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The dark woman hated me because I listened to Wagner without guilt or regret. She said that she could never understand how I could enjoy the work of such a fierce anti-Semite. I told her that was not a problem; I had learned to separate the music from the composer, and, besides, Wagner pretty much hated everybody. She said that [...]
Central Park exists because of two writers who cared about the well-being of New York City, including all its people: the poet William Cullen ("Thanatopsis") Bryant, who proposed his idea for the park when he was still studying at Yale and also editing a periodical called the "Evening Post," and to the landscaper and editor of "The Horticulturalist," Andrew Jackson [...]
The introduction to this column, and its first episode, can be read here. ** I am here less than an hour before I slice my finger with a box cutter while breaking down some boxes 8B left in the hallway—her weekly fix from the Home Shopping Network. I should probably put a bandage on it, but the boss is bellowing [...]
Two men on the 1/9 train, heading downtown at night. One of them has a head of wild brown curls that are pushed off his forehead by a headband. The look is part hoodlum, part Jean Michelle Basquiat. His eyes are bloodshot. His body, buried beneath a hugely puffy down jacket, radiates a tense poise. He sits with elbows on [...]
I was riding downtown on a 1 train after basketball with two of the players from the game, Nick and Tom. Tom and I are both 6-6 and had spent the previous ninety minutes beating the crap out of each other on the basketball court. We were much like the fox and the sheepdog in those great old Warner Brothers [...]
The introduction to this column, and its first episode, can be read here. ** Episode #2: I expected freaky racial—and class—‘episodes’, which are inevitably intertwined, when Brookti touched down. I knew the most common ones to expect and assumed I’d easily brush them off. What I didn’t expect: how intricate the race/class hiearchys are (I did expect the level of [...]
In a city that purportedly never sleeps (but does take frequent disco naps), there is a population of workers who must keep the place running while most inhabitants are in fact snoozing. Our commute begins as most are bedding down with Letterman or curling into a vodka-drenched stranger. We are the skeleton crew operating the machine while the rest of [...]
I knew I was in trouble when I had to walk through a taupe brocade curtain. The walls were freshly painted and textured, there was abstract art on the wall, a flat screen tv was showing a tennis match and there was a chaise lounge next to the hostess station. I was in the Kiev Diner? Ironically, I had just [...]
I decide to slip out of the office to see the sun set. I look at my watch. It is a ten minute walk from my office to the west side highway. My heels slip off my feet as I put on a pair of winter boots and fetch my coat and earmuffs from the employee closet. I am missing [...]
“It’s nice today,” says 15B as he enters the elevator, taking off his gloves and Dartmouth Alumni Association baseball hat. “Maybe a little chilly.” “Yeah, it’s nice,” I agree. I close the elevator door behind him. “Forty now, but they say forty five later on.” “Great.” We’ve reached his floor, but the retired cardiologist won’t get out until he’s [...]
Brookti came from Ethiopia 8 months ago when she was around two. Initially I'd tried to adopt domestically, but it turns out that adopting in the U.S. as a single mother, aside from being a 21st century version of some kind of slave trade, (i.e. black/interracial children are 'a third of the price' of Hispanic children), and assuming you're not [...]
It didn’t matter that I had been awarded scholarships to three universities – my parents needed money to send to their families in war-torn West Germany and Austria. The last day of high school coincided with the start of work in the mailroom at J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, the next day. “You’re a smart kid. You can go to [...]
Dear Reader, With all that technology can do to separate the giver from the gift, I should not be surprised that I received the ultimate Christmas gesture—a call from a cell phone with no discernible person on the other end. Must be one of the magical moments of the season, I thought. But what did it mean? I had just [...]
Photo: Lincoln Karim It looked like a crime scene. Yellow ticking cordoned off part of the sidewalk next to the awning of 927 Fifth Avenue, at 74th Street. Across the street a two-person camera crew stood shivering next to their tripod. They were journalists, it appeared from a distance; on closer inspection, they were journalism students from the graduate school [...]
Last week I was leaving my building when I saw my doorman Frank carrying two black guitar cases through the lobby. He was followed by a man who looked very similar to Elvis Costello. I live in the West Village in Manhattan, so every man looks like Elvis Costello. Later that evening I asked Mario, the other doorman, – was [...]
To the woman on craigslist who wanted to know the difference between ‘booty call’ and ‘fuck buddy.’ (I figured she must be foreign so I addressed her as ‘Madame.’) Madame: In Re: the difference between ‘booty call’ and ‘fuck buddy,’ despite the alliterative pairing and their shared concern with fucking, the two phrases are ontologically different, the main distinction being [...]
I had made a plan to meet some friends at a place that had opened just one week ago. The prior weekend, we ended up there at three in the morning, and the scene was good: under-populated, smooth, steel drum-like lounge music, a few good-looking peoples. I was impressed by the Mondrian-inspired decor, and the two women's restrooms that overpowered [...]
There is a Sinclair Group at 80 Broad Street that is not the Sinclair Broadcasting Group that has agitated so many people with their plans for anti-Kerry propaganda. The receptionist at the other Sinclair, Joanne, is getting barraged with calls from people like me. By the time I spoke with Joanne I had spent the afternoon making calls to various [...]
It was my last few hours in New York City, enough time to swig several drinks with a friend before catching a shuttle to La Guardia. I was booked on a red-eye flight back to San Francisco, so with soliciting a few gin and tonics foremost in mind, I headed straight to the bar. Denial was a darkened, narrow den [...]
Nadine had dark curly hair, a slow quiet voice and more stubborn patience then anyone I knew. She was showing me her favorite textile, a small pre-Columbian piece, dated around 500 BC. It was no bigger than a doormat, but she had been working on it for over six months. “These repeated geometric patterns form a god’s face,” she said. [...]
A protestor on 7th Avenue holds a black "W" death pig. This pro-Bush demonstrator standing on the corner of 33rd and 7th Avenue shouted, "You traitors don't love your country." Wave after wave of protestors shouted him down; he withdrew after an hour. A group of 20 or so Republicans stood behind a police barricade near Madison Square Garden and [...]
The young musician met the older musician after a concert. It was in a building just south of Wall Street, a part of the city that morphs into a ghost town on late weekend nights. The concert space was run by an organization dedicated solely to the arts and therefore was unheated despite the brutal January cold snap. Audience members [...]
I’m a long time Texan currently living in New York City, and I recently spent some time in the company of the Lone Star delegation, when they came to New York for the Republican National Convention. Most were esconced at the New York Hilton on 53rd and Sixth Avenue—“Avvnoo of the Amuricas,” as the delegates pronounced it. ** Tuesday, August [...]
--July, 2001 It’s a dark and stormy night. The gothic spire of Riverside Church, on the Western Edge of Harlem, is hidden in mist. Throngs of acolytes huddle around the church doors as though awaiting entrance to the gates of a Medieval city. They are Bjork fans. At noon that day a special one-off show in the church’s chapel had [...]
It was my first day and Beth, who worked in the cubicle across from mine, was talking on her cell phone about sex. I was doing the kind of mindless work that provides a perfect cover for eavesdropping. I kept my eyes on the insurance forms I was stapling and got to know her a little. It seems she’s been [...]
Esteban Vicente arrived into the world in Turegano, Spain, in 1903. In 1921, he arrived at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. He arrived in Paris in 1929, and in 1936 he arrived in New York City. His reputation arrived somewhat later. In 1950, Clement Greenberg and Meyer Schapiro included him in their "New Talents 1950" show at [...]
Bill Licht (not his real name) was an obese bookish fellow who had impeccable taste. He would come into our shop choosing first editions of Graham Greene and E. M. Forster, Paul Bowles and Eric Ambler, inscribed Somerset Maugham and Gore Vidal, twentieth century British poets of varying stripes, the odd contemporary American writer. He did not seem to have [...]
I stepped into the crowded subway car and a little girl sitting next to the door yelled something at me. "Hey Mister..." I shot her a look that said: "I don't know if I'm going to pay attention to you, but at least let me claim my standing spot and my pole before I decide." But then my hand met [...]
Midtown is the part that nobody loves, that nobody thinks of as home. The bars have no character and the delis are as uniform as cartoon nurses. If there is an all-night bodega, it must be a joyless one. (I like all-night bodegas. They are an unfailing source of joy and surprise to me. I can spend half-hours marvelling drunkenly, [...]
Dear Angela Cardinale: Sorry to write to you months after the fact but I only just read your piece that was e-mailed to the NY Companion Bird Club. Why didn't you tell us that you were interviewing our club for your article? And the details, Angela, did you write from memory or tape-record us? It was brilliant! I had no [...]
It is winter, it is night, it is cold and I can feel deep down inside of me a bug of some sort beginning to develop. It is far away in my feet, beginning to make my feet ache, but soon I know it will creep up my legs and into my torso and that will be the end of [...]
My Uncle Ayman is out of Lemon Snapple. I fish through the drink compartment, a deep bin on the far left of the hot dog cart, and settle for a Diet. "Please. Courtney. Take whatever you want." He always says my name like it’s a sentence all its own. He’s selling hot dogs, lukewarm pretzels, iced teas, and sodas on [...]
In the song "New York, New York," Frank Sinatra claims that "if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere." Theoretically, this might be true, but practically speaking, I think it should read "anywhere [reachable by public transportation]," since New York is one of the only places in the United States where it’s possible to be a fully- [...]
With the groundbreaking of the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero, this past Fourth of July marked the latest phase of post- 9-11 recovery. “As we commemorate the foundation of our nation we will lay the foundation for our resurgence,” Gov. George Pataki hopefully explained about the event. But while Pataki may feel it is high time for new beginnings, to [...]
If you are a female who loves shoes (or a male,come to think of it, more specifically of the queenly persuasion), you have not really lived until you’ve seen the Joseph LaRose shoe collection. The collection is showcased at Cherry, a vintage store in the West Village, known for its Fashion Meets Twilight Zone window displays that make Christmas at [...]
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