Photo: Buggy

I pose with a buggie next to the A train elevated line in Far Rockaway, Queens.

We call 'em buggies

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The Calm Before the Storm is Lugubrious: So Says the Doleful Statue of Liberty

In this post, I write a "Journal & Rant" piece about superstorm Sandy — an Atlantic hurricane that hit the New York City region hard and caused massive amounts of damage to the city's infrastructure.

image source: nasa

A hurricane is a white circular atmospheric daub of cotton candy from the perspective of space. It looks as though the Northeast is about to get cotton swabbed. For us terrestrials, a hurricane is a force of nature that knows no equality or justice.

I cannot help but think of Irene in connection with all the other hurricanes I have known: kind of like bad relationships you sort of wished had never come into your life, but nevertheless, they sit there like a bad taste in your mouth.

All seems pleasant so far.
My Sunset Park apartment affords a view of New York's Upper Bay; I have a clear view of the Statue of Liberty. She looks slightly lugubrious in the dewey hours before a hurricane (or tropical storm, whichever forms she decides to take) hits the New York City region.

My roommates promptly filled every available empty gin bottle with water. I bought a token Infant of Prague votive candle to stave off the night in case of power loss.

I write this post in a sort of blasé anticipation. Come on Irene. I know: I could not resist.
Katrina in New Orleans: a sheer catastrophe. This one: who knows? Plenty of rain. Wind. Power outages. Normality will get a jolt to the left. Can we really afford a Katrina redux? Everyone knows New York City is certainly vulnerable to a head-on attack. We are crossing our fingers: denial is so much softer than reality.

The MTA shuts down public transit in the region at noon today: subway, bus, Metro North, and the Long Island Railroad. Mayor Bloomberg seems to be stalwart: hope for the best, prepare for the worst. His answer to a worst case scenario: people will die. Thanks for that reminder of mortality. Denial, remember!

People are uncharacteristically cheerful when awaiting a vengeful storm. A woman was skipping home yesterday in the breezy calm of pre-hurricane weather. Adults in Brooklyn do not usually skip. At the Safe-way the manager's mug creased an overly zealous grin as he watched the wads of cash unfold by people picking up loads of goods in the event of lockdown. Who isn't manic during an impending disaster?

We speak not of death but of anticipation. What will happen next? Are our lives so dull that a hurricane gets people talking about the end of the world as if they were talking about an upcoming birthday party?

What will I do?
I will do as I always do. Remain indecisive. Drink the last gin. Read Proust. I hope the Internet does not flicker out for long.

Last week an Earthquake: I barely felt it. This week: Irene (which means peace) rains (reigns).

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Report: Earthquake in the Northeast

In this post, I record that time there was an earthquake felt in New York City.

Felt a Minor Shake
I was in a library near 14th street (320 miles away from the epicenter) when the quake occurred. I noticed the building sway but I thought it was due to the activity of a construction site next door.

It Was Barely Perceptible
It was not until the alarms went off in the building (twenty minutes after the initial seismic nudge) and when I heard some say "earthquake" that I knew what had happened.

I hope you did not shake too much!

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Aesthetic Thursday: Max Beckmann, Beginning

"Beginning" Max Beckmann, 1949, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Triptychs
The piece "Beginning" is a triptych which means it is a single work composed of three panels. Triptychs were originally intended for religious art. Since the work is composed of three separate panels, once installed in a church or home, the priest could open or close the panel depending on the day of observance. Beckmann chooses the traditional triptych style, not for religious purposes but to depict pivotal events in a boy's adolescent development.

The Central Panel
The central panel depicts a boy on a white horse, a woman wearing blue stockings lying on a divan (smoking a hookah?), a cat hangs on the ceiling (reminds me of Puss in Boots).

Left Panel
An organ grinder, an angel, a boy with a crown.

Right Panel
Boys with laconic gazes, a teacher disciplines a pupil, a boy displays his pornographic magazine to other students.

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Poets House, Lower Manhattan

Why go to Poets house?

Poets House boasts 50,000 volumes of poetry in an open, eco-friendly environment that affords a view of the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty. Founded by the American poet Stanley Kunitz, the space is ideal for reading, studying, and writing. Expect books. No public computer terminals. The computer terminals are for catalog access only. You can either read your own book or a poetry book available from the shelf. There are even typewriters available for the budding writer to practice her craft. There is a room specially reserved for quiet in the back. It has couches!

I go on Saturdays sometimes. The last time I went they served free wine and beer!

Best for poets and writers or people who want to be inspired creatively. A very inviting space. The staff is especially courteous.

Where: 10 River Terrace,  Lower Manhattan, Battery Park City
Hours: Tuesday–Friday, 11am–7pm, Saturday, 11am–6pm | Children's Room: Saturday, 11am–5pm
Contact: www.poetshouse.org info@poethouse.org  (212) 431-7920
Directions: Subway: 1, 2, 3, A, C, or E to Chambers St., or the R to Cortlandt St. (northbound only)

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Aesthetic Thursday: Alexander McQueen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this blog post, I write about the newest fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - Alexander McQueen - Savage Beauty. 

The Dialectic of Beauty, Alexander McQueen Struggles with Deconstructive Aesthetics

    If you are in New York City between now and August 7, 2011, check out the "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty Exhibit."

    The exhibit boasts an ample retrospective on the deceased fashion designer's life works, dating back from his seminal graduate student collection inspired by Jack the Ripper to his most recent posthumous collection.

    Jellyfish designs, a macabre mixture of duck feathers and leather masks, spray-on dresses, and kinky "bumster" design pants, the McQueen exhibit is a touching tribute to a man who certainly obsessed over dichotomies, divergences, and the question of the beautiful.

Random Building Façade, New York City

E 16th Street between 5th Avenue and Union Square, 2011 

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Why One Should Not Teach Roman Numerals to Satmar Hasidic Jewish Boys

On that time I taught a lesson on Roman Numerals to a classroom of Satmar Hasidic children in Brooklyn.

image credit: Greig Roselli

The Romans Dominated Israel Two Thousand Years Ago, but What Does that Have to Do with Teaching Roman Numerals? 
    The boys enjoyed the lesson on Roman Numerals. After forty minutes, the class was decoding X, XCC, MDC, MMXI, and MCMXCVIII.
     Feeling accomplished, Mr. Roselli slept well that night, having been liberated from the usual anxiety that comes from an unsuccessful teaching day at the Yeshiva. Unruly boys and orthodox rules made the Satmar school in Brooklyn a world within a world. Mr. Roselli knew a bad day at the Yeshiva. His first day, he wrote the lower case letter "t" on the board, and since it too much resembles the cruciform shape, was outrightly chastised by his pupils. "The 't'! The 't'! The 't'!" they cried in unison.
     Coming down the stairs, Mr. Roselli exclaimed to another secular teacher who also taught Math, "They crucified me."  The co-teacher said simply, "They didn't tell you not to do that on the first day's meeting?"
There were other incidents (and other things you should not teach). 
     For example, we were not allowed to individually single out the kids. "Don't count the kids," Rabbi Teitelbaum said. "No counting." Check. "No short sleeve shirts." Check. "No bible stories." No religion. "No politics. No women. No sex. Just teach the curriculum." Check.
     It felt like an especial feat to teach class Roman Numerals without a flop-ending. Shlomo, leaving class, said, "Thank you, teacher."
     Arriving at school on the following afternoon, however, the actions of the previous day of teaching bore its inclement outcome.
Called into Mr. Schermerhorn's Office
     "Roselli," said Mr. Schermerhorn from inside his nondescript office next to the teachers' mailboxes. He was an unnecessarily stern and brittle man who appeared to have had clocked too many hours in the New York City Public School system. His hair was a fragile grey "Come to my office for a minute, won't you?"
     Feeling the worst after having felt so proud, Mr. Roselli let himself into Mr. Schemerhorn's office.

Here is the Gist of the Conversation With the Yeshiva's Assistant Principle:

"What were you teaching your class yesterday?"
"Roman Numerals."
"Roman Numerals?"
"Yes, Roman Numerals."

"We don't pay you to teach off the curriculum, Roselli. We pay you to teach the book. Nothing more nothing less. Don't get too creative or we'll get parents calling."

"But, Roman Numeral are in the book, Mr. Schemerhorn."

"Do you want me to receive a call from a parent asking why their son is learning Roman Numerals?"

I didn't answer. Schermerhorn was not a Satmar. It was easy to tell. Schermerhorn was a man without joy. The Satmars are normally a joyous bunch. Despite their strict religious rules.

"We pay you to teach the curriculum. I don't want to have to explain to a parent or to  Rabbi Teitelbaum. Are we clear?" 

"Yes. Don't teach Roman Numerals."

"Right." 

"And turn in your lesson plans on time."

"OK."

"We want a good teacher better and a better teacher best." 

"That's true." 

"Is that all?" 

"Yes, that's all Roselli. Get to class."

Feeling Dejected Who Are You To Turn To?
After school that day feeling puzzled and slightly dejected, Mr. Roselli asked his co-teacher, "Are we not allowed to teach Roman Numerals to the kids?"

"I've never heard that one." 

"Schermerhorn just told me not to." 

"Did he tell you not teach off the official curriculum?"

"Yeah, he did. And he gave me that better good best teacher shtick."

"Maybe because the Romans tortured enslaved the Jews? Haven't you read about Roman imperialism?"

"Yeah, maybe that is it."

"Wouldn't it been funny if Schermerhorn had said, 'Roselli. Stop torturing the kids with Roman Numerals. I want you teaching them the cardinal numbers, not the Roman numbers.' That would have been fucking hilarious, don't you think?"

"Yeah what if he had said, 'Roselli, since we pay you to teach the curriculum, goddammit, I want you —' and at this point, he bangs a ruler on the desk -- "to teach the goddamn curriculum.'"

"Yes, Mr. Schemerhorn, of course!"

***

If you liked this story, read more from the book Things I Shouldn't Have Said and Other Faux Pas.

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100 Years at the New York Public Library in the Midst of City Budget Cuts

At the one hundred year exhibit of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, there were tours this past weekend of the stacks of the arts and humanities research library, the Stephen. A. Schwartzman building, the one with the iconic lions. The stacks are seven levels divided by catwalks (which also extend outward beneath Bryant Park). The stacks are beautifully hewn cast iron bulwarks donated by Andrew Carnegie. Walking along the catwalk, one can look down and see floor upon floor of sheer "book." To take such a tour stirs the soul and restores hope in humanity. The books are categorized by size (not by Dewey or LC, which are the two most popular category systems in the United States).  

Reading Books in the Rose Reading Room  

To read one of the books in the research collection means filling out a request slip and waiting fifteen minutes for your book to be retrieved by a page who, once it is located on the shelf, sends it up via a Ferris wheel conveyor belt. It is all so mechanically proper and print oriented. The card catalog was scrapped in 1983, but interestingly enough, even though the catalog is digitized now, the library took photographs of every card and bound the images twenty to a page in a printed dictionary catalog of the collection. Why do this? Librarians through the years made notes on cards indicating other sources in the collection to consult and other such marginalia that is beneficial for researchers. The bound dictionary catalog is a snapshot of the collection before it went digital. 

Even With a Glorious Library in Manhattan the Truth is Libraries Still Suffer from Inadequate Funding 

The sad news in the wake of such a glorious centennial celebration is that budget cuts plague public libraries even though library usage is at an all-time high. To advocate for libraries is so desperately needed. Libraries are a public service to be ranked with the necessity of schools, hospitals, fire houses and police stations that make up a viable, literate population. Please advocate for Libraries today.

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Photograph: Bubbles

Boy makes bubbles in Central Park

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Photograph: I Love NYC

Fast cars and adorable group shots — I love 'em all.

Fast Cars, Manhattan, "I Love NYC"

Walking on busy Manhattan streets, especially streets lower than Fourteenth Street, it is easy to spot classy, fast cars. I have no idea the make and model of the one above, but I love this meta-moment of capturing other people being captured in front of a car. And I love love love the boy wearing the iconic I heart ❤️ NYC tee.

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image credit: Greig Roselli

Washington Square Park

Washington Square Park, New York City, 2010

Washington Square Park is like a postage stamp of New York City. It is opened up by a grand arch that honors George Washington. Fifth Avenue rams into the park at once — and then voilà, you're in what New Yorkers call Greenwich Village. Nineteenth-Century row houses line the Fifth Avenue side, while New York University's campus buildings line the opposite side. As a graduate student at the New School for Social Research, I spent many hours in Bobst Library — the largest building to border the square. The square itself is filled with life — chess players, performers, the homeless, and groups proclaiming a cause. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if a subway line ran underground through the park and you could alight on a train from the fountain. And I do love the fountain. In the Summertime, you can step inside it, feel refreshed, take your shoes off and watch the zest of bodies, of allegria, of life.

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View from the K-Mart Adjacent to the Astor Place Subway Station (6 Train)

View from K-Mart (6 train), New York City, 2011

If you enter the K-Mart at Astor Place in downtown Manhattan, go to the lower level and you can see there is an entrance to the Astor Place subway station. Get your essentials and hop on the local Lexington Avenue line. Caveat: the K-Mart is only accessible on southbound trains, though. If you are going uptown you will have to forgo this convenient lifehack.

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Two Photographs Taken From In And Around Long Island City in the Borough of Queens

Queens Queensboro Bridge Peaks Over Building in Long Island City, Queens

New York City Taxi Cab Lot in Long Island City.

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Aesthetic Thursdays: Keith Haring

Keith Haring, "Wedding Invitation"

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Aesthetic Thursdays: In the Studio

In the Studio, Alfred Stevens. 1888. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

 "In the Studio," is a nice example of art playing on art and reality. Notice the model sits on a couch entertaining visitors to the artist's studio. The unfinished painting of Salomé is perched on the easel to the right. The piece plays on the viewers perception of reality. Is the model posing for the work or is the representation of the unfinished work the work? Where does art end and reality begin? Works of art adorn the wall, as well. Notice the mirror. Another nod by Stevens of the mimetic nature of art. Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? The piece becomes more than a mise-en-scène of the artist's studio, but is a representation of the mimesis itself, the artist's craft, and the effect art has on the viewer viewing an artist's work, as if Stevens is inviting us to view both the process of art and the art itself as art. Brilliant.

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Little Red Lighthouse Under the Gray Bridge

Little Red Lighthouse, Manhattan

To get to this Lighthouse, officially called The Jeffrey's Hook lighthouse (which is inoperative but maintained by the New York City Park Service), I took the subway to 168th street (A, C, 1). I walked west on 168th street toward the Hudson. 168th street ends at a psychiatric hospital. Turn right to follow the highway then turn left onto the meandering path which will lead you into Fort Washington Park. There may be an easier way to do this. If you know of one please let me. I figured my way over and under the Henry Hudson expressway and a multitude of other expressways that cut vertically through Manhattan's Westside. Once you get to the Fort Washington Park (follow the signs) the Little Red Lighthouse is easy to find. I did make one wrong turn, though. I climbed up a flight of stairs that brought me to a dead-end walkway alongside an overpass. The trick is to keep walking west. The bright red structure sits under the George Washington Bridge. It's a really fun trek to make on a nice weekend day. Make sure you bring something to eat. There are several picnic tables positioned close by. Watch out for the bikers. On the opposite side of the lighthouse, there is a ramshackle hut built for the security guard who watches over the bridge to make sure no one trespasses. Oh, and if you want to play tennis there are courts nearby to the south. Speaking of the south, the view of Manhattan from the vantage point of the lighthouse's location gives one a great view of Midtown in the distance. The way the island descends southward and widens is evident from this view. Considering the lighthouse is a tender memory from a children's novel (which I never read) attracts attention enough. But even if you don't know the literary connection, I'd say the trip is satisfying on its own.

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The Spirit of Capital: Philosophy Graduate Student Conference on Hegel and Marx at the New School for Social Research

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Call For Papers

Tenth Annual Philosophy Graduate Student Conference at the New School for Social Research   

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: MOISHE POSTONE

APRIL 28TH -29TH, 2011

55 W 13th St., New York, New York

The New School University

The New School for Social Research

“It is impossible completely to understand Marx’s Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the  whole of Hegel’s Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of the  Marxists understood Marx!!” wrote Lenin in 1915. In 1969, Althusser responded, “A century and a half later no one has understood Hegel because it is impossible to understand Hegel without having thoroughly studied and understood Capital.” What are we to make of this challenge today? Are we now ready to understand Hegel through Marx, and Marx through Hegel?

It is high time for a reassessment of the core stakes of the Marx-Hegel debate. What would it mean to think the concepts of capital and spirit together? This conference is a place to explore the internal relations between Hegel and Marx’s philosophical projects. Some possible questions include: how does Hegel’s phenomenology, logic, philosophy of nature, history and right internally contain the elements that Marx will use to decipher the world of property, labor, commodities and capital? Is Capital a logical theory of forms or a theory of history? How does Marx negate and realize Hegel’s project? What is the role of labor in Hegel, and the role of spirit in Marx? Does the development of history show the unfolding of freedom or the unfolding of capital?  This conference echoes the early Frankfurt school tradition, with its project for a critique of the social forms of the present.

Themes
We encourage submissions on a wide range of topics and thinkers: 

Themes	Thinkers
The Philosophy of Right	I.I. Rubin
Substance and Subject in Capital	György Lukács
Hegel’s Logic and Marx’s Grundrisse	Karl Korsch
Property, Alienation, and Class	Ernst Bloch
Form and Content in Hegel and Marx	Walter Benjamin
Concrete and Abstract Labor	Alfred Sohn-Rethel
Master and Slave	Theodore Adorno
Critique, Dialectic and Method	Herbert Marcuse
Time and History	CLR James
Freedom and Necessity	Raya Dunayevskaya
The Value-Form	Guy Debord
Critique of Labor	Alexander Kojeve
Revolution and Negation	Jean Hyppolite
Proletarian Self-Abolition	Frantz Fanon
Materialism and Idealism	Helmut Reichelt
Commodity, Money and Capital	Hans-Georg Backhaus
Capital and Spirit	Gillian Rose

Submissions
Papers ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 words should be submitted in blind review format to s p i r i t o f c a p i t a l @ gmail.com
Include the following in the body of the email:
i. Author’s name
ii. Title of Paper
iii. Institutional affiliation
iv. Contact information (email, phone number, mailing address)
Please omit any self-identifying information within the body of the paper.

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Day Fades on the Manhattan Bound J Train

I took a video of the window of the subway car as the train travelled over the Williamsburg Bridge at dusk on my way to the library from work.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Video: Train Enters the Station at 14th Street Union Square

With accompaniment by Joan Baez, "Old Welsh Song" from the album Baptism

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Manhattan-bound Local 6 Train enters the station at 14th Street Union Square Station in New York City. Notice the curvature of the tracks. People are visible both on the platform and on the mezzanine level. At a brief moment, one can see the train's motorman through the car window. Union Square Station services subway lines L, N, Q, R, 4, 5, and 6 trains and is situated directly below Union Square Park. The Soundtrack is Joan Baez's lyric piece, "Old Welsh Song." 

I take with me where I go
A pen and a golden bowl
Poet and beggar step in my shoes,
Or a prince in a purple shawl.
I bring with me when I return
To the house that my father's hands made,
A crooning bird on a chrystal bough and,
O, a sad, sad word!  

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