Eamon on the Street

with some captions added by my father (though written by me). Watch out Bill Cunningham!

supermarket performance

Have any of you heard of Improv Everywhere? This NY based group has fun with creating performance (and art) in unusual and unexpected places. I've yet to witness them in person, but here is their latest piece/stunt, which they performed in a Queens supermarket.

I think it's rather brilliant.

Lego NY

Has anyone seen the Lego cartoon-- I'm not sure what to call it-- from Monday's NY Times? I unfortunately can't paste the whole thing in here (though I'll steal a section). It's worth a look, even if you're not so familiar with New York City. Just click that link up above.

On a sadder note, a homeless man was run over by a train at our subway station yesterday morning. I managed to get there just as they were bringing the body up from the tracks. It was not a pretty sight. In fact, there was a little too much to see, in my opinion. I had to find another way to work, and was haunted all day by the vision of men carrying the body, and of how quickly this life had been lost.

Interestingly, the chatter on my neighborhood forum is all about which homeless person this could have been, since there are only two of them around here and everyone knows them since they live in the stations. There's the schizophrenic shirtless Haitian man who throws rocks and yells in French (watch out for him), or there's a woman, who I've never seen. Neither of these people has been seen recently (perhaps it's the cold) and so my neighbors wonder if it could have been someone else. I guess this is what you try to do when you can't make sense of a death...

I promise I'll take some photos of knitting this weekend. Stay tuned for a more fibery post!

penultimate

Late on Friday night we were offered the opportunity to buy two tickets to Saturday afternoon's Yankees game. For those of you who don't follow baseball (and I barely do) this weekend marks the final games ever in Yankee Stadium. Tonight is the final game. Yesterday was the second to last game. And we were there.Clearly we forgot our Yankees gear.

Despite having strong New England roots, Christopher is an avid Yankees fan. Me? I'm a Phillies girl, but if they aren't around I'll root for the Yankees too. Yeah, that's me. I was probably about 3 or 4.

The whole thing was really fun. The weather was fantastic, and the crowd couldn't have been more passionate. The game itself was rather uneventful and relatively short (barely anyone got a hit and the only point was scored at the bottom of the 9th). Christopher was glowing amd I didn't knit at all because I was too busy raving about how much fun it was.Even the $5 hot dog was especially good.

There was something extra special about being at the last day game (and second-to-last ever game) at Yankee Stadium. I hope to remember this feeling for a long time.

Happy New Year!

We had a very low key New Year's Eve last night. Our activites included seeing Sweeney Todd, an Austrian dinner at Cafe Steinhof and then fireworks in Prospect Park.

It was rather perfect, in my opinion. We didn't have to pretend that we were excited for the New Year. We didn't get drunk. We just enjoyed each other's company and where we were at each moment. And it was fun to feel like we were part of a larger party, celebrating with everyone around us. By the time we left the restaurant they were passing out handfuls of mini champagne poppers and wacky flashing lights, and everyone was very merry. And walking up to the park I felt a little as if we were part of a greater event, since we were joined by hundreds of other people headed to exactly the same place.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos (it was dark!), but it was quite incredible to watch the fireworks through the trees. Check out this photo of it here.

what I do

The play that I am currently working on is about two homeless people on a subway platform. They are visited by the Angel of Death. We need magic on stage. Making this magic happen has been stressing me out a little. I've dreamed big and now I need to make it happen.

This weekend is the last weekend before we load the set into the theater. Today and tomorrow we are building and painting the set. That is, a carpenter is building it and I am painting it. Monday we go into the theater, Tuesday we play with lights and cues and such, Wednesday we have a dress rehearsal with an audience, and Thursday we open. A lot has to happen between now and Monday. Our carpenter, aka our TD, is building the set in a storage space in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I went out there today to paint it. There was a mix up in the lumber order and a lot hasn't been built yet. In any case, I spent some very pleasant hours on the roof of the storage space, priming the walls that had been built and enjoying the view. The weather was also perfect and windy. I felt a little like I was on a boat (except that I was on a rooftop).
I'll spend the day there tomorrow, making those walls look like subway walls. Wish me luck!

a video

Here's something new: I have uploaded a video. I don't actually have a video camera, but my digital has a low quality video option, and I used it to make a little video of the action outside. Unfortunately the sound isn't so great, but you can at least see some of the action.



It's not as crowded as it usually is, apparently. Near the barriers, in the full sun, I stood next to a wonderful and chatty 75 year old Jamaican woman (in the video you can see the card she was fanning herself with; I wish I'd gotten a picture of her). We watched the parade together and she filled me in on what was going on. I learned all about her trips to the Caribbean, her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, her garden, her diabetes. She even talked a little about the recent integration of this neighborhood, which made me a little nervous. Clearly it made her uncomfortable too but before we changed the subject we agreed that living together in harmony was better than living apart, that we can all learn from each other.

Anyway, I'm not planning to go out again. The music comes in though; there's no escaping the bass...

(A post script: in researching the Parade I stumbled across this blog, which has some beautiful photos of it and of J'Ouvert. If you are interested in the parade I recommend checking it out.)

The Parade

This may be a long day of many posts. I'm really amazed by this celebration. I'm also really tired by the celebration. What I didn't realize was that J'Ouvert, the overnight kick off to the parade today, feeds their bands from our street. And that the bands play on their way to J'Ouvert. Which meant that at 4 am, in amongst the stop and go traffic outside our window, were steel bands and their handlers. And those bands, which were playing merrily along, went as slowly as the traffic. If it hadn't been 4am, I might have thought it was pretty darn cool. But it was 4am, and then it was 5am and it quieted down a little until 7am, when this straggler band came through, complete with a crowd of dancers. Yes, that's a bus trying to pass the group. It's now 11:30 and the parade has still not started. I went out and checked out the scene. There are tons of vendors and people are setting up their spots for the best view. Our building has hired off-duty police to keep the crowds out of the building (this has been a problem in the past) and there are barricades outside. I feel like I should buy some ox tail or something, but I'm not hungry and it feels sort of arbitrary what one should try.

This guy was frying whole fish.

a holiday weekend!

Look who is home!!
Don't you think he looks relaxed? He's already gotten a hair cut since this photo was taken; no looking overgrown for the first day of class.

This weekend will be a busy one. Not only because Christopher and I want to spend tons of time together, but also because our apartment is smack dab in the middle of a huge festival, probably the biggest parade you've never heard of: The West Indian-American Day Parade. The Wikipedia link says that 3.5 million people come, which is about 3 times what I've heard. But still, 1 million people is a lot! And they'll literally be on our doorstep. Not only that, but the festivities have already begun. This morning was the Junior Carnival, a parade of children. And tonight is a contest of steel drum bands, right down the street. Sunday night, or really Monday morning, is J'Ouvert. This is a street festival/parade that starts at the library at 2am and lasts until about 7:30am. Yes, it's in the middle of the night. (I guess I know where I'll be if I can't sleep!)

In any case, Monday's parade will be major, with bands and crowds and vendors. The food is supposed to be fantastic, mostly homemade by local groups. Just this afternoon I saw this man. I assume he was prepping food for Monday.

a cog in the machine

New York is a machine, on many levels. We all follow rules and expect certain things, from either the city itself or from our fellow New Yorkers. It may seem chaotic to those who haven't lived here, but we have very clear systems here, almost an etiquitte.

For example, when we ride the subway we (usually) step aside to let people get on and off. We move our cars so the street can be cleaned. We have complicated relationships with grocery shopping and schlepping that no one else can comprehend. (Dare I even broach that subject?) The way the city works keeps things moving. In exchange for our city manners, we expect certain things in return. From inside our ways and rules keep the busy city dependable and systematic.

The problem is, sometimes those systems break down. Like, the electricity goes out all over the city. Or a steam pipe explodes. Or maybe the public transportation employees go on strike. And then we, resourceful New Yorkers that we are, try our best to find a new system. We adapt.

Today was one such day. Our disaster? A thunderstorm.

This wasn't just a little lightning, a little thunder. No. This storm was a battle overhead, tearing down trees and ripping off roofs. Even Dinah was disturbed and curled herself next to my head. By the time I got up, at about 7am, the rain had stopped, but almost 3 inches had fallen in the prior hour and a half, and the subways were flooded.

I left the house at about 7:45, heading to Franklin Avenue subway. A crowd was gathered outside the station on their cell phones. Inside, another crowd listened to an MTA employee about subway delays. The 2, 3, 4 and 5 trains weren't running to Manhattan. I bumped into my neighbor, who suggested that we take the S to the A. We waited for the S for a while before he said he was going to take a cab.

I gave up and decided to walk to the Q, joining hundreds of other people on foot. Each station I passed was the same situation: groups of people looking confused, talking on their cell phones. The Q was also down. Rumor was that the D was running from Atlantic/Pacific, so with no other options, I walked down Flatbush to that station.

For those of you who don't know the geography of Brooklyn, the distance from Franklin Ave to Atlantic is about a mile and a half. It's downhill and really not so bad, except that today it was sort of like walking through a jungle. Very humid and, even at 8am, about 85 degrees. In any case, it wasn't much fun and I was tempted to pop into various stores along the way to cool off. Sweat was rolling off of my face and I could tell that my t-shirt was soaked where my backpack rested on my back. None of that really mattered anymore; I concentrated on the cold ice coffee that I would find for myself when I got to my destination.

Here is what I encountered at Atlantic Ave: Confusion, more heat, tighter crowds. The good thing was that the trains were indeed running there, and after a short wait I managed to pack myself into a D. Three stops later I was at my destination. The time? 9:30am.

explosions

Today work was busy. I wasn't as bored as I often am, which is good. I left a 6 and walked over to Park Ave to get the 6 train downtown. What I saw looked something like this: I'm not sure how to describe how I felt to someone who wasn't in New York on September 11. Today I didn't experience the same shocked numbness that I did then. Today I felt very, very afraid. Today I felt like I wasn't going to make it home and see Christopher again. Not only that, I didn't think my phone would work if I tried calling. I felt very alone.

I started to cry, right there on the sidewalk. Of course, I wasn't the only one. Everywhere around me people looked blankly shocked and concerned. We stared north towards Grand Central Station and the smoke. We watched the fire engines and police cars whiz by. Traffic wasn't moving. Neither were the pedestrians.

I called Christopher. The phone rang. He answered rather cheerfully. I sobbed. I told him about the smoke I was seeing, the fire engines that I'm sure he could hear. He looked on the internet to see what they said, but there was nothing. I felt lost. He told me to take the Q home instead of the 6, since the Q doesn't go near Grand Central. I got off the phone and, armed with my plan, headed towards the Q. The explosion turned out to be a pipe on 41st and Lexington, and one person was killed. Of course, the smoke and the sirens awakened in me (and everyone else on Park Ave) an extreme fear and sadness that seems to lie just below the surface of so many New Yorkers.

The New York Times has a few articles on what happened, and a little photo essay of the events. One of the photos shows a group on cell phones and just behind them is a couple. The man looks completely shocked and emotionless, and the woman is clearly crying as she rests her head on his shoulder. That's how I feel. Only now that I'm not on Park Ave, I've put the emotions back under the surface and I'm trying to ignore them again.

summer heat

Before I get down to business, I have a bit of good news: Christopher is a winner of the Break-Up essay contest on The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC. The contest was judged by Leonard's brother, Phillip Lopate, and both of them will be discussing the essays tomorrow afternoon on the show. Christopher will be on hand to read part of his essay and talk a little about himself. Exciting, no? Tune in from 1:20-2:00pm. If you aren't in New York City, you can listen online here. (I believe you can also listen to past episodes, so if you miss the live broadcast you can still check it out.)

The weather has been disgusting. It is humid. It is hot. It is unbearable.

With much pain and frustration, we installed an air conditioner in the living room about a week ago. It cools most of the living space fairly well. Since the evenings have been cooler, our bedroom hasn't really needed an air conditioner (though Christopher doesn't like the street noise from the open window). In any case, the bedroom AC has been low priority even though we have one hanging around. Which is too bad, because last night was really, super humid and hot. Our bedroom felt like a steam room. Christopher retired to the Aero bed in the living room and at around 3am I crashed on the sofa. We were miserable.

New York in the summer. It can be great, but when it's like this it can also be a nightmare. Today there was a power outage in the Bronx, which led to signal problems on the subways, which led to crowds of sweaty grumpy people on the stagnant platforms. The smells are amplfied, but mostly in bad ways: armpits, garbage, urine. Air conditioners drip from above onto one's head; I looked in the mirror today several hours after being dripped on and discovered that my face was covered in large black spots.

There is an upside, however: the farmer's markets are bursting with produce. I emerged from the subway at Union Square this afternoon and found myself in the farmer's market. It's odd, because I am often in Union Square, but I forget to go to the farmer's market. In any case, I bought myself a pound of potting soil, some baby carrots that look like parsnips, some little zucchinis and green garlic with the scapes still attached. I'm very excited to see what I can cook with these exotic, local items! Anyone have suggestions?