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A couple was having a very public fight, first in a restaurant (asked to leave), then up and down the streets, then in a bus (kicked out). Nobody probably knew what the heck was going on, because no-one probably understood the language. Agent Nova did, and between the man randomly drooling in between rants, he was in some sort of hot water that was going to cost him money he did not have. All of a sudden (either fed up with his stubbornness, his inebriation, his drugged up mind, his wrath) the woman takes his brand new suitcase and dumps it in the garbage and storms away. Seeing the perfectly fine looking suitcase dumped in there, handle extended out, would have provoked a  “If you see something, say something” reflex in many a New Yorker who hadn’t seen the fight. I started wondering what was in the suitcase. Now I was in Pulp Fiction.

Eventually, they came back for the suitcase, but it was a 15 minute gamble; one person witnessing the spectacle already had their eyes on the can.

It was a very strange story to play out on the streets- the man was from another era and another continent, the woman too. They were so misplaced. And the suitcase looked so strange sitting alone in the garbage. I suppose it isn’t much of a surprise that Random Sh*t in an Urban Garbage usually has a Random Story behind it.

Other Random Sh*t in the Urban Garbage?

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Manhattan Avenue, NYC September 2010

Believe I found the nesting ground for Street Cookies. Or a major portal for them in NYC. Or perhaps this is the portal for Puerto Rican Street Cookies.

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Is this a growing technique of Parks and Rec?

Is this is a particular species of green?

Are people laying in these areas?

Have the aliens landed in Inwood? Is the grass shiny from the metal rub of a spaceship bottom?

Theories, please….

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Someone tell me why this is on the building of the US Department of Agriculture (I am pretty sure it was that one, I know it was a federal building…. Was it the treasury?)

Star that helps guide the farmers in their crop (Bio-dynamic farming?)

Ode to Venus?

Ode to the Masons?

Oh a Mason mark?

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• The Syfy (Scifi) channel or some channel was showing back to back movies about alien invasions. I couldn’t help but watch “War of the Worlds” which turned out to be a very, very bad idea. The remake of War of the Worlds plays on pretty much every fear you could have: alien ship attacks, alien robot attacks, air planes going down, drowning in cars, Titanic-like boat going down, aliens that incinerate you indiscriminately, aliens that capture you and put you in a metal farmers’ market basket until they are ready to thrust their tentacle through you and suck out all of your blood, human kind’s extermination, mob hysteria, loosing your child, apocalypse. For those who didn’t see the new War of the Worlds: the aliens arrive in a stream of lightening bolts from the sky. So I couldn’t help but have a lump in my throat while watching the Geminids meteor shower.
• Also, for some reason, the powers that be seem to be testing the “Emergency Alert System” out. A lot. You know, that horrible nuclear bomb alert sound followed by, “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast system. If this had been an actual emergency…”  Those who saw War of the Worlds will know that this same message was being broadcasted during the alien invasion, saying “this is a TEST of the emergency broadcast system”–a test– even though it was sure damn well past an emergency.  This test was playing on my TV upon my return of watching the Geminids meteor shower. These series of events are a great way to become an insomniac, but I don’t know if I was  scared or more annoyed by the fact that the announcement said “this is a test of New Jersey’s emergency broadcast system”. New Jersey? I’m not in New Jersey! Are you telling me that in the event of an emergency Inwoodites are screwed because Manhattan forgets we exist and New Jersey is calling us theirs even though there is a freakin river between us? Inwoodites better start building rafts and canoes because it looks like we will be screwed.
• The Hadron seems to be up and running again.

The broadcast alerts are still going on… Just when War of the Worlds was receding from my mind a day later, as I dozed off with a smile on my face listening to Craig Furgeson, suddenly, in the middle of one of his jokes, the horrible nuclear bomb alert sound blasted like a siren with a “test” message. Success in finding a sound that will jerk anyone out of a soundful sleep.

So take it as fiction and believe what you will. The arts are a great way to send mass messages to people: either to have us buy something, to act a certain way, to serve as a mirror for our fears and desires, or to subtly prepare us for an alien invasion.

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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:

• It would still be called “Thanksgiving” but with bitter sarcasm to drive the point home. “Thanks, white man, for bringing disease and genocide to the New World and strengthening the spirit of the descendants of oppression to make the revolution possible, liberating everyone, including you.”

• Now that the theme has been introduced with a wide, white banner with red letters, speaking of disease, the first line of parade marshals would be the public health servants of disease control, reminding everyone of proper hygiene, the ills of still water and the glory of vaccines. They’d wave their hands with their medical masks covering their mouths, with white and blue coats, tugging the parade’s first balloon, a giant syringe with the letters “P-R-E-V-E-N-T-I-O-N” blazened along its graduation lines, followed by “THE NEW ARMS AGAINST THE LEGACY OF COLUMBUS.”

• Next would come the float with an ode to the campesino. A giant gourd with yucca, greens, beans, eggs and young, strong looking people proudly holding adzes and rakes beside it. The balloon, of course, would be an image of the farmer himself and herself (gender equality emphasized- this aint no Grant Wood portrait) . People would clap in line with the party line, but gaze at the float, hungry.
• There would be floats that honored the Afro-Taino roots of the Cuban people.
• All floats would be pulled by farm tractors.
• The car clubs would show off their pimped out, time-machine crazy mobiles, categorized by turn of the century, 30’s 40’s and 50’s.

• Glory to the solider of the Revolution! High school marching bands would be replaced with various “Committees in Defense of the Revolution” from regions all over the island, singing, chanting (”¡En cada barrio, Revolución!” and dancing, demonstrating how the revolution is as relevant, raw and alive since the Granma ran ashore in Granma Province on December 5th, 1956. The ballon? Why a peasant man wielding a machete and shield draped in the unity star and stripes of the Cuban flag.
• Now of course Cubans also know how to have a good time (a really good time), so expect singing, bands, and dance troupes of all forms, Casino Salsa, reggaeton, Son, Danzon, cha-cha, mambo and the ever so playful RUMBA.
• Clowns would be in full force, except they would be dressed as Fat Cat capitalists with the US flag on their top hats. Their clothes would be sharp, their bow ties knotted in perfection, but they would be blindfolded with a black cloth, their blood-stained hands flayed out in front of them grasping the air, a long ball and chain shackled to their ankles. The crowd would roar with laughter, chanting, “Only revolution can free you, Sam!”
• The cherubic child star of the parade, would be, who else? Elian Gonzalez, who mysteriously is still a child, and would be periodically given the mike to thank Cuba for bringing him back home.
• The NY Thanksgiving parade ends in the mecca of consumerism, 34th street Macy’s. So where would the Cuban parade end for the big party? Why where all of Havana’s parties happen: in front of the American interest section (the former embassy). Replacing Santa Claus on his sleigh to give his saintly blessings for all to shop and trample eachother to death starting immediately after a gluttonous meal, would be ol’ Castro himself, beard and all, waving from a replica of the holy Granma, the boat that made him the Papa of new Cuba. He would chuckle, “Ho, ho, suckers! I’ve outlived all of you and the revolution is still here”.

Thus ends Nova’s Thanksgiving daydream of parallel universes.

Happy Turkey Day!

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The Large Hadron Collider has started up again. Watchers: Start logging any anomalies you encounter: rips in time, premonitions of doom (or the return of paradise), aliens, formations of star gates, etc.

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The staff all have space uniforms. You’re given a choice of baby trip or full throttle experience from lift off to landing. Scared sh*tless, I choose the real thing. You go through a briefing (shut up who cares that I was screaming in glee and the 8 year old kid next to me was unphased). You are given an assignment in the ship (engineer, pilot, navigator, and something else). I won’t tell you my disappointment on being navigator since I can’t even drive a car and am told I fail even as co-pilot. Then you’re strapped in a space pod (claustrophobia be damned because you are trapped in that sh*t until the ride is over) with your three companions and BOOOOOOOOOOM. You watch a screen that f ing convinces you that you are lifting off, and you are stuck to your seat unable to move from the force. Apparently you are in a centrifuge but the screen tricks your body that you are where your eyes tell you.

Apologies for screaming Mother F*cker with that 8 year old engineer next to me (who might have been choking in his own vomit from the sound of it). The computer gives you prompts as to when you are supposed to push specific buttons for the ship to work. I made sure to yell to the 8 year old engineer to make sure he knew what to do.

I had two tasks- hitting thrusters to use the moon’s gravitational force to pivot to Mars, and then I think to redirect the ship to avoid an asteroid… I completed the first task…. but failed the second. I can’t tell you how traumatized I am from that. And here’s the other kicker. When we f ing finally crash landed the ride was over, leaving us… ON MARS! HOW CAN THEY DO THAT after convincing us it was real?

Mission:Space. If I’m ever lost, look for me on Mars. I’m somewhat convinced Disney left me there in their own Martian version of Disney World.

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