my street, on the other side of Broadway - grim winter

see what I mean about the trash?!

one of the public schools in my neighborhood. I KNOW! Wild, right?

These weren’t taken in my neighborhood, but I think you’ll agree they’re very nice:

let's all make this New Year's resolution! I'M IN!!

ME TOO.

And with this, I quit making blog posts for the day!! Geez, get to work Lori.

Three times I became so overwhelmed with energy and joy and awe I thought I was going to throw up. I had to press my tongue hard against the roof of my mouth, and hold myself, to stay intact. My brain lost words and my edges disappeared. I don’t mean to sound all weird and strange, but that’s what happened. It happens to me now and then. I am prone to fits of joy and awe.

The concert opened with Paul Winter standing in a small cubby above the enormous pipe organ at the rear of the cathedral; a spotlight helped us all know to turn around.

here's the giant organ end of the cathedral

If you’re unfamiliar with Paul Winter, he plays soprano sax and he’s quite amazing. You know most cathedrals are shaped like a cross – this one is, and at the cross intersection an enormous stage had been set up. There was seating on both sides of the stage (we couldn’t even see the audience on the other side), so the performers had to play to their fronts and backs. When Paul Winter stood on stage alone, it felt like he was dancing – you know how you dance with your husband in the living room now and then, how you just kind of move a little bit, back and forth and around? It was beautiful.

The Force of Nature Dance Theater contributed a couple of dances and really, both times I thought I’d die, or throw up from overwhelm and joy. They were amazing. The came to the stage from the rear of the cathedral, dancing up the center aisle. In the first performance they wore costumes that were traditional African (but probably elaborated):

force of nature dancers, joying their way toward the stage

maybe if i show them twice you'll have a sense of them

the drummers led the way

the way those dancers moved – they became less like individual human beings and more like energy beings, I can’t figure out how to say it. They were amazing. Many of their moves were traditional African, but then seriously ramped up. OH it was amazing. I really wish you’d been there.

The third thing that made me lose it was an Armenian singer named Arto Tunçboyacıyan. I tried to find a video of him singing as he sang last night, because it was just not of this world. The setting helped; he stood on the second level of some rigging on the side of the stage, and he was lit by an orange spotlight. His song sounded variously like howling, and pleas, and wails, and words I never heard and didn’t understand but I knew what he was saying. I couldn’t find any performance that was similar; last night he was nearly shouting the song, it had a full-diaphragm force. This one is pretty close. PLEASE LISTEN TO IT, you have to hear this voice.

And here are others if you like him (with a rapper; sweet, on an Armenian tv program; on the BBC world music award program; here’s his website page with mp3 file downloads. I’m getting them all.) I’ll never have an experience like last night’s again, hearing that voice in the dark, so powerful, in that setting, unexpected.

Click through to listen: Arto Tunçboyaciyan

Since the point of the program was the solstice, there was a good bit of performance focusing on the reemergence of light after all the dark, on the promise of dawn and hope. I was surprised to see this coming up the aisle toward the stage, near the end of the show:

the giant earth being rolled in

That blue-green figure at the bottom is Paul Winter on the distant stage; the blue ball was a beautifully representational earth. It came up the aisle, then it was moved onto the stage and connected to rigging, then slowly lifted up far above the stage. There were spotlights on it, and it hung there, slowly rotating for the remainder of the show. I went back and forth between awe, feeling like it was kind of corny, then back to awe.

Since solstice has been celebrated much longer than our religions, by people with a different understanding of it than ours, the old stuff was in the show too – the chaos and clatter and noise in the darkness. They’d created a solstice tree, hung with cymbals and noisemakers of all kinds, which they struck in the dark:

the solstice tree: the spiral solstice tree of sounds is an analog to the traditional tree of lights. inspired by mythic traditions of the tree of life and the world tree. the myriad bells, gongs, and chimes symbolize the diversity of beings in the life family.

That’s the Force of Nature dancers around the tree; I took that shot very quickly as I was leaving.

If you ever get the opportunity to attend this concert, take it. If you ever get the opportunity to attend a performance by the Force of Nature Dance Theater, do whatever you have to do to make that happen. And if you ever have a chance to hear Arto Tunçboyacıyan sing in person, you have to.

[and now, to indulge my crabby side. The guy sitting next to me last night was incredibly annoying - let me count the ways: 1) he'd occasionally bob back and forth - extremely - as if he were at the Wailing Wall. I thought maybe he was having a fit or something. 2) he had a cold and throughout the 3-hour long performance, he continuously rattled his bag of Halls Cherry Cough Drops, noisily unwrapping them and then clattering them against his teeth. He didn't suck the smelly things, he just clattered them around his mouth, against his teeth. 3) he was tall and looked like Ichabod Crane, and he brought binoculars. in order to use them, he had to stretch his arms out to the side and then grab them, as if he were preparing to play the piano or something. then he'd lean forward and his elbows were sticking straight out to the sides. in my face. 4) he constantly spoke to the performers. 5) he seemed to think we should all clap (loudly) with the drums, throughout the performance. i think he assumed that if he just kept doing it, we'd all finally join in. we didn't. 6) he believed he needed to tell me how to appreciate the performance. "You do know that he's behind us now, don't you?"  ISN'T IT A WONDER HE'S ALIVE TODAY??

And there was a big gang of middle-aged people in the row behind us, in from NJ or one of the other boroughs -- one of the ones with a very thick accent, one where they believe talking loud makes it better. And they couldn't let bits of performance dawn gradually, as soon as one of them spotted something they had to tell everyone: look, there's a tree coming in. Again, it's a wonder they survived me last night.]

Next Tuesday is the solstice – as it always does, the earth turns and shifts and the darkness ends. Note to self: remember that.

the holiday market set up in Union Square

the sky made this shift in 45 minutes

Then when I was transferring subway lines in Times Square, I heard these guys — Roosevelt Dime — and I really had to tear myself away, they were so good. Usually Andean flute players are set up there, and while I do enjoy Andean flutes (especially when I heard them in Puno, around Lake Titicaca in Peru),  these guys brought it.

Roosevelt Dime, in Times Square - MAN. I do always love a banjo and a washtub bass.

Finally, exiting my subway stop I emerge above ground at my corner market, all duded up for the holidays. I probably shop here every single day, at least once:

Westside Market, my corner grocery store

And now you’ve just spent the afternoon with me. I wish you’d really been with me, we could’ve had such a nice conversation while we stopped for dark hot chocolate with marshmallows at Max Brenner.  You probably would’ve warned me against drinking through the sippy hole, because you’d have realized that the marshmallows would clog up against the hole and if I pulled to take a hard sip it would come shooting through the hole along with a big mouthful of scorching hot chocolate. You’d have stopped that from happening, you’re very nice that way.

Have a wonderful wintry evening y’all –

Yeah. I do love this city. And we’re facing an absolutely gorgeous weekend, hallelujah! Have fun y’all.

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I passed one of the many playground areas and I was struck by the kids. There were 4 little girls, all unrelated to each other, black brown and white, and they were all wearing pink. Two little boys, neither of whom were wearing pink.

Anyway. Take a walk with me.

Now I’m making three loaves of ciabatta, working on my website, and getting ready to knit. Saturdays are awesome.

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To work. Enough farting around for me this morning.

our bldg has bedbugs, they have roscoe - doesn't seem fair

PANAVISION!

setup for the fake cops

I think the fake murder will be happening in that little alley between the two buildings. They always do. More as the (duh duh) drama unfolds.

1 – If you have a car in NYC, as I do, you either have to pay an exorbitant monthly fee for a space in a parking garage (I’ve paid less for big apartments in other places than you might pay for a parking space in a garage), or you park on the street. That’s risky, parking on the street; I’ve had my tires and wheels stolen a couple of times. Someone smashed a window and stole all the airbags (yes, really!). Someone scratched the word “Niger” in the side of the car. Really? Niger? What’s that about. If you park on the street, you also have to deal with alternate side parking, which involves moving your car every other day. I won’t go into all those details, just know that you have to move your car every other day.

OK. Living in NYC means living on a movie set, on top of everything else. So many tv shows and movies are filmed here, which is great and awful. You just get used to watching for your neighborhood, when watching a movie or tv show. You get used to seeing all the movie trucks and gear set up everywhere. You hate it, but you deal with it when something is being filmed in your neighborhood and all the damned parking is taken up for days. So what happens is that the production company posts signs ahead of time informing you of the filming period. The signs are everywhere, and they’re posted AHEAD OF TIME. They’re supposed to be, anyway. This morning, I went out to move the car and it was gone. There were signs posted that hadn’t been there yesterday, and the car had been towed by the production company. When this happens, they do not tell you where they’ve towed the car. You just have to hang around and hope you see a tow truck, so you can ask them, and hope they know. Your alternative is just to walk blocks and block and blocks in all possible directions looking for the needle that is your car, in the haystack that is your neighborhood. Luckily, a couple of hours later I found a tow truck and was told where to find my car.

2 – Animal life. Each place in this world has its own kinds of infestation. For NYC, you’ve probably heard about our cockroaches and mice/rats. You can’t stand on a subway platform for long without having your attention drawn down to the tracks, to watch rats scurrying back and forth. You may find “evidence” that mice have been in your apartment. I’ve never had cockroaches in my place, but they’re a classic accompaniment to many apartments here in NYC.

Recently, NYC has been grand central for bedbugs. That’s a horrifying infestation, because they’re extremely hard to get rid of. Adult bed bugs can travel over 16 feet in 5 minutes. I’d heard about friends’ buildings getting infested, and I’ve been grateful it hasn’t happened in my building. Until recently. First one guy’s apartment got bedbugs. Even though we are all relatively well-educated and “sophisticated,” it was an uncomfortable experience discovering that I viewed him differently now. We all did; when he’d leave the laundry room, no one would want to use the dryer he’d just used. I’m sure he felt it, even though we all tried not to act that way.

On Monday, we all received a notice under our doors from the coop Board of Directors informing us that 4 apartments are now infested with bedbugs in our building. OK, that’s pretty frightening – and I just bought a brand new mattress, I’d hate to have to get rid of it, if it came to that. But our Board of Directors hired

Roscoe! The Famous Bedbug Dog Expert!

Roscoe at work - not in my place

He started working at 9 this morning, sniffing in all the apartments in our building. While he was in my place, I watched him work, sniffing corners and countertops and baseboard edges and anything covered in fabric – I watched a little anxiously….what would Roscoe do? Would he certify me as clean? Would he find a bedbug?

I have to say that Roscoe was adorable. You’d never find a cuter bedbug authority, anywhere. And I also have to say that I’m clean. WHEW.

What a day, man. What a day. We know what the remedy is, don’t we? KNITTING!

.

riverside park

That photo was taken today – Saturday, a summer Saturday, at 1:30. It’s 87 degrees, calm winds. Really nice! SO WHERE IS EVERYONE?

This is New York City! Crowded, teeming New York City. BUT: This is New York City in the summer. It really empties out, at least in the parts of town where people live. I’m sure Times Square is its usual bloated bleeting mass of tennis-shoed, fanny-packing, camera-wielding humanity, but luckily, I don’t have to go there.

Parking is easy – spots everywhere. Sidewalks aren’t crowded. Parks are pretty empty. New Yorkers go to the beach – the Jersey shore, out to the Hamptons, anywhere there’s a spot to lie down with water nearby. And luckily, since I live on an island and am surrounded by other islands and a coastline on the Atlantic, there are lots of options. I usually sneak onto the private beach in one of the Hamptons during the summer.

Me, though, as a pale-skinned very white woman, I’m delighted to sit indoors, watch the sun streaming through my white curtains, bake something yummy, watch something engrossing, and knit my brains out. I’m so easy.

Here’s some summer music for you:

If you live outside the greater NYC area, the words probably have a different meaning – they did for me, anyway, before I moved here. People live in apartments because they can’t afford to buy a house. There’s a kind of implied social class aspect to it. A co-op is some collection of resources: an electric co-op, for rural electricity; a financial co-op; a grocery cooperative, etc.

But here, people live in apartments that they rent, or that they buy. A co-op is a legal structure in which residents of a building own shares in the building – it’s kind of like owning your apartment. But it does involve ownership, even if it’s not exactly like buying a house. I live in an apartment in a co-op building that’s pre-war (i.e. built before WWII, but ours was built in 1900). Our building was built before there was a subway. I live on the Upper West Side, which has a particular flavor like all the neighborhoods in NY do – the UWS is the literary, arty neighborhood. Upper East – richie riches, ladies who lunch.

So it sounds pretty fancy! But this is NY, where real estate and space are at a premium, even in these difficult financial times. Except for the upper-est echelons, apartments are small. Space is minimal. Older buildings – the cool ones, like mine – are old! (obvious, but true) This morning, I looked out our bathroom window and thought there had been a dusting of snow, for a minute, until I realized it’s just the general layer of soot and grime that coats everything here. That’s the view from my bathroom, just below. It’s hard to see, but the railing and the steps have a layer of white-ish crap on them, and it’s not paint, and it’s not snow.

The image on the bottom is the view from my kitchen. I’m always struck by how it looks like a prison yard. Our building is shaped like a U, with the bottom facing the street and a kind of courtyard between the two ‘arms.’ It’s not a fancy courtyard that people use, it’s just a space for getting between the buildings. But that door, at the bottom left; the barbed wire; the general gloominess; it always screams prison yard to me.

But our building is absolutely wonderful, and so is our neighborhood, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere other than Manhattan (though I might consider Hanoi, Paris, or Cusco…).  We’re very lucky.

100 posts + a giveaway

This morning I happened upon Anne’s 100th post (congrats, Anne!). In celebration, she is offering a giveaway — so hop over and leave a comment. Reading her post caused me to look at my dashboard and what do you know: I was at 99, so my next post would be my 100th post! Coincidence. So in the same spirit, I thought I’d do a little giveaway. I’ll give two skeins of Berroco Jasper, in a beautiful brown color that variegates to an orange-brown:

Berroco Jasper - 2 skeins just for you!

To enter the giveaway, just leave me a comment. On Wednesday, June 9, I’ll do a random drawing at 7am, and send the skeins to the winner. When you leave a comment, the form asks for your email address, which does not show. Be sure to enter it, so I can contact you.

Of course I’d love it if you looked around the blog and subscribed, but that’s not required. Feel free to forward the post to friends, for the giveaway. If you tweet it or repost on your blog, let me know and you’ll get an extra entry.

It’s a good place to pause for a minute and say that I am glad you read, and leave comments. Have a wonderful Sunday!