Thursday, November 30, 2006

 

Visit to Pottery Barn

I had never previously been to one. I seriously doubt that I ever will again! Susan had a $100 gift voucher to spend, but after an hour of walking around this awful place – one of the most futile hours of my life, she got a gift card that can be used online – the voucher had to be spent in-store. I understand this assessment may upset a couple of people, but I doubt I have much in common with them, so I’ll live.

Pottery Barn is the most horrible store I have ever been in. Judging by the name, I had expected a quaint, rustic type of place. What I found was gaudy dressed up as pretentious; full of sterile, fake high style. I could picture going into an apartment that was decorated with their stuff and feeling instantly uncomfortable and emotionally cold. And the prices!!! Do yourselves a favour – if you’ve never been there – keep it that way!!

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Tuesday, November 21, 2006

 

An Inconvenient Truth

On the plane coming back from England recently, I watched the Al Gore film with the above title. A little fact: In a random 10% sampling of all articles written by scientists about Global Warming in the last 30 years, precisely ZERO cast any doubt whatsoever on the fact of Global Warming. In the same time, either 53% or 63% of newspaper articles did cast doubt and leading politicians of a certain party routinely refuse to accept the fact. Another fact: The US Automotive companies say that they cannot reach the fuel efficiency standards that are required of them in the next 12 years. China, routinely cited by politicians of the particular party as an up and coming polluter, is already at that level. More facts: CO2 levels are now double of their highest ever readings and will double again within 30 years. These are tied to rising temperatures. The Arctic Ocean will be ice free within 50 years, causing widespread flooding in coastal areas. The Gulf Stream, which protects many places including the UK and the North Eastern United States from Arctic conditions, will shut off.

My editorial: This generation and the one that preceded it are the most dangerous cancer this planet have ever had to deal with and our children and grandchildren will pay dearly. How inexcusable of us to value money more than the health of our descendants. Quote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Watch this film!!! Check out the website: www.climatecrisis.net. It is not the first time that silence has preceded a major catastrophe. But this will be by far the biggest ever. Don’t wait for others to act. A million voices are louder than a very few.

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First days in New York: January 1980 – Part 3

Arline is an American who had spent several years in Israel. Her best friend from school there, Susan, was also born here. Susan’s older sister, Carolyn was also back living in New York, and she and Arline had become good friends. Carolyn was looking to find an apartment, preferably sharing. While I was happy in my new surroundings and really liked my 3 new flat-mates, it was never meant to be anything more than a temporary solution and Frank knew that.

Arline invited Carolyn over a few days after I moved in and we really hit it off well. I confess I rather fell for her charming ditziness, but there would never be any romance. We went looking for a place the following weekend and really liked the first place we saw. It was a 5th floor walk-up (that would be 4th floor anywhere other than here!) on the Upper East Side – 514 E82nd Street, to be precise. A great little 2-bedroom place reminiscent of what you might find in Islington, for a mere $495 a month!!

Frank and Arline were around a lot. My friend Rob from Erie, PA moved into town a short while later and became the 5th permanent member of our crew. Gary, also from Erie, was at UPENN in Philadelphia. He and my best bud (also) Gary, a travel agent from England, were honorary members. I went from alone in the big bad City, to having an amazing social life and being surrounded by great friends, within 2 weeks. And it all started with a little sign on a notice board. Nearly 27 years on, I’m still good friends with 4 of the 6. Where are you Frank and Gary?!!!!

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Monday, November 13, 2006

 

First days in New York: January 1980 – Part 2

My first official day at work was Thursday, January 10th. But I met my future colleagues a day early - a lovely bunch of people who were mostly considerably older than me. The two who stand out in my memory were the manager, Ellen English, and Charlie Toker – a very funny man who reminded me of Groucho Marx. Back then, there seemed to be a lot of middle aged Jewish men in New York who had that look. Ellen was probably in her late 30’s, but what would I know about that, me being all of 22. She took me under her wing; obviously felt a motherly protectiveness towards me and I sorely missed her when she moved on some months later. I wish I could meet her again.

One of them advised me to post a notice that I was looking for a roommate. I did this. The next morning I got a call from one of the building janitors, Frank. He was also the Super where he lived, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. If we liked each other, and his 2 roommates liked me, then I could move in at the weekend. There would be no rent, as he didn’t pay any. All I had to do was wash the stairs in the two buildings he looked after, once a week.

I was warned to be careful – young naïve guy fresh to New York, meeting a 34 year old who was offering free rent!! We met for lunch and Frank was really cool. The next day, I went back to Brooklyn after work and met Arline, with whom I am a close friend to this day, and her then boyfriend, who went by the name of Trinity. We talked, we ate, we smoked the peace pipe! And I moved in the next day…..

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Thursday, November 09, 2006

 

First days in New York: January 1980 – Part 1

I first arrived here to live on January 7th, 1980, having never lived away from home. I had been here twice before – for 2 months as a 17 year old and 3 weeks in the summer preceding the big move.

The company that brought me here put me up in the Wellington Hotel on 57th and 7th, very close to Carnegie Hall. The evening of my arrival, I took a random walk and ended up at Wolf’s Delicatessen. The next day, for lunch, my random walking took me to the huge Nathan’s that used to be a block from the Port Authority. I found out later that these are two of the most famous restaurants in New York.

On my way back to the Hotel, I saw a Fire Truck turn the wrong way onto a one way street. Cars were coming towards it and parked on both sides of the road. The Fire Truck horn was constantly booming and quite deafening, but there didn’t appear to be anywhere for the cars to go. To this day, that was the only time I have ever seen an emergency vehicle do this, but at the time, I had little reason to suspect that this was anything other than a regular occurrence! I wondered what kind of a madhouse I had moved to!! Had I made a big mistake? I banished the thought almost immediately and went back to my hotel looking forward to a visit to where I would be working, missing my family and about to embark on the most exciting year of my life.

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Tuesday, November 07, 2006

 

A world of photographers


This is the first post using a picture taken by my new camera – thank you, Susan! One day, I’ll get a much better shot, with more people and cameras, but I wanted to show how many photographers can be found pretty much any time at the intersection of Wall and Broad, just by the Stock Exchange. Sometimes it’s like an obstacle course and it really isn't possible to adhere to the old etiquette of waiting for people to take their pictures. And there is nowhere to walk around them!

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Sunday, November 05, 2006

 

Glad that’s behind me!

Because the PATH train changes route at the weekend so that you can’t get directly from Hoboken to the World Trade Center, when I go home from Susan’s place on a Sunday, I take the bus into Port Authority and then the subway back. This involves a short walk on 41st Street, between 8th Avenue and Broadway – I avoid 42nd whenever possible – too many damned tourists! On October 29th, the wind was mad. A fence around a building site partially blew over, knocking out the fire escape window on a minibus and blocking the sidewalk. I walked around the bus, and on reaching the pavement, was assaulted by dust being whipped up from multiple directions.

Three young ladies, mid-to-late teens, passed me as I was forced to walk backwards for a couple of steps. I wish the wind hadn’t whipped up when it did and am grateful that I hadn’t recently eaten. The one in the middle was a big girl. But she wasn’t going to let that stop her from wearing a fashion that flatters virtually nobody – very low-cut, hipster Jeans. There were several inches of bottom cleavage bulging out. Not a pretty sight! Just in case anyone should be offended by this, I should point out here that for me, even women who I might otherwise find attractive, just cannot pull off the butt cleavage thing. This fashion, which flattens and widens as it pushes the cheek flesh out, has a nasty habit of making all derrières look like they belong to labourers.

Thanks to Susan - she claims it to be an early Chanukah gift from Truman - I now have a digital camera to hopefully embellish some of my posts. Had I received this a week earlier, this is one image I would have spared you of. Pity I too wasn’t spared!

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