Beware The Ides Of March

(and the vernal equinox, while we're at it)

due warning to the wellesley college alumnae association and wee eff ess:

do not piss me off. it does not bode well for you. you will receive the death stare, and quite possibly a long e-mail to boot.

one such e-mail is in the works. another might be, if i can muster up the time to figure out how to reach the CEO of cafe coffee day.

i'm stylin'.

Visual DNA

finally, a classy, elegant and meaningful meme.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Who Wants Columbia, Anyway?

the onion says it all!

(from: <http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28701>

Giant Cockroach In Bathroom 'A Harrowing,Kafkaesque Experience,' Grad Student Says

February 2, 2000 | Issue 36•03

NEW YORK–A routine toothbrushing turned into a profound exercise in nightmarish, existential horror Monday, when poverty-stricken Columbia University graduate student Marc Edelstein, 24, came across "the most gigantic cockroach this side of Gregor Samsa" in the bathroom of his one-room, walk-up efficiency.

"It was terrifying," Edelstein told colleagues at the Ivy League university's English department shortly after the encounter with the giant cockroach. "Every day, I can't believe I am living in that apartment. The humiliations society forces me to undergo, just to get my stupid Ph.D, defy all rational, intellectual thought. Sometimes, when I wake up in the morning and see the squalor in which I live, it feels as if I've somehow found myself on trial before a group of faceless, bureaucratic agents for some horrible crime I didn't commit, and no one will even explain to me what my crime was."

Edelstein, whose combined rent and tuition far exceed his meager earnings from work-study grants and a part-time job as a teaching assistant, has struggled with an insect problem ever since moving into the 108th Street and Broadway apartment in the fall of 1997.

Edelstein called the cockroach "a deeply disturbing symbol of the alienation and pain seemingly inherent in every aspect of modern grad-student life." What's worse, he said, the enormous insect so paralyzed him with "intense, soul-searing fear" that he was unable to kill it before it escaped down the drain.

"This wretched, prehistoric creature," Edelstein said, "has survived to torment me anew another day–a day of reckoning that, although I know in my heart is soon to come, I am nonetheless powerless to prevent."

The doctoral candidate is no stranger to hardship. In March 1999, Edelstein called his part-time job at the hot-dog eatery Gray's Papaya "a vision of underpaid, overworked, meat-flinging degradation and brutality that I dare say would not be out of place within the pages of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle." Despite mounting student-loan debts, Edelstein quit the food-service job in August 1999 in "a vitriolic burst of invective and abuse rivaling the most impassioned deliverances of Alexander Pope."

Edelstein has also suffered "innumerable indignities" at the hands of his landlord, Randy Bosio, whom the tortured scholar described to his dissertation advisor as "a fetid, shambling, coin-rattling wraith of a man who brings to mind one of the more unsavory, shadow-dwelling denizens of Dickensian London." On other occasions, Edelstein has likened his landlord to one of the nightmarish "Mugwump" creatures from William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch, claiming that Bosio's sole directive is "to attach himself to the flesh of the innocent and suck them dry."

Said Bosio: "Something about that kid just ain't right. Once, I let myself into his apartment when he wasn't home, just to fix the sink, and when he got back and found me there, he accused me of 'an Orwellian invasion of individual privacy,' whatever that meant."

Edelstein's woes were compounded last October, when his eight-month relationship with Meredith Astor, the 26-year-old daughter of prominent New York arts patrons James and Patricia Astor, ended in a devastating breakup, prompted by Meredith's shame over Edelstein's low social standing.

"It was your basic F. Scott Fitzgerald situation," said Edelstein officemate Howard Underwood, who started dating Astor shortly after the split. "After Meredith left him, he plunged into a turbulent maelstrom of drink and despair. Every night was a nonstop party, a denial-fueled attempt to escape the inevitable collapse of the artificial world he had created for himself, masking his inner desperation and decay under a superficial veneer of false, empty revelry."

"I had to start picking up some of his T.A. hours because he wasn't showing up for discussion section," said Underwood, who will marry Astor in June. "Pathetic, really, much like the eventual fall of the gilded, faux opulence of the Jazz Age."

"Meredith's WASP-y, socialite, upper-crust parents never approved of me," Edelstein said. "Tight-lipped, goyish, Edith Wharton archetypes. I know she never would have left me if it weren't for the mannered, insufferable manipulations of her high-society family. Hello? The novel of manners has long since been supplanted as a reflection of prevailing social mores, people!"

After enduring such "infernal, Dantean torments of the soul," Edelstein said the cockroach incident was "the last straw," prompting him to decide to leave Columbia.

"That's it. After staring down at the writhing legs of that foul, accursed insect, I felt the horror of the void permeating my being to its deepest core, and I realized I cannot go on here at Columbia," Edelstein told his mother during a long-distance collect call shortly after his run-in with the cockroach. "I'm transferring to the University of Mississippi. Flannery O'Connor says a good man is hard to find? Well, a good graduate program is hard to find! I know I said I'd never do it, and that if I had to live in a horrible redneck cesspool of a state like Mississippi, I'd become so estranged from my surroundings that I'd end up like that Eudora Welty character who lives at the post office, but I've had it with New York. I can't go on."

"I'm giving up. Do you hear me, O cold, unfeeling universe?" shouted Edelstein, standing atop his building's roof. "You've won, you impenetrable void of utter meaninglessness! You have destroyed me at last!"

"The horror... the horror..." he added.

CityLurve: New York (Redux)

you know, i already did a citylurve on new york (at <http://simran.nomadlife.org/2006/09/citylurve-new-york.aspx>), but somehow i can't imagine this sort of list -- courtesy weekend in new york and the NYT -- making sense if created with any other city in mind. so you'll have to forgive me the duplication.

anyone care to go on this hunt when i'm in nyc at the end of the month?

Point and Shoot for Bonus Points

ONE reason people visit New York is to catch a glimpse of things they’d never see in the average American city. Some such sights are mystifying, some charming, some jaw-dropping — and some are even legal.

Did you find the worst bagel spread combination? A bad parallel parking job? We want to see what you caught on film.

This week, Weekend in New York offers a photo scavenger hunt, in which you (working alone or in a group) seek out scenes and objects intrinsically New York and capture them with your camera. The hunt could be the centerpiece of your weekend, but also could serve as just a way to enhance your downtime as you wander from restaurant to park to museum, observing the natives in their natural habitat.

If competing against others, award two points to the team that does the best in each category, and one point to anyone coming in a reasonably close second. Or, if you’re playing alone, just award a whole bunch of points to your own team and declare yourself the winner.

FOOD

Biggest crowd waiting for a brunch table: Sociologists are unable to explain it, so why should you even try? New Yorkers like to wait — arms crossed and toes tapping, of course — as long as possible for their first meal on Sunday. To qualify, those waiting must be huddled on the sidewalk.

Worst bagel/cream cheese or spread combo: Blueberry bagel with olive tofu spread? You can do better (worse) than that. Either a photo of the offending sandwich or, if you don’t dare order it, separate photos of the elements qualify.

Most expensive pizza slice — cheese only: The price of a slice of plain old cheese pizza is always creeping up. What’s the highest you can find? (Hint: $2 probably won’t win.)

Most expensive slice, no toppings barred: Add chicken or basil or bacon or artichokes or gold leaf, and watch the price take off like a pickpocket being chased in the subway.

Most unusual-looking fruit or vegetable for sale: If it can get through customs, it’s somewhere in this city.

BUSINESS

The A.T.M. charging you the most outrageous amount for a withdrawal: $2 minimum.

Most newspaper/magazine dispensers on one street corner: They’re often chained together, and the ones with things you’d actually want to read are empty or require your pockets to be jingle-jangle-jingling with quarters.

Most out-of-town and/or foreign language newspapers at one newsstand: In some parts of town, you’d think fans of Le Monde and La Gazzetta dello Sport and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung had never heard of the Internet.

Cheesiest Statue of Liberty-related tourist souvenir.

Multiple Starbucks in one picture: Two, certainly; three is a challenge.

TRANSPORTATION

Best parallel parking job: The city’s drivers know that if a parking space is an inch longer than their car, they can ooze in. Be sure to photograph both the front and back ends.

Vehicle with multiple parking tickets: The easy-to-spot orange envelopes should be on the windshield or clearly visible inside the car. Old tickets that truck drivers place to avoid reticketing are valid, as are tickets ripped apart in rage.

Most yellow cabs in one photo: No fair taking an aerial shot from the top of the Empire State Building.

LIVING CREATURES

Most unlikely companions: Some New York restaurants specialize in unusual wine and food pairings, but the entire city specializes in unusual people pairings. Is that fashionable babe really dating that pitiful slob? Is that silver-haired guy about three times that woman’s age? Is that a rabbi necking with a Senegalese hair stylist? (100 points for the last one.)

Best-dressed dog: And by that, we mean worst-dressed dog.

Most dogs with one human: In New York, money buys anything, including the guy or gal who comes to your house, picks up your dog and drags it and a bunch of others to the park. Absolute minimum: four dogs.

Pedestrian triple-tasking: Someone doing at least three things at once, one of which is walking down the street — plus eating and talking on cellphone; listening to iPod and reading magazine; or knitting and screaming at friend.

Pedestrian stupid-tasking. Someone who is text-messaging while crossing a hyper-busy street, something that could soon be illegal in New York City.

Picture of a celebrity on the street: Trick question! In New York you’re supposed to ignore celebrities. Minus 20 points.

Someone using a pay phone: Not too common these days; even less common, two people using adjacent pay phones (double points).

A traffic police officer smiling: It’s a tough life giving out tickets to the roughly seven million cars that are breaking parking laws at any one time. Subjected to nasty looks and verbal lashings, these officers don’t have much to smile about.

Anyone wearing George W. Bush paraphernalia (hat, T-shirt, full body tattoo): Manhattan voted 82 percent to 17 percent for John Kerry over Mr. Bush in 2004. The word on the street is that the president’s popularity has not increased.

NONEDIBLE INANIMATE OBJECTS

Public advertisements or notices in languages other than English: one point for each language. Spanish is a freebie, kind of like the space in the middle of a bingo card. (Starting clue: Check out the signs about being in one of the first five cars on the No. 1 train to South Ferry.)

Most amusing spelling or translation error: Combine immigrant store owners with immigrant sign makers and what do you get? An entrepreneurial spirit that keeps the city’s economic engine humming? Yeah, sure, but also errors terrible enough to drive language sticklers insane.

Most monstrous baby stroller: It’s not that strollers aren’t monstrous everywhere, but here the sidewalks, store aisles and bystander tolerance are narrower.

Most unusual piece of refuse: A city that collects the strangest things also discards the strangest things, and they don’t all fit in a trash bag.

Most intellectual book being read in public: O.K., or perhaps just used as a prop to attract a Ms. or Mr. Right prone to lugging around a copy of “Gravity’s Rainbow.” If you hear someone say, “Oh, you’re into Kierkegaard” — whirl, point and shoot.

Wall Of Shame

if i had a wall of shame post on my blog for every time a guy i've been interested in has been an idiot (every time, not every guy) -- i'd have run out of disk space, even on blogger.com.

***

you have intense eyes, and you look right into me. (they're what wins me over. i'm ignoring the fact that you might have a girlfriend. which i later find out you don't. but anyway.)
you drive a lancer, have ambition, and obviously love and respect your mother. (good signs, these. i'm even ignoring the fact that you have most indiscreetly badmouthed your ex-girlfriend in front of me.)
you come highly recommended by someone's mother. (not like i'm actively waiting for testimonials from malabar hill types, but still. i'm ignoring the fact that i can never actually marry you, for political reasons, even in the hypothetical.)
we sit by the sea and talk for hours. (now i'm ignoring the fact that you won't ever just listen -- or even respect the fact that there are certain topics i don't want to talk about. it's good enough to listen, i figure. so i sit and listen.)
you say you'll wait until i'm back from out of town to go out on a saturday night. (i'm ignoring the fact that you've been doing the disappearing act every so often for the last month, so i might be setting myself up for disappointment.)

but we actually do go out again.

and then you're patronizing, and silent, and you look most disdainfully at my friend who's bored and wants to leave.
you make a helluva noise about dropping us both home, even though you've said you're going to be the one to do it since you're the guy with us.
you consistently ask me to go to a club that i've said i don't want to go to, and you ask me why i've chosen this particular "lame" lounge to hang out in.
i ask you to get me a non-alcoholic drink from the bar, but you tell me that there's nothing non-alcoholic to be had except club soda.

and then, and then: you say i'm being old and boring.

you promise to call the next morning, since there are adventures being planned, but (unless that strange number was you) you don't.

you disappear again.

and then, almost two weeks later, i get a text message from you asking for my email address so that you can send me a statement of purpose to edit.

fat chance, loser.