First, New York City has apparently sped up. I reported a bit ago that New York City was moving one minute faster than the rest of the world. Well, I am now happy to report that according to the same clock, New York is moving two minutes faster than the rest of the world. Go New York!

Secondly, I saw what looked to be a giant fountain of fruit punch in the middle of Times Square. I kid you not. It was tall, squarely phallic and was squirting red liquid out its top, allowing it to flow down its sides. I thought it was a giant Hi-C ad, but as I got closer I saw that it was sectioned off with yellow police tape that said “Dexter” on it. Dexter, for those of you who don’t know, is a Showtime series about a serial killer. This is most definitely the definition of temporary, urban advertising. I can almost guarantee that thing will be gone by tomorrow. Gotta love Times Square.

Also, I told you before about Marc Ecko’s site for the 756 ball. Well, that’s all been decided. It’ll be branded and sent to the Hall. None of us will ever know what it will be like to have a small baseball orbiting our planet. Woe is me.

Many of you, I’m sure, are familiar with Jane Jacobs, and if you’re not, I’ll find it in my heart to forgive you. She stepped into the public eye in the 60’s when she famously battled Robert Moses over the reorganization of the city. Jacobs fought for the city and against what I guess could be called gentrification (though honestly she didn’t fight that, more she fought against the massive changes that gentrification brought along with it - upward mobility is all good, but it doesn’t have to suck the soul from the neighborhood).

Anyway, the Municipal Art Society has a show centered a little bit around her beliefs, around how she saw the city. I haven’t been to it, but from the Metro review, it sounds pretty interesting and I urge you all to go. It will most likely give you a glimpse of different sides of the city and juxtapose the changing elements with the old ones. At least that’s what I’m expecting. I’ll let you know for sure when I see it.

I got this article passed along to me the other day. It asks some people their opinions on the best views in the city as seen from the subway. My personal favorites:

1. Pulling into the Astoria Boulevard stop in Queens on the N or W train and looking west out and over the Triborough bridge. I don’t know what is but I find that view to be so uniquely urban and I love it. I think it’s all the layers of the city and how they work in opposition to how you think they would. You have the subway above ground and the highway going underneath street level when it seems that those two things should be going in the exact opposite direction that they are. Just cool.

2. And though harrowing, I like to go past the stations that are still closed because of 9/11. It’s only happened a few times, but it always bites me to the core. It’s all still down there. The rubble, the cracked tiling. Even some of the corridors on the stations that are operating are still in a little bit of disarray. It’s so much a view, but a reminder, and though hurtful, it is good to see and remember sometime.

The First Amendment in our Bill of Rights gives us the privilege of free speech, assembly, religion, etc (as I’m sure you all know). Freedom of speech has always been a tricky issue. Do you allow Klansmen to clean a highway? Do you allow Neo-Nazi protests? Do you allow buttons that protest school uniforms? Do you allow the president of what many would call a dictatorship to speak at an influential university?

Yesterday, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, spoke at a widely protested session at Columbia University. My boss, a CLS (Columbia Law School for those not in the know) alum was outraged. Four people I rode up with in the elevator thought he should be able to speak and one even believed he should be let down to Ground Zero (I didn’t stay in the elevator long enough to hear what the others said). I’m not sure how I feel about all of this. On the one hand, I absolutely believe he should be able to speak if invited. On the other, I never would have thought to invite him. That’s the thing I’m unsure about. What did Columbia hope to accomplish with this invitation? Ahmadinejad was predictably evasive in his answers to questions and I doubt students walked away with any insight into his international ideals (at least none that they would not have been able to find in his various other speeches). The speech might have been better off as a PR lecture in how to avoid direct answers to pressing questions.

In the end, he spoke, people listened, people protested, people counter-protested, and I went about my day as normal, watched some Monday Night Football, some Heroes, Weeds, and Californication (do you see what they did there?) and slept easily knowing that the next day I could read all about the speech in the Times.

Take off your sunglasses when on the subway. It does not make sense. You are not outside. You cannot even make the “I wear my sunglasses (or stunnaglasses) at night” argument because it is not night. Just take them off. The florescent lights are not that bright. You are not even above ground. You are most likely taking at least a ten minute trip. You do not need sunglasses.

I am so confused.

NOTE on a note: Many of these people may not, in fact, be actual New Yorkers, but this note is to them anyway.

No explanation necessary just go and you will thank me later. Seriously.

Riding on the subway various times over the weekend, I noticed some graffiti here and there (odd I know).  Now some graffiti is just tags and the likes, some is motivational statements De La Vega style, and some are pushing for certain causes or ideas.  It seems to me that the people who are pushing for certain causes and ideas must be mostly zealots - I’d guess religious from the tone of the messages I saw.  Example - one an ad for safe sex (you’ve probably seen them saying things like “I want a child some day but now I use birthday control) had the words “WHORE” written on it with an arrow pointing to the woman featured in the ad.  Another time, written in whiteout on the “Please” sign asking you not to litter or whatever, there was a big “PRAY” written - though later I saw a “PRAY” scratched somewhere else so that could be someone’s tag that they enjoy placing somewhat ironically.  Point being that the zealots are out there spreading their intellectual seed (WHORE), which makes absolute sense.  It is easier to argue for people to believe in something than to not believe.  Preaching apathy is harder than preaching belief.

Also, is there any type of zealot other than religious?  There can be any type of zealot, right?  But do you ever really hear of it used out of the context of religion?

For once, I’m interestingly struck with a loss of words perhaps because there are no words needed, much of what I would say I suppose is what everyone is thinking. It can all be summed up in three choice words: Senator sues God.

While I was waiting for the train this morning, I was struck by something that reminded me of when the sublime Mr. Wolfcastle was filming Radioactive Man the movie in Springfield and Millhouse playing Fallout Boy was not there to save him. Where am I going with this? I don’t know, but anyway, I was struck by two facts about the PA system in the New York subway system. 1. It is outrageously vauge and 2. many times you can barely hear it.

To address one, naturally, first, today I heard the ever popular “Because of an earlier incident” and then some change in service. I feel like they use this “Earlier incident” excuse for everything. What incident? You don’t know. I seriously believe that they would use this to describe a nuclear bomb and in the same breathe use it to describe an elderly gentleman who needed help getting off the train. It really wouldn’t matter. It’s the same as “because of necessary track work” that is so necessary that it does not in fact need trains to stop running on the tracks, but just needs a different train to run on the tracks (the switching of the 1 and the 2,3 service on weekends that makes absolutely no sense. I feel like there should be more transparency with this.

And, two, the noise. This is unavoidable and there’s no real solution but it does seem somewhat worrisome. Think about it, you could be getting important news over the PA system and suddenly an express comes rumbling by, effectively blocking out all possibility of hearing anything. There’s no real sensible solution to this except maybe STOP THE ANNOUNCEMENT AND WAIT FOR THE TRAIN TO PASS. I just thought of that now. But yeah, it’s tough. Trains make noise. Unavoidable fact.

On that note I have a message to people who cover there ears when a train goes by: this is New York. Once again, trains make noise. If you thought that you were going to be able to save any of your five senses living here, think again and move to the suburbs.

I realize that this means I have now taken the last three posts to talk about Gossip Girl, but…well…actually I have no excuse, but I thought I should formulate my opinions a bit more.

All in all, yes, the show is terrible. Does it have some redeeming moments? Yes. Especially towards the end of the episode when it stopped whining like a little bitch. By that I mean when it stopped essentially insisting that it’s characters and plot were dramatic and instead let things play out a little on their own. It’ll be interesting to see if they can keep that up.

The thing that really kills the show though, and I can’t emphasize this enough, is the voice over and the concept behind it. It’s like okay I know that gossip is huge in high schools and especially in private schools and especially in New York, but the idea that there’s some internet site that EVERYONE is reading that contains every little detail about these people’s lives is ridiculous. I mean, maybe something has changed since my time in a New York City private school, but I don’t think it’s changed that much. I mean we were self-involved and everything, but not THAT self-involved. Seriously, if I have to hear that overly important voice one more time, then it’s death to Smoochy. (more…)