Piccolo

There's not much I appreciate more than a storefront that lets me pretend I'm in vintage-era New York. They're still around if you know where to look.

City Hall Park

A Dime For Your Thoughts

Something I hadn't noticed until it was pointed out by a perplexed for'ner: Many of our U.S. coins are not engraved with their actual monetary value. A dime simply states "dime," along with a profile of FDR, the year of minting, the "E pluribus unum" motto, a torch, and what looks like a side of broccoli.

Of course if you know your Latin you can translate "dime" into its root word, "decima," and providing you already know the dollar is divided into one hundred cents, presumably you could ascertain the dime is equal to a tenth of a dollar. Maybe.

A quarter at least states "quarter dollar," which gives its bearer a fair shot at deduction, assuming, again, a degree of prior knowledge. Same goes for the half dollar. The penny and nickel are more user-friendly, with their respective "one cent" and "five cent" engravings.

But mostly it sounds suspiciously like one of those "we know because we know" situations. Like understanding the New York subway system. Rough on newcomers.

Why is this? So the government can potentially change the value system without having to remint every last dime?

Without a Paddle

What's all this tommyrot about the newly-unleashed iPad conjuring up amusing images of feminine hygiene products in the minds of our presumably educated populace? Are such snickerings similarly inspired by the likes of padlock, paddlewheel, footpad, Paddington Bear, & Paddy Chayefsky?

Last time I checked my computer keyboard sported a numerical pad. Ha ha. Inside my desk drawer can be found a spiral notepad. If you're fortunate, the wheels on your car probably contain brakepads.

On the verge of hysterics yet? Room for one more in the padded cell.

Of course this is the very same culture where Oprah Winfrey, the most powerful woman in the country, can't even mention the word vagina on the air without giving it a cutesy spin, so what should I expect.

This is why Europe thinks we're stupid.

Rat

Certain images can make one feel in unity with one's surroundings, a member of the urban collective, connected to one's environment in a primal sort of way, a ripple of vitality, a sense of belonging, an affirmation of identity.


Such as a rat sniffing a pool of vomit on a subway platform.

New Planet, Old Habits

This photo from a post on WebUrbanist speculating about the potential colonization of Mars is one of those "worth a thousand words" moments.

Weekly playlist

Joni Mitchell: Hissing of Summer Lawns
Stevie Wonder: Talking Book
Jeff Beck: Truth
Beach Boys: Today!
Chet Baker: And Crew
Yusef Lateef: Eastern Sounds
Sir Douglas Quintet: Mendocino
McCoy Tyner: Fly With the Wind
My Fair Lady soundtrack
Who Killed Amanda Palmer?
Gerry Mulligan: Best of (With Chet Baker)
Eric Dolphy: Outward Bounds
Miles Davis: Relaxin'

Beach Pneumatic Transit

There is an alternate, Jules Verne-approved, reality in which our underground transportation is pneumatically-powered and the subway stations feature gilded chandeliers and grand piano aquariums.

Ladies and gentlemen, the future that could have been -- the doomed Beach Pneumatic Transit. Frankly, I feel cheated.

The Getaway Scooter

Today's favorite news story:

Pa. Man Steals $50, Flees on Walmart Scooter

UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- Police say a Pennsylvania man in a hospital gown stole $50 from his ex-girlfriend at Wal-Mart, then tried to flee on a store-owned motorized shopping scooter. Thirty-two-year-old Craig David Jr., of Smithfield, was charged Wednesday with robbery and disorderly conduct. State police Cpl. Chuck Frey says David had just been released from a hospital for injuries in a domestic dispute Jan. 1. Frey says David had been hit with a frying pan and table leg.

David was still in a hospital gown Tuesday night when he met an ex-girlfriend who agreed to pay for his prescription medication. Instead, police say he grabbed $50 from her and scooted away. David remained jailed Thursday. He does not have an attorney.

A mere hundred word description, and yet I can envision the entire movie script in my head. In my version the "refuses to play by the rules" cop on the scene commandeers another scooter from a bewildered shopper and gives chase.

Weekly playlist

Bix Beiderbecke: Vol 1, Singin' the Blues
Can: Soundtrack
Mr Bungle: California
Van Der Graaf Generator: Still Life
Neil Diamond: Brother's Love Traveling Salvation Show
Metallica: Ride the Lightning
The Wacky World of Spike Jones
Godspeed You Black Emperor: Yanqui U.X.O.
Johann Sebastian Bach: The Goldberg Variations
AC/DC: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
PJ Harvey: White Chalk
Van Dyke Parks: Song Cycle
Mahavishnu Orchestra: Apocalypse
Chet Baker: The Best of Chet Baker Sings
George Winston: Linus & Lucy - The Music of Vince Guaraldi
Billie Holiday: Lady in Satin
Joni Mitchell: For the Roses
Stevie Wonder: Fulfillingness' First Finale

The Freedom Tunnel

The Freedom Tunnel is an underground railroad passage in New York that runs beneath Riverside Park, from Penn Station up to Harlem. Built in the thirties by Robert Moses and quickly forsaken, it soon became a refuge for mole people and graffiti outlaws. Free from the fear of patrolling law enforcement, spraypaint artists could afford to spend more time on their craft, and as a result some of the artwork is pretty stunning. Occasional shafts of light give the tunnel a cathedral reverence.


Needless to say, I was properly floored by this photograph by one Irena Kittenclaw.

An impressive gallery of the tunnel and its graffiti can be found at Citynoise.

Snowday in New York

Street in Queens.




Seagulls feasting near Times Square.


Greenwich Village looks appealingly Dickensian in the snow.

Incongruity

Chipotle Grille is a strange place to encounter Tom Waits' 1980 non-hit "Mr Siegal."


"How do the angels get to sleep, when the devil leaves the porchlight on."

One of those disorienting moments when your ability to recognize a tune is at direct odds with its context. The number of times I've heard a Waits' ditty issuing from a source other than my own stereo can be counted on the fingers of a drunken one-armed circus freak. (I'm talking original Waits versions, mind you, not covers by Rod Stewart or Springsteen or Raffi.) Not the first time this sort of thing has happened, of course. I once heard XTC's obscure "Thanks For Christmas" playing in an airport in Flint, Michigan. Granted, not as jarring as a Godspeed You! Black Emperor record spinning at your grandmother's potluck dinner, but unusual enough to take notice.

And then there was the time Kurt Cobain screeched "Rape Me" through the speakers of a family steakhouse while the contented diners calmly poked their meals, unaware of anything out of the ordinary. Could've been Guy Lombardo for all they knew or cared. Kinda takes the sting out of subversion.

Weekly playlist

Debussy: Piano Works
Saint-Saens: Carnival of the Animals
Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings
Tom Waits: Blue Valentine
Adrian Belew: Desire Caught by the Tail
Children of Bodom: Hate Crew Deathroll
Thelonious Monk: Brilliant Corners
Queensryche: Operation Mindcrime
Bonzo Dog Band: Gorilla
Queens of the Stone Age: Songs for the Deaf
King Crimson: Lizard
Lady Gaga: The Fame
Khachaturian: Gayane Suite
Elliott Smith: Roman Candle
Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man
Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca
Flaming Lips: Embryonic

For Every Journey...

"For every journey there's a point beyond which it makes no sense to turn back. That point is your destination." ~ Franz Kafka

Global Warming Debate in a Nutshell

[from Pharynula]

Harlan Ellison on God

As usual, Unca Harlan takes great care to deliver his opinions gently so as not to upset anyone.

Stargazing from Easter Island

The Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2009 are out.

It's probably a great disservice to the artistry of a photograph when the first thought that occurs to you is "that would make a great desktop wallpaper!" But there it is.

Subway Theology

Feed Me!

Honestly, it's difficult to condemn vandalism to subway ads when the ads themselves can be considered a form of vandalism.

Orson Welles in Paris

A fascinating interview with the eminent Orson Welles, filmed in a Paris hotel at the dawn of the sixties.



When asked if his "magnificent organ" (i.e. his voice) was an artistic hindrance because with it he was capable of "conveying emotion without meaning it," a slightly bewildered Welles replies, "Isn't that acting?"

He also describes the Rosebud mystery in Citizen Kane as "a rather tawdry device" of which he's ashamed.

The only part that annoys me is when he claims he could have made better films than Citizen Kane but had never been given another chance. This makes him sound like a spoiled child with the studio system as a big bad parent. Somehow I can't imagine the younger, feistier Welles of the Mercury Theatre making such excuses. But also, because Touch of Evil, while ostensibly "just" a crime thriller, came damn close.

Venn Diagram of Jesus

This explains a few things.


[From Yesbutnobutyes]

There Ain't No Sanity Claus

There were a legion of Santa Clauses down on Sixth Avenue, roaming the streets in packs, chatting in diners over coffee and chicken salad, waiting patiently underground for subway trains, tapping their feet to the delta blues of a busker. One unfortunate Claus, with glasses and dark curly hair tucked under his cap, was being accosted outside a deli by a craggy drunkard in olive green who demanded an explanation.

"What's going on with all you people dressed up like that, standing around doing nothing?"

Santa held back a laugh. "It's called fun, man. Don't you remember fun?"

Evidently he did not.

We sail tonight for Singapore

I wish I'd known about this album when it came out. Its clatter of manhole covers, bicycle spokes, broken clocks, and traffic lights humming in the rain would've been the perfect antidote to the anesthetized eighties where robots served the drinks and the neon furniture was always covered by protective plastic. My nomination for best album of the decade.

"To Say Goodbye Is To Die a Little"

Just reached the end of Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye. Many of the visuals for me, I found, were hijacked by Robert Altman, who filmed the novel in the seventies, and despite my best efforts I could not shake the image of Sterling Hayden as Roger Wade or the swanky beach house as Wade's residence. Oddly my mental picture of Philip Marlowe was neither Elliott Gould nor Humphrey Bogart, who had played the detective several decades earlier in The Big Sleep. Maybe a little closer to Dick Powell, who donned the P.I.'s trademark smirk for Murder My Sweet.

While Chandler is indisputably the swami of simile, I honestly prefer his forebearer, the highly esteemed Dashiell Hammett, who kicked off the whole noir movement in the first place. The Continental Op, Hammett's usual protagonist, is just a thankless schmo doing his job, without the benefit of Marlowe's macho posturing, which over time would devolve into the insufferable quippage of Bruce Willis and his ilk. The Op bumbles, misjudges, underestimates, overplays, and wins out in the end only due to his dogged persistence, while Marlowe devotes most his time to one-upping everyone he encounters and fending off an endless supply of sultry dames.

Chandler certainly knew how to spin a yarn though, and it's no wonder Hollywood so often came calling. The Big Sleep and Murder My Sweet are unqualifiably two of the best examples of the genre ever put up on the screen.