There's this massive church-like structure at the end of Jodenbreestraat (translated as Jewish Broad Street). Except that its a synagogue, which is really the only thing that made it stand out in my head.
I thought it a little too big for what I'm used to in terms of synagogue sizes. And a little too old. Built in the 1600s, surrounded by a courtyard, it looks imposing, nothing like the small worship rooms I'm used to. This is something straight out of old Europe, stone and wood and wrought iron.
We land on a Friday, so after getting settled into the rooms and grabbing a nap (or multiple naps, you know, each of us doing our own napping), we decide to try to go for services. Except none of us are religious and so none of us knows when services end. So by the time we finally walk all the way over to it, 20 minutes from our hotel, its completely dark and the synagogue looks long abandoned.
We walk along the outside looking for signs of activity. All windows reveal darkness inside. We see a buzzer which someone pushes despite my entreaties not to, seeing as how the sabbath has began and everything. When no one answers we continue around the side until we finally spot a lightly furnished room with a table and about 20 people sitting down for a meal.
I'm feeling we're too late, that its rude just to show up for a meal we never registered for and especially after we just happened to miss services. Its one thing if you go for services and then hang around looking sad and hungry until someone invites you to dinner. But its just different if you pop in when all the praying is done, when you just get to benefit from a free meal. Of course, as Jews looking for a sabbath meal, for sabbath company, its not crazy to think we could just pop in and be accepted. But that acceptance weighs heavy on my mind, because it borders on manipulation, at least as far as I'm concerned. A religious person's hands are tied - they have a duty to invite you in out of the cold. But I can be a little discreet in terms of the situations I put them into, the situations that corner them into inviting me in.
So I don't want to go into the room. I stand by the curb recognizing that we're too late, that we've missed our chance with connecting to the Jewish community here.
Its at this point that the groundskeeper emerges from around the corner and goes about eyeing us suspiciously. He says something in dutch and we don't understand.
"English?" sheepishly asks a friend.
The groundskeeper melts into the dark around him, and even though he's small in stature, his face is stern and he looks imposing, a ghost-like protector.
"What are you doing here?"
"We just landed today. We came for services."
He glances at his watch, "at this time? So late?"
Doesn't he believe us? Why is he interrogating us?
"Oh, well, we're not religious."
He just looks on, as if this isn't enough of an explanation to make him understand.
I continue - "we didn't know what time it got dark."
His jaw relaxes. I realize he's been clenching it the entire time.
"Yes, you are very late. Services ended more than 30 minutes ago."
"Ok."
I want him to say something more but he's not being very helpful. I automatically lighten the pitch of my voice, which is something I notice that I do when I want to be as polite as possible, when I'm trying to win someone over.
"And what about tomorrow? When are services?"
He begins an explanation about their schedule when a young woman shows up and approaches our conversation. She takes over in talking with me and tells me when we could come back the next day if we were interested in participating.
When she's done, I point to the building hanging over us, still shrouded in the cold mistiness that was there through our entire trip.
"How many people use this, go to this synagogue?"
"Our congregation has about 300 families in it."
I don't say it but I think it - wow, only 300 families, and with such a large space? Do they really need such a big place? Do they really need to be so ostentatious about it? A synagogue this size, a synagogue that looks like a church, in such a central and flashy location?
We head off into the Amsterdam evening, towards one of many coffeeshops we'd visit that night, and quickly forget about the synagogue or any Jewish thing we had considered doing. Amsterdam became Amsterdam again.
The next day I walk to the Anne Frank House with a few guys. This self-emergent exploration of Amsterdam Jewishness isn't something that was intentional, and I have no desire for it to consume my trip, but scheduling just has it work out that way, that the house is the first thing I feel like seeing, even before the Rijksmuseum or Van Gogh.
Inside we walk through the rooms where Frank and her family hid for 2 years. We stare out of windows that overlook friendly streets, once spoiled by the trampling of Nazis and long lines of cattlized Jews being led away. Frank watches all this and she writes it down, and in the day she "creeps as quiet as a mouse" so that no one working in the factory downstairs, including people that seemingly had no knowledge of the Jews hiding above, would hear them.
Its strange to walk these floors and touch these walls, some still preserved with the paper cut outs she pasted on it to liven up the space, to add some color, some element of dreaming to the whole secret apartment hidden behind a half-sized bookcase that, when I see it, makes me wonder how secret their being there really was? It looks comical to me, clearly out of place, clearly alerting anyone who should come across it that something else might lie behind, particularly when you consider that from the outside, the building is still a 4 floor structure that could accommodate a whole slew of people above its factory-operating ground and basement floors.
But for two years this all somehow worked. And for two years Anne and everyone else in this hideout who used this one bathroom passed this exact mirror and saw themselves looking back at themselves and wondered about the world outside that was forcing them to become what they had become.
Just a girl, I think, and, I know girls, or women who were once girls, and anyone of them could have been here, could have cried and laughed and feared behind these walls like she did. That's when being there means more to me than just reading some plaques on some walls and watching my own feet scrape the veneer off the sloping edges of the stairs. It's cold here, even with all of these people crammed into the rooms, even with the TVs and DVD players looping minute-long video bits of commentary that's, somehow, supposed to make all of this a little easier to digest.
Outside someone taps a friend of mine on the shoulder. A group of tourist girls from, what sounds like Italy, asks him to take their picture. The ten or so of them gather together at the base of the house, next to a little sign that quietly identifies it, recessed several feet from the busy corner with the crowds waiting to get into the museum wing of the experience. They smile and joke, they hold up peace signs, and as he snaps their photo I just shake my head.
It's only when I pass the synagogue again later that night that I make the connection I hadn't made before - at one point this country had 120,000-130,000 Jews, and about 100,000 of them never returned. Suddenly it's size isn't an affront to a City, a loud flag that makes me want to avert my eyes because for some reason I seem ashamed of Jews proclaiming their presence and would probably prefer a more whispered announcement. Now it's a sad monument, a hushed tomb that has creaked in the wind for hundreds of years and now sits mostly hollowed of the company it once kept. An ugly side of the continent that I realize I had never experienced firsthand before. There had been those trips to France and Spain and Italy and Greece and Turkey, but I never explored those countries with the same mindset I have somehow developed in the last few years. I never cared to see a Jewish star hanging on a building nor tried to seek them out. And so really this is the first time that I'm here and the first time I understand what it means when they say that whole communities were wiped out, that a way of life was so nearly eradicated. I can't even fathom, the idea that there were so many Jews here at one point. Those kinds of numbers speak to the fact that there will never be that many Jews here again.
We finally do get to go inside the synagogue a couple of days later. In the vast hall that no one else is visiting while we are there, a friend of mine breaks into a classic Jewish melody. The walls shakes, the beams echo the words back to us, and it all feels right, as if by us being there we have brought something back that has been missing all this time, a piece of a city or a country, a piece of its heart, it's lost people. I heard the words, I felt the world move, and I dreamed that here, the music would play forever.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The Return
I had totally intended to do the whole mobile blogging thing, but as you can see, I flaked. Perhaps that's a good thing, because now you know I wasn't sitting around typing whole rants with two thumbs on a small Blackberry keyboard. I was out, doing the Amsterdam thing, however you want to imagine that, and I had a helluva good time. It wasn't good for the reasons you might think (extended periods of lost time, tingling sensations, inebriation) but rather just because it was fun. I hang out with friends, had some laughs, took some pictures, saw some pretty amazing things. It gave me a perspective on a few things, which ill discuss in a later post, and it gave me a monster stiff neck (thanks to the multi-land people/bike/car/tram traffic that forced me to twist my head back and forth to make sure I wasn't getting run over or yelled at).
Now I'm on a LIRR train heading to Long Island for the holidays. On Saturday I make the move to Park Slope, so really, this trip could not have come at a more opportune time. You take the me from as late as the third week in August and the me a week from now, and you notice that I changed two major parts of my life - job and residence. That's kind of crazy when I think about it. Yeah. Crazy and awesome.
Whoever said that holiday travel is slow this season obviously didn't jump on the LIRR cause this train is stacked. I have people in the aisles hanging over me and somehow, even with the neck thing, I managed to toss my luggage up on the overhead rack, to the horror of some girl below who totally thought I'd drop it on her. Wonder how exactly ill get off this thing.
Oh one thing I have to mention about the hotel we stayed at (an ex orphanage on the corner of Oosterpark, the park where Theo Van Gogh was murdered while biking through it back in 2004). The place was super modern, with white and black minimalist furniture and a totally European bathroom. By "European" I mean that the wall was made of half-ass tinted black glass that just wasn't tinted enough. You could totally see the person in the shower or on the can. It was pretty disconcerting. We managed, but it took some getting used to, and required a disclaimer pre-bathroom use.
"Um, dude, I'm going in there right now so unless you want to catch a glimpse of the package you might want to keep watching the Discovery Channel for a few minutes."
I miss that bathroom.
No I don't.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Airporting
There's something amazing about leaving, the way you know that in a few hours you'll be in a different world, but at the same time, there you are with a Blackberry and email and it feels like you're just around the corner from where you were. This is the first time I'm going abroad with the Internet at my fingertips, and while I'm obsessed enough with email and communication that this is exciting for me, I also feel stressed out about it. Part of going away is really going away, not just physically but psychologically. And here I am holding onto home, to the place I'm leaving. I could always just turn the thing off, throw it in a corner and ignore it, but that seems sort of forced, like I'm forcing myself into a particular situation to create a mindset of disconnectedness. Then again, that's sort of what going away is in general, just us throwing ourselves into experience that, often, is kind of contrived. I can give you a hundred cliches of what I'm SUPPOSED to do in Amsterdam, so how much is this really about doing something unique? And so then if its not about that, than what's the big deal with keeping a trusty Blackberry at my side?
I'm thinking about this too much, I know. But you should know that it wasn't an easy decision for me to make, since I know my own tendency to grab at my pocket as soon as I feel that inviting vibration. I can live without it for a week or two, I actually welcome the opportunity, but shouldn't I also be confident enough with myself to just have it and use it at it is needed? If this thing ends up ruining any sort of escape I would have otherwise had, then its only because I let it.
Be strong man. Keep your hands out of your pockets. Check sparingly. Ignore the pull of the cyberverse. I think I can do this.
I'm thinking about this too much, I know. But you should know that it wasn't an easy decision for me to make, since I know my own tendency to grab at my pocket as soon as I feel that inviting vibration. I can live without it for a week or two, I actually welcome the opportunity, but shouldn't I also be confident enough with myself to just have it and use it at it is needed? If this thing ends up ruining any sort of escape I would have otherwise had, then its only because I let it.
Be strong man. Keep your hands out of your pockets. Check sparingly. Ignore the pull of the cyberverse. I think I can do this.
Monday, November 17, 2008
I Noticed
Earlier today, when I was heading through midtown right around the time it was getting dark, I randomly looked up at the Empire State Building from the corner of 32nd and 6th. The lights had just come on and there was still that ebbing glow in the sky, the shade of blue I like, slowly dimming into black. And I had this moment where I realized that I haven't really paid attention to things for a while, and I haven't appreciated the things I have noticed.
I don't know what it is, maybe it's just about getting jaded or becoming the sort of New Yorker who speeds between the lumbering tourists because, somehow, you're always running late and getting there a little less late than you otherwise would is suddenly the most important thing in the world. It's like the only thing in the world. And not too long ago, it was just you standing on random corners not knowing where the hell you were because the City, even with its numbered streets, still made absolutely no sense to you. Being lost had its own magic, because you could smile at the little things you saw even if you had no context to go off of. A little community park you passed was just this weird little jungle that you didn't know how to get back to, that made no sense and that was OK, because it didn't need to. But then things become common and everything seems ordinary, already seen, grasped. You convince yourself that you understand it all, so it makes less sense to care. When do you become just a spirited walker who heads from point A to point B with seldom a though to what happens in the middle?
Two people stop me in the course of 5 minutes after I leave that corner. They don't know where they are, but I do. There's a power in that, and a self satisfaction that, for whatever reason, they see you as the type of guy who might know, the type of guy who they'd want to stop and ask. Whatever that means. But the knowing doesn't have to have a price. It doesn't have to be just the flat map of Manhattan etched into a corner of your thinking, ripe for recall when you need to orient yourself outside the subway or toss a smile to the confused girl flipping through a guidebook.
"You need help?"
She looks you up and down suspiciously, but then her eyes soften. She points to something on the page.
"How do I get to Times Square?"
There's still something about this place, and it's when I notice it that I feel this crazy joy about being here. It happens suddenly, its always totally unexpected, and it comes from nothing more than seeing the steam coming up out of your coffee on a cold night in December, or watching some little kid running after pigeons in Washington Sq. Park. I think of all the times I've thought of leaving, but for whatever reason couldn't make it out, whether it's because of fate, with things just not working out, or because I couldn't bring myself to do it. I think of all the times I've wanted nothing more than to vanish, because of the craziness and the way that you get so wrapped up in today's crap that you stop thinking about yesterday and tomorrow. You've been in love before, and you remember what it feels like, but you forget to believe in it. That's the first step in disappearing. Most people you see on the streets, they're already gone.
I noticed New York today, the way I used to notice it all the time, and I wish it was always like this.
I don't know what it is, maybe it's just about getting jaded or becoming the sort of New Yorker who speeds between the lumbering tourists because, somehow, you're always running late and getting there a little less late than you otherwise would is suddenly the most important thing in the world. It's like the only thing in the world. And not too long ago, it was just you standing on random corners not knowing where the hell you were because the City, even with its numbered streets, still made absolutely no sense to you. Being lost had its own magic, because you could smile at the little things you saw even if you had no context to go off of. A little community park you passed was just this weird little jungle that you didn't know how to get back to, that made no sense and that was OK, because it didn't need to. But then things become common and everything seems ordinary, already seen, grasped. You convince yourself that you understand it all, so it makes less sense to care. When do you become just a spirited walker who heads from point A to point B with seldom a though to what happens in the middle?
Two people stop me in the course of 5 minutes after I leave that corner. They don't know where they are, but I do. There's a power in that, and a self satisfaction that, for whatever reason, they see you as the type of guy who might know, the type of guy who they'd want to stop and ask. Whatever that means. But the knowing doesn't have to have a price. It doesn't have to be just the flat map of Manhattan etched into a corner of your thinking, ripe for recall when you need to orient yourself outside the subway or toss a smile to the confused girl flipping through a guidebook.
"You need help?"
She looks you up and down suspiciously, but then her eyes soften. She points to something on the page.
"How do I get to Times Square?"
There's still something about this place, and it's when I notice it that I feel this crazy joy about being here. It happens suddenly, its always totally unexpected, and it comes from nothing more than seeing the steam coming up out of your coffee on a cold night in December, or watching some little kid running after pigeons in Washington Sq. Park. I think of all the times I've thought of leaving, but for whatever reason couldn't make it out, whether it's because of fate, with things just not working out, or because I couldn't bring myself to do it. I think of all the times I've wanted nothing more than to vanish, because of the craziness and the way that you get so wrapped up in today's crap that you stop thinking about yesterday and tomorrow. You've been in love before, and you remember what it feels like, but you forget to believe in it. That's the first step in disappearing. Most people you see on the streets, they're already gone.
I noticed New York today, the way I used to notice it all the time, and I wish it was always like this.
Birthright Israel Monologues
So it's that time again, the time when I plug the show that I'm in. You might remember that I talked about it a few months ago. That was our first run, and many of us didn't think there'd be another. But we were wrong, because now we have three more upcoming performances at the Triad on the Upper West Side. November 18, 19, and 20, although if you want to come see me, I won't be there on the 20th (going to Amsterdam for a bachelor party! Shout out to Dustin S.). In any case, the show is a little longer than it was last time, since we dropped one act and added five in its place, which I think makes it a lot stronger. Definitely miss the absent party, but the five newbies we have for this second round are definitely talented folk, and that's not just me saying that because I want you to spend your money to see us.
If you're interested, check out this link to buy tickets.
Also, a friend pointed out to me that if you do a Google search for "Birthright Monologues," this very blog is the first thing that comes up. Now that's pretty sick.
Wish us luck!
If you're interested, check out this link to buy tickets.
Also, a friend pointed out to me that if you do a Google search for "Birthright Monologues," this very blog is the first thing that comes up. Now that's pretty sick.
Wish us luck!
Friday, November 14, 2008
Foreign Accent Syndrome
I only half-joke when I say that sometimes, it feels like I'm acquiring a Russian accent that I never had before. I was born in freaking Queens, and while Russian did end up being my first language because I was raised by my great-grandmother, I don't think I've ever actually had any sort of foreign accent. But these days, for whatever reason, I've been slipping into a Russian accent when I hit certain letter combinations:
1. The "ace" in a word like "place" becomes "ess." So "place" becomes "pless," and "space" becomes "spess."
2. The "tion" in a word like "situation" becomes "shun," and it basically sounds the same except that I end up putting a lot more stress on the end of the word and it comes out ethnic-sounding. I've been having problems with "situation" and pretty much any word that ends with "tion."
3. The "ease" in a word like "please" becomes "eze." "Please" becomes "pleze."
4. The "teen" in numbers like "sixteen" becomes "tien." "Sixteen" becomes "sixtien."
Ugh, I'm getting frustrated just thinking about it. I will admit that in the last year or two, I've also been using a forced Russian accent just to sound funny, because Russian accents are funny. I wonder if maybe this has something to do with the collapse of my normal speech patterns. I'm more liable to blame my getting older, maybe some genes I inherited from my dad, because now I'm not only beginning to sound like him, but I'm also starting to make the same sorts of mistakes when it comes to remembering a word or a name as just slightly off what it actually is. For instance, my dad always confused "Natalie Portman" with "Natalie Portnoy," and so you can see how he's kind of remembering the right thing, but not exactly. Similarly, I'll find myself, consistently, knowing what I'm talking about, but being a bit off from what it actually is. So something like the song "Yellow Submarine" will transform into "Purple Submarine." That's not actually a real-world example, but I think you get the idea.
Lately I've really been wondering what's happening to me. I'm beginning to see my life as a slow but steady path towards a total Russian accent, sort of like a march towards senility. And then, as fate should have it, I come across this clip which discusses how people who have experienced certain brain trauma sometimes develop random foreign accents. It's kind of wild:
I don't really remember experiencing any sort of particular brain trauma, but considering that I spent most of the last 2.5 years working in a corporate law firm, perhaps that had something to do with it.
1. The "ace" in a word like "place" becomes "ess." So "place" becomes "pless," and "space" becomes "spess."
2. The "tion" in a word like "situation" becomes "shun," and it basically sounds the same except that I end up putting a lot more stress on the end of the word and it comes out ethnic-sounding. I've been having problems with "situation" and pretty much any word that ends with "tion."
3. The "ease" in a word like "please" becomes "eze." "Please" becomes "pleze."
4. The "teen" in numbers like "sixteen" becomes "tien." "Sixteen" becomes "sixtien."
Ugh, I'm getting frustrated just thinking about it. I will admit that in the last year or two, I've also been using a forced Russian accent just to sound funny, because Russian accents are funny. I wonder if maybe this has something to do with the collapse of my normal speech patterns. I'm more liable to blame my getting older, maybe some genes I inherited from my dad, because now I'm not only beginning to sound like him, but I'm also starting to make the same sorts of mistakes when it comes to remembering a word or a name as just slightly off what it actually is. For instance, my dad always confused "Natalie Portman" with "Natalie Portnoy," and so you can see how he's kind of remembering the right thing, but not exactly. Similarly, I'll find myself, consistently, knowing what I'm talking about, but being a bit off from what it actually is. So something like the song "Yellow Submarine" will transform into "Purple Submarine." That's not actually a real-world example, but I think you get the idea.
Lately I've really been wondering what's happening to me. I'm beginning to see my life as a slow but steady path towards a total Russian accent, sort of like a march towards senility. And then, as fate should have it, I come across this clip which discusses how people who have experienced certain brain trauma sometimes develop random foreign accents. It's kind of wild:
I don't really remember experiencing any sort of particular brain trauma, but considering that I spent most of the last 2.5 years working in a corporate law firm, perhaps that had something to do with it.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Life Packing
It's kind of interesting what you come across when you have to pack up your life. I'm into saving little keepsakes that might, one day, go into a scrapbook. As of now, I don't have one, so I keep all that sort of stuff in plastic bags and a little tackle-box I have. I'm guessing it's a tackle-box because it has a little metal etching of fish and hooks on the outside cover, but that might just be a random decoration for an otherwise plain old box.
At the same time, I'm not an amasser of junk, at least I try not to be. So whenever I move, or whenever I'm bored, I like to go through what I've saved over the years and throw out the stuff that seems inconsequential. Just now, going through this little box that has blindly stored these "memories" since law school, I threw out a whole bunch of ticket stubs from the last six years, dating as far back as junior year of college when I took a Chunnel train from London to Brussels for a weekend, with a stop-off in Paris before heading back to NYU classes at our school near Bedford Sq. I was there with a girl I had started dating, and it was way too early into our relationship to be going off to Paris for Valentines Day. I remember feeling kind of depressed during the trip, because I was in what I think is the most romantic city in the world (cliches aside), and yet I wasn't there with someone I was in love with. Still, for whatever reason, despite the things that this specific ticket calls to mind, I decided to throw it away. I reason that I can't save every darn ticket stub from the rest of my life, so I might as well not save any of them. Maybe that logic is flawed, or maybe I'm just waiting to save an especially important ticket stub, a ticket stub that's so important that it will cause me to break my newly-created no-ticket-stub-saving policy. We'll have to wait and see if such a ticket stub produces itself at some point in the future.
I also happen to be hoarding a decent amount of cold hard cash that I haven't spent because I deem it "lucky." Somewhere in this pile of $67 is a $1 bill that was given to me by the Rabbi who bar mitzvahed me. He, in turn, claimed to have gotten it from Rabbi Schneerson, the now-deceased spiritual leader of Chabad. The rest of it is money I found that I decided not to spend because, technically, it wasn't really mine to begin with.
But other than the box with the memorabilia, there's something else in my room that I still haven't had the heart to dismantle because it's something that I will never recreate once its gone. The magnetic poetry I have on my fridge has, over the last two years, slowly transformed itself from loose, meaningless words, to combined sentences that actually remind me of the things I was thinking or feeling when I put them together. Before I rip them apart and toss the individual pieces into a cookie jar that I have designated as my magnetic poetry holder pre-new-refrigerator, I wanted to write them down, lock them in the annals of history for posterity, both mine and yours:
"Know only that every impression is a silhouette of an angel."
"Make him experiment as an electric sex masterpiece."
"Mount cigarette latex with dry junk."
"They investigate said glorious metaphor."
"Open your suffering so my canvas can imagine death."
"Demand."
"I am always my young life."
"You never sense the rhythm of our song."
"Live passion but ask who looms in the smoke."
"I break above harmony."
"Write me empty symbols to capture her black monument."
I don't claim that any of it is deep, and of course it's hard to avoid the melodrama with some of these words that they give you, but each sentence has something about it that calls to mind a specific conversation, a specific moment in this little studio apartment. Maybe they don't mean anything to anyone else, but in my head, they encapsulate the last two years pretty well. Onto new magnetic poetry creations.
At the same time, I'm not an amasser of junk, at least I try not to be. So whenever I move, or whenever I'm bored, I like to go through what I've saved over the years and throw out the stuff that seems inconsequential. Just now, going through this little box that has blindly stored these "memories" since law school, I threw out a whole bunch of ticket stubs from the last six years, dating as far back as junior year of college when I took a Chunnel train from London to Brussels for a weekend, with a stop-off in Paris before heading back to NYU classes at our school near Bedford Sq. I was there with a girl I had started dating, and it was way too early into our relationship to be going off to Paris for Valentines Day. I remember feeling kind of depressed during the trip, because I was in what I think is the most romantic city in the world (cliches aside), and yet I wasn't there with someone I was in love with. Still, for whatever reason, despite the things that this specific ticket calls to mind, I decided to throw it away. I reason that I can't save every darn ticket stub from the rest of my life, so I might as well not save any of them. Maybe that logic is flawed, or maybe I'm just waiting to save an especially important ticket stub, a ticket stub that's so important that it will cause me to break my newly-created no-ticket-stub-saving policy. We'll have to wait and see if such a ticket stub produces itself at some point in the future.
I also happen to be hoarding a decent amount of cold hard cash that I haven't spent because I deem it "lucky." Somewhere in this pile of $67 is a $1 bill that was given to me by the Rabbi who bar mitzvahed me. He, in turn, claimed to have gotten it from Rabbi Schneerson, the now-deceased spiritual leader of Chabad. The rest of it is money I found that I decided not to spend because, technically, it wasn't really mine to begin with.
But other than the box with the memorabilia, there's something else in my room that I still haven't had the heart to dismantle because it's something that I will never recreate once its gone. The magnetic poetry I have on my fridge has, over the last two years, slowly transformed itself from loose, meaningless words, to combined sentences that actually remind me of the things I was thinking or feeling when I put them together. Before I rip them apart and toss the individual pieces into a cookie jar that I have designated as my magnetic poetry holder pre-new-refrigerator, I wanted to write them down, lock them in the annals of history for posterity, both mine and yours:
"Know only that every impression is a silhouette of an angel."
"Make him experiment as an electric sex masterpiece."
"Mount cigarette latex with dry junk."
"They investigate said glorious metaphor."
"Open your suffering so my canvas can imagine death."
"Demand."
"I am always my young life."
"You never sense the rhythm of our song."
"Live passion but ask who looms in the smoke."
"I break above harmony."
"Write me empty symbols to capture her black monument."
I don't claim that any of it is deep, and of course it's hard to avoid the melodrama with some of these words that they give you, but each sentence has something about it that calls to mind a specific conversation, a specific moment in this little studio apartment. Maybe they don't mean anything to anyone else, but in my head, they encapsulate the last two years pretty well. Onto new magnetic poetry creations.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Mock Trials
I was supposed to judge a mock trial tournament today over in Brooklyn Heights. Yes people, I've become so familiar with Brooklyn that now I'm going to mention specific areas whenever I reference it. So before I leave home, I have this moment where I look at myself in the mirror - unshaven, dressed out in brown courds, red and yellow t-shirt, brown zip-up over it, and pumas - and wonder, "hmmm, maybe I should wear a suit..."
For some reason I think back to the last time I judged a mock trial tournament (college-level) over in Columbia about a year ago. I could have sworn that they gave us judges robes to wear. So that means I don't really need to dress up for this, since whatever I wear is going to be covered by a black robe anyway. Plus I have shit to do afterward, and I'm not going to run around sweating in a suit.
But then I get to the courthouse and walk into the judges' waiting room and I'm the only guy not in a suit. They look at me as if I'm a student, just randomly strolling in. I go over to grab a mini-muffin and the food monitor looks me up and down and goes, "um...are you...a judge?"
"Yeah," I say, biting into the muffin and realizing too late it's some sort of carrot-raisin thing instead of the bran muffin I was anticipating.
"Oh, OK."
He doesn't sound convinced, but what can I do? Later when they bring out papers for people to sign, I have to keep staring at the girl walking around with them just so I can get a little moment of eye contact to alert her to the idea that maybe I need to sign those papers too.
Afterward, I'm paired with another judge who I have to explain myself to.
"I don't usually dress like this to court, but I thought..."
Little do I know that when we get to our courtroom, everyone is already inside, seated and waiting. They all rise as soon as the doors open and as I follow her in, I'm ridiculously self-conscious that those twenty-five people in there - the "attorneys" and "witnesses," other people from the colleges, family members - are judging me. Get it? Play on words right there. You just missed it.
The thing goes by without much of a hitch. I give my comments at the conclusion, telling them what I liked and what I would have liked to see changed. I also added another explanation about my appearance. I just had to say something about it, if only to put my own mind to rest about them thinking I was a complete moron who had no regard for their whole process of preparation and presentation. They put so much work into this and they show up all serious and totally get into character and their little imaginary, make-believe world of lawyers and judges and trials is crushed by my off-handed wardrobe.
"I thought I'd get a judges' robe, like last time...I could have sworn they had them last time..."
Maybe that's just something I made up in my head to justify dressing the way that was most convenient for me. I don't know. And I have no idea if they took me seriously at any point through this whole thing, as constructive as my comments were (I gave myself a little pat on the back for those, because I think they really highlighted that I was listening the whole time, which, I guess, sort of redeems me, at least in my own eyes).
It's fine. In case you haven't heard, I'm moving to Park Slope, so I feel like now that I'm living in this super-artsy area I have sort of a free license to dress all disinterested-like, even to court.
For some reason I think back to the last time I judged a mock trial tournament (college-level) over in Columbia about a year ago. I could have sworn that they gave us judges robes to wear. So that means I don't really need to dress up for this, since whatever I wear is going to be covered by a black robe anyway. Plus I have shit to do afterward, and I'm not going to run around sweating in a suit.
But then I get to the courthouse and walk into the judges' waiting room and I'm the only guy not in a suit. They look at me as if I'm a student, just randomly strolling in. I go over to grab a mini-muffin and the food monitor looks me up and down and goes, "um...are you...a judge?"
"Yeah," I say, biting into the muffin and realizing too late it's some sort of carrot-raisin thing instead of the bran muffin I was anticipating.
"Oh, OK."
He doesn't sound convinced, but what can I do? Later when they bring out papers for people to sign, I have to keep staring at the girl walking around with them just so I can get a little moment of eye contact to alert her to the idea that maybe I need to sign those papers too.
Afterward, I'm paired with another judge who I have to explain myself to.
"I don't usually dress like this to court, but I thought..."
Little do I know that when we get to our courtroom, everyone is already inside, seated and waiting. They all rise as soon as the doors open and as I follow her in, I'm ridiculously self-conscious that those twenty-five people in there - the "attorneys" and "witnesses," other people from the colleges, family members - are judging me. Get it? Play on words right there. You just missed it.
The thing goes by without much of a hitch. I give my comments at the conclusion, telling them what I liked and what I would have liked to see changed. I also added another explanation about my appearance. I just had to say something about it, if only to put my own mind to rest about them thinking I was a complete moron who had no regard for their whole process of preparation and presentation. They put so much work into this and they show up all serious and totally get into character and their little imaginary, make-believe world of lawyers and judges and trials is crushed by my off-handed wardrobe.
"I thought I'd get a judges' robe, like last time...I could have sworn they had them last time..."
Maybe that's just something I made up in my head to justify dressing the way that was most convenient for me. I don't know. And I have no idea if they took me seriously at any point through this whole thing, as constructive as my comments were (I gave myself a little pat on the back for those, because I think they really highlighted that I was listening the whole time, which, I guess, sort of redeems me, at least in my own eyes).
It's fine. In case you haven't heard, I'm moving to Park Slope, so I feel like now that I'm living in this super-artsy area I have sort of a free license to dress all disinterested-like, even to court.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Butt Out of My Election
I like foreigners. I like the way they speak, especially when they're trying to speak English. And Italian who tries to speak English is only one thing in my mind - adorable. I like that they come here with their fancy European currency and buy up all the laptops in Best Buy as if they were pulling stuff out of the bargain bin at Loehmann's. I can appreciate that they like NY so much that they come here to live for a couple of years and end up sleeping with a whole slew of Americans who are smitten by their bravado and sass. But what I can't stand, is when they butt in on my election.
For some reason, CNN and the rest of the news channels felt compelled to show me what was going on in the streets of Sydney and Nairobi while the results were coming in for an American Presidential election. Then this morning, one of the top news stories was how citizens throughout the world had parties and rallies expressing excitement for Obama. OK so I get that the US is the major world player and that everyone feels invested in who we end up electing. I get that, I think that makes sense, and I understand that it matters. But I don't understand how it matters to me or why anyone here should give a damn who the rest of the world would like us to elect.
There I was, at some "party" hosted by some organization at some cheesy bar in Chelsea. I come in and this place is packed with Europeans. I don't know where they all came from, but it's just Poles and Swedes and Germans. And, as you can probably guess, there's a whole bunch of them wearing Obama pins. Fine, so you know I didn't vote for Obama, and I kind of expected that in going out in NYC I'd only likely find Obama-supporting strongholds. But I didn't expect to find these Europeans chilling out with their pins and yelling at the TV everytime a state was called for Obama. I was like "wtf?" Why do I have these people who aren't citizens of my country walking around and thrusting their opinions in my face.
I thought about it. Imagine me, this Jewish guy from NY, popping into some bar in the UK with like a f'in Labor pin on and watching the Parliamentary returns coming in. I'd be standing there and shouting at the TV, whooping up a storm - "yeah bitches! Gordon Brown in the house!" I'd get a beat down by some agitated Scot. I'd get hung by my knickers on some lampost outside and they'd force me to eat their terrible cuisine. No one likes a pompous American butting into their country's business, so why the hell should I have to tolerate these people telling me what they think about my election? And why should I be subjected to shots of people celebrating in foreign countries on a day that's supposed to be about what Americans want?
I'm not going to lie - I saw no foreigners supporting McCain. But I want to believe I would have responded the same way to them too. I have more of an issue with them supporting anyone than with them being for a particular candidate.
For some reason, CNN and the rest of the news channels felt compelled to show me what was going on in the streets of Sydney and Nairobi while the results were coming in for an American Presidential election. Then this morning, one of the top news stories was how citizens throughout the world had parties and rallies expressing excitement for Obama. OK so I get that the US is the major world player and that everyone feels invested in who we end up electing. I get that, I think that makes sense, and I understand that it matters. But I don't understand how it matters to me or why anyone here should give a damn who the rest of the world would like us to elect.
There I was, at some "party" hosted by some organization at some cheesy bar in Chelsea. I come in and this place is packed with Europeans. I don't know where they all came from, but it's just Poles and Swedes and Germans. And, as you can probably guess, there's a whole bunch of them wearing Obama pins. Fine, so you know I didn't vote for Obama, and I kind of expected that in going out in NYC I'd only likely find Obama-supporting strongholds. But I didn't expect to find these Europeans chilling out with their pins and yelling at the TV everytime a state was called for Obama. I was like "wtf?" Why do I have these people who aren't citizens of my country walking around and thrusting their opinions in my face.
I thought about it. Imagine me, this Jewish guy from NY, popping into some bar in the UK with like a f'in Labor pin on and watching the Parliamentary returns coming in. I'd be standing there and shouting at the TV, whooping up a storm - "yeah bitches! Gordon Brown in the house!" I'd get a beat down by some agitated Scot. I'd get hung by my knickers on some lampost outside and they'd force me to eat their terrible cuisine. No one likes a pompous American butting into their country's business, so why the hell should I have to tolerate these people telling me what they think about my election? And why should I be subjected to shots of people celebrating in foreign countries on a day that's supposed to be about what Americans want?
I'm not going to lie - I saw no foreigners supporting McCain. But I want to believe I would have responded the same way to them too. I have more of an issue with them supporting anyone than with them being for a particular candidate.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
I Sleep Little. I Ramble
Getting less than 6 hours of sleep a night over the course of a week is kind of like taking the G train - it'll do but you're not happy about it. That's actually one lesson I learned pretty quickly when I started the apartment hunting thing - don't get a place that's only by the G train. No offense to you G-trainers, but the damn thing sucks. Any subway that only chills out in the outer boroughs is crappy in my book. Like the S train in Brooklyn. Like did you even know there was an S train in Brooklyn? It's also a "shuttle" like the 42nd St. one and it makes like three stops. I get it, those are an important three stops, but they're not that important. I just want to know why someone felt compelled to throw an S train in the middle there.
Can I tell you about the crap I came across on Sunday when I was doing my apt. hunting? Not "crap" as in bad places, but like a shit situation. This one guy advertised a place for $1680 in Craig's List and said it included all fees. And this place is sick, like completely redone and a private balcony. But I'm thinking "oh, well it's on the edge of Ft. Greene so maybe the location is shitty and either way, $1680 is not that little money." I get there and this nice-ish Italian man lets me in. He's the broker, we chat, he shows me the place, and then we get down to numbers and the rent is - surprise - $2100. I'm like "wtf dude?" He actually whips out the calculator on his Blackberry to show me how he got to $1680. In his warped logic, instead of being like "well, with fees this apt. would be $2450, but we're not charging fees, so you only owe $2100," he subtracted the non-existent fees from the actual rent and used that as a rent figure, which makes absolutely, totally, zero sense. Are you following me?
I take a paper from him, grab a pencil, and do the math on paper. I'm doing long multiplication and long division and I'm kicking his Blackberry's ass, getting all juiced up that this guy is trying to convince me of a mathematical impossibility. I accuse him of scamming people, of leading them all the way to this outlying building and then throwing $400 onto the price he promised.
"I'm an honest man."
"If you're an honest man, then why did you go and compromise your principles?"
He gives me the sob story about being on the job for only a few months and needing to compete with other brokers who do the same thing and having to feed his wife and kids. Tell me - what the hell does it matter to me what the other broker's are doing? Adults have this very childish way of reasoning through crap that they do, which just kind of gives you a clue about why the world is so f'ed up. Basically, no one grows up. She did it, so I can do it. Get a life.
"It's people like you that give brokers a bad name. You should be ashamed of yourself."
"I'm sorry man, you look like a nice guy. I didn't mean to trick anybody."
"But that's exactly what you're doing!"
"Tell you what, I'll give you a ride home."
Yeah, I'm going to get into this guy's car and let him give me a ride home. That's crazy! And somehow a "ride home" is supposed to compensate for getting played like that. Screw that.
So tomorrow is the election and I say it's about f'in time to get this crap behind us. I'm exhausted, both psyschologically, emotionally, and physically, which just goes to show you that I'm so exhausted that I used "both" to refer to three things. You're probably exhausted too and didn't even notice that. It's awesome that I paid to go to this party because my friend told me he was going to sign up too and then didn't and didn't tell me he didn't so I get to go to a party alone. Awesome. Love when that happens. Although I will be taking a notepad with me and ask some questions. I'm thinking I might turn it into an election day article, like what people are thinking throughout the night. I'm kind of bummed that the crowd will likely be very predictable. You just ain't going to find a good 'ol Republican joint in Manhattan-proper.
Can I tell you about the crap I came across on Sunday when I was doing my apt. hunting? Not "crap" as in bad places, but like a shit situation. This one guy advertised a place for $1680 in Craig's List and said it included all fees. And this place is sick, like completely redone and a private balcony. But I'm thinking "oh, well it's on the edge of Ft. Greene so maybe the location is shitty and either way, $1680 is not that little money." I get there and this nice-ish Italian man lets me in. He's the broker, we chat, he shows me the place, and then we get down to numbers and the rent is - surprise - $2100. I'm like "wtf dude?" He actually whips out the calculator on his Blackberry to show me how he got to $1680. In his warped logic, instead of being like "well, with fees this apt. would be $2450, but we're not charging fees, so you only owe $2100," he subtracted the non-existent fees from the actual rent and used that as a rent figure, which makes absolutely, totally, zero sense. Are you following me?
I take a paper from him, grab a pencil, and do the math on paper. I'm doing long multiplication and long division and I'm kicking his Blackberry's ass, getting all juiced up that this guy is trying to convince me of a mathematical impossibility. I accuse him of scamming people, of leading them all the way to this outlying building and then throwing $400 onto the price he promised.
"I'm an honest man."
"If you're an honest man, then why did you go and compromise your principles?"
He gives me the sob story about being on the job for only a few months and needing to compete with other brokers who do the same thing and having to feed his wife and kids. Tell me - what the hell does it matter to me what the other broker's are doing? Adults have this very childish way of reasoning through crap that they do, which just kind of gives you a clue about why the world is so f'ed up. Basically, no one grows up. She did it, so I can do it. Get a life.
"It's people like you that give brokers a bad name. You should be ashamed of yourself."
"I'm sorry man, you look like a nice guy. I didn't mean to trick anybody."
"But that's exactly what you're doing!"
"Tell you what, I'll give you a ride home."
Yeah, I'm going to get into this guy's car and let him give me a ride home. That's crazy! And somehow a "ride home" is supposed to compensate for getting played like that. Screw that.
So tomorrow is the election and I say it's about f'in time to get this crap behind us. I'm exhausted, both psyschologically, emotionally, and physically, which just goes to show you that I'm so exhausted that I used "both" to refer to three things. You're probably exhausted too and didn't even notice that. It's awesome that I paid to go to this party because my friend told me he was going to sign up too and then didn't and didn't tell me he didn't so I get to go to a party alone. Awesome. Love when that happens. Although I will be taking a notepad with me and ask some questions. I'm thinking I might turn it into an election day article, like what people are thinking throughout the night. I'm kind of bummed that the crowd will likely be very predictable. You just ain't going to find a good 'ol Republican joint in Manhattan-proper.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
I am the Zohan
Feast your eyes on the ultimate man:
I know what you're thinking - it's impossible to be that sexy. Maybe this is photoshopped. Maybe this is a figment of your imagination. Or maybe I just pulled off the impossible and you are aghast. Apologies for the limited groin flexibility. I was kind of going for the movie poster look here but my legs just don't snap out as much as I might like them to.
I toured town with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and a ghoul purporting to be an opera singer whose vocal chords exploded (or I might have made that explanation up to suit my own fancies). One thing I can say that I was kind of disappointed about - only like 4 people figured out who I was. How lame! I didn't think it was so hard to get, but what can I say about these New Yorkers. The Stay Puft dude had the City eating out of his hands though. He got cat calls and hollers and looks and random people taking photos with him. I was actually getting kind of jealous at one point, soon as my alcohol intake reached a level where I knew the evening would end badly for me. So it was kind of a two-fold disappointment: 1) Stay Puft is more popular than me, a lot more popular than me, this is like high school all over again, boo hoo; and 2) shit, I'm gonna be puking in an hour.
Opera dude took off around midnight because stuff got a little dry. But almost as soon as he was gone, Stay Puft and Zohan found themselves in some crazy-ass Halloween party which was an entire floor of a 14th St. walk-up converted into some sort of haunted house drink fest. This guy I know who has an obscene apartment basically converted the whole thing into a Halloween-themed attraction. It was ridiculous. I've seen decorations this heavy-duty at Brooklyn factory parties, but never at someone's place so central in Manhattan. Well done. There was even some naked dude chilling out, dancing and stuff. His junk was flopping around and it made me feel sad. I don't know why. I mentioned it to someone today and realized that I didn't think it was funny at all. I just thought he looked helpless and I pitied him. I'm not even making an underhanded reference to any size issues because I didn't take a close enough look to analyze it on that level.
The morning after I'm a mess:
I realize this picture makes my arms look really skinny. Damn, gotta hit up that gym some more.
I know what you're thinking - it's impossible to be that sexy. Maybe this is photoshopped. Maybe this is a figment of your imagination. Or maybe I just pulled off the impossible and you are aghast. Apologies for the limited groin flexibility. I was kind of going for the movie poster look here but my legs just don't snap out as much as I might like them to.
I toured town with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and a ghoul purporting to be an opera singer whose vocal chords exploded (or I might have made that explanation up to suit my own fancies). One thing I can say that I was kind of disappointed about - only like 4 people figured out who I was. How lame! I didn't think it was so hard to get, but what can I say about these New Yorkers. The Stay Puft dude had the City eating out of his hands though. He got cat calls and hollers and looks and random people taking photos with him. I was actually getting kind of jealous at one point, soon as my alcohol intake reached a level where I knew the evening would end badly for me. So it was kind of a two-fold disappointment: 1) Stay Puft is more popular than me, a lot more popular than me, this is like high school all over again, boo hoo; and 2) shit, I'm gonna be puking in an hour.
Opera dude took off around midnight because stuff got a little dry. But almost as soon as he was gone, Stay Puft and Zohan found themselves in some crazy-ass Halloween party which was an entire floor of a 14th St. walk-up converted into some sort of haunted house drink fest. This guy I know who has an obscene apartment basically converted the whole thing into a Halloween-themed attraction. It was ridiculous. I've seen decorations this heavy-duty at Brooklyn factory parties, but never at someone's place so central in Manhattan. Well done. There was even some naked dude chilling out, dancing and stuff. His junk was flopping around and it made me feel sad. I don't know why. I mentioned it to someone today and realized that I didn't think it was funny at all. I just thought he looked helpless and I pitied him. I'm not even making an underhanded reference to any size issues because I didn't take a close enough look to analyze it on that level.
The morning after I'm a mess:
I realize this picture makes my arms look really skinny. Damn, gotta hit up that gym some more.
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