both Islam and China had risen from impoverished slumber to threaten the American way of life. I had played unwitting scofflaw for an entire generation, and now my chickens had come home to roost.
We'd been roosting on the bus for almost an hour. P had subsided some, bored into submission, but my tailbone was killing me. I'd slipped on the sidewalk the first night of the blizzard, and the bruise was taking a long time to go away.
I'd lied to get myself to the accursed morning bus on time. Lying to him was just collateral damage.
"Look!" I said. That sign says 'Mt. P----.' (his name)"
"As far as I'm concerned, that's a sentence," he said. "An imperative command." I stayed put. He didn't mean me. I retrieved the last of our chocolate bar from the mesh bag on the seatback before me and broke it into two through the wrapper and we finished it. Ritter Sport milk chocolate with almonds. It was the least I could do. He was giving up most of a day to make up for this barely explicable mishap that had started with his storage needs 20 years ago.
... to be continued.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Snappy Service
S and I had dinner last night. He's in town for a design expo and we met at an open studio in Williamsburg. Afterward, we walked across the street to the Sweetwater something, a charming little bar/restaurant on Sixth. A middle-aged French guy with an expensively scruffy haircut led us to a row of three two-tops set snugly in the back of the room, more of a table for six with narrow gaps to help you lose silverware. The end tables were occupied, so S had to slither in to take his center seat against the wall. Good thing he's an exercise nut; an average American would have gotten stuck like Winnie the Pooh in Rabbit's hole.
As he shimmied between the tables and our new neighbors watched in fear, I remarked to the man seating us, "This is cozy. Do I need a condom to sit down?"
He smiled and hissed, "Maybe next time you'll reserve the whole restaurant."
Oh.
I wanted to respond in kind but realized we were already in danger of food-borne reprisals. I nearly said, "OK, that's it, let's go," but it would have taken the Jaws of Life to get S back out again, so I just smiled back and sat down and hoped for the best. We didn't see him again. In any event, the dish our server recommended (John Dory in a tomato-basil reduction) was so good I didn't care about anything else.
The design shops on Sixth are full of really thought-provoking eye candy right now and worth a visit if you have the time or interest.
Post-script: High school pal A, a longtime Brooklynite, notes the "French" host is not French; he is from Argentina. That makes sense, because Buenos Aires is "the Paris of South America," which sounds like a ridiculous cliché until you're there and then the similarities are obvious. It is also the psychiatry and plastic surgery capital of South America, and its famously snotty residents are known unaffectionately as "Porteños." It all seems very French from where I sit.
As he shimmied between the tables and our new neighbors watched in fear, I remarked to the man seating us, "This is cozy. Do I need a condom to sit down?"
He smiled and hissed, "Maybe next time you'll reserve the whole restaurant."
Oh.
I wanted to respond in kind but realized we were already in danger of food-borne reprisals. I nearly said, "OK, that's it, let's go," but it would have taken the Jaws of Life to get S back out again, so I just smiled back and sat down and hoped for the best. We didn't see him again. In any event, the dish our server recommended (John Dory in a tomato-basil reduction) was so good I didn't care about anything else.
The design shops on Sixth are full of really thought-provoking eye candy right now and worth a visit if you have the time or interest.
Post-script: High school pal A, a longtime Brooklynite, notes the "French" host is not French; he is from Argentina. That makes sense, because Buenos Aires is "the Paris of South America," which sounds like a ridiculous cliché until you're there and then the similarities are obvious. It is also the psychiatry and plastic surgery capital of South America, and its famously snotty residents are known unaffectionately as "Porteños." It all seems very French from where I sit.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Street Theatre: One Angry Man
Around midnight one recent Thursday, a private party was winding down at a high-priced bar on 23rd Street. Outside, a short dark man in rumpled business casual was screaming at the bouncers. Sweat plastered locks of straight black hair to his head and a bag of groceries kept one hand busy, but he used the other to point and wave wildly over the velvet rope.
“You don’t have a job tomorrow, and you don’t have a job tomorrow, and you don’t have a job tomorrow!” The bouncers just watched him, murmuring occasionally to one another or letting legitimate guests into the party. When the angry hand came too close, an Asian bouncer in a black leather duster said flatly, "Touch me and you're dead." The shouter wasn't immediately deterred, but he vented a while longer and eventually walked away. A minute later he came lurching back, screamed some more, and left again.
Afterward, the oldest of the bouncers, a black man in an impeccable suit and tie, said, "We get guys like that a few times a week. Not often, but more than we'd like." The duster added, "Sometimes the smallest guys are the most aggressive. Especially when they drink."
I coasted east on my bike to see if the angry man was causing any more trouble. By the time I spotted him, he'd quieted down and was making his way heavily toward Seventh Ave. He peered closely at a restaurant menu, hesitated out front, and then moved on to cross the street and descend into the uptown subway station.
“You don’t have a job tomorrow, and you don’t have a job tomorrow, and you don’t have a job tomorrow!” The bouncers just watched him, murmuring occasionally to one another or letting legitimate guests into the party. When the angry hand came too close, an Asian bouncer in a black leather duster said flatly, "Touch me and you're dead." The shouter wasn't immediately deterred, but he vented a while longer and eventually walked away. A minute later he came lurching back, screamed some more, and left again.
Afterward, the oldest of the bouncers, a black man in an impeccable suit and tie, said, "We get guys like that a few times a week. Not often, but more than we'd like." The duster added, "Sometimes the smallest guys are the most aggressive. Especially when they drink."
I coasted east on my bike to see if the angry man was causing any more trouble. By the time I spotted him, he'd quieted down and was making his way heavily toward Seventh Ave. He peered closely at a restaurant menu, hesitated out front, and then moved on to cross the street and descend into the uptown subway station.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
'Emotional Support Duck'
From a New York Times article entitled "Wagging the Dog, and a Finger," on the rise of "emotional support animals," which so far require no formal training and minimal certification:
- These days people rely on a veritable Noah's Ark of support animals. Tami McLallen, a spokeswoman for American Airlines, said that although dogs are the most common service animals taken onto planes, the airline has had to accommodate monkeys, miniature horses, cats and even an emotional support duck. "Its owner dressed it up in clothes," she recalled.
There have also been at least two instances (on American and Delta) in which airlines have been presented with emotional support goats. Ms. McLallen said the airline flies service animals every day; all owners need to do is show up with a letter from a mental health professional and the animal can fly free in the cabin.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
100 Words on Learning How to Ride a Bike
Just wrote this for a small online story contest about learning to ride a bike:
P.S. (later): I won.
- After two weekends of trying to shed my training wheels, I'd just ridden almost a full lap around the local track. Euphoria! But where'd dad go? Then I noticed two women by the bleachers. They weren't watching me, but something about them caught my eye and -- Oop! Down I went. Six-year-old me and my shiny red Sears bike, all a-tangle in the dust.
Dad came running over. "You were doing so well -- what happened?"
"I was looking at those ladies," I mourned.
He laughed and delivered this fatherly wisdom: "Looking at ladies will always knock you over."
P.S. (later): I won.
Monday, May 08, 2006
The Podcast Flipout
Curses! Foiled again. I was about to read an interview with writer du jour Etgar Keret on Nextbook, when I discovered it was available only as a podcast.
OK, I know everybody loves podcasts. Tivo for radio. Democratizing the airwaves. Personal narrowcasting. Point-to-point multicasting. Embedded ads. Whatever. Look, I like listening to the radio while driving, but when my eyes are free to scan a website, I'd rather just read, for the simple reason that nuance, background music, sound effects, and all the lovely benefits podcasts and radio offer are generally less important than my ability to read as carefully or as swiftly as the material warrants and my schedule allows. I don't have 15 minutes to listen to every last detail of your vision or your author interview. And am I going to take along a 15-minute interview for my walk or bike ride? Er, no, probably not.
What's driving me nuts lately is this trendy, slavish, contagious editorial policy that dictates selected content be available only as an audio file. WTF? Is transcription too costly? I'm busy -- let me skim and decide if the piece is even worth my attention. Tease the podcast's unique features (Hear Etgar's tummy growl! Listen to Etgar whistle!) in the accompanying text if you want, but don't give up on readers ... lest they give up on you.
Y'know, I've read enough about Etgar lately. I'll skip Nextbook's version of the author clusterfuck and just read something else. Harrumph!
By the way, I heard Etgar read and talk last week while he was doing an NYC circuit to support his latest collection, "The Nimrod Flipout," and he was great. He shared the stage with his Israeliterati predecessor David Grossman, whose work I like less, but who was nevertheless incandescent in his closing remarks on why Israel needs peace.
OK, I know everybody loves podcasts. Tivo for radio. Democratizing the airwaves. Personal narrowcasting. Point-to-point multicasting. Embedded ads. Whatever. Look, I like listening to the radio while driving, but when my eyes are free to scan a website, I'd rather just read, for the simple reason that nuance, background music, sound effects, and all the lovely benefits podcasts and radio offer are generally less important than my ability to read as carefully or as swiftly as the material warrants and my schedule allows. I don't have 15 minutes to listen to every last detail of your vision or your author interview. And am I going to take along a 15-minute interview for my walk or bike ride? Er, no, probably not.
What's driving me nuts lately is this trendy, slavish, contagious editorial policy that dictates selected content be available only as an audio file. WTF? Is transcription too costly? I'm busy -- let me skim and decide if the piece is even worth my attention. Tease the podcast's unique features (Hear Etgar's tummy growl! Listen to Etgar whistle!) in the accompanying text if you want, but don't give up on readers ... lest they give up on you.
Y'know, I've read enough about Etgar lately. I'll skip Nextbook's version of the author clusterfuck and just read something else. Harrumph!
By the way, I heard Etgar read and talk last week while he was doing an NYC circuit to support his latest collection, "The Nimrod Flipout," and he was great. He shared the stage with his Israeliterati predecessor David Grossman, whose work I like less, but who was nevertheless incandescent in his closing remarks on why Israel needs peace.
Automatic Writing
Ever read your spam? I didn't think so. Well, you don't know what you're missing. Oh sure, most of it's just drivel, intentionally misspelled names of drugs that modify your sexual and emotional performance, or hot tips on penny stocks, and almost all of it is dull and annoying, but every once in a while, if you just stop ... stop to smell the email, you stumble upon something worth reading. Something that takes you right back to Ionesco by way of Monty Python. Something like this:
- Now and then, a grain of sand trades baseball cards with the insurance agent. If another CEO befriends the statesmanlike abstraction, then a fruit cake self-flagellates. Most people believe that a dolphin behind the demon satiates a salty inferiority complex, but they need to remember how non-chalantly an eagerly college-educated dolphin ceases to exist. If a tuba player derives perverse satisfaction from some grand piano, then a power drill toward the jersey cow sweeps the floor.
When the cowboy inside some dolphin ruminates, the corporation meditates. Furthermore, the blotched corporation leaves, and a false garbage can barely tries to seduce a parking lot. A tomato is nuclear. lion.
A grand piano teaches a radioactive stovepipe. Indeed, a pork chop pours freezing cold water on a jersey cow from a cargo bay. If a scooby snack related to a power drill cooks cheese grits for the worldly earring, then another flatulent judge rejoices. The mating ritual living with the paycheck, a cowboy about a hole puncher, and a freight train of another tuba player are what made America great! Now and then, the tornado buries the gentle chess board.
A cosmopolitan anomaly operates a small fruit stand with the grand piano. If a pine cone figures out a corporation for a spider, then some mean-spirited CEO wakes up. A frustrating power drill knowingly buries a mortician over the power drill. A traffic light of the spider figures out a line dancer, because a college-educated paper napkin tries to seduce a completely obsequious photon. The abstraction for a fire hydrant ridiculously buys an expensive gift for the demon.
The ostensibly nearest burglar dies, and a dolphin trembles; however, the turkey inside a cocker spaniel knowingly can be kind to a diskette. A loyal sandwich conquers a cloud formation. Now and then, a spider underhandedly finds lice on the avocado pit about the mastadon. An usually obsequious pork chop sweeps the floor, and some customer inside the tabloid wakes up; however, a lover dances with a gentle tripod. Indeed, the tornado goes deep sea fishing with another microscope behind a light bulb.
gotta go
Lucile
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Biker to Spidey: Stop Dead!
Times Square. Broadway. Rush hour.
Navigating my way south between cars, trucks, buses, horses, pedi-cabs, and pedi-people today, I was lit up on that cocktail of adrenalin and hyper-awareness Manhattan requires of all its cyclists. The bike lane was great, but it disappears where Broadway meets Seventh Ave., so I tried hewing to the right for clearer passage. The closer you get to the curb, however, the more pedestrians you find blocking the roadway. This poses a variety of hazards. I used to wear a steel whistle on a fat yellow shoelace, kind of a camp counselor approach to shuffler herding, but that was a long time ago. These days, I'm less inclined to freak people out just because I can. Such wanton, anti-social behavior tarnishes the good reputation cyclists have long enjoyed in this fair metropolis. That said, I don't surrender my right of way easily. So when I saw a bloc of people starting to move off the curb and into the street right in front of me, on the bright afterglow of my green light, I drew a lungful to announce myself.
And then I saw Spiderman. Or some little guy in a full Spiderman suit, head mask and all. He stood on the curb, shoulder to shoulder with the tourists and office-workers, undisturbed by his legions of fans. He was just as impassive and isolated as the next New Yorker, and he was about to step right in front of me. So I yelled at him.
"Hey, Spiderman! Look out!"
Everybody froze for just a second -- like in the movies! -- and that was all I needed to thread safely past. And then ... I started laughing. And laughing and laughing till my face felt funny, like a madman, for ten blocks or more, because I'd had My New York Moment of the Day.
And you know? The street was really clear that whole time.
Navigating my way south between cars, trucks, buses, horses, pedi-cabs, and pedi-people today, I was lit up on that cocktail of adrenalin and hyper-awareness Manhattan requires of all its cyclists. The bike lane was great, but it disappears where Broadway meets Seventh Ave., so I tried hewing to the right for clearer passage. The closer you get to the curb, however, the more pedestrians you find blocking the roadway. This poses a variety of hazards. I used to wear a steel whistle on a fat yellow shoelace, kind of a camp counselor approach to shuffler herding, but that was a long time ago. These days, I'm less inclined to freak people out just because I can. Such wanton, anti-social behavior tarnishes the good reputation cyclists have long enjoyed in this fair metropolis. That said, I don't surrender my right of way easily. So when I saw a bloc of people starting to move off the curb and into the street right in front of me, on the bright afterglow of my green light, I drew a lungful to announce myself.
And then I saw Spiderman. Or some little guy in a full Spiderman suit, head mask and all. He stood on the curb, shoulder to shoulder with the tourists and office-workers, undisturbed by his legions of fans. He was just as impassive and isolated as the next New Yorker, and he was about to step right in front of me. So I yelled at him.
"Hey, Spiderman! Look out!"
Everybody froze for just a second -- like in the movies! -- and that was all I needed to thread safely past. And then ... I started laughing. And laughing and laughing till my face felt funny, like a madman, for ten blocks or more, because I'd had My New York Moment of the Day.
And you know? The street was really clear that whole time.
The SRL-Star Wars Connection
Survival Research Labs meets Star Wars in the "Crusher," which the AP calls a new "6.5-ton, six-wheeled robotic vehicle designed to negotiate harsh terrain" being developed at Carnegie Mellon for the Army.
There would be something creepy about this if it didn't point to a future form of warfare waged by robots against robots. Until, of course, the robots develop sentience -- as any sci-fi fan knows they will -- and inevitably turn pitilessly on their masters!
Hello, Dave.
Postscript: The previously linked AP story is gone, so here's a new item on the Crusher.
There would be something creepy about this if it didn't point to a future form of warfare waged by robots against robots. Until, of course, the robots develop sentience -- as any sci-fi fan knows they will -- and inevitably turn pitilessly on their masters!
Hello, Dave.
Postscript: The previously linked AP story is gone, so here's a new item on the Crusher.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Completist
Hot dog! Someone in Frankfort, Kentucky read all of Lord Zim yesterday. It took just over an hour, starting from the Dateline site on MSNBC and ending with the squirrel mishap of last spring. Dear Frankforter, I am honored by your interest and impressed by your stamina.
A Particulate Essence of Eighth Avenue
Leaving L.A. was hard. Hard to leave so much behind. Once in the airport and free of my two checked bags, however, the familiar lightness of transit rinsed away most of the melancholy. I know it did, because I felt it happen as I rode the escalator up to my red-eye. For all its discomforts, travel is an anaesthetic.
Matters continued to improve on the airplane, where the center seat remained empty after the doors closed. I read the entire L.A. Times, draped my coat over my head, and fell asleep.
Upon arrival at Kennedy a few hours later, I gathered my bags and found the Train to the Plane. Back when I was a Fortune 500 middle manager, I rarely stooped to such ignominious means of transport, but the fact is that it works pretty seamlessly, it's impervious to traffic jams, and it deposits me just a couple blocks from where I need to be. And it's only $7.
On the other hand, it's still the subway. And sometimes you don't get a seat. That's fine when you're riding a couple of miles and have no luggage, but when you're looking at an hour on the hoof with a stack of suitcases after three hours of sleep, you seek options. And then you might see, through the grimy windows between the cars, that the very next one is nearly empty.
At the first stop, I seized my bags and hustled them down the platform to the promised car, hurrying to ensure I didn't get left behind. Just as I reached that car, however, three people stepped in, looked aghast, and ran past me to the car I'd just left.
Uh oh. No time to backtrack -- the luggage would slow me down. Criminy, how bad could it be? My stuff and I entered.
A powerful human stink shoved its fist deep up my nose. Three hobos had commandeered the front half of the car: A wild-eyed young black woman and a stubbly, round-cheeked white guy each huddled in a corner seat, swaddled in layers of shapeless, colorless fabric. Right before me, a lanky black man in raggedy sweats and coat and cap had a long bench to himself. All to himself. His mouth lay slack as he slept, revealing a few select teeth.
I had little choice but to sling my bags down and take the nearest seat, at least till the next stop. About a dozen conventional -- i.e., bathed -- people had distributed themselves from the middle to the rear of the car. How could they stand it?! There on the front lines, I was simultaneously trying not to get used to the smell (for fear of permanently deranging my nose) and to pretend it wasn't as bad as all that. But it was as bad as all that. It was worse. So, snapping back to the take-charge attitude that had once made me such an exemplary middle manager, I took charge after a minute or two and deployed a revolutionary technology.
Most subway cars "of a certain age" have long clerestory windows that fold inward on horizontal hinges. Once I'd snapped open all the nearby vents, that too, too human stench dissipated within minutes as comparatively fresh breezes flooded in from the dank tunnel. Someone at the other end of the car followed my lead, and soon, though no one could have mistaken that car for a flower shop, it became bearable -- perhaps only twice as offensive as the average subway car.
As we rolled through Queens, scooping up office workers, the seats began to fill. Each new passenger looked around in alarm as soon as the stink hit, but few backed out. Someone sat down to my left, closer to the trio even than I. A mousy blonde in a red coat materialized just opposite me, reading the Post. A sternly handsome Latino gentleman wearing a tie and a zippered leather jacket showed up on her left. And so on. Throughout the car's gentrification, the three homeless people remained inert, two of them still alone in their corners, alert, the third prone on his bench.
Eventually, he awoke, stood up, and walked to the front of the car, where he stepped through the door and onto the small platform between the cars. Visible through that same grimy glass, silhouetted against the light from the next car, he was clearly peeing. People looked, then looked away.
On the bench, his woven plastic sack lay loose, almost empty.
He came back in and sat down, then started producing a disturbing noise. It was deep and challenging and repeated, like a bull moose claiming territory. He was trying to clear his throat. Leaning forward, left hand on his thigh and elbow akimbo, he held the right hand up, wrist delicately curved and fingers at his diaphragm as he bellowed. The other two watched. We all watched.
Presently, after the hacking, he produced a battered paper coffee cup, stood again, and slowly walked the length of the car. It was as though he had just played "Misty" on his saxophone and was now collecting. The subway was all things to him: bed, bath -- well, not bath, but bathroom -- and bursar. Except that no one was disbursing. He stopped briefly to tower over each rider and shake the cup at eye level, paying special attention to black riders.
After shaking the cup unsuccessfully at eye level, he'd frown and raise it above the rider's head, then shake it twice more, violently, as if dispensing some of his own luck onto the person pretending to ignore him. Then he'd move on to the next one.
Thus entertained, we reached Manhattan far sooner than I'd expected. I think he got off in disgust at Fifth Avenue, swinging his sack behind him. I still had two stops to go.
Lugging my luggage up the endless stairs, I moved slowly to avoid a sciatic injury. At one point, as I exited the paid-fare zone, I became stuck in the cage of an unmanned turnstile, the narrow cylindrical variety. My bags and I filled the entire floor space, and I was forced to inch forward with mincing little steps, feet confined like a Chinese bride's by the duffel bag's bulk. Visions of immobilization lurched in my head until I emerged slowly, limb by limb, from my own private black comedy.
Two more flights of stairs, and I was back in town, standing on Eighth Avenue on a cold bright Sunday morning. The time was just past 7, and the street was almost empty, except for where I was. A family of motivated tourists surged toward and past me, bundled up and clutching brochures. Two tall tanned athletes in shorts bounded past the other way, toward Central Park. I was struck by their enormous calves and imagined they were soccer players in town for a game.
When I had the sidewalk to myself again, I noticed that someone had scraped off the top layer of Eighth Avenue while I was away. A few years ago, I watched city crews repave the street where I lived in L.A. Before the new road goes on, the old surface layer has to come off. Thus scored, the roadbed forms a strong bond with the glistening black asphalt that pours steaming from trucks and flattens into a roadway beneath the bulldozers.
As I rolled my bag past the Hampton Inn, where the motto "We love having you here" is woven into the dingy fabric of the entryway carpet, a brisk wind scoured dust from the street and blew a particulate essence of Eighth Avenue into my mouth.
Matters continued to improve on the airplane, where the center seat remained empty after the doors closed. I read the entire L.A. Times, draped my coat over my head, and fell asleep.
Upon arrival at Kennedy a few hours later, I gathered my bags and found the Train to the Plane. Back when I was a Fortune 500 middle manager, I rarely stooped to such ignominious means of transport, but the fact is that it works pretty seamlessly, it's impervious to traffic jams, and it deposits me just a couple blocks from where I need to be. And it's only $7.
On the other hand, it's still the subway. And sometimes you don't get a seat. That's fine when you're riding a couple of miles and have no luggage, but when you're looking at an hour on the hoof with a stack of suitcases after three hours of sleep, you seek options. And then you might see, through the grimy windows between the cars, that the very next one is nearly empty.
At the first stop, I seized my bags and hustled them down the platform to the promised car, hurrying to ensure I didn't get left behind. Just as I reached that car, however, three people stepped in, looked aghast, and ran past me to the car I'd just left.
Uh oh. No time to backtrack -- the luggage would slow me down. Criminy, how bad could it be? My stuff and I entered.
A powerful human stink shoved its fist deep up my nose. Three hobos had commandeered the front half of the car: A wild-eyed young black woman and a stubbly, round-cheeked white guy each huddled in a corner seat, swaddled in layers of shapeless, colorless fabric. Right before me, a lanky black man in raggedy sweats and coat and cap had a long bench to himself. All to himself. His mouth lay slack as he slept, revealing a few select teeth.
I had little choice but to sling my bags down and take the nearest seat, at least till the next stop. About a dozen conventional -- i.e., bathed -- people had distributed themselves from the middle to the rear of the car. How could they stand it?! There on the front lines, I was simultaneously trying not to get used to the smell (for fear of permanently deranging my nose) and to pretend it wasn't as bad as all that. But it was as bad as all that. It was worse. So, snapping back to the take-charge attitude that had once made me such an exemplary middle manager, I took charge after a minute or two and deployed a revolutionary technology.
Most subway cars "of a certain age" have long clerestory windows that fold inward on horizontal hinges. Once I'd snapped open all the nearby vents, that too, too human stench dissipated within minutes as comparatively fresh breezes flooded in from the dank tunnel. Someone at the other end of the car followed my lead, and soon, though no one could have mistaken that car for a flower shop, it became bearable -- perhaps only twice as offensive as the average subway car.
As we rolled through Queens, scooping up office workers, the seats began to fill. Each new passenger looked around in alarm as soon as the stink hit, but few backed out. Someone sat down to my left, closer to the trio even than I. A mousy blonde in a red coat materialized just opposite me, reading the Post. A sternly handsome Latino gentleman wearing a tie and a zippered leather jacket showed up on her left. And so on. Throughout the car's gentrification, the three homeless people remained inert, two of them still alone in their corners, alert, the third prone on his bench.
Eventually, he awoke, stood up, and walked to the front of the car, where he stepped through the door and onto the small platform between the cars. Visible through that same grimy glass, silhouetted against the light from the next car, he was clearly peeing. People looked, then looked away.
On the bench, his woven plastic sack lay loose, almost empty.
He came back in and sat down, then started producing a disturbing noise. It was deep and challenging and repeated, like a bull moose claiming territory. He was trying to clear his throat. Leaning forward, left hand on his thigh and elbow akimbo, he held the right hand up, wrist delicately curved and fingers at his diaphragm as he bellowed. The other two watched. We all watched.
Presently, after the hacking, he produced a battered paper coffee cup, stood again, and slowly walked the length of the car. It was as though he had just played "Misty" on his saxophone and was now collecting. The subway was all things to him: bed, bath -- well, not bath, but bathroom -- and bursar. Except that no one was disbursing. He stopped briefly to tower over each rider and shake the cup at eye level, paying special attention to black riders.
After shaking the cup unsuccessfully at eye level, he'd frown and raise it above the rider's head, then shake it twice more, violently, as if dispensing some of his own luck onto the person pretending to ignore him. Then he'd move on to the next one.
Thus entertained, we reached Manhattan far sooner than I'd expected. I think he got off in disgust at Fifth Avenue, swinging his sack behind him. I still had two stops to go.
Lugging my luggage up the endless stairs, I moved slowly to avoid a sciatic injury. At one point, as I exited the paid-fare zone, I became stuck in the cage of an unmanned turnstile, the narrow cylindrical variety. My bags and I filled the entire floor space, and I was forced to inch forward with mincing little steps, feet confined like a Chinese bride's by the duffel bag's bulk. Visions of immobilization lurched in my head until I emerged slowly, limb by limb, from my own private black comedy.
Two more flights of stairs, and I was back in town, standing on Eighth Avenue on a cold bright Sunday morning. The time was just past 7, and the street was almost empty, except for where I was. A family of motivated tourists surged toward and past me, bundled up and clutching brochures. Two tall tanned athletes in shorts bounded past the other way, toward Central Park. I was struck by their enormous calves and imagined they were soccer players in town for a game.
When I had the sidewalk to myself again, I noticed that someone had scraped off the top layer of Eighth Avenue while I was away. A few years ago, I watched city crews repave the street where I lived in L.A. Before the new road goes on, the old surface layer has to come off. Thus scored, the roadbed forms a strong bond with the glistening black asphalt that pours steaming from trucks and flattens into a roadway beneath the bulldozers.
As I rolled my bag past the Hampton Inn, where the motto "We love having you here" is woven into the dingy fabric of the entryway carpet, a brisk wind scoured dust from the street and blew a particulate essence of Eighth Avenue into my mouth.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Gray Lady Throws Dog Blog a Bone
First Dateline, now The New York Times. Two weeks ago, you may have noticed a short item here entitled "Three Dog Night," which described a funny little moment involving a dog, a doorman, and me. Had you been reading the Times' weekly "Metropolitan Diary" column yesterday, you would have seen it again.
After it was posted on Lord Zim, I realized it read just like a Met Diary item, so, being a fan of the column, I sent it in, prefaced by a shameless compliment.
As a friend put it, "Typical you. You're probably the only person I know who would bark, in public, and write about it."
Well, no one else offered to write about it.
Read about it.
After it was posted on Lord Zim, I realized it read just like a Met Diary item, so, being a fan of the column, I sent it in, prefaced by a shameless compliment.
As a friend put it, "Typical you. You're probably the only person I know who would bark, in public, and write about it."
Well, no one else offered to write about it.
Read about it.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Hudson Riverdogs
Can I just holla about how tired I am all the time lately? This exercise business is really not so special once you reach the age of imminent codgerdom. As my high school pal R said last night over dinner at yet another bar, "At our age, life is about pain. Oh sure, after you leave the gym you feel great, but that only lasts a couple hours. Then you just hurt." True enough.
But while your pins are pumping and the bike is whizzing along and the fresh air is blowing bugs into your eyes, is there anything more terrific? After I picked up my bike at the shop again late this afternoon, I rolled off down to the river to watch the sun slanting in bright and golden over New Jersey. It was a glorious day. Spring allegedly manifested itself earlier this week, but for my money -- and that of all the blissed-out Gothamites soaking up the sun down by the Hudson this afternoon -- today was the season's true debut.
Locomotion was just this side of effortless on the flat boardwalk, and before I knew it I was up at 100th St., where folks get kind of ... individual. Don't get me wrong. A, I like individuals just fine, and B, most folks up there are straight shooters, run-of-the-mill types. But not the duo I saw clambering all over the rocks throwing sticks into the river for their three dogs to fetch. That was a rare sight. I pulled over to watch.
He: mustachioed Latino in a plaid jacket and slouch hat.
She: flinty, fading bottle blonde wearing fleece and jersey in bright colors.
Dramatis canidae: a cheery squat pit mix (brindle), a shaky older lab (yellow), and an undergroomed, overfed cocker spaniel (beige).
I stood there benignly observing while the guy wandered around picking up small logs and provoking the dogs with short unintelligible yells as he tossed the wood into the slow-moving river. The dogs were shivering -- fatigue? cold? -- and barking their protests, but wading out faithfully to fetch back the flotsam.
They both clocked me right away, but as I was just standing there with a smile on keeping quiet, they ignored me. Presently, she made her way up the bank and announced, "First day of the year for this!"
"No better day for it," I observed.
"Beautiful. And they love it," she declared.
"I've never seen dogs do this here," I said. "I'm from the West Coast, and we have beaches where dogs do this, but I've never seen dogs jumping into the Hudson."
"What else do we have? This is Manhattan. Everybody's out here with their dogs in the summertime."
"And it's not too cold now?" The older dogs were shivering and looking reproachful, but the pit mix was up on the grass happily splintering a log with her teeth.
"Stop that! No! No!" said the blonde, trying to disengage dog from log with a gentle but firm foot. "You'll get it stuck between your teeth and then you won't be happy." The dog was impervious to logic, cheerfully tearing off big coppery chunks of wood.
"No, they love it," she asserted.
"How old is that one?" I asked, gesturing at the lab, who was shaking and slipping as she tried unsuccessfully to climb out of the water over mossy rocks.
"Flossy? Twelve!"
Twelve is about the age my dogs went down. A twelve-year-old dog is like an 84-year-old person, more or less. I wouldn't have sent my grandmother out for a swim in the Hudson. My lab mix Cosmos would have walked or swum endlessly to please me, despite her arthritis. When I realized the pain she was handling just to keep up with me, I stopped taking her for long walks. That was a year or more before cancer did her in.
I tried to make the point that dogs will ignore and far exceed their own best interests to please their people. The lab looked miserable.
"What? We're not making them do anything. They're jumping in on their own."
I didn't much want to meddle, so, having said my piece, I clammed up. It's easier for an owner to willfully ignore a dog's discomfort than to accept that its age is about to force a change of habit. Dogs and humans form strange compacts, social contracts whereby some portion of each others' needs are met. Barring abuse, does an outsider have a right to meddle? Define abuse. Those two love their dogs and vice-versa. When she told me she was a dog rescuer and that I should get a dog, I said my goodbye and shoved off. Rescuers are generally goodhearted and strange. I turned around a few minutes later, and when I passed them, all the dogs were leashed and still shivering but heading for home.
Oh, why do I get involved with strange people? I should just keep pedaling.
But while your pins are pumping and the bike is whizzing along and the fresh air is blowing bugs into your eyes, is there anything more terrific? After I picked up my bike at the shop again late this afternoon, I rolled off down to the river to watch the sun slanting in bright and golden over New Jersey. It was a glorious day. Spring allegedly manifested itself earlier this week, but for my money -- and that of all the blissed-out Gothamites soaking up the sun down by the Hudson this afternoon -- today was the season's true debut.
Locomotion was just this side of effortless on the flat boardwalk, and before I knew it I was up at 100th St., where folks get kind of ... individual. Don't get me wrong. A, I like individuals just fine, and B, most folks up there are straight shooters, run-of-the-mill types. But not the duo I saw clambering all over the rocks throwing sticks into the river for their three dogs to fetch. That was a rare sight. I pulled over to watch.
He: mustachioed Latino in a plaid jacket and slouch hat.
She: flinty, fading bottle blonde wearing fleece and jersey in bright colors.
Dramatis canidae: a cheery squat pit mix (brindle), a shaky older lab (yellow), and an undergroomed, overfed cocker spaniel (beige).
I stood there benignly observing while the guy wandered around picking up small logs and provoking the dogs with short unintelligible yells as he tossed the wood into the slow-moving river. The dogs were shivering -- fatigue? cold? -- and barking their protests, but wading out faithfully to fetch back the flotsam.
They both clocked me right away, but as I was just standing there with a smile on keeping quiet, they ignored me. Presently, she made her way up the bank and announced, "First day of the year for this!"
"No better day for it," I observed.
"Beautiful. And they love it," she declared.
"I've never seen dogs do this here," I said. "I'm from the West Coast, and we have beaches where dogs do this, but I've never seen dogs jumping into the Hudson."
"What else do we have? This is Manhattan. Everybody's out here with their dogs in the summertime."
"And it's not too cold now?" The older dogs were shivering and looking reproachful, but the pit mix was up on the grass happily splintering a log with her teeth.
"Stop that! No! No!" said the blonde, trying to disengage dog from log with a gentle but firm foot. "You'll get it stuck between your teeth and then you won't be happy." The dog was impervious to logic, cheerfully tearing off big coppery chunks of wood.
"No, they love it," she asserted.
"How old is that one?" I asked, gesturing at the lab, who was shaking and slipping as she tried unsuccessfully to climb out of the water over mossy rocks.
"Flossy? Twelve!"
Twelve is about the age my dogs went down. A twelve-year-old dog is like an 84-year-old person, more or less. I wouldn't have sent my grandmother out for a swim in the Hudson. My lab mix Cosmos would have walked or swum endlessly to please me, despite her arthritis. When I realized the pain she was handling just to keep up with me, I stopped taking her for long walks. That was a year or more before cancer did her in.
I tried to make the point that dogs will ignore and far exceed their own best interests to please their people. The lab looked miserable.
"What? We're not making them do anything. They're jumping in on their own."
I didn't much want to meddle, so, having said my piece, I clammed up. It's easier for an owner to willfully ignore a dog's discomfort than to accept that its age is about to force a change of habit. Dogs and humans form strange compacts, social contracts whereby some portion of each others' needs are met. Barring abuse, does an outsider have a right to meddle? Define abuse. Those two love their dogs and vice-versa. When she told me she was a dog rescuer and that I should get a dog, I said my goodbye and shoved off. Rescuers are generally goodhearted and strange. I turned around a few minutes later, and when I passed them, all the dogs were leashed and still shivering but heading for home.
Oh, why do I get involved with strange people? I should just keep pedaling.
Friday, March 24, 2006
My Genius Bike Messenger Videogame Idea
As you might guess, I'm not a gamer. I don't game the system, I don't play (many) games people play, I don't gravitate to board games or cards or casinos, and I definitely don't play video games. Blame it on my age, blame it on whatever. Play the blame game. I probably won't join in. (It's not you, it's me. Honest, baby.)
But today, riding my new old bike up Sixth Ave. in midtown traffic, I felt like I was playing a video game. Badly. It's been at least 15 years since I rode these mean streets, and I'm just out of practice. You have to look for just as many things as a car driver does, but you have way more mobility and options -- and the consequences of failure are much higher. You have to pedal hard, observe harder, predict trajectories, and watch your back and everyone else's. In short, it's a huge rush.
Here's what it's like: You're in the three-foot-wide bike lane, which puts you within striking distance of every parked car on your left, whether it pulls out suddenly or its door opens, so you're watching for tires turning, taillights glowing, even for heads inside. The only safe car is an empty car. That's on your left. On your immediate right, cars stack up to turn left every two blocks, effectively cutting you off, reducing your visibility, and keeping you from traversing the intersection. Occasionally they're bumper to bumper, so if you don't plan well enough, you just have to stop and wait for all the busy walkers to thread through the minute gaps.
So you decide to get out of the bike lane and soar with the cars and cabs and buses and trucks. You can almost keep pace with them, but now you're watching lethal moving objects for lane change warnings (turn signal? What's a turn signal?), sudden stops, and those weird moments when two vehicles get so close that you can't get past and risk getting crushed. Which reminds me of the bus that honked at me today as it pulled past me right up to the curb, boxing me in. I slowed to let it pass so I could skirt around the back, but just as I was about to do so, there was its second half closing in too -- a double-length megabus. Nothing to do but hoist my bike onto the sidewalk and ride carefully past the people stepping off.
Speaking of people, let's talk pedestrians. Manhattan's motivated walkers like to step as far into the crosswalk as possible, so they can dart through the slightest break between cars. We bikers like not to hit things. Things such as overeager walkers who do not always look both ways, childhood lessons be damned. Traffic lights are only rough guidelines here. Even before they turn green, phalanxes have entered the intersection, striding purposefully toward their opposite numbers to create a thin but dangerous mesh of flesh that blocks the entire crosswalk. So you have to thread not between two cars but through herds of people moving erratically, an art as delicate as diplomacy -- if swifter and less memorable. Walkers don't move at a uniform speed. So if you're heading for an intersection and not planning to stop for the red light (yes, yes, it's illegal, we know), you have to guess how soon each walker will cross your path -- the hardcharger, the granny, the teenybopper, the oblivious, the crazy -- and aim for the gap you predict will exist between them at the very moment that you reach them. And remember -- cars are coming from the opposite direction. Look out!
(As a walker, you experience this as some huge idiot nearly killing you when he zooms past, seemingly unaware of your fragile existence. He is aware. He may believe himself to be better at seat-of-the-pants physics than he is, and he may not always be right, but he is aware. Or he could just be a reckless bully.)
So as I pedaled up Sixth today, watching canny messengers on bikes far faster than mine dart through scary traffic eddies and clots of walkers, I wondered if there's a videogame about being a bike messenger. I worked in that noble profession for a few months in my last summer of college (while my peers were naively wasting their time on internships and summer office jobs), so I know a little about the work. The more packages you pick up and drop off, the more work you get. Virtuous cycle. If you're slow, fewer jobs come your way. Vicious cycle. In any case, the dispatcher's favorites get more runs. Jobs that send you above 72nd or below 14th (I think) pay a premium. Flat tires mess you up. So do potholes, puddles, poop, and policemen. And those rare but real maniac cab drivers who try to run you down. You have to plot the most efficient course between ten points on the grid, factoring in traffic patterns and construction. You lose time looking for places to lock your bike. You lose more time when office workers keep you waiting. And all the dangers and terrors of riding noted above? They apply, but more so, because that's your environment all day long as you try to earn your keep. Your senses become sharper and your legs and reactions faster, but as you get cockier you make assumptions and then mistakes. And by the way, you get tired.
That's all fine, but everybody knows most RPGs (role-playing games, not rocket-propelled grenades) involve guns. Fine! Mount a machine gun on the handlebars. This is a game, after all. Have some fun. When a walker is behaving erratically or threatens to cross your path, blow him away! Cab coming at you? Fire! Score points! But that's too easy. Walkers get guns too -- but not all of them, so you have to watch them as you approach. And if a cop sees you kill someone, she can come after you too. Running out of energy or cash credits? Call the dispatcher -- but not too often or he'll get fed up and stiff you for a while.
It's kind of like -- and excuse my quaintly obsolete references -- Doom, Sim Work, Asteroids, and Pac-Man all rolled into one. It would be fine to play on a couch, but amazing while riding an exercycle that linked your game speed to your actual energy expenditure.
My Genius Bike Messenger Videogame Idea may already be in the works, but if it isn't, and you create it based on this post, please buy me a new bike with your newfound wealth.
OK, OK, and I do like some games: backgammon, Balderdash, Scrabble, and Jenga.
But today, riding my new old bike up Sixth Ave. in midtown traffic, I felt like I was playing a video game. Badly. It's been at least 15 years since I rode these mean streets, and I'm just out of practice. You have to look for just as many things as a car driver does, but you have way more mobility and options -- and the consequences of failure are much higher. You have to pedal hard, observe harder, predict trajectories, and watch your back and everyone else's. In short, it's a huge rush.
Here's what it's like: You're in the three-foot-wide bike lane, which puts you within striking distance of every parked car on your left, whether it pulls out suddenly or its door opens, so you're watching for tires turning, taillights glowing, even for heads inside. The only safe car is an empty car. That's on your left. On your immediate right, cars stack up to turn left every two blocks, effectively cutting you off, reducing your visibility, and keeping you from traversing the intersection. Occasionally they're bumper to bumper, so if you don't plan well enough, you just have to stop and wait for all the busy walkers to thread through the minute gaps.
So you decide to get out of the bike lane and soar with the cars and cabs and buses and trucks. You can almost keep pace with them, but now you're watching lethal moving objects for lane change warnings (turn signal? What's a turn signal?), sudden stops, and those weird moments when two vehicles get so close that you can't get past and risk getting crushed. Which reminds me of the bus that honked at me today as it pulled past me right up to the curb, boxing me in. I slowed to let it pass so I could skirt around the back, but just as I was about to do so, there was its second half closing in too -- a double-length megabus. Nothing to do but hoist my bike onto the sidewalk and ride carefully past the people stepping off.
Speaking of people, let's talk pedestrians. Manhattan's motivated walkers like to step as far into the crosswalk as possible, so they can dart through the slightest break between cars. We bikers like not to hit things. Things such as overeager walkers who do not always look both ways, childhood lessons be damned. Traffic lights are only rough guidelines here. Even before they turn green, phalanxes have entered the intersection, striding purposefully toward their opposite numbers to create a thin but dangerous mesh of flesh that blocks the entire crosswalk. So you have to thread not between two cars but through herds of people moving erratically, an art as delicate as diplomacy -- if swifter and less memorable. Walkers don't move at a uniform speed. So if you're heading for an intersection and not planning to stop for the red light (yes, yes, it's illegal, we know), you have to guess how soon each walker will cross your path -- the hardcharger, the granny, the teenybopper, the oblivious, the crazy -- and aim for the gap you predict will exist between them at the very moment that you reach them. And remember -- cars are coming from the opposite direction. Look out!
(As a walker, you experience this as some huge idiot nearly killing you when he zooms past, seemingly unaware of your fragile existence. He is aware. He may believe himself to be better at seat-of-the-pants physics than he is, and he may not always be right, but he is aware. Or he could just be a reckless bully.)
So as I pedaled up Sixth today, watching canny messengers on bikes far faster than mine dart through scary traffic eddies and clots of walkers, I wondered if there's a videogame about being a bike messenger. I worked in that noble profession for a few months in my last summer of college (while my peers were naively wasting their time on internships and summer office jobs), so I know a little about the work. The more packages you pick up and drop off, the more work you get. Virtuous cycle. If you're slow, fewer jobs come your way. Vicious cycle. In any case, the dispatcher's favorites get more runs. Jobs that send you above 72nd or below 14th (I think) pay a premium. Flat tires mess you up. So do potholes, puddles, poop, and policemen. And those rare but real maniac cab drivers who try to run you down. You have to plot the most efficient course between ten points on the grid, factoring in traffic patterns and construction. You lose time looking for places to lock your bike. You lose more time when office workers keep you waiting. And all the dangers and terrors of riding noted above? They apply, but more so, because that's your environment all day long as you try to earn your keep. Your senses become sharper and your legs and reactions faster, but as you get cockier you make assumptions and then mistakes. And by the way, you get tired.
That's all fine, but everybody knows most RPGs (role-playing games, not rocket-propelled grenades) involve guns. Fine! Mount a machine gun on the handlebars. This is a game, after all. Have some fun. When a walker is behaving erratically or threatens to cross your path, blow him away! Cab coming at you? Fire! Score points! But that's too easy. Walkers get guns too -- but not all of them, so you have to watch them as you approach. And if a cop sees you kill someone, she can come after you too. Running out of energy or cash credits? Call the dispatcher -- but not too often or he'll get fed up and stiff you for a while.
It's kind of like -- and excuse my quaintly obsolete references -- Doom, Sim Work, Asteroids, and Pac-Man all rolled into one. It would be fine to play on a couch, but amazing while riding an exercycle that linked your game speed to your actual energy expenditure.
My Genius Bike Messenger Videogame Idea may already be in the works, but if it isn't, and you create it based on this post, please buy me a new bike with your newfound wealth.
OK, OK, and I do like some games: backgammon, Balderdash, Scrabble, and Jenga.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Sentenced to Semi-Celebrity
In 2004, Anat Zuria's divorce documentary, "Sentenced to Marriage," exposed the misogynistic theocracy hiding within Israel's democracy. Before its release, few people even in Israel knew that women have no rights when seeking to end unhappy, abusive, or bigamist marriages in the Holy Land. Because all Jewish marital issues fall under the rabbinic court's jurisdiction, a shockingly outdated set of standards applies in divorce cases -- not just for religious people, who choose to let rabbis make many decisions for them, but for secular Jews as well. The situation is so difficult because the courts are controlled by ultra-orthodox rabbis, who assert a rare and fundamentalist interpretation of the Jewish code of law, whereby men have nearly limitless rights and women have next to none. All this in a modern society charged with being "a light unto the nations."
Zuria grew up secular but married an observant man 20-some years ago and now lives as an orthodox Jew in Israel. She faced reactions of all kinds when the film came out, from relief and gratitude to opprobrium and censure. Her insider perspective on Israeli fundamentalism makes her films extremely powerful ... and very controversial within the orthodox world. This week in New York and surrounding areas, she’s facing audiences of all kinds as she screens the film at a variety of Jewish venues and festivals.
We met six months ago in Israel, and though we hit it off and her story intrigued me, I didn’t find the time to see either of her films (both are unavailable on DVD here). So when I saw her name in the Makor Steinhardt Center's catalog a few weeks back, I emailed to let her know I'd be in New York too, and we made plans to meet.
At Makor tonight, I arrived just in time to hear the last line of her introduction to the film: "I hope you won't enjoy it." We said hi on her way out, and I slipped into the last row as the lights went down. The hour-long movie focuses on three women's efforts to extricate themselves from marriages to men who have abandoned them. A legal aid organization run by religious women attempts to help each of them deal with the trauma of the judicial system. Though Kafka is probably forbidden reading for the ultra-orthodox, the judges all seem to know his work well. For reasons that are never explained, they repeatedly delay decisions and require women to return in one, two, three weeks, even when the absentee husbands are known abusers, are not paying child support, have formed entirely new families, and are wanted by the police (one court clerk lets a fugitive father escape out the back door to evade a cordon of cops).
Eventually, after numberless court appointments, negotiations, and police stakeouts, two of the women secure their freedom. Rachel, a religious radio producer with four children, does so partly by becoming hysterical in the courthouse corridor, renouncing religion and denouncing her husband and the judges in a chilling, otherworldly howl of rage that draws stunned listeners from all over the building. The outburst helps, but perhaps not as much as her private detective, who secures scandalous sex photos of her estranged husband. The creep folds, and she gets her life back after waiting five years. The other woman, Michelle, just seems to get lucky after her own five years of court dates and police stakeouts.
The third woman, Tamara, gives up. After her bribe attempt fails, she just accepts the idea that she'll never be free of her husband, despite his new wife and children, so she focuses all her energies on pets and making art. Her legal "pleader" tries to reawaken a sense of outrage, but the trauma has been too great. She's done fighting. The film's last shot focuses on Tamara's fingers slowly weaving long needles into a wedding day photo of her with her husband (who looks just like Osama Bin Laden, another fine fundamentalist).
After the final credits faded and the lights came up, Anat ducked back in to field questions. She paced as she talked, hunching in her overcoat and slipping involuntarily into Hebrew as the hour deepened. The small room was nearly filled, largely with women. The first questioner wanted to know about the visual technique in the courtroom scenes, when, because taping actual legal proceedings is forbidden, the handheld camera claustrophobically paces the courthouse halls as we hear unseen people speaking. She explained that just as several faces in the film are blurred to protect identities, actors had to rerecord the judges' voices to keep them anonymous. So in the film we hear the actual women arguing with actors spouting the judges' words. Like dubbing, but different. You can’t see the lips not moving.
Most viewers wanted to talk about how horrible these stories were, but Anat said these were "soft" examples; she'd found far worse. On the other hand, she added that these cases are the exception. Most men in Israel behave decently in divorces, but a few turn rotten when they discover the power they have and see how much they can abuse the system and their wives. As the night wore on, people started arguing with each other about the coalition politics and broken promises that permit this shonda (Yiddish for "shame") to persist. Anat said that in fact, "Sentenced to Marriage" screened two years ago to a full house at the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), and change is afoot as a result.
By 9:30 she'd grown increasingly terse and most of the seats were empty, but a core group of women dug in. Long after a tired Makor employee had cleared the screening room and gone home, they hovered in the hall. One stout woman with wide, round eyes and a wig of orthodoxy said she was experiencing an equally impossible marital situation right here in Rego Park. Could Anat help? Anat listened, took her number, and said she would pass it along to people who might.
Finally the lingerers numbered just five. I felt like a stage-door Johnny myself. We made a break for the staircase, and they all fell into step behind us. It was like a low-grade rock star situation, except the groupies were ... well, they weren't ... they weren't groupies. Not like in Hammer of the Gods, anyway. As we reached the front door of the building, one of them seized the last moment to thank Anat and tell her how meaningful the movie had been, because she too is a filmmaker and --
But Anat, jet-lagged and tired of talking, interrupted with a collective brush-off saying, "Thank you very much and I'm sorry, but my friend and I have an appointment, so please excuse me," and that was that. She'd been speaking for more than an hour, and besides -- people expect Israelis to be rude.
Her first film, "Purity" (2002), a documentary on abuse of power in mandatory ritual baths, is also unavailable on DVD in the US. It is seen less often, she says, because her producer absconded with the money and some of the rights. She doesn't pay attention anymore. She's chosen not to fight, and to focus on her art and future projects ... just like Tamara.
Zuria grew up secular but married an observant man 20-some years ago and now lives as an orthodox Jew in Israel. She faced reactions of all kinds when the film came out, from relief and gratitude to opprobrium and censure. Her insider perspective on Israeli fundamentalism makes her films extremely powerful ... and very controversial within the orthodox world. This week in New York and surrounding areas, she’s facing audiences of all kinds as she screens the film at a variety of Jewish venues and festivals.
We met six months ago in Israel, and though we hit it off and her story intrigued me, I didn’t find the time to see either of her films (both are unavailable on DVD here). So when I saw her name in the Makor Steinhardt Center's catalog a few weeks back, I emailed to let her know I'd be in New York too, and we made plans to meet.
At Makor tonight, I arrived just in time to hear the last line of her introduction to the film: "I hope you won't enjoy it." We said hi on her way out, and I slipped into the last row as the lights went down. The hour-long movie focuses on three women's efforts to extricate themselves from marriages to men who have abandoned them. A legal aid organization run by religious women attempts to help each of them deal with the trauma of the judicial system. Though Kafka is probably forbidden reading for the ultra-orthodox, the judges all seem to know his work well. For reasons that are never explained, they repeatedly delay decisions and require women to return in one, two, three weeks, even when the absentee husbands are known abusers, are not paying child support, have formed entirely new families, and are wanted by the police (one court clerk lets a fugitive father escape out the back door to evade a cordon of cops).
Eventually, after numberless court appointments, negotiations, and police stakeouts, two of the women secure their freedom. Rachel, a religious radio producer with four children, does so partly by becoming hysterical in the courthouse corridor, renouncing religion and denouncing her husband and the judges in a chilling, otherworldly howl of rage that draws stunned listeners from all over the building. The outburst helps, but perhaps not as much as her private detective, who secures scandalous sex photos of her estranged husband. The creep folds, and she gets her life back after waiting five years. The other woman, Michelle, just seems to get lucky after her own five years of court dates and police stakeouts.
The third woman, Tamara, gives up. After her bribe attempt fails, she just accepts the idea that she'll never be free of her husband, despite his new wife and children, so she focuses all her energies on pets and making art. Her legal "pleader" tries to reawaken a sense of outrage, but the trauma has been too great. She's done fighting. The film's last shot focuses on Tamara's fingers slowly weaving long needles into a wedding day photo of her with her husband (who looks just like Osama Bin Laden, another fine fundamentalist).
After the final credits faded and the lights came up, Anat ducked back in to field questions. She paced as she talked, hunching in her overcoat and slipping involuntarily into Hebrew as the hour deepened. The small room was nearly filled, largely with women. The first questioner wanted to know about the visual technique in the courtroom scenes, when, because taping actual legal proceedings is forbidden, the handheld camera claustrophobically paces the courthouse halls as we hear unseen people speaking. She explained that just as several faces in the film are blurred to protect identities, actors had to rerecord the judges' voices to keep them anonymous. So in the film we hear the actual women arguing with actors spouting the judges' words. Like dubbing, but different. You can’t see the lips not moving.
Most viewers wanted to talk about how horrible these stories were, but Anat said these were "soft" examples; she'd found far worse. On the other hand, she added that these cases are the exception. Most men in Israel behave decently in divorces, but a few turn rotten when they discover the power they have and see how much they can abuse the system and their wives. As the night wore on, people started arguing with each other about the coalition politics and broken promises that permit this shonda (Yiddish for "shame") to persist. Anat said that in fact, "Sentenced to Marriage" screened two years ago to a full house at the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), and change is afoot as a result.
By 9:30 she'd grown increasingly terse and most of the seats were empty, but a core group of women dug in. Long after a tired Makor employee had cleared the screening room and gone home, they hovered in the hall. One stout woman with wide, round eyes and a wig of orthodoxy said she was experiencing an equally impossible marital situation right here in Rego Park. Could Anat help? Anat listened, took her number, and said she would pass it along to people who might.
Finally the lingerers numbered just five. I felt like a stage-door Johnny myself. We made a break for the staircase, and they all fell into step behind us. It was like a low-grade rock star situation, except the groupies were ... well, they weren't ... they weren't groupies. Not like in Hammer of the Gods, anyway. As we reached the front door of the building, one of them seized the last moment to thank Anat and tell her how meaningful the movie had been, because she too is a filmmaker and --
But Anat, jet-lagged and tired of talking, interrupted with a collective brush-off saying, "Thank you very much and I'm sorry, but my friend and I have an appointment, so please excuse me," and that was that. She'd been speaking for more than an hour, and besides -- people expect Israelis to be rude.
Her first film, "Purity" (2002), a documentary on abuse of power in mandatory ritual baths, is also unavailable on DVD in the US. It is seen less often, she says, because her producer absconded with the money and some of the rights. She doesn't pay attention anymore. She's chosen not to fight, and to focus on her art and future projects ... just like Tamara.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
'Private Thoughts' About Dateline
A week ago tonight, Lord Zim was on Dateline, representing those few brave blogs that have yet to be corrupted by corporate takeovers and subtler forms of co-optation. The Lord Zim name was clearly visible for a second or three, and the Dateline site on MSNBC featured a very visible link to this site.
Dateline. Prime time Sunday night on NBC. Why am I rehashing details so obvious to anyone who's either just come from MSNBC or has been reading Lord Zim this past week? Because this major "MSM" exposure yielded such minimal traffic. What would you guess?
Five thousand unique visitors?
Five hundred?
Try 50. That's how many people found this blog that night solely because of the show. Most just clicked on the MSNBC link, but some googled "lord zim." That number doubled the next day, dropped to about 30 on Tuesday, and has been eroding slowly ever since. Total Dateline-driven visits? About 250-300. You may be blasé, but I'm kind of amazed by this weak result. And not one comment. Is it something I said? Or didn't?
The funny thing is that Dateline invented "The Mank Blog" -- the brief weekly segment that featured LZ -- primarily to stimulate bloggers to write about ... Dateline. Contrived? Self-conscious? A shining example of fear and marketing replacing news programming with pandering? You bet. But what does it say that something designed to target bloggers and blog readers sent less traffic here in a week than the average successful blog records in an hour?
(OK, maybe Lord Zim isn't Pulitzer material. And it's not focused enough. Or revealing or insightful or funny enough. But heck -- it has its moments. And besides, people don't know what they're clicking on at MSNBC beyond the fact that Mank called this a standard non-corporate blog. Maybe the problem is that most people just don't care about "the private thoughts of one person," as the MSNBC link promises. I know I don't.)
Back to my semi-rhetorical question. If I may attempt to whip up yet more rhetoric, the lousy numbers say something like, "The blogosphere is self-contained and exists outside of and undisturbed by the MSM's efforts to co-opt it (even when that effort masquerades as an effort to expose how guilty other corporations are of co-opting it)."
OK, OK. I protest too much, and it's churlish to bite the hand that fed me 250 readers. Some of those newcomers actually spent time here, and maybe they'll come back. Besides, I liked seeing my copy on TV. I freeze-framed it and read a sentence aloud to my co-auditors in what seemed like a very modern moment of narcissistic indulgence.
But let's test my theory. What if one popular blog or other site did link to Lord Zim? Would the resultant traffic spike put Dateline to shame as I imagine? And er, would anybody care?
Clearly, I'm not above some pandering of my own.
Dateline. Prime time Sunday night on NBC. Why am I rehashing details so obvious to anyone who's either just come from MSNBC or has been reading Lord Zim this past week? Because this major "MSM" exposure yielded such minimal traffic. What would you guess?
Five thousand unique visitors?
Five hundred?
Try 50. That's how many people found this blog that night solely because of the show. Most just clicked on the MSNBC link, but some googled "lord zim." That number doubled the next day, dropped to about 30 on Tuesday, and has been eroding slowly ever since. Total Dateline-driven visits? About 250-300. You may be blasé, but I'm kind of amazed by this weak result. And not one comment. Is it something I said? Or didn't?
The funny thing is that Dateline invented "The Mank Blog" -- the brief weekly segment that featured LZ -- primarily to stimulate bloggers to write about ... Dateline. Contrived? Self-conscious? A shining example of fear and marketing replacing news programming with pandering? You bet. But what does it say that something designed to target bloggers and blog readers sent less traffic here in a week than the average successful blog records in an hour?
(OK, maybe Lord Zim isn't Pulitzer material. And it's not focused enough. Or revealing or insightful or funny enough. But heck -- it has its moments. And besides, people don't know what they're clicking on at MSNBC beyond the fact that Mank called this a standard non-corporate blog. Maybe the problem is that most people just don't care about "the private thoughts of one person," as the MSNBC link promises. I know I don't.)
Back to my semi-rhetorical question. If I may attempt to whip up yet more rhetoric, the lousy numbers say something like, "The blogosphere is self-contained and exists outside of and undisturbed by the MSM's efforts to co-opt it (even when that effort masquerades as an effort to expose how guilty other corporations are of co-opting it)."
OK, OK. I protest too much, and it's churlish to bite the hand that fed me 250 readers. Some of those newcomers actually spent time here, and maybe they'll come back. Besides, I liked seeing my copy on TV. I freeze-framed it and read a sentence aloud to my co-auditors in what seemed like a very modern moment of narcissistic indulgence.
But let's test my theory. What if one popular blog or other site did link to Lord Zim? Would the resultant traffic spike put Dateline to shame as I imagine? And er, would anybody care?
Clearly, I'm not above some pandering of my own.
Three Dog Night
As the doorman ducked behind a potted evergreen, he smiled and started to howl, head tilted slightly back and eyes half-closed, as if to improve the impersonation. I was running past on my way to the gym. A furtive, howling guy in a uniform? Smiling?
No sooner was the question posed than the answer came trotting toward me at the end of a leash. Fifty feet away and closing, a largish terrier type with floppy ears and a coat of assorted grays started to bark at the invisible provocation. The woman restraining him smiled broadly as dog and doorman harmonized. At about 15 feet I joined in with my own reckless chorus of yips, which prompted the dog to look up at me with a "who the hell are you" tilt of his head.
And then I was past him but we were all still at it, two barking bipeds and one aggrieved quadruped, making a racket on Sunday night in Hell's Kitchen.
No sooner was the question posed than the answer came trotting toward me at the end of a leash. Fifty feet away and closing, a largish terrier type with floppy ears and a coat of assorted grays started to bark at the invisible provocation. The woman restraining him smiled broadly as dog and doorman harmonized. At about 15 feet I joined in with my own reckless chorus of yips, which prompted the dog to look up at me with a "who the hell are you" tilt of his head.
And then I was past him but we were all still at it, two barking bipeds and one aggrieved quadruped, making a racket on Sunday night in Hell's Kitchen.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Seigneur Zim!
In the aftermath of all this media hype I've been checking LZ traffic more than usual, and just moments ago stumbled across this delightful weirdness, thanks to an anonymous NY reader. Maybe all you blog connoisseurs already knew about this neat trick, but it's a new one on me. Regardez!
Le neat trick.
Le neat trick.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Happy Birthday, Lord Zim!
Yes, that's one candle per post. Almost.
Today marks a year of Lord Zim. Many thanks to all the faithful and even the unfaithful readers who have honored my ravings with your time and attention over the past 12 months.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Birthday Present
Yesterday was Lord Zim's biggest media exposure yet. Tomorrow will be Lord Zim's first anniversary. Today I'm hoping some irate megablogger, someone who has not just skin but guts and teeth in the game, will link to me with a “what the hell is THIS blog doing on TV?”
But why should I care? What good does increased traffic do for a blog that could well be described as "the private thoughts of one person"; i.e., the ravings of a deranged loner? Bigger audience? Who cares? I don't run ads. In fact, the bigger and more interested my audience, the likelier it seems to me that someone will put together all the pieces and figure out the mystery -- a mystery I have yet to identify or piece together myself. Vanity. All is vanity.
Speaking of surveillance, here's one of the more impressive, obsessive items on display at the Armory Show.
Each 3x4-inch b&w screen is fed by a tiny camera pointed out from the exact opposite point. It's called "The Invisible Sphere" or "215 Points of View." All the screens and cameras are mounted in a welded frame, the outermost points of which are radial spokes capped with rubber tips like those on canes or crutches, so it rolls. Though it's on a short cord. Read all about it here.
Greatest Hits
Today I'm meeting a cousin for lunch at Pam Real Thai, which you may have read about at some length below. We were supposed to go to Negril, a Jamaican place on 23rd, but he read Lord Zim and changed his mind. He's not the first person to read about Pam here and suggest we go there. First mom, then J (as you can see in his comment), and now C.
This prompts a cursory assessment of my most memorable and/or affecting posts.
1. The 2,000-word report on Les Sans Culottes, back when they were splitting up (April)
2. All three donkey photo essays plus the wrap-up, "How I Became an Ass Man"(November)
3. "Night and Blog," about my nighttime romp in the celebrated/reviled gardens of the Getty Museum (March)
4. "Dead Sea Scrolling" about my extraordinary adventure at the Dead Sea and beyond, when I found the stolen luggage (August)
5. "How I Spent My Summer, by the Dog" (April)
There are others, but this is a good start for the casual reader. I'll post links to each of those tonight (done, as promised -- LZ), but now I have to go. Does blogging get in the way of life or vice-versa?
But why should I care? What good does increased traffic do for a blog that could well be described as "the private thoughts of one person"; i.e., the ravings of a deranged loner? Bigger audience? Who cares? I don't run ads. In fact, the bigger and more interested my audience, the likelier it seems to me that someone will put together all the pieces and figure out the mystery -- a mystery I have yet to identify or piece together myself. Vanity. All is vanity.
Speaking of surveillance, here's one of the more impressive, obsessive items on display at the Armory Show.
Each 3x4-inch b&w screen is fed by a tiny camera pointed out from the exact opposite point. It's called "The Invisible Sphere" or "215 Points of View." All the screens and cameras are mounted in a welded frame, the outermost points of which are radial spokes capped with rubber tips like those on canes or crutches, so it rolls. Though it's on a short cord. Read all about it here.
Greatest Hits
Today I'm meeting a cousin for lunch at Pam Real Thai, which you may have read about at some length below. We were supposed to go to Negril, a Jamaican place on 23rd, but he read Lord Zim and changed his mind. He's not the first person to read about Pam here and suggest we go there. First mom, then J (as you can see in his comment), and now C.
This prompts a cursory assessment of my most memorable and/or affecting posts.
1. The 2,000-word report on Les Sans Culottes, back when they were splitting up (April)
2. All three donkey photo essays plus the wrap-up, "How I Became an Ass Man"(November)
3. "Night and Blog," about my nighttime romp in the celebrated/reviled gardens of the Getty Museum (March)
4. "Dead Sea Scrolling" about my extraordinary adventure at the Dead Sea and beyond, when I found the stolen luggage (August)
5. "How I Spent My Summer, by the Dog" (April)
There are others, but this is a good start for the casual reader. I'll post links to each of those tonight (done, as promised -- LZ), but now I have to go. Does blogging get in the way of life or vice-versa?
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