Thursday, November 20, 2003
Washed Clean by Fame
OK, this is crap. Henry Blodgett has been hired by Slate to cover the Martha Stewart trail. And media watcher Steve Outing commends online media for thinking outside the box again.
Fine, think outside the box. But don't hire someone who is famous for exaggerating things and telling lies. I'm so sick of this celebritization of people because they have done bad things: Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, Rick Bragg, Lizzie Grubman, Paris Hilton. Who else have I left out?
Homer Simpson and FirstEnergy
Could I be the only one who reads the stories about the cause of the blackout and pictures Homer Simpson sitting in front of a grid of blinking lights while he eats donuts and chugs Duff beer?
Renewal
Well heck, I've been meaning to write about this for quite some time and not just something for my perpetual draft file. And this is only a blog and you're not paying me for this so here it goes.
I'm a Californian. I've lived here for five years and when Sept. 11 happened, my apartment was two miles directly north on Greenwich Street. By a fluke of my grandmother's poor health, I was in Bakersfield, Calif. on the morning the bad things happened and I spent a part of the next week on a series of cold Greyhound buses trying to get back home. I know people who died that day and for a week thought other friends had - including a firefighter who happened to have not been able to get back in time to die with the rest of his house.
Everytime I get off at Chambers, I still remember how it smelled for months afterward. It happened even today. I blew my post-9/11 tax refund on a fabulous purse at a store downtown that has since gone out of business. For the rest of my life, when I hear bagpipes, I'll remember that random morning its noise came into my fifth-floor window and I knew what they were for. I still intentionally go out of my way to shop downtown because they need it. When I go into a certain market on 7th Ave., I think of the woman who broke down in tears in the produce section a month after it happened and everyone just knew why. I turn off any radio or TV that thinks it's OK to casually mention the raw emotion of that morning.
I've been in Brooklyn for a year, but I still think of myself as a downtown girl. That's where I go when I need things. When I need to feel things about this city. And I go there a lot. And the thing I need to tell you is that it's changing. The mood has just changed - and in a very affirmative way. I only noticed it last week. But there is finally a sense of renewal. The morbid sadness is finally being replaced by a feeling of respectful remembrance.
I'm writing this now because I spent part of my morning watching the eight finalists for the WTC memorial competition. And the guy presenting the thing said something about how the process itself is part of the healing. And he's so right. There were two of the proposals I liked most (the one with the candles and the one with the individual glass monuments with the life history of each person amid the trees) but I also really liked the way the Japanese guy talked about his plan. I didn't like his physical project as much - but I liked the way he talked about the concepts of healing and spiritual renewal. And I realized the German presenter was right - this is about the process. It's not just which one gets chosen, but the idea of all of us going through the process together.
And later today, WNYC had a story about one group that gave all eight finalists an "F" because none of the plans included the specific element they wanted. And I felt sad for them that they didn't understand the process of the healing and wondered if their support group was more about re-enforcing whichever early stage of the grieving process they all felt comfort in.
The monument, of course, will never please everyone because too many people feel it as solely a private grief rather than a public - let alone national or international - grief. But I find it amazing to see and feel the changes that have gone on down there and in the surrounding downtown area recently. It is hopeful, finally. But respectful.
Only last week the fire station re-opened across the street from the site and in just a few days the PATH station to Jersey will re-open. The old WTC farmer's market has re-opened kitty-corner from the site with many of its old vendors. There's probably something clever for me to say about the circle of life and renewal, but this is only a draft.
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
'LAX' in Acronym Only
Matt Welch has some actual facts regarding the questionable deportation of foreign journalists at LAX, and he was kind enough to leave them in the comments section below.
NY Pictures
I spent most of the day in Midtown and around Ground Zero. Go check out the pictures at my Buzznet account. Some are quite nice. There's even one of me.
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Aussie Editor Sent Home
Apparently the 30-year-old editor of one of Australia's leading women's magazine was stopped at the Los Angeles airport, strip-searched, had her lip liner confiscated, was paraded through the airport handcuffed and then shipped back to Sydney after 12 or 15 hours. Apparently she was coming over to interview Olivia Newton-John about breast cancer but the U.S. no longer would accept the visa she's used eight times in the past. Nice going, guys. (via That Happy Feeling.)
Then again, maybe it was just the fashion police trying to prevent her smuggling this hat into the country.
Monday, November 17, 2003
Remember When We Were Communists?
Today is November 17th, the 14th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution that led to the end of communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Doug translates a story from Mlada Fronta, a Czech paper, that is a series of man-on-the street interviews with 14-year-olds describing the anniversary. Among the gems:
Students stood up for their schools. But where was it? In Prague maybe? I don't know any other details. The jingling of keys on Václavské náměstí? I don't know about that. But then Havel became President. We haven't had that in history yet, and in our family we don't talk about it. It's enough for them that it's a holiday and we're going to our grandmother's.
'Brooklyn Kicks Manhattan's Butt'
Over the weekend I picked up a copy of the free weekly called The Park Slope Paper. Inside, there is coverage of the Municipal Art Society's Manhattan vs. Brooklyn debate held Oct. 7. Did I mention this paper is a weekly?
You may recall I skipped the $45 event and instead came up with my own comparison list. But the belated Brooklyn newspaper story backs up my theory that Brooklyn people really despise Manhattan and Manhattan people kind of shrug off their hate, not understanding why people would bother coming out here except for lower rents.
Celebrity chef Mario Batali acknowledged he's only been to Brooklyn twice, and said he didn't know Brooklyn had it's own Fifth Avenue, let alone notable restaurants there.
And as for the bitter Brooklynites: "I chose to live in Brooklyn. It's alive, and not resting on its laurels like the theme park that is Manhattan. Brooklyn is still happening. Manhattan stopped happening in 1934!" says Kurt Anderson, who is identified as a radio host for NPR, rather than co-founder of SPY magazine.
And from Brooklyn Brewery owner Steve Hindy: "It's true many famous Brooklynites move to Manhattan, but their essential creativity happens in Brooklyn. When they move to Manhattan, they become tiresome windbags."
Never Innocent Again
Not only does the new Associated Press Stylebook include "blog" but it also gets rid of one of the rules I most despised. For years, it has mandated that reporters covering a trial declare someone is "innocent" rather than "not guilty." I always found their logic stupid. From a column in Metro West Daily on the new Stylebook:
The word "innocent" was deleted because it was a throwback to days long ago when the printing process left open the chance that the "not" in "not guilty" might -- literally -- fall off the printer's type tray. Some wise scribe figured it was safer to write that a person was "innocent" and not risk turning a "not guilty" verdict into a conviction.
This new edition of the Stylebook recognizes that computers replaced the old lead printing type decades ago. Now we can finally report what a jury decides: A defendant is found "guilty" or "not guilty." Whether the defendant is truly "innocent" is best left between a man and his maker.
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Waiter, There's Ashes in Me Beer
Something about a rugby match this coming weekend between England and Australia. My husband is hoping to get in touch with his inner Brit and watch this event, despite the fact it will air at 4 a.m. Saturday or something like that. Any other New Yorkers know if some pub will be airing the game?
Mostly New York Weekend Links
A few more items I found interesting this week:
Time Out New York has an absolutely hilarious cover feature this week on what it takes to be a True New Yorker. They list 118 things you've probably done - from "carry on a conversation with a cabbie without understanding a word he says" to "walk your parents through the Gay Pride Parade without mentioning anything out of the ordinary is happening." A few come in pairs: "Make a joke about all the kitchens on East 6th Street's Indian Row being connected;" and "roll your eyes whenever someone makes that joke about the kitchens on East 6th Street." Also: "Look out your window and - whoa! - see your neighbors having sex" paired with "stop caring that your neighbors can see you in action." They also know you're devised a subway escape plan: "For instance, in case you ever happen to drop your wallet onto the tracks, you've already gauged how much time it would take to jump down and get back up before a train will arrive."
The median rent for a rent-stabilized studio in Manhattan is $850 while the median price for a Manhattan studio at market rate is $1,750, according to the NY Times. More than a million apartments in the city are still rent-controlled. They come out only when the rent-controlled rate hits $2,000 or if the city-wide vacancy rate hits 5 percent (now at 2.94 percent.) Between 1999 and 2002, only 3 percent (at least 32,000 units) were removed from rent control. Where we lived in the Village, ours was just under $2,000 for a fifth-floor walk-up that masqueraded as a two-bedroom. However, a really nice guy a few floors below us (who owned his own place in the Hamptons) was paying around $100 a month for a place 50 percent bigger than ours.
The day after I posted a passage from "Radio" about the significant amount of editing that goes into a "This American Life" show, WNYC's "On the Media" did a segment on the ethics of cleaning up quotes for radio. You can listen to the show online, or wait a few days and they'll post the transcript here.
Upper East Siders prove themselves to be as smart as folks who move into a trailer park at the end of an airport runway and then complain about the noise. From the NY Times story on the Met Museum's plan to add more underground storage space: "Opponents fear that the expansion will draw more visitors to the museum and add to the double-parked taxis, idling school buses and carnival of buskers, opera singers and boom boxes in front of the building."
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer - famous for going after telemarketers and Wall Street hooligans - plans to run for NY governor in '06.
Darwin should be happy - subway surfing's back in fashion. I find it hard to believe, but the NY Times reports these numbers: "In 1997, there were 188 incidents of people riding atop, astride or between subway cars, a transit spokesman said. In 2002, the number was down to 86, and as of last month stands at 58 incidents for 2003."
Forgotten New York has a new feature up today about the murals of Williamsburg.
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