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Where have all the comic stores gone?
What’s a girl-nerd to do? Some people take to booze, some drugs, some a little bit of both, others chocolate… Comic book stores used to offer a paradise of fantasy for those who need a little something more than the life of an urban odyssey. You’d save your allowance, or blow your measly first-job paycheck on X-Men, X-Force and Excalibur, crossing over to DC territory only for a Supergirl or Wonder Woman. Inside the pages of a comic book, bodies are perfect, men are heroes, you can sore through the sky and toast people who are bad. But now… now where are all the comic book stores? Big Apple? All that’s left of you are the markings of of where your bricks were ripped away to give way for the building of a new race of condos on the Upper West Side. Oh, the agony of seeing what is left of you advertised on the streets like a billboard: lines and lines of scratches against the building where you were once nestled, like a trail of scratches from bloodied fingernails.
I suppose the comic book stores have went the way of all small mom and pop shops, the predecessors of the plight of independent bookstores… No, don’t comfort me with the selection at Barnes and Nobles or Borders… I don’t even care for the comic book store near Union Square (if it’s still there) not because I have anything against it… it’s just not my hood.
Ode to the comic book store! A recently rejected-by-a-literary-agent- nerd-girl’s strip club, drug den, and escapist paradise.
How to train your tike to be a gentrifier
Wars for pre-school applications that happen pre-conception, helicopter parenting, entitlement lessons via a no-spanking-it’s-okay-to-run-amock-everywhere-and-throw-a-tantrum-policy… I should not have been surprised to see this little playset at a children’s store in the Upper West Side. Sorry, but I don’t think the Sushi Set is a lesson in culture. Anywhere else, yes. Learn, little tike, learn, after your lesson on The Kindergarten Spectrum Dogs what it is you are supposed to do when you live on the Upper West Side.
Ideas for the Greek Markets
So Greece is in a state of unrest… What are some brilliant ways we can fix this problem?
- Start marketing frappes like you do Fage yogurt. This is an untapped market
that can rival the Dunkin Donuts brand. - Become lifestyle consultants on how the rest of us can: drink crazy amounts of instant coffee, smoke like chimneys, lather ourselves with olive oil (not sun screen) and soak up the sun, f*ck like porn stars, argue ’til the veins pop out of our heads and still have one of the highest life-expectancies in the world. Here are some no-brainers: siestas are good. Loving life is good. Sun and sea… eh we all can’t have it all but it helps.
- Become the next eco-gurus of Europe instead of one of its more infamous offenders.
- Reclaim your agricultural roots, feed yourself first and then export what you want.
- Keep working on your beautiful, neglected wines.
- Forget credit cards, the stock-market and all other non-tangible nonsense.
- Become a national consultant agency for how to strike, community organize and instill populations with a sense of advocacy.
If Cuba had a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade…
Once again I was not able to get myself out of bed at the crack of dawn, shuffle to the packed train, and join the mass of out-of-towners with their spawn in tow and witness the spectacle of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I’m not hating on the parade. My childhood memories are filled of being dragged out of bed to go to it (after staying up late having visited the balloon set up the night before). Really I just wanted to go because it meant a container of hot chocolate and perhaps a visit to a Greek diner for some scrambled eggs. And we didn’t go to the musical orgy on 34th street- we kept it real as a parade should be enjoyed: people passing you, you cheer hooray! and then you walk away.
That said I watched some of it on TV this morning, not with child wonder eyes but as an anthropologist. We all know this, but either this year’s new balloon additions drove the message home more or things are getting worse: it is a parade of raw Dinsey packaged consumerism! All I got from watching that parade was what movie is coming out soon (Smurfs, 2011), whose CD is coming out next (Andrea Bociello Christmas albums and a plug for the opening musical, White Christmas), what retro toys are making a comeback (Care Bears?!) and that Planter’s Peanuts (making a cameo in his Monopoly Man tux) is now being made with sea salt. The recipe Macy’s uses is the same witchcraft Disney utilizes to mesmerize our oh-too-innocent young seeds.
That said, I wondered what a Thanksgiving Day Parade might look like in Cuba:
If Cuba had a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… – continue reading …
Respect the Hustle
If Cuba ever sinks down the cheese path of commercialism, one souvenir to buy will be t-shirts that say, authoritatively, RESPECT THE HUSTLE. Even if an influx of resources suddenly cure the population from the hustle bug of survival, surely it should be commemorated and included in the museum of the revolution. Because if you can trick material objects into longevity like making a 1950 Cheverlot run in 2009 like it’s (sort of) new, if you can sell people fake steaks that are really fried mats or pizza with condom “cheese”, then your ability of hustling a fellow human being with simple words has gotta be good by default.
Hail the hustle in Cuba! Done with a straight face, intelligence and craft, you got to respect it. Recognize and ascertain whether you should accommodate the hustle. How much is it for you to loose this battle? Can you acquiesce without being cheated and everyone’s dignity maintained? If not say, “I respect the Hustle”, then walk away. If acquiescing you have a choice of either remaining a passive participant, or leaning close to the Hustler and whispering with a tilted head and squinted eye, “Asere. Don’t try to hustle me. I got you anyways.”
More to come on some specific hustles.
Pelvic Thrusting Your Message: Gozando en la Habana
No disrespect to Miami as I know there can be some political charge and subtext behind this song… “Celebrating in Havana, Crying in Miami.”
This Reggaeton beat is infectious and it becomes a pulse of the Havana night when you hear it on the Malecon while people celebrate. Poignant to hear this live, blasting with its back turned to the US interest section/Embassy, the mass audience facing the embassy singing towards it.
Havana Cabs
The Havana cabs are a diverse species. Just like other material objects in Cuba, cabs are a wedding of what’s available. You have your standard checkered yellow, George Jetson Cocotaxis, pedicabs held together with some clever salvage craft, and then these… the ones that defy time, science and embargoes… what makes Cuba feel oh so 1950s. More on taxis to come.
Havana Days: The 5 Senses
Note: The Havana entries are evolving reflections of Cuban odysseys. They should not be taken singularly… meaning they should not be taken as a generalized finality of experience. They should be viewed as a part of a continuum of experience, which includes reaction and ongoing reflection.
Arrival.
Sight
Rain. Shit and slime covered cobblestones. Oily green and brown pools of fetid water. Cracked crumbling roads, decaying buildings. Urban murals that are shrines to the orishas.
Sounds
Voices, singers, ping pong ball hit back and forth. Man coughing up his morning phlegm. Kids going to school. Motors. First edition ever 1980s home printer sound (prints with the sound of a laser gun on the paper with perforated sides). Rustling plants in wind by barred windows. Rain drops, metal clang of window chain knocking against the wood door shutters. I keep getting up to answer a wind ghost that isn’t there. The soft banal voice of the colleague, overridden by the cowbell, cantante, and piano… he’s been here for years but still his voice is overwhelmed by the music.
Smells
Raw sewage,vapors seeping from the stones of road into my room. Mildew walls and streets, dog shit. Never the smell of food.
Trapped with a group who speak a language of science, while all I do is dream the symbols of language. I care more about the movement of the potted plant behind my colleague than his instructions, more about the irony of the music drowning away his voice, and I cheer for it to overwhelm him.
Taste
Canned string beans, spam ham, morro, yucca… Eating is a means to satiate, not pleasure. One of the first food things to import if the embargo is lifted is Goya seasoning (or some simple pepper). Eating is enjoyable in someone’s home.
Touch
The least used sense for me in this trip. My memories of touch are only of hand sanitizers, to erase the memory of touch. Cuba, will you crumble if I touch you? Cuba answers: No, new arrival. I am stronger than the facade of my infrastructure. Touch me and learn.
the other (salsa) shoe
Supposed to be editing my novel, but couldn’t resist this entry (darn yahoo news is distracting). I checked out Tavern on the Green’s Monday salsa night the other week to see if it had an on-2 following. It’s a magical atmosphere (not for on-2 though): dancing in the park at night with Chinese paper lanterns hanging from the tree branches above you like stars… Nice mixed crowd, low entrance fee, etc, etc. But while dancing in the outdoor garden I caught a glimpse of the scene encased in the glass chambers of the restaurant. Different crowd altogether. Then passing the young guy with the top hat who opens the door for you like a butler, I glanced back at the old-world decor of the place, and thought: how bad of a financial state is Tavern on the Green in if they have salsa nights that actually blend into pop club music (my exit cue)? Hate to think that way, but I said to myself how many old fogies are either rolling in their graves or jumping into their graves before schedule because Tavern on the Green hosts this type of younger ethnic crowd, dancing with music that has lots of drums and fewer stringed instruments? then the NY Times runs the story, Tavern on the Green Filing for Chapter 11 (picture from NY Times article). Sorry that I had to wonder about the other shoe dropping, but here it is. That aside, for all I know this event has been going on when times were good too. The timing still struck me.
Ghost School
Walking in East Harlem, I passed what looked like an abandoned school. It looked a bit creepy with it’s boarded up windows. What was most haunting was the school yard with a wild jungle of weeds and vibrant, colorful murals with kid paintings. Among the waste and stillness, the still standing murals leave the impression of lingering children spirits playing in the yard. The murals and the tentacles of plants are the only things of color left to an otherwise bland building. It has a spooky gate, like a warning not to venture in. It is sad, but the murals also give you the impression that the school is ready for a new cycle of birth.
