Taking Refuge In Churches

one of the cool things about living in one of the older cities like new york, philadelphia, or boston is looking at all the old buildings, especially the churches. its really cool to see the old churches exist side-by-side with modern skyscrapers and other buildings. another really cool thing about the old churches is that most of the time they have beautiful courtyards which provide a little bit of green space amidst the concrete and asphalt. and they are open to the public.

i like that. recently i have found myself going into these courtyards and sitting, using them as an escape from the busy, noisy, and busy city. its fantastic how you can escape into these places that are just a few yards off the street, yet make you feel like you are 100 miles away from everything else.

it would be even better if synagogues were designed in the same way. maybe i would actually go to them.

Little Italy Is Kind Of Disapointing

today's walkabout took me in the same general direction of past walking excursions: towards greenwich village, soho, and all the other places in that general direction. i actually had reason to go that way today; i went down to school to get my nyu id card ahead of the oncoming freshman rush, and once that had been accomplished, i figured i would spend the day (again) walking around down there.

as usual, i had a grand old time, looking at buildings, looking at people, window shopping, and discovering restaurants that i might have to check out again (hoomoos asli being #1 on the list). my adventures today also took me through little italy, a place i had been wanting to go to for a while, and i must say i was highly disappointed. first of all, little italy is just one street in the midst of the outskirts of chinatown (speaking of chinatown, the borders of chinatown don't really seem to be distinctly defined and it just kind of spills over wherever it wants). i wasn't impressed with the restaurants or the bakeries either. i just kind of got a "blah" feeling from the place. i would much prefer south philly and the italian market or boston's north end over little italy. i did have some good pistachio gelato, though.

i can now cross little italy off my list, for better or for worse. one of these days i am going to go uptown and see what there is to see up there.

caio.

Now Back To Regular Posting (For Real)

i am happy to report that i have finally landed in new york. it seems that my days as a homeless vagabond are over and i can comfortably kick my feet up and claim this tiny (and i mean tiny) piece of manhattan as my home.

over the past 3 days i think i have gotten a little bit of a lot of what new york has to offer: a birthday party on the lower east side, wondering from neighborhood to neighborhood, ordering takeout, eating pizza, more wondering from neighborhood to neighborhood, watching a bum take a dump on park avenue, looking at all the women, and, of course, more aimless wondering.

i still have a lot to learn about this place, but i feel very comfortable with the level of understanding i have at this point. i can get myself from point a to point b with relative ease. my knowledge of what subway lines go where is elementary, but its good enough for now. im sure i will pick it up in no time. socially, i have some work to do. i know enough people here, but they are all doing their own thing and are all at different points in their lives, so i think i will have to work a little harder at finding my social niche. its also difficult to be social in new york in the summer because most people go away on the weekends, so there is a good chance that most, if not all, of the few people i know here will be away on any given weekend. i am just going to have to try a little harder. other things to learn: what to look for in restaurants. there are so many restaurants to choose from here that it makes choosing one very difficult, so i want to come up with a checklist, so to speak, for me to use when i am deciding which japanese place or thai place or which diner to go to. along those lines, i need to learn which restaurants i should be going to and which ones i should avoid. that will take a while. there are lots of restaurants in this city.

but things are good. i love my apartment, my new roommates are great guys, and im in new york. what could be more fun than that?

I Need To Start Writing Again

its been way too long since i really wrote here. i like writing here. its a good outlet for me. i miss it. i hope those of you that read here will be able to stand my posts for the next month or so because they will all pretty much be about new york. i am apologizing in advance for that. see, i got excited for new york again tonight after watching "the devil wears prada" (yes, it does pain me to write that sentence, but it was a good movie).

one of the messages i got out of that movie was that art is always on the move in new york whether you notice it or not. i am more of a person that notices other aspects of new york's art like architecture, movies, and art art (paintings and stuff like that), but now i think i will pay a little closer attention to clothes and fashion as i make my way around the city. fashion is one thing that dc didn't do especially well.

also, meryl streep's character was pretty awesome. i think we have all had a boss like her at one point in their lives. i know i have. it was also fun to see vince (adrian grenier) in a role outside entourage.

one more thing...ladies, i need your help on this. is anne hathaway really a size 6 in that movie? because if she is, sign me up for a size 6, if you know what i mean! and while i'm on women's clothes, who the hell came up with how things are sized? i mean, i get how mens clothes are sized. pants come in a waist and length. shirts come in a collar and a sleeve. but womens clothes? one size. 6. what the hell? it makes no sense. even when i was working in retail i never understood it. can someone explain it please?

Back!

i'm back from vacation! i had a great time, first hanging out with the family in martha's vineyard, then hiking in new hampshire and maine. stories will come later this week. i am also planning on moving to new york at the end of the week. i guess that will be exciting too!

it was nice of the phillies to put off number 10,000 until i returned.

its good to be back.

This New Google Map Feature Is Amazing

check this out. go to google maps and type in new york, ny, or a more specific new york address, if you prefer. then click on the new icon at the top of the map that says "street view". you can then zoom in and literally get a view of what that particular block looks like at street level. you can zoom in and rotate and scroll the map...its pretty amazing. in addition to new york you can also do miami, denver, las vegas, and san francisco.

for other fun with google maps, ever wonder how to get from boston, ma to paris, france? google maps will tell you :)

New York, New York, Here I Come!

i'm headed to new york this afternoon to check out some apartments.

wish me luck!

I Think Some Of These People Need To Have Their Head Checked

recently i have been reading a lot of stories about nostalgia for the "old new york", the new york of the '70s and '80s when the city was bankrupt, dirty, and unsafe. to those people i say this: are you fucking nuts?

read this quote from alison:

“I remember, there was just this fear,” Alison said. “I remember having to carry mugging money—$5. I remember having to know where all the Safe Haven stuff was. I remember all the bus ads with Etan Patz. There was just this fear, this fear of home, and I remember being really scared of the city.”

alison, sweetie, are you serious? you miss the days when muggers would mug a kid? and you take some sort of pride in that you had to carry "mugging money" to cover that eventuality? get real! who the hell wants to live in a city where they constantly feel scared, let alone feels nostalgic about it?

now, i do understand where some of these people are coming from. new york today, especially manhattan, is becoming the worlds largest playground for the rich. this i get (ironically, its one of the reasons i want to move to new york even though i am far from rich, but i digress), but to actually miss the daily threat of physical violence, flashings, public urination, junkies, dirty buildings, and everything else seems a little misplaced. you can miss the grittiness of the old new york, but you have to acknowledge that the city is something to behold these days.

but, if these people REALLY do miss the old new york, i suggest they move a close 90 miles down i-95 to philadelphia. we still know how to kill people at an astonishing rate there!

Being A Good Neighbor

one of the things i like about living in cities are the relationships you can make around town. i'm not talking about friendships or romantic relationships, i'm talking about the relationships you can make with local merchants and people you see almost everyday.

when i used to work on the hill, there was this cheap little japanese joint a block away from my office that i would visit about twice a week (i would go on wednesday and friday to take advantage of their specials), and over the course of my tenure down there, i developed a very nice relationship with the lady behind the counter. it was great: she would automatically take my order without even asking what i wanted, because i would order the same thing every time. we would briefly chat and i would leave by saying "see you wednesday" or "see you next week". it wasn't much, but it was nice.

it took me a little while longer to establish the same sort of relationship over here at metro center, but today it finally happened. ever since passover i have been visiting the same kabob place quite frequently (i started going there because they had what they called a low-carb kabob, which is simply the kabob over lettuce with some tzatziki) and today the guy behind the counter looked up at me and said "low-carb #2 to go, right?" so we are now friends. its nice to have these relationships (the first one i can remember having was back in the day when my family would go to sagami for dinner on sunday night. they would always treat us well there).

in new york it will probably take me a while to establish these, but i will develop them just the same. adam has rafi and the guys at joe jr. i wonder who my rafi or japanese lady or kabob guy or joe jr. will be?

Once And A While You Can Get Shown The Light In The Strangest Places If You Look At It Right

last night i was watching one of my favorite TV shows, 30 rock, when they cut to a scene of liz lemon (tina fey) and floyd (jason sudekis) standing in front of a particularly iconic red building in new york. i had to rewind the DVR to make sure i saw them correctly, but sure enough, there they were, standing on the corner of houston and lafayette, right in front of the puck building, which serves as the headquarters for the wagner school (the school i am going to next year).

the puck building

now, why is this significant, you ask? well, a few reasons. 1) it was cool to see them standing in front of puck. the puck building itself was one of the things that pushed my decision to attend NYU, so i felt some sort of validation that the crew of 30 rock felt that the building was significant enough to film in front of. 2) i was impressed with myself that in a post-kickball state of mind i was able to recognize the corner of lafayette and houston, one of the few corners in new york that i can officially say i recognize right now (the other would be the corner of 16th and 3rd, the home of the infamous joe jr.). 3) it got me excited for school again.

let me expand on #3 for a moment. its not that i have fallen out of excitement with school, its just that some of the initial gloss has rubbed off. school is no longer some sort of idyllic idea or concept. while it still represents a new beginning to me, i now have to deal with things like college loans (thank you, citibank), finding a place to live, finding a job, ect..., which makes school much more real and less a fantasy, which brings me back to the title of the post.

the title of the post comes from the grateful dead song "scarlet begonias". my apprehension about the real world implications of attending school were slightly abetted simply by reminding myself of the romantic vision i have of new york, and that i still have the capacity to view the city in such a way. i dont even remember what the characters were talking about, all i remember is that they were standing in front of the puck building. the building wasn't even the focus of the scene, it was simply in the background, but, in a way, i think that speaks volumes to the magic that is new york city, that buildings have their own magic and stories to tell and that every building has a different and special meaning to those who pass it by. to live your life in such an inspiring environment must surely be a treat.

i also found it amazing that yet again 30 rock was speaking to me, which is a strange thing to say about a sitcom. for whatever reason i really identify with this show, especially liz lemon (tina fey), which is even weirder when you consider that the show is a) a sitcom and b) lemon is female. i cant explain it. maybe tina fey is one of those artists that has the special capacity to speak to me directly, like the way i can identify with any klosterman book or any hopper painting or any pre 1998 phish.

enough rambling. its finally nice outside. soon i hope to expand this idea and talk more about why i like 30 rock so much and why i think that we are entering into a golden age of television, where some aspects of TV will bridge the gap between entertainment and art.

now if i could only find a way for this post to segue seamlessly into "fire on the mountain"...