What It Is

The Loved One says:

Go Phillies. It’s just f*ckin South Brooklyn anyway.

The NY Post is apparently chuffed* that Warhol collaborator and part-time Superstar Brigid Berlin (also know as Polk for her amusing habit of poking shots of speed into her hapless cohorts in the 60s, and daughter of Hearst magnate Richard Berlin and his society wife Honey- only in NYC, my dears) is having an exhibit of her needlepoint recreations of hilarious tabloid front pages. They (the Post) might also be a bit miffed that the coolest one- pictured above- is sporting the masthead of their rival the Daily News.

Papermag’s lovely Kim Hastreiter wrote a nice pithy review you can read here (and see pix of some of the other pillows- the Anna Nicole one is my 2nd favorite).

The pillows are being shown at the Glenn Horowitz Bookstore and Art Gallery at 50 1/2 E. 64th St in Manhattan starting Oct 21. Afterwards you can go to Serendipity3 on 60th Street, splurge on Frozen Hot Chocolate and make snarky glamorous wishes. I’ll see you there.

*Chuffed is Brit-slang for pleased. In case you didn’t know.

Ever wondered what was behind the imposing urban facade of 190 Bowery? NY Magazine has this slideshow accompanying their article claiming that photographer Jay Maisel pulled off “the greatest real estate coup of all time”* when he bought the former Germania Bank building for $102,000 in 1966.

For years I was under the mistaken impression that the coup had been pulled off by poet John Giorno, who lives in the former YMCA building up the street that also once housed William S. “Uncle Bill” Burroughs and is known as the Bunker. Probably I got the wrong idea from an ex-boyfriend of mine who misrepresented it that way while bragging about hanging out there with Uncle Bill back in the late 70s. Poseur.

* I think NY Mag is wrong. The greatest real estate coup of all time is Joseph Papp, Public Theater (the former Astor Library), 1967, $1.

3 months is too stupid long between posts, and I’ve been having so many amusing thoughts. So just pretend with me that it’s March 21, and let’s do this spring thing together.

First of all, trees. Amazing, no? Trees go through the entire life cycle every year, dormancy, budding, sex, work, some creating fruits or dropping seeds, and then withering and dormancy again. The same thing is happening to me, I’m just one very self-involved leaf on a very big tree, covered in billions of self-involved leaves.

And what’s more, the exuberant tree sex of spring makes me drip with slime like a hyperactive snail. For which I consume generic Claritin-D. I sometimes forget I’ve taken it. If you’ve ever had a noxious experience with any Claritin-D-type allergy product, please leave me a comment.

And speaking of the sexy world of spring, have you ever heard of the opalescent squid? They are extremely abundant along the eastern Pacific Coast, are usually about 11″ long, live for a year or two and they have an extraordinary life cycle. On one night, they all come together in an orgiastic frenzy, falling through the water and bringing their snow-white bodies together. The males’ limbs flush red to indicate their receptivity as they grasp the females, then they come apart and the female falls to the ocean floor, deposits her sack of eggs (the seeds of 300+ more opalescent squid) and dies. The males may each mate 3 or 4 times a piece- sexist nature!- and then they also fall to the ocean floor and die. When it’s all over, the starfish come out and carry away the bodies, to snack on later. Somehow the eggs remain untouched, apparently.

Maybe it’s way Hollywoodized, but the depiction of the night of opalescent wonder in the IMAX movie Into the Deep was tremendously affecting and gorgeous. xxx!

I finally managed to work up the nerve to take a picture of a total stranger on the subway without her ever knowing. I have been tempted so many times. Some mornings are non-stop glamour shootouts, others are hoodies and baseball caps. However, other than the Red-Haired Girl (eat your heart out, Charlie Brown), I’ve recently witnessed various awesome public transportation moments:

A family of foreign tourists, pater, mater, teenage son and lolita daughter, is riding the southbound local. At 42nd St, the man gets out of the train, but the doors close behind him, leaving his bewildered family on the subway without him. Immediately, well-meaning NYers step in to advise the confused woman on how to get back to the 42nd St platform, but she’s not sure she shouldn’t wait at the next stop for him to come to her. She starts to look quite petrified. And I think to myself, what a great set-up for a movie. Your foreign cell phone definitely won’t function in the bowels of the MTA, you have no way to contact each other, who should wait for who? Does the family get even more separated? What kind of nonsense befalls them? Will the girl run off into the NYC afternoon? There’s a lot of possibilities. Screenwriters, hit me up.

Then the other day I and all the rest of the passengers in my car eavesdropped on a conversation two men were having about heavyweight boxing, discussing the merits of Mayweather vs. Tyson, Michael vs. Leon Spinks, fairly loud. No mention of The Greatest, my all-time fave champ whom I and half the world , I bet, still hugely crush on, though I strained my ears mightily to hear. No mention of Evander Holyfield, Ken Norton or George Foreman. But still, what they were saying was interesting and lively and made my commute more fun.

The thing that really made it over-the-top was when the man standing next to me couldn’t resist getting in on it all, an intelligent, loud three-way conversation ensued across the bridge, and a congenial time was had by all.