wish you were here
Apr. 17th, 2004 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmNew York doesn't have spring anymore, just summer and awful summer. Today is summer, and it's lovely. Aside from that, for reasons described in more detail below, I'd like to say that for the first time I feel like New York has recovered, and that we are, actually, really and truly, living in the 21st Century.
I got released from rehearsal early, being in only one scene in act 2, and went up to the drama bookshop to get casting dir. and agent mailing labels to get my postcards out.
Then I went down to the market at Union Square, where I bought sugarless oatmeal coconut cookies, sour dough rolls, cracked pepper goat cheese, a half gallon of cider, chocolate chip cookies from a woman with brilliant tattoos and mapple sugar candy. I looked a pheasant and turkey eggs, merino wool and jordan artichokes. Then I popped into Virgin and bought the AI DVD for ten dollars.
For most of the 80s and 90s, Union Square was under construction. It was constantly being dug up, drilled, hammered and fenced off. And while part of it was always open, part of it was always swatched in oange plastic, so you did your business there and kept moving. The truth is, no one ever really thought it would be finished.
And when it was, no one really knew what to do with it, other than the skateboard kids. It has a statue of Ghandi, and also years of the civil war carved into parts of the pavement. I first noticed those soon after I saw Gangs of New York. They were covered in snow, the numbers faint impressions and I cried.
Today, Union Square was the center of New York, in a way similar to, but entirely different from the way Washington Square Park has been seemingly forever. There was a group of college students doing warm up exercises before getting ready to go preach for god, and there was another random group having a bakesale for Kerry. Ther were groups protesting the treatment of the Palestinians in Israel and blaming Bush for 9/11. The LaRouchies were there too, but my main point is that everyone was happy, and laid back. We are living, not just in defiance of a terrible event, but in defiance of the misuse of our city and the lives it contains as a political and social symbol.
It should never have taken those buildings coming down for the rest of America to realize New Yorkers cared about their neighbors just like them. Nor should it have taken this misguided disaster of a war to make them forget it. I just watched hundreds of happy, politically aware people buy fresh food from small farmers and drink lemonade, so how is it that New York's link witht he rest of America is so tenuous -- both in our eyes and in theirs?
The Republican National Convention is coming here ths summer, and aside from protesting, and aside from protesting and building awareness of the things we believe and support here, as well as the way we live, the best thing we can really do, is be as remarkably present in the moment as the city seems today and content as best we can anyway.
Also, ran into![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sola on the way to work, and someone from Avenge! Additionally fell down some stairs at rehearsals, got saved from wacking my head by several cast members and have an utterly noxious bruise on my knee now.
I got released from rehearsal early, being in only one scene in act 2, and went up to the drama bookshop to get casting dir. and agent mailing labels to get my postcards out.
Then I went down to the market at Union Square, where I bought sugarless oatmeal coconut cookies, sour dough rolls, cracked pepper goat cheese, a half gallon of cider, chocolate chip cookies from a woman with brilliant tattoos and mapple sugar candy. I looked a pheasant and turkey eggs, merino wool and jordan artichokes. Then I popped into Virgin and bought the AI DVD for ten dollars.
For most of the 80s and 90s, Union Square was under construction. It was constantly being dug up, drilled, hammered and fenced off. And while part of it was always open, part of it was always swatched in oange plastic, so you did your business there and kept moving. The truth is, no one ever really thought it would be finished.
And when it was, no one really knew what to do with it, other than the skateboard kids. It has a statue of Ghandi, and also years of the civil war carved into parts of the pavement. I first noticed those soon after I saw Gangs of New York. They were covered in snow, the numbers faint impressions and I cried.
Today, Union Square was the center of New York, in a way similar to, but entirely different from the way Washington Square Park has been seemingly forever. There was a group of college students doing warm up exercises before getting ready to go preach for god, and there was another random group having a bakesale for Kerry. Ther were groups protesting the treatment of the Palestinians in Israel and blaming Bush for 9/11. The LaRouchies were there too, but my main point is that everyone was happy, and laid back. We are living, not just in defiance of a terrible event, but in defiance of the misuse of our city and the lives it contains as a political and social symbol.
It should never have taken those buildings coming down for the rest of America to realize New Yorkers cared about their neighbors just like them. Nor should it have taken this misguided disaster of a war to make them forget it. I just watched hundreds of happy, politically aware people buy fresh food from small farmers and drink lemonade, so how is it that New York's link witht he rest of America is so tenuous -- both in our eyes and in theirs?
The Republican National Convention is coming here ths summer, and aside from protesting, and aside from protesting and building awareness of the things we believe and support here, as well as the way we live, the best thing we can really do, is be as remarkably present in the moment as the city seems today and content as best we can anyway.
Also, ran into
sola on the way to work, and someone from Avenge! Additionally fell down some stairs at rehearsals, got saved from wacking my head by several cast members and have an utterly noxious bruise on my knee now.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 02:33 pm (UTC)New York has always had a very important thing going for it: This town has always had a very conscious sense of itself and New Yorkers all shared a very important bond even before 9/11: the fact that we live in one of the greatest cities in the world. Yeah, it's dirty, gritty and harsh sometimes, but on a day like today you really have to appreciate the beauty and strength of this community.
Hope that bruise goes away quickly and painlessly
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 04:11 pm (UTC)There are two types -- one is the commerically available in pretty maple shapes... it's a bit crystaline and melts on your tongue. The other is raw chunks of it (which is what I bought today). The flavour is stronger, but the texture is less fun. The first kind is very hard to find here (despite being the more common kind in general), but I will do what I can. The second, I can definitely send... also in the future we have maple blueberry, maple coconut, maple ginger and maple jalepeno at the market.
The first time I had this stuff I was in Montreal, and it became a very intense fixation. You are warned.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 04:14 pm (UTC)I bought marshamallows rolled in cocoa and toasted coconut today. Mmm yay Whole Foods.
Maple blueberry sounds so good....
You should so go to WF and see if they have the marshmallows there.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 04:30 pm (UTC)Alan is making French Onion Soup tonight, with 5 1/2lbs of onions, fresh dill, beef stock and cognac. It's insane.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 04:47 pm (UTC)The only downside to the soup is that the entire apartment makes my eyes water with onion smell.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 04:51 pm (UTC)Well, on this end, it's one more thing to blame on the Germans.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 05:04 pm (UTC)Fucking Germans. Go see HellBoy. That will give you another reason to dislike them.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 03:38 pm (UTC)I agree, but it's done. Mebbe sometimes we just need a real bastard in power to remind us why we shouldn't let them be in power.