You Know You're in New York When...

A picnic read is a classic work on the psychological impact of colonialism on marginalized peoples. And the picnic is held in a park whose existence is partially indebted to Whitman, one of the greatest American poets. Cultural and literary connectivity, indeed.

Apologies for the poor photo quality;
my iPhone contract is up this month - hopefully better pictures to come soon

The event: free music in Fort Greene Park.

You Know You're in New York When...

“You can’t even look up at the sky without seeing an advertisement.” 

New York Babel, or the Multi-Lingual Hazards of Getting Coffee

You Know You're In New York When...
Getting coffee makes you seem like an insensitive ass.

I took a different subway route to work today just because I had a coffee craving.  I’m no coffee connoisseur, nor am I a coffee addict or even a regular coffee drinker.  BUT, on those early mornings when it was exceptionally difficult to make my way to Lenoir City to teach students who didn’t really want to discuss sentence structure, thesis statements, or William Faulkner, I would stop by the grand, classy establishment of Dunkin’ Donuts for some empowerment, courtesy of french vanilla coffee. 

On a drizzly New York morning, the fourth in a row of humid, depressing city mornings, I   wanted some warmth from nostalgia and coffee love. I rode the A all the way to the  Times Square stop, emerged in front of the New York Times building (for a moment, yes, pretending that I was important enough to enter and/or work there), then entered the combined Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins franchise on 40th.  Surprisingly, no line.

I walked up to the register and ordered my small coffee.

“Would you something something something something?” said the woman behind the register.

“Pardon me?”

The cashier looked at me reproachfully. “Words I don’t understand and many of them — many of them — all ending in a rise in pitch QUESTION?”

See, the cashier was a cute yet unhappy (unimaginable, right?  Seeing as how she worked at Dunkin’ Donuts during the morning rush hour...) Indian girl with an incredibly thick accent.  On top of that, however, she had a lisp.

With the proper amount of kindness, asking someone to repeat themselves once because they have a heavy accent is understandable and even, perhaps, considerate.  Asking more than once just makes you seem like an uneducated, isolated, “Amurica”-lovin’ fool.

So I decided to pretend I understood. “Yeah.”

She looked at me disgustedly.  Clearly answering in the affirmative was not an answer option. So she repeated herself again, very slowly, as if talking to the elderly or the mentally handicapped.  Or both.

I still didn’t get it.

Somehow, I managed to get my coffee (half-filled), feeling like a jerk while simultaneously being convicted that I need to travel more. While one of my absolute favorite aspects of New York City is the incredible diversity, its fascinating mix of people, culture, and language that somehow work together...it is also sometimes a hazard.

Of course, if I’m experiencing guilt over being an insensitive ass, then it probably reveals that I am not yet a New Yorker.

You Know You're in New York When...

The subway steps lead you out to your stop, to a radical culture clash.

The scene: Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.  Wednesday 9:15pm.

The top of the stairs leading to the Queens-bound A train have a curious scent, a mixture of car exhaust, underground dankness (which I’m sure will only improve as summer temperatures rise), and cheap tomato sauce and rubber cheese from the $1 pizza place on the corner.  A young girl, about 4 years old with braids and plastic barrettes, climbed the stairs wearily and slowly in a way that suggested a child’s dramatically imagined exhaustion, her mother calling from the top of the stairs with exasperation: “Hurry up!”  Three old men in  various stages of anachronistic winter apparel argued loudly at the top of the stairs.  Cars honked, loud shrieking laughter carried down the street, and irritated commuters huffed as they poured out of the subway, just wanting to get home.

The corner was a tide pool of a harried city community, a small pocket of Bed-Stuy that people moved through hurriedly and brusquely.  Yet despite trying to stay caught in the flow of the everyday, earbuds in place and book in hand, two young Orthodox Jews approached me - black dress and hat, twisted payot and all. “Pardon me, but do you happen to be Jewish?”

Indeed, I do not.  But I do happen to enjoy Brooklyn.

You Know You're in New York When...

Life presents an opportunity to realize that mice are only cute when animated or riding tiny motorcycles.*

The other night, I was winding down with some Netflix.  The Dick Van Dyke Show, to be exact.  (Really, how can anything in the world possibly go wrong when you’re curled up with the Petries?**) I was lying on my side, head propped up on my right hand.  The window was open a crack, and every now and then a cold breeze would blow strands of my hair into my peripheral vision.

Sally made some crack about finding a husband, Buddy disagreed with the producer, and Rob tumbled over an ottoman: the usual. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a little twitching, a little movement of hair, which was curiously lacking in the reddish tint that came out of my familiar Garnier box.  I turned slightly to confront the twitching.

Not three inches from my face, sharing the mattress with me, was a mouse.

I went from lying to standing in 0.2 seconds.  Some obscenity or another may have escaped my lips as I frantically kicked my trunk, trying to get the little guy to emerge so I could chase him out. Despite knowing that it would do no actual good, I set up a pillow barrier around my head that night, imagining that I was barricading myself against intrusion by rodents in order to sleep.

This little lesson has convinced me that I need to get out of this apartment, move to a magical land where beds have frames and mattresses are raised off of the ground.  Soon and very soon.

*I loved Ralph.  But that's probably because I was in third grade and stop-motion animated mice were decidedly less real.

**The day that Dick Van Dyke leaves this world, everyone will die a little bit inside, and I’m convinced that childhood will no longer be possible.

You Know You're in New York When...

Everyone assumes that everything you own is designer and/or desirable.

Last week, on a morning commute as typical and colorless as any other, I was in the middle of transferring trains - A to the B at West 4th.  As is customary (or, at least, courteous), I stepped back to allow the departing passengers smooth passage.  I felt a hand on my shoulder – gentle, but assertive enough to get my attention – and I looked to see a professional woman, pretty, probably mid-30s.  I assumed I was blocking her path, so I moved to step aside, but she had a question for me.

“Excuse me.” A rarity to find such manners during the soundless and harried morning commute! “Do you know who made your bag?  It’s beautiful!” She honestly gushed.

The crowd pushed me forward into the mouth of the train.  But not before I could get out a confused and somewhat apologetic answer.

“Um…Target.”

You Know You're in New York When...

You're feeling a little down, so you decide to treat yourself to some theater. You buy the last (really cheap) ticket to a limited engagement off-broadway show while you're at work, then stroll up to the theater a few hours later. And BAM! New theater in NYC.

Just because you can.

*Follow-up: The play actually kind of...well, sucked.  A lot.  I have my specific and erudite critiques, but I'll spare you.  Regardless, the point is that I can participate in this kind of spontaneity, and I LOVE that.

You Know You're in New York When...

Going to the bathroom makes you feel like an idiot.

Seriously, with your fancy bathroom layout, I can't tell what's going on.  Is this a unisex bathroom?  I know a lot of places are, but it would be nice to know; otherwise, I fear that I've accidentally walked into the men's room and anxiously prepare for an awkward encounter.  Sometimes it's not even a "room" but an area...this does not seem conducive to conducting private business.  How does the water turn on?  Is it automatic?  Is that a hand dryer or should I look for towels?  Wait, is that a window behind me in the stall?  Are we sure that it's just there for looks and not an actual window?  I can't be sure.

Once, I even had someone lead me to "the only stall with a door."  Really?!

You Know You're in New York When...

You have the option of buying organic popcorn at the movie theater.

http://www.ifccenter.com/about/