Moving Prepositions

Calm before

2011-08-27T10:11:00.000-04:00

New Yorkers have no sense of calm before the storm. Perhaps it is just Saturday morning grocery traffic, but there is an anxiety as the lines grow longer.

The feeder bands began to spatter a light rain, and despite the winds which are clearly picking up, the air is warm with humidity.

x= blue

2011-06-08T03:30:00.002-04:00

In algebra, I always had a ball unfolding equations.
So many mathematical possibilities for a tiny letter, it could be flourished or utilitarian.
Oh, to have understood de Saussure at a sweet sixteen.
--

I bounced through a Russian revolution to the French front. Romantics smashed empty wine bottles to the ground, thrashed by the harmony of colors and surprising new forms of art.

One sketch held together with a pin, of Picasso; influential. A nod to Dada, perhaps:
a square scrap parallel to charcoal bars.
Tacked by faux-bois and held back in the cradle of
Journal, small victories day and night.

Holes in pockets betrayed by elbows, and dancers stretched across mattresses flecked with paint to catch a glint off the hip of the guitar as we took a deep breath before the chorus.

Some dry coughs sprinkle blood on their kerchiefs, some wine splashes onto the hems of garments.

Reading against the grain

2011-04-06T13:01:00.000-04:00

For the moment, New York is unblanketed. I have cracked my window open the past two nights, although April has been showering, it's been pleasant enough to fold down the comforter.

Right. Blogging. Write. Blogging.

2011-03-31T22:57:00.003-04:00

What a sad blog! My last update boasts about the last night of Chanukah, and here we are at the end of March. Unacceptable! Tomorrow is April Fool's Day, and hopefully New York will finally release its furious grasp on winter and let us all in on the joke.

On one hand, Spring is pushing the bulbs up, the buds out, and the grass around; under dull skies spitting rain, ice, and even now snow, on the other. This has been one noisy lamb, friends.

To make it through the lack of lovely days, I get out and about, perusing the thrifty vintage racks and stomping around Brooklyn in a good pair of shoes so my mind won't worry about barking dogs. It's not wanderlust so much as an interest in the curio nestled in all the lefts and rights of way. I like to see things happen.

There's plenty to mention.
The store...
My local...
Changes changing... chaos in the details I spose. And that's probably why I haven't blogged since the eighth night of Chanukah, 2010.

So. I will simply start fresh and tell you, dear reader, that yesterday I went to my most favorite museum in New York to catch up with a friend visiting from San Francisco. It was my first time through the meteors and minerals, and my second tour of the dinosaurs. There are millions of stories one could tell along so many different kinds of tours through the American Museum of Natural History--and Smithsonian memories came cantering--but I think the gem I'll drop pays homage to our 26th president.

Back when I was teaching in Miami, I asked the seventh period AP U.S. History class what came to mind when they thought of Theodore Roosevelt. I think I was expecting "Rough Rider," "burly fellow," and other unimaginative responses but right away the brightest student's hand shot up as she blurted, "National Parks!"

So, as I sit on my couch while the changing climate squats in what is supposed to be a lovely spring, I slap hands with conservation.

Literary Luminaries

2010-12-08T16:52:00.001-05:00

Tonight is the eighth and final night of Chanukah.

As an uncle said, we remember "the re-dedication of the alter which was defiled by the Syrian Greeks for 2 years. After this we could once again bring korbanot (offerings to Hashem)." And also, "the miracle of the cruse of pure oil that they found which was supposed to be only for one day and lasted 8."

Miracles I've had in my own past eight days: Holiday Bonus, Extra Balance on my Phone Bill, Extra Balance on my Gas Bill, and a little extra in the coffer after paying rent, thanks to a good Holiday so far at work.

Yesterday, the store sold its first E-Book. Unfortunately, if you have a kindle, you won't be able to read anything we sell, because that is how Amazon does business.

Anyways, it is perhaps miraculous that histories can be passed along these days through the digital world. It does require quite a bit of energy to move around these bits of information, but Caesar had to die so that Rome could live, amirite? Am I right?

In honor of Cleopatra: A Life, I am spending the latter half of my day off to watch the 4 hour epic.
And it feels right for the day. For how many histories have been written and rewritten through the centuries? Isn't it something how long human beings have been running around reading, righting and rythmaticking?

So as we prepare all 9 lights in our Chanukiot ce soir, let's take a moment to reflect on history, so that we may consider the future. Also, what RIDICULOUS clown started telling Jewish Kids that they get a present each night of Chanukah.

And also, maybe someone would like to get me this as a present. (LOL, j/K)

But seriously folks. In the fine tradtion of legends (after all, this is the anniversary of John Lennon's tragic murder), lets all take a moment for The Cleopatra of Soul, Aretha Franklin had a bummer diagnosis. May she live it up mightily in these days, with fine china and royal processions all over the place.
Here she is in her natural divinity.

Word Economy

2010-12-02T23:48:00.004-05:00

I think it's hysterical that the National Deficit is 1.3 trillion dollars.

That's 12 zeros. Isn't it remarkable? I mean, I think if you're going to get to spending that many zeros, you ought to be able to multiply numbers with that many decimal places without a calculator, or at least, recite that many digits of pi from memory.

Pi is a tasty number and I sure missed sharing it with my family this past week.

Thanksgiving is a big one for us Weinkles. Living all over the continental U.S. puts a burden on regular visits, so we put our energy into bringing 30 people together on a windy beach. It's miraculous and beautiful. Messy in a good pit barbeque kind of way. Fun fact: BBQ comes from the description of the rooster we used to run through the spit, beard to tail. Barbe a Queue.

Here is what I cooked:
Lemon-Glazed Sweet Potatoes with Curry Sour Cream garnish.
Ginger Garlic Kale

PB Krispy Bars

...one turkey carcass later I made a sweet and savory broth with what loads of kale and sweet potatoes I had left.

The surviving sweet potato, was tossed to the cuisinart. sliced some onion, salted, peppered, curried, double egged and mashed potato mixed (in lieu of plain ol' flour.)
Sweet Potato latkes. boom.

Compound Construction

2010-11-12T09:23:00.001-05:00

Another early morning in the late season.
I can see people waiting for the Messiah and the bus. Twenty new souls on the street chilled in a purple shade. They watch the sun warm a growing strip of asphalt. Its brightness is burned through by the shadow of a woman made up with clumpy mascara and cheap red lipstick flapping a watercolor likeness of the lord in a tongue of lazy enunciation.
The flock thins around the plump bellied prophet. Eyes dart around her, not sure if she is prepared to break into Oration.

Bits of dust settle

2010-11-10T16:11:00.000-05:00

I spent the first half of my day off waiting for the man to come to fill the rat holes. Fret not, dear reader, we are not co-habitating with rodents. Two and half hours after the time we scheduled with the management company--not answering phones today-- Romanian Bruce Springsteen arrived with caulk, silicone and plaster. Please do not let your imagination wander, dear reader, there is still the kitchen light, the toilet seat and some electrical issues to address.

It was rather uninspiring before the sun burned off the clammy cold, and now, our windows are open to the last couple hours of day. Is it wrong that I should want to spend them laying down with a dead physicist instead of a computer screen?

There's a new biography on Richard Feynman. It's an unfortunate cover, but I have it under my pillow so I can kiss his face in the morning. It's rather good so far.

Also from W.W. Norton, Townie, also unfortunately covered and not yet published. I hope they print it soon, so it can hurry up and be a big deal already. Dubus the Younger wrote a phenomenal portrait of turbulent humanity.

I have a dinner in Onion Square tonight, for a children's writer whose book I have yet to see. I can speculate, but I hope they give us a copy so I can test my hypothesis. Very scientific, this book selling business.

Corps! Dormez vous!

2010-11-07T08:29:00.000-05:00

I think my body is taking this extra hour and choosing to write.

A half hour ago I woke to the usual sounds of the city, and I haven't been able to go back to sleep. How does one just add an hour of life?

After not blogging for three months, I could probably suck that hour right out of Dear Reader. Perhaps the hour is already devoted to something else.

Suffice it to say, I will gesture and begin to write plus que ça change...I will end up trailing off because I want to write about how I noticed the other day that Raquel Welch has absolutely no dialogue in 1966's "Fantastic Voyage" until nineteen minutes have passed.

So you see, what is an hour? When in some forty years, there are still so many of us fighting the good fight.

I voted, barely. I should have registered in New York but I floated on the blue blood of this town. I'm interested to see what will happen in the two years of a political body that has evolved into something of a Hydra, but what a beautiful beast she is.

Here is my current literary sound-track:
Scott Pilgrim, A+ for Awesome in the skateboard sense.
Witches on the Road Tonight, V for very good and very hard to sell.
Graveyard Book, G++ for Good Golly Gaiman.
and the marvelous Nina Simone.

comme c'est chaud!

2010-08-31T17:29:00.001-04:00

It's nearin' ninety today, and that ain't nothin' to sniff at. Where some of the weaker souls have a hard time with the temperature, I revel in the fact that l'humidité n'est pas là.
Things could always be worse, eh mon ami?
For example, Paris Hilton, another line on your rap sheet is better than say, falling out a window.

You can blame whomever you like but stories like these are horrendous.

I'm of the camp that finds the tragedy in everything leading up to the conclusion. How totally preventable these stories can be.
LiLo is quick to point her finger to her daddy issues and poor role-models, and if that's the case, she has a long road to recovery. Undoubtedly, Michael Lohan and Dina Lohan have concocted the exact opposite of a healthy, nurturing environment for their children. However, after a certain period of time, patterns become apparent.
To wit: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H...shall I continue?

It's tragic that LiLo thinks she can recover by blaming everyone else in her life, because it means she doesn't recognize that the real problem.

On the other hand, the late Nicole John must have seemed normal and well-adjusted to her otherwise normal parents, if they were watching at all. It's harder to see where the tragedy lies when the only part of the story we have is the ending.

My thoughts go to people who suffer this tragedy, but then I wonder what kind of tragedy it is.

Last night, we had an event with local author, Ghita Schwarz, a civil rights litigator specializing in immigrants' rights. Her new book, Displaced Persons is a story of an unusual family that searches for some sense of normality after Liberation. It brings attention to the Holocaust as a commodity, but also an experience, shocking and traumatic that "Displaced" close to 25,000 different people.

So, then young girls who were ripped from their children, mothers, brothers. Young men who may have killed or sacrificed other lives in order to make it another day in prison, in mud and shit. Is that tragic enough?

And how to prevent tragedy like THAT again? {Ahem, Yann Martel, not your smarmy experience--recall your Adorno}

So as the media frenzy for the Muslim Community Center at the bottom of Manhattan wanes, and media coverage centralizes over other celebrated issues, how to keep in mind the tragedy of humanity?

In my opinion, it is best to dance, laugh, and live.

(lots o links!)

Sensitive issues

2010-08-19T23:34:00.001-04:00

Summer was about to slip quietly off the stage, here in NYC. But then the media pigeons spotted a story.

The Story.

There are plenty of words being flung about like steaks in a dog fight. (I think Jon Stewart has the choicest cuts, thankyew Gawker.tv) Is this an issue of religious freedom or of sensitivity to the victims of September 11?
I thought we were all the victims of September 11th's attack.
Granted this country was founded in the name of Puritanical freedom to burn witches and lofty business speculations--but c'mon now, after all these wars I think the general consensus is that might does not always equal right.

Whatever you believe, you'll have the right to believe it. But justice for all means justice for all, and that includes dissenting opinions.

In my opinion, those taking time to protest the "Ground Zero" Mosque---have you walked those city blocks? They are LONG!
might find that their time is better spent in local politics, local infrastructure and local education. At the VERY LEAST, their local movie theaters, watching
THIS MOVIE!!!

Oh. And in other amendment news:

Happy 90th anniversary of the 19th amendment.

Shoulder to shoulder into the fray!!

Rumor Has it.

2010-07-24T02:34:00.055-04:00

I like reevaluations.
Evaluation is all well and good, but if your math skills are on par with mine, a reevaluation will improve your situation. (Thusly, dear Mother, you have explained my grades in Math lo' these many years, no time to reevaluate during tests).

We're watching the Monarch Chrysalid quite closely. It's a pearlescent geometric nugget of nature.

For those unfamiliar with the process by which a milkweed caterpillar becomes a butterfly,
the body of the larva is nothing but an well-spun shawl that keeps all vital chewing gears and pooping parts safe from the elements. As the caterpillar eats and expels his way to the end of the vine, the shawl stretches to keep all the soft parts soft.
Then, after seven days or so of using all its energy to eat and expel, our little miracle might drag itself to a sturdy (albeit inverted) promontory, weave a little silken pad and make a place to hang out for the next two weeks.
Once it is well-seated, it begins to rip the shawl, and a glistening glob settles into a shape that will become a most fashionable bag that will take a prehistoric powder and sprinkle it into a goop that stews into a butterfly with scaly (sometimes membranous) wings. Then, nature rips that bag away, an alien emerges, pumps life-force into its flappable appendages and goes off in search of sex. Perhaps the use of procreational drugs is involved, sometimes called pheromones.

I sent off some mail last week, an opportunity I relished and exploited to sketch a bee on an envelope. Well, I remember getting a ton of mail in camp, and brother, those stacks of letters remind you of home in their own special way. So Chere Cousine S.C. in North Carolina, relish and exploit every moment made available to you. The friendships you weave in arts and farts and crafts, short and long; above all the sunrises.

Also, nobody wants to be the dead girl in the SLEEPAWAY CAMP MOVIE!!

Summer is past its peak and while it is hot, the days are growing shorter. We use these days to reflect the high points of the year behind.

I happened upon Mythology's old friend Thomas Bulfinch this week. He's a delight, and a choice in pure denial, because I also need to review something new that is not the New Yorker, and I have about three write-ups for September. This is of no use, the next month is clearly August.
By Golly, the store is out of good galleys.

So I have fostered the following paperbacks:

Sick City by Tony O'Neill. It struts the stage like Eddie Murphy [following clip most definitely NOT SAFE FOR WORK] Delirious. And the humor is not quite as approachable, or incongruous, or even worthwhile. I think I got over the glorification of track marks and selfish junkies a few years ago. O'Neill's short stories are pretty tolerable, though.

In a similar vein of satire, Albert Cossery, The Jokers. The introduction itself incites scoffing, thank you James Buchan.

As the French are the wittiest race in Europe, so are the Egyptians in Africa. Cossery's comedy derives from contraposition of exquisite French and an exceptionally squalid setting.

Translated rather skillfully from the French by Anna Moschovakis, The Jokers does not sit well before bed. I recommend sitting upright for this bad boy.

Coming in first, Gary Shteyngart. (Not that cute in real life, I'm told)

His writing found its way into my eyeballs when the New Yorker published 20 under 40, and the excerpt from Super Sad True Love Story had me with its bashful honesty and brutal satire. Perhaps I have a thing for bespectacled writers, estranged from the Russian Jewry.
And it's not just that he has an event at the store. No, it was my LOLing on the subway that told myself how much I enjoy the book. I said to myself, "Self! You are really enjoying this novel written in nouveau epistolary fashion, you are laughing out so loud!"

And really, dear readers, what other test does a book need to pass, if it is not causing you to miss your stop on the train, or LOL?

Look out honey, I'm using technology

2010-07-20T13:32:00.003-04:00

I love having Tuesdays to myself.
I don't have to worry about finding space for the exciting New Releases, although I do get pumped about new titles, and seeing what is being regularly replenished.
I finished Fun Home this morning, enjoyed perusing
the shelves here in Zero-Dome, and have been impelled to use the fleeting hours to read/write El Gran Novela americana.

But whom shall I use as inspiration?
Use this fun (and questionable) algorithm to find out whose writing you emulate!

According to the past five blog entries I have here at Moving Prepositions, I, like, write like :::

David Foster Wallace (haven't read him yet),
Cory Doctorow (ditto),
Nabakov,
and the oh-so-horrid Lovecraft (also never touched, save the copies of a Lovecraft tribute that I counted, packed up and returned)

I have yet to decide whether this is:
1. all that credible (what with the simplicity of web-programming these days)
2. an obstacle I steer to avoid in shaping my own words
3. none of the above
4. all of the above

The store has acquired a pet. Last Thursday, I noticed a fat little inch and a half of Monarch larva feeding his way through the wilting of our weekly floral arrangement. By Friday, our florist had made accommodations for the tiny pest with plenty of milkweed and oregano (whose floral buds are remedial!). When I opened the shop on Saturday morning, the creature had fattened up to about 2 inches, and flung his poop all over the new David Mitchell title and the remaining copies of the third Stieg Larsson. He continued to munch and as Attenborough says, deeeeficate until yesterday, at around 4:30 pm, when he crawled to the underside of a faded sunflower to pull one of these.

Enjoy the linkage today! I had fun throwing it in. Too bad the "IWRITELIKEATRON" can't take my hypertext into account.

Incidentally, is anyone out there interested in/familiar with Storyspace?
From the site, you'd think people who place a high-value on word-structure would hire a decent web-designer, but I'm more interested in the software.

Oh and this entry?

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Adventures in Kitty-sitting

2010-07-19T13:53:00.004-04:00

I'm cat-sitting for some teacher friends who live near the bookstore.

Zero is a former tom who sheds fine white hairs on a sparsely decorated, but very nice two bedroom overlooking Fulton Street. Zero has a tabby-vest and apparently, his poop smells terrible, but so far, we've been quietly enjoying company. This is Day 1.

I am still reeling from the physical demand of last week.

The bookstore had a huge party for David Mitchell, whose latest Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet (a Dutch colonialist, so I infer it is pronounced "dazoot") enjoyed a rave on the cover of the New York Times Book Review (by Dave Eggers, no less). We scrambled to make the store perfect, and plenty of folks noticed--the perfect part, not the scrambling.

I've been a fan of cold pasta these past few weeks, they're a nice alternative to cooking in a kitchen that is too narrow not to conjure hell when we broil chicken, boil eggs and melt cheese. I threw tri-color rotini, 1/2 a jalapeno, 2 pepperoncini, celery, fresh basil from the roof, pine nuts and turkey bacon together. Lunch for a week, bam.

Also, MayaBee started getting stuffy so I pretty much consumed two heads of garlic. No vampire bites for me!

I also wanted to share the notion of a watermelon salad that I tried at the FOJBBQ.

Long-lost-Long-Island's mother hollowed out a watermelon, sliced some plum tomatoes and red onions; poured 1 part balsamic (maybe red-wine), 1 part olive oil; and sprinkled fresh black pepper, good salt, and feta cheese. Suh-nap, that was tasty.

Any other delicious cold salads I should be trying?

Martha kept talking about a Heat Wave

2010-07-08T23:30:00.001-04:00

I've let this blog get mighty slack.

It's been months, and while there may not have seemed to be much to tell, I get the urge to cram a whole story in this space. Fear not, gentle reader, I will spare you the digest of the changing seasons.

We are only just in the thick of summer, and while last week kept citizens' hopes up in the high seventies, the Fourth of July forward has been pure misery. I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but 100 degrees Fahrenheit melts all sense of hyperbole.

The weekend itself was lovely. Thanks to Uncle James' graduation celebration, I've connected with long-lost cousins in Brooklyn. I wish I had a better handle on this whole extended relation business, because the way I see it, family is family. Perhaps one day, my grandchildren will try to figure how they are related to my first cousins' grandchildren.
Anyways, this particular bloodline grew up in Long Island, and her own first cousins throw quite the an annual Let Freedom Ring-er.
I brought a Napa Cabbage Slaw, but when I heard the guest-list topped 200, it hardly seemed worth mentioning. I love visiting folks without pretense. Rather than sitting in the shade of the Beach house, I got along with the other side of my new cousin's line (matrilocal, wassup.) There was plenty to eat, plenty to drink, plenty to do.
It's been so long since I've been to the beach (I hardly think a spring day with Coney Island amusements counts).

We danced long into the night, but at around 11, the Brooklynite/Twentysomethings felt it was time to turn in. (I had to close shop on Monday). We said goodbye to the folks holding down the beach house and found some comfy couches to crash into at one Aunt's homebase. Falling alseep was easier said than done.
One of the long-lost cousins (who shares my hometown!) felt that everyone getting ready for bed signaled intense desire to crowd around a laptop and watch a movie! In addition, there were the adorably little yappy house dogs that reminded the guests who was boss. I reached at sleep, while I stretched out in the air-conditioning, finally nodding off around 24:00.
Around 2:30, the hosts finally stumbled home. The dogs announced this, as well as kitchen lights and it was all I could do not to eavesdrop to hear how the party had ended.
This particular 4th had been special because it also celebrated the hosts' daughter's High School Graduation (woo, teenagers!) Apparently, things were starting to get out of hand so Mama Host made a judgment call and kicked the inebriated teenagers out of her house and onto the beach of Long Island Sound. Drinking, smoking, getting loud, I'm sure we're all familiar with the circumstances upon which memorable parties usually end.
So then, things get dark again, and I drift into dreams once more.
At 3:00am, the proud graduate comes and wakes up Long-lost-Long-Island-Cousin, and asks her to come back out to the beach house. Did they decide to have a nightcap?

No gentle readers, apparently some other responsible adults had forgotten their daughter's flip-flops at the beach house and driven back to retrieve them (they were facing a 10 hour drive back to Buffalo, I guess the flip-flops were important).
When these responsible adults had left the beach house, it had been locked up and dark. When they returned, the lights were on, the door was bust open and the music was blaring. Luckily, one of the responsible adults is an officer of the law, and he must have made it very clear to the young hedonists that B&E is illegal and seeing as how the culprits were all at least 18 years of age, they would be tried as adults (and I'm not sure he had to explain much further). Then, they phoned our hosts, which explained the 3 am wake-up.

The next morning, we all lounged and got to know each other over bagels and schmear, and then I caught a ride to the LIRR and rode into the sweltering city and my very busy job.

The week has been swell. The bookstore is doing fine in the summer, especially since we've installed 2 new A/C units that help keep things cool while browsers crowd the shelves. I rang up a special celebrity yesterday, but in the interest of preserving his privacy, I'll only mention he had good taste and spent a nice chunk of change.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go shower for the third time today.

Show don't Tell

2010-05-11T15:22:00.000-04:00

I believe seventh grade was the last year I diagrammed sentences, identified clauses, and dangled participles. (For more fun on diagramming sentences, click here)
Eighth grade was devoted to literature and expository writing.
Ninth grade explored prepositional phrases and the introduction to decanting a work of creative writing; identifying the elements that ferment into a full-bodied refreshment.

Ninth grade writing assignments were hell and nirvana. I choked on one writing assignment that required me to show, not tell that "the roller coaster was thrilling." I was probably under additional stress considering Biology, World History and the Coast Guard manual stalking my trail through Homework Forest.

Having at that time fewer than 10 years experience riding Roller Coasters, I was tentative in my treatment of building anticipation while a chain announces each foot of an ascent. The carnies with their smiles like a condemned fun-house, only half there. The hairs on the back of your neck reach for solid ground.
It is too late, testing the surety of the foam on the metal bar now, you have no choice but to meet your destiny.
You are ripped from the rules of nature and suspended over a microcosm of delight, but before you have a chance to appreciate its beauty (for the simple fact that it has not floated away!), you are yanked forward through the dark and carried upwards once more.
There comes a point where it seems to be over, the first peak was ages ago, the train will surely creak to a stop. Then, a final toss of heart to throat, and at last, but far too soon, does everything jerk back into place, hissing relief.

I agonized over the pointless details of the assignment. There were over 50 choices for "Show, Don't Tell" topics.
Was I supposed to let my teacher know which one I had chosen in the title? That seemed to forfeit the game.
Was it like a game of taboo where using the words "roller coaster" and "thrill" were automatic losses?
A whole page?

It's no secret that New York is loud, large city. Its cacophony streams throughout each day. Outside my window it includes, but is not limited to: mass transit, thrumming bass, screaming children, raving lunatics, and blaring car horns.

I've grown accustomed to most of it.
The buses help me keep time. The train makes a friendly whooshing sound as it slows to swallow more passengers.
Screaming children are a part of life, and mostly one that tends to be in bed after 11 o'clock. What's more, I've heard the same raving lunatic drop some serious gems on the sidewalk on more than one occasion. Just last week, he was urging some truants to stay in school, lest they end up a crazy mother-snackpack like he.
I even love the satisfying syllables of the freight trucks as they careen down my street towards Flushing, leaving the ground with one sweet "kuh" and falling back down with a "chunk."

I can even handle to incessant car horns of the car-service driver who is lost and wants to make all the sleeping people aware of it. And the whooping car alarms of the sorry fool who thought he would park his car at his front door? Well, I learned that tune in the suburbs.

However, there is one thing I still have not grown accustomed to, (and it is here where I try to show, not tell) the snackpackin' garbage trucks. It is a truly painful sound. Like nails on a chalk board, if the chalkboard was rusted metal and your teacher's nails were collapsing cans and glass bottles (which need to be recycled!) The pistons always already seeming to exhale their last effort, but no, this is New York and there are probably hundreds of pounds of trash left to compact on this block alone.
NYC garbage trucks are nightmares of reality, and I'm sure--if what I learned about Socrates in 12th grade was accurate--Plato would have urged us to stay in the caves, content with the puppetry, so as never to deal with the amount of waste we create in the world.

Word Count

2010-04-12T01:33:00.000-04:00

Some memories are like tiny splinters in your thumb. A dull pain, throbbing now and again, tells your brain to examine the sensation, and try to squeeze it out from under your skin. Other memories tickle your lower back, and suddenly, your laughter rends the sour silence in a crowded space. Others still simply glow in the branches of the past you can see, hung like candles in the trees. These memories illuminate the forest, but as singular units, don't really call for actions or feelings.

Recently, I remembered flipping through my Florida History book--the history I learned at the age of 9, long before the FCAT.
There were a number of pages that had sky-blue rectangles highlighting a matrix of numbers, subtitled by categories of information. That was the first time I ever learned of a census. My young powers of deduction told me that Censuses took place every ten years, I loved perusing the blue rectangles, watching the population of Florida rise and fall through history, as others searched for gold, and youth, and immortality.

I also remembered being in Pre-Calculus studying logarithms, the last bit of fun before the hell of limits. Of course there was plenty of discussing the practicality of these useful formulas, namely, a sense of the world which surrounds (ah, Nature). When you consider the fact that there's some ridiculously complicated formula to figuring the distance between stars we've actually discovered, it is impressive to consider the remarkably simple application in figuring world population. I wonder if there isn't a star for every soul on this planet, seeing as how we're somewhere halfway between six and seven billion now.

As I aged out of my teens, I remember learning about politics, which are ever evolving. I remember sitting in one of the more demanding English classes, and in a discussion over Jewish Literature, my professor saying it seems ridiculous to reduce politics to conservative and liberal discourses, "Am I conservative, you ask? I say about what?"

I remember learning that seeing as how the government is run by a bunch of human beings, it can turn into giant mistake machine and really stomp a mud-hole in the middle of my life-crises (to which I have the right as an American). I learned in an abstract way that the government does many things that I happen to dislike, on that I'm sure we have some common ground.

These memories all flickered into my present mind while I sat in the bask of neon at Los Hermanos and hearing a person at my table claim ignorance of what a U.S. Census actually is, and then question its importance.

While the United States Constitution is full of bullshit like-- oh I don't know, the right to for you to vote for the wrong guy, and the right for you to open your yap, the right for me to take my handgun and shoot you in the face when you piss me off, and the right for me to shutthefuckup when the fuzz bully club my ass for murder--it also has very simple straightforward guidelines like the number of senators from each state, the whole "born in this country" thing, AND A FRINKING POPULATION COUNT EVERY TEN YEARS.

Why do citizens feel the need to snub this simple survey? The internet already knows everything about you anyways.

Internet is for funsies and new werds that make yew miss spell.

2010-03-29T00:10:00.000-04:00

The internet is for funsies and made up words, which is a dignified way of avoiding the truth that if it weren't for the taboo of pornography, there would be no internet as we know it--the hyperactive information sharing imaginatorium of sex.
I imagine the internet a bit like the chapter in Hitchhiker's Guide when Slartibartfast gives us the guided tour to Magrathea, with vast staging areas devoted to adorable kittens and 633k 5p34k (geek speak, if you have to ask).
I like the parts of the internet that don't include Comic Sans and believe in a dictionary, or at the very least, little red dots that second guess your aptitude as a good speller.
In homage to hypertext and what hypertext was nonce, the interwebz is good for bopping around like Mario on little clouds of knowledge and bonking your against bricks for extra points.

So, while I was doing some research on Travesties by Tom Stoppard, I bounced around between some Dadaist, Leninist and Marxist Websites, I found a literate blog that had a meme that looked like funsies.
Thusly,

Hardback, trade paperback or mass market paperback?
Hardcovers are excellent collector's items. They collect lots of dust.
(I'm sure serious readers amass plenty of each.)

Waterstones, Borders or Amazon?
Whiskeytangofoxtrot is Waterstones? If it is an independent bookseller, I'm into it.

Bookmark or dog-ear?
I dog-ear galleys and bookmark editions in print, out of print or not belonging to me.

Alphabetize by author, or alphabetize by title, or random?
The progeny of philosophers and booksellers, I first put my books in sections and rearrange the flow between shelves according to my humor. The alphabet is only necessary until the books come home with me.

Keep, throw away, or sell?
And give away. And steal from friends.

Keep dust jacket or toss it?
Screw top or flip cap?

Read with dust jacket or remove it?
Am I reading on the train? Is it a big art book? Does it belong to the library?

Short story or novel?
Both please?

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?
Wiz kid.

Buy or borrow?
Just as long as you're not one of those assholes who confuses bookstores with a library where you can sit and take up space sipping your latte, making notes and cracking the spine.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger?
What is this? Amateur hour?

Morning reading, afternoon reading, or nighttime reading?
I envy the fact that some people can actually schedule parts of their days for reading. I tend to do it in my twenty-first century version of "spare" time.

Favourite series?
I found this meme on a stranger twenty-something's blog and she is apparently Canadian, which has me wondering, if it's pronounced "aboot" why not "fave-oo-rit?"
And I bet she missed out on some serious Sweet Valley High action.

Favourite YA book?
I wish Judy Blume could re-write Are You There God? It's Me Margaret with cell phones so that these impressionable young things wouldn't have to rely on Twilight for the prelude to their nascent sexual awakenings.

Favourite book no one has heard of?
I hate this question. If no one has heard of the book, then how the hell are there printed copies floating around?

Favourite books read last year?
Richard Feynman.

Favourite book to re-read?
I haven't re-read much since I was 12.

Do you ever smell books?
You don't?

What are you reading right now?
1921 about New York City baseball, but I can't read just one.

What are you reading next?
New Yorker perhaps.

Book man

2010-03-07T21:34:00.000-05:00

On Friday, after a late closing, I went to an art auction fundraiser for the next Swimming Cities expedition. I ran into some of the folks who helped build Greenlight, and was able to procure a couple of free tickets to the Armory Show, which ran until this evening.

The exposition was huge, taking place at Pier 94 along the Hudson. The area itself is a bit subway-challenged, but getting there wasn't difficult. I arrived a bit too late to see everything, but I stuck to the Modern Art galleries, which I think are more fun to think about.

If you've grown up with an understanding of religion, it isn't hard to appreciate the driving force behind much Western art. I could spend ages looking at paintings of Maria and her nino, the same basic elements reworked thousands of different ways, brought into the world of artifice by so many consciousnesses.

But when you're at an intimidatingly large art show all by yourself, it is way more fun (and perhaps slightly less pretentious) to peruse a few key booths and wonder not only what gave the artist cause to cast aluminum and steel into a cylindrical shape and varnish it with candy-colored enamel, but how the gallery decided that someone might want to spend $20,000 on a stack of said shapes.
My favorite exhibit was a collection of mens' faces carved out of old Bybels and other black leather-bound books stacked into an appropriate medium.

It was just something to do after a lovely brunch with some lady friends, but any chance I get to pound the pavement down the big blocks in Manhattan, I hop into my comfortable walking shoes and do it. There's an aspect of Manhattan that is hardly appealing--the rampant entitlement to materialism leaves a funny aftertaste (although for parts of Brooklyn to find itself above smacks of hypocrisy). Still, there is a thrill I get from the steel giant, a pulse that is hard to read. I suppose that's what I love most of all, walking out of time with the center of the universe.

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.

Author event

2010-02-23T23:12:00.000-05:00

I just returned from a dinner on the UES with an emerging young author who has written a young readers' novel that might remind readers of Gaiman's Coraline, where a young girl travels into a different world while living within the realm of a strange house belonging to a strange family. Of course, there is an adversary in the world within, and this particular brand of magic gave me a serious case of the heebie jeebies as I rode the train to the dinner hosted by Penguin Group for Young Readers. It was good company, and the author is a former teacher who worked in one of the smallest school districts in Wisconsin, although I bet most of her students can spell Wisconsin (maybe even Massachusetts or Connecticut).
She was quite kind and flattered, having done a week-long whirl of dinners in L.A., Chicago, NYC tonight--to meet her agent face to face for the first time (and schmooze with us and Pengy.) Tomorrow morning, it's South Carolina and then back to her hometown. There is a lot of work going into the marketing of the book, and it's interesting because unlike most of what I've looked at in the past two months or so of pulling Y.A. novels out of the box--this is a book by strong writer that paints a Pieta of sorts--Young Readers see this trope with C.S. Lewis et al., only the delight is in the terror she brings with antique ghosts.

Tomorrow night, Ted Conover is reading at the Strand. His new book on roads, Routes of Man drives me through some country I've never considered while watching all of America out the window of Poppa's white Dodge van. Right now, I'm with him on a frozen river that is literally a rite of passage for a gang of forty teenagers that have grown up in a Himalayan valley almost 12,000 feet above sea level and who have all "maxed out on the education in Reru, their medieval hamlet, and were taking advantage of the cold to get out of Dodge." Conover is not so swift on the ice, while these kids have grown up tested by and testing the river that runs off the Indus. Cradle of civilization be damned, I've already been deep into Peru, where the "uncontacted" are still considered. The nuggets of knowledge are plentiful, although at times I think the writing gets a little tangential, but maybe that's just New York City commuting with me--funnily enough, DJ Random Play (itunes) is bringing me Fela Kuti's "He Miss Road."

I can never remember which imitates what, art or life.

Story hour

2010-01-27T19:14:00.000-05:00

I'm with my cousins and visiting the grandparents in Aspen. Thankfully, we were all able to fly in on the same day (despite the snow). My flight from LGA went fine, even though my cab driver dropped me off at the terminal for US Air instead of United forcing me to use my New York walk in Queens so that I could get to the terminal in time (I was early).

The first few days of sitting for Adena (Baby turned 1 year old on Monday) were a bit harried. Like most infants, she cries the second her mother is out of sight. I've been getting her out of the house, into the stroller and making tracks around the neighborhood, but it's hard for her otherwise. I had been trying to convince Grandma that it's okay to take a baby and a stroller on the bus, so that I could get Adena to the library for some board books (which, go figure, are in short supply at this house).

Arguments why I can't/shan't:
-Nobody takes strollers on the bus
-I don't know where the library is
-I won't be able to get home.

But I had already done my research (Google Maps is the best!), and refuted Grandma's thoughtful points.

Today, I managed to hitch a ride with Mary Norma while she went to City Market, but I left the stroller at home thinking it might not fit on the bus. Adena and I arrived at the library about an hour before it was open, but I kept her busy with a walk towards the Nature Center, a quick stop in Clark's supermarket (where I let her help me with self-checkout and press buttons). I was beginning to regret not bringing the stroller, she's 17 pounds and I am not used to maternal duties, but I was not about to call and bother Grandma.
When the library opened it was story hour, so we sat for a few about bears and hibernation.
Then we picked out a few board books and one picture book, and hit the road. I guess I'm used to walking the big blocks, because we were at the other end of town/bus depot in no time. In other awesome timing, we arrived just as our bus did-- I realized I would have been able to bring the stroller-- and baby fell asleep on the ride home. Since I didn't have the stroller, I figured it'd be fine to get off at the short-cut/hospital and hike the hill over to Meadowood, she napped until I started to pull off her snowsuit.

Tomorrow, there are even more cousins coming to visit, which will make Friday's day off totally sweet. I've been reading and watching plenty of movies in the time between.

It's a shame about Howard Zinn, but I guess this leaves a vacancy for a new historian. I'm glad I took the chance to hear him speak a while back.

Speaking of departures, a coworker is leaving the bookstore. He resigned in poem form, so I responded in kind. He'll be gone when I get back to Greenlight.

This one's called,
"Re: Pre-meditated Resignation for the Kindly Folks, Yes....ah, well!"

Lifting her coat off the wary hook,
beneath her breath
chuckling,
though the evidence is long gone
as with the help which reached high
or updated clues in creation,
she spots a stain on the shelf
where the broth or stew
once brimming with ambition,
reached the consummation
of containment and
left a smile.

Overdue

2010-01-16T12:13:00.000-05:00

I guess I've always had a problem with procrastinating, which is why I've let way too much time pass since my last real update.

For the sake of being succinct, I'll have to gloss over the goings-on since--oof, before Thanksgiving?
I spent what felt like five minutes in Miami, and then drove up to Amelia Island with Daena to spend some QT with the Weinkles. 'Twas a lovely visit and the little cousins are now getting to be bigger little cousins.

Which reminds me of my stokifying news, I am off to spend two weeks watching the little cousins and hanging out with Mary Norma and Julian. I'm excited to have the time off from receiving at the store, which has been doing well in the post-holiday-madness lull.

Greenlight's Team Awesome kicked butt over the gift-giving madness, mostly because of our staff's perspicacious handselling. If you'll allow me to play my own piano, I am the resident YA expert. Customers looking for young adult literature find themselves at the register with armfuls of my recommendations. Most of what I suggest are titles I read when I was a youngin'. I tip my proverbial hat to Mom and Pops on that one.

Despite the popularity of the e-readers (namely Amazon's Kindle), I'm pretty sure the codex format has staying power. Kind of like vinyl hasn't ever lost it's value. Cassettes and CDs are out, mostly because they don't last in the long run. Even DVDs are something of the past as more and more tune in online. As technology is ever moving forward, it's clear the e-readers will evolve. Certainly, there are issues with the proprietary nature of Amazon's monopoly on certain titles (and who's to say the publishing industry won't experience it's own version of illegal downloads?) But I know some of my customers are Kindle users, and they still like the feel of turning pages, so they're happy to visit the brick and mortar and friendly faces.

Speaking of turning pages, I've had some delicious texts in the past couple of weeks.

Amy Hempel's Collected Stories were remarkable. A truly gifted teller, she made me laugh and made me cry.
Dave Thomas's Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell is a rather engaging account of the business relationship between David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.
Katherine Dunn's Geek Love is simply a full meal (and a unputdownable tale of geeks and freaks).
I'm reading Melanie Watt's new novel Alice I Have Been a fictional/history of the real-life Alice Liddell, and it is positively fascinating, to the point that I missed my subway stop the other night.
I also picked up Chris Moore's new novel Bite Me: A love story, which picks up the saga of Abby Normal, everyone's favorite adolescent goth who gets into some sticky situations when Chet, the vampire cat unleashes his undead fury on San Francisco. 'Twas cute, a good Chris Moore novel.

One thing I did not care for was Jonathan Dee's new book The Priveleges. He wishes he were Tom Perotta. Unfortunately, there was nothing about Dee's hideously wealthy characters in a financial setting similar to this one, that stuck with me. Reviews say each of the characters must come to term with their personal ethics, but I found nothing redeeming or tragic in their lives, it seemed rather trite to me. The only good thing about the book is the first chapter, in which Dee's writing is a strong demonstration and description of a "typical wedding." I'm not sure who The Privelegesis written for, and maybe that's part of the reason I didn't like it.

That's all for now. Tonight is Asian Film Fest with some pals. We're watching Wild Zero and Riki-Oh: The Story of Riki.

First Snow

2009-12-20T11:19:00.000-05:00

Well I finally got a new computer, after having my faulty door locks replaced.
I've been tuning it into my personal settings but there's still quite a ways to go.

Other than that and the added violation of losing two new sweaters and a pair of gray tights out of the dryer I was using at the laundromat across the street, I am very happy here.

Now, les temps have granted me a 10 inch blanket over all the grime, and my window is frosted with clean white snow. Mahi Mahi and I were out on the town when it began to come down and had an all around great day around Madison Square Gardens.

I've really enjoyed work at the bookstore, and this season gets me pumped about the success we face as a business. It doesn't hurt that I'm on a full weekday schedule now, either, as the Mistress of Receiving. Since we only get deliveries on Monday through Friday, I have taken advantage of three whole weekends since coming back from Thanksgiving.

I know I need to write more, but until then, I'm signing off to watch the "7th Voyage of Sinbad."

"Hungry men don't ask, they take."

Even MORE Writer's (Building) Blocks

2009-11-11T22:49:00.000-05:00

Nu. The first and second loads in a bunch of blogging I have neglected are dripping and pinned to the line.

I've stopped taking the subway so much, and it seems to me that I feel better than 90% of the rest of New York right now, sans flu shot. Washing hands that I keep out of my eyes and other points of sinusoidal entry fairly frequently helps too.
In the meantime, I've fallen in love with the buses in Brooklyn. I now have a transfer free commute to work, and I can still walk a decent amount being no more than 10 blocks from work (though my stop runs close).

I've been doing fine getting to work on time, though I was chastised on Halloween for answering the phone while at the cash-wrap. 'Twas an accident, but a careless move, nonetheless. A mistake I shant repeat, since I was up off my swollen knee (which I had sprained the night before) and working on an Purchase Order. When the phone rang towards the end of my shift, I picked it up absentmindedly and was reprimanded rather quickly by my boss. Learning takes reinforcement.

The incident put a little pep in my step, and I've been blowing through receiving cartons and greeting cards. Ah, retail.

MB, or Mahi Mahi, as she'll henceforth be known, and I held a HouseWarmingPotluck this past Sunday, which was well attended by our friends. There were plenty of great dishes, and now our "Bushwhack" fridge is packed with leftovers.

Today was a day off, and I spent it with the family of friends.

One of the best parts of New York City, is that it's fun to do the tourist thing once in a while, and walk from the High Line in Chelsea to Times Square, eat some Halal food, stroll to Grand Central Station, marvel at the structure and big-fuckoff-ness of the new Bank Of America building (a bank holding about 25% of the country's deposits), go up to the Observatory on the Empire State building and still make it back to Brooklyn before rush-hour.

Until next time.

More (Building) Blocks

2009-11-11T10:57:00.000-05:00

Hello family, friends and friendlies, the noon hour is approaching!

So, in an effort to respect attention spans, I have broken this long overdue update into building blocks. The FIRST of which can be read here.

I had taken a Wednesday off from Greenlight to chaperon a field day in Prospect Park, then do some Laundry, Reading and Scribbling on Thursday.

Friday, it was back to work, which meant putting books on the FINALLY FINISHED (and finely finished) shelves! I also got to take a stroll around Fort Greene and Clinton Hill to put up fliers announcing the launch party for the store.
It took about two and a half hours to go up Dekalb and down Myrtle, jaunt down Flatbush and then back to Fulton, putting up the hand-printed posters.
When my coworker and I returned, we witnessed the very first sale! A local businessman came in to buy a book about brewing beer right out of the box!

The very next morning, I was trained on the cash register and Greenlight was go.
We had a whole week of a soft-open where we were cash-only and still made plenty of sales. By the time Saturday's launch took place, it felt natural to be open in Fort Greene, and the whole community had welcomed us with a very nice big hug. We've been officially open about a month now, and it's been very positive.

We have a lot of local authors coming in and telling us about their books, lots of community members stepping in to share their praise and thanks.
If the pictures of the crowd at our launch party are any indication, Greenlight has been very warmly received. I mean, it was buckets of cold rain were falling out of the sky, and we were having to turn people away at the door, because we were so packed. I was on sticky-finger patrol, but if anyone had wanted to rip us off, they would have had a hard time getting out the door.

I have been put in charge of receiving at the store, which means I check in all the shipments, count quantities, verify details and put the stock on-hand. It's a nice increase of responsibilities and it's something I like to do.

I'm still interested in other work.

Grad School, for instance. You may recall that I applied for Grad School
(I would link to that entry, but I don't know the HTML for directing a window to open at a specific place on the page, so the reader might be forced to actually read the entire entry on the screen before finding the exact reference.)

Anyways, I have only one out of the two letters of recommendation, the second of which is apparently hinges on a dialogue of one participant. I was short on time, in any case, and money as well. So I opted to pay rent and buy a new I-pod shuffle since the charger for my old one broke, in place of the application fee.
Currently, there is a change jar labeled "APPLICATION FEE", and the History Masters program at CUNY has rolling admission. So, a February deadline and a chance to be exceptional, I'm going to seek out scholarships now and get a competitive age for a bout with the admission process. Ditto FAFSA, which I can submit in January.

Also, there is a Marine-Theme Highschool on Governor's Island, which is basically MAST on the Hudson. They need a bilingual secretary, but Mom's right, I could easily learn Spanish. Time to purchase a Spanish-English dictionary. I can already comprende plenty. I think the easiest thing right now, is to volunteer, perhaps as a crew coach, and get to know the school that way.

Nu, it's time to move the first load down the line and find room for the second and start washing the third.

Writer's (Building) Blocks

2009-11-11T10:09:00.000-05:00

Good morning family, friends and friendlies.

I'll admit, it's been way too long since I've offered an update. Blogs are a bit like laundry.
The longer you go without doing it, the more you're going to have to do when you finally decide to sort every dirty scrap and take it to be washed--probably requiring more than one trip to the machines--assuming you had enough clean underwear to get away with that sort of thing.

I'm wearing clean underwear, and doing laundry, so why don't I begin at the beginning and tell you what's happened since I last washed my unmentionables--er, updated this blog?

Load One:

I'll start with the field day my friend AJ--let's call her Miss Bones, planned back for October 14.

First of all, the honor for being the reason she was able to help organize such a great day for the freshman class at the school where she teaches goes to THE COLLEGE BOARD. The Oak-leafed Testing Bureaucracy had scheduled the Preliminary S.A.T./National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which most high-schools administer to the Sophomore and Junior Classes.

As a C.A.P. advisor last year, my 15 hours a week at MAST allowed me to plan an incredibly boring last minute college fair and financial aid lecture for the Senior class, while the rest of the school got familiar with the ol' College Board. A chilly morning in Prospect Park was way more exciting.

Miss Bones and her co-workers (mostly Humanities teachers at the Brooklyn School) organized a well-structured event, broken down into Alpha platoon and Bravo platoon. In each platoon about five rotating squads of soldiers, supervised at each activity station by at least one teacher and one other warm body.

I was assigned to work with Mr. Knife, the freshman History teacher (His name is from the French for blade, lame)
Our station was equipped with two big buckets of water, two liquid measuring cups that held 4 cups, two tablespoons and two teaspoons. Miss Bones had me carry some hula hoops to the park, for her station which involved the students holding hands and not being able to let go, while they maneuvered the hoop around each person in the chain.

Each squad that appeared at our station was divided into two fire teams whose objective it was to safely transport a tablespoon of water from the bucket to the liquid measuring cups. Whichever filled it first, WON!
It could have been really exciting for the first group except Mr. Knife has, like the most monotone voice EVER, and refused to get excited about a water game. He mumbled the directions and didn't think to explain the situation to the students, so natch, they got bored quickly and began to dissolve into chatty little pockets, talking big for the young teens they were.

When the second arrived, I stepped in to help whip some enthusiasm, and behavior reinforcement into the kids. For some reason, little kids impressed by shiny tend to pay attention to me, so it wasn't hard to keep the other groups motivated, despite Mr. Knife's incongruous position. Knife is a second year teacher, and if his classroom manner is anything like his presence on that bright, crisp morning in Prospect Park, I'm sad for the students who probably aren't learning much from a guy who doesn't seem to be able to shoot straight in the dark.

Needless to say, after a day like that, Miss Bones and I were exhausted, so I took a long nap instead of going to the premiere for "Where the Wild Things Are," which I've heard described as an hour and a half of Spike Jonze chasing some Hollywood Ganymede through the skeleton of a burnt forest while James Gandolfini muttered to a Karen O. soundtrack. "Lovely, yet devoid of content," were my friend's words.

With that, the first load is washed and hanging on the line.

On to the second.

Chapters

2009-10-08T11:42:00.000-04:00

First of all, can I just say how excited I am that Kandinsky is at the Gug through January and I don't have to buy a plane ticket to get there? I can just get on the train!

Oh the train! I hear it every six minutes or so whistling into the station, a faint little time keeper when I get ready in the mornings to go to work. It's also a nice place to read good books and write.

Lately, it doesn't take much to get ready for work. Does that sound awful?

The Greenlight Bookstore blog posts have been about as regular as my own, which goes to show how much work it takes to open a business. Jessica and Rebecca have inspiring stamina, and while the process can be painfully slow, it also feels amazing to know that everyone is working really hard to get the job done right. Since there is still sawdust and wood stain and wood sealant all over the place (and maybe some oil-based primer for kicks), I have been wearing my grubbies to work.
That is, the same pair of jeans and a variation of band t-shirts for the last month. In that time, Hugo's Crew (the Chinese dudes) have finished painting the ceiling, installing the lights and building the bookshelf unit around the airshaft. (Click zee link, Brownstoner is a cool website for residents on the *other side* of the East River, but there are more than real estate postings for under a mil., too.)

Yesterday Hugo's Crew pulled up 75% of the cardboard around the store, revealing a bright and shiny new dance floor! No, it's just a slick wood floor that is a prime dancing surface, but also useful for traversing in the instance that one might be browsing for a particular codex.

Meanwhile, with local sculptor/carpenter Iris cutting wood, constructing the basic frame for shelves as well as a beautiful cash-wrap up front, his colleague Orien has been building the front window benches, and Greenlight's team has been sanding, staining, buffing, cleaning, sealing, buffing, cleaning, sealing again and buffing once more EVERY surface not covered by white paint, cardboard or tarp (the books are stored safely under the last two). The process is easy with shelves. The shelves are flat and easy to maneuver, don't take much time. The bookcases are a different story, so Jessica and Rebecca invited community members to come by and help out.

It was a twenty-first century barn-raising, I'll tell you what. And after copious touch-ups, the store looks amazing for a volunteer/amateur effort. We would probably be months behind schedule if it weren't for all the volunteers! It's good to see that even in New York, people aren't too busy to get a little dirty for the benefit of their community. I even met one volunteer from South Carolina, visiting friends in Brooklyn. She just heard about it and decided to come by while she waited for her friend to get off work.

(Speaking of helping out the community, UM Alumni, your alma mater's radio station needs you:

http://wvum.org/radiothon.php

THINK INDIE!)

I never thought I'd be able to add this kind of work to my resume, but the Team is lucky enough to have an incredible Project Manager behind us. She does an amazing job of assessing the daily situation, outlining tasks and delegating responsibility. No wonder, Tianna spent the summer as the Project Manager for the Swimming Cities of Serenissima.

Most of the details are taken care of, the bookcases are all stained and sealed, all the shelves are ready to be put in place, all the pilaster strips have been measured out (wouldn't want crooked shelves, now) and nailed into place. We spent yesterday finishing the stain process for the front bench pieces and all that's really left to do is finish the cash wrap, put the books on the shelves and open our doors to the public.
Thankfully, that will mean I can play around with my full-time hours a bit more, and may be able to start making services at Romemu on a regular basis. When Uncle James was up here the Shabbos before Yom Kippur, I met him on the UWS for shul. Honestly, it felt like putting on a sweatshirt, which I guess is an odd metaphor for Judaism. In any case, I was able to go to Yom Kippur services on Monday and it's the first time I've spent five straight hours in Temple and felt completely engaged the entire time. The Reb shared the traditional parsha (Aaron performing the rites of Yom Kippur, Lev. 16:1, in Hebrew folks), and invited the congregation up for whichever aliyah they felt applied to them. (So nice to know that I matter to the community, whether or not I write a big fat check). I'm still at odds with faith, but I like the tradition of Shabbat services. The Jewish Renewal aspect is intriguing, but I would like to shop around some closer congregations, too.

Speaking of shopping around, I applied to CUNY Brooklyn on Monday. I've asked some people at MAST for letters of recommendation, but the application wasn't daunting at all. I've applied for a M.A. in History, but I'd like to focus on scientific history. Father's daughter, something like that. I'm thinking student loan rates aren't too bad in this money season, and of course scholarships are available as well.

Well mischpachah, it is my day off and time for me to play samurai laundromat. Maya also bought a window garden box, so I'm going to poke around some neighborhood hardware stores and see if I can't find some pots in which we will plant an herb garden. Living with her has been awesome, she brings me all sort of delicious dishes from work (the company serves employees lunch every day, trying out different recipes for the restaurant in the East Village.) I just finished a nice gnocchi (which I heat up the oven that runs on the gas I pay for).

Coming Attractions: Next Wednesday, I'm helping out my teacher friends while they have their highschool's freshmen have a field day of sorts while the sophomores and juniors take the PSAT. Later in the evening, I'm going to a screening for Where the Wild Things Are (bookselling has its perks, after all). I'll report back later.

Hammering away

2009-09-16T12:51:00.000-04:00

It's my day off and I'm here in our apartment with the maintenance guy. He is here to fix the windows that don't have a track and hopefully, by the time he leaves, the windows will be able to stay up without MB and I having to wedge objects into place.

It's a grey, somewhat chilly day. The past few have been absolutely gorgeous, and I should know, I've been watching them go past the big windows at the Greenlight Bookstore.

I started work on Thursday morning and have pretty much been working non-stop until today. We've been slaving away with all sorts of things around the store. The floor is installed, but it's pretty much the only thing that is "complete."

So what have we been doing?

Well, for starters, we have a local artisan carpenter building bookcases. The employees (a.k.a. Team Awesome) have been staining and buffing the shelves that will fit into the cases. But also, we are working around a crew of Chinese construction workers, which made for an interesting disaster not long ago.
Day One we spent clearing out our backroom space and carrying in huge shipments of books from Ingram and Random House. I got to drive around Brooklyn with my bosses, picking up a really cool drafting table that serves as our temporary desk, and our computers which now sit upon the table. It was nice to get an idea for driving (and parking) in King's County.
Day Two we didn't have our inventory system set up yet so it was a "get dirty" day in the building's basement. Our staff got to work staining the 207 shelves that will be a part of the cases that the carpenters were installing upstairs. It's a beautiful "Golden Oak" water-based stain that will really bring out the pale wood of the floor. Also, the characteristics of each plank of wood really stand out. Hilarity ensued while three of us were downstairs staining and, even though the super had shut off the water so that the construction team could work on some pipes, all the water that had been sitting in the pipes came flooding out into the store. None of our books got wet (thank the sweet lord), but it was funny because we had no translator between ourselves and the Mandarin crew. It all got cleaned up, and in retrospect, it's better that those types of disasters occur BEFORE the store actually opens.
Meanwhile locals have been strolling past our big windows and poking their heads in. There is a huge amount of community interest, which is great.

Day Three we had the tutorial for our inventory system, Booklog. A lovely bookvendor from uptown taught us all about it. Her bookstore is called Archivia Books (and she mentioned being familiar with a certain Brookline Bookseller, who sells her some inventory).

If you've worked in an indie bookstore before, you're probably familiar with a DOS system, which can be straightforward in the sense that you have to type specific commands to achieve tasks, but also aggravating because sometimes careless managers might squirrel away important information in obscure caches.
Booklog is modern (and similar to the Follett system I worked with) and pretty easy to use, so it's been fun to play around with and interesting to screw up with. For instance, in Booklog, once a Purchase Order is finalized, you cannot change it, which is problematic because it's very easy to accidentally finalize a P.O. (I've done it twice already), of course, now I also know how to fix that problem.
Since Saturday (day three) my co-workers and I, as well as a team of incredible volunteers, have been slaving away at a shipment of 95 cartons from Ingram. We finally finished yesterday evening, having scanned every single book into a P.O. that we will receive once the workers are done with all the wiring and painting. I can't wait 'til I don't have to wear grubby clothes to work and I can get down to some good old fashioned book-selling. And maybe some new-fashioned bookselling, because in the modern world, my bosses have worked out a system where locals can order their books online (an independent amazon, if you will, supported by Ingram).

So now it is my day off and I am enjoying it, blogging for yall, and looking for more lucrative work online. I have a few galleys* that I'm reading, one by a local writer, Michael Greenberg. It's pretty good, and he will be one of our community lenders at the store, so I'm excited to be able to meet him at some point.

Tomorrow, I'll be waiting for a package from home with all my towels and curtains and winter clothes. If I miss the delivery man, I'll be miffed. I missed a package on Saturday, and even though I got to the P.O. 15 minutes early Monday morning, I still had to wait in line for an hour.
That got me thinking about the so-called "DMV" argument, as I realized I was going to be late for my job which does not offer me health care. If the government cannot afford to pay the salaries of enough Postal Workers to keep lines running smoothly and if the government cannot afford to pay the salaries of teachers who are actually enthusiastic about education, who is going to pay for the doctors that earn twice, three, four maybe five times as much as these lowly public servants?

I'm optimistic about change, but at the moment, I think the Greenlight Bookstore has a much better chance than the Health Care reform currently on the table. Meanwhile, I think I'm doing important work, whether or not I have insurance.

*(for those not in the know, galleys are uncorrected proofs that publishing houses throw into shipments to incite the book dealer to order/sell a title that is in line for publication. Who doesn't love advance copies of free books? I also have the new Nick Hornby, and the Brit actually scrawled his John Hancock on the front page!)

Keep on keeping on

2009-09-01T13:02:00.000-04:00

I went camping in the Catskills this weekend, a nice way to bring my first month in New York to a close.

I have at least one job now, and as soon as my shuffle finishes charging, I'll be on my way to pick up the keys to our apartment.

Last Wednesday, AJ and I went to BAM to see Cold Souls a brilliant new movie by Sophie Barthes. It stars Paul Giamatti in a Charlie Kaufmanesque role as Paul Giamatti, struggling with the gravity of his part in Chekov's Uncle Vanya. His soul is troubled, and then he hears about a new service where one can have his soul removed and stored, leaving just enough residue to give the body animation. It was very well written and the cinematography of Russia in the winter gives the film an opportunity for contemplation. On our way home, some of AJ's teacher buds invited her to go camping, and figured they could squeeze one more (yours truly).

It was steaming in New York, but also showing signs of rain. Thursday morning, AJ and I packed light, and I recalled my Girl Scouts motto so I also packed a can opener, plates, bowls, cups, silverware, cans of tuna and a can of black beans. I didn't want to bring too much, because the plan was that five of us would cram into a car with tents and sleeping bags and whatnot. Before we left the apartment I said, "I feel like I should bring jeans and a sweatshirt," but we really weren't sure where we were going, so I didn't. When the whole group met up around 2pm, it hadn't rained yet, but one of the gang looked at AJ and I like we were nuts. She told us to go home get blankets and jeans and sweatshirts, because we were going to the mountains.

We finally were able to leave NY by around 4, and pulled into our campsite about a 1/2 hour from a town called Livingston Manor off route 17 in the dusk. We set up our tents, and Amanda and I worked out sleeping on a single person air mattress, 2 pillows, 1 heavy quilt and 1 10 person tent. In the morning, it was fairly pleasant, but the sky promised rain, and did not intend to break that promise. Luckily, with the huge tent, we were able to have a nice night in the tent playing card games and telling stories around a citronella candle. Unfortunately, it also brought a lot of mud and water into our tent. I slept on a root and woke up when it finally got light. I went for a walk down a muddy foot trail, but it was right by the lake and breathtakingly beautiful.
Later, I went for a swim in the lake right in front of our campsite and felt warm all day, despite the chilly winds and cloud cover. We drove around the area, to different general stores to invest in tarps and rope to make a shelter so that we could have a fire that night.
One lady's general store was particularly fowl. She had chicken, geese, ducks, and roosters. She told us that the wood the supermarket sells in Livingston Manor is actually the worst because it holds so much water, so we bought a bunch of wood from her, and it was true, it was nice and dry and didn't spit sparks out at us.
While we set up the tarp, our Russian neighbors blared Russian techno from their car speakers, but I think it was just so that their young daughter could shake her sillies out. They seemed to be professional campers, they had a nice shelter and they moved in and out with great efficiency.

All in all, even though the weather was foul, everyone got along very well. We could tell our stories and also all sit around enjoying the quiet. I was able to work through a lot without stressing out. The last morning it was gorgeous and sunny, but it was time to face real life.

So, I've set up Gas and Electric in our new place, and MB is taking care of internet. I have to go out to Queens to get the key, but I'll stop by Target and Sleepy's on the way back here. Seeing as how I've just spent 4 nights in a tent with AJ, I'm ready to give her plenty of her own space back, but the apartment isn't quite ready for us to move in. Tomorrow, I'll clean from top to bottom, and hopefully, MB and I will have our beds delivered. I also have a staff meeting at the Greenlight Bookstore, but that should be pleasant and not take too long either.

Then, I'll rest easy.

More players, more moves

2009-08-19T10:47:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy couple of past days.

Last Friday, I went to see a show in Gowanus with a friend, RH, who had won free tickets through twitter. RH has a music blog and writes reviews for other websites, so it goes without saying that she answer a trivia question and win tickets to one of the best bands currently on the face of the planet.

Dungen is a Swedish group with incredibly skilled musicians. It's a psychedelic and yet completely serious Rock and Roll sound. They've got a great sense of harmonies and their overall musicality is quite fresh. I've been listening to them for some time now, ever since a friend recommended their latest album, 4. Check them out.

Saturday, I went to the MET (finally!) with my friend PC. We hit up the Egyptian wing, the sculpture garden and wandered a bit through European art. We looked at Michelangelo's first painting, The Torment of St. Anthony. It was small, but it was breathtaking.

I imagined finding a similar sketch on a some middle schooler's notebook. The painting is a copy of an earlier sketch, but there's definitely something magical in the paint.

PC and I also checked out the Asian art room, where these ancient avatars from Japan are on display. It was a guided tour of sorts, as PC pointed out the countless similarities between Hindu traditions and Japanese Buddhism. The mandalas on display were intricate avatars of leaders who were balanced in compassion and wisdom.

We didn't go to every floor, but we hit up the roof, and pretty much got to each wing on the 1st and 2nd floor before heading back downtown to Brooklyn. Our friends' band was playing a show in Williamsburg, so we had to make a loyal appearance.

Sunday, Summer Stage (an organization that puts on mostly free concerts, shows, etc. in Central Park) was having it's final show of the summer. I hopped on the 2 a few blocks away from here in Lefferts Gardens and rode it all the way up to the West Side. I got to the summer stage around 3:30, and listened to a few bands play before the headlining act, DINOSAUR JR. played.

I had to suffer through my second live performance with The Walkmen, which is not a band that I dislike. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have Walkmen songs in my iTunes library, but they pretty much blow at live performance. No stage presence + no understanding of their sound in a large venue= BORING.

Dinosaur Jr. finally went on at around 5 and played for about 2 hours. It was incredible. J Mascis, the lead guitarist, is an inspiration to anyone who has ever wanted to play air guitar. These musicians know how to rock out. And it was free! I had gone to the show by myself, since most of my other friends were lazy and full of lame excuses (e.g., "the sound will probably not be good." except you'd think that after 24 years of putting on shows in Central Park, someone would have figured out how to make it sound amazing--which it did.)

PC's coworker and former fellow NYU school mate, actually ended up going, so I hung out with some new friends for a bit. After the show, I hopped back on the 2 and took it to the L to go to a friend's rooftop BBQ in Williamsburg again. It was stunning, watching the sun go down behind the most famous skyline in the world.

I didn't stay out too late though, because Monday morning I had an interview at a new bookstore that will be opening up in Fort Greene (in Brooklyn). The Greenlight Bookstore looks like it's going to be a really cool local bookstore. There's apparently a bit of a Frenchie ex-pat community in Fort Greene, so the lovely lady who interviewed me was excited to learn I "habla francaise."

Bookstore wages are comparable to teaching wages, but it's a job to hold the water budget over while I find something more "career" oriented.
I have been working more and more on organizing my journaled thoughts and polishing verses of poetry, too.

Yesterday, I had no internet all afternoon, which was super frustrating, but it gave me a chance to think about more free stuff in Brooklyn that I won't be able to do when I'm working. Tuesdays, for example, are free at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Also, I'm planning a route to the Brooklyn Bridge, and maybe even a stroll around Coney Island, they might even be hiring carnies.

The Players, the Moves.

2009-08-13T12:56:00.000-04:00

Given some of the e-mails, I suppose I should take some time to introduce the main players here. MB is my awesome roommate. She's very saavy and very kind. Before we agreed to live together, we worked out a list of 100 or so qualities that we look for in a roommate.

Me: I love to vacuum and sweep.
MB: I hate to vacuum, but love to mop.

Me: I need a clean bathroom.
MB: Me too, every week.

We worked out dish washing, food in the fridge, expenses we want to pay for, etc.

I met MB through my friends, it's a rather sprawling network of close ties. We hit it off like old pals. MB majored in Art and is currently doing marketing for a wine company. She's staying with family in Long Island until my sublet is up (end of August.)

I'm currently in Lefferts Gardens, an appropriated name for a neighborhood around Flatbush in Brooklyn. Flatbush runs mostly North and South through Brooklyn, into Queens, parallel to Bedford Avenue for a ways, until Flatbush veers out towards Coney Island.

I'm about a 15 minute hike from the most "convenient" trains.
I have an arsenal of three or four transfer stops, and I'd say about four or five trains I use regularly.
The most common right now is the Q train. Unfortunately, the Q only runs every 15 minutes, so missing one train means one will most likely lose employment. It's about a 30 minute commute into Manhattan, accounting for stops along the way. One nice thing about the Q is it runs on the Manhattan bridge, so there's a good view of the city if you're not too wrapped up in a book or the opportunity to check your phone on the moving train.
I usually take the Q into Union Square, and hop on the L, which is a short track, it runs along 14th St until 8 ave (West of Broadway) and deep into North Brooklyn, a neighborhood called Bushwick that may as well be in Queens county. The nice thing about the L is it is very reliable, since it pretty much only takes Brooklynites into Manhattan and vice versa.
You can get on the L and ride it east out to Broadway junction and then get on the A to JFK. Or you can ride it west to Union Square, get on some yellow trains, or maybe take the 4,5, or 6 (green) up to the Met, in the Upper West side. If you wanted to go to the Upper East side, you could take the L all the way to 8th Ave and get on the A or the C (blue) and ride up to the Museum of Natural History, or even more north (Harlem, Washington Heights).

Another stop in my arsenal is West 4th, which is a train junction in the Village. If I get on the B at my stop here, it'll take me about 25 minutes to get to West 4th, where I can walk to a lot of trains, or transfer to a different line back into Brooklyn.

One of the annoying aspects of living off the Q, is that most transfers to different trains in Brooklyn are only available in Manhattan, so I have to figure at least two hours traveling time into any visit.

The L is much easier in this aspect, because you can ride the L to Lorimer and just get on the G (a lime green). The G never goes into Manhattan, but it runs like a curl into Brooklyn from Queens. The G is hardly reliable. Sometimes it's every 7 minutes, but I've waited almost 20 minutes for a G train. It's also a short train, meaning there aren't very many cars, so if you are relying on the G to get to work during rush-hour, you're in for an interesting commute.
The Q does not have any transfers to the G, but there is an option of taking the Q to Atlantic, another important junction, getting off the Subway and walking to the G stop at Fulton, a few blocks away. Of course, it's $2.25 to get down into the subway, so if you don't have an unlimited Metro Card, you've got to think about the expense.

I'm still jobless, but I sent one letter out today for a job. There was another opening at the Alliance Francaise, so maybe I have a second chance at that organization.

Now, while I have the chance to take the day for myself, I'm going to hop on the Q, ride it to Union, get on the 6 and go see this, and this, and most likely the Egyptian Wing.

Today is moody, looks like rain, which should inspire some prose through the glass windows. I've written a few pieces that feel substantial enough to polish further and send to some lit. mags.
That's all I have right now, or I'll only have a little under two hours to look at the art.

EDIT:: Scratch that. I'll go to the MET tomorrow, at an earlier time. The Paley Center for Media is open until 8, and I can just take the B up to Rockefeller. Sweet. I love New York.

Magic Hours, Migrant labor

2009-08-10T11:51:00.000-04:00

A week in, and still unemployed but hopeful.
Since MB and I looked at and agreed upon apartments (read: not actual lease-signage, but looking at places together) this weekend, I can throw myself into Job Season, full force.
I submitted a number of resumes and cover letters last week. Vigilantly checking my inbox for replies seems to be keeping that lucky e-mail away, so in the meantime I'm focusing on looking at more and more job listings.

Craigslist, mediabistro, a few staffing sites couldn't hurt and Time-Warner all offer postings.

Today's plans include more of the same: scouring listings and polishing cover letters. I'll post something selling my services in dog-walking, which, before you misunderstand and flip out, is not the ideal zenith of my career. I like walking dogs, I do it well, and I can make good money as I look for something more substantial, shall we say. Ditto retail clerking. But if there's one gem of savage wisdom we can take from John Smith, "He who works not, eats not." The gold ain't gonna show up on my stoop.

The apartment we found is super cute, super cheap and super safe. MB and I spoke with a girl living upstairs and she was looking to stay. Regardless, I'm already familiar with the neighborhood, since it's where I've always (98% of the time) stayed on trips to Manhattan/King's County.
The landlord has dropped the rent (well within a budget) and is currently renovating, so our wood floors will be shiny and finished, our gas will be coming through new pipes, and out walls will have a fresh coat of paint. There's lots of windows, it's not very wide but it's long, not quite railroad style. Laundry and Groceries across the street, extremely close to the subway. We filled out an application so hopefully it shall be ours.

Call me...Ishmael?

2009-08-03T10:09:00.000-04:00

Well, 12 hours in the airport contributed to a very long day, but it wasn't my worst airport/airline experience ever. I once ran around the three terminals at Newark because the airline kept changing the gate, that was pretty harrowing, and that was only in the span of a few hours.

I decided instead to look at it as just another one of the many challenges that make up our lives, and instead of holding in frustration, used the time to scour the job postings on idealist (didn't see anything quite right on Saturday, but it's Monday today!)

The weather here in King's County is peculiar, if you go off the almanacs. It rained most of yesterday, and it's overcast today, but it's not exactly sweltering. (Is climate change the culprit?) The temperature should make today's job-hunting expedition all the more pleasant.
I plan on stopping by a cute little vintage shop I've been to once or twice, see if they are hiring. I don't want to be in retail for much longer, but I can do it, and it would be a good platform.

I've put an APB out among my friends and friend's friends, and continue to pore over the postings on Idealist.org and craigslist. It's exciting to start completely fresh, I know I'm young, but I feel even younger, only with much more experience.

Thanks for all your comments and e-mails, keep 'em coming. They don't fall on deaf ears, or blind eyes.

a sign or a free mojito

2009-08-01T11:17:00.000-04:00

Perhaps it was divine intervention, perhaps it was a test in determination.

At 5:30 this morninga sideways turd "breached security" at La Guardia Airport. The airport reacted the way they are supposed to in this day and age and shut down my airline's terminal. But of course, it took until the whole flight had boarded and buckled up for the news to reach the pilot at 7:50 or so, when he got on the intercom and informed us that the flight was cancelled. Get off the plane. That's it.

I sat in my seat thinking, "does this mean I should have taken the job at MAST?"

The airline reps ushered a bunch of frustrated passengers (many of whom had overseas or cruise connections in New York) to the service desk (conveniently located next to the bar).

I struck up a conversation with a nice couple in line behind me. The gentlemen hypothesized that it was actually his own karma which had cancelled our flight--apparently he has the worst luck flying, last week his flight was delayed three hours. We shared a few chuckles and thought of different ways our airline could make up for the inconvenience. I said, at least a free drink in the Admiral's Lounge. He thought perhaps since there were only two agents behind the service desk, the airline could spare another agent to pass a tray of complimentary Mojitos through the long line. Either way, plying customers with a refreshing beverage would certainly make for a pleasant consumer experience. Take note, Apple.

La Guardia reopened the terminal not too long ago, and with that news, the airline managed to throw together a later flight. So I will be able to fly into New York (several hours later than I planned, but none the worse for wear), and I guess the terrorists have not won after all.

In the mean time, Miami International has been lobbying for the installation of slot machines to raise county(or is it city?) revenue. Local law prohibits slot machines unless they are located at a horse or dog track. Dave Barry has his own opinion on that.

I'm still wondering if it was a sign from God, but for now I'll take the event as pure coincidence, or at least the nice gentleman's terrible record in commercial flight. That's enough of a gamble for me.

Sinking in, swimming out

2009-07-30T20:16:00.000-04:00

Here, I will invoke the powers that will guide, disrupt, challenge and inspire me as I hack it out beyond my comfort zone.

MAST called to say there was probably going to be an opening in the haunted position of Activities Director this coming school year. Another hat that I could easily wear, assuming MDCPS-S--having banned any sort of certainty for me--would allow my Alma Mater to actually hire me.
I politely declined, reasoning that 1-it's not a certain offer and 2-it's not exactly a subject I could "teach."

I believe in patience, sure, and I suppose I could handle the responsibilities that come with running every single school function for a year while the school board gets its act together.
Unfortunately, most faculty vacancies are being filled with surplussed administrators, and I don't feel like putting off my wild, irrational dreams while waiting for the chance to work a "dream job."

So Saturday morning, I'll leave with two suitcases, a strict budget and a stomach twisted with nerves. A cozy sublet awaits.