Chelsea Vortex

Chelsea Ghosts

I took this photo in the stairwell of the Chelsea Hotel. Funny, but I don't recall anyone else being on the floor at the time. And yet, who is that reflected in the glass of the door?

Jazz in Columbus Circle

No Pussyfooting

Lindy West takes on Sex and the City 2 in possibly the best movie review I've ever read.

"SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a woman and as a human—working hard, contributing to society, not being an entitled cunt like it's my job—and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car."

Down a Well

Gideon fell down a well. It's not entirely clear how this happened. Alcohol may have been involved. Frankly, it's not one of those things that require reconstruction. Once you find yourself trapped at the bottom of a well, how you got there is irrelevant for the most part.

"Could be worse," Gideon thought, crumpled up in a muddy puddle. "At least my leg isn't broken." Then he tried to stand and discovered his leg was, in fact, quite broken. That pretty much ruled out climbing out by himself. The soupy brick walls of the well hadn't looked promising in any case. Footholds were far and few between.

He decided to call out for help a few times, in case someone might be within earshot. His first attempt sounded too desperate, the second too self-reliant. By the third attempt he got the balance just right. My dignity is intact, his cry suggested, but I could still use an assist.

"Hello down there?" A woman's moony face appeared in the opening at the top of the shaft, peering down at him and cutting off the sky.

"Hello," he returned.
"What are you doing at the bottom of this well?"
"Calling for help."
"So I heard."
"My leg's broke. Can you find a way to get me out?"

The woman thought about this. "I can't reach you from here. You're too far down. Maybe I could find a ladder?"

"Yes, a ladder would be very effective."
"Or possibly a rope?"
"Yes, either a rope or a ladder would be fine."

"There's a hardware store not far from here, I think. They must sell ladders." She pursed her lips in thought. "You'd be able to reimburse me for the cost, won't you?"

"Yes, of course."

"Good, because my budget is tight, what with my gym membership and the cable bill and whatnot. Very expensive living on your own these days, you know."

"Yes, I can imagine it is," Gideon sighed. "Look, I'll pay whatever you want, just please get me out of here. I'm getting very soggy and I can't feel my toes."

The woman glanced at her watch. "Oops, it's time for my show. Today we're going to learn if Betsy is really going to leave Jim for the mullato carpet salesman. I don't think she is, but I must know for certain. I'm afraid you'll have to sit tight for an hour until it's through. Bye for now."

"Wait!" he called, but the face was gone and with it the woman.

An hour went by. Then several. The woman had forgotten about him or lost interest or something had befallen her. He felt terribly alone. Then it started to rain. It rained with a fury and an anger not seen in recent memory. The downpour lasted for several days and several more nights. The well flooded and Gideon's limp, waterlogged body floated to the surface. The ladder was no longer needed.

Rejected Album Art for Pink Floyd's The Wall

[From Rejected Version of Famous Album Covers]

Lost: The Long Con

A heap of mixed feelings on the Lost finale. I fall squarely in the emotionally satisfied, intellectual disgruntled camp. I'm not complaining about the way it ended. That was apt, iconic, symmetrical, etc. Well done there. A bit speechy in the church, but I can live with that. When the show wants you to know something, it always highlights it in neon.

My complaint is with the gross mismanagement of the entire series. I haven't been with it since the beginning. I watched the whole thing mostly in a caffeinated marathon run in the hiatus between seasons five and six. As a result I'm freshly aware of the myriad of dead ends and enough plot holes to fill the Albert Hall.

The writers have been trying to cover their tracks by insisting "it's a character-driven show." First of all, it's not. These are flimsy characters who are moved around like chess pieces to serve the plot. A character will get angry for no other reason than the story needs an angry character at that point. We're not talking Madame Bovary here. But even if it was true, this excuses nothing. There's no reason to have an entire episode devoted to Jack's tattoo, meanwhile you can't take five minutes to show who was in the other outrigger. That's just poor planning. The reason I got sucked into the show was because of the elements of mystery. What's under this hatch? Who were the Dharma Initiative? What's with all the Egyptian motifs? That's what made the show unique. Without it, Lost is just another piddling soap opera.

While season six may have ended powerfully, I accuse the writers of pulling a bait and switch. They ended with a grand flourish of explaining what the Sideways world was, but that's not a question I was asking until this season. They were counting on their audience to have short attention spans. I'm fine with mysteries being left unexplained. But I want that to be an artistic choice, and not because the writers concocted a mystery without knowing the answer and then, when they couldn't figure out how to wrap it up, decided it wasn't important. Ends remain loose not because of any artistic integrity but because they were set into play with no knowledge of where they were going. That's disingenuous, and because of it I feel vaguely conned. And so does a large portion of the audience, if the internet message boards are any indication. It's like a detective story in which the plot became too convoluted for the author to figure out, so in the last chapter he kills off an entirely new character and has his detective dramatically solve that murder, then stand back triumphantly and hope we are sufficiently distracted enough to have forgotten what drew us to the story in the first place.

I feel towards the show like I do the New York subway system. Glad it exists but pissed off at the bad management, endless construction, fare hikes, & complete disregard for its customers.

Dio brainstorming session

You've been left on your own like a...
pigeon in the park
meadow in the lark
dog without a bark
jumper of the shark
raider of the ark
hunter of the snark
rainbow in the dark

Top Five Old Time Radio Shows

The Goon Show
By gluing Wodehouse-style humor to the surrealist movement, Spike Milligan inadvertently spawned John Lennon, Monty Python, and Firesign Theater. Peter Sellers went on to cause a bit of a commotion in Hollywood. Nutjobs with names like Neddie Seagoon, Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, Major Bloodnok, and Bluebottle run amuck through WWII-era Britain.
"For thirty years Caesar ruled with an iron fist, then with a wooden foot, and finally a piece of string."

Suspense
Some of the greatest writing ever to traverse the airwaves. Stories adapted from the likes of Louise Fletcher, John Dickson Carr, and Cornell Woolrich. Top-notch acting never hurt too.

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
The insurance investigator with the action-packed expense account. Great writing, great sound effects. The end of the Golden Age of Radio.

The Shadow
There were several Lamont Cranstons, but Orson Welles was the creme de la creme. Its dabblings into the occult must've at least partially inspired the Indiana Jones films.
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"

Nightbeat
Chicago reporter Randy Stone wanders the streets at night looking for a scoop. Taut stories stocked with compassion and charm.

Top Five So-Called Children's Books

Harriet the Spy: Louise Fitzhugh (1964)
Instruction manual on how to snoop on eccentrics and keep a journal. And appreciate tomato sandwiches.



A Bear Called Paddington: Michael Bond (1958)
Mischief as an artform. What is a duffle coat and where can I get one?



Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Lewis Carroll (1865)
Demented logic. A proto-psychedelic masterpiece.



The Phantom Tollbooth: Norton Juster (1961)
Demented wordplay. Alice for the post-Marx Brothers epoch.



The Fireball Mystery: Mary Adrian (1977)
Dupes its reader into learning about nature and astronomy under the guise of a simple detective yarn. A devious but effective tactic.

Top 5 Prog Rock Albums

King Crimson: Lark's Tongue in Aspic (1973)



Gentle Giant: In a Glass House (1973)



Genesis: Selling England By the Pound (1973)



Yes: Close to the Edge (1972)



Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick (1972)

Cape May

The Congress Hall Inn. Originally built in 1816, this is its third incarnation after burning down twice. Unsurprisingly they're not enthusiastic about guests lighting candles in the rooms.


View from the rocking chair on our balcony.


Sunset Beach, littered with fabled "Cape May diamonds," which I was disappointed to learn are actually mere quartz pebbles. No monetary value whatsoever!


Wreckage of the S.S. Atlantus, an experimental concrete ship which its builders were surprised to discover didn't float very well.


The Southern Mansion, right profile.


Typical ice cream colored house on Washington St.


The Cape May lighthouse.

Recent Listening

Stan Getz: Jazz Round Midnight
On those days when nothing's going right, I prefer to blame it on the bossa nova. Instant teleport to California in the early sixties, breezy scarves and pastel furniture.

Ramones: Rocket to Russia
Their best album, the perfect balance of bubblegum and violence. Face it, there's no stoppin' the cretins from hoppin'.

The Hold Steady: Stay Positive
The song "Slapped Actress" really touches a nerve. It encapsulates something generational, even if I'm not sure what. Craig Finn smashed his Replacements records over the head of Bruce Springsteen and called it art.

King Crimson: Starless and Bible Black
Apocalyptic prog rockers in an electric switchblade fight. Punk wouldn't have been necessary if these guys'd been in charge.

The Magnetic Fields: Realism
69 Love Songs is their masterpiece but this has some good cuts, like "You Must Be Out Of Your Mind." No one does droll like Stephin Merritt. I think he's got a patent pending.

Paul Simon: Paul Simon (1972)
I tend to neglect Simon's solo work, which is a mistake because what did Garfunkel ever bring to the party except cheap sentiment and a bozo wig? "Run That Body Down" is a highlight.

St Vincent: Marry Me
She tinkered these songs together out of scrap metal from a rocketship junkyard.

Dillinger Escape Plan: Ire Works
This album is physically exhausting. You need an intensive workout regimen before lowering the needle. They certainly know their way around their instruments, no denying that.

Sam Phillips: Martinis & Bikinis
A handful of well-crafted ditties. Can't stop hitting replay at the end of "Same Changes." You need a vaccine to get that guitar line out of your system.

Iron & Wine: The Shepherd's Dog
I think I'm not supposed to like this guy, according to management policy. But surely these gently rippling melodies aren't hurting anyone. "Boy with a Coin," for example. Maybe it's his unlicensed whiskerlength that raises objections.

The Stooges: Fun House
Iggy Pop speaks of discord and strife with something of an authority in his voice, eh? Nice of him to come back from the edge to tell us all about it.

Karamazov!

I am currently rounding the corner on the much-praised Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of The Brothers Karamazov. It's been over ten years since I peeked at the Garrett version, so I have little to say about comparisons, other than the text is as smooth as a Lucky Strike.

The difficulty in reading Dostoevsky is that all his characters have at least four different names each, and they're all chock full of v's and k's, virtually unpronounceable as far as I'm concerned. It's near impossible to keep track of everyone without mapping out a diagram. It can take an embarrassingly long time to figure out that, say, Grushenka and Agrafena Alexandrovna are the same individual. (Sure, there's a list of characters in the front of the book but who can be bothered with that?)

Still, ol' Dosty can be surprisingly funny despite his reputation for being such a moody proto-existentialist bastard.

Socrates at the Diner

The Upper West Side's Metro Diner is fast becoming my favorite place to eavesdrop over breakfast. There is always some boisterously opinionated writer or professor or loudmouth who stepped out of a late-seventies Woody Allen film to pontificate over five rounds of coffee and plates of bacon to his mild-mannered and mostly silent companion.

I always carry a book with me, but the neighboring monologue never fails to prove more arresting. The pontificator is generally someone who, if cast in a movie, would be flawlessly portrayed by Wallace Shawn. His tone is typically one of controlled outrage, along the lines of "how can no one but me understand the absurdity of this situation?" And the voice is significantly louder than the average level of conversation in the vicinity, like some sort of innate PR tactic, sharing his brilliance with those who can't help but choose to listen to this windblown Socrates.

This is precisely the sort of eccentric character a transient from a small town expects to find inhabiting a quintessential New York City diner, and the effect is not unlike listening to a well-informed but kooky conspiracy theorist who can't help but impress you with the range of his imagination. In other words, prime entertainment. What fascinates me most is the impression that this person shares a similar, but not entirely identical, universe as me, and I wonder what it's like for him.

Riverside Park in the Snow

Writers Don't Need No Stinkin' Rules

Ten rules for writing fiction from The Guardian.

I heavily disagree with Elmore Leonard's rule #3 - Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. When I read an author whose dialogue attributes are long strings of "said... said... said..." the monotony makes me irritable. "Is that the only word this @#&% writer knows?" I grumble. As a reader I register it as a sign of an author's limitations. I understand why going overboard on attributes is to be discouraged, just as going overboard on practically anything is. But why on earth would you advise someone to "not" use their imagination? Plus it's not particularly economical if you wish to squeeze the most mileage out of the least amount of words.

On the other hand I must concur with Roddy Doyle's rule #6 - Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort. Despite their detractors, thesauri are top notch vocabulary builders. Even if you don't find the appropriate word you're looking for at the time, you often stumble upon a few sparklers to jot down for future use.

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.