Magic Jewball

Shocking, isn’t it? But I post this in tribute to my anonymous designer who put together the logo you now see in the header. This excruciating gesture on my part, I hope, will adequately show my gratitude. It was my design but the execution was all his. This is not to say he isn’t good at design, however. Witness the below, which cracked me up completely every time I thought of it for several days.

Rock on, anonymous designer, rock on.

To follow up, I assume everyone knows that David Blaine did not break the world’s record for underwater breath-holding, a humanity changing feat of strength. Oh, my schadenfreude knows no bounds. I shut off my Law & Order Season 2 DVD long enough to watch the last 20 minutes of the show and I think the thing that amazed me the most was this. The camera panned to a boyish-looking dude in the crowd who the announcer informed us was the brother of David Blaine. He had graduated NYU the previous day, just steps away in, I presume, Alice Tully Hall. He looked concerned and chagrined. I naturally assumed his thoughts were these:

I can’t believe you do one stunt a year and you couldn’t even arrange it around my college graduation. I mean, it was right here, putz. Couldn’t you have rolled over, hamster-ball style, and seen me enter the real world?

But, such is the life of a world class pseudo-magician’s brother.

In other news, should you share my love of New Order, or if my Confusion video and incessant blather have piqued your interest, please do check out the article about them on Slate.com. It was such a pleasant surprise; it seemed apropos of absolutely nothing. They even highlighted my favorite moment of any New Order song, Bernard Sumner cracking up at his own ridiculous lyrics. If their snippet isn’t enough for you, check out the entire song below.

New Order - Every Little Counts

Remember my photo of Avery Fisher Hall? I don’t know who Avery Fisher was, but his Hall is part of Lincoln Center, a complex of arts buildings which is the home of such cultural delights as the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. I have seen both an opera and a ballet there, mostly so I could tell people that I had. It used to be the gritty neighborhood where West Side Story was set and filmed. Then they tore down all those buildings and killed all the people so that we could enjoy Mostly Mozart. Something like that; I’m a little sketchy, it was all before I was born.

Anyway, I often pass it, either because it’s on my way home if I’m walking or because it’s near my own cultural touchstones, Tower Records and Gracious Home. This Friday, there was a bit of a scene. Here’s what it looked like.

That little marble-looking thing in the background? That’s David Blaine, the magician, showman, or whatever. He’s in a globe of water. Fun! I’m kind of shocked he picked the Upper West Side for this stunt, as we’re not exactly known as the place for huge touristy-type things. It’s mostly residential. But I guess Times Square was booked. And this area is the snootier part of the Upper West Side, too. As a matter of fact, while I was standing there, a large white limo pulled up, a fancy suit guy and slinky-haired blonde woman got out, and away they walked in the opposite direction. Sorry, David!

But there was actually a queue to stick a camera in David Blaine’s face and “touch” your hand to his. I didn’t even wait on line to meet Interpol at Tower Village so you can bet this wasn’t going to merit my time. Instead, I let my lens do the zoom-in.

I think this one’s my favorite, mostly because it seems like these particular guys were taking a break from a Fitty Cent video shoot when they decided to line up to see the The Man In The Bubble.

But I needed to get closer. I wanted to see all that pruney skin I had heard about.

How about this one? You just know this girl on the left is gazing at Bubble-Man’s muscles as he reaches out for her friend’s boob.

No, no, still not close enough. No other people, just the crazy guy.

There we go. His skin looks disappointingly smooth. What a shame.

Everyone always wants to know the same thing about David Blaine. How does he go to the bathroom in there? Yes, that’s the level of discourse these days. But because I love you, I did a little research and found out that he fasted for five days previous to this so that there would be no solid waste in the tank. Phew! Because if you’ve ever had a fish tank, you know that can get messy. Plus, you know, there would be fewer people lining up to get a look. Or more, which would be even more horrifying.

But the real question, at least to me, is why? What is the point of all this? I guess it’s to prove that a human can test his limits and go the distance. I like to see that proved via Olympic bobsledding, personally, but to each his own. Then I saw a commercial on ABC that there’s going to be a special about this. Now I get it. The purpose is actually to prove that a human can test his limits and go the distance by making the most money doing the stupidest thing possible! That clears everything up, thanks.

Was this song in your head while you were reading that first paragraph? If not, now it is!

Jet Song

A friend of mine in another city, a sometime reader of this blog, found it amazing when I told her I had access to butter from four countries. But I was wrong. Actually, as you can see at left, my local shop (it’s not exactly a grocery store; more on this later) has at least 14 kinds of butter from such dairy-rich nations as Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Germany, England, and (let’s just go ahead and give them their own country already) Vermont. You can’t even see it because the Kosher food has its own section, but there’s also Israeli butter. Can I count Land O’Lakes as a land? I guess not. But the selection’s impressive, no?

So let’s have another “you live like this, we live like that” exposition. There are three places to get groceries in New York City. We’ll look at each.

The one you’re no doubt familiar with, as was I when I was growing up in the suburbs, is the supermarket. Right now you’re imagining a vast, clean, wide-aisled fairyland where the latest things that you see advertised on TV are available in every possible permutation. Think again. For starters, ours are much, much smaller, as well as dirtier, and if you can get your basket (don’t bother with a cart) past another person’s ass without knocking over a slew of tuna cans, count yourself lucky. By the way, there will only be two brands and maybe three varieties to knock over. If you see a commercial for something fun like “lemon dill tuna,” don’t bother looking, it won’t be there, and while you’re peering at the shelf someone will knock their basket into your ass.

Here’s an example of a “super” market. Like most supermarkets here, it’s in the base of an apartment building. Like many, it’s on two floors (another reason you can’t use a cart) and there’s an escalator. Some have an elevator. Some are all on a lower floor and you have to take an escalator down just to get to the food. This is a Food Emporium, an “upscale” market. By upscale, they mean overpriced. I wanted to take a picture of a Gristede’s, which is the dominant grocery store around here, but it was out of my way, and like most New Yorkers, I won’t walk more than four blocks for a grocery store (there are bags to carry home, you know).

On the other end of the spectrum, there is the bodega (bo-day-gah).

Bodegas are kind of like 7-Eleven or Wawa except instead of a fruity slushy drink, there are vitality-supplements from Asia. And, as you can see, flowers. Here, your need for milk and Sun Chips without walking more than 30 yards from your apartment or subway is met by the entrepreneurial-minded immigrant who has a mark-up that Apu at the Quick-E-Mart can only dream about. You can see the name of the bodega on the awning, “K&S Market,” but I would bet you no one who has ever shopped there knows that. I certainly didn’t. I, like everyone else, call it by some variation of “the bodega on the corner near the pizza place.”

In between these two extremes are various specialty and independent grocery stores. Some are just mini-supermarkets, some skew to the health conscious, and some, like the one where I got the butter, cater to a more gourmet clientele. Here it is below:

Yes, it’s called Barzini’s. Please insert your own Godfather/Five Families joke. Here’s mine: “I thought that place with 14 kinds of European butter was a dream, but I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini’s all along.” Yes, OK, I’ll keep working on that.

Anyway, I know you’re wondering so I’ll tell you. I bought the Breakstone’s.

Title comes from…

The Clash-Lost In The Supermarket

Nice view, right? This is taken from my Aunt’s street in Israel. But being that today is Independence Day in Israel, I figured I’d show off one of my favorite photos. So, go, visit. Now. Book your trip. I’ll wait.

Back? Rock on. OK, I’d like to dedicate tonight’s post to the bus driver on the #15 bus who, on my last trip there in October, refused to sell me the adult bus pass and insisted I deserved the student one. Here’s to you, Mr. Egged driver! Special mention to the woman on the plane who spent 10 hours regaling me with the story of how she single-handedly began an organization dedicated to the eradication of gossip (lashon harah for my Semitic friends). I assume this is because no one else wanted to be involved. But she told me she no longer discusses people with her friends, just baking and household work. Yes, she must be a hoot at parties.

But anyway.

So, I promised that once you got your Napster account I’d link to some more songs. Since I know you’ve done that, let’s begin. What I’ve decided to do for starters is to link you to all the songs that were in or referenced in my post names. Here we go:

“Passover, no longer just a groovy Joy Division song”
That’s of course Passover by Joy Division.
Joy Division - Passover

“I’d like to drop my trousers to the Queen”
is a line from Nowhere Fast by The Smiths but sadly, that’s not available on Napster. Boo! Hiss! But here’s the Windows Media Player link from Amazon. Conveniently, it starts right on the line at hand.
Nowhere Fast

“I said, hey, hey, you, you, get out of my shot”
is obviously a reference to Get Off of My Cloud by The Rolling Stones. If you didn’t know that then clearly you grew up in Lesotho and just immigrated this week. Welcome!
The Rolling Stones - Get Off of My Cloud

“Caressing the marble and stone”
is the first line of “In A Lonely Place.” Who is it by? That’s a tough one. The song was the last thing ever written by Ian Curtis but he offed himself before Joy Division could record it. The surviving members decided not to follow him and, adding the drummer’s girlfriend, went on as New Order. Hey look! We already have a song! So they recorded it. But a rehearsal of Joy Division doing it still exists. They’re both quite moody, but I think JD wins by hair. Of course, it’s easy to hit just that perfect note of despair when you know you’re going to commit suicide within the next month. But judge for yourself. New Order’s on Napster, Joy Division’s on Amazon.

In A Lonely Place by Joy Division

In A Lonely Place by New Order

(Oh, and depressingly, it seems Bush does do a version of it. But I won’t be inflicting that one on you. You’re welcome.)

“We fade to grey”
Is from Fade to Grey by Visage, a classic early 80’s synth-pop ditty.
Visage - Fade To Grey

And there you have it. All my crazy references. Fantabulous!

When I was a kid, I had a strong faith that God spoke to me through the songs that came on the radio at any particular time. So if I was having a bad day, and “To Hell With Poverty” by Gang of Four came on, well, I’d know someone was looking out for me.

How naive I was! God doesn’t speak to you through the radio! He speaks to you through your iPod. No, no, it’s totally logical. The radio is programmed by a human being but the iPod has a mind of its own. So this morning, when I needed to plow through some people…

Wait, I need to set the scene here. This is the way it always happens at my stop, one of the busiest on the line. Everyone gets off except for one person who is in the absolute middle of the doorway. Never fails. Well today, someone, or really, many many people, pushed me from behind so that I was knocked into the woman in front of me who said, “Hey! What is this?”

It’s a hundred people leaving a train, lady. I’m sure you have never, ever seen that in New York City before.

Anyway, at that exact moment when the woman said this, my iPod got jostled and switched to Front 242’s Headhunter. If you’ve never heard this song, well, it’s not about a job search. Here, give it a listen. As you’ll no doubt agree, no one does mechanized death beats like the Germans.

(You’ll have to have a free account at Napster for this. Yes, Napster’s free now! Get one, and I promise I’ll link to more fun things in the future. Of course, if you choose to hear this 30 second snippet more than five times, they will ask you to fork over 99 cents. Life’s tough.)

Front 242 - Headhunter

Pretty good, huh? I was out of there in no time. Thank you, Lord!

Now, yesterday, when I showed you what my daily mode of transportation is, if you are from that other, cleaner part of America, you said, “Ew. That doesn’t look very hygienic.” But you should have seen it before! This is my way of introducing one of my favorite videos of the 80’s which after many fruitless searches has finally appeared on youtube. Be sure to check out Bernard Sumner in his Gap khaki shorts! Hey, it’s hot here in the summer.

Without further ado….confusion, confusion, confusion…