Marking the Occasion

The Next Best Thing (i.e., this blog) made its debut February 15, 2005 with a post about the Gates, which were all the rage at that particular moment. It seems like a lifetime ago.

To commemorate this moment, the one we're living right now, I offer to you these lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth, who would have written them for the occasion, had he lived (to the age of 239).

***

FIVE years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Among the woods and copses lose themselves,
Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms
Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire
The hermit sits alone.

***

(Click here for the poem in its entirety.)

Quote of the Day

“Those who unfeelingly push and jostle one another all the rest of the year smile on each other today, tell of the dangers they escaped, exchange addresses, and walk along with new friends. The squares are mountains of snow over which the icy lacework clinging like filigree to the branches of the trees glitters in the morning sun.”

—José Martí, “New York Under the Snow” (1888)

Was That What I Think It Was?

Sunday, April 13 at 3pm
West Houston Street

Oh, Come Now

Certainly I can't be the first person to have noticed this.

Check It Out

On Sunday, September 30, I'll be leading a free walking tour of 11th St. It's one of the Jane's Walks, put on by the Center for the Living City to honor the legacy of urbanist Jane Jacobs. Details here.

Errata Newyorkiana II?

The puzzle: Monday's New York Sun.
The answer: ED KOCH.
The clue: '80s Gracie Mansion Resident.

Is it true? The story goes this way: as with Bloomberg, Koch never occupied the mayor's residence, but for the opposite reason. He didn't want to risk losing his rent-controlled studio on Washington Square.

Anyone?

Come Again?

It's a project as big and bold as the street that serves as its inspiration: a documentary about the people and images of Broadway.

Some 400 filmmakers spread out simultaneously along the thoroughfare for one hour Tuesday to capture every block of Broadway, which runs almost the entire length of Manhattan and a section of the Bronx.

—The Associated Press

Back in the universe where I live, Broadway starts at the southernmost end of Manhattan, at Bowling Green, makes its way all the way up to the tippy tippy top of the island, cuts clear through the Bronx and doesn't stop until Albany, the state capital, 241 miles later.

Yet another reason not to trust the liberal media.

NOW You Tell Me!

"Eventually, I began to have a recurring dream about the Apthorp—or, to be accurate, a recurring nightmare. I dreamed I had accidentally moved out of the building, realized it was the worst mistake of my life, and couldn't get my lease back. I have had enough psychoanalysis to know not to take such dreams literally, but it's nonetheless amazing to me that, when my unconscious mind searched for a symbol of what I would most hate to lose, it came up with my apartment."

—Nora Ephron, in this week's New Yorker magazine

Perhaps I should have tried psychoanalysis. It might have saved me lots of money in the long run. Even on the four-day-a-week plan.

To my detriment, I have always been somewhat literal-minded. I take people at their word. (We all know how that works out.) Same with the unconscious. In the mid-1990s, I had a recurring dream that I owned a home in the Berkshires. Being literal-minded, I figured if this is what my subconscious wants, why deny it?

Here's the answer:



Ten years and tens of thousands of dollars later (the excavator dug up my yard to make way for a new septic system) I have learned the expensive way that even if you attain the object of your longing, the desire itself doesn't go away. It just finds something else to attach itself to.

Right now I have dreams of a carefree, unencumbered existence.

Two in Two Days

Another gap filled. This time, lunch at Himalayan (formerly Tibetan) Yak, in Jackson Heights. I can't believe I've lived here this long and failed to make the trip. The powerfully spiced buffet is $6.99 and the place is literally underneath the 7 train, so there are no excuses. Order the pork curry.

Let's see, what else is on the list of things to do before I die? (Not that I'm planning to anytime soon, but you never know.)

Can Someone Please Explain?

An important gap filled: I have finally seen Days of Heaven (and understand now why Bob Mondello called it Days of Wheat.) Yes, it's stunning. But the accents. Oy! Were they lying when they said they were from Chicago? (If so, you'd think there would be some kind of clue.) Are we to believe that, in the first decades of the 20th century, the windy city was inhabited by New Yorkers? Or that in 1978, America couldn't tell the difference?

Bad Things Really Do Happen When You Leave the City

I go out of town for one week and you let this happen? C'mon!

Think Globally, Spend Locally (Until All Your Money Is Gone)

The Greenmarket is indeed a wondrous thing, but not without its dark underbelly.

I admit, it's been a long time since I've had to take a math class, but look closely: if I'm not mistaken, what we're all looking at here is LETTUCE SELLING AT $22 A POUND.

Can it be a coincidence that it's being sold by Windfall Farms?

Quiet City

Listen.

Sunday in the Park

Today in Union Square: a belly dancer, a brass band, the fresh memory of a little boy’s voice at Whole Foods (“Mom, can my other treat be a Rice Dream chocolate bar, if we take the chocolate off?”) and the now slightly less vivid memory of throngs gathering here, prohibited by barricades from passing below 14th Street—which a perceptive friend had likened to a mob trying to walk to Europe but getting stopped by the ocean. It is hard to know whether to cling to that memory and insist that the details never fade, or to embrace what Gerda Weissmann Klein has called “the magic of a boring evening at home.”

The Weather Is Exactly the Same

The air at room temperature and free of pollution. The sky a preposterously lovely shade of blue. The kind of day I used to long for.

The House That Ruth (and Max) Built 2.0

Our mayor is proposing a near replica of the original Yankee Stadium—the one that, according to family lore, one of my great-grandfathers, Max Sander, helped to build. In tribute, I went to the last game held there, in 1976, with my father and his uncles. Fans were dismantling the seats even before the game was over. Max’s sons, grandson, and great-grandson looked at each other, slightly stunned. It never occurred to any of us to vandalize the place, but hey, we had more right to it than anyone else. But here was the problem: we weren’t going to just grab a seat; we wanted something Max himself had created. As we left, my father looked at the finely styled concession stands. This, he concluded, must have been our family's contribution to the place. This was the kind of work his grandfather did. But there was no way we were going to take one of those things apart, and so we left empty-handed.

Check My Math

Murder rate in New York City since January 1, 2005: 1 per 49,741 residents.*
Murder rate in Stockbridge, MA since January 1, 2005: 1 per 2276 residents.*
By my calculations, the Stockbridge murder rate (YTD) is almost 22 times greater than New York's.
(*According to 2000 pop. census)

Downing Street, Brooklyn

The Agony of Defeat

Now I understand why people watch sports.

It really had been a mystery to me until this past weekend, when I took part in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, CT.

Sure, it was exciting when twenty-year-old Tyler Hinman became the youngest champion in the history of the tournament. Hinman, a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, is eight years younger than the competition itself. Not only did he take the title from the reigning champ, Trip Payne of Boca Raton, FL, but something else as well: until Sunday, Payne had been the youngest person (24 years old) ever to win at Stamford.

But really, the competitor who made everyone's heart stop was Al Sanders. Sanders, once described by The New Yorker as "a perennial also-ran from Colorado," breezed through the championship crossword at an astonishing speed, leaving Hinman and Payne in the dust. And while the Associated Press was accurate in reporting that Sanders "missed" the answer "Zolaesque," this did not take note of what had to have been the most heartbreaking moment in the 28-year history of this event: thinking he had finished the puzzle, Sanders did not look carefully enough at his grid and failed to notice that he had left two squares blank in the upper left-hand corner.

"Done!" he called out, and put his marker down.

"No!" shouted the crowd. "No!"

Sanders looked up and realized the catastrophe. Then he took the noise-blocking headphones that finalists wear and threw them to the floor. And then he sunk his face into his hands.

I've always assumed that when sports fans start shouting and throwing things, it's because they envision themselves on the court or the field. I have never in my life been an adequate enough athlete to imagine what it must be like to sink a three-pointer as the clock hits zero or to hit a bases-loaded home run. Although my performance at this year's crossword tournament was less than mediocre (a more disheartening turnout than bombing, really), I can conceive of a day when—if I train for three hours per day during the next year—I might be a little less mediocre. But since I am a person who does crossword puzzles, I can at least fantasize about what it must be like up there on that stage.

That must explain the tears.

Perry Street

West Eleventh Street

Heavy Weather

If people stop eating bread, what will they clear from supermarket shelves during blizzards?

Sunday in the Park

"You're not supposed to talk. Christo wants you to be contemplative when you walk through The Gates."

"This isn't saffron orange. This is Ikea orange."

A woman, to her pet bloodhound: "I'm sorry, did you misunderstand the 'leave it' part?"

Appreciative crowds, holding thumbs up and calling out to the limo motorcade carrying Christo and Jeanne-Claude: "Thank you!"

"That's got to be her. Nobody else has hair like that."

A man speaking into a cellphone in the Delacorte Theatre rest room: "Am I done? Yes!"

A man with a Polish accent: "How much did it cost the city?"
Monitor: "Zero."
Man: "Really? Who paid for it?"
Monitor: "The artist."
Man: "How much did it cost?"
Monitor: "About $20 million."
Man: "For that, you could clean up some neighborhoods or feed some people."

"I wish I had 10% of his P.R. skills."
"Great. Then you'd have 30 gates in your backyard."

A couple, looking across the Conservatory pond at 927 Fifth Ave.:
"It's the Dakota building."
"It is not the Dakota building."
"It is the Dakota building."

"They tore down the nest."

"I'm trying to dehumanize you as a woman."

"Did you see the artist Christo and, uh, Jeanne-Claude? Her hair is this color."

"Yeah, a threesome. It's called Philosophy in the Boudoir."

A man pointing to a chihuahua: "That looks like my ferret."
"What does your ferret eat?"
"Everything."
"So it's an omnivore?"
"What's that?"
"Someone who eats everything. What do you feed it?"
"Chicken."
"Then it's a poultrytarian."

At the statue of The Indian Hunter, by John Quincy Adams Ward: "Who is it?"
"He doesn't have a name."
"You can make it up!"

"Kind of like this, except imagine umbrellas."

"I'd like them if they were fuschia."

"It's Target's color of the year."

"I didn't know you were supposed to wear orange, too."

"I am so done with The Gates."