1. chin up
2. hand on hip
3. three hours of make-up and a day of intensive photoshop love (hey, it worked for Suri Cruise)
This is from a new Dove ad. Remember it the next time you embark on a fit of self-hatred while flicking through Vogue...
Thursday, October 26, 2006
How to Look Good in Photographs
Master of Tact Returns to the Airwaves
Goodbye, Con Murphy. It was fun while it lasted. You didn’t make racist,homophobic, sexist or just plain stupid remarks, we didn’t have to listen to your unprofessional blundering around issues of age or sex or technology nor anything else (note to Tubridy: when you want to know somebody’s age, just ask them. Stop this whole faux-polite “um, um, may I know what general age group you are in, if you don’t mind…um, haahaa, just, well you know what I mean,” etc) and you had clearly actually read the books (for once, something that was not a what-ho British book about boys’ hobbies! Joy!) and watched the films and whatnot up for discussion. (Though you could have talked a bit more about Dallas during that John Doyle interview; that would have made me really happy.) Now Turgidy is back; curse those advances in tonsilitis medicine. He’s interviewing Kevin Myers at the moment, and has already made him sound like a charming, subtle, intelligent speaker by comparison.("predilection for women", aargh, "I was an ardent young man", aaaaarrrrgh, "the female thing", stop it, oh my god Turgidy just spat out the word "threesome", now he’s talking about a woman “doing what she does on her own”, which is his euphemism for masturbation; I want to die). At least Jane Ruffino is coming on soon, and she is going to kick his tweed-jocked arse.
I mentioned Dallas, didn’t I? So that’s justification enough for this…
Friday, October 13, 2006
Genius
I'm stealing this straight from Gawker, but it's too good not to steal. These images are from a campaign devised by Saatchi & Saatchi for the 30% off sale at the Italian English-language bookstore Mondadori earlier this year. Thinking about how this campaign might have advertised Irish novels, there aren't many contenders. Flann O'Brien seems to lead the way where numerical titles are concerned. I wonder how At Swim 1.4 Birds and The 2.3rd Policeman sold during the Mondadori sale. Better than The Barrytown Dilogy, I'd imagine. Or Paddy Clarke Ha Ha h...
Never mind.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
What James Wood Does Like to Read
I took a seminar with James Wood this semester. It's over now, even though the semester has barely started, which makes me feel gloomy, because he was a brilliant teacher; passionate and insightful as a reader of Bellow (the stories), Dostoevsky (Notes from Underground), Chekhov (stories) and Woolf (To the Lighthouse) and adept at talking about these works not just from the perspective of criticism, but of craft. He also had a very entertaining story about his own doppelganger, and about the Dostoevskian saga which ensued for him following the intervention into his life of that person, who shared his name and his occupation, and, for a while, showed up at every turn for Wood, writing letters, reviews, and even blurbs. It reminded me strongly of Paul Auster's novella City of Glass, but probably because that, in itself, is one big Dostoevskian trope.
Anyway, after the last class, Wood took some time to talk about "literature in general" and to take any questions the class had on this subject, and of course somebody asked the question that was on everybody's lips ("Which books have you liked in recent years?"), albeit phrased more delicately than others might have put it, given Wood's no-nonsense tack as a critic ("Is there anything you've ever liked?") And, while Wood was happier to give names (Spark, Sebald, Bellow, Coetzee, and the earlier Roth) than titles, there were a few that he singled out: 
Amit Chaudhuri's collection A Strange and Sublime Address(1991)
V.S. Naipaul's novel A House for Mr. Biswas (1961) 
Henry Green's novel Loving (1945)(see Wood’s TLS article on Green, from the TLS last January).
Naturally, I haven't read any of them; this is the first I've heard of Green, in fact. His novel sounds intriguing, set as it is among a bunch of servants in a castle in Ireland during WWII. I didn't get to ask Wood what he thought of Bowen, or of any other Irish writers; his slow, somewhat agonised but still fascinating revelation of his favourites was then intercepted by a bland question about marketing and the young writer (snore), so there were revealed no more than these. But at least it saved me from yet again displaying my provincial tendencies for all to see.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Welcome to the BQE, Bitch
Sometimes we forget that we live in Brooklyn, and allow ourselves to be deluded into thinking that we've been transported into some less crowded version of the Village, except with fewer tourists, fewer strollers, better bars and lower rent. And then some actual CRIMINALS steal a van and set it on fire outside our window! At six o'clock in the evening! On Yom Kippur!! (Ok, ok, the last bit was just overkill.)
Man, we live an edgy life. I'm surprised some gangsta types aren't vying to shoot me in the head even as I write this. It must be the sound of the first ever JK Ensemble, streaming live from the wireless, that's saving me. By tomorrow, I expect to hear a playlist consisting of Bonnie Prince Billy and improvisations on Bach banging through the car windows of all the young men cruising (but not in the Village sense of the word) out there. And then, in a nice piece of symmetry, JK will open Wednesday's show by spinning the current boom-car fave, "You Already Know I Want to Fuck You (Fuck You, Fuck You)". And Ana Leddy will finally realise the enormity of her mistake.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Barry Egan, Journalist of the Year
1. From today's Sindo, a primer in thoughtful, balanced, consistent prose:
IT'S official. Marian Keyes couldn't leave the house if they did away with hair dyes. "I would kill myself," she insists. (Mercifully, Marian was unsuccessful in a real suicide attempt in 1994.)
2. Conversation Chez Empire State View upon the reading-out-loud of the above paragraph earlier today:
ESV: "...in a real suicide attempt in 1994."
A: "Jesus Christ!"
(cue two minutes of hysterical laughter and one terrified kitten)
ESV: I'm going to put that on my blog.
A: Do.
(ESV types and mutters)
ESV: But I need a picture to go along with it, and all I get when I type in "Barry Egan" is Adam Sandler's character from Punch Drunk Love. I need a greasy, ginger "celebrity"...
A: Use Mick Hutchence.
ESV: Who?
A: Mick Hutchence.
ESV: Whose "real suicide attempt in 1994"* was successful?
A: Oh yeah.
ESV: Hucknall.
A: That's the one.
Max the Kitten: Where did you hide that roast chicken, youse bastards?
*yeah, yeah, 1997, whatever.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Clinton Uncut
Apparently Fox News isn't too happy that there are full clips of the Fox News Sunday interview with Bill Clinton, in which Clinton, faced with questions about the Democrats' actions in the run-up to 9/11, gives Chris Wallace's smug mug something to chew on. Fox has pulled "unauthorised" (read: unedited-for-maximum-possible-Republican-advantage) clips from Youtube, and has authorised only online versions which cut straight from Wallace's polite, measured introduction to Fox's outraged headlines ("Clinton Freaks Out", etc). We can't be seeing that interview with our own eyes, because then we might make our own mind up on a few things. So Fox has to protect us. While Fox is busy doing that, you can see the video of the full interview on google videos. And, since youtubers are uploading copies of the interview faster than Fox can get to them, you can still watch it here.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Photos from Secret Project Robot, Williamsburg
Secret Project Robot is a gallery space located in Monster Island, a converted warehouse building located on what seems to be the only few hundred square feet of ground not earmarked for high-rise development along the Hudson at Kent Avenue, Williamsburg. It houses several art organisations and hosts regular exhibitions and events; last weekend’s art and music festival was one of the best things we’ve been to in Brooklyn. Check out their (strangely antediluvian) website here, and get a sense one of the current shows, a sort of communal art store called cabin comforts, here. The photos below are of some of the other exhibits, including the superb super8 projection at the end of the night, which stretched across three buildings along the waterfront.The striped screen in the second-to-last photo was the result of an artist drawing straight lines of colour on empty super8 reels as they were projected onto the walls; it started as a single wobbly strip of orange and built, within minutes, to what looked like one of the old TV test screens, before turning to a single block of colour; the effect was gorgeous. These pictures don’t do it justice, but they give some idea of the event, I hope. 
and lastly (and fittingly)...
Internet-savvy Sue
So that’s who was doggedly rooting around these pages from the offices of the London Times for most of last week, going through the archive and leaving little queries about my true identity - almost touching in their never-tried-this-blogging-thing-before bluntness - in the comments section. I could see you, Sue: you'd be surprised at what thorough little bastards these statcounters can be. ISP trackers and all! Anyway, thanks for the half-mention. I'll treasure it. It is to me what vol-au-vents are to Bono.
I'm the "observer", by the way. At last, my proudest moment!
Friday, September 22, 2006
"Wasps are the Neo-Nazis of the Insect World"
Our friends Ronan & James, aka Hoovers & Sledgehammers, are over from Dublin to play a couple of gigs; it's been fun watching the reaction of punters in Manhattan and Queens to their gentle performances of such hits as "I'll Stab You" and "Fat Fuck". Think a marraige of Glen Hansard and the dead Nazi soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. No, just kidding, don't. Think this video, for their song "Joyridin'". That's how he killed his sister Peg, after all. So a bit of respect...
Ardently Desire Away, Your Name's Not Down. Now Get Lost.
Now, hold on. Irish artists, or rather artistes, are just losing the run of their tempers these days, by the sound of things. First Twink, then Bono, and now the wonderful Mannix Flynn? Mannix, you may have heard if you’re in Ireland, is presenting a mysterious piece at this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival, about which the organisers of the festival claim to know relatively little. As described in Saturday’s Irish Times, the piece sounds promising:
Letting Go of That Which You Most Ardently Desire [is] described as an art process whereby members of the public can call a number, enter into a contract based on trust and then be given instructions on how to have a unique experience at one of a number of site-specific locations.
Word reached me from a friend in Dublin this morning, however, that there may be quite a delicate art to getting those elusive instructions. My friend called the number given for Letting Go… and left her details; when her mobile rang later that evening, who was on the other end only Mannix, all ready to give the necessary instructions. Except my friend was in a crowded bar at the time, and the line was bad, and she couldn’t really hear Mannix that well, and had to keep getting him to repeat parts of his “process spiel” so that she could actually work out where to go to take part in the thing. Well, this wasn’t the done thing at all, at all. Obviously, she wasn’t taking the whole process very seriously at all if she was in a bar while waiting for her call to be returned. Obviously, she should have been sitting in a darkened room with all the doors and windows closed, without radio or television, staring expectantly at her mobile, unable to breathe until it rang. Apparently disgusted with her lack of interest (even though she was trying to hear what he was saying), Mannix basically (not to mention allegedly) lost the rag, told her to get lost, and hung up on her.
And this is the problem with the Aosdána funding. For Irish artists, it can’t possibly stretch to the weekly tab in Grogan’s and Anger Management classes with Tony Humphreys. Increase the Cnuas now!!!
Sunday, September 17, 2006
The Unforgettable Ire: Bono's Fashion Week Tantrum
Damn those fashionistas. They just have no respect, man. Like, you're up there on a makeshift stage in the Hudson Hotel, and yeah, so you look a bit fat and dumpy, and on second thoughts that haircut and that auburn dye-job might not have been the best of ideas, but you've got your orange wraparounds on, and your leather kaks, and let's face it, the missus, tipping 50 and all as she might be, is still gorgeous. And she's up here beside you, and she's after designing this fashion line, no less, and getting girls in African countries to make the clothes in fair-trade conditions. And it rocks. Right? Right?!Hello? Is anybody out there listening? Hello???Listen, we've got Damien Rice here, and everything...and Jeff "Richard Dean Anderson" Sachs...Please??!!
So this was the scene on Friday night in the Hudson, as Bono and Ali Hewson stepped up before the last gathering of New York Fashion Week to launch the new line of Edun, the collection they co-created with the designer Rogan. Edun is about organic materials and fair-labour practices in family-run factories in Africa and South America. It's all very worthy...seriously. But the New York fashion crowd, frankly, doesn't do worthy. It does these things: free mojitos, goodie bags and celebrity-spotting, all of which were on offer at the Edun show, along with some dubious video-screen splicing of Lindsay Lohan (pouting in an Edun t-shirt) and African teenagers (grinning as they sewed together hundreds of the same t-shirts in a factory that looked like it was constructed from cardboard). As size zero biatches eyed each other up with vicious distaste, each trying to gauge the authenticity of the Christian Louboutin heels worn by the other, whilst simultaneously trying to get as close as possible to Heather Graham and her horror movie smile, Bono strode onstage, leading Ali by the hand and followed meekly by Rogan (no? me neither). The first signs of trouble came when, out of the 150 or so crowd gathered in the upstairs club space of the Hudson, maybe 15 people clapped at the appearance of the trio - and maybe 18 people stopped talking. The din of various Balenciaga-centred conversations wasn't deafening, but it was enough to irk Bono, who pleaded jokingly for silence to assuage his vulnerable ego. That didn't work. so he just had to keep talking while others did the same. He introduced Jeffrey Sachs, Professor of Economics at Columbia, who talked about how Bono and Ali were actually, literally, seriously changing the world (before making a nuclear-proof parachute out of chewing gum, a shoelace and an Edun t-shirt.) Then Bono talked about how at last year's show, they'd had "the poet laureate ", Lou Reed (actually, Bono, Donald Hall is the poet laureate, but let's not squabble over niceties) and, in keeping with that tradition of having major musicians play a song or two in honour of the Edun collection, they were now presenting Damien Rice. Who proceeded to blink and tremble his way through a mediocre performance while nobody listened, before erupting into a "please-be-quiet-I-can't-play-while-people-aren't-listening" pleading fit, and finally working out that, unless he played the song from the Jude Law film, nobody would have a clue who he was, and this was the only way to get people to listen. Which they did, eventually. Pity that by this stage, having played two songs, Rice had used up his entire repertoire and had to limp offstage again.
But!! The drama was not yet over!! Not content with having staged a fashion launch without a single piece of clothing in sight (not even one of the shapeless "One" t-shirts), Bono then came back onstage to make some closing remarks, rattled on for a minute or so and then, tired of having the whispered conversations of a handful of party-goers rasp cruelly on his sensitive eardrums, roared to the emaciated throng: "YOU KNOW WHAT? FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING FINGER FOOD!!! WE'RE TRYING TO DO SOMETHING HERE AND ETC ETC ETC" This is pretty much an exact quote, folks. Fuck you and your finger food. Two fingers to finger food, if you will (to add insult to injury, the finger food was kind of disgusting. It stank the room out, and smelt a bit like sick, which is a not unusual smell at fashion shows, but hardly the effect Edun was going for).
Bonos' words after the outburst I can't remember; they're an embarrassing blur of middle-aged Irish malehood getting into a bit of a tizzy while its mortified wife looks in the other direction. (Besides, I was too distracted by the sight of one fashionista in front of me suddenly repenting of her ways and darting around to claw at the arm of another bulimichic while hissing "that's you he's talking about! That means you!!") Having delivered his diatribe to previously-indifferent-and-now-sniggering ears, Bono then muttered the requisite Irish parting shot about going off to get very drunk, and a VIP area consisting of Weathered Graham, Helena Christensen, "Lindsay Lohan's Mother" (whose presence Bono felt obliged to mention onstage...another classy moment) and...oh, that was sort of it, really. The fashionistas raced for their goodie bags, the free mojitos dried up and everybody went back to not giving a crap about Africa. And that was Bono's Fashion Week. Funny thing is, the Edun clothes, stocked in Saks Fifth Avenue among other places, actually aren't bad; some of them, at least. Maybe if they'd opted for a runway show instead of a running commentary on balding muso insecurity, the whole thing wouldn't have been such a fiasco. Then again, if they'd done that, it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun....
update: Alright, alright. If all you bloggorites are going to come over here pointing and laughing at poor old Bono, I suppose the least I can do is direct you to the bloody ONE site. There you can buy something new to go along with your Twink t-shirt. You're still not going to look as hot as Seal in it, though. What? Oh, right, Matteo from In America, whatever. And stop muttering about how $40 could get you a Ryanair flight to Lesotho to pick up one of the t-shirts for yourself. It's for charity. Next up: an Edun t-shirt in aid of Damien Rice's self-esteem.
another obsessive update: Open All Night has the exact quote, which is hardly any heavier on the peaches-and-cream than my approximation: “Take your fucking finger food and fuck off!” quoth Bono. And if you really want to hammer this story to death (like, er, me), read the squeaky-clean version of events at RTE online, which recounts The Bon’s sick-inducing endorsement of Rice’s genius in all its hilarious, overblown detail. So Damo can “still and distil the crowds into quiet reflection,” can he? Not this crowd. He should have tried bribing them with a Birkin bag.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Introducing Max
This is Max, who came to live with us this morning. He likes: meowing, running up and down the length of the apartment, hiding under the bed when his plaintive mewls are not consistently replied to, and sitting under a blanket on the couch while listening to Joanna Newsom. She gave an absolutely brilliant performance supporting Neko Case at McCarren Park Pool last night, but Max deserves a post all his own, so she'll have to wait. Suffice to say that we considered calling him "Mewsom" in her honour, but Max was already his name and it suits him. And, as you can see from the last photo here, Max also thinks it's about time I got around to doing the Library Thing. 
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Watching Williamsburg
While I'm passing on my bad habits of watching hilarious stuff online instead of working, have a look at The Burg, a sitcom about Williamsburg (our cooler-than-thou neighbourhood) which hits the hipster nail on the head pretty accurately every time. Very funny. Just as funny is reading the comments on the site from all the disgruntled real-life hipsters who feel they haven't been fairly represented, because they would never drink Coors....
Americaaaaaaay-yay, United Against Baby-Melting Candle-Makers Everywhere
Last night we wandered over to Bedford Avenue for the Found Footage festival presented by Rooftop Films. These guys spend their time rooting in thrift shops, dumpsters, HR offices and other spots for old footage that people would rather forget, and put them all together into a sort of montage. It sounded like it would be good, maybe along the lines of what the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players do with their found footage, and since we're both Super 8 film nerds, we were also hoping there'd be some of that kind of thing in there. There wasn't - the sixteen they screened were all strictly of the 1980s VCR variety, not to mention of the freakin' hilarious variety. This was all the kind of stuff that those involved would probably prefer to be destroyed...in fact, when it comes to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the "I'm coming day and night" bodybuilding movie, Pumping Iron (1979), forget the "probably". When his career turned from pumping to politics, Arnie tried to ban the screening of this footage, apparently, but he didn't succeed. Personally, I think he should have been more worried about Carnival in Rio, from 1983, a travel guide to Rio hosted by Arnie in which he loses the run of himself somewhat, gleefully pawing every bit of naked "mulatto" ass he can get his hands on, and giving his female co-host an English lesson which necessitates her to suck slowly on the carrot in his hand...you've got to see this.
There were other gems in there too, chief among them How to Seduce Women Through Hypnosis (1983), which seemed to be an entirely sincere guide to basically raping a woman by putting her in a phony trance; Strong Kids, Safe Kids (1984), a well-intentioned educational video teaching children about how to keep the bad guys away from their "private parts" and starring Henry Winkler in character as the Fonz (and featuring the genius that is the Proper Words Song); and a medley of patriotic videos by gleefully insane people, my favourite of which doesn't even have the excuse of dating from the '80s but was made last year by someone called Denis Madalone. You can experience its joys, tears and stars-and-striped-infused waters here. It'll make you cry. With happiness that you don't live here. Or with terror that you do.
Oh, and while you're at it, get yourself some unhinged preacher men: Wayne David Meyer and Jonathan Bell (the later swiped from a Daily Show clip).
Friday, August 18, 2006
Frank Bascombe, Older and Hardly Wiser...
The new Richard Ford novel, in proof form, just arrived on my desk (wait, I don't have a desk. I mean, my kitchen table.) I haven't read it yet, obviously (at 485 pages, it will probably keep me going for a while) but I'm looking forward to seeing whether Ford has managed to convincingly get back into the voice of the narrator he first created 20 years ago, with The Sportswriter and returned to for Independence Day. Like each of those novels, it's set on a holiday, this time Thanksgiving, in the year 2000. So it's America before 2001, and before Bush (the Florida votes farce is still ongoing), and that in itself will make for an interesting read.
Something else I'm looking forward to reading today is the rehearsal script of Stuart Carolan's new play, The Empress of India, which opens in Galway and moves to the Dublin Theatre Festival. Carolan's first play, Defender of the Faith, was perhaps the strongest new work (in terms of "straight" plays) to open on an Irish stage in 2004, and perhaps even since then. When I was in the Abbey over the summer I noticed that the script was still for sale in the lobby there for something like €8. That's a recommendation, in case I'm being too subtle...The cast for the Galway/Dublin production looks terrific, including Sean McGinley in his first stage outing in five years, Aaron Monaghan, Catherine Walsh and Tadhg Murphy. It doesn't open until Sept 12, but I'd be interested to hear the views of anybody who gets to see it.
What else...slipped into my bad habit of listening online to RTE Radio 1 again while working (too depressing listening to NPR these days, most of the time...Israel or nothing) but today wasn't too bad; caught the excellent Rattlebag special on trad, and am now listening to the RnaG live stream ( I was going to write there, "I'm not a smug gaelgóir, I just listen for the music" but if I was a gaelgóir of any sort, rather than a head-hanging-shambles of an Irish speaker, it would be the smug sort, so forget about that). My neighbours probably hate me. But then, I hate them too, with their constantly appearing newborns and enormous dogs. That sounds very uncharitable. I like dogs and babies. But in a building which, even if it were a house, would arguably not be big enough to hold one of each, the apparent presence of several of them tends to grate on the nerves. Which reminds me. We're getting a kitten (now that it's in my blog, A, it has to happen. Ok?). Names suggested so far: Spling, Doodlemunch (long story) and Wee Thomas (short story...ok, downright theft). The eventual name, however, will depend on the unique personality and litterbox-related delinquency of the kitten itself.Dandelion, maybe?
Oh yeah. And the view is completely gone now. I don't want to talk about it...
Monday, August 14, 2006
www.everdiminishingview.blogspot.com?
They're taking it away from us....a little more each day. How tall is that damn building going to be, anyway?
My Old Boy's A Dustman
Boy George, who mistook his coke for a thief last year, today began the five days of community service to which he was sentenced for wasting police time, not to mention snorting time. He pushed a broom around lower Manhattan for a couple of hours this morning until the pressure of being followed by a few dozen photographers got to him and he screamed at them. He has now been assigned a gated sanitation lot for the remainder of his service. Here he's pictured accidentally tipping an ounce of his best stuff away.
Photos from McCarren Park Pool
Sonic Youth were amazing; the Yeah Yeah Yeahs weren't worth the hype. Pretty boring, actually. But the venue was what made it for me, with its vast flaking floor and its rusted diving boards...
Friday, August 11, 2006
Home to Brooklyn, broadband... and blocked views
Flying from Dublin to New York at 10.30 yesterday morning sounds like it should have been a nightmare, but, thanks to the very decent and professional staff at the airport, it wasn't really. Except for a moment when I had to restrain myself from spinning around in the crush at gate 32 to shout "JUST GIVE THEM THE GODDAMN CREAM!!!" at a woman behind me who was refusing to understand that the no liquid/no gel rule applied to her, too, no matter how little she felt like stooping down and opening up her bag (which, incidentally, looked way too big to pass as hand luggage, but anyway).
En route to the airport, the friends we'd stayed with called to tell us that there was a major security alert, and that if we needed to stay another night or two, there was no problem. It wasn't much fun turning to the severely-hungover and not-too-flight-happy-in-normal-circumstances A to relay this news (the security alert bit, not the staying another night with our very fun and now very pregnant friends). It was even less fun reading the texts that miglior started sending me at five minute intervals, each one carrying a greater air of foreboding than the last. When you're standing in the check in area for US flights, the last words you want to read are "Critical Terrorist Alert" or "liquid device expected/sought". Any minute the frantic calls from our mothers were bound to start coming, and they did. But check-in went smoothly, as did screening, as did immigration, and though the boarding gate was a bit of a cattle mart, it would have been chaotic on any day, given the number of very small kids travelling with their self-righteous parents (of COURSE you can push past me because you've been "separated" from your husband. What is this, a mercy flight? Look, he's just over there. He's not being bundled into a flight going in another direction to you. You don't have to step on everyone's heads to get to him).
I don't think the ban on liquids, medicines aside, will have that terrible an effect on the experience of long-haul travel; it depends on whether the airlines decide to use it as an opportunity to make more money by charging for water and other non-alcoholic drinks. On the flight I took yesterday, you could have as much water as you needed after the seatbelt lights were switched off. The other liquids I gave up - moisturiser, foundation, lip gloss - are hardly essential for hand luggage. True, the skin on my face felt like an armadillo's arse afterwards, but...well...plus ca change. But I was emotionally reunited with pretty much everything I'd given up at the baggage carousel in JFK, where a pretty surly crew worked to match the plastic bags of duty-free and other liquids with their red-faced, impatient Irish owners. Any flight from Dublin to New York, after all, will have its fair share of women on shopping trips, and it's dangerous for them to be separated from their bottles of bronzer for too long. Mild panic had definitely set in.
Favourite moment of the whole experience, though, was when the young male flight attendant did his last whirl round the cabin with a huge bin bag looking for "shampoos, gels, anything like that". "Still looking?" someone asked him cheerily. "Yeah, and I'll be selling this lot up the front in half an hour," he said, to loud, prolonged laughter from our end of the plane. It was a huge release of tension. He continued on his search. "Any shampoos, gels, ipods...."
Thankfully, the New York in which we found ourselves was not the New York of last week, when temperatures hit 117 farenheit; yesterday was a bearable 78 degrees. Thunderstorms last night ensured that today is manageable, too. We're going to see Sonic Youth and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the amazing, surreal venue that is the disused pool at McCarren Park later today, and tomorrow we're going to a wedding of two friends who've recently moved back here (well, the groom has moved back, the bride has just moved here, full stop) up in Connecticut. So it's good to be back. But there is some bad news. I don't know whether I can call this blog by its current name for much longer. Why? Because yesterday, when we walked into the apartment, and when we looked out the kitchen window where our lovely view used to be, we saw this monstrosity.
This is how it used to look:
And it's only going to get taller. Even a Sashimi and Sushi Platter (that's 23 pieces of raw fish, folks! YUM) on Bedford Avenue couldn't make me feel better. Well, not much better.
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