NO WORDS_Daily Pix by Hugh Crawford
POSTCARD FROM THE SLOPE_Building-wide BBQ
We used to get funny looks from passerbys when we’d set up the Weber grill near the garbage pails in front of our building and have pot-luck BBQs on summer evenings.
But now everyone’s doing it on Third Street. On the north side of Third Street, that is.
On Memorial Day, at least four apartment buildings got out their grills and folding tables. The succulent smell of BBQ steaks, veggie burgers, salmon and other delicacies traveled from Sixth to Seventh Avenues inspiring others to do the same.
Our building has been doing this for years. All it takes is one person to say: "Anyone wanna do a BBQ?" and we’re off and running. It’s the casual nature of the thing that makes it so sweet. Neighbors bring whatever they’ve got. Sometimes that means running out to the supermarket for meat and vegetables. Sometimes that means bringing leftovers from the fridge.
At our Memorial Day feast, in addition to the usual BBQ fare, there was tuna steaks, veggie shish kebab, Apple Brown Betty pie and a fruit salad with mangoes.
And there’s always plenty of wine and beer to drink.
The kids in the building spent much of the evening roasting marshmallows. And S’mores are a tradition: What would a Third Street BBQ be without a grahm cracker sandwich filled with marshmallows and Hershey chocolates? Wrapped in silver foil, this concoction is heated for a few minutes or so – the kids seem to know the exact duration – until the ingredients are perfectly melted together. And delicious as hell.
Observing this warm-weather ritual, one is disabused of all guilt about bringing kids up in the city. If you squint your eyes, there’s little difference between this Park Slope scene and a summer evening in suburbia. The kids, hunched over a grill roasting marshmallows on chopsticks, could be anywhere: Scarsdale, Summit, or Syosset. And the adults, too: sipping wine, sitting on lawn furniture, discussing local politics and world news.
Sure,we’re out there on the cement by the garbage. Sure the furniture is plastic, not Smith and Hawkins teak. Sure, the only green is the tree in front of our building and the geraniums and posies that got potted early in the day.
It’s a classic American scene, but very Park Slope in its way:
Everyone’s invited, the food is delicious, friendly pedestrians are welcome, and the conversation is as juicy as the burgers: veggie or otherwise.
Forgotten Prospect Park
Daily Heights pointed me in the direction of an interesting web site called, Forgotten New York, which includes a history of Prospect Park. Says Daily Heights: "It is full of delicious tidbits about Revolutionary landmarks, the
Quaker graveyard, that gorgeous Horse Tamers sculpture, why the Vale of
Cashmere has that funny name (and why you should stay away from it). In
particular, I appreciated his explanation of those annoying hexagonal sidewalks:"
"Prospect Park, and indeed most New York City parks, employ special
sidewalks on their exteriors and on some park walks consisting of
interlocking hexagonal blocks, that can be hard to walk on at times.
Most likely, they are there to accommodate tree roots; when roots
interact with the usual concrete slab sidewalks, the sidewalks lose the
battle and split, making for dangerous walking conditions."
LINK: Secret Prospect Park [Forgotten NY]
Thanks for the tip: satanslaundromat
GRAB-BAG_Always Updated
UPDATED MAY 31, 2005
YOU JUST GOTTA: This summer’s CELEBRATE BROOKLYN schedule has ARRIVED. And get this: Rickie Lee Jones is the headliner for the opening night on Wednesday, June 15th. A rare New York appearance, it’s her first live performance since releasing a new album this spring. A vivid storyteller and one of the most evocative singers in the history of pop music, Jones has inspired a generation of songwriters; her latest work reveals that she’s as vital, surprising, and enchanting as ever. The concert is free with a $3. suggested contribution. $300 gets you entry to a gala benefit party and good karma for supporting live music in the Park – a highlight of summers in Park Slope. For all your Celebrate Brooklyn questions go to www.celebratebrooklyn.org
***Drinking Liberally, an informal, inclusive drinking club committed to promoting democracy one pint at a time. They meet the second Wednesday of every month at Commonwealth (12th Street and 5th Avenue) at 7 p.m. Next meeting: June 8th. Check out: www.drinkingliberally.org. For more information contact Emily Farris 917-548-8472 or emilyfarris@earthlink.net
***Mommy Matinees at the Brooklyn Heights Pavillion on Fridays. Call for
info about times and movies. 718-596-5095. Kids run wild, moms
get to watch first-run movies. What about the Park Slope Pavillion?
BOOKISH BITS:
Go to Brooklyn Reading Works for more about Writers, Readers, and book culture in Brooklyn.
***A Brooklyn bookstore invites visitors to break free from e-mail at a
biweekly letter-writing session. They’ll provide the pens, paper, and
envelopes. Stamps are available for purchase on site, so no more toting
around that note for weeks until you happen by a post office.
Wednesday, 7-9 p.m., Freebird Books & Goods, 123 Columbia St. at
Kane Street, Brooklyn, 718-643-8484, free.
***Former Poet Laureateof Brooklyn, D. Nurkse, has a new collection of poetry out. BURNT ISLAND, explores tragedy both grand and intimate, in city and country,
in our own troubled moment and across the greater scope o geological
time. Arranged in three "suites" of lucid, often heart-wrenching
verse, the book begins with a city under siege, in a group of poems
that becomes a subtle homage to New York after 9/11 — a metaphorical
“burnt island." The collection then takes up the journey of a couple
starting again in nature at specific place called Burnt Island.
Finally, in a charming and profound series of poems centered on marine
ecology, he finds the infinite in the infinitesimally small, and
offers, in sparkling, mysterious verses, the strange comfort that comes
with observing the life of the ocean. Go here for more about Writers, Readers and books in Brooklyn.
***Brooklyn-based wildlife writers Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson (authors of Wild New York) have a new book: CARNIVOROUS NIGHTS: ON THE TRAIL OF THE TASMANIAN TIGER about their journey from the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan to the island of Tasmania in search of the tiger and its traces. The result of their expedition is a beautifully written, funny, and poignant account of a safari gone unhinged. Go here for more about Writers, Readers and books in Brooklyn.
***Park Slope poet Joshua Mehigan was named one of five finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry. In December 2004, his first full-length book of poems "THE OPTIMIST" was also nominated for a PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award. (Winners of both competitions will be announced in spring 2005.) Chosen by poet James Cummins as the winner of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, it was published in December 2004 by Ohio University Press and, soon after, named one of the top ten university press books of 2004 by ForeWord Magazine. The poems in "The Optimist" address the ordinary and the exceptional: the weather, a house fire, noise pollution, the inner life of a fourth-century ascetic. Go here for more about Writers, Readers and books in Brooklyn.
***Robert Levy’s THE GHOSTS OF PARTITION STREET is a serial novel of supernatural
suspense centering on the residents of a Brooklyn brownstone, both
living and deceased. The story is told in a series of short chapters; a
new chapter will appear on partitionstreet.com every Tuesday. Go here for more about Writers, Readers and books in Brooklyn.
.***MOTHER OF SORROWS (Pantheon 2005) by Richard McCann. A book of interconnected short stories. "Because my family lived on Carroll
Street for many years, just off Prospect Park, and as a child I went
back and forth from our suburban house in Silver Springs, MD., to the
family house on Carroll Street, which seemed more real and more
wonderful than anything in our suburb could possibly have been. As I
write this to you now — from D.C. where I live — I’m wearing my
grandmother’s class ring from Saint Angela Hall (now closed) in
Brooklyn. I guess it’s from the class of 1911 or 1912," writes Richard
McMann.net. Go here for more about Writers, Readers and books in Brooklyn.
***FEBRUARY HOUSE. Shelia Tippins tells the true story of Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, W.H. Auden, Salavdor Dali and Gypsy Rose Lee under one roof on Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights. At your local independent bookseller. Go here for more about Writers, Readers and books in Brooklyn.
*** MISS GAZILLIONS, the new novel by ex-Park Sloper Richard Weber, is gathering raves. Much of it is set in Park Slope. "A light hearted mystery thriller filled with unforgettable characters," writes Publisher’s Weekly in it’s starred review on 2/28. Go here for more about Writers, Readers and books in Brooklyn.
***Brooklyn Reading Works. Fiction. Memoir. Poetry at Fou Le Chakra (curated by Louise G. Crawford) at the Old Stone House in JJ Byrne Park on Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets.
JUNE 23 at 8 p.m: Sophia Romero, author of ALWAYS HIDING (William Morrow), will read from a work-in-progress. About her first novel: "The author brings a sparkling humor and fresh perspective to her remarkable first novel about family, love, honor, and modern Filipino life in both the Philippines and the United States.” Carlton Schade will read LIE LIKE A DEAD MAN An Alabama prison is the setting for this gripping and existential first novel. And Lauren Yaffe will read from DISTANT HOME a novel set in Brazil. Old Stone House JJ Byrne Park. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. Park Slope.
ENCHANTMENT
*** Brooklyn Bridge Park Summer Film Series. Every Thursday night starting July 7th:The inflatable screen will be provided by Fresh Air Flicks, a Brooklyn-based company.
VISUAL STIMULATION:
***Mexico: The Revolution and Beyond. Photographs by Casasola at at El Museo Del Barrio. 1230 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street in Manhattan.
***Takashi Murakami at Japan Society. 333 East 47th Street. near 3rd Avenue.
*** Surrealism USA at the National Academy Museum. 1083 Fifth Avenue at 89th Street.
***Tim Hawkinson at the Whitney Museum
OF INTEREST:
Pop Coffee Shop has Insta Book: an
incredible, fast, cool print-on-demand technology that can format your
Word or PDF file into a paper-back book, 5 x 8 trim size, with a full
color cover. And 150 pages is only about $6-$7 bucks. 2011 Cortylou Road in Ditmas Park. Learn more about Instabook Machine: Here. AND Go here for more about Writers, Readers, and Books in Brooklyn.
SOUNDS FOR THE SOUL:
***Martha Wainwright. Martha Wainwright. Zoe Records
***Motherland. Natalie Merchant
***Beck. Guero.
***Marianne Faithfull. After the Poison. Nonesuch.
***Kathleen Edwards. Back to Me. Zoe Records.
***Johnny Cash. American Album #4.
***Clem Snide. The End of Love. SpinArt.
***Rufus Wainwright. Want Two. Dreamworks.
***Debussy Preludes Livre 1/Livre 2. Phillips.
***Rasa Devotion. Darshan Sween Sounds of Surrender. Mandala.
All available at Soundtrack (near President Street) or Music Matters (near 14th Street) on Seventh Avenue
READERS: If there are special events YOU want to blog about don’t hold back. Please leave a comment here or e-mail OTBKB. Spread the word.
NO WORDS_Daily Pix by Hugh Crawford
POSTCARD FROM THE SLOPE_WONDER WHEEL
We left the cement beach on Third Street for the real beach in Coney Island. My true reason for the expedition was to lay eyes on the brand new Stillwell Avenue subway station with its 75,000-square-foot glass canopy, made up of 2,730 solar-energy panels,over eight tracks and four platforms, all completely rebuilt.
It did not disappoint. That is one gorgeous train station worth every penny of its $300 million renovation. A truly majestic gateway to Coney Island, it is a wonderful example of urban improvement! Kudos to the MTA.
The kids were vaguely interested in the train station. But their real raison d’etre was to check out the rides. They wanted to play in the sand, too, of course. But for them this trip was about: RIDES.
I wasn’ really planning to go on the Wonder Wheel. A self-avowed scaredy cat when it comes to heights and claustrophobic spaces, I was initially content to let my daughter, son, and their two friends do it on their own. But my dear friend Rose, who lives out in Coney Island (and joined us on the boardwalk) egged me on. "You are going to love it. Really. There is nothing to be afraid of," she said. "Besides, it’s a great view."
Rose and I waited together on the long line. "Do you want a swinging car or a stationery one?" She asked. The swinging one is better," she said with a mischevous smile on her face.
"Swinging car?" I asked incredlously.
I agreed convinced that somehow this whole experience was going to be good for me. Recently I overcame a life-long fear of flying with meditation and deep breathing. I figured, I’m probably ready for the Wonder Wheel. If not now, when?
After 9/11, I developed a subway phobia that had me taking expensive car service rides into the city. I seem to be over that too. I take the subway now without obscessing about suicide bombers and dark subway tunnels.
As Rose and I waited on line, I tried some meditation breathing and prepped myself for what I knew was going to scare the wits out of me. "Well if we go down, we go down together," I said to Rose, who has been working for our family for nearly 14 years, since my teenage son was 3-months old. Rose has the most beautiful smile on earth and a personality that can only be described as beatific.
Nothing really prepares you for the Wonder Wheel. First of all, there’s the view. While it was a little hard for me to appreciate it even on what must’ve been one of the most gorgeous clear blue sky days of the year, I did manage to look when my eyes weren’t closed, bracing for whatever was coming next…
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh
Periodically the Wonder Wheel impersonates a roller coaster. On creaky tracks you are sent flying into the air. And then propelled
forward and downward.
The ride stops every minute or so to let passengers on and off on the bottom. That’s the part I found most difficult. You’re just sort of hanging out high up in the sky, waiting for the ferris wheel to start moving again.
<>
"This is really good for me," I told Rose. But inwardly I was sure we were going to fall to the ground. I could actually visualize the newspaper headlines. But I tried to look brave. "It’s important to overcome what frightens you. To have courage…"
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Rose seemed non-plussed by the whole experience. She casually made remarks about familiar buildings, other rides. "It’s such a nice view," she said from time to time, seeming to truly enjoy herself.
"You really like this?" I asked Rose more than once. "Yes, I do. I really do." she said.
It was really inspiring to be with someone so brave.
NO WORDS_Daily Pix by Hugh Crawford
POSTCARD FROM THE SLOPE_Cement Beach
It was a typical warm, sunny Saturday on Third Street. My daughter woke early, sussed out the weather conditions and begged, "Can we please take out the pastic pool?"
I declined because we no longer have access to the basement hose the way we used to, but we went downstairs anyway. My daughter found a big cardboard box in the recyling, flattened it, and created a make-shift beach.
Soon her best friend, who lives on the first floor, came out and the two of them were slathering their bodies with suntan lotion and lying on the cardboard, sunbathing Brooklyn style. Jokingly, I said, "Hey, where are your bikinis?" And the next thing I knew they were running into the building to put their bikinis on.
When my daughter’s friend from around the corner came over for a day-long play date I heard my daughter tell her: "It’s a beach party!" The friend was promptly escorted home to get her tankini and the girls were set for a day of fun and sun at the beach. The beach on Third Street, that is.
One of my neighbors recalled how when she was a kid in Bensonhurst they’d go sunbathing on their apartment building rooftop. "You ever hear the expression ‘tar beach?’" she said. "’Well that’s what we used to call it.’"
The girls were not deterred when the weather changed mid-afternoon. It certainly didn’t interupt their beach behavior as they continued pouring buckets of warm water on one another in an attempt to simulate swimming.
The parents, meanwhile, did what parents in our building do on a lazy Memorial Weekend day. We sat on the green plastic lawn furniture we keep in the basement, read the New York Times, drank ice coffees and tried to keep the children’s noise level down to a comfortable minimum.
Needless to say, we didn’t put on our swimsuits. But I did find the smell of Coppertone amazingly evocative of a summer’s day on the beach. A real beach, that is.
POSTCARD FROM THE SLOPE_BRW at Fou Le Chakra
I spent much of the day of the Brooklyn Reading Works reading worrying that too many people would show up at Fou Le Chakra and there would be nowhere for them to sit in that tiny cafe.
Well, too many people did come and it wasn’t really that big a
problem. I’d say most everybody was able to sit except for, maybe, ten
people. They stood in the shop part of Fou Le Chakra, but I think
they could hear and that was the main thing.
Susan Karwoska was first up and I introduced her remembering how,
before we met, I knew her as the statuesque blond who pushed a stroller
down Seventh Avenue making motherhood look so easy. Who, I wondered, is
this beautiful woman with the three beautiful children who has such an
air of capable calm?
For a year, we shared a writing space on Sixth Avenue. That space
became our sanctuary, a place for writing and thinking in between the
whirl and swirl of jobs and family life.
I was very pleased when Susan agreed to read an excerpt from her
unpublished novel, THE RIVER FROM NOTHING at BRW. She read beautifully and the
audience was rapt, moved as they were by the vividness of her
characters, her luminous language, the inner life she was able to evoke. Her
teenage character seemed to be going through one of those times in life
when something serious and life changing is happening. But it was as if
she was out of her body watching it all from a heart wrenching
distance.
Marian Fontana read two excerpts from her upcoming book: THE WIDOW’S
WALK (Simon and Schuster). In one, she described the October day in a
Food Court when her son asked if his firefighter dad, who’d been
missing since 9/11, was dead. "He’s dead," she said aware that the
woman at the next table was listening. Marian thought to herself:
"She’s probably thinking: What kind of mother tells her son that his
father is dead in a food court in Nyack, New York?"
The crowd was moved to tears by Marian’s tales of those first sad
and surreal months after Dave Fontana’s death. They were impressed, too, with
her powerfully detailed writing style and the way she seemed to offer
dark comic relief at just the right moments.
Thursday was the last BRW at Fou Le Chakra. The June 23rd reading with Sophia Romero, Carlton Schade and Lauren Yaffe will be at the Old Stone House in JJ Byrne Park on Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. 8 p.m.
NO WORDS_Daily Pix by Hugh Crawford
POSTCARD FROM THE SLOPE_The New Restaurant
Last night, my sister, my daughter, and I had supper at the new Sette Restaurant. Located on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Third Street, it has big, gorgeous corner windows and a patio where seasonal vendors used to sell Christmas trees. It’s ‘Windows on the Weird:’ great for people watching and gawking at Seventh Avenue walkers.
Sette is doing what’s called a "soft opening." That is, they are open for business but only serving part of the menu: appetizers, sandwiches and dessert. It’s the shakedown cruise, a chance to test things and get the problems worked out before the newspaper reviewers and the amateur neighborhood critics.
Well, shakedown cruise or not, the nabe seems to be embracing them with a vengeance. They’ve only been open a few days and the place was packed. Slopers are a curious bunch about what goes in and out on Seventh Avenue. And they’re quick to judgment when they are displeased. But in this case, I must say, the people I spoke to were impressed.
We sat next to a nice middle-aged couple from Windsor Terrace who seemed to know as much or more about Brooklyn than me. Their 12-year old daughter was having dinner with a friend at Two Boots and were nervously calling her every twenty minutes or so. They started chatting us up early into the meal. We were all surprised by the abbreviated menu. But we agreed that it was a smart thing to do. A great way to tell the hordes: Hey, we’re just getting started, just trying to get it right. Reserve judgment until we really up and running. In this nabe it’s all about buzz and Slopers are quick in their opinions about shops and restaurants.
In other words: Restaurateurs beware: Hell hath no fury like a Park Sloper scorned at a new restaurant. Bad service, rudeness, boring food, you name it. If you don’t got the goods, you won’t get the word of mouth. And word of mouth is what makes the world go round ’round here.
We had fun playing the: Do You Remember What Used to Be on Seventh Avenue? game with the Slope veterans sitting next to us. "I feel like I’m trying on shoes at the Third Street Skate Shop," the wife said. "They used to have a bench right where I’m sitting."
Then we remembered that Al’s Toyland, a fixture for years on the Avenue, used to be in this space – and that was good for a good 20 minutes of conversation. The owners of Al’s owned Sette’s corner building before Al dropped dead and they sold it in the mid-1990’s.
Al’s was where you would go to buy classic toys: the Spalding balls, Duncan Yo Yo’s, hula hoops, kiddie pools, footsies, Fisher Price pull toys, Barbies, and Milton Bradley games. It was the antithesis of Little Things: there wasn’t an "educational" toy in sight. No developmentally correct playthings or black and white mobiles for newborns. They sold the real stuff we all grew up on.
Al and his staff were big smokers and incredibly grumpy, even mean. The place stunk of cigarettes and cat piss and there were all kinds signs and warnings posted around the store: KEEP OUT. DO NOT TOUCH. It was really unpleasant to go in there and deal with those people.
With our dining neighbors, we proved our Park Slope mettle by going back to 1991, remembering Abiyoyo, Pennywhistle Toys, the Russian stationery store, the gourmet shop that lasted two minutes, 200 Fifth Avenue when it was the only restaurant below Union. We seemed to have a great deal of shared Park Slope knowledge between us.
Finishing our $20 bottle of pretty decent wine, we decided that the price is a real inspiration: ‘I was about to order a glass of wine and then I saw the price," said the woman. "And I thought: ‘why not have a bottle?’ The portobello pizza with ricotta cheese was pretty incredible, too. My daughter found the Margarita pizza sauce too spicy.
A friend that was eating in the restaurant came over to say, "I spoke to the owner and told them the sauce is too hot. That pizza is really for the kids. They should know that."
It’s called feedback. Park Slope style.
For dessert my daughter tried the blood orange sorbet. I think she ordered it because it sounded so grisly. But she seemed to enjoy it. At this point, she was talking to a school friend who was sitting at the table on the other side of us, having dinner with her weekend dad. She also spotted another classmate in the restaurant who she waved to from time to time.
In Park Slope, even the second graders run into their friends at the chicest restaurants.
NO WORDS_Daily Pix by Hugh Crawford
POSTCARD FROM THE SLOPE_GREEN WITH ENVY
I’ve been thinking a lot about envy. On the one hand, it’s an
insidious emotion: one that can twist you in and out leaving you
feeling bent out of shape with longing and desire.
On the other, it’s very, very real. It may be one of the Ten
Deadly Sins, but who hasn’t, from time to time, felt that oozing,
green pang in the heart? That pull toward what others have.
Envy can create a quiet desperation or bring on bouts of the
blues. Sometimes it makes you want to lash out at another person or
find something wrong with the picture. They may have, say, the house
of your dreams, but they’re terrible, terrible people. Really.
Undeserving. Bad.
I have been accused more than once of envy; of coveting what they
neighbor has. It’s a natural state of affairs in an urban
neighborhood like Park Slope. We all live on top of one another and
know all too well what people’s houses are worth, what people do for
a living, what scores children get on standardized tests, which
schools they get into, where people go on summer vacation, how big
their backyard is.
Even in a seemingly homogeneous
environment like this, it’s amazing how incredibly stratified this
community is. Park Slope is a class society like any other in some
very obvious and not so obvious ways.
There’s what people refer to as old Park Slope and new. Old PS is the generation of dwellers who got here early. They are Legal Aid
lawyers, social workers, teachers, and artists. They live anywhere
from Fifth Avenue to Prospect Park West and send their kids to public
schools and summer on Cape Cod or in Ulster County. They have, by most
standards, a solid middle to upper class life. And, by getting in early on
the real estate boom, they have a nice little
nest egg, something to retire on.
On the other extreme, there’s new Park Slope. This includes those who work in
finance, corporate law, and other lucrative careers, in which the
yearly bonus can be the size of ten "middle class"
salaries. Some were priced out of Manhattan in the 1990’s and grabbed the four story brownstones, the apartments in Prospect Park West doorman buildings, the loft-like dwellings. They send their kids to
private schools, own weekend houses and spend vacations skiing in Switzerland or on sailboat adventures around the Carribbean.
Beyond those two extremes, there is much diversity: freelancers,
the low paid, underpaid, the under and unemployed, the chronically broke, the
not so forward thinking, the one’s who missed out on the house, the
apartment, the neighborhood when it was cheap.
Real estate is one measure of success
around here and a huge source of ENVY. And it afflicts people at every
level. Those who pay high rents envy the rent-stabilized. Those who
own apartments envy those with a house, those with the three story
houses envy those with the four. Those with the small wood frames long
for the limestone or the brown. Those on a wide
street like Union or Ninth Street, say, long for the quiet and
tree-lined. Those without a view of the Park or a city desire a
view. Those who can’t afford to renovate envy those who can.
And on
and on.
A certain measure of success and a
definite source of envy in Park Slope is the kitchen renovation. The
very concept makes me twinge inside: I would so love to shop for a
stainless steel refrigerator or a high-tech German
dishwasher that doesn’t make a sound. French tiles, slate floors,
granite or marble counters. Fixtures. I overhear renovation stories at Connecticut Muffin all the time and it leaves me with a pang. I’m not
gonna lie, I wish I could afford to do it. Why not?
There are other kinds of envy, too. In Park Slope and other
places, people envy one another for satisfaction in marriage,
in career, in family life. Oh they
look like such a perfect family. Or: He or she must have such a
satisfying career. Or: their kids are so well-behaved and polite. We
envy others for the choices they’ve made and their so-called smarts.
We envy the way they look, what they weigh, how often they attend Yoga class, their taste in clothes.
We idealize those we barely know and make up stories and
assumptions about them. At least I do. Some of us create equations
that may have no truth value at all. A big house means a happy life.
A nice suit means a satisfying career. A high achieving child means a
satisfied parent.
Envy is the most subjective of emotions. It exists at all
levels and it’s a constantly moving target. It always amazes me when the people I think "have it all" think they have nothing at all. Come to think of it, I could be one of those people. They too envy what they don’t have
and spend great gobs of time looking at others and coveting their
lives.
The subject of envy is a fascinating one. Even those of us who
know with great certainty that money doesn’t mean happiness and
processions are not the key to life spend an awful lot of time feeling it.
Still, it’s hard not to want, not to long for. Even if we know
that we’ve got a pretty good thing; desire fuels so much of what we
do. My friend and fellow blogger from Stuttgart
put it well:
"I am on the whole content with my life, from one moment
to the next I am on average very happy," he writes in Udgewink.blogspot.com. "I have the knack (or the character defect,
take it as you will) of being able to derive joy from very simple
things: Show me a nice sunset and I’m happy for the rest of the
week.I’d like to have more money, sure. It would be nice to just walk
into the store and buy a bicycle, without calculating which meals I’d
have to skip to pay for it. It would be nice to have no debts, not to
feel a flash of panic every time the doorbell rings. It would be nice
not to know the income-tax office’s repo man by name (true).
On
the other hand, there were times when I earned substantially more
money than now, and I was not happier then. The things that are
missing from my life (summarize them as "love and family")
cannot be bought."
I’ve never been one to suppress my envy.
I know it can come across as ungrateful, as hopelessly bourgeois,
as petty, capitalistic, and self-denigrating. And blind. At minimum,
the way people live in Park Slope is way beyond the standard of
living in most parts of the world, in most parts of the United
States, in most parts of Brooklyn.
It’s important to get real and get educated about this so one has
a frame of reference: some sense of reality.
But still, envy is envy is envy is…
When I wrote those pieces about Jonathan Safran Foer and Jenifer
Connelly I was accused of being hostile, of being jealous, of
knocking others for what I can’t have for me.
But I guess, in the expression of envy, I attempt to exorcise it
as well. Exposing it for what it is helps a litttle. I need to get
that nasty green stuff out of my system from time to time.
PARACHUTE WINNER
Thanks to Brownstoner, I have this story about the winning entry of the Coney Island Parachute Pavillions. All I can say is WOW. And thank you, Brownstoner, for bringing this to my attention.
"A quartet of Londoners–Chris Hardie, Andrew Groarke, Kevin Carmody,
and Lewis Kinneir–beat out 863 other design teams to win the Coney
Island Parachute Pavilion competition, the Coney Island Development
Corporation and the non-profit Van Alen Institute announced yesterday.
The design, with it s web of lights rising 30 feet from the ground, is
part of a larger push to rejuvenate the once-festive area. The
7,800-square-foot pavilion, rendered above, includes a restaurant,
souvenir shop and exhibition space."
Parachute Pavilion Winners Announce [Archinect]
NO WORDS_Daily Pix by Hugh Crawford
