Fannie’s book finds a new home

A few months ago I was walking past a thrift store when I noticed several cartons full of books piled on the sidewalk. The shop was emptying their shelves for a special event and giving away the items they deemed unsalable.

It was starting to rain, so I glanced through the books, selected three that appeared interesting, stuffed them into my bag, and hurried home. When I got inside I gave them a closer look. One of the books was about classical music (I gave it to a musician friend), another was about vitamins (it turned out to be too wet to save).

The third book, however, was something else entirely: dark, small and slim, in rather poor condition with the words “Album of Love” embossed on the cover. I picked it up, flipped it open, saw a name, Fannie C. Ashmore, written inside the cover and an illustration on the first page followed by quite a few blank pages.

I assumed that it was a fancy old blank notebook or an empty photo album, but when I looked further, I saw that some of the pages did have writing — spidery words formed with an old-fashioned fountain pen. The inscriptions (mostly poetry) were by several different hands, but all of the messages were addressed to Fannie, and I realized that it was some sort of autograph or friendship book.

A few items were tucked between the pages: a scrap of paper with Fannie’s name and town, Trenton, New Jersey, one of her calling cards, a bit of a dried fern and two newspaper clippings concerning the death of Alexander B. Green of the Fourteenth New Jersey Volunteers, who lived in Ewing and died in the battle of Monocacy Junction “in his youth, away from home … in the fierceness of battle.”

One of the inscriptions in the book was to Fannie from her “coz, Alex G,” and with a bit of online research I learned that Alexander B. Green of the Fourteenth New Jersey Volunteers died July 5, 1864 and is buried near Trenton at the Ewing Church Cemetery.

I couldn’t imagine how the book that was once so important to Fannie wound up in a thrift store, or why it was discarded, or even how it managed to make its way to this city, but I thought that the little Civil War era book would be of value to someone. Unfortunately, I don’t know who, or where, or how to find them.

Over the past few months, I’ve tried to locate an historical society, museum, or similar instituation where the book would be appreciated, but the places I contacted never seemed to be quite the right fit. A couple of people offered to “take it off my hands,” but I didn’t want the recipient to act as though they were doing me a big favor — I wanted it to go to someone who’d be happy to have it.

Finally, it occurred to me to offer the book to the library in Trenton, Fannie’s hometown. I had a long conversation with a librarian who told me that similar books were a fad among the girls who attended the Normal School (a teacher’s college) in Trenton around the time of the American Civil War. She was delighted to accept my offer and will be giving Fannie’s little book a safe and secure new home in the Research Department’s Trentoniana Collection. She also expressed her hope that somehow, someday, a descendant will walk into the library and ask to see Fannie’s little book.

Perhaps, someday, they will. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

Front cover

Fannie C. Ashmore

Beauty

Album of Love

Autographs

To Fannie from “your affectionate cousin”

“The clear, cold question chills to frozen doubt …”

“Your sincere friend, Mary F. Sheppard”

The Mountain Sprite

Dried fern

To Fannie from J.J.S.

“To Fannie, Trenton, April 14th 1861″

Light of the Harem

“Ever your loving cousin, CMG”

“Remember me when far away …”

“A despatch, received from Alexander B. Green, of Ewing, by his wife, on Saturday night …”

From the State Gazette, lines of the death of Sergeant A.G.

“Still think of Alex G”

Fannie C. Ashmore, Trenton, New Jersey

Trenton Free Public Library
14th New Jersey Volunteer Regiment
New Jersey Civil War History Association: History of the 14th Regiment
National Park Service: Monocacy National Battlefield
Friends of the William Green Farmhouse: Alexander B. Green
Report of State Normal School, Trenton, 1864

The 31st Annual Museum Mile Festival

There are two things I dislike about the Museum Mile Festival:

1) It happens only once a year.
2) It lasts only three hours.

There simply isn’t enough time to take in everything that happens during this event which stretches along Fifth Avenue from 82nd Street to 105th Street — 23 blocks offering nine museums (all providing free admission) along with concerts, clowns, jugglers, face painters, and arts and crafts projects.

In past years I’ve started at the lower end, near the Metropolitan Museum of Art at 82nd Street, and attempted to work my way up but never made it past the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum at 91st Street. This time I decided to start at the northern end of the festival, heading down from El Museo del Barrio at 105th Street.

Unlike the rest of the institutions on museum mile, El Museo does not have its own building. Instead, it is one of variety of Latino arts organizations housed in the massive, block-filling, neo-Georgian Heckscher Building at 1230 Fifth Avenue (other tenants include the Raíces Latin Music Museum Collection of Harbor Conservatory and La Casa de la Herencia Cultural Puertorriqueña).

Although El Museo is currently closed for renovations, the Latin-flavored music issuing from their loudspeakers inspired passersby to dance in the street. Inside the Heckscher Building, through corridors of worn linoleum and flickering florescent lights, they offered a mask-making workshop, a salsa jam session, and promises that they will reopen in the fall.

The next stop was across the street to the Museum of the City of New York, which is charged with a “unique mandate: to explore the past, present, and future of this fascinating and particular place and to celebrate its heritage of diversity, opportunity, and perpetual transformation. A variety of exhibitions, public programs, and publications all investigate what gives New York City its singular character.”

The current programs are tied to NY400: Holland on the Hudson, a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Dutch. In 1609 the Half Moon, guided by Captain Henry Hudson, landed on the shores of what is now New York City. Hudson’s arrival led to the establishment of New Amsterdam and the New Netherland colony.

This was my first visit to the museum and, while I was eager to rejoin the celebrations outside, I couldn’t drag myself away from the programs including exhibits about Manhattan before Hudson’s arrival, the Dutch city, and the acapella concert by the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus.

I kept checking my watch, thinking that I was missing the rest of the festival, but remaining unwilling to leave as I learned about the many Dutch influences that continue to touch our lives in New York City today. I lingered at a map that shows areas of the city with their original Dutch names: Breuckelen (Brooklyn), Vlackebos (Flatbush), Boswijck (Bushwick), Conijne Eylandt (Coney Island), Midwout (Midwood), Nieuw Utrecht (New Utrecht). I listened to recordings based on diaries and letters written by the Dutch colonists. I gazed at the rare artifacts, books, manuscripts, maps and globes.

I stayed until the museum was ready to lock its doors for the night. When I got back to the street, the festival was over. The street had reopened to traffic and a few stragglers were using discarded pieces of chalk to make their marks on the sidewalks and walls.

Perhaps next year I’ll take in more than one or two museums during the festival. Then again, perhaps not. Why rush to “get through” a good experience?

I once read a highly-recommended guide to Paris by Rick Steves which included instructions on how to see the Louvre Museum in less than an hour (maintain a brisk pace and glace at certain key works in case your friends back home ask what you thought of, say, the Mona Lisa). When I got to Paris I ditched the book and spent an entire day inside the Louvre, lingering after dark to watch the skateboarders clattering on the stairs and terraces above the Seine. The “in a hurry” crowd never knew what they missed.

Dancing in the middle of Fifth Avenue

Drawing in the street

Another little artist

Inside the Heckscher Building

Jam session in El Museo del Barrio

Viewing the NY400 exhibits

Photographs of Dutch citizens

Moving up and down the stairway

Exploring the galleries

A figure originally used to hold a compass on a ship

Looking at Dutch photographs of New Yorkers

A guide to Nieu-Nederlandt

Viewing a video about New York history

Map of New Amsterdam

Inside the galleries

The crowd straggles out of the Museum of the City of New York

Writing on the walls with chalk

Chalk message on a museum wall

Annual Museum Mile Festival
El Museo del Barrio
Museum of the City of New York
NY Times: Voyaging Up the Hudson to Rediscover the Dutch
NY400
New York City Gay Men’s Chorus

Greek Festival in Downtown Brooklyn

The metal signs were propped up on the sidewalk. The flags and banners were hung from the awning. The street was closed, the carnival attractions arrived and the tables and chairs were assembled outside the front door. Most importantly, the yayas (grandmothers) were cooking. And cooking. And cooking.

It was time once again for the festival run in Downtown Brooklyn by Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral. Now in its 32nd year, the annual week-long event is one of the biggest fund raisers for the church that has stood here since 1916.

The cathedral is more than just a place of worship; for nearly 100 years, it has served as the center of Greek life in Brooklyn. Many parishioners cheerfully put their business affairs aside for the week and devote their labors to ensure the festival’s success. The attractions include a “white elephant” sale and gift shop, music, kiddie rides and, of course, the food. The barbeques for gyros, souvlaki and grilled octopus were set up in the street, the trays filled with moussaka, pasticio, dolmades, spanakopita, keftedes and pastries — all based on old family recipes — were on the tables under the tent.

The music played, the kids giggled and ran, the younger people manned the grills, the yayas kept an eye on the money box while serving heaping helpings of everything and the men, just as they do in Greece, sat together swapping stories, making plans and watching the passing scene. Oopa!

A sign on Court Street

Tables set up on the asphalt

Cooking the meat for gyros

Grilled souvlaki

Assembling a gyro

Yayas inside the tent

A tray of desserts

The carnival attractions help raise money

The neighborhood kids love winning prizes

The Greek Orthodox of Cathedral of Sts. Constantine and Helen
Recipe: Moussaka
Recipe: Pasticio
Recipe: Dolmades
Recipe: Spanakopita
Recipe: Cat Cora’s Keftedes

Ecuafest!

It was an overcast day and I was heading home when a police officer mentioned that I should stick around because Ecuafest was about to start.

Ecuafest? Ecuawho? Ecuawhat?

The police couldn’t tell me much more, only that they had just been assigned to work at the Ecuadoran parade that would soon head down Central Park West. So I stayed and watched the event from beginning to end.

It was tiny, as parades in New York go: a single vendor selling souvenirs, a couple of dancing groups, a couple of beauty queens, some handful of politicians with sashes across their chests and a couple of vehicles decorated with flags and banners.

The biggest attraction was a man dressed in a summer white suit who was surrounded by bodyguards. His arrival created all the pandemonium the small group of spectators could create, as young and old scrambled to take his photo, obtain his autograph, pose beside him and shake his hand. I didn’t recognize him, but I realized that he was some sort of star. Later I learned that he was Alex Aguinaga, hailed as one of the best Ecuadorian footballers of all time.

The promoters of Ecuafest (I later found it advertised on Craigslist) promised that it would go for two and a half hours, but the entire parade lasted less than half an hour, colorful, peaceful, short and sweet.

Please join us as we celebrate Ecuafest 2009, the third annual observance of the Ecuadorian Independence in the city of New York. The National Ecuadorian Day Parade will initiate this year’s festivities on Sunday, May 17th. Showcasing the largest array of Ecuadorian traditions in the form of dances and colorful floats. It will move along Central Park West from 110th Street to its routes end at the corner of 96th Street from 12:30PM-3:00PM.

QUE VIVA EL ECUADOR!!!!!!!!!!

Selling souvenirs

Waiting for the parade to start

Alone but enthusiastic

Here come the sashes

A politician and a pretty girl

Álex Aguinaga and his bodyguards

Aguinaga and a fan

Dancing down the street

The dance group moves in step

Young dancers watch a more experienced group

Beauty queen in an open car

Skirts swirling in the air

Men wearing traditional costumes

A vehicle in the parade

Álex Aguinaga
Ecuafest Web site
Ecuafest on Craigslist

AIDS Walk 2009

Today (once again) I dragged myself out of bed at dawn on a drizzly Sunday morning to participate in AIDS WALK NY. And once again, this, the world’s largest AIDS fundraising event, was a complete success.

Despite the unseasonably wet, chilly weather and the rotten economy, 2,000 volunteers and 45,000 walkers came out. When all the money was counted, we’d raised a total of $5,603,409 for organizations devoted to the fight against AIDS, including prevention, treatment and the search for a cure.

Here are some photos taken at Checkpoint #1, which is one-quarter of the way through the 10 kilometer route in and around Central Park.

Banner on a lamppost outside the park

Volunteers setting out drinks for the walkers

The water is waiting to be grabbed

An orchard’s worth of apples

Here come the walkers

They need refreshment

Some of the volunteers are stunned

Walkers are hungry! They’re thirsty!

Give them snacks and send them on their way

The food and drink are depleted by the time the last walkers arrive

AIDS WALK NY

Tribeca Film Festival 2009

Thanks to the troubled economy, the Tribeca Film Festival was significantly smaller than in previous years. While audiences were still eager to participate (what better way to escape problems than by spending a couple of hours at the movies?), the 2009 Festival offered fewer films, fewer venues, fewer screenings, making it much more difficult to gain entry to screenings and events.

Although I was shut out of some of the films on my “must see” list, I managed to attend some screenings, panel discussions and events, and my favorite film, City Island, was also the winner of the Heineken Audience Award. Here’s what I saw in alphabetical order. The descriptions below are taken from the Festival’s Web site.

1. Antoine
   Antoine was born 100 days premature and became blind from the effects of his incubator. Now five years old, he uses a mini boom microphone to discover and capture the sounds around him. Through this visually striking portrait, expertly crafted by Laura Bari, we share both the everyday and imaginary worlds Antoine lives in and learn how he overcomes adversity by creating his own alternative universe of beauty.
2. Camera Roll (for Taylor)
   A camera roll city cine-poem, filmed in Brooklyn in the vicinity of the Gowanus Canal. Shot on a single roll of 16mm film and made as a filmic postcard for a distant friend, Camera Roll captures a Brooklyn neighborhood’s beauty and dereliction, industry and atmosphere, and the sounds of the elevated train rumbling in the distance.
3. Chop Off
   Chop Off exposes the dark, fearful recesses of the human psyche by filming the body modification of performance artist R.K. Literally risking “life and limb,” R.K.’s body is his medium, and amputation is his art. The very act of filming him often stimulates a cascading range of emotions, from disgust to fear to dread.
4. City Island
   Vinnie’s been secretly taking acting classes, his daughter’s moonlighting as a stripper, his son’s got a weighty fetish, and mom’s eye is wandering… the Rizzos might get along a lot better if they weren’t keeping so many secrets. Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies, Emily Mortimer, and Alan Arkin star in this smart and poignant dysfunctional-family comedy, set in unassuming City Island.
5. densen
   Inspired by the Japanese word for power line, densen is a musical voyage through photographs from Tokyo, St. Petersburg, Barcelona, Milan, and Buenos Aires.
6. Don McKay
   Don McKay (Thomas Haden Church) should have followed the old cliché: “You can’t go home again.” After 25 years, he returns for the first time to his hometown at the out-of-the-blue bidding of his cancer-stricken ex-girlfriend (Elisabeth Shue). But a lot of time has passed, and an old secret crashes into new ones in this darkly comic thriller, also featuring Melissa Leo.
7. An Englishman in New York
   John Hurt astounds as he revisits the role that made him a star (in 1975’s The Naked Civil Servant): real-life writer, actor, and gay icon Quentin Crisp. This smart, sensitive drama—marked by Hurt’s bravura handling of Crisp’s razor-tongued wit—focuses on the flamboyant 72-year-old star’s move to New York in 1981, and the fallout from a reckless comment about the burgeoning AIDS epidemic. A Leopardrama Film for ITV1. Executive producers are Joey Attawia, Susie Field, and James Burstall.
8. Entre Nos
   Adoring mother Mariana (talented codirector Paola Mendoza) has toted her two children from Colombia to New York to indulge her husband’s whim. But when he abruptly abandons the family, she’ll have to rely on her own imagination and courage—and that of her remarkable kids (breakthroughs Sebastian Villada and Laura Montana)—to survive insurmountable odds during their first summer in the United States.
9. Hysterical Psycho
   In this side-splitting horror send-up, a theater troupe takes a trip to a country cabin, but its nearby lake is full of lunar radiation, and one of the troupe members is already straight-up crazy. Put them together and you get one psycho thespian! Full of bloody, fun-filled kills, a deaf-mute chick, inventive animation, and some big boobs, Hysterical Psycho is a wild trip.
10. influenza/Composition II (chrome square)
    A sticker project translated into animation, this film uses shiny square stickers as miniature, abstract urban screens that quietly reflect the city life on their blurry surface. In the mid-1990s filmmaker Jeroen Jongeleen discovered in stickers a simple and cheap means of functioning in public.
11. Love the Beast
    Eric Bana’s directorial debut is a love story. The object of the actor’s affection? A Ford XB Falcon Coupe, his “beast,” the car he’s had since he was 15. Tracing Bana’s lifelong obsession with cars to his participation in the ultimate auto race—the five-day Targa Tasmania—this impassioned doc is fueled by family, friendship, and an insatiable lust for life.
12. A Matter of Size
    In this touching, lighthearted comedy, an overweight, underemployed chef and three close friends abandon their weight-loss group to pursue an activity for which girth is a virtue: sumo wrestling. While training, they discover the soul of sumo, realizing that—fat or thin—love and success will only come from being true to themselves.
13. Métro
    A journey into the 68 stations of the Montreal subways.
14. My Last Five Girlfriends
    Based on the international best seller On Love by Alain de Botton, this delightful romantic comedy explores with delicious wit and whimsy just how modern urban relationships go wrong. Surveying the wreckage of his last five relationships, thirtysomething Duncan (Brendan Patricks) concludes that love is a battleground where only the fittest survive.
15. My Life in Ruins
    From Nia Vardalos, writer and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, comes the hilarious comedy My Life in Ruins. Georgia (Nia Vardalos) has lost her kefi (Greek for “mojo”). Discouraged by her lack of direction in life, she works as a travel guide, leading a ragtag group of tourists as she tries to show them the beauty of her native Greece. While opening their eyes to an exotic foreign land, she too begins to see things in new ways-finding her kefi in the process.
16. Original
    In this fresh and colorful lovable loser tale, Henry has spent most of his life trying to blend in. When his seemingly normal life turns upside down, his friend convinces him to move to Spain and open a restaurant. But before he can break free of the mundane, he gets sidelined caring for his mentally unstable mother, running into a lost-soul feminist who does performance art in a strip club, and a big bag of steroids.
17. Playground
    Executive produced by George Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Steven Soderbergh, this astonishing doc travels to the dark heart of one of the world’s most sinister industries—the child sex trade. Beginning her journey infiltrating brothels in South Korea and Thailand, director Libby Spears soon discovers that the United States is a major player in the human trafficking racket and turns her attention to the homeland. Featuring original artwork by Yoshitomo Nara.
18. Racing Dreams
    What Little League is to baseball, go-karting is to auto racing. Oscar®-nominated director Marshall Curry (Street Fight) follows the exhilarating and emotional journeys of three top racers competing for the national championship. Three adolescents and their families must discover if they have the talent and dedication—and sponsorship dollars—to one day become NASCAR superstars.
19. The Swimsuit Issue
    What begins as a joke turns into a new shot at glory for a group of over-the-hill athletes who decide to form Sweden’s only all-male synchronized swimming team. The less they’re taken seriously, the more determined they are to win the world championship in this fun, feel-good comedy about friendship and family.
20. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
    In shell-ebration of their 25th anniversary, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will make a totally radical appearance along with their sidekick April at the Drive-In’s giant pizza party and screening of their 1990 film. To welcome the Turtles, the plaza will be decorated with glow-in-the-dark manhole covers. Families can climb inside the all-new Party Wagon, a mobile treasure trove based on the original Party Van. Kids can get their faces painted Turtle-style, take pictures at the photo booth, and pick up new moves with karate demos!
21. A Time and a Time
    A Time and a Time is a short film made entirely from archive footage shot in three specific locations in Bristol over the past 100 years. Films and photographs across time are combined to create new scenes where contemporary shoppers mingle with people that walked that same street a century earlier.
22. TiMER
    Finding true love is easier than ever thanks to a bio-technological implant called the TiMER, which counts down to the exact time people meet their soul mates. Love-starved Oona (Emma Caulfield, TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is pushing 30, but her TiMER hasn’t even started counting down yet. What’s worse, she’s falling for a guy (John Patrick Amedori, Gossip Girl) who is set to meet his true love in four months. Newcomer Jac Schaeffer crafts a smart romantic comedy that leaves behind the burning question… would you want to know?
23. Trailer Trash
    A skewed take on film detritus: 35mm movie trailers are rescued from the trash and affected by hand and digitally, holding up a funhouse mirror to the industry of expectations.
24. Without You
    Inspired by a poem by Josef Albers, Without You is a visual exploration of London’s industrial suburbia, focusing on an imaginary circle drawn at a 10-mile radius from Charing Cross, where the natural and man-made environments lie side-by-side in harmonic indifference.

Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal onstage at Borough of Manhattan Community College

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the outdoor screen at the Tribeca Film Festival Drive-In

Cooking demonstration at the Tribeca Film Festival Family Festival

Balloon animal maker at the Tribeca Film Festival Family Festival

Director and stars of City Island at the film’s premier

Laura Bari, director of Antoine

Director and stars of An Englishman in New York

The Scandinavian filmmakers who created Original

Filmmakers speak at Tribeca Talks: The Future of the Independents

First-time director Eric Bana fields a question at premier of Love the Beast

A star meets fans at the Tribeca Film Festival Family Festival

Tribeca Film Festival
Tribeca Talks: The Future of the Independents
Heineken Audience Award

How About Little Intolerance With Your Breakfast?

If you want to survive in New York City, you need to know what’s going on around you. It isn’t easy to keep up with the constant changes that affect our lives, so many of us begin each day by catching up with local news reports on line, in newspapers, on the radio or on television.

To ensure that I hear about the latest street closings, subway delays and traffic jams, I usually turn to the TV morning news. In fact, I was one of the New Yorkers who wasn’t alarmed the other day, when several planes flew around the Statue of Liberty, because I’d heard the flyover announced in advance on the local news.

Today, however, I found the news stories less surprising than a commercial that ran towards the end of the local broadcast. It was 7:50 a.m. and I hadn’t yet swallowed a caffeinated drop, but the ad certainly jolted me awake. It was prompted, I assume, by the governor of New York’s recent introduction of a bill to make marriage legal for same-sex couples.

The commercial, from a group called the National Organization for Marriage, carries a clear message: if all New Yorkers are allowed to equal access to marriage, it will be the end to life as we know it. Heterosexual marriages, happy families and small businesses will be destroyed. Nothing like a little intolerance with breakfast to get the day off to a great start.

Yeah! Let’s make sure them gays don’t get equal rights! And the National Organization for Marriage earns extra points by linking the marriage issue to the current state of the economy!

I expect my local television stations to have some sort of standards, but it appears that Channel 2 (WCBS-TV) is willing to run anything for a buck these days. What’s next? Commercials for the KKK and the American Nazi Party?

Gay Liberation by George Segal in Christopher Park

WCBS TV: Contact Us
Marriage Equality New York
Human Rights Campaign Exposes National Organization for Marriage’s Fake Ad for Fake Problems
End The Lies
NY Times: Paterson on ‘Guilt’ And Gay Marriage

A Sunny Easter Sunday

The Easter Parade is a long-standing New York tradition. From 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m, the city closes Fifth Avenue from 49th to 57th Streets so that New Yorkers wearing wacky hats can stroll along, pose and be admired. As always, the hats were colorful and creative, the photographers were plentiful and, after a week of rain, the sunny day ensured that spirits were high.

Azalea bush girl

Man in flower pot hat

Eggs perched on the brim

Girl with a hot dog

Girls in bunny ears

Sunflower with a view

A hat topped with fresh tulips

Vintage pillbox hat

The Brooklyn Bridge made of MetroCards

Fluttering butterflies

Overturned Easter basket as a hat

A real, live bunny

Dog in bunny ears

The World is Safe for Another Year

Long before the invention of Freecycle, Kijiji, Bookcrossing and Craigslist, Brooklynites created a way to pass useful but unwanted possessions along to those who desired them. The Brooklyn system is simple, direct and low-tech: just place the goods on a stoop where passersby can help themselves to your castoffs. Something left at the curb is likely to be trash, but an item sitting on the stoop in  Brooklyn is nearly always a treasure waiting to be discovered.

This morning I was hurrying through a cold, pouring rainstorm when I noticed a small cardboard carton growing soggy on a brownstone stoop. The top of the box was open and I couldn’t resist peeking inside, where, to my surprise, I saw a colorfully painted wooden egg.

I picked it up and realized that the box, more than half-filled with water, contained a typical assortment of items left out for passersby to claim — broken crockery, the top of a tea pot, a crude, clumsy clay vase, a rusted tin box. But jumbled in and among the dented and cracked castoffs I spotted more painted wooden items. It was raining too hard to look closely, so I just grabbed them all from the box and took them with me.

Hours later I got home, inspected my haul and I realized that I’d snagged six painted eggs, six egg cups painted with strawberries, and a matching tray on which to display them. A bit of googling helped me identify the jewel-toned wooden items as works of Malyovanky, a variation on Psyanka, the traditional Ukranian craft of decorating eggs. According to Wikipedia, residents of the Carpathian Mountains believe that the fate of the entire world depends upon such eggs.

As long as the egg decorating custom continues, the world will exist. If, for any reason, this custom is abandoned, evil––in the shape of a horrible serpent who is forever chained to a cliff–– will overrun the world. Each year the serpent sends out his minions to see how many pysanky have been created. If the number is low the serpent’s chains are loosened and he is free to wander the earth causing havoc and destruction. If, on the other hand, the number of pysanky has increased, the chains are tightened and good triumphs over evil for yet another year.

And so it was that, the day before Easter, I participated in a serendipitous Easter egg hunt, and — by saving the eggs from a watery fate — have helped ensure that the world will continue to exist for another year. Whew.

Black egg

Red egg

Blue egg

Tan egg

Green egg

Tray painted with strawberries

Strawberry painted egg cup

The full set.

Wikipedia: Pysanky and Malyovanky
Suma Store: Pysanka
Freecycle
Kijiji
Bookcrossing
Craigslist

Birkat Hachamah: Blessing the Sun

God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night . . . And it was evening and it was morning, a fourth day.
—Genesis 1:16, 19

One who sees the sun at its turning point should say, “Blessed is He who reenacts the works of Creation.” And when is this? Abaya said: every 28th year.
—Talmud, Tractate Berachot 59b

It happens once in a generation: The moment when, according to Talmudic tradition, the sun returns to the same position, at the same time and day, that it appeared at the beginning of all creation. Observant Jews mark the occasion, which occurs every 28 years, with a special blessing called Birkat Hachamah, the sun blessing.

Today, Birkat Hachamah ceremonies large and small were held around the world. This one, organized by Rabbi Aaron L. Raskin of Congregation Bnai Avraham and Chabad of Brooklyn Heights, took place on the steps of Borough Hall.

The crowd began to gather early

Copies of the blessing were distributed

Children read aloud

A brother and sister reading

This kid reminds me of Kenny from South Park

This girl wasn’t camera-shy

The wind blew, but she didn’t lose her place

Among those reciting the blessing was Borough President Marty Markowitz (right)

After the blessing, singing …

.. and dancing

The women danced together

The men formed a circle

Friends laughed together

The rabbi kicked up his heels

Congregation Bnai Avraham
Chabad of Brooklyn Heights
Birkat HaChamah, The Blessing of the Sun, 2009
NY Times: For Jews, Another 28 Years, Another Blessing of the Sun
Bless The Sun
Chabad: Thank G-d for the Sun
Kenny from South Park

A Sign With a Picture of a Doorway

Sometimes I must leave the city, and this was one of those days. I headed to Pennsylvania Station to take a train but, due to a delay on the subway, I arrived a few minutes after it departed. With nearly an hour to wait until the next train, I passed the time exploring the enormous maze of floors and passageways.

While walking through one of the lower levels, I noticed a doorway crisscrossed with yards of yellow tape ominously marked “Police Line Do Not Cross.” I stepped closer and saw two paper notices fastened on and near the tape.

The both bore the same message: a notice to Amtrak employees telling them that the entryway was closed (apparently, the yards of tape weren’t enough of an indication) and that they should use another entrance. And, in case any Amtrak employees weren’t sure what an entrance was, both notices were helpfully illustrated with photographs of doorways. A pair of uniformed Amtrak workers strolled by while I was reading the signs, and we joked about management’s assessment of their intelligence (”I guess they figured if they didn’t put up a sign, we’d just walk through the tape.”).

I unpacked my camera and began to photograph the doorway. Suddenly, my lens was dark. I looked up and saw a large, red-faced man in a dark jacket who’d placed himself between the doorway and the camera. He demanded to know why I was taking a picture.

New York, as you probably know, has no shortage of crazies. I deal with them all the time, usually simply by putting as much distance between us as quickly as possible. This fellow, however, was already close enough to touch me. I felt I’d better say something, so I asked whether he had a problem with me taking pictures. He did, he said. I told him to get over it and, wanting to avoid a confrontation even more than I wanted the photo, I quickly walked away.

A few minutes later, I heard an announcement that my train was ready for boarding. I ran down the stairway, jumped on board, settled into a seat and began to read a magazine. Suddenly, I was aware that someone was standing over me.

I looked up and saw two police officers. They told me that they’d received a report and that I fit the description of the person involved. “Were you taking pictures in the station?,” asked one of the men. Yes, I was. “Can you tell me what compelled you take pictures?,” he asked.

Compelled? I didn’t feel compelled, I explained, I just thought it would make a good picture. I thought it was funny. They asked me to describe what happened and I did. They exchanged looks, then asked why I walked left the scene rather than talk to the man who’d approached me.

A horrible thought occurred to me. “Was he a cop?,” I asked. “He didn’t identify himself as a cop.” “No, he was no cop,” said the officer. “He works for Amtrak.” I explained that I’d left because thought he was a nut. Why would I stick around to talk to an angry nut?

The policemen asked more questions: why do I take photographs? What do I do with them? Just then, one of the officers glanced down at the magazine in my hands. It was a thick, glossy issue of Art in America. “Are you an artist?,” asked the policeman. I thought a moment, and decided that even though it is not the occupation I list on my tax returns, my photos are a kind of art. “Yes,” I replied.

“An artist,” he said. He turned to his partner and repeated the words. “An artist.” They nodded. “Oh, well, you were taking the pictures for your art,” said the policeman. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

They told me that the man who’d blocked my view should have identified himself, but since he had called the authorities and reported me, they were obligated to follow up and investigate.

We began to discuss art, photography and Brooklyn when we heard a signal — the train was about to depart. The officers hurriedly gave me their names, shook my hand, and, repeating the words, “You didn’t do anything wrong,” stepped onto the platform just before the doors slid shut.

Thanks, NYPD. Thanks, Art in America.

The doorway

The sign on the tape

The sign beside the doorway

Art in America magazine

Art in America
The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station
New York Architecture: Penn Station
Amtrak: Penn Station

Help keep the fares fair!

Yesterday, the board of directors of the New York State Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) voted to cut transit service and increase fares.

While the politicians and the heads of the agency make their way around in chauffeured limousines, the changes, which are scheduled to go into effect on May 31, will deal a crushing blow to already-struggling New Yorkers. The changes are more than substantial; they are painful.

• The MTA will charge $6 more for a 7-day unlimited MetroCard, $12 more for a 14-day MetroCard, and a 30-day MetroCard will jump from $81 to $103.
• The fare on Long Island Bus, which serves Nassau County, will go from $2 to $3.50.
• Riders on commuter trains will find their fares up by as much as 30%.
• Those who drive won’t be spared, either: tolls will cost $1.50 more each way at the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel, Queens-Midtown tunnel and the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge (formerly the Triborough).
• The service cuts are horrendous: five subway lines, including the entire W and Z trains, will be shortened or eliminated; 35 bus routes will be totally cut and dozens more will have less service. Bus and train waiting times and crowding will increase while hundreds of station attendants will vanish.

According to the New York Times, after the board voted, H. Dale Hemmerdinger, the chairman, said, “It’s now a fact, it’s done.”

The only remaining hope for those of us who use the system is that state legislators and the governor can be persuaded to agree on a new transit aid package in the next few weeks. Please call or e-mail elected officials and tell them that they need to come to the aid of riders while there is still time; you can find your representatives via the links below.

Message posted inside the High Street Subway Station in Brooklyn

Find New York State Elected Officials
Contact the Governor of New York State
New York Times: M.T.A. Votes to Raise Fares and Cut Service
New York Post: The Great Train Robbery
Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Have fun in the park … but watch your step

Spring has finally arrived and New Yorkers are running outside to take advantage of the first weekend of the season. These warm, sunny days are inspiring many to shed their heavy coats and venture onto the 29,000 acres of land controlled by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

If you plan to join them, enjoy yourself … but remember that there are rules in the parks. Serious rules. Lots of them. Here are some of the warning signs posted in and around the city’s parks and playgrounds. Have fun and watch your step.

South Cove Park

Central Park

James Bogardus Triangle Park

The Esplanade Park

Tramway Plaza Park

The Esplanade Park

Red Hook Park

Battery Park

Central Park

The Esplanade Park

Red Hook Park

City Hall Park

Erie Basin Park

Red Hook Pool

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation

What do you read into this?

A street vendor in Brooklyn clipped these cardboard signs to his table-top display of hats, gloves, sweaters and scarves. What do you read into them?

What do you read into this?

Beat the recession.

Goodbye Heights Books, and thanks!

For nearly two decades, Heights Books was a fixture in Brooklyn Heights.

The used bookstore, which often displayed carts filled with bargain-priced books on the sidewalk, was the last remaining bookseller on busy Montague Street — the street that inspired Christopher Morley’s 1919 novel, The Haunted Bookshop, which begins, “If you are ever in Brooklyn, that borough of superb sunsets and magnificent vistas of husband-propelled baby-carriages, it is to be hoped you may chance upon a quiet by-street where there is a very remarkable bookshop.”

Recently, when the building in which it was located was sold, Heights Books’ owners decided to close up and move to another part of the borough. Rather than pack their entire stock, move and reshelve it all at the new location, they chose to sort out the books that had lingered far too long in the store’s inventory and throw them away.

Today, a crew of workman tossed thousands of volumes into a dumpster outside the shop. When passersby spotted cartons full of books being hurled into the trash, they scrambled to rescue as many as they could grab. They jumped atop the piles of books, their efforts intensifying as darkness and rain began to fall. One fellow remarked, “I’ve heard the expression dumpster diving, but this is the first time I’ve seen people literally diving into a dumpster!”

The dumpster on the street

Inside the store, the shelves are gone

Passersby grabbed books before they were tossed in the dumpster

Younger readers stood on boxes to better see into the dumpster

Older readers remained on the sidewalk

Some climbed atop the pile

Few could resist peeking into the dumpster

Some books were rescued

A last grab as the rain starts to fall

Books heading for the landfill

Page by Page Books: The Haunted Bookshop
Heights Books
New York Magazine: Heights Books
The Brooklyn Paper: Book ‘em! Heights Books to move to Cobble Hill
The Brooklyn Paper: Book ‘em! Heights store will not close, says owner

Give Real Change to the Homeless

New York City’s Department of Homeless Services has launched a campaign to educate the public about helping the homeless. Their message is simple: the best way to aid the homeless is by contacting the agencies designed to aid them.

Someone, reading one of the campaign’s posters in the 14th Street subway station, added a few pithy notes.

The poster

Do I look excited about a shelter? Hell no.

“Money”

New York City and MTA Unveil ‘Give Real Change’ Public Education Campaign
NYC Department of Homeless Services (DHS)
NYC Action Plan to End Homelessness

The Hidden Chorus

An essay I wrote has been published in an anthology from the NY Writers Coalition. Tonight I will be reading it at Community Bookstore, 143 Seventh Avenue, in Park Slope, Brooklyn. If you are in the neighborhood, please stop by.

The Hidden Chorus: Poetry and Fiction from NY Writers Coalition
NY Writers Coalition
Community Book Store
New York Magazine: Community Book Store

I’m sick of seeing coq au vin

Whole Foods is an international chain of upscale supermarkets. Located in affluent areas and focusing on natural and organic items, the stores sell premium goods at premium prices; in fact, wags have dubbed the chain “whole paycheck.”

Whole Foods currently has five stores in New York City, all of them in Manhattan. The store in Union Square includes a message board where management replies to a selection of customer-submitted “rants and raves.” On a recent visit, I was struck by a complaint regarding the prepared foods section.

The board

The card

The rant

Whole Foods
Whole Foods Union Square
New York Daily News: Whole Foods tries to shake ‘whole paycheck’ image
CNN Money: Whole Foods, The Whole Truth

Hope on the Corner

Even on a cold, barren street corner in Brooklyn, the optimistic mood of the inauguration is apparent. From the front window of this pet grooming shop on Hicks Street, the light of hope shines through the darkness.

The light at the corner of Hicks and Pineapple Streets

Hope shines from the window

Our Inauguration Day

An overwhelming majority of New Yorkers voted for Barack Obama last November, and many thought of today as “our” inauguration day.

Across the city, workers took the day off to celebrate with friends and family, students watched the inauguration ceremonies from their classrooms, and residents and tourists flocked to see the pomp and circumstance unfold on enormous screens that were erected in several locations.

Of course, the souvenir vendors were out in force, too, selling mementos of the day Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States.

First Black President buttons for sale at Foley Square

January 20, 2009 badges selling in Union Square

Inauguration Barack Obama shirt for sale on Broadway

My President Obama shirt for sale in Foley Square