Descending into chaos

From Barnes and Noble,

to the Strand,

to sidewalk rummaging.

Williamsburg, 09/07/2009

Wake up and smell the incense

I am the opposite of a hypochondriac, whatever that is. Same goes for my husband. We may be suffering from delusions of immortality, the thing is we ignore pains and symptoms until we literally can't function, we don’t bother visiting physicians at all, we can safely watch House and Grey’s Anatomy without shouting "I have that!", and happily embraced a “I must be ok 'cause my heart's still beating” philosophy.

Maybe this explains why I was dumbfounded when last Sunday in church my fellow parishioners refused to share the sign of peace. The woman in front of me, hands firmly anchored to the back of a bench, turned and spit out “Peace be with you” in such a way that if I were deaf I would have thought she told me to go to hell. When my husband stretched out his hand to the man behind him, the guy withdrew in disgust.

Later that day I learned that, over swine flu fears, various Archdioceses around the country invited parishioners to refrain from taking Holy Communion from the chalice and sharing the sign of peace to avoid close contact with others.

Three reasons why I think things are being blown out of proportion:

1) There have been 12 fatalities of swine flu in the US. Considering that there are over 300 million Americans, my fellow parishioner’s chance of catching the flu by shaking my hand is 0.04 in a million.

2) Dear fellow parishioner, are you a germ freak? If you live in the city, then sorry, you signed up for this filth. A germ-free New York is like, say, a noodle-free Shanghai. This city is a goulash of bacteria. You may avoid my hand at church, open the church door with elbows, punch the elevator buttons with knuckles, carry wet wipes to disinfect the bench, and in the end you take the subway, used by 7 million people daily. Seven million people eating, spitting, scratching, touching their feet, rubbing their noses, picking up bacteria and then leaving it on that handrail, on the change, in the gym… Yes, that reminds me, if you work out at Crunch Fitness in Midtown, then be aware that a spot check of health clubs revealed that your gym has fecal bacteria hanging around the water fountain.

Now my favorite: no one knows how many rats live in the city, but the estimates are anywhere from one to 10 rats per person, which in the best case scenario adds up to a quarter of a million ratti norvegici, i.e. the species living in the city that, incidentally, has been known to gnaw on concrete. In addition, they seem unlikely to pack up and move to Jersey any time soon. In a study recently conducted by the University of Tel Aviv, researchers developed mini models of city layouts to see what type of city a rat could easily navigate its way through. The finding: rats prefer New York City over New Orleans and Jerusalem.

The problem had gotten so bad over the last decades that in 2000 the city hosted the first Rat Summit, cosponsored by the Daily News and Columbia University. Mayor Giuliani was represented by Joseph J. Lhota, his top deputy mayor, who presided over a rat control task force of health and sanitation officials and whose office door at the City Hall had a sign reading ''The Rat Czar: Allied Command Headquarters.''

In an effort to keep up the good work, last year the health department created a rat map available on their website which is billed as “a one-stop resource website for New Yorkers' rat prevention needs." (Fascinating. Where would Abraham Marlow and his school of psychology place “New Yorkers' rat prevention needs” in the hierarchy of human needs?).

3) Last but not least, the sign of peace is a gesture intended to communicate that the peace of Christ extends to the unity of the church and of all humanity. It recalls the passage from Matthew 5:23-24 about being reconciled with your brother before presenting your offering at the altar. After all, aren’t you, my fellow parishioner, and I both going to church because we believe in a blue-eyed Jew who, on a hill near Rosh Pina, said love thy neighbor, and that bastard of your enemy too? And correct me if I’m wrong, but when the leper went to Jesus and said “If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean”, Jesus DID NOT ask “Wait a minute, did you wash your hands?”

Dreams of a three-day tourist visa

Bunburying: term introduced by Oscar Wilde in the play The Importance of Being Earnest. The art of inventing a sickly friend in need of assistance, as a clever means of dodging unwanted social engagements.

Our 10 days guests finally left. We’ve been gracious hosts, they had a good time, and everybody’s happy. As for me, I’m enjoying every single second of this Hegelian progression from bondage to freedom. Not that I don’t like company. But perhaps I've worked for the Israelis for too long; I’m not a big fan of territorial concessions.

The aggravating factor of our last guests’ stay is called: The Garrulous Wife. Her trivial ramblings accompanied us throughout our hosting experience, which under these devastating circumstances normally follows a pretty standard path, like this:

• day one is when your guests say thank you and please all the time, and ask permission to go to the bathroom;

• by day three every time I come home I have to introduce myself: “Hi my name is Silvia and I live here”;

• when on day four dinner starts with the ins and outs of her colitis, you realize you would have been better off in the hands of a bunch of Iranian or Chechen kidnappers. Next you stay up all night trying to sell your guests on Craiglist;

• day five is when you make an attempt to scare them by interrupting the conversation several times “Shhh… my mother’s dead uncle is telling me something” ;

• day six is when you actually agree with everything your mother’s dead uncle tells you;

• days seven to ten are just fine. You feel like you just had a lobotomy.

Garrulous Wife was put on a plane back home on Sunday at 6.30 p.m., after she told me about ten times I ‘aaaaaabsolutely’ have to go to her place for dinner this summer, and made me swear I will. I said yes. Anything to see her leave. As for this summer, I will have no choice but to commit the Bunbury.

Storage deluxe

The rule is: if you have to walk 10 blocks or more in high heels to get to that party, bring extra, more comfortable shoes with you so you can change shoes if necessary.

Problem: clutch is too small for your flats.

Solution: stick them into your husband's coat pockets.

The yawning kingdom and its subjects

How do I know that today in history Louis XIV of France moved his court to Versailles (1682)? That today is Sigmund Freud’s birthday (1856)? That a cat named Hawkeye scuba dived in a custom-made $20,000 wetsuit? Because lately, I’ve been finding myself sitting around work bored pretty often. A typical boring day at work is when an email from FreshDirect announcing they’ve added over 50 new cereals to their online inventory is a big thrill.

I know that the best thing to do under these circumstances is to tell your boss. I did. I asked for more work. I got something to do and chew on for a couple of weeks. And now I am again bored out of my mind.

With a simple Google search I discovered the vastness of the office boredom universe. A recent survey found that 14% of employees in the US are bored. There’s even a Boring Institute, founded in 1984 as a clearinghouse for information about boredom. What bothers me the most is that due to the stigma attached to acknowledging your infinite uselessness (or your exceptional time management skills, like in my case), I have to bore myself to death alone. Otherwise I could hang out with that 14% of bored people working in my building, we could establish bored employee clubhouses, perhaps have a dedicated trade union?

On the contrary, you must pretend that you’re very busy at work. However, a proficuous Internet time-suck session will show you a gazillion sites offering help to squash your boredom. Among the many pearls of wisdom I found, here are my favorite ideas to liven up your day:

• Reload your favorite news page every 5 seconds to make sure you are the first to read the newest article,
• Shout random numbers while someone is counting,
• Put your garbage can on your desk. Label it "IN."
• Put decaf in the coffeemaker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
• Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person: "Do you hear that?" "What?" "Never mind, it's gone now."
• Walk sideways to the photocopier.

Overachievers get bored too. They should check out those sites that teach you how to take dull moments as a signal to start on some productive action and “advance towards your goals”. For example: tidy your desk, practice your PowerPoint techniques, learn your keyboard shortcuts, etc. Actually, I’d rather bang my head against the wall (calorie expenditure: 150 an hour, I learned in the course of my fourth Internet time-suck session of the day). “Socialize with colleagues” was the best piece of advice I found on these nerd websites. To make it more interesting, I would further elaborate on the socializing task: “start a surreal conversation with the dumbest colleague you have.” Like the one I had the other day with my Asian colleague who happens to start every sentence with “oh”:

-oh, did you have a good week-end?

-absolutely, my sister is in town

- oh, she’s moving to New York?

- no, she’s on a field trip with her law school

-oh, she got a resident visa?

-for what? She’s on a field trip with her school and she’s gonna go back to Italy in 2 weeks

-oh, she can’t get a resident visa?

-she doesn’t need one, she doesn’t want one, she is viii-siii-tiiing.

-oh, so she can’t live here, what a pity.

-yes, what a pity. Sorry, I gotta go… I’ve got a lot of work today.

Travel through life, travel through Israel

I received a beautiful and enlightening email from a college classmate I hadn’t talk to since 1997. It’s the best thing that happened to me on Facebook. The guy, let’s call him Mike, says that over the years he came to see himself as having serious flaws in his character, he made a point of addressing these issues and he’s become a better person. This is not the average reconnect letter you receive on Facebook. The average letter is from someone who tells you about how many houses he owns, how much he travels, how successful he’s become and how busy he is, except five minutes later you find out he’s just become a fan of emmenthal cheese. Most of the time catching up with friends becomes nothing but an account and collection of individually unimportant, material things. Mike’s letter made me realize how we travel through life asleep to what really is important, spending all our time and energy on the small stuff and what it means to really strive to live with meaningful purpose.

Moreover in his letter Mike apologized to me for all that happened in Israel in 1997. That summer we volunteered on a kibbutz. We were not friends. It’s just that it was my first time in Israel, in the middle of a terror campaign, I wanted a travelmate and Mike was the only guy I knew in my super-conservative slightly anti-semitic university who was crazy enough to accept my invitation.

Our trip was like living in a Problem Child movie, without the fun. A real troublemaker, Mike managed to turn pretty much every ordinary day into a mess. The worst horror story is when Mike went missing in Jerusalem.

We went to Jerusalem for a long week-end. The fist night we walked around the Old City, had a frugal meal in the Arab quarter where our hostel was located, and booked a trip to Masada. We had separate plans the following day but had agreed to meet for dinner. He didn’t show up. The day of the Masada tour I waited in vain at the reception desk. By 2 pm, descending Masada, I started worrying. I pressed the panic button when I got back to the hostel and there was still no sign of Mike. My first thoughts had been:

- How to cope with the first body identification of my life;

- how to inform the parents whom, to make things worst, were told by Mike he was going “somewhere in Spain”.

Around 7 I was at the police station. Somewhat to my amazement I wasn’t asked the usual questions “when is the last time you saw him, what was he wearing, etc…”. Instead the officer wanted to know if he was my boyfriend.

-No, I said.

-So why do you care?

At that point I was about to lose it. That was the epiphany of the old Jewish joke that goes why do Jews always answer a question with a question, why not? Is there anything more frustrating that being denied the possibility to file a missing person report on the ground of not-your-boyfriend-why-do-you-care reasons? After I provided a thoroughly ethical and torah-inspired explanation of why I cared, he shot his second bullet: “do you have a picture of him?”. When I said no, although we took pictures in the last few days but they’re still on film, he announced “without a photo I can’t do anything”. I remember trying to broadcast hate-rays to incinerate him as I stood there staring at him and thinking: “Where the hell do you think I can find an open photography shop in Jerusalem on Shabbat, you a--hole?”. All of a sudden everything became clear: it was Shabbat and that cop had no intention to move his ass for the following 24 hours.

In the Christian quarter, the only place where an open shop could possibly be found on a Friday evening, I had my film developed at Photo Christo (no joke). Back at the police station the cop called my kibbutz. Nobody picked up the phone. It’s Shabbat, he said with a shrug. I hadn’t notice, I replied. I decided not to leave the picture with them and try my luck elsewhere. Like in the movies, I pathetically walked around the bazaar and the narrow streets of the arab quarter showing Mike’s picture to vendors.

I went back to the hostel where everyone had been put on high alert, meaning that every time I stepped in, the reception desk guy and his friends, slouched around a white plastic table sipping Wissotzky tea and playing cards, would turn to me and ask “Found anything?”

I have this dim, blurred memory of a woman lingering around the place, I don’t know in what capacity. A weird, skinny and tall foreign woman in her fifties, totally out of context in a youth hostel, dressed in a long flowery gown. I was ready to swear she was affected by the Jerusalem Syndrome, although I’ve never seen a real case (i.e. the phenomenon whereby a person who seems previously balanced and devoid of any signs of psychopathology becomes psychotic after arriving in Jerusalem, Wikipedia.). In her attempt to help, we embarked on a surreal conversation, starting with her asking in what kibbutz we were working. Maoz Chaim, I said. She had never heard of it. Nevertheless, “It’s a moshav”, she claimed. No, it’s a kibbutz, I corrected her. It’s a moshav, she insisted. It’s a kibbutz, for god’s sake, I live there, I know. And by the way, what impact does the collective organization of labor and decision-making in the State of Israel have on my search? Our kafkaesque exchange went on for a few minutes. It was like playing ping pong in a psych ward. Anyway, it’s a kibbutz.

At the end of Shabbat the volunteers coordinator at Maoz Chaim, a 90 year old German Holocaust survivor who by the end of our stay hated us more than she hated the Nazis, received a phone call that almost gave her a heart attack: “Ms Finkelstein, this is the Jerusalem police. It’s about one of your volunteers.” Mike was at the kibbutz. He had left the morning after our arrival because of sudden intestinal problems (gee… didn’t he read the health warning section of his lonely planet before ordering a GREEN SALAD in the Arab quarter?). He rushed to the bus station early in the morning where he happened to have another attack, left his backpack on a bench and run to the bathroom. Reemerging from the bathroom he found two armed soldiers waiting for him for a little… two hour “Q&A session” about his unattended luggage.

I never told Mike the whole story. When I saw him back at the kibbutz he was laughing his head off over my going to the police, and I wanted to deny him any further satisfaction. As far as I remember I gave him a dirty look (or the finger?) and walked away in rage.

I have to thank Mike for his totally unexpected, touching letter and his life lesson. And because now that the last traces of anger have been buried I can finally laugh my head off too.

Are we dead yet?

With all the media overhyping the swine flu and officials around the world, including WHO, reacting to the pandemic scare with dire warnings, it is no surprise that family and friends are calling us, freaking out and worrying about our health.

Let me reassure everyone that we are just fine. NYFD black-plague carts are being hauled through the streets piled high with dead bodies, corpses are being stacked up on Madison Avenue very efficiently, the Waldorf-Astoria hotel is being used as an isolation hospital, all Hispanics found on streets get systematically beaten up, disinfectants are being sprayed every 2 hours, and we’ve been distributed gas masks to wear in case we need to break the curfew and leave the house for urgent matters like, say, you have tickets to a Broadway show you bought back in unsuspected times. On top of this, pork ribs are selling cheap these days.

The irony is that the day before the wave of panic started I bought pork chops. It’s funny because I don’t buy meat very often. We have meat once a week with a preference for white meat, and according to my online grocery records the last time I bought pork was a year ago, on Thursday, April 3, 2008: Boneless Center Cut Pork Loin Chop, 1.0”, Standard, Hand-cut, Standard Pack.

The single most adventurous, thrilling experience of the year: having balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard glazed barbecue pork chops in the middle of a swine flu pandemic outbreak. Take that, WHO!

In loving memory

Los Angeles, 12-14 December 2008

Photo Mitzi Mandel

“You're entering a world of pain, son.”

We are in recession. Some say that everything will rebound soon while others say that we're in an economic crisis that rivals the one of the 30's. The specter of the Great Depression fuels fear and panic. “We're going into the worst global recession for sure that that we've ever seen”, Obama told the  press today.

It’s almost impossible to carry on with this kind of drama almost everyday. No wonder the Kremlin sent an order to all newspapers and broadcasters banning the words "collapse" and "crisis." In search for positive news, I found out that the global economic meltdown will not impact motor sport in India (The India Times) and will not have a major impact on the NBA (NewsDaily Entertainment Headlines). Also, McDonald's sales rise during economic crisis. Chief Executive Jim Skinner commented: "McDonald's strong October sales show that we are delivering what customers count on from McDonald's —choice, variety and high-quality food and beverages at affordable prices". I would have rather said “we are delivering what customers count on from McDonald's — affordable prices with a side order of burger and fries”. Well, I’m not a big fan of McDonald’s but at least Mcemployees won’t get Mcfired.

Thus far, our life hasn't really changed much. Thanks God we have not had to resort to living on Ramen noodles. But maybe unconsciously, somehow we adjusted to the general mood of doom and gloom. Our life in the new Great Depression includes:

The New Yorker. My husband received a gift subscription to the New Yorker for his birthday. A typical article is 15 pages long, a real challenge given the increasingly short attention span of the average web user. Reading the New Yorker is a full time job. Indeed I was offered a job a couple of weeks ago and I had to refuse: “Sorry, I just subscribed to the New Yorker.” And more, it’s a zen exercise. The first few times you read one of those neverending stories that any other journalist would have told in two columns you get an urge to yell out "get on with it already!" at least a dozen times. This side effect disappears with daily practice. Once you attain enlightment you’re all set. (Reader, you may have noticed that this post is longer than usual; that’s because I’m trying to do to you what the New Yorker is doing to me.)

The Philoctetes Center is our new preferred destination for lectures. It’s a club of psys whose declared mission is to “promote an integrated approach to the understanding of creativity and the imaginative process.” Emotionally appealing words like creativity and imagination have been used here in order not to scare the shit out of potential members and attendees. Truth is, one of their last roundtable was aimed to “consider theoretical questions in relation to Franco-Algerian politics, the cinema of cruelty, the use of off-screen space, and the Freudian scenario of the bourgeois family”. Last Sunday we went to the Philoctetes for an afternoon roundtable and film screening devoted to Samuel Beckett. Our motivation for attending the event was because of John Turturro taking part as a panelist. Seeing Jesus Quintana from the Big Lebowski discussing Beckett is priceless.

The Big Lebowski Fest was supposed to be the highlight of the year, if only it weren’t sold out when we got to the place. While my husband first tried to argue with security and then to sneak in, I stopped to think about this annual celebration of a massive cult movie that holds sold-out events all across the United States. Dedicated to those who have no clue where they are in life right now.

Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times

I haven’t been writing anything lately because I was overwhelmed by all the things happening on this side of the world. The credit crunch, the bailout saga, Sarah Palin and the bridge to nowhere, Sarah Palin and her glasses, Sarah Palin and moose stew…

These events do have an impact on everyday life, as I experienced in my own small way.

I was shopping at Whole Foods the other day. Looking for the #1 item on my grocery list, garlic, I strolled up and down the vegetable aisle four times. Eventually I had to ask for help. One shop assistant tells me to follow him, but we end up staring at an empty basket. “No te preocupe” he goes, “I’ll go get it in the cellar”. Good, go. And while he’s after my holy graal, I’m left contemplating this successful business that freed rich, health conscious people from feeling guilty about their consumption, a psychological absolution of our excesses.

My thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of the shop assistant who reemerged from the cellar and was standing across the hall with his arms wide open and a sorry expression on his face as saying, "Holy crap! Do you believe we run out of garlic?”. I replied to his Latin non-verbal signal with a Latin non-verbal shrug and a facial expression of disbelief as saying: “The world’s leader in natural and organic foods, with more than 270 stores in North America and the UK, with $ 6.6 billion revenue, on the index of the 100 largest non-financial companies traded on Nasdaq run out of garlic? We want change, dude. And some garlic with it.”

From Park Slope to the Dragačevo Assembly

Thursday morning, around 6.30 am I opened the window to greet the city and a smell of fried chicken came through. I’m back home.

My summer can be summarized under the title “from Brooklyn to Guča”.

June: we went to a Balkan music concert at Barbes, in Brooklyn. Quality-wise it was like a garage band concert. Yet the concert was fun and the music galvanizing. We found it amazing that this type of music, successfully exported by Kusturica’s movies during the 1990s, has obtained widespread appreciation to the point that a small band from Brooklyn can fill halls on their own. The adrenalin-rushing rhythms conquered each and every soul at at Barbes, although not everyone was familiar with Balkan music. Like the girl standing next to us who, in the middle of the concert, turned to her boyfriend and asked “this is like reggae, right?”. He smiled kindly at her. After 20 minutes she tries again: “Possibly tango?”. Meanwhile, I decided I wanted the real thing: Guča.

August: Guča, Serbia. The trumpet festival, also known as the Dragačevo Assembly, is the largest trumpet event in the world with 700,000 visitors making their way to a town of 2,000 people every year.

Notes for file from my Guča:

This isn’t Disneyland, dude. Neither Prague -> 98% of the visitors are from within Serbia or neighboring countries. Watch out, in a few years the event will be completely 'gentrified'. Let’s hope the Lonely Planet guidebook keeps ignoring it,

I didn't know you could play trumpet that way (Miles Davis, a Guča Festival visitor) -> the Roma musicians are the best,

Arteriosclerosis anyone? -> entire pigs and lambs rotating on spits above open fires were pretty much the only item on the menu,

I found the perfect Christmas gift for Carla del Ponte -> street side vendors selling T-shirts emblazoned with images of "Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic national heroes".

Building amenities

We had a barbecue dinner last night on our terrace and our guests today sent me a thank you note with a link to a NY Times article about rooftop dining in the city which quotes a Fire Department spokesman saying that both gas and charcoal grills are illegal to use on roofs. My friends commented: “We’ll ignore the part about using charcoal on rooftops as illegal!”.

Well, first off, as the article points out “that law is unheeded by many sky-high chefs.” Yes, including these two sky-high chefs here. Secondly, what friends who live in luxury Trump buildings fail to understand is that our building is managed by a Russian and a bunch of Kosovars who consider both grilling and shooting in the building perfectly legitimate, as long as you clean after your mess –remove charcoal debris, dispose of the corpse, etc…

“This is a great building”, my neighbor told me when we first met in the elevator a few days after we moved in. It’s not a great building. It’s a zoo.

In this kolkhoz that is our building, we get daily updates about Kosovo every time we step in or out. The standard conversation with my doorman goes like this:

me “hey, how are you today?”

doorman: “good, Taiwan recognized Kosovo’s independence today”, or, when Putin/Medvedev had a bad hair day and engaged in some Russian shit stirring, my doorman would say “not a good day, Russia is threatening to use force over Kosovo.” And so on. Basically, it’s like having the Pristina Times delivered to your door every morning.

One day, for the first time ever, he had something else to talk about:

me: “hey, how are you today?”

doorman: “ not very well. My uncle died yesterday.”

me: “oh, I’m terribly sorry.”

doorman: “but you know what’s the good thing?”

me: “what?”

doorman: “he died having seen Kosovo independent.”

Something's rotten in Chinatown

I love Chinatown. I love Chinatown because it’s pure Blade Runner, except there are no camels. Everyone else hates it. When I take my guests to Chinatown I can read the disgust on their face.

It stinks, they say. The sanitation standards may sometimes be dubious, I say. Moreover, it may stink in absolute terms, whereas in relative terms it’s just slightly smellier and filthier than the rest of the city. Plus, according to French standards, "the stinkier the better". Finally, in the grandeur of New York, a stinky neighborhood is not just a stinky neighborhood. It’s a place for discovery and celebration, where you can take a walking-tour of Chinatown's illustrious garbage.

They say it doesn’t give you a real taste of China, and China itself is way more progressive than Chinatown is. There's no denying it, but this is an immigrant neighborhood. Just like Little Italy. Naples, case in point, is more progressive than… Nevermind.

I go to Chinatown at least once a week to buy fresh produce. The moment I’m out of the subway, I’m like Leonard Zelig in Woody Allen’s movie. I immediately chinatize myself. My self-chinatization includes not giving a damn about getting bumped around by old asian ladies, speaking pidgin and masterly dodging spit. Plus, I feel shorter. And I walk faster. I don’t argue semantics with Chinese who aren’t fluent in English. Sometimes you see these girls at the nail salon asking complicated questions like “Do you have sun-dried cherry tomato nail color?” With a puzzled look, the pidgin speaking manicurist systematically repeats the last word: “colol?”. Instead of simplifying it, the girl repeats the question, this time shouting “DO YOU HAVE SUN-DRIED CHERRY TOMATO NAIL COLOR?”. Needless to say, they don’t get too far.

I don’t do that. I’m a result-oriented, one-word communicator. Like the other day at this no thrills no frills back rub place. I wanted a receipt, so I asked: “Receipt?”. She asked back: “Sipt?”, I nodded: “Yes, sipt”. No, of course she can’t give you a sipt. You think you are at the Four Seasons Hotel? I learned my lesson. In Chinatown less is more and never ask for a sipt.

Some of my favorite shots of Chinatown:

This is what I mean by pure Blade Runner. Stall selling cherries in the snow, February 2008.

Store cat. The odd thing is that this is a fish store.

A couple of ideas for China's Olympics

This morning we went to the Union Square market to buy new plants for our terrace. While looking for bay laurel plants, the following surreal conversation took place between my husband and a vendor:

husband: do you have laurel plants?

vendor: laurel? I don’t think so… what is it like?

husband: it’s green [bravo, great hint], it’s used to marinate meat [right, unlike all other herbs that we normally use to wash the scooter]…

vendor: ….?

husband: [with his fingers around the head] like the laurel wreath that Roman emperors used to wear on the head…

vendor: ….?

husband: like those branches used to crown winners of olympic competitions…

vendor: parsley?

Manolo vs Duane Reade

I took this pic last weekend in Union Square where hundreds of people lined up to see Sex and the City.

This gal I saw walking with plastic bags wrapped around her feet is living proof that not every woman in NY has a shoe fetish.

Sometimes life confronts us with hard choices

I would very much like to attend a lecture by Louis Ferrante tonight. The guy is a Gambino-family insider who spent eight years in jail for committing some of the most lucrative robberies in US history, refused to cooperate with the FBI against former associates of the Gambino family, wrote a book (From Prison to Proust) and converted to Orthodox Judaism. There is nothing overly exciting about a Queens born mafiaman who resolved that, as if eight years waiting for freedom weren’t enough, he shall wait another 2000 years to shake hands with the Messiah. What struck me instead was the picture accompanying the article in Time Out about the Non-Motivational Speaker Lecture Series of which Ferrante is guest. The photo portrays a speaker giving his presentation with a tampax tampon stuck up his nose. At least I suppose that’s a tampon. The caption says it was a demonstration of ‘how to alienate your fellow passengers’. Would I feel alienated by sitting in the train next to a man with a tampon stuck up his nose? Is there anything a fellow passenger could shove up his nose without stirring feelings of alienation? A nasal spray, for example, which is thematically pertinent and thus rationally acceptable? His metro ticket, in case he's got no pockets (functionally understandable)? These are some of the existential questions that stirred my enthusiasm for the event.

Unfortunately we also have an invitation to an advance screening of a movie for tonight. My husband told me the other day that he couldn’t make it because the movie starts at 6.45 and he’s got a meeting at 5.30. So this morning I came up with the Gambino plan:

me: “You know, we could go to this lecture by Louis Ferrante tonight. It’s at 8.00, which leaves you with plenty of time…”

husband: “Who’s Louis Ferrante”

me: “I don’t know, but look, he’s got a tampax shoved up his nose!”

Well, I guess my husband has been sitting in one of those useless we-can-save-the-world-you-go-first meeting this morning, absorbed in some tampax-themed soul searching. He called an hour ago to let me know that after all he’s not supposed to speak on any of the agenda items and thus he can make it for tonight’s movie.

My friend the TV advice guy explained to me that an advance screening is usually a longer cut of the movie, where the consulting firm organizing the event asks the audience for feedback, sometimes they hand out surveys and –quote- ‘you fill in whatever bubble you think is appropriate’. Having been denied the thrill of a lecture by a Jewish mafia man with a tampax stuck up his nose, I’m resolved to take full advantage of my advance screening experience and I have prepared a couple of answers such as “I think this scene best reflects Schopenhauer's nuanced differentiations of the universal substratum, propounding the nonrational, phenomenologist will as the ultimate reality’. I can see those Nielsen folks reading my inappropriate bubble and going “what the f---k?? Who does he think he is? Louis Ferrante?”.

Someone's getting spoiled here

Things to do in NYC at 7 am :  go see Counting Crows perform live (and free)  on Good Morning America at Bryant Park.

Amazing city. 

A Desperate Finale

The other night we went to a very popular bar in the West Village to meet some friends. They were Belgians and I thought that, like all Belgians, they were friendly, good-natured and genuine people. Plus, they take their beer seriously and deserve the highest admiration and praise for that.

However, all this Belgian goodness surrounding me made me feel guilty about all the fritoland-bashing stuff I write on my blog. I had to order another drink to wash off the guilt. Guilt-free, I looked around and suddenly realized people were dressed in roaring 20's flappers and gangsters outfits. I turned to my husband:

Me: I like this place, it’s cool.

Husband: we never go to bars.

Me: well, that’s because this is a hook-up bar and you’re not supposed to go to hook-up bars with your husband.

Husband: all bars in Manhattan are hook-up bars.

Me: then what’s the added value I get from living in Manhattan?

Husband: you don’t have to wait one year to watch the new episodes of Desperate Housewives?

Right, and tonight is the grand finale: time to grab that remote control, stand up and sing the American national anthem as a token of profound admiration and deep gratitude and knock myself out on the couch.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

The Cardamom peeler’s wife has sent me a birthday card picturing Hanuman, the monkey deity worshipped as a symbol of physical strength, power and perseverance. I love it not only because it reminds me of the colors and the magic of India, but also because it brings back very special memories of the time the Cardamom peeler’s wife and I shared an office in Brussels, although it’s possible that I have distorted memories of her corkboard; did she hang images of hindu gods or George Clooney?

Now, the fact that Hanuman joined St. Rita of Cascia on the magnetic rack hung over my workstation raises some important questions: is this a blasphemy mix or I just set up a strong lobby with formidable power of positive influence on my life? In a multicultural society, would the avatar of Shiva and the patroness of impossible cases join forces? And by the way, now that I know that St. Rita is venerated as ‘la Santa de los impossibles’ who the hell gave me that little icon?

After careful consideration and deep spiritual meditation, I've come to the conclusion that since I received this hindu god card from an Indian catholic friend, there is no reason why Hanuman and St. Rita shouldn’t be working together across religious boundaries.

Here is my dream team.

A dignified coroner’s report

You see those pictures of people in Pompeii and you think, how weird: one quick game of dice after your tea and you're frozen, and that's how people remember you for the next thousand years. Suppose it was the first of dice you've ever played? Suppose you were only doing it to keep your friend Augustus company? Suppose you'd just at the moment finished a brilliant poem or something? Wouldn't it be annoying to be commemorated as a dice player?

Nick Hornby, ‘High Fidelity’

 

Years ago in college, one day I was having a coffee with friends outside the cafeteria when a huge pinecone fell and landed a few inches from me. That pinecone could have hit and split my head open. Perhaps. At least that’s what I imagined and it was at that point that I started fearing a ridiculous death. Second time I escaped a ridiculous death was in Goa, India, when a killer coconut fell from a tremendously tall palm tree missing our group by a few feet.

It’s not fear of death per se. I’m not afraid of dying. Not that I would ever choose to go heli-skiing –i.e. jumping from a helicopter onto wild snow and extreme slopes- or cheerleading, which seems to be the most dangerous and injury-prone sport for women, although if I had to choose I’d prefer to risk my life while being tossed into the air and rotating in a funky costume rather than by jumping out of an helicopter in ski wears that make me look as if I had to survive a bio-chemical disaster.

I’m not afraid of dying in a sense that, for example, I’m not scared of turbulence when flying, meaning that I don’t flip out and scream WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE. You never know what Jacks and Sawyers you will find on that tiny island awaiting you in the middle of the Ocean…

I fear a ridiculous death, though. One of those that make people remember you as “that chick that die from a pinecone”. Or, the coroner’s report indicating “death by coconut”.

One would say, stand clear of trees and of course the closing doors. Nope. Not enough. On my way back from Florida I found myself thanking God I didn’t die smashed by a pelican while swimming in the Gulf of Mexico or hit by a 34 kg flying ray jumping out of the water.