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What We’re on This Earth For
by Granger Greenbaum 09/06/2008Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Outer Boroughs
“You’re blocking the whole fucking street, you’re a total asshole!” The woman in the road screamed at me. But she only knew one of my attributes and that hardly qualified her to give a generalizing narrative to all of the other onlookers. I agreed to move my vehicle but she was the bitter, lingering sort. [...]
Walk Like a Woman
by peter nolan smith 04/11/2008Neighborhood: East Village
I always thought Billy Wilder’s film SOME LIKE IT HOT was funny, until my next-door neighbor asked in his basement, “Who you think is prettier as a woman? Jack Lemmon or Tony Curtis?” “Neither.” This was 1964 and men in dresses weren’t supposed to be funny to 11 year-old boys on the South Shore of [...]
Petrillio, or Love on the 90th Floor
by Prof Barbara Foster 02/23/2008Neighborhood: Chelsea
Even the janitor’s wife has a perfectly good love life and here am I, facing tomorrow, alone with my sorrow, down in the depths of the 90th floor.  –Cole Porter It may not have been the 90th floor, perhaps the 30th or 40th. The exact number is foggy in my memory, but the rest of [...]
The Calypso Women
by Thomas Beller 02/03/2008Neighborhood: Upper East Side
We went into Calypso, on Madison Avenue and 69th Street. The first thing I noticed upon entering the store was a young woman paying for something at the register while she distractedly texted. Then, as she texted, she got an actual phone call. She picked up and announced her coordinates and her purchase, “A gray [...]
Naughty and Not Nice on Craigslist
by Daphne 12/15/2007Neighborhood: Midtown
As always when I break up with a boyfriend, I go back to trusted Craigslist. There’s something comforting about shopping for sex on the internet. Safety behind the screen. This time, I was more daring. I wanted a dominant man. This much I knew for sure. I’ve had a lot of mediocre sex in my [...]
A Christmas Treasure
by Kevin Nolan 12/09/2007Neighborhood: Midtown
My wife is one of an elusive American species: the serious reader. And like many serious readers, she also indulges in crap. For a long stretch she indulged in a guilty pleasure known to many but not known to me, until one Christmas season years ago: the Regency-era paperback romance. These books aren’t the sexed-up [...]
Losing Your Mind at the Russian-Turkish Baths
by Jed Lipinski 07/28/2007Neighborhood: East Village
I’ve been living half a block away from the Russian-Turkish Baths on 268 East 10th St for two years, and until the other day I’d never been inside. The sidewalk thereabouts smells faintly of eucalyptus, like parts of San Francisco, but not because of the trees (which are mainly gingko and ailanthus). Eucalyptus and lavender [...]
The Silent Minority
by Joseph Scalia 07/12/2007Neighborhood: Jamaica, Queens
In the divorce papers filed by my ex-wife, the second one I mean, she said I never paid attention to her. While we were still living in the same house she also said, “You never listen to me.” “What?” I generally responded from the other room. For the record, I am, in fact, a great [...]
Heteroflexibility
by Daphne 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Chelsea, Multiple
I troll craigslist searching for traces of my ex. He dates trannies and the dregs of society. I had lunch with him the other day and I said, “Hey Luke, did you put this ad up?” “Oh my god! How the hell did you know!” I wanted to say, it’s really not that difficult when [...]
Fitzmas Past
by Mr. Murphy 12/22/2006Neighborhood: Upper East Side
Last year, after the indictment of Dick Cheney’s chief-of-staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Maureen Dowd wrote a column praising the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald. “It was bracing to see the son of a New York doorman open the door on the mendacious Washington lair of the Lord of the Underground.” At first, I was gratified [...]
In the Year 2000: Jeff Greenfield and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
by Patrick J. Sauer 11/24/2006Neighborhood: Upper West Side
On Election Night two weeks ago, I was laying on my couch whiling away the hours, aiming to stay awake until I could officially note that my homestate was instrumental in saving the State of the Union. (I made it to 3 a.m., but it wasn’t Rocky Mountain solid until the next afternoon anyway. Give [...]
Like the Tears of a Clown
by Sara Barron 06/22/2006Neighborhood: Union Square
The other week I was waiting for the subway at Union Square. I was glancing around the station looking to see if the train was coming, when all of a sudden I caught the eye of a man in a clown outfit. He winked at me and started walking in my direction. I’m not usually [...]
