Magic Jewball

Yes, I know this will only be of interest to fans of The Smiths, but in today’s coincidences, the second I stepped onto the subway this morning my iPod switched to one of my Top 5 Smiths songs, “What Difference Does It Make?” The ad I found myself in front of is below (click to enlarge):

Believe me, if I cheat on NY it won’t be with Manchester. But I did enjoy the irony.

Title comes from:
The Smiths – Suffer Little Children

I realized recently that I’m celebrating two important anniversaries this week:

1. Five years of home ownership.
2. Five years in the same apartment.

I actually think #2 is more incredible because, as much as I like to settle in and as much as I loathe moving, the second you unpack your things you instantly wonder if there’s something better out there. Not to mention, within a year, you have grown into your closets and within two you have outgrown them. (My mother once commented, “did you notice there was a married couple here before you and you use as much closet space as both of them?” What, I have a hard time throwing things out!)

Anyway, I thought it’d be a fun moment to take a tour of “Becca’s Residential Upper West Side.” Sorry for the darkness of the pictures but the sun hasn’t shined here in several weeks. Here we go!

This is my first apartment in NY (it’s the brownstone on the left, basement apartment). I was a fresh-faced grad student at Columbia and my roommate was (and is, she’s just no longer my roommate) an actuary in her first job out of college. Within three months we had fled in terror from our wacko landlord and entered into a lawsuit that hasn’t been settled to this day. The conditions were abysmal and there was a toilet left over from another apartment’s renovation in the front, but it was all worth it for the cheap rent and back garden. We planned barbeques and parties before our landlord started calling and harassing us, accusing us of stealing from him and telling us to get out. We were young and stupid and we freaked out and high-tailed it out of there. Despite the fact that our friends still refer to it as “the apartment with the toilet in the front,” it was renovated and turned into a house again a couple of years ago. It sold for $4 million.

Here’s the apartment we ran to. Sadly, it seems to be undergoing some kind of construction so you can’t get the full view. It was smaller then the first one, had a higher rent, was further from the subway, and was on the top floor (a disadvantage on the sabbath when you can’t use the elevator). And I don’t need to tell you that barbeques were not a possibility. But the landlord left us alone (so much so that he wasn’t really interested in fixing anything) and we were happy, at least until we were robbed. After a couple of years I made enough for my own place.

That would be this dump. I know, it doesn’t look like it, but it was. First off, it’s on the wrong side of Broadway (this high up you want to be west of it, closer to the river). There was spotty or no heat most of the winter, there were mice, and the super used to hit the tenants up for personal loans. It was a co-op building, meaning the apartments were owned, but most were then rented out to other people at a profit and so no one had any incentive to improve the situation. My own landlord was fantastic and paid to have someone come in and rodent-proof the apartment. After that I could only hear them in the walls. Still, it was great to be on my own, and it was small but cozy. It lay between the subway and a youth hostel so I spent a lot of my time giving directions to backpackers. Once, I came home and found the cops clustered about a guy lying dead in front of the building. It’s OK, a cop reassured me, he had been shot elsewhere and had run and just collapsed in front of my building. Splendid!

At some point I had raised enough to buy a place. I thought I’d buy a studio but after 9/11 all the prices went down. As a matter of fact, my landlord, when I told him I’d be breaking my lease, said, “oh, moving out of the city? I understand.” Well, no, Osama doesn’t control my living habits. But that enabled me to snag a one-bedroom before the prices skyrocketed. It’s a great building, a great apartment with tons of closets and built-ins, and it’s doubled in value. And the location makes all my friends jealous. If I could just kill a couple of my neighbors it would be perfect. Finding it was easy, it was the second one I looked at, but buying it was a complicated hell on earth. I think that’s what finally convinced me to never move again.

As you can see, I favor low buildings that are from 1910 or earlier (this one was built in 1898). I couldn’t imagine living in a big box. Even my office building is only 8 stories, although I can’t say I had any control over that.

So who will be the first houseguest after the big anniversary? Why, it’s Top Commenter and former ROTM, Sarpon! Sarpon has decided to take advantage of the J-Ball policy which is, even if I’ve never met you, if I know you from the Internets a bit, you can stay with me in my closet apartment. Unfortunately for her, Sarpon will be arriving on a Friday night, negating the airport pick-up by subway offer. What does this mean for you? A week of posts about Sarpon taking Becca to the theatre (really!) and Becca taking Sarpon to see live music. Fights over my one bathroom will not be discussed.

The chief thing I remember about the first week in my apartment, beyond utter exhaustion and disorientation, was painting it and hearing on the radio while I was atop a ladder that Layne Staley had OD’d. Now, this was as surprising as Ronald Reagan succumbing to Alzheimer’s, but it still dampened my enthusiasm. RIP.

Alice in Chains – Down In A Hole

I’ve decided to take your mind off Tax Day and Tragic Massacres and show a video. Yes, I finally give in to the hype and I’m going to post Dr. Tran. I tried to resist it but this thing cracks me up every single time I watch it. Either I’m 12 or the concept never gets old. Probably a little from column A, a little from column B. What, is Dr. Tran too lowbrow for you? While the rest of us are watching the movie, please enjoy news about our storm from five countries.

British

Australian

French

German

Israeli

And without further ado, Dr. Tran.
(takes a minute to load, by the middle it’s no longer safe for work)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea7oIraV2Q0[/youtube]

Could there be anything more self-referential than a soaking wet newspaper with a giant front page story about the hugh jass storms? I’d say this guy should get his money back but it’s my understanding that no one actually pays for The Sun.

I did my best to avoid all this by staying indoors all day yesterday, even foregoing a half-block trip to the bodega for milk. But yet, it seems to be dragging on and on. Of course, it could be worse. The weather guy on NY1 this morning stated that, had it been snow, we would have received six feet. Yowzah.

Or, I could just reflect on the fact that yesterday was Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) and there’s just been a school shooting with 31 dead so far (which I found out about, bizarrely, in my Le Monde RSS feed) and feel bad that I felt bad about some rain and wind and flooding. But at least now I know what’ll be on the front page of tomorrow’s soaking wet newspaper: “Crazy People + Guns: Still A Bad Combo.”

And, by the way, the first thing I heard when I did turn on the news was about violent video games, which I’m sure were the direct cause of this. After the break: presidential candidates react to the shooting. Gosh, I wonder what they’ll say!

Living in Waterworld is just looking better and better.

10,000 Maniacs – Like The Weather

Edited to add: Good luck to all the J-Ball readers running the Boston Marathon in this hellacious weather, especially Top Commenter, Soxy!

I always love to point out lesser known songs by so-called “one hit wonders” especially because 99% of these songs are better than the big hit. As Matthew Sweet used to say, your stupidest song will become your biggest hit. Indeed so it went for our iSotW spotlight artist this week. Could any song represent the 80’s, early MTV, and wacky novelty numbers more than “She Blinded Me With Science?” Think of the song for more than one second and you will imagine dotty old Thom dancing with a Japanese woman decorated to look like a musical instrument.

But if you listened to the album from which that song hailed, The Golden Age of Wireless, you’d know that Thomas Dolby wasn’t really so much about the wacky and more about the pathos. The other songs, even the more upbeat ones, are sad-edged and maudlin. This one has always been my favorite, and is an evocative lament for both a vessel lost at sea and the end of the British Empire. The lack of hope and sense of looking back at something gone shine right through the electronics.

Thomas Dolby – One Of Our Submarines

Lyrics