Medieval Faire Photos

There were dragons. There were pirates. There were knights in chain mail and shining armor. There were men in kilts, ladies in medieval gowns. Minstrels sang, blacksmiths plied their trade, and craft vendors of all descriptions hawked their wares. It rained when we first arrived and again when we were leaving, but for several hours it cleared and we were able to enjoy the Ft. Tryon Park medieval faire.

We saw jousting and swordplay but what I liked best were the costumes. The Society for Creative Anachronism was there and we had a nice chat with them. Some people fashioned their own medieval costumes, like the man who painstakingly linked 16,000 aluminum rings together to make a suit of chain mail. There were people of all ages, from a 3 month old baby in a tiny jester's cap, to an elderly lady dressed like a queen.

There were enough dragons, carved, painted and tee shirts, to feed Jason's appetite. There was an artist who did "butt sketches" of people, seen from the back. I saw some fun tee shirts:

Come to the dark side, we have cookies

I sacked Isengard and all I got was this lousy tee shirt

Ninjas? Pirates? A Jedi fears not these things

The food was plentiful. For $10 we received huge portions of chicken breast, and two side dishes plus a huge piece of bread. The chicken was actually way too much to eat in one sitting. I ate about half, saved some between the bread (folded in half it still was big enough for a sandwich), and threw some of it out. I don't like to waste food but I wasn't going to stuff myself silly either.

We met a very young Robin Hood. He's exactly the guy we need now, with the mess our economy is in. Too bad he wasn't old enough to run for President!

Years ago I used to attend the Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo, New York. This event was free whereas the fair in Tuxedo is pretty expensive. Yet I didn't see that much of a difference, which made this a terrific value. Now that we've discovered it I'll make it a point to come back next year.

What a train wreck!

No, I'm not talking about a subway collision. I'm talking about Shattered Dreams, the book we are going to discuss at the next BHC book club meeting.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

It's about Irene Spencer, a woman who grew up in a polygamist cult right here in the United States. She was brainwashed into believing in "The Principle" as the most important of God's commandments: to be polygamous and bear as many children as possible. The rationale behind this seemed to be that the man who creates a huge family with 7 or more wives will be some sort of mini-god in the afterlife and will rule over some other planet, with his wives and children exalted along with him. Those who don't live the polygamous life, women that is, can't be pulled through the veil by their husbands, so they end up as "angels," lonely forever in eternity.

Using this as a justification, the children were indoctrinated to believe they must live in a polygamous marriage. And Irene followed the rules even though she did not agree, and was made miserable by "doing God's will." She ended up in a polygamous marriage of over 7 wives, more than 50 children altogether fathered by one man, Verlan LeBaron. Not only did she suffer the pangs of jealousy and loneliness (which these cultists claimed was a sin), she also endured back breaking work raising her own 13 children and often taking care of the other kids by other wives.

Because no one man can possibly support such a family on an ordinary salary, and Verlan was no Trump or Rockefeller, Irene and her c0-wives endured terrible poverty. They lived in places like Mexico and Nicaragua to avoid detection in the U.S. which enforces anti-polygamy laws more stringently. Often they lived without running water, without indoor toilets, in incomplete houses or even in refurbished chicken coops.

Even with the obvious suffering and the patent absurdity of trying to live this lifestyle and give one's children adequate love and attention, not to mention getting love and attention from one man who rotates his schedule to spend time with each wife, Irene was expected to put a happy face on it and pretend in public that she was thrilled to be living in lonely, degraded squalor for the sake of celestial glory.

Although she argued and tried to fight back as the humiliations grew worse and worse, Irene never quite got up the gumption to walk away permanently from the train wreck of a polygamous life. And here's where I am afraid I have to lose a bit of sympathy for her and begin blaming the victim.

If no one in her life had encouraged her to think outside the cage, I'd have to concede that her brainwashing was so complete that it might absolve her of the responsibility to take control of her own life. But that was not the case, and here's where I just don't get it. Her mother was made miserable in polygamy, and encouraged Irene to break away from it. At 15, Irene had a boyfriend named Glen, a man in his 20's, who loved her dearly and wanted to marry her -- monogamously.

Despite her mother's urging and Glen's adoration, she fell right into the trap. Personally, I think she dug her own grave and should have gone with Glen when she had the chance. Yes, her sister and brother in law (later her husband) intervened, but she had no backbone and no guts. She walked out of Glen's house where she'd been holding his hand and planning their future, and then meekly and stupidly got into the car with Verlan and Charlotte (his first wife and her half-sister), and ended up marrying Verlan.

Throughout all the deprivation, loneliness and poverty, as the humiliations mounted each time Verlan put another woman before her, Irene didn't gather up the gumption to walk away. She finally told Verlan she was going to leave him. But was she, really? We'll never know, because Verlan was killed in a car accident. If this wasn't a memoir, I'd call that a cheap use of Deus ex Machina to help her escape when she didn't have the courage to do it herself.

Oh, yes, part of her excuse was that in her cult, a wife was free to leave but the husband "owned" the children. What nonsense. Other than Charlotte, none of the other wives were legally married to Verlan. They could have picked themselves up and taken the children with them, and the "husband" would have had no legal recourse whatever. In fact this legalism was exploited by these families, who got the mothers and their children on welfare claiming to be "single mothers" who somehow got pregnant again every year.

And then when Verlan died, Irene went through intense mourning for "a wonderful human being." What wonderful human being, may I ask? Oh, he was brainwashed too, but in his case the brainwashing worked in his favor. But this was the man who would only make love to her once a month and not when she was pregnant or after menopause (though she was able to beg enough to get him to break with his principles just a little bit). This was the man who forced her to "give away" subsequent brides to him in the polygamous marriage ceremony. He even took her wedding ring and put it on the finger of one of his subsequent wives. So her deep mourning for him just doesn't ring true. He wasn't in her life often enough to warrant it, even though he was her "husband" for well over 20 years.

Irene escaped the misery of polygamy by an accident, and she later became a born again Christian. She is now in a monogamous marriage that she never would have had if her "husband" had lived. I'm glad she is living the life she always wanted and receiving all of one man's love, but she is no heroine. Yes, she wrote her memoir and she speaks out about the realities of polygamy but I would respect her a lot more if she had stiffened her spine all those years ago and married her first love.

September 11th

I had to wait a few days before approaching this subject. Every year it is like pulling a bandaid off a wound that hasn't fully healed, and it wells up and bleeds again.

People were going about their business. I went to HMI and did some volunteer data entry. I tried to put on the streaming video of the memorial ceremony but the computer's speakers weren't on and I couldn't figure out how to turn them on. So I gave it up.

After the volunteering, I ate lunch out, and then walked to Union Square, where I listened to a few minutes of the September Concert, an effort to fill the skies with music every September 11th. The music was pleasant but I didn't feel satisfied with that. Somehow the symbolic gestures just aren't reaching me the way they once might have. I remember people creating paper cranes for peace, and wondering back then just what effect on the real world this could possibly have.

September 11, 2001 was one of those days that stands out in my mind forever, not unlike the day JFK was shot a month before my 9th birthday. When it all actually happened I was sleeping. It was Jason's fourth day back at school after being homeschooled for four years. I was getting him accustomed to walking or taking the train to school by himself. So that morning I walked him halfway, and then returned home. I had a brief phone conversation and by 8:30 AM I lay down to take a morning nap.

While I was sleeping, the world changed forever. I had a dream while I was asleep, and I believe it had to do with the attack on the World Trade Center.

September 11th is also the anniversary of my Mom's death in 1995. I'd never had a visitation from her on the anniversary of her death, but this time she appeared in my dream, standing up and walking on her own without a cane or walker. She looked much younger than the almost-79 years she had accumulated at the time of her death, and she was cheerful and smiling. She wore a hot pink tunic and pants outfit she bought in the 1970's, that I still have today. Also in the dream, she hugged and kissed me, which had never happened before. I felt that she was telling me she was "in the pink," and that everything was fine.

But at a few minutes before 11, I was startled awake by the telephone. Bruce frantically shouted at me not to go near lower Manhattan. I thought he was going to say there was a big delay on the subways. Instead he said, "The United States is at war! The World Trade Center is down!"

I couldn't even take that in. "What do you mean the World Trade Center is down? How can it be down?"

After I hung up the phone I put on the radio and heard the whole horror story. It was mind boggling. Because the Twin Towers had the major TV antenna atop one of them, we could only get reception on one channel. Over and over I watched the airplanes crash into the towers and the towers bend over like limp spaghetti and collapse in flames. Outside, it was preternaturally beautiful, clear blue skies (except in the direction of Manhattan where smoke and haze hung over the horizon), sunshine, gorgeous September warmth. There was an eerie stillness because all air traffic had been halted. At first, they thought there was another plane missing. Or maybe it was Flight 93, and later they found the site where those brave souls took their plane down.

I listened to the radio until it was time to meet Jason at the train station, as we had arranged. Kids from the local high school were standing around joking as if it were an ordinary day. I wondered if they had been told or had any idea of what was going on. If they did, how could they stand there and joke?

When Jason arrived, he clearly knew the score. "The trains aren't running," he told me.

"They're not running into or out of Manhattan. But they are traveling in Brooklyn."

He told me that they'd notified the students. In fact, earlier in the day I called the school and asked if they were sending students home. The middle school office told me that they were trying to keep the day as normal as possible for the kids but that parents were welcome to pick them up. I'd decided not to alarm Jason further by picking him up. I knew Bruce was safe, though I didn't know how he was going to get home from Long Island City, since his usual route was through Manhattan.

It was primary day. I forget if I'd already voted, but in any case the primary was rescheduled for September 25th.

The shock and anger stayed with me, probably with most New Yorkers, for a long time. We fortunately did not know anyone who died in the attack, so I found myself mourning the buildings even though I knew the loss of life was far more important. Maybe I just couldn't take it in.

I still feel we should hunt down Bin Laden and his cronies. It won't make the world safe, but at least those particular bottom feeders won't be able to harm innocent people again. We belonged to the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture at the time, and I was disgusted by the way many people there turned the anger inward, and directed it at the U.S. and its policies, as if we somehow deserved this. We almost left membership at that time, and in retrospect, maybe that would have been a good thing.

In any case, while life goes on, I do think the scars remain for me and for many of us. What I really want to see them build in the footprint would be a new set of Twin Towers, identical to the first, but fortified so that no airplane attack could bring them down. That would give the terrorists the finger..in fact two of them.

Chosen Forever

A few days ago I finished reading Chosen Forever by Susan Richards. It's her sequel to Chosen by a Horse which I haven't yet read, but sounds like a lovely and touching memoir. In Chosen by a Horse she wrote about Lay Me Down, an abused horse she adopted, and then fell in love with. Her relationship with this sweet mare went a long way towards healing her emotional wounds from a childhood of being ignored and unwanted.

In Chosen Forever Ms. Richards describes her experiences after her first book is published, when she goes on a book tour that tries her courage and brings her back into contact with old friends and family. She's also "chosen" once again by a confident older man who knows what he wants the moment he sees her. Ironically, she lives in a house he once owned, and she remembered him as being arrogant at the closing.

But she realizes that what looked like arrogance is confidence and belief in himself, two attributes she very much lacks throughout most of this memoir. Towards the end, though, she begins to relax and not be so frightened of reading before an audience, or worse yet, reading to an empty room.

And the man who has chosen her finally wins her over, and at last, she marries him. It's a happy, almost a Cinderella ending, and it is all because of Lay Me Down, the mare who chose Ms. Richards. One serendipitous event leads to another, and finally, leads to happiness.

One anecdote that stands out in the story is the episode where Ms. Richards is suddenly visited by six men, when ordinarily she hardly ever has visitors. They comment about the horses being in danger on the ice of her pond, and just after they say this, a horse she is boarding walks out onto the ice and falls through. Then the men rush out onto the ice and rescue the horse, saving her life.

The message she got from this was that she would receive what she needed when she needed it, and that people would be there for her. This was an important message that went to the core of her insecurities.

It's a good book, though at times I felt she was whining a bit about her tough childhood and her anxiety level when she had to read her work aloud. Now I'd like to read Chosen by a Horse and see if it measures up.

Sub-Prime Sublime

This year, Circus Amok brought us the tale of "Sub-Prime Sublime," which began with poor little Dorothy clicking her sneakered heels together and reciting, "There's no place like home," over and over, but she couldn't seem to make the magic work. Glinda explained to her that she has no home, and Dorothy wailed aloud as Glinda told her that her landlord's house was foreclosed, and therefore, Dorothy the renter was out in the cold too.

The Liberty Sisters, Sibyl Liberty, Statue of Liberty and Liberty Belle, invited Dorothy to join them on a quest for a particle accelerator. Various adventures ensued: rich snooty women jumped up in the audience demanding a huge glass tower to live in. Flying zebras danced around the stage, and Harry Potter crossed the Alps on a high wire. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ran for the hills, and we heard a lecture on the history of racist credit exploitation. Dorothy and her friend tried to rob a bank, and a crazy Keystone Kops scene ensued.

There was no yellow brick road, but there was a particle accelerator at the end of the journey, and the spirit of Buckminster Fuller assured us that we would change from manufacturing weaponry to manufacturing livingry (his actual words in some of his writing), and all would be set right.

Circus Amok is always a gas. This was the second year we've seen them. They performed beside Astroland, which was enjoying its very last day before the greedy developers were to shut it down. Pretty ironic.

Last month when I was working at Neighborhood Housing Services I told some of the staff about Circus Amok and suggested they catch this year's show since it is so relevant to their work. I hope someone will. Who knows, they may even invite some of the performers to one of their events!

"Pit Bull in Lipstick"

Now, there's a gorgeous image of Sarah Palin, McCain's pick for his running mate, all right. I can only hope he's succeeded in shooting himself in the foot. Now, if he'd chosen Condi as his running mate, I'd be worried. But this woman is so huge a mistake that the word should be tattooed in inch-high letters across her forehead. The delegates may have been smiling - some of them - but they are far to the right of most Republicans, let alone the rest of us.

There are so many things wrong with this candidacy, it's hard to list them all. What's the big deal about being a hockey Mom? That and a cup of hot cocoa will qualify her to be a VP. If she's qualified, maybe I am too:

1. I stayed home with my son for 14 years and didn't run around seeking office. Where are the "family values" here?

2. My 19-year-old son hasn't impregnated any underage girls, and he's not about to enter a marriage that has a snowball's chance in hell of success. Note, I said "hell," not "Alaska." Apparently Gov. Palin didn't impart those "family values" to her kid very well. And guess what, teaching "abstinence only" sure didn't work. I think we should send that kid a case of condoms.

3. She's under investigation for some interesting and corrupt activities as governor.

4. Her views are to the right of Attila the Hun, but she's been chosen to try and woo the Hillary Clinton supporters away from the Democratic Party. How cynical. McCain must think women have no sense at all, and will vote for a woman, any woman, even a woman who opposes everything Hillary stands for, just to see a female in high office. In short, he thinks we are idiots. I pray we prove him abysmally wrong.

And isn't it just special to hear the Republicans scrambling to blow off the embarrassing matter of Bristol Palin's underage pregnancy, by saying it's a family matter? What total hypocrites. Just suppose Obama's daughters were a little older and one of them turned up pregnant. If a major network already called Michelle his "baby mama" instead of his wife, just imagine what they'd be saying if one of his kids was underage, unwed, and pregnant.

No, it is not just a family matter when the 17 year old daughter of a VP nominee becomes pregnant and then is (surely) elbowed into a shotgun wedding with her 18 year old "baby daddy." Not when the grandma-to-be is rabidly anti-abortion, pro-creationism, and thinks the war in Iraq is somehow ordained by God. And, not when other teenagers in less auspicious circumstances might point to her and to Miss Spears as role models. (If they can have a baby at 16 or 17, why can't I?)

And, let's not forget that this tidbit was only revealed because bloggers were speculating that Gov. Palin's 5th child was actually 17-year-old Bristol's out of wedlock child. Otherwise, I'll bet the grand old Republicans would have deep-sixed that information.

Now just let them talk about Obama's lack of experience. At least he's in Congress dealing with federal issues. Palin's been mayor of a town of 6,000 people. I've seen more people sitting on the lawn in Central Park just to hear the Philharmonic. And she's been governor of a state with less than 700,000 people...and some disturbing stuff about her behavior in office is coming out. McCain sure hasn't shown presidential-level judgment with his pick. Contrast that with Obama, who picked a VP with the foreign policy knowledge he's said to lack.

Voters should see through this cynical ploy to divert women away from the Democrats, and kick McCain and Palin's hindquarters straight to the nearest curb.

The Joys of Love

I enjoyed reading Madeleine L'Engle's The Joys of Love as an interesting first novel and period piece. Written in the 1940's when Ms. L'Engle was in her twenties, it describes a young woman whose passion has always been the theater. Now she's on a scholarship, spending the summer as an apprentice to a theater troupe, and her life is about to change.

Liz is in love with Kurt, the wealthy young director, and he pays some attention to her but is maddeningly attentive to other women too. Her friend Ben is clearly in love with her but she doesn't perceive it, is barely aware of him as a man even though she can tell him anything and she greatly values his friendship. She's got a best friend among the apprentices, Jane, and there are various other characters, the obnoxious Dottie, the lazy Bibi, and so on. In the background is Liz's aunt, who disapproves of the theater and is grudgingly providing the $20 a week for Liz's room and board, which is not covered by the scholarship.

The writing, to be expected from a woman who later won a Newbery medal for children's literature, is excellent, but the story seemed quite a bit dated to me, and also not so different from several other stories written at much the same time. I'm thinking of Marjorie Morningstar, the overly long saga of a young woman who believes she's destined to be an actress, but in fact will go on to live an ordinary life, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, where Francie falls madly in love with a man who hid the fact of his marriage in order to seek solace from a woman on his last leave before shipping out to the war, and later falls back upon a young man who is much better for her.

Warning: Spoiler


Similarly, in The Joys of Love, Liz's bubbly crush on Kurt bursts when he lures her to his room and tries to seduce her. She realizes she's being used, and flees. It's Ben who emerges as the suitable and loyal lover. This seemed to be a common "coming of age" theme in the forties. The man who wants sex is the bad guy, and the one who is waiting in the wings, loyal even though he's been overlooked, is the true Mr. Right.

While I felt this was a cliched ending, I did appreciate the writing and the characterizations. It was fascinating to read a book by the young Ms. L'Engle before she really won her writing spurs.

Only a Theory

A few days ago I finished reading Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, by Kenneth R. Miller. With my background in anthropology, the story of human evolution has always fascinated me. In fact, I'd read so many books on it as a child that I already knew the first half of my physical anthropology course in college.


Professor Miller leads us through a thorough, scientific debunking of the "intelligent design" scam. I won't give it the honor of calling it a theory. He demonstrates in a number of ways that evolution is the best explanation for the way life and its systems have developed.

The Intelligent Designers (ID as he calls it) claim that there are structures within the cell that are of irreducible complexity, and couldn't have developed step by step. But he shows that in fact, they may have other uses when they are not fully complete. Also: the process of blood clotting, thought by the ID devotees to require a precious layout of proteins in order to work properly, something that couldn't develop by evolutionary means, actually could, because there are animals that lack some of these proteins and their blood does in fact clot to close a wound.

Professor Miller also shows that we clearly have kinship with the great apes. Chemically it can be shown that whereas our closest relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, have 48 chromosomes, while humans have only 46, it's clear that a pair of chromosomes somehow became fused with another, reducing the number but not the corresponding genetic material. Further, while many other animals can create Vitamin C within their own bodies, humans have lost this ability and have to eat fruits and vegetables that supply this essential nutrient. So have the great apes.

Professor Miller gives the ID notion serious scientific scrutiny as if it were any other scientific theory, and finds it wanting. Rather than produce hard science to prove their point, the ID'ers simply claim that anything they can't explain is the work of "intelligent design," which boils down to a supernatural creator. Furthermore, their own proponents have admitted that they've not found any scientific proof for the idea of intelligent design.

But that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. There have still been school boards trying with varying success to force public schools to teach kids an unproven idea, and arguing for "fairness" as if science depended on fairness rather than hard evidence of who is right and who is wrong. What's more, from the writings Professor Miller has uncovered, the underlying aim is not just to bring religious ideas into the public schools on the evolution issue, but to drive a wedge into the whole idea of rational, scientific research, and bring it down, replacing it with an establishment of religion and a "science that serves Christianity."

How long before school kids would be studying that the Sun and planets revolve around the Earth?

This is an excellent book for humanists and traditional religionists alike to read. Professor Miller also addresses the idea of a grand design in the universe, and finds it not incompatible with evolution. He counts himself a Christian but does not confuse religious beliefs with hard scientific facts. More power to him!

Pig Candy

Pig Candy by Lise Funderburg is a memoir about, "Taking my father south, taking my father home." Somehow just from reading that subtitle, I knew that the father in question was going home to die. I was right. Ms. Funderburg's father George's last years as he slowly succumbs to advanced prostate cancer are the subject of this book. But there's more to it, much more.

It's a book about growing up and being the adult child of a difficult, controlling and demanding father who nonetheless loves his daughters, even though he is highly critical of them. It's a book about being the biracial child of an interracial marriage in America, and about the social codes George grew up under down South. Those codes defined him as "colored" even though he was extremely light-skinned, and defined the way he was treated.

In the tiny town of Monticello, Georgia, George indulges his farmer fancies, buying all sorts of farm equipment, animals and so on. He's donated money for a park to be named after him, and suspects illegal delays in getting it built. His many enthusiasms show him to be a man with a zest for life that's not diminished until a stroke dulls his thinking and flattens his emotions.

The title refers to a special type of pig roast in a "Caja China" that turns the pork and the skin so sweet that it is called "pig candy." This is George's latest enthusiasm as the book opens, and he purchases a Caja China and a large pig with which to celebrate with his family. It represents George's lust for life, even in the face of his terminal illness.

Lise Funderburg brings her father to life again, describes him and the other family members as well as townsfolk they interact with, with a skill that reflects her journalist background. She has a keen sense of place as she conveys the farm and the town of Monticello in great detail. I enjoyed this book and recommend it highly.

Read more about Pig Candy here.

Summer Reading

I've been lazy and haven't written in 2 weeks. So before I get back into real posting, here's my upcoming reading list:

Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, by Kenneth R. Miller. If I take notes, this might be the basis for a future program with the Brooklyn Humanist Community.

Chosen Forever, a memoir by Susan Richards

Pig Candy, a memoir by Lise Funderburg

The Joys of Love, by Madeleine L'Engle, written in 1941 and published posthumously this year. Ms. L'Engle lit up my childhood with her prize-winning Wrinkle in Time, so I'm curious to read this early work of hers that has been a sort of "lost novel" until now.

I'm in the middle of Stephen King's Lisey's Story, in which one of the central characters has been dead two years, but is a "puffickly Huh-uge" presence. (That's one of his expressions).

Earlier this summer I've read a great deal of historical/paranormal romance (Highlanders from other centuries are apparently the hottest, though the deadest hunks in the known universe), and a number of detective thrillers by James Patterson, John Sandford, and the Kellermans. I also read Peony in Love which was also a sort of paranormal love story by Lisa See. A few months back the BHC Book Club discussed Lisa See's more famous Snowflower and the Secret Fan, so I was curious to read another of her novels. Peony in Love wasn't quite as good but it was still quite interesting, and the theme of women's writing and its importance, as well as disastrous failures to communicate, was the same as in Snowflower.

If anyone's read these books please feel free to comment.

Show Them the Money

We're in the middle of a frustrating situation. Jason received a gift certificate last year when he graduated high school. Today we tried to use it to order him some items, and the website is not accepting it.

Gift certificates in general are a mistake. A large percentage of recipients forget about them and never cash them in. Therefore, they are a gift to the store, not to the person. So when we know most of them go unused, why do people buy them instead of just handing over a few crisp greenbacks?

Somewhere people got the idea that giving cash is tacky. It's not a good enough gift. It shows you didn't take the time to think about the person receiving the gift and tailor your purchase to his or her particular personality and interests.

So how is a gift certificate any different? It really isn't. Just because a person likes to read, and you buy a certificate to a bookstore, that doesn't show any deep thought either. Let's face it, cash would work just as well. You can give a gift of cash and say, "Here, buy yourself a book you've been itching to read."

I'm never going to buy a gift certificate again. If I don't have the time or energy to pick up a personalized present, then cash will do just fine. It's the right color, it is always the right size, and best of all, it has no expiration date.

The Angel of Union Square

This morning I attended a 2 hour panel discussion at the Foundation Center, on how to successfully start up a nonprofit organization. Afterwards I went scouting up East 15th Street to look for vanity plates for my other blog, Vain Plates

Union Square was full of produce, cheese, meat, wine, and baked goods stands, for Monday's Greenmarket. I gave a glance but I always end up feeling that everything is just too overpriced. Standing in the midst of all this was a very tall woman dressed as an angel. I have no idea why she was there or what she was supposed to represent. At her feet was a cloth-covered container (for money?) and a large paper rose.

When I got into the subway station I spotted another unusual woman, wearing full makeup but with her head shaved. She wore a "Bald Headed Soprano" tee shirt so I assume she was advertising for a show. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of her. But that's one thing I enjoy about New York City. You never know what you might see.

Sand Sculpture

Today we went to Coney Island to see the Sand Sculpture contest. There wasn't really much. Maybe there were 10-15 sculptures in the sand. There were other mounds, unused, that no one claimed.

If you bought a place in the contest you got a tee shirt that said, Coney Island, Summer of Hope. Well, I wonder just what that is about. I know developers are coming in but I hope they won't turn Coney Island into a boring, homogenized bunch of condos and a strip mall. It's run down, it's somewhat tacky, but that is part of it's charm. I'd like to see it stay the same but that's probably a hope that won't be realized.

Bruce says the problem is, for many years people stayed away and didn't give Coney Island the attention it needed. It had become a bit of a no-man's land, and that's probably what attracted the eyes of the developers. Oh yes, they want it to be entertaining, but they'd probably clean it up, do away with the weirdness and freakiness.

I like the weirdness. I want the Mermaid Parade to go on, and Circus Amok to come visit and put on their zany political performances for years and years to come. So that's my hope this summer.

It's All Happening At the Zoo

We finished up our "staycation" activities on Saturday with a trip to the Bronx Zoo. Here are a few representative photographs. That huge bug is a Madagascar hissing cockroach, which will give you a piece of its mind if you annoy it. When Jason stood close to the docent holding it, the roach jumped onto his shirt. This would have given me a heart attack, but Jason was amused. We are glad it wasn't perturbed with him for tickling one of its cousins and getting it to hiss many years ago at a demo in Prospect Park.

The tiger needs no introduction. It looked fierce and beautiful, everything a big cat should be. The mist up on "Tiger Mountain" was cool and refreshing, too.

I don't know what species of bird that is, but it had a long, snakelike neck when extended. Quite an odd looking little creature. If anyone can identify it, please let me know.

It's hard to get a butterfly to pose. They are forever fluttering their wings. This one obliged long enough for me to snap a photo.

The subway station nearest the Bronx Zoo, East Tremont/West Farms, has a number of stained glass windows illustrating scenes from the Zoo. On the way home, I snapped several photos of them. It's all a part of a memory of a fun day out, even if our feet did get sore traipsing almost the entire length of the zoo and back again.

Staycation

Since July 4th, Bruce has been on a "staycation." We've done these stay-at-home vacations for years because there hasn't always been the money to go away. All of a sudden it has become trendy to vacation at home, because people can't afford to go away with the high fuel costs.

We did some running around at first, trying to grab all the gusto. After the July 4th party at Tony's (see my other blog, Brooklyn Humanist Community) we went to the Paley Institute of Media, which used to be the Museum of TV and Radio. There was a special on the late George Carlin, including his "seven dirty words" routine. He was hilarious, I was sad when I read he died so young. Nowadays seventy-one is young!

We also treated ourselves to some old TV shows like Get Smart, Seinfeld, and the Twilight Zone. In the library, I watched an Outer Limits episode that starred William Shatner, made back in 1964. Two years before "Star Trek," he played in this episode as a space explorer captain whose project was called "Project Vulcan." I wonder if there was any connection between the script writer and Gene Roddenberry who created "Star Trek" two years later.

Sunday we got a late start and wound up going over to the Brooklyn Historical Society. It was not that exciting this time but I did find some of the Vietnam veterans' stories interesting, and there was an exhibit of antique children's books. Some of them were so moralistic, today's kids probably would chuck them right out the window. For all I know, kids in the 19th century may have wanted to as well. There were stories about dreadful fates that befell children who disobeyed, sucked their thumbs, or committed various other heinous sins. You have to hope that impressionable little minds did not have to listen to these as bedtime stories; they are made-to-order nightmares.

But along with the cautionary tales there were some cute alphabet books and easy reading classics, such as "The Swiss Family Robinson" in words of one syllable.

Monday we met Cynthia for lunch and went to the Malibu diner, and afterwards Bruce and I visited the Museum of Sex. I had to see it at least once since it's such an unusual subject for a museum. I found it all very interesting but none of it particularly stimulating. What I came away impressed with was the extensive human imagination that has put so many bells and whistles on something that is a natural function. But we have surrounded it with so many fantasies and artifacts that it becomes something else entirely.

Tuesday we went on a walking tour of Greenwich Village. It was a Big Onion tour, led by a young man who just earned his Ph.D. in history, with a specialty in the history of New York City. So he was able to give us an in-depth talk on the history of Greenwich Village and why the area is so different from the rest of New York City. Community activism, whether by landowners or by civil libertarians and civil rights activists, has shaped the Village, even to the peculiar layout of the streets and the survival of older style buildings that have vanished in most of the rest of the city.

On Wednesday we went into Hoboken, the birthplace of Frank Sinatra, and took ourselves on part of a self-guided walking tour of the town. I got tired about a third of the way into it; there was too much zig zagging back and forth. So we headed over to their historical society before going home. It turned out to be a very tiny museum and only one of the two galleries was open. We saw a history of Hoboken in postcards. I enjoyed reading the little scribbles people wrote on them, little one liners like, "We'll meet you on Wednesday." Before telephones were popular, that's how people sent their "text messages." It's hard to imagine having to wait a few days to hear from someone about a simple meeting.

The docent was very friendly. We were the only visitors to the museum so we had his full attention. We chatted about Frank Sinatra, and about the museums in New York. Bruce invited him to see the Brooklyn Museum, which he'd never visited before.

After that we took a very long walk back to the Path station, and narrowly escaped the pouring rain.

Yesterday, we had to buy a printer because our old one insists on printing on a slant, and we went to the Bowery today and bought new living room lamps. We've had terrible luck with lamps and I hope these will finally turn out to be the ones that will last us for many years. Oddly, before this, the best lamps we had were a pair of used lamps we bought at a yard sale for $15 for the set. Too bad we didn't find a deal like that again.

Tomorrow it's off to the Bronx Zoo if the weather is right, and Sunday we'll probably take it easy. After that Bruce goes back to work on Monday, and our "staycation" will be over.

The Great Debaters

Friday morning before the July 4th party, we watched "The Great Debaters." This movie was based on a true story of a professor at Wiley College in Texas, back in 1935, who inspired his students to form a debating team that wound up taking on Harvard. Because these young people were African-American, this was big news, and the debate made history.

Denzel Washington played the starring role and directed the film. He came across as an intensely dedicated man, determined to lift his students (and the sharecroppers in the town) out of their second-class citizenship. He assembles a team of four, but one young man quits the team because the professor will not answer him as to whether he is a Communist. The three remaining students go on to rack up victory after victory, but the professor's other agenda, union organizing, lands him in jail. By the time the summons to face off with the Harvard debating team comes, he is forced to let his students go on alone, in order not to be imprisoned for jumping bail.

There's a romance between a young brilliant and angry ne'er-do-well and the only female student on the team, while the youngest member, a fourteen-year-old boy who is most profoundly affected by the discrimination and cruelty of the Jim Crow south, breaks out of his shyness to become one of the best debaters of all.

This was a real feel-good, inspiring movie that made me want to give a standing ovation. For those wishing to inspire present day students to hone their debating skills and make the most of their education, visit GreatDebaters.org for more information.

Summer Jobs for Teens

The New York Times reported that summer jobs for teenagers this year are fewer and farther between than they have been in 50 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/business/25teen.html?_r=1&ref=jobs&oref=slogin


Overall, only 1/3 of all teenagers between 16 and 19 years old will find summer jobs this year. That's pretty poor. I know Anthony Weiner is working on getting more federal funding for youth employment programs, but is that going to come through quickly enough to save us from a long, hot summer?


With 2/3 of the kids on the streets, idled, we are at risk for the kinds of trouble kids get into when the weather is unbearably hot and sticky, there's no money in their pockets, and nothing productive to do.


What's the alternative? Well, in New York City, at least there are volunteer opportunities, and plenty of free events. Jason will be taking classes in job hunting and office skills at Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow. He'll also take a math class at his college to prepare for yet one more entrance exam (and here I thought he was exempt from those).

Kids in need of volunteer work (which, by the way, can lead to paid job opportunities once you show them what you can do) can find opportunites at Volunteer Match or at Idealist. The public libraries have programs almost every day, and there are free museums, free book readings, concerts, and lectures. So kids don't have to be out on the street looking for mischief, at least not if they make an effort to find something productive to do.

Still, it's hard on the self-esteem, and reduces opportunities to put paid summer jobs on kids' resumes. The economy is in a mess, true, but there's got to be a way to get kids working.

Incident on the Platform

This afternoon, after volunteering at HMI in the morning and enjoying a lunch of nachos with Cynthia, I arrived on the subway platform at Union Square to witness a disturbing incident. A young man, probably around 30, went into convulsions at the very edge of the platform. He fell over, whacking his head hard against the concrete, and would have rolled onto the tracks if other passengers hadn't grabbed him and pulled him to safety. (He still was not all that far from the edge, though).

Apparently he cut himself when he fell because he was bleeding from somewhere on his head. A few people went upstairs in search of help and came down saying help was on the way. But I didn't see anything. I went upstairs, called 911, and reported the incident to EMS, in hopes they would send an ambulance. I came back to the platform to find one man with a police badge and a walkie talkie hovering over the unconscious man, speaking into it. Then another man in a sort of Transit Authority vest came over and they prevented him from rolling onto the tracks as he tried to turn over (but still not moving him more than a foot or two from the edge).

Meanwhile, probably about 15 minutes had passed and I didn't see any evidence of an amublance. Two more policemen came down, looked the man over, but didn't really do much of anything.

I had to wonder what this unfortunate fellow's chances of survival would have been if he had been dying. Probably not much better than the proverbial snowball in hell. As it was, he might have a concussion or some kind of bleeding on the brain, and precious moments were being lost.

Finally I boarded the train and went home. It's discouraging and disheartening to see how slow the response to this incident was, given that we were only a few minutes away from several hospitals. Someone should have been down there actually doing something for this guy a lot quicker. All I can say is, don't get sick on the subway, darlin'. You may not survive.

A Weekend to Remember

Last weekend was one of those memorable ones. Friday night we went to the Cyclones game in Coney Island. I'd never been to a professional baseball game before and had all kinds of reservations about it since I was never a sports lover. But because this was a minor league game, it was much more "user friendly" and entertaining. Sammy the Seagull did his thing as the official mascot, and there were some entertainments for the little kids (human bowling balls, etc.) in between innings. Also, the stadium was small so we could see what was happening.

It was one of those good, tense games where the Cyclones were behind at first, then pulled into a tie with the Ironbirds, and finally made the winning score at the very end of the 9th inning! Right after that the Coney Island fireworks went off, and we had a perfect view of them from the stadium.

The BHC turned out in force, with 22 in attendance including some family and friends.

Saturday I brought Bruce along to be my "caddy" while I shopped for bargains at the Salvation Army. I actually found 2 summer weight skirts and 3 pairs of summer weight pants, all for $25.95 (tax included). That's the sort of shopping that makes me smile.

Sunday afternoon Jason and I went to the BHC Book Club where we discussed Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven. In certain ways the book reminded me of the old Jimmy Stewart movie, "It's a Wonderful Life." But there the main character was alive. I felt sad that in this book, Eddie had to die before he got a chance to see his life in perspective and realize that although he felt his life was wasted in a dead-end dreary job as a maintenance man at an amusement park, in fact he'd saved the lives of many, many children, and his life had meaning after all.

That's great, but why couldn't he have learned this before he died?

Still, the discussion was excellent and so was the exercise Sheila had us do, where we designed our own idea of Heaven and then put down the names of 10 people we wanted to meet there. For a little while, Heaven was an apartment in Sheepshead Bay.

I'm excited about the upcoming July 4th potluck BBQ. And next week, Bruce will be off from work and we will have a New York City Staycation, the sort of vacation we've had for years in an attempt to be frugal, but is now all the rage because gas prices have skyrocketed so high. I'm making a list of places I've either never seen or haven't seen in ages, to check out while Bruce is home.

Alas, Poor Ayveq

I opened the Bay News today and found a sad eulogy to the "star walrus" of the New York Aquarium, Ayveq.

Just a few days after his offspring celebrated his first birthday weekend, Daddy Ayveq succumbed to some mysterious ailment. Here is a link to the article: http://nyaquarium.com/287230/aq_ayveq

During his years as a Docent at the New York Aquarium, Jason often mentioned Ayveq in less than flattering terms. It seems Ayveq had lustful propensities and did not bother to conceal them. Apparently, he was unconcerned about offending public sensibilities. Jason also complained of Ayveq's ungentlemanly attentions to the females in the tank. To top it all off, if Ayveq spotted a Docent in his or her dark green uniform shirt, he would swim after the Docent as far as his tank would allow him.

Jason complained of this to our friend Tony, who found it so humorous that he dubbed Ayveq "Iggy," and teased Jason about Ayveq just about every time they spoke to each other. Jason began calling Tony the "Igman" while Tony dubbed Jason the "Igster."

Jason was not the only one to notice Ayveq's habits, and "Going Coastal" did an article on Ayveq on that very subject, not long after "little" 115-lb. Akituusaq was born. Here's the link to that article, titled "Walrus Dad Still a Self-Lover."

http://goingcoastal.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/walrus-dad-still-a-self-lover/

When Baby Akituusaq was born last June, I pointed out that despite Ayveq being a lewd, crude, rude dude (at least in Jason's eyes), his quite natural behavior had paid off. Ayveq became the father of the first baby walrus born at the New York Aquarium, and one of the few baby walruses to survive in captivity.

Ayveq was a great public attraction and he seemed to know it. I'm sure if he could speak, he would have proudly proclaimed, "I am THE walrus!" In fact, that's exactly what his name meant.

Kudos to the Aquarium staffers who worked hard to try to save Ayveq in his final illness. I'm sure he would have thanked them from the bottom of his heart.