Deere Crossing at Socrates

There has been little time lately to post all the images of the great things that give me pleasure every day.
“Deere Crossing” adds an aesthetic tickle whenever I view it. The credits are included in the accompanying pic.
It took a while to capture this image with no people in it- that was the goal to go with the artist’s seeming intent to play with scale a bit.

This, along with many other playful and thought provoking works, may be viewed at Socrates Sculpture Park. (I almost don’t want to tell you, as in my mind it’s my park, where I wrote my book, where back in the day it took guts to come here...)

But the artist can’t mind the exposure and Socrates is arguably the coolest public space for local (and global) sculpture ever.

Comparing Gas Prices

This image was taken off Las Vegas Boulevard a few days back. (Much to the amusement of the other persons in the station.) The lowest priced gasoline (regular) is $2.99. After photographing this amazing deal, I realized just how serious this gas crunch is.
What is so exciting about three dollar gas, other than it being cheaper than three sixty-seven gas in NYC?


Attentive readers may note my commentary on the Democratic candidates for the office of American president, with a focus on their latest debates, has, of yet, to be published.
If all goes to plan, it will be published by the time they start voting in Texas.

Single Latina Female Seeks Bookstore

When I was a kid I worked at an independent record store off Steinway Street. My old boss told me that the reason he got the lease for the commercial space was that the prospective tenants before him wanted to open a bookstore, and the landlord had refused to give them the lease, believing firmly that Astorians would not keep a bookstore afloat.

That was eighteen years ago, and I am still waiting for my bookstore.

The subway takes me to 57th in ten minutes, where I walk over to the AOL/Time Warner Mall, where there is a Borders. That’s fine, but it’s not love.
And there is a place on Broadway and 33rd, I think, called Seaburn, so Astoria is not completely without books, but....
I yearn for a mega-bookstore. You know, at least three-thousand square feet of book bliss, along with a section for overpriced journals and bookmarks that I can snag when they go on sale.
I can take or leave the cafe, we have plenty of those, but my unrequited desire is for a shiny, enormous, bookstore stocked with thousands of periodicals and an even more impressive array of books to come into my life.

Of course, I would rather it be walking distance from the subway at Steinway, and there are a few decent options as far as commercial real estate offerings are involved (like the site of the old Blockbuster, for example), but I would settle for anything in the LIC area.
(Just noticed with chagrin that a previous post about not being midtown west has a glaring error--it says midtown east instead, at least three times--clearly got past me. I’m leaving it, not into revisionist history.)

So on this day, reserved for dying red flowers and terrible service at any restaurant that qualifies as “romantic,’” I confess my tale of guilty desire, for rows and rows of hardcover books, for aisles and aisles of travel books, books about Turing machines, nineteenth century art and twentieth century iconoclasts. And special edition copies of the Dr.Seuss series. For pop-up books and books that just smell really good when you quickly flip through the pages, unconsciously assessing the weight of the tome. For comic books.

Maybe the big chains, or some independent magnate are just not interested; it wounds me profoundly to ruminate on a love that does not reciprocate.
I did not sleep at all last night, tossing in bed instead, hoping for even a hint of interest, ready to accept any advance. Maybe it will come today.

Cold Days Seducing You Malevolently Part Deuce

clean snow promises light...this still holds as far as I am concerned.
A moment even, of those big fat snowflakes makes me wistful for a simpler time, when snow was not just a symptom of an unhealthy planet giving us quite a show. Recall, here in the NYC, it was almost seventy degrees last week. I feel like I have written this before...

Rezoning Has Its Price

The building pictured here is being erected adjacent to the Adirondack Building on Vernon Boulevard, which was sold last year for an alleged twenty-two million dollars.
This picture was taken facing south.
A significant part of A|M was written at Socrates Sculpture Park, and when I was over there the other day, I noticed the pictured building- how could I not?
It looms over the Adirondack building, as well as over a remaining old mansion on 31st Road.
It is exciting to see kayaking and luxury condos on our once forgotten shoreline, but there is nothing idealistic or romantic about the profile this new edifice cuts behind its more storied predecessors.

United Nations Tour

Nouveau Riche and the Celtic Tiger

Dublin is nothing like Mara described.
In fairness, her description is from the previous millennium -today the robust economy has created a critical mass of nouveau riche who obliterated my perception of the Irish as a humble and friendly people.
By humble I mean self-deprecating, not indigent.
I have also spent most of my time on Grafton Street or around Temple Bar.
Conspicuous consumption seems to be the rule, and when I asked a garrulous native about the women's ostentatious dress he flatly told me, "They are overcompensating for something, clearly."

It is not as clear to me.

Mara's old college room mate came to mind; about ten years ago as she had me copy-edit her thesis on the growing Irish economy, the now so-called "Celtic Tiger,"; her predictions were on point, these people have CREAM.
There had been a bus strike because bus drivers are being pushed to work extra hours without extra compensation, but hey, you can go to a pub and watch the locals strut Chanel.
Good luck trying to find shepherd's pie.

The Voodoo lounge was a slice of punk NYC from the mid 80s (not that I saw it firsthand). The DJ played Ramones- "Blitzkrieg Bop," Sex Pistols- "Anarchy in the UK," Sisters of Mercy- "Temple of Love."
Haven't heard music like that since the days of Mara's crazy house parties, which she insisted were modeled after some club, "Berlin" on Steinway Street in Astoria.

SOD shirts and oxblood Docs pepper the crowd but no one seems to mind I'm in dress pants and Lanvin flats.
Now they are spinning old Smiths and a Guinness costs exactly 4.20.
It is kind of a small city for what I have gotten used to, but I just heard the NYPD killed some guy holding a hairbrush. Think I'll stick around these parts for a while, the cops here are friendly.
Maybe that is why she lost it upon her return.

Lowest Murder Rate Since 1963 in NYC

According to NY1, New York City is on its way in 2007 to having the fewest murders on record since such record-keeping began.
The news is great for tourists and transplants, who may fear visiting the Big Apple for reasons related to crime.
These new numbers suggest that walking around New York, the most populous city in the country at just under eight million residents, is as safe as walking around Mayberry.
Crunching some very basic stats (dividing population by murders in 1 year) yields the interesting result that a person in New York has a 1 in 16,000 chance of meeting her demise via homicide.
And that means a woman has a better chance of dying during childbirth (1 in 10,000 for US) than a person has of being killed here.
Such good news is tempered by the rumor that the police still have no leads on the shooting at the Broadway N Train Station that took the life of a nineteen year old male.

I Love NYC

I saw a guy selling t-shirts in on the subway Tuesday. That in itself is not really a big deal. Our salesman was worth noting because he pulled his wares out on wire hangers. They were black t-shirts with a variation of the iconic “I love NY” logo on them. The shirts were covered in those flimsy plastic covers the dry cleaning comes in. Mr. Intrepid hung the shirts off the poles on the ceiling that we grip during rush hour.
Sometimes we even have to fight for a full hand’s width around those horizontal poles. Intrepid was glibly taking up about twenty inches of real estate on those very poles.

It is indicative of August in the city I guess. Everybody is out of town, ergo the trains are less crowded, especially as it was just shy of two PM.
But still, high end shirts and an instant display rack.
Intrepid’s first customer approached him just as he had finished setting up. And then I had to switch to the 6.

With what some people are insisting is a tornado touching down in Brooklyn today, the subway, and all its opportunity seeking merchants, are out of luck, at least for a few hours.
Residents of Bay Ridge had roofs torn off their homes, and it is estimated that at least fifteen-hundred people in the Bronx and Staten Island are without power.

Last I checked on NY1, the only train that is running is the 7, which runs from Shea Stadium in Queens to Times Square.
I love New York, especially today, as I am a resident of Queens, where the train is running, albeit slowly, I still have a roof, and my power has not been disrupted.