it's over!

Hell Hooker Problem Remains At Large

New York City has come a long way from the violent, gritty, blood-soaked bygone times of the nineteen seventies. Disney strolled into Hell’s Kitchen and cleaned house, so to speak. Then Giuliani was tagged into the ring and moved all the smut shops, liquor stores, and sex workers two avenues down. The image of New York was transformed in about fifteen years to the kind of place tourists didn’t mind spending outrageous amounts of money on stage adaptations of classics from the Disney Vault. A greasy slice of pizza. A bagel with lox. A family picture in front of the gigantic Coca Cola. At the end of the day a pair of sore feet inside pink rubber crocs, and everyone went back to Boise with stories. New York had become a happy place for the clan of the nomad fanny pack.

How could Giuliani or the Disney Company have anticipated the backlash from the world of vice they sought to purge. Sure enough, such a catastrophic remapping in commercial sex traffic would naturally lead to company-wide confusion. Keeping track of hookers comings and goings, so to speak, would become unmanageable for pimps. Hookers, no longer able to sustain a reliable income inside a commercial zone, now had to rely on interborough traffic in order to keep up with annual returns partial to the greater vice economy—drugs, blackmail, murder squads, etc. Rogue hookers working outside a business outfit rose from the ashes and came into conflict with commissioned whores. Suddenly pimps couldn’t figure out which whore was where, whether this hooker was taking the LIRR to Babylon or this whore was riding the cross town bus to Murray Hill. How to split the money between rogue hookers working in tandem with commissioned whores? How to deal with outfitted hookers making money on the side? These problems would come to a head, so to speak.

Some crooked jobs came into the fore as a means of purging the chaos now endemic to the New York sex trade. One hooker rumored to have been playing outside the terms of her business outfit might be sent on a suicide mission to the Bronx where God knows what happened except that no one ever heard from Trixie again. Unfortunately, the barons of vice were taking their notes from Giuliani and Disney, disposing of their garbage with as little thought as to how there means might justify darker ends for themselves.

Sure enough, dead hookers were being disposed of by the trunk load inside illegal junk yards and sewage waste holds across the Hudson. No one could have expected that these dead hookers’ drug addled corpses would have a unique reaction to the pools of chemical wastes they were now marinating in as a result of their pimps’ cruel, all too hasty means of company termination. The presumed dead hookers were coming back to life in hordes, fully cognizant of all that transpired leading to their gruesome reanimation. These reanimated hookers returned to NYC imbued with comic-book style superpowers as yet another unforeseen result of their exposure to toxic waste.

Word on the street of roving gangs of radioactive hell hookers spread like wild fire, so to speak, through the New York underworld. Eventually the word over flowed into the straight world where the problem remains to this day.

“The pimpin’ days aren’t what they used to be. Back in the ol’ days a pimp didn’t have to worry about some radioactive skank knockin’ down his door with her crazy laser vision asking for money and crack unless she gonna blow my head off,” said one pimp, a Meanjeans Catmo Sheen, who’s lived through the whole ordeal since before Giuliani.

The Bloomberg administration declined all comment as to how they were going to atone for the radioactive hell hooker sins of our New York fathers. “I’m afraid to buy groceries. I’m afraid to leave my apartment or some hell hooker might shake me down with her mind powers,” said seventy year old Inwood resident, Edna Malatorres. Mrs. Malatorres neighborhood has been hit particularly hard by the hell hooker infestation. According to 2007 Cat Fancy study, hell hooker encounters incur an 80 percent mortality rate for tabby cats, a 78 percent mortality rate for manx cats, and a 53 percent mortality rate for street cats. Mrs. Malatorres, an avid reader of Cat Fancy, told me of her constant worry over her cats’ well being.

last links o' the year

more moses:

newburgh gangs:

demotics:

Not NY News, but bigger!

I know it isn't New York, but this is something we should all be concerned with. Plus, don't we like multimedia stuff? :)

Click the link and you shall find a photo essay that gives the complete picture of what is going on with the oil in the Gulf.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/disaster_unfolds_slowly_in_the.html

On the Bus or Off the Bus?

painting the green bus, courtsey of Green Bus Tour

How would you react if you saw a green school bus driving down the road? What if you went inside and found there were no seats, but rather beds and couches and a mini cooking station? Not impressed yet, what if you were told that the bus ran on veggie oil and was making it's way across the country? This is the dream that started when a handful of conscious New Yorkers got together.

The dream is now becoming a reality, dubbed The Green Bus Tour, and their plans are moving ahead at a fast pace. The group recently reached their monetary goal on the website Kickstarter, showing that they have support beyond their community in the city. They already have one green bus in their fleet and it has made short trips in the New York area.

" I think that its going to continue to grow as we reach other to other entities that are doing like minded things," said Charlie Gonzalez, one of the founders of Green Bus Tour, " we are trying to create a model of collaboration and abundance." The green bus crew has a strong base with their community in New York, teaming up with other conscious groups like Time Interchange New York, Evolver NYC and Newsonic, the collective where Green Bus Tour holds some of their events.

The Green Bus vision is still forming, and nobody is certain where it is going to go, but with events scheduled throughout the city and plans to travel to Burning Man at the end of August, hopes are high. They want to bring together various aspects of their worlds, from yoga to permaculture to music, and educate and inspire people while having fun. " We are inspiring people to create what they want to create," Gonzalez said, " a world that better for all of us."

Charlie at the wheel, courtsey of Green Bus Tour

For Charlie Gonzalez, the idea for the Green Bus Tour came after he went on his own personal journey, both physically and spiritually. " I've deconstructed my whole sense of reality so I could recreate it based on what I believe," he continued, " an inner truth." He went on to talk about how while traveling he had the opportunity to see many different communities and how they worked to make life better for themselves. He also shared that during his trip he found himself on a few busses. "I thought," Gonzalez said, " wouldn't it be fun if we could be traveling around and think of ways that we can improve the quality of life of communities."

The green bus is a traveling education center, but more importantly, it is a traveling community ready to team up with other communities they encounter. " It's a new form of business that's based on collaboration and promoting each other," Charlie said, " that is only part of the greater vision, which is to be traveling around and integrating this whole network that is part of this transformational movement that we are all experiencing right now."

next to last linx

sam's doc:

if you see something say something:

furlough:

cancer map:

kagan:

murdoch at journal:

advice to dep mayor:

Yohji Yamamoto?

Yohji Yamamoto is known to the fashion industry as an internationally Japanese designer whose first stores originated in Tokyo and Paris in 1981. Soon after Yamamoto was fully established as this influential avant-garde designer with his two major commercial lines, Yohji Yamamoto (women and men) and Y’s, which are available in all his stores. After the launch and success of his establishments in both Paris in Tokyo, Yamamoto franchised his stores to New York, Antwerp and also in high-end department stores around the world.

In 2007, Yohji Yamamoto Inc. reported the sales of Yamamoto’s two main lines ranging above $100 million annually.

With high class fashion shows promoting his designs the first couple of years his main lines were selling to consumers and other fashion moguls, consequently making his business thrive. As the years past Yamamoto tried to keep up and contend with current designers and tried to collaborate with other brands and artists, but that only lasted so long. According to StyleCaster, his attempt at aggressively spreading and expanding his brand’s particularly in American and European markets, ultimately led to the debts that accumulated to more than sixty-five million dollars.

In October 2009, Yohji Yamamoto’s company filed for bankruptcy protection hoping to eventually start anew. His hope dwindled within the last year. On January 14, 2010, it was announced that Yohji Yamamoto’s New York store located on Mercer in SoHo will close for good this June.

Although his store is closing in New York, his designs may still be found in some department stores located in the city.

While visiting the location on Mercer Street I stopped to speak to some pedestrians inquiring their feelings on the closing. “The store was very extravagant, but I could never afford anything in there,” a woman with a Macy’s bag in her hand states. “Yohji Yamamoto? Never heard of him or his designs,” says a man who I assumed was in his late 30’s, who states he jogs down this street every morning.

Tough Crowd

On a crowded B train, two nights ago, a man in a mainly yellow Ed Hardy jacket and dickies pants starts to talk. More like rambling for a full 10 stops. People take a quick peak at the thirty something, black man, roll their eyes, and look away quick. He says things like, "it's not what you do, but how you do it," "there ain't a thing wrong about a good joint," and "crack! Don't smoke that shtit!" Additionally, he ends all his insights with a "You dig." If you haven't guessed it, I really didn't dig it, but I beared with it.

Many of us try to make our commutes on any of the 26 train lines as painless as possible, which includes averting eye contact completely and keeping physical contact minimal, there are those who like to distrubt this peace, for lack of a better word.

There are those who put on their headphones, which restrict only them from hearing, yet their music is heard throughout half the cart. And they seem perfectly content humming along offbeat, sometimes even sing along, with an air of nonchalance. Do they really think it's not that loud?

To those who preach about the second coming or hand out flyers tight lipped, really?

While it's an upsetting sight to see those who have designated spots on sidewalk floors, where they stand, sit, or lay with hands outstretched looking for donations, it's not annoying one. Many people in the city live off coins and dollar bills. Panhandlers walking cart to cart, 2 out of 10 times with a guitar in hand, give their schpeel about losing their job and needing help to get started again. Some do arouse sympathy, for sure. But others give off the impression that money will trickle down to other things, namely drugs and more drugs. Do those who come in suits and nice shoes really think I think they need my money?

Let's not forget those who just want to be heard. It can be the average joe or the smelly elder who gives off psychotic vibes. From the moment they enter the train, they either scan their audience or make a whole section of seats empty up real fast--they have the power to have a cart filled with dozens of people disappear within two stops.

And honorable mention goes to those who can make their illegal money, while seriously entertaining- meaning that people are not scared to laugh, smile, and watch the show. They desrve it, it's a tough crowd out here.

photolink

Ando Explains It All

Who remembers Jenny Jones? She had one of those trashy daytime talk shows popular in the nineties. She was blonde and white and absolutely void of any kind of personality. As a host she was completely irrelevant. But anyone that ever saw two episodes of her show would remember that Jenny Jones only covered like two subjects, which, paraphrased crudely, were: I was geek in high school but now I got a boob job and dress like a hooker! OR My teenage daughter dresses too sexy! The latter subject sometimes featured mothers and grandmothers “dressing too sexy.” Sometimes the teenage daughter “dressed too goth.” The female offender was held guilty of crimes of fashion by a crazed, hooting audience while the girl in question was given a dramatic entrance across a long runway where she strutted to her seat. As a teen it was fun to have these clownish women paraded around as objects of half hearted contempt. The women strutting to their seats would typically slouch in some salacious pose, whipping a chunky, fishnetted leg over one knee, holding a cocked, makeup-splattered face with one hand, lips glowing with cheap drug store lipstick affecting a proud sneer. Who did they think they were?

Who, indeed? If I learned anything from Jenny Jones it was that some people can in fact be “too sexy.” The white trash skanks on the Jenny Jones were just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak; most would agree that none of the painted women on Jenny Jones’ show would qualify as “sexy.” However, in presenting the question of “too sexy,” Jenny Jones has opened the conversation to the problem of people who are certifiably sexy, and who are at the same time, problematically too sexy.

But how to qualify this authentic form of sexy? I could write a whole book on the elaborate science of sexy, but to cut to the chase, we can use the women of the Jenny Jones Show as a definition of sexy by negation. So a sexy person by virtue would know how to dress themselves in a tasteful, flattering style suiting their age. A sexy person would be able to build on natural physical assets instead of pretending to have assets that just aren’t there. A sexy person would not go out wearing a doughy mask of makeup. A sexy person would have a unique self image that worked in relationship with non-physical characteristics of that person’s identity.

We now have a working set of criteria for sexy effectively oppositional to the women of the Jenny Jones Show. For whom, then, does the sexy bell toll? To answer that question, we must venture out to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. Williamsburg, according to Wikipedia, is home to many ethnic groups including Germans, Hasidic Jews, Italians, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans. The neighborhood is also a magnet for young people moving to the city, and is an influential hub for indie rock and so-called "hipster" culture.

A hipster is someone guilty on all counts of being too sexy, and they are ruining this country. In the same wiki article on Williamsburg: Low rents were a major reason why artists [i.e. hipsters] first started settling in the area, but that situation has drastically changed since the mid 1990s. Average rents in Williamsburg can range from approximately $1400 for a studio apartment, $1,600-2,400 for a one-bedroom, and $2,600-4,000 for a two-bedroom.

Way to go douche bags! The rent hikes are partial to the insurgent sexiness of hipsters flooding the streets with their tight pants and knit hats and ironic pompadours. Everyone wants to live in sexy town! Landlords take the cue, hike up the rent, and oust long withstanding generations of tenants noticeably less young, white, and sexy.

Well the joke is on you, you sexy bastards! All your sexy clamoring for a Williamsburg apartment has forced you to haul your skinny asses to Red Hook or Clinton Hill in order to maintain status quo with romantic squalor. Sexy town rent is now too high for the incoming sexy. Great. Nobody gets anything. Sexy or otherwise. Let’s all make a hungry, sulky, skinny sigh for the American Way.

Solution: Send all the hipsters into outer space. OR. Send all the land lords into outer space. OR. Mandated citywide uniforms for all New York citizens so everyone looks like crap thus bringing an end to just about every imaginable prejudice. Problem solved!

The Building that Beat Robert Moses

On Monday May 10, three New York City fire trucks blocked two lanes on Broadway just north of Broome Street. Sirens screaming, tourists taking photos, fire men standing around looking bored as a few others came out from under a construction tarp hanging over one entrance to the E.V. Haughwout building at 490 Broadway, the scene was chaotic, yet subdued.

The fire trucks drove away, and I entered bebe, a clothing store housed in the bottom floor of the building. Inside, the brightly colored clothing, shiny white floor, and abundant mirrors were in stark contrast to the historic grandeur of the outside.

Looking at the cast iron columns, part of the building’s façade modeled after a library in Venice, I could see why the building is deserving of its landmark designation. Built in 1857, the E.V. Haughwout Building at 490 Broadway had the world’s first commercial passenger elevator, built by the Otis Elevator Company. According to Otis's website, “The price of the elevator was US $300. The unit rose at a speed of 40 feet per minute (0.2 meters per second)," meaning that it took about a minute to travel from the first floor to the fifth. The building was one of the many on the north side of Broome St. that would have been demolished to make way for Robert Moses’s planned Lower Manhattan Expressway. The landmark designation, despite Robert Moses’s protestations, protected it. It was the first in a series of decisions that prevented the expressway from ever being built (Wrestling With Moses By Anthony Flint).

Once a department store that sold luxury items such as china (Mary Todd Lincoln bought some for the White House here), the building more recently housed a Staples, and currently a bebe, an “aspirational women’s fashion brand” according to the RKF real-estate firm. Inside I saw shiny shoes, gaudy colors, high prices ($34 for a ribbed cotton tank top), but no elevator. The elegant historic appearance of the outside, compared with the garish modernity of the inside was depressing, however, it is far better than no building and a six-lane highway roaring overhead.

Mister Noisee

Anonymous, counterfeit ice cream

Ice cream trucks are symbols of childhood, of summer, of fun. They bring joy to young and old alike all over the city. Not liking them must make you a curmudgeonly, fun-hating stick in the mud. Everyone knows the Mister Softee song!

Whatever. Try living with one outside your bedroom.

That's what it feels like for 25-year-old Brooklyn resident Olga Orellana. She says she can hear them outside from around ten in the morning until almost midnight, making so much noise.

"I don't know why they go so long," she says. "Who is eating so much ice cream?"

Ice cream truck noise was supposed to be a thing of the past, with a law passed in 2005 that requires trucks to turn the music off while parked. In my observation, trucks do observe this rule, especially in Manhattan. However, foot traffic in Brooklyn is less dense, and so the trucks have to keep moving to find customers, and thus the song is playing almost constantly. Which, for ground-floor, front-bedroom dwellers like Orellana, is a problem.

"All day and into the night, I hear the trucks," she complains.

It's not just the noise that's a problem, either, it's also the smell of exhaust from the generators that keep the ice cream cold. It clogs the air for minutes after the truck goes by. The smell can make the ice cream just purchased from the truck very difficult to enjoy.

While Mister Softee is the most visible offender, they are not the only one, nor the most nefarious. This entertaining Times story from 2005 profiles a private investigator who tracks impostor Mister Softee trucks for copyright infringement. While he seems to have been successful, there are off-brand ice cream trucks that play "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" and don't have a company name or phone number on their sides, only 311. This raises questions of accountability. Who does one complain about when calling 311?

A representative from 311 did not have figures about ice cream truck noise complaints available, and a representative from Brooklyn's 83rd Precinct said the precinct does not get a lot. But that's not to say people don't complain in their living rooms and online. And with confirmed reports of the seemingly apocryphal tale that ice cream men deal drugs, it may be time to just go into the bodega, get a frozen Snickers, and let the ice cream truck ride off into the sunset, speakers blaring.

You can get the Booze, but not the Tunes

A band you love is coming to play in New York. This is part of the reason you moved to the city--all the opportunities to experience culture--right? You find out which train you need to take. Pick out the perfect outfit. Convince a friend to come with you, even if they've never heard of the band. You get up to the door of the show and there is a dude standing blocking the doorway.

" Can I see your ID?"

Those are the five little words that can ruin what would have been an amazing night if you are under 21 in New York City.

I've had it happen to me many times, even when I was 'with the band'. Nobody under 21 is allowed in some of the best small music venues in the five boroughs. The fact that 21 is the legal age for drinking has nothing to do with the frustration I feel when a band I've been waiting to see live comes to the city and I am not allowed in; I want to see the music, not just get drunk.

Under 21-ers do not go to live shows with the hopes of getting wasted. They can do that in their dorm rooms without paying the cover and $6 a pint. This is a well known fact about the city; you don't need an ID to get alcohol if you know where to go. In Manhattan there are a handful of bars and corner stores that will serve you without checking up on your age, but cross the East River to Brooklyn or Queens and you are more likely to get served than carded.

This is why the issue with music venues is more ludicrous than the drinking age. College kids can still get drunk on any night of the week, but when it comes to seeing a show they are turned away. Kids flock to this city from all over the globe to attend college, and they are a huge market for these venues. By shutting their doors to those under 21 they are loosing business. Why not develop a simple system to designate those over 21 from those under 21 and gain access to a large demographic of the city residents?

I have been to bars outside of the city that give out different colored wristbands or stamps to mark which side of the cut-off you are on. Yes, this means that the staff would have to do a bit more work, but I've seen this system be successful at the most crowded of concerts. Checking IDs for alcohol consumption only, people of all ages would have the chance to experience a show they may never have the opportunity to see again.

People always say, " you are old enough to get married and old enough to fight for your country, but not old enough to drink." In New York City it has become: You are old enough to get married, you are old enough to fight for your country, and you are even able to get ahold of alcohol, but you are not old enough to see a band play live.

No, you can't stand under my umbrella

(via)

New Yorkers clearly need a lesson in umbrella etiquette. All it takes is a single drop of rain for umbrellas to pop up in every direction, creating a multi-colored layer of traffic above everyone’s heads. Sure, they make things drier, but with people and umbrellas alike in all shapes and sizes, the umbrella easily becomes a dangerous creature. You’re going to get poked, prodded, and if the slightest breeze blows by – forget about it. There simply isn’t enough room on the sidewalk for everyone and their umbrella, causing chaos on rainy days.

Just look at a few umbrella offenses: in 1978, Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov was killed when a poison dart filled with ricin disguised in an umbrella shot him in the leg. In January 2002, a 32-year-old man was killed by umbrella after failing to address another man by the proper title in Japan. In June 2004, a 14-year-old boy rammed the tip of an umbrella into an 18-year-old boy’s forehead on a Melbourne tram, killing him. And of course, in February 2007, a bald Britney Spears infamously attacked a paparazzo’s SUV with a green umbrella.

With busy people wielding unruly umbrellas every time it rains, we should all follow a few rules to keep umbrella warfare from happening here in New York:

1. When opening your umbrella, check to make sure no one is in danger of being hit. The little silver buttons on street umbrellas are more powerful than expected – and they hurt.
2. When walking along the street, do the umbrella dance: lower your umbrella when you’re the shortest around; raise it when you’re the tallest. As someone who is only 5’0, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten hit with someone significantly taller than me’s umbrella, simply because they couldn’t bother to raise it when they had the room.
3. When you’re walking along a busy street corner and there isn’t enough space for everyone and their umbrella, pause to let another pedestrian to pass you by. You might be in a hurry, but what were you going to do with those few seconds anyway?
4. Scaffolding presents an issue: up or down? In 2005, the New York Times reported 7 out of 10 people keep their umbrella up under scaffolding, but that doesn’t mean you always should. If it’s fairly empty, feel free to use your umbrella, since water drips down. If it’s packed, keep your umbrella down and out of harm’s way.
5. When carrying a closed umbrella, don’t swing it around – tall umbrellas can easily become a lethal sword. Small umbrellas can easily fit into a purse, pocket or just in your hand, while longer ones should be carried like walking sticks.
6. When indoors, place your wet umbrella on the floor under you; umbrellas aren’t people, so why should they sit on a chair?

If you can’t follow these rules to keep your $3 umbrella under control on the next rainy day, just toss it – after all, it only cost 75 cents to make.

Can I Have Yo Numba?

Here’s the thing. Despite your valiant effort to grab my attention by violently raising your eyebrows, rapid tongue movement, or a more discrete “Psssssssst Mami!” I'm not going to sleep with you. Or maybe you’re really bold. You know what you like. So you’ll tell me that, loudly, for everyone on the street to hear. Perhaps you’ll reference exactly which of my body parts you’ve found most compelling today and what you’re dying to do to them. Don’t act surprised when I still won’t follow you off of the street, tell you to pull over so I can get into your car for a joy ride, or give you a minute of my time let alone my number. Because no matter how fly you think I am the bottom line is that catcalls kill the sex drives of everyone except the dog who’s hounding.

A study (Bystander sexism in the inter-group context) was done at the University of Connecticut by researchers Stephanie Chaudoir and Diane Quinn earlier this year. Analyses indicated that all parties in the vicinity of sexual harassment (i.e. that other guy minding his business walking down 14th street, or the old lady knitting across from you on the 6) are affected in a big way by aggressive sexual advances. "I always feel so bad for the girls," said Tyler Raps, a 20 year old NYU student,"I live in Crown Heights so I see it a lot. It's revolting." Not only are catcalls destroying the day of the sexy mama they are ineffectively aimed at, but everyone else’s too.

The study found that a woman overtly courted on the streets is more likely to assume that all men they meet in public places are predators. In effect, that little comment about wanting to bite my ass could ruin Mr. Nice Guy’s shot at encountering true romance in any public domain, and make me all the more likely to pick up a key chain sized bottle of mace. "I don't like catching men's eyes when I'm walking down the street," says 22 year old Newschool student Charlotte Brody, "sometimes they have this look. It's this glint of hunger that's both extremely frightening and incredibly repulsive." Chaudoir and Quinn also reported that "42% of U.S. female college students... are direct targets of catcalls at least once a month."

Oh wait, we are those...

Barie-Claire

"The Snowflake"

Typical Catcalls:
"Damn that's a nice ass... Shake it baby, shake it."
"You got a mans?" (in the off chance of a response)

"Your man ain't nothing, I can be your mans."

Often the victim of "the shadow" (a guy who just can't take a hint and has to follow his prey down the block propositioning them and complementing their shape)

Jane
"The Angel"

Typical Catcalls:
"Damn, did you hurt yourself when you fell from heaven? Cause you must be an ANGEL!"
"You so little, cupcake!"
"Oh the things I could do to you, whitey."

Laura

"The Mami"

Typical Catcalls:

"What are you, Mami?"

(in the off chance of a response)

"Naw, Italian girls ain't got booties like that! You're Spanish/Biracial/Latina!"

"Just as nice from the back as you are from the front!"

Then a curious turn... The implication of the blessing.

"God bless you today, Mami!" or "Jesus Christ, you have a blessed day!"

But what’s a girl to do when eye-rolling and laughing it off isn't cutting it? If she starts to really feel threatened by pornographic propositions, leering eyes, or old-fashioned horned up hollers?

The most P.C.way we’ve found to handle it: Hollaback. A blog entitled HollabackNYC, founded in 2005, is dedicated to one cause: “empowering New Yorkers to Holla Back.” The concept is a reactionary multi-media gallery of offensive sexual advances. Executive director, Emily May has addressed the issue as "street harassment."

The site asks that girls email pictures of their street harassers. They’ve got an archive of horror stories and blurry cell phone photos that range from an older man requesting for a girl to sit on his face at Washington Square Park to the really hard stuff like subway creep-os flashing their junk. The mission is to raise awareness and provide an outlet for those who feel they’ve been harassed to warn others.

They are a donation-based organization, actively seeking grants to become a non-profit, and currently creating their iPhone application and official organization site. They have only raised $4,060 of their $12,500 goal to fund the application by their target deadline of May 28th. In the five years that the site has been running, only a little over a thousand women have utilized their services. So while this sounds nice in theory and all, how effective could it be? When we contacted May, she was quick to note HollabackNYC's other endeavors, "Beyond the site, we worked with the MTA to get anti-harassment ads in the subways... and we are currently working with the state legislature to force the MTA to release crime stats."

While our hopes are high that internet-published snap shots and perv stories will embarrass every sick dude trying to take it too far on the streets, we’re not completely convinced. Streets and subways are public property but our bodies aren't.

Fiddler In the Square

20 years ago passing a man on the streets of NYC with a full flowing beard carrying a fiddle, would be treated with sideways eyes, and thoughts of homelessness or a backwards town in New Jersey. In the current age of the hipster however the beard has made a come back, and street performers like Aaron Jonah-Lewis and Sam Guthridge in some ways well-timed relics of cool.

The duo performed in Union Square for one day only in what turned out to be a conveniently timed meeting for both of them. Aaron is a man who quickly stood out in the crowd with a fiddle up to his chin and a scowl on his face. Upon lifting my camera he immediately leered in my direction to say "pictures are $1 dollar". His Partner Sam ever the statuesque example of a proper banjo player continued fretting and plucking his strings without any notice.

Aaron and Sam first met in in Virgina when they were introduced through mutual friends. Currently Sam lives in Chestertown Maryland, where he is a member of the bluegrass band Chester River Run off. Aaron moved to Berlin Germany where he performs at various gigs and is part of the group Thomas Bailey and the Aristocrats.

"I come to the states about once a year. I have family in Detroit, New Jersey, and a sister that lives here in Brooklyn" said Aaron "I had some gigs here and was doing some recording too. Sam had some gigs also in the city so we met up."

"We're not really Putting on a show, we're not really trying to capture a audience, we're not trying as hard as we could be" said Aaron pointing out a rival group of performers sporting two guitars. "The guys over there . . . who ever plays over there are putting on a show, doing a really good job, and making a lot more money then us, but were just sitting here basically [with the case open]".

"It might be most accurate to call our music fiddle and banjo music". "Our style fits under one large genre umbrella and every person has a different style. I don't play with Sam often but when I do, playing with him sounds very different to playing with some other banjo player" said Aaron. "We're just here having a good time."

New Brooklyn?! (You Heard It Here First!)

After deciding I, too, wanted to go to school in New York and live a unique lifestyle of adventure and thrift stores, I found myself a year later moving back to the very state I had originally rejected, New Jersey. There were a handful of reasons why I had decided to backtrack my life into the continental United States (friends, family, nature), but, as a wise man once told me not too very long ago, it all came down to one thing: the money.

My entire Sophomore year as a student at Eugene Lang College was an experiment to test my personal endurance, and to prove that commuting from New Jersey to lower Manhattan was not only possible, but incredibly reasonable in comparison to both dorming and living in the outer boroughs of New York.

Bloomfield: Right near Rutherford, home to NJ's only Medieval Times (!!!)

Freshman year I chose to live in the fine Loeb Hall, located right by the corner of 12th and 3rd, a happy skip into the heart of the East Village. The room, a two bedroom suite that fit up to four people, cost around $7,500 a semester, equaling to a rough figure of about $15,000 the entire year, or almost $1900 a month. This comes as no surprise, as a recent article declared The New School to have the most expensive dorm rates of the entire country.

It was fun to prance around New York with no responsibilities for a while, but the reality of that figure left me crying inside for my poor father, who was essentially paying for me to live in a room with less floor space than a shed. I resolved to find myself a good half-way point with my friends in New Jersey; we settled, not much different than the Pilgrims, on the tiny, unknown rock of Bloomfield, a mere 11.5 miles from New York City.

The two bedroom apartment, at 644 sq. feet total, costs $1099 a month. Between three people, we contribute around $370. This figure includes only heat and water. With the addition of internet, gas and electric, it comes to about $390 a month. The apartment complex is not only a block away from a gas station, a grocery store, and the Garden State parkway entrance, but is also a hot minute away from Montclair, a town which boasts some great restaurants, stores, and the Wellmont Theater, sponsored by the Bowery Presents. Within the last month, I have seen Wilco (two times) and The Flaming Lips there.

Back in Brooklyn, depending on your neighborhood, rent can almost equal the amount that Loeb Hall does. At 600 square feet with two bedrooms, Christopher Gloria and Michael Duke pay $2000 a month to live in Williamsburg, about three blocks away from the Graham Stop on the L. Brian Salvatore, an NYU student, has a total rent of $1870 for an East Williamsburg three bedroom apartment, with his share coming out to $620. Daniel London, a Grad student at CUNY, lives in a 600 sq. foot apartment for $1200 total, paying $600 between himself and a
roommate.

My lovely living room back in Jerz. (Note: Missing usual mess)

From Bloomfield, it takes me around an hour from the moment I step out my door to the moment I get off the subway on 12th street. I use a free commuter shuttle bus offered by the city of Bloomfield, which takes me to the NJ Transit station. An 8:27 am train normally gets me into Penn Station at around 9:05 and hopping on the express 2 or 3 train gets me into the New School "campus" at exactly 9:10-9:15. The only disadvantage is the huge added expense of $640 yearly for NJ Transit tickets, and $160 in subway fares.

Brooklyn commutes vary depending on the neighborhood. Chris works on 14th St. in Manhattan, so his commute is around fifteen minutes. Danny's commute to midtown Manhattan, however, is up to 50 minutes. Mike, who works on Wall Street, has a commute of around 35-40 minutes. A normal NJ Transit ride from the Bloomfield/Montclair area averages 30-35 minutes.

I am ready to call New Jersey a completely viable candidate for other New School settlers. Paying almost half of what some people are splitting in the Brooklyn area, my only real strife has only ever been the commuting process. But the commuting time has only ever been to me a time to read, relax, and wonder how horrible it would be if I were actually commuting from somewhere really out there, like Stroudsburg, PA, or something.

On the verge of calling myself a pioneer, I like to think of myself as one of the founding New School settlers that are beginning to spill out into every cheap orifice of the New York area. Bloomfield and Montclair already have everything a college aged kid could want: crazy ethnic eateries, a Whole Foods, Urban Outfitters, an art museum, vegan cupcake shops. It's just a matter of time. I just personally know my debt will not be so outrageously high when I am out of college and jobless.

-Bloomfield stats found through city-data.com.

laura imperiatrix mundi

the best and the brightest

Apparently our generation is "live out loud"

Article in the Times about kids in our generation reconsidering how open we are online about our private lives. Interestingly enough it opens with a New School alum !

adventure playground

http://places.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=13338

scroll to end for moses' take on lindsay.

disney on freeways

nine minute version:

one minute version:

your news now

journal home page:

cuomo real estate portrait:

andrew cuomo milestones:

advice to dep mayor:

adieu st. vincent:

your news now:

Space Cadet

I go to Union Square Park. I expect activity. Weather like this—choking, sultry—teases people out of the cracks. No one person could honestly account for this phenomenon. Desert wraith weather systems are socially understood on a cumulative scale. I go to Union Square to take measurements.

I see a female mime without makeup. She climbs ropes, idles on swings, apes pedestrians, makes sharp, anonymous gestures in the air. She wears a red hat and sash with a black pants suit. Passersby ignore her as if she were homeless or insane. If she were anywhere else, mincing across a bridge or inside the nearby Whole Foods, they could be right. The weather and the park work together to insulate madness, performative and otherwise.

The she-mime commands space. She remains inside a five yard radius of her “center.” Her ability to endure the rich, deliberate oblivion of New York pedestrians gives her antics a sad, desperate quality. She has no makeup. What does that mean? She climbs ropes without a mask, unmasked, as though, “that’s what you do,” she thinks across her pointed rictus.

A homeless man stands behind me. It takes me a minute to realize he’s homeless. He commands space. He stands there, a meaty middle aged black man dressed in grey sweats, swaying almost imperceptibly to sounds issuing from earbuds, which, followed, are connected to a handheld radio. Homeless men listen to the radio. They listen to the radio as though taking instructions. The instructions are part of a magnificent plan. The magnificent plan stacks onto itself, detail upon detail, until, like a fever dream, the plan disintegrates, becomes incomprehensible, can only be recalled in fragments. Plastic bags stuffed with remains collect around his legs. His eyes appear to sweat—shiny, faraway, “but I see you. don’t think I don’t.”

I lean against a lamp post. I command space. I realize that if I lean against this lamp post long enough I will become a sex worker. The mime without makeup was a normal person until she stood still. She could become homeless person, a sex worker, or a street performer. If she were none of these things, she would have known to play with her phone. Normal people standing still play with their phones. Phones mean normal people can’t be bought. I play with my phone, but the effect is less as a sex worker. It’s my shorts, I think. It’s my hat. If I stand still long enough an officer will ask me just what I think I’m doing. If I stand still, watching, waiting, taking my measurements, someone will want to light my cigarette. But I don’t smoke. By then it would be too late.

I cross 14th street onto Broadway. I see a man leaning against a wall. He commands space. He has olive skin and sleepy, saturnine eyes. He is wearing a long white dress shirt and black slacks. He is smoking a cigarette in long, exaggerated drags. I realize he’s a sex worker before I pass him. He makes kissing noises at me. I smile at the horror of my developed intuition. Two blocks later, I turn around. I can squeeze his image between my thumb and index finger. He doesn’t look like the hustlers I’ve seen around the Port Authority. His outfit looks like pieces of a groom’s man. I remember the weather. I think of LA. Prostitutes come out in the heat. That’s why they love LA.

I walk to Thompkins Square Park then back to wear I saw the groom’s man. I want to speak with him, but I doubt myself. He would tell me anything so long as I paid him. But I would decide what was true, I would tell him. I would know something just by the sound of your voice. I can read voices, I would tell him.

He was gone. I turn onto 14th street. I’m looking at every face that passes me by. I’m looking at every face and notice a woman with a full face of makeup standing near the entrance to Whole Foods. She commands space. She is holding her purse with her arms crossed. Her outfit passes for discreet, but the rest of her does not. She is not dialing a phone. She is standing there with a sad, expectant look resting just beneath the heavy layers of makeup. I watch her closely as I continue down 14th. I don’t see her see me. She might have already seen me today. “Watching you,” she thinks about anyone. Day and night. Watching you.

Ryan Ford: Brooklyn's the Borough

The painting is not finished, but it is still disturbing. A wrestler, dressed in purple, is in the center, a look of anguish on his face. His hands disappear into the mouths of shadowy demons. Standing all around him are gray-faced, leering spectators. One throws money, another has a pet monkey on his shoulder. Each has a distinct expression and personality. In the bottom right, almost as large as the scene in the center, a group of young boys runs around. The Bosch-inspired painting is bleak and barren, a battle scene in a desert.

The painting, with the working title Dudes of Destruction, is one of the latest works of Ryan Ford, a Bushwick-based artist.

Ford, thirty, is almost too large to fit in the small room in the shared loft space that serves as his studio. However, he is obviously right at home there. His sketches and assorted detritus cover every inch of wall space, and his paint-stained iPod plays from a corner. Works-in-progress are all around.

“I’m supposed to do this,” he proclaims.

Ford was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, and then moved to Pinehurst, North Carolina as a teenager. He attended the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia, and moved to Brooklyn three years ago.

Much of his early work is influenced by the Sienese school of painting, a flat Renaissance style. it. He combined this classical technique with pop culture, most often videogame imagery. Works in this style include Cloud Eater vs. Box of Hell, which depicts two figures about to fight, Tekken-style, in front of a distant mountain range.

However, he became dissatisfied with this style.

“I felt bound by landscapes,” he says. “I was stuck in those parameters.”

He moved into painting with airbrushing and stencils, laying down a shiny background over which he painted darker images than previous, like the “Globhammer,” “a wheel of sewage and bile that just smashes things.” The Globhammer series was his way of “dealing with darkness, the void.”

The Globhammer makes an appearance in Brooklyn’s the Borough, Ford’s most explicitly New York-influenced painting, smashing some of Bushwick’s run-down, vinyl-sided apartment buildings. A cartoonish figure with a plastic bag for a head walks down a gritty street where one building is on fire, and another has no roof. The painting’s anxiety and disgust is palpable. It’s part of a long line of art about disillusionment with the City.

“I got lost in dark feelings,” says Ford about the darkness of the Globhammer series. “I was having some feelings of despair, but however grimy it got, I was going to roll around in the muck.” This muck manifested itself in striking imagery of violence and grotesquery.

However bad Ford may ever feel, though, he will paint his way through it.

“I have an addiction to laying paint down,” he says.

Take a look at Ryan Ford's work here

Why Drive in NYC?

I don't. I never have, and never will. But in extreme situations, such as moving, it becomes necessary to get in a car. M Beds, dressers, tables, etc. aren't ideal for subway transport. Friday April 30, with the help of a friend's mother in a small SUV and one of the mother's friends with a small truck, I moved from East Harlem to Sunset Park. Sitting in traffic left me with plenty of time to think about why noone should drive in the city.

From experience, I knew that I could from the Manhattan Bridge to my old apartment in about 30 minutes on a bike. It took over an hour in a car. Google Maps estimates 50 minutes by bike, and up to 45 in traffic by car. The bike estimate is based on a speed of about 10 mph, which is slower than I ride, and the car estimate seems faster than is realistic. This shows the average speed of a car in the city is around 10 mph, and can be less. As we sat in traffic, waiting to get on the Manhattan Bridge, watching the cyclists whiz by in their wide-open bike-lane was painful. But I had to move furniture. The other drivers, they are the ones that I do not understand.

So, biking isn't for everyone. New York City has the best and most used public transportation system in the United States. You walk down the stairs, swipe a card and get on a train that takes you wherever you want to go—generally faster than a car would, and far less stressful manner. For me, the idea of sitting next to smelly hobo on a train sounds better than sitting next to a friend's mom's friend who I don't really know who is shouting at the traffic and for some reason preferring the awkward silence to turning on the damn radio.

Riding a bike or taking the subway win for comfort and speed, but they also beat cars monetarily. AAA estimated that it cost 41.4 cents a mile to operate a small sedan in 2006 if driven a total of 15,000 miles, and that does not include the purchase price of the vehicle. Compare that with a bike: a nice bike costs around $500. With a lock and helmet, you're up to about $600, but after the initial investment, bikes don't generally cost more than $100 a year in maintenance. A 30-day Metrocard costs $89, or about $1083 a year.

Driving a car wastes time and money. And hurts the environment. Next time, instead of giving the cursing man in the BMW the finger while on my bike, I'll just feel sorry for him, give him an encouraging wave as I leave him behind.

We Don't Need No Education

Following the 58 percent approval by voters to cut the state education budget by $820 million, thousands of students across New Jersey marched out of their classes in protest. Since Governor Chris Christie's announcement to cut the budget, an all out war has been occurring between himself and the New Jersey Education Society. In the shadow of this conflict, on May 20th, Christie will give the commencement speech to 2010 Monmouth University graduates.

New Jersey, which has the highest property tax of any U.S. state, has incurred a debt of over $10.7 billion. Christie, who was elected last November in hopes of curing this substantial sum, has kept his goals stern: to eliminate that debt, at any cost. He had announced earlier in April a targeted budget proposal of $29.6 billion for the upcoming fiscal year. As school boards attempt to delegate their budget plans by April 20th, extracurricular activities, services, and jobs will be cut.

John Teehan, a student of Montclair University studying history, thinks that the budget cuts make no sense. "Education is the most valuable tool for the future and should be receiving the most money instead of being cut the most," he says.

With the budget cuts approved, state aid will no longer be offered in full to 600 school districts. Some, like Ridgewood, Millburn and Glen Ridge, will receive no state aid at all. Institutions like state colleges and universities will see a cut of up to $175 million, a loss which will result in the raising of tuition, and job cuts for professors.

To many students, this comes as an insult in a time when education in New Jersey is in a danger zone. This is why some students at Monmouth University, like Laura Fiorelli, are unnerved by the fact that the very man who is taking away privileges from students will be speaking to them as well.

"It's insulting to have Christie speak as an honored commencement speaker at an event like a graduation, especially for a school known for its education department," says Laura. "Most of the education majors will have a really difficult time finding jobs these next few years due to Christie's budget cuts and policies."

According to Laura, there is a lot of anti-Christie sentiment going on around Monmouth's campus. There is plan by students to turn their backs during the graduation as Christie speaks. She, though not graduating with the 2010 class, has emailed the university's presidents asking to reconsider Christie as a president. However, the arrangement is pretty much set in stone.

In response to Christie's appearance at Monmouth University in May, many students have organized to prevent it from occurring. Groups on Facebook, such as "Members of the MU Community Against Christie as 2010 Speaker" have up to 892 members.

"I'd rather he didn't," says John. "But I almost would, to see him get booed off the stage like a fool."

-Photos, and stats, courtesy of NJ.com and lehighvalleylive.com

4-20: Not Just The Birthday of Mein Fuhrer

On April 20th 2010 while Aryan extremist groups blew out candles, and residents of Littleton, Colorado placed flowers on 13 graves, thousands of people got high. 4/20 pronounced four-two-oh has become the unofficial holiday of pot smokers across the world. For Empire State NORML (The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) 4/20 was a day of protest. The organization held a rally in Union Square, in which chants of legalize it now were chanted through loud speakers, and marijuana rights cards were handed out to spectators informing them of their legal rights should they be implicated with carrying an illegal substance.

Contrary to myth and legend 420 is in fact not a police code of drug violations. Police departments across the country are knowledgeable enough to not use such a well known code in correlation to the very offense it pertains to. According to High Times a publication that caters to the toking community, 420 came in to being by Steve Waldo, who used the expression "420 Louie" in high school. 420 stood for 4:20 pm the actual time of day in which waldo reminded his friends to meet for smoking sessions at the Louis Pasteur statue in San Rafael, California.

"420 is a big counter cultural celebration for people who use marijuana, and feel that the marijuana laws are unjust and inhumane, and that's why were here, to change the laws" said Doug Greene director of legislation for Empire State NORML. According to Greene Empire State NORML is currently working towards having medicinal marijuana legalized in New York State. "It's the cutting edge right now at least in terms of New York State. 14 other states and the District of Columbia have passed medical marijuana, but despite it passing for the past two years in the New York State [Assembly], we still don't have medical marijuana laws" said Greene.

The rally was a lively event featuring musical guests the Ashy Elbows, as well as several speakers including Greene. As a precaution several dozen NYPD officers were scattered throughout the plaza. One could assume they were posted in the case of the event getting out of hand granted the attendees gained a stint of drive and initiative. A communal "snack" was encouraged at 4:20 pm of brownies, cookies and cupcakes with questionable ingredients. Dana Beal a scruffy white haired man stood in the foreground of the event ominously. Beal is the founder of Cures not Wars, a organization that lobbies for medicinal marijuana to be leagalized. He declined a interview simply passing me a small flier, uttering a single word "here". His group will be organizing the New York City branch of the World Wide Marijuana March the first of which occurred May 1st. Strong supporters of the cause however need not worry as a second march is scheduled for this Saturday, May 8th. Sieg heil!



The Ashy Elbows Performance

The Ashy Elbows at 420 Rally from Aulistar Mark on Vimeo.

Torah Theft and Return in Brooklyn Synagogue

April 28, 2010 Khal Yirei Hashem, a synagogue located on 53^rd Street in Borough Park Brooklyn, experienced their first heist. Five Torahs mysteriously go missing the night of April 27^th.

At around 6 a.m. the police were notified by a Congregation worker of the heinous crime committed. Upon arrival the police found no force of entry. The worker informs them that the safe guarding the torahs must’ve either been left open the night in question or someone within the Congregation must have been a part of this theft.

According to Rabbi Jack Meyer, a number of people knew the combination to the safe in which the torahs were kept. Assemblyman Dov Hikind and Councilman David Greenfield offered a $10,000 award for the return of these five “precious torah scrolls” worth $250,000.

Coincidentally not five days later were the torahs returned unscathed by a middle man who claims to be a friend of a friend believed to be the perpetrator. “A good deed” he claims he wanted to do for his community and the synagogue, yet he so graciously accepted that $10,000 reward.

However the question still arises, was this an inside job? Is there a corrupt Congregation member? Was this “go-between” really a go-between or was this staged just for the reward?