Thursday, August 08, 2002
Andrew,
Last night's episode of Reel New York on Ch. 13, and next week's as
well, feature several short films related to the "September 11th"
excitements. One of them stands prominent to the rest of the pack: one of
the North Tower's artists-in-residence video-taped a series of vistas on
September 10th, and, unusual for her (or so she claims), she took the tape
home from the studio when she left the WTC late that evening. This film is
the result. Program your little smart-box.
Well, last night pretty much sucked with you all. But, thank goodness
we didn't head over the Slipper Sloppy earlier; S.P. and I decided to "slip"
in for a nightcap, and, let me tell you, I had a vision of pain in that
place. The horizon far and wide was swollen with a trolling mass of preppy
minions, and a few of these males instantly pegged S.P. and J.R. as native
interlopers who had no business on their fetid plain. I felt like an A-rab,
a Musselman. I was honestly scared. S.P. approached the bar to flirt with
his cute, blonde barmaid friend, while I watched two guys eye him with rage;
one dude even cracked his knuckles! Meanwhile, I discreetly stood in the
background while two other Frat Rats gazed over their shoulders at me and
bellicosely asked each other, "You know him? I don't!" and whatnot; it
seemed like the stay-away-or-the-girlies-might-think-I'm-gay kind of thing.
Maybe we ought to fly Snake Plissken into the Ludlow Street "barrio" for a
little sweep-and-clear, you dig?
Anyway, we're lucky to have gotten out without an infraction. Sheesh.
People are really mean, stupid, selfish and...hungry and thirsty.
And then: so, I'm always sanguine for a drunken bike-ride. I get to ye
olde Manhatta Viaduct, and lo: the upper roadway has been blockaded, so what
stoppest thou from traversing its welcoming lanes in a solo flight of most
becalmed reverie?!? And yea, I trundled forward upon its smooth macadam. But
in my besotted state I did most sorrily forget that these airborne trestles
do connect by means of tooth-like gaps, expansion-contraction lips of metal
which do not take kindly to gentle rubber feets, the likes of which mine
bicycle does behoof itself of! And alack, deflate my rear-tire did! There,
mid-bridges! By foot I did complete the passage, after first waylaying the
security detail, the men of whom seemed to be too busy at work washing
"clean" the dusty surface of said roadway with "gray water" to notice the
stray pedestrian acommpanied by crippled pennyfarthing in their midst...
-- Strength Through Failure
posted at 5:40 PM