- activism
- anarchy
- apocalypse
- Athens
- bicycles
- birds
- books
- Buenos Aires
- clubs
- coffee
- couple's dancing
- Dante's Inferno
- demons
- drunks
- Dyckman
- economy
- film
- fire hydrants
- graffiti
- Greek diners
- gross factor
- Havana
- idling
- immigration
- Inwood
- Ioannina
- it's a man's world
- Miami
- New York City
- Nova Speaks
- Ode to...
- odyssey essentials
- olympians
- on the subway
- Outer Space
- paradise
- police
- press
- prostitution
- public space
- restaurants
- Rio
- salsa
- school
- Sicily
- sidewalks
- Sinvergüenza
- star trek
- star wars
- stores
- street cookie
- taxis
- trees
- twilight zone
- urban confessions
- Washington Heights
- zipcar
Nova Speaks
Hi friends of Our Urban Odyssey,
A lot for you to choose from this past week in odyssey entertainment…
Starting in our hometown, NYC, we had some exciting phenomenon and reflection. We started by giving ode to the hot dog guy. Surely you have your equivalent. As I learned of its legions, Street Cookie made its NYC arrival via interdimensional travel through a concrete sidewalk on Spring Street. Divafish found two things in Harlem, someone’s shopping list and a poster warning against gentrification. C-mixto and I wonder, “What the f*ck happened to finger painting?” as we pass the Color Spectrum Dogs made by kindergarteners at Mandell private school. In a desperate plea, I ask, Where are you, salsa? after my studio closes for a week. My methadone is celebrating Memorial Day with in the park, surrounded by blasting salsa for six hours straight, making the gentrifiers wish more and more that the PRs would just continue to die out from liver disease and leave them apartments (for real, it’s true). Finally, in Strip Job, we ponder about all those lonely poles in the city with… ha, got you going there… abandoned bikes. Nova Speaks – continue reading …
“Harlem Homeland Security”
This Urban Odyssey find was submitted by Divafish, discovered two years ago in Harlem. It’s just a find, not an advocacy of opinion, so don’t get all up in arms. Gentrification is not an easy subject or phenomenon. 
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Dante’s Inferno, Ninth Circle: Archie
Archie was the fluff of my comic book library. The girl in me came out to balance my X-men, Excalibur, etc…
So word has it that Archie will propose to Veronica. And I say screw you Archie of Riverdale.
Let this be slightly off topic, but the fires of Dante’s called for Archie to be thrown in. Now this is just media hype- Archie’s gang will always be timeless, the gals forever stuck as sixteen year olds with some mean C cups and seventies fashion swagger. This might not all play out. But Archie, here is your life if you marry Veronica in my little crystal ball: you will be p*ssy-whipped with a father-in-law complex, you will scramble to make up for the money and class you will never have, Veronica will be f*cking her yacht boys as she vacations on her own in the Mediterranean. Betty will be scarred by lost love, will realize the time she wasted in chasing a man (never do this. never) and move on as a fierce woman who you’ll lust, long and lament for as you realize that you were bedazzled by an ice-queen.
Now I’m not hating on Veronica. She has sense to play the field. But she lost points by being a hater on Betty. Betty, get over carrot-top. Let it be stated how couples who the entire world rallies against sometimes create very beautiful lives that work for them. Archie and Veronica might make a lovely couple. One never knows. But…
Freeze with your neck up to ice in the ninth circle, Archie.
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Where are you, salsa?
Pass the methadone… there’s no salsa social for me this week. Studio is closed. Lord help me, I’ll try to listen to bachata instead to substitute, but I don’t know, I think this might be worse. I might get desperate and hit the streets looking for a good time. I’ve been working the phones, trying to get more instruction time; one teacher is not enough for me anymore…
What do real salseros and salseras do? Not go to socials. They camp in parks with their boom boxes (and back up boom boxes for when the batteries die), congas, cowbells, marakas, and bongos and blast salsa music while playing along like a band. If you don’t have an instrument, you clap you hands like the clave. You tap your feet to the beat with your sneakers with the PR flag etched into each side. See picture below. Where are you, salsa? – continue reading …
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Strip job
Ever wonder the story behind those bike skeletons you see locked to various poles throughout the city? Sometimes it’s just one wheel missing and you think, okay, someone wanted a wheel… Sometimes it’s two, and you think, okay, they wanted a pair… then you start seeing parts missing that sort of make you cringe because it’s like complete organ snatching–thieves not just after your wallet for a buck, but your PARTS. So how does this happen? Little by little because a bike is abandoned, like picking meat off a chicken bone? Or one swift strip job? And do the owners just forget their bike was there, or see the skeleton and forgo a burial? I just wonder. You?
Buenos Aires, 2008Urban Trees Series
Trees make or break a city block. So let’s give some respect to urban trees.
Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires
2008
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What the F*ck Happened to Finger Painting?
Strolling around my home turf, I passed by the proliferation of what used to be a small private nursery school nestled in a humble brownstone on the Upper West Side, but is now an entire private elementary school educational system with sites in multiple brownstones and new condo lobbies. Mandell Nursery School was my brief stunt in private school, a source of snobbery my siblings would tell you I’ve carried ever since, even though my entire miseducation was spent in the public school system. (as a side note, someone from Mandell school deserves a place in Dante’s Inferno. I have a good memory).
So when C-mixto and I passed by one of their glass lobbies to see some of the arts and crafts tikes do now-a-days, imagine our disbelief when we saw the following exibit made by Kindergarteners, with the following text: What the F*ck Happened to Finger Painting? – continue reading …
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Who dropped their shopping list?
This picture was submitted by Divafish, who spotted this urban odyssey find on 125th Street and Amsterdam. Yours?
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Street Cookie Legions: NYC Arrival
Watchers–check this shit out. Street Cookie has manifested itself on a NYC sidewalk pavement. Its NYC incarnation has a more local flavor, and it looks like Street Cookie had a rough night. Interdimensional travel must not be easy.
Cy and I passed this on Spring Street Sunday, tripping us both. He claimed to have witnessed the “drop off”, but really I know it’s Street Cookie’s work. Artist project (do I recall an artist who does this sort of thing?), voodoo or terrorist bomb? These are the three origins I considered as I nervously clicked away to provide you documentation.
Only a day later, when I recalled the doll’s haughty grin, did I realize it’s a legion of Street Cookie.
Watch out!
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