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Showing posts from October, 2008

Way Out East

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I was sitting in a theater on Friday night when Phillip Seymour Hoffman walked right by me. He didn’t see me, but then I don’t think anyone else did either. I was feeling somewhat invisible on this night. I had been stuck for something to do for the weekend, but I was determined to fight the gravitational pull of Netflix and my living room couch and get out into the alleged real world. I was tempted to see the opening of Charley Kaufman’s movie, Synecdoche, New York , starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, which opened on Friday, but sitting in a dark movie theater seemed a bit too similar to sitting on my couch. You don’t meet too many people in the dark, or at least not the kind of people you want to hang around with once the lights come back on. I decided that if I’m going to live in the five-borough asylum that is New York City, I really should do the New Yorky things that I couldn’t do when I was living in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. So I went to the Labyrinth Theater Co.’s free play

Refresh My Memory

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I ran into an acquaintance of mine on the subway Thursday night. Now if only I could remember his name. Actually, it’s not just this man’s name that has escaped me. It’s his entire existence. I have no memory whatsoever of having met the gentleman prior to Thursday, yet he clearly knew me. It was around 8:30 pm and I was minding my business on the Brooklyn-bound R train when a man on crutches got on at 34th Street with a young woman. He looked around the car and then his eyes fixed on me. “Hey, how’s it going?” I was the only person in this section of the car, so I assumed he was speaking to me. But I didn't recognize him at all, so he must have mistaken me for someone else. “Rob, right?” Oh, God—he knows me, but I don’t know him. What do I do now? He told me his name, which I realize now I have since forgotten, and introduced me to his wife, whose name I couldn’t recall if you water-boarded me for three days straight in a bucket of rancid sauerkraut. They sat across from me and w

Garden Party

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I went to a garden party to reminisce with my old friends... Hey, that sounds like a song. I'll have to keep that in mind. Meanwhile, let's talk about Sunday's Brooklyn Blogade at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden . This fabulous event at this beautiful location was organized by that sharp-eyed shutterbug Flatbush Gardener , whose photos I am once again proudly stealing for this post. I've been going to the Botanic Garden ever since I was a child, but this visit was really special. We had lunch outside at the Terrace Cafe and then headed into the Members' Room for some presentations from the Garden's staff. And then we got a guided tour of the place. The weather was beautiful as our guide took us around the garden's various sites. I told everyone about how I came here when I was a little kid with my aunt and got lost in the Japanese Garden. I still maintain that I was never lost and even if I were, this would be the place to do it. We ended up by the herb garden w

Ninth Circle of Dell

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At times like this I almost miss my typewriter. I spent four hours in tech support hell on Friday, spending the time being passed around from techie to techie like a hooker at a bachelor party. I’ve logged enough time talking to India to give me jet lag and frequent flier miles; I’ve got a crick in my neck from holding the phone against my shoulder and a crushed ear from pressing the receiver to my head. The only thing l don’t have is a working computer. After months of mild misbehavior, my Dell desktop finally went berserk last week, switching off without so much as a by-your-leave, which was one of my mom's expression that I thought I would bring out for this occasion. The computer liked to torture me, coming on long enough for me to think it was okay and then keeling over right before my eyes. I’d hit the power button a few times, the thing would power up, I’d feel confident it was okay and then—poof!—it would croak again. Usually I handle these things with a combination of blin

Atomic Drop

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“Wisdom and Knowledge shall be the stability of thy time.” I owe my life to the atomic bomb. It feels very strange and somewhat disconcerting to say something like that, given the horrific results of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, which killed upwards of 220,000 people, but during a recent walk through my father’s old neighborhood I found how much I owe to world’s first—and so far only—nuclear attack. My Uncle Joe and his wife from L.A. came to stay with me last week and I took time off to accompany them as they did the New York tourist routine. We went to Rockefeller Center, took a ride around Manhattan on the Circle Line, caught a Broadway matinee, and took a ride up to Marble Hill so my uncle could see the area where he, my father and the rest of my dad’s family grew up. Their old apartment building is gone and I tried to imagine what the neighborhood must have looked like before the box retailers, chain stores, and bodegas, back when there was a dairy nearby that used horse-d

Blogade Grows in Brooklyn

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The Brooklyn Blogade, a summit meeting of some of the funkiest bloggers you ever want to meet, will touch down at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Sunday, October 12. The event will be hosted by Flatbush Gardner , who took the photo accompanying this post, and it promises to be a blast. The Schedule of Events looks something like this: * 11am to 12noon: Food on your own at BBG's al fresco Terrace Cafe. Blogade attendees can sign in and get their name tags at the Blogade registration table near the Bonsai House. * 12noon to 2pm: Main program in the Member's Room of the recently landmarked Laboratory and Administration Building. Meet Dave Allen, BBG's Web Manager! There will be some brief presentations, time for Q&A, and of course, the shout-out. * 2pm to 3:30pm: Continue schmoozing as you explore the gardens on a guided tour of BBG just for those attending the Blogade! RSVPs REQUIRED: * BBG is offering free admission - and parking - to those attending the