Tag: New York City

  • ODDS and ENDS: Bad Movie Bible, Stuck in the Rain, and Father’s Day Gifts

    (If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the shower…)

    For those who know me, and for the other four people who read this, you know that I love the show Mystery Science Theater 3000, and bad movies in general. As soon as I got a Blockbuster card as a teenager, I was renting only the best of the really awful movies, usually to watch with friends on Friday or Saturday nights in junior and high school. (I was a popular cool kid, if you couldn’t tell.) That was a happy time in my life, and when I have a rough day, an episode of MST3k, or an awful movie hidden deep in Amazon Prime Video (they really do have the schlocky-ist of movies) will quickly get me back on track to a better mood. About a month ago, The Great God Algorithm of YouTube decreed that I needed to start watching the videos of The Bad Movie Bible, which is created and hosted by Rob Hill. (I thank Thee, Great God of the Algorithm, for this gift!) Hill is a hilarious encyclopedia of awful movies, and with his dead pan delivery and spot on editing of clips, he has created some of the best and funniest videos detailing specific genres of bad movies. My favorite series he has are the “Borrowing Blockbuster” videos that go into detail on all the knock off movies that came out to cash in on the success of huge hit movies – like Star Wars, Jaws, Die Hard, etc.… I respect Hill’s commitment to movies that most people write off, and at the same time I am amazed at his stamina to handle what must feel like an unending onslaught of awfulness.

    Today, I did the Alt Side Parking dance of moving the car. No big deal, went as normal as all the other days that I do it. But as I walked home, it started to rain. I didn’t know it was supposed to rain early today; I was told this afternoon. And as such, I had no raincoat or umbrella. I was a guy caught out in the rain, a few blocks from home. So, I walked in the rain and got soaked. It occurred to me that I haven’t been caught in the rain in a long time, like ten years maybe. Once I accepted that I was going to get soaked, it was a rather enjoyable experience.

    My wife and kid got me a Tottenham Hotspur t-shirt, and supporter’s pin for Father’s Day. That made me very happy.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Masking Up Again, Tom Tom Club, The Simpsons Renaissance, and Summer

    (Raise expectations to a new intention)

    Honestly; I’m pretty glad that we didn’t throw away all of our Covid masks. The smoke in New York on Wednesday was insane. Everything was shrouded in an orange haze, blocking out the sun. It was like sitting in front of a camp fire with the smoke blowing in your face. It didn’t feel good, and hurt my eyes and the back of my throat. I am glad that we pulled the A/C’s from storage last month, as that made the apartment livable with the windows closed. Walking the dog wasn’t fun, as I was back to having a mask on, stumbling around the neighborhood. It makes me think the end of the world won’t be sudden, but more like a slow car pile-up of minor inconveniences.

    I swear, I am so late to the party on everything. I just discovered the Tom Tom Club the other day.

    And The Simpsons have started getting better. A good friend sent me an article in Vulture about just that. After reading it, I started re-watching the last two seasons, and I have to agree.

    The kid only has eleven school days left before Summer vacation officially starts. But, we’re on Summer vacation. The kid has checked out; I’ve checked out; the wife wants to check out; the dog wants to get a puppy short cut so she can check out, too. Funny, but for the last two years, I have started to look forward to the coming of Summer. Before, growing up in Texas, Summer was a never ending season of just feeling uncomfortable. Mind you, Summer’s in New York can be very humid, sticky and awful, but it’s done after three months. (In Texas, it can go on for six months!) And I am sure it has everything to do with the kid, but Summer now means road trips, and hikes, and water parks, and experiences. I’m ready for it.

  • Short Story Review: “The Plaza” by Rebecca Makkai

    (The short story “The Plaza” by Rebecca Makkai appeared in the May 8th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (SPOLIERS should be expected, but not intended.)

    Sometimes I just want to read a good old-fashioned short story, like from that Post WWII/1950’s period when writers could make a living publishing stories in magazines. These are the stories that are aligned more to the entertaining fair, rather than deep expressions of artistic ambition. Don’t get me wrong, at heart I’m an arty-farty experimental writing guy. Yet, now and then, it is refreshing to read something that came from the period when America was establishing what would become Modern literature.

    When I started reading “The Plaza” by Rebecca Makkai, she took me right to that place and era, not only of literature, but of that specific New York City of old. Makkai did a particular perfect job of making The Plaza of her story matches The Plaza that only exists in the fantasy world of American literature and theatre; a playground for the well off, where any desire or request will be met by the concierge, bellhops and maids. And fantasy is correct for this story.

    “The Plaza” concerns Margie, who is a local beauty in a small town along the upper Delaware River, who at twenty-three is a waitress at a hotel for men who fish the river on vacation. It is there that she meets Alistair Baldwell, a rich young man from New York City, and his Yale friends who are there for the fishing. Soon, Alistair and Margie are together, and before he leaves, he suggests that she should come to visit him in New York. After some time, she does, and he puts her up in a room at The Plaza, and from there, their lives change, including their names. She becomes Margaret, and he becomes Ally. An unexpected pregnancy complicates the situation, but Ally’s answer is for Margaret to take a suite at The Plaza, which Ally’s company pays for, and they secretly wed. And clearly more happens.

    As I said before, this story feels like a complete throw back to what magazine American literature from the Post War period felt like. The sweep, the characters, the vast amount of time covered, and a New York City that feels peacefully wonderful and safe. And this story could exist on that simple homage level, and it would be fine. But what Makkai does expertly here is bring in a delightful undercurrent of allusion and realism. The realism of mounting lies, and the destruction of trust. I also found Margaret’s relationship with her father and brothers painfully honest, giving a clear understand of her motivations in life. But it is the allusion of the fairy tale; a princess locked away in a castle. But also, the feeling of Margaret creating her own fairy tale/fantasy in the world that she finds herself in. All of these pieces swirl together, creating a very textured and entwined story.

    In the end, I found “The Plaza” to be an entertaining story, which fooled me into thinking, at first, that it was just an old styled story. Such is the power of a good writer. What is on display is a writer who understands what made those old stories work so well, while still staying modern and fresh with the narrative, which creates something wholly new.

  • Staten Island Ferry

    I need to admit to myself, that as long as the kid is young enough to need me to get around the City, that every Spring Break will be a week of me entertaining the kid. There is a voice in my head that keeps saying that it’s not my job to keep the kid entertained, and that is true. But “entertaining the kid” for me means that I am keeping her off a screen for a couple of hours.

    To that end, we rode the Staten Island Ferry yesterday. It’s free, runs every thirty minutes, and gives you an amazing view of the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island. That also means the ferry is loaded with tourists. But if you know what you’re getting into, it can be a lot of fun.

    The kid had never been on the ferry, and she also hadn’t been to Staten Island before. I mean, she is a natural born New Yorker, and if you’re going to be a New Yorker, you have to have visited all five boroughs.

    I love riding the ferry. It used to be one of the “go to” attractions I would take people to when they came to visit, but I hadn’t been on the thing in close to eight years. It’s fun to cross the upper harbor and see the City from the water. I like trying to imagine what it was like to live there, 500 years ago, before the Dutch arrived. But then to also think what it must have looked like when the British Navy blockaded the harbor and invaded Brooklyn. The history buff side of me goes into over drive thinking about how many events and persons have passed through that harbor. You know, once it got so cold that the harbor froze, and you could walk across the ice from Manhattan to Staten Island.

    Watching the kid experience the ferry was a parental treat that I enjoyed deeply. Seeing her enjoy the cold air whipping her hair around, and asking me questions about ships, and New York, and the old forts that ring the harbor. It was fun to have these moments of entertaining her for the afternoon.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Baseball, Spring in NYC, and Walking the Dog

    (Insert Silly Comment Here)

    Baseball has started, and it’s early, but the Cubs have a losing record. They started off the season with a W, which was great, and then dropped three games. Eh… It’s the Cubs. Even when they do bad, they’re still fun to watch. That is, if you like punishing yourself. Right now, I’m just checking scores on my phone, and I follow the team on IG. I do have a far off cousin who is a Die Hard Cubbie, and she posts every day on Facebook with any developments on the team; good or bad, she reports it and has an opinion on it. That helps me stay apprised on the team. But… It is the Cubs. And even with the curse broken, they are still the Cubs. Well, here’s to hope, and hoping that it doesn’t kill me.

    I am always caught by surprise when Spring arrives in NYC. It seems like in the matter of one week, everything things blooms, buds, and pops up. There are daffodils everywhere, especially around the park entrances, and the handful of cherry trees we have in our neighborhood have exploded in flowers. And Spring always arrives right at that moment when I am fed up with winter and desperate for warmer weather. I know that this also signals that the “old man” version of me is beginning to emerge. Soon I will be comparing Springs, and making predictions of how hot Summer will be. And even if this is a cooler Summer, it still won’t be anything compared to that perfect Summer we had back in ’09. Yup, I’m becoming a very old man.

    I have to walk the dog. I like walking the dog, but it is still a chore. Also, my dog has a bad rep in the neighborhood. They call her “Murder Dog,” because she wants to murder every dog she sees. But my dog is great with people and kids. It’s just that she hates dogs.