In October 2016, right before our trip to Paris, where we would get engaged, I bought a new Hugo Boss winter coat from Bloomingdale’s in SoHo. One of the things I like most about Bloomingdale’s in NYC is their customer-centric attitude. I was rather dismayed when, at the end of 2017, the coat had developed giant rips along the seams of the lining. Below is my story of trying, and failing, to get help in repairing it.

One of the real perks of living in NYC is the longevity and vitality of some of the city’s pubic institutions: The Met, the MOMA, the parks, and (sometimes) even the subway.

But hail hail the New York Public Library who is always innovating!

Where their considerable collection and desire to share it intersects is their blog where I found this gem from librarian Meredith Mann.

“Despotic Characters: Researching Shorthand at the New York Public Library”

Mann gives a history of fast-writing disciplines, highlights their use in the library’s Gütenbeg Bible, shows the reference documentation for Gregg and Pitman’s systems, and shows how shorthand for musical notation once existed.

How blissfully Umberto Eco!

Many years ago, when we were still in Austin, on the observation of the passing of Frankie Manning, we, as a community decide to learn the Shim-Sham and dance it in honor of him.

Frankie Manning doing his thing

I can’t say I got a hang of it then. I can’t say I got the hang of it in the years since, either. When done right, it looks like this:

Fortunately, our local dance studio, You Should Be Dancing, held a workshop this past weekend. The wonderful Stephanie Shapiro taught us the dance with great humor, kindness, patience and skill. She has a solid method for this dance and really helped us master chunks that we can stitch together. She was even patient as I scribbled notes in-between dance segments. I’ve written them down below as I move forward in truly learning this dance.

Recent posts striking a note of hope were greatly encouraged by the fact that I made plans, out, with someone to whom I’m not married, for the first time in a year. We were able to make these plans because New York’s COVID protocols are now tolerating indoor dining for reduced guest populations which register in a contact tracing regime. My friend Chris suggested that he get a break from our shutdown routines, and he made a reservation for a Pappy van Winkle bourbon tasting flight at Fraunces Tavern, the oldest bar in the city. I headed down to Wall Street last Friday night where we met up.

As per every Spring since I’ve been in New York, the Spring heralds my new Chuck Taylor’s. I never had them growing up. I think that my parents associated it with impecunity and preferred us to be shod in leather or some strange petroleum byproduct.

But since I moved to the city, I’ve come to pretty much wear dress shoes most of the time with Chucks stepping in for what sandals used to do in California and Texas (bare feet on the subway platform, or getting caught in a flooded gutter during a surprise Hudson downpour? Ew.)

Anyway, when Spring comes I get a new pair and take last year’s pair and save it for tubing or adventuring. There wasn’t much of that last year owing to COVID-19, but I’m hoping for a different Spring and Summer this year.

Jump to the pictures

Here are some photos from the process of moving down the street. As of time of writing, we’ve manged to work through all the Gorilla Bins (see below) and get to a functional, but cluttered space with a few wardrobe boxes full of stuff left over. We have some new storage coming but, thanks to the pandemic, it’s on delay so we’re going to have to live with the clutter for a few weeks. I’ll post a final “all done” picture when the time is right.

A real pro tip of moving only a few blocks away is that we were able to pre-move by hand. If you have the option to do this, I highly recommend it. We took tenancy of the new apartment on the 15^th and started “camping” in it on the 22^nd. This is huge because it mentally projects a goal into your future and helps you start seeing every act at “the old place” as step toward that goal. Also, you don’t have to sleep in a dusty old box-laden place.

We bade adieu to scores of books, two bookshelves, two storage units and are working to live in , as Twitter personality and neighbor George Hahn calls it, a more “edited” space.

An Unintended Redecoration

We also discovered that some of our furniture literally could not fit through the front door! So that meant giving our blue sofa (pictured below) away. Also our large brass chair (the bastard that broke one of my toes) doesn’t fit. We’re storing it in the building basement (or new super is great) and are going to find some means to help it collapse a bit in order to shed the inches needed to fit, but we might have to bit it farewell as well.

We also discovered that, after a few years in the Manhattan air, our ACs were beyond cleaning. As a result, we wound up ditching them as well. Open up the piggy bank.

We also, also discovered that none of our blinds were portable to this new place. Open up the piggy bank Fetch the Visa.

So it looks like we’re going to be on the hook for some sigh unplanned expenses on top of the planned expenses of some new, more uniform storage units. Nevertheless, we’re starting from a more-considered, better-“edited” origin and I’m confident that that will lead to a better result.

On the 21^st, Riverside Park was alive with Spring and I noticed that some local had put up A.E. Housman’s poem celebrating the beauty of the cherry tree in a copse of cherry trees:

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Source

Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith.

1 Samuel 17:51, KJV

Up here on the northern boundary of the Upper West Side at Broadway and 93^rd, there used to be a Starbucks around the corner from Byron’s day care. I’d only rarely go there, preferring the small kiosk coffee at The Coffee Place out front. The owner was always friendly, liberal in his sugar pours, and always greeted Byron while we waited. The lines at the Starbucks (across from a Soulcycle and an Equinox gym) were often pretty long with the Lululemon clad patrons of the fitness enterprises.

But Covid-19 came, and, some months ago, the Starbucks closed. With the Lululemon-clad retail market vanished and only the essential work of construction continued, this kiosk with its low (literally) overhead survived.

Survive, adapt, outrun, outlast.

I’ve been making the occasional appearance at my office for a few weeks now, and I’ve noticed that there are signs of NYC groaning back to life after our COVID-forced slumber. While the paper has been talking about it, a much more visceral metric has been experiencing the steady uptick in crowds at brunch and passengers in subway cars. Steadily, morning commute-hour trips have seen ever-fuller train cars — nothing like the packed train cars I once knew, but the seats are full and the standing areas are occupied.

“I don’t want to go back to that,” I thought.

So I’m not! Instead I ordered a beautiful Elliston three-speed from the good folks at State Bicycles in Tempe, AZ.

This past Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control announced, unexpectedly, that fully-vaccinated individuals could intermix freely without a mask without presenting a hazard to themselves of the community. By coincidence, that very morning Lauren and I had crossed our two-week waiting period and had crossed into the realm of fully-vaccinated status. To put things mildly, it was a time for jubilation.

For those of us who survived the long plague year in the city hardest-hit by the virus, it was a strange sort of announcement. Could we actually go back out, without our hot breaths being re-routed back up our nostrils? That first afternoon that we dared it. We left the apartment and took Byron to the 87^th street dog run. The air was clear and warm. It smelled incredible. Pollen and warm sunshine mixed in a delightful way reminding us of what we had lived without for so long: the dust of the dog park, the smell of a stranger dog greeting me, the smell of freshly-mown grass. The smells of New York’s electric and vibrant summer were returned to us after a year-long absence.

At the run, many who had not yet reached full vaccination or were still wary were still masked. After the initial elation and a fun playtime in the run, we headed back to our building, masked up (per building rules), and came back home. That evening we ate out, maskless, indoors, and it was again a novelty. But over the next several hours Lauren and I found ourselves wearing masks again, perhaps out of custom, and perhaps out of laziness as we drifted in and out of establishments requiring their usage. Their wear had become habit and I was surprised to find that I couldn’t just stop.

Noticing this phenomenon, and reading others’ experience of it, suggested that there might be two groups for whom giving up mask wearing might be a little less attractive to cease doing:

• those whose appearance is outside the mean and occasions unsought scrutiny
• the pandemic “shell-shocked” for whom the mask is a psychological support in uncertain times

Top Image: Flowers in the shanty at Chu-Ros Thai

Let me be clear: there was nothing good about COVID. There will be nothing that I miss about the COVID era. But in its misery, there were little spots of sunlight that broke through dour clouds, little bits of kindness, consideration, and beauty that dappled the gray life in this time.

One of those things I’d like to remember were the restaurant shanties and their rich decor. Read on to see more pics of what they look like.

One group activity that we’ve long wanted to do, but our schedules or memories never quite lined up, was the Jazz Age Lawn Party. After the Plague Year where we couldn’t, we were lucky that Lauren caught a reminder for this year where we could and did.

One of my favorite TV shows of the aughts was Mad Men. From its profoundly flawed heroes, to its careful capture of the aesthetic of the 60’s and 70’s Manhattan, to its genius writing and carefully plotted (across seasons!) callbacks to characterization, it was a wonderfully-crafted show.

In Season 2, episode 4, Don, our enigmatic lead protagonist, describes a special candy favored by his (abusive, alcoholic) father:

And this candy.
It tasted like violets.
Had a beautiful purple and silver package.

I was curious about this vintage hard candy, and I went about trying to find out where I could try violet-flavored candy. I found it, tried it, and here’s the story.

I was walking down Broadway the other day and a trio of teen boys were talking and walking when one of them copped his best New York accent — something between the average resident of Pachogue, Long Island and Tony Soprano — and said “I got a guy.” His friends laughed, and the rest of their interaction carried on.

I think “having a guy” reveals something profound about New York City. Here we are, piled upon each other in great density. How is the customer to be served when those who can provide service e.g.:

• Those on the floor at a department store
• Those behind the glass cases at a jeweler’s
• Those across the counter at a fast-food joint
• Those pulling box after box of shoes “from the back”

face a staggering volume of customers?

The paths forward are:

• Premium service
• The living Hell of Clerktown™
• Having / Being a Guy ¹

A few weeks ago, in a fit of pandemic-fueled boredom and optimism about the re-opening of Broadway, Lauren decided to see if we could get any taping tickets. She saw that we could sign up for in-studio recordings of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and we went last night!

Stephen’s been profoundly funny, smart, and witty for years. From his diabolical “Chuck Noblet” with Amy Sedaris on Strangers With Candy, to his career-making Fox-esque infotainer satire persona “Stephen Colbert” on The Colbert Report, to the present work as a thoughtful and reasonable interviewer on the slot formerly held by David Letterman, he’s proven himself to be an entertainer for all seasons.

I can’t describe how impactful his roast of George Bush was during the height of the early aughts. There are roasts and then there are the irradiated atomic cinders Colbert left of Bush at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

To see someone level the kewpie doll of the horrible culture war deepening rhetoric that would metastisize into Trumpism all those years ago was…was… hoo-boy, something this anti-Bush liberal boy needed and relished.

Since that time he’s shed the “Stephen Colbert” persona and played it relatively straight on his evening chat show. I also admire that he’s never polemical or didactic (unless resisting polemicists, dictators or assholes), and he’s always willing to grant the other side fair arguments. I was particularly moved by his discussion around religion (he’s a Catholic) with atheist Ricky Gervais.

So, we got to see the show tonight! Read on for details!

Big-box: of, relating to, or being a large chain store having a boxlike structure
– Merriam-Webster

“CityTarget stores are typically smaller than traditional Target stores, ranging in size from 80,000-160,000 square feet, and are some of its highest traffic locations in the company,” a press release reads.

As for in-store difference between CityTargets and traditional Targets? CityTargets modify product packaging and size to fit the needs of the urban customer.
– Business Insider

In 2017, Harmon Face Values (..and Beyond) opened up at the intersection of 90^th street and Broadway.¹ This was about two years into our life in New York and in our first year on the Upper West Side. For two suburban kids come to the city, their big plastic-wrapped bundles of toilet paper, fine selection of tweezers, and analgesics galore meant that we went there fairly often. On top of that, on our second or third visit, we learned that canines were welcome, and that there was a big old jar of dog treats on the information desk. The store rapidly became fully integrated in our lives as Byron learned he could “trick or treat” there. This past week, we found out that they are going to close. I’m going to miss them, especially after they became one of our few havens during the darkest days of the pandemic. Here are a few memories about our a “medium-box” store that I’ll miss.

When I first moved to the San Jose in 2000, I didn’t know a soul. Driven by ambition, hubris, curiosity and the desire to get out of the socio-political and heat environment of Texas, I went as far to the West as I could. I remember driving up from the Central Valley through the apricots, peaches, and garlic of Gilroy. The wide tree-filled manors of Monte Sereno and the brown hills of South San Jose served as pillars marking the entrance to the Valley of Heart’s Delight. It was magical and the smell of produce and the richness of Earth’s breast has never left me. I’m sure it’s all Kohl’s-anchored strip centers and Targets now.

In those days, I was eager to start working and making my splash in the tech world. There was still enough wheeze left in the coughing engine of “the New Economy” that I was hoping for one last shot at the optionaire dream of wealth and fancy. All that would be undone within 18 months, but knowing the sordid future coming due does nothing to undermine the joy of dreaming the dream. But in those early days, along in my tiny room, on Saturday night I had a ritual:

I would walk to the fast food options up the street and bring home my dinner. I’d listen to KQED’s programing of “The World,” “This American Life, “Selected Shorts,” “The BBC World Service” and then go to bed and sleep in late on Sunday. Often, in those nights, it would be me, my computer, stacks of CD’s loading Linux, or me working on programming projects. It seems small and lonely now, and it was, surely. But it was also where I started finding out who I was professionally. I can’t shun it.

To this day, I can still hear the introduction patter from program director Isaiah Sheffer: “Recorded at Symphony Space in New York.” How many dozens of times did I hear that over the years?

How funny it is, then, that I’ve now lived a few blocks away from where “Selected Shorts” was recorded all those years ago. For a couple’s night out, I got us tickets during Christmas to see a recording of “Selected Shorts” this past Wednesday.

There are only two musicals that I have ever loved: Les Miserables and Cabaret.

The Les Misèrables is a young man’s musical: it is a poem of hot blood, energy, and passion. It’s the belief of young men (and old fools) that their judgement is unerringly correct and that the nobility of their sentiments insulates them from criticism of what their imagined worlds would cost. It’s a warning to beware those hot-blooded young artistic men so very certain that the poetry, passion, music in their hearts ought be made into the culture of all - by force if necessary.

The Cabaret is something about being a true human in the world: it’s something about patience, tolerance, regret, sorrow, error and realizing that we are defined by our folly. It’s about having pity and empathy and realizing you’ve broken the Ming urn of civilization and might not live long enough to see its return. It is a poem of tender humility and regret.¹

Lauren and I were exceedingly lucky to catch the most recent revival after its core star swap out: Adam “Glambert” Lambert for Eddie Remayne and Auli’i Cravahlo for Gayle Rankin. The production was top notch and I have nothing but glowing praise for Lambert and his portrayal of that horn-dog imp, the Emcee.