Spontaneous Musings

1.) After watching the Knicks Ticker Tap Parade on the News this morning, and various outtakes on social media - I felt validated for choosing to take today off - and doing a doctor's appointment at 1 pm in Brooklyn.

Babs: Did you go in to work today? (Babs is still in Jamaica)
Me: Nope, and Breaking Bad took the day off too.
Babs: Good. The email said they expected 3 Million Plus.

I woke up a bit on the wobbly side with my equilibrium off, and it wasn't until now that I felt more in balance - due to sinuses (allergies). ( Read more... )

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Optometrist appointment went well. ( Read more... )

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My cousin is off on Safari (in Kenya and Nambia, and Tanzania). She's been posting photos of hippos, zebras, giraffs, rhinos, and now a female lion, on FB. ( Read more... )

Speaking of FB/social media - per FB - a few old Victorian Brownstones caught fire and burned - just up the block from my apartment complex. Thankfully, everyone is fine.

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Outside of these pesky health concerns, I'm doing okay? I made three bean salad tonight for dinner - basically used the beans for Chili - for a salad instead. ( Read more... )

I am getting tired of all the doctors appointments. But alas, they are necessary to monitor and keep my health in check. ( Read more... )

The barometric pressure seems to have elevated finally? No storms coming our way at the moment. Also the wind has died down, and we just have a slight breeze. (I can tell - I have a lot of trees outside my living room window). I no longer have the sinus headache and dizziness. Or the painful fullness in the ears. I actually had a vestibular specialist verify for me - that that is mainly what is causing my problems. So am relieved. I was worried about getting to and from the knee doctor for my injection tomorrow morning.

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Rather enjoying VOX Machina - partly because it has an intelligent slow burn romance, more than one. And is for the most part intelligently written ( a rarity with animated films - most of them are like video games, or crude situation comedies).

Also, listened to a podcast interview with a long-term soap/television writer - who goes back to the late 1970s. ( trigger warning about rape ) And damn, television writing is insane? Particularly for soaps? They have no time to correct anything or fix it - they are writing the next script as they finish the last one. And there's a head-writer who structures the story and gives it to the breakdown writer who breaks down the characters, plot, and where everyone is in the story for the script, the script writer who has to keep track of where everyone is in the story, what happened in the last script and continuity, and write the script, then there is the dialogue writer, and then it gets edited, and then looked at by the head writers, and gets notes from the network (sometimes) - and then it is sent to the director and the actors, about five or six hours before it is filmed.

Talk about convoluted collaborative processes. Not only that - it's rare to write for a television series where the network doesn't dictate casting, character, and plot. You can be tripping along happy go lucky with your storyline, and some network or studio head could turn around and drop a nasty bombshell on you out of the blue that derails the entire story or sends it scurrying in another direction. I don't know about anyone else? But that would drive me insane.

I think it's kind of miraculous good episodes come out of that at all (and there are few) but it's not surprising that continuity gets lost in the mix.

Oh - to get a job on this - you need to write a sample script - and it has to demonstrate that you know the pacing, genre, etc of the show. Each show apparently has its own footprint - and you have to demonstrate that you know the foot print. Apparently Steven DeKnight's audition script for Buffy was a Xander centric script - where Xander became the slayer for a day. Television writing isn't easy - it requires writing on demand, in a specific style, and knowing the characters that often someone else created. (I couldn't do it - I'm too much like my father - I write better if its about my own characters. When I write about someone else's it becomes my interpretation of their characters, which feels fake or not truthful somehow - and I can't quite get past that? While I can, when others do it, mainly because I'm curious about their take on the characters. )


Off to watch Vox Machina.

1. The news? Gag. The Dumpster Fire in the White House is reminding me a lot of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson - who was notorious for letting farm animals and the populace invade the White House and throw what amounted to frat parties.

I had a co-worker who did UHF fighting - which is an extreme blood sport - and done in cages (think Angel S1 or 2, episode where everyone is fighting each other in a cage? Or Fight Club). ( Read more... )

I only know about it - because mother insisted on telling me, then so did FB social justice posters (that I'm following), and alas ABC had a brief blurb on it before jumping rapidly to the Knicks Win. (ABC doesn't want to talk about the UHC thing, I don't blame them. I don't either.) Breaking Bad was appalled and disgusted by it this morning. Breaking Bad is a frustrated screenwriter turned philosophy professor who'd rather pull out his eyeballs than watch sports.

2. Sigh. I wish I cared that the US is turning 250 years old? But alas, I'm kind of paralyzed with not caring all that much? Of course I live in NYC, so avoiding the celebration is going to be difficult? At least, I'll get to see the Tall Ships - I'm actually located in an area that I might see them? (I'm taking July 3 through 7th off, so we'll see. It's a staycation - so I'm not exactly going anywhere?) I may be avoid some of it - since Kesington, Brooklyn is a bit removed from it.

3. After much consideration? I've decided to avoid the Knicks Ticket Tape Parade on Thursday - set to become one of the largest in NYC history - by taking the day off. Mainly because I looked it up - and discovered the parade starts in front of my work place, and goes up Broadway down the Avenue of Heroes to City Hall - where they will collect the key to the City. Which means over 500,000 people are going to descend on the Financial District (it's not that big an area?) and the subways will be packed to the gills. I'm not a fan of crowds. I try to avoid them? Getting to and from work is going to be a nightmare. I'd rather stay home. I get Juneteenth off as a holiday - so four day weekend. (And I've my second injection on Juneteenth.) Plus work is mind-numbingly slow - so this will make the weeks go faster.

Doctor: June fled by.
Mother: It's still June though, we're not even in the middle of it yet?
Me: I know. I keep thinking it is July or May for some reason. The weather is confusing me.

4. Oh, to anyone who plans on visiting Times Square in the foreseeable future? At 11 pm to Midnight - the billboards in Times Square decide to switch from advertising to digital art show. This is new by the way. It did not do that ten years ago (or the last time I wandered through the area at midnight). I'm not even sure it did it last year.

Times Square Midnight Digital Art Show

( details )
[Well, apparently not that new? I've clearly not been to Times Square around Midnight since before 2012.]

Gotta love NYC - there's always some secret find I've never heard of - popping up.

5. Speaking of secret things? I discovered a new park or nice little oasis near my work place today that is blissfully free of tourists. It's not that populated. Lots of grass. And amazing views of the Statue of Liberty, and New Jersey skyline, Staten Island, and Ellis Island. Also the Verranezo Bridge. You can walk along this lovely pier, look at flowers, and it's behind really cool architecture. One of the buildings is the Jewish Heritage Museum. You can also catch the ferry to the Statue of Liberty next door.

The trick to living in NYC is finding the spots no one knows about. And there are so many. Or the tourists and college kids can't get to or aren't aware of.



( photos from walk at lunch time )

I chose to go in the opposite direction from the chocolate chip cookies - in an attempt to wean myself off of them - also blood sugar has been spiking of late. I don't know what is in the Matcha Latte that is spiking the blood sugar? It's unsweetened with oatmilk. Must be the oatmilk? Highly annoying. It's not even a carb. And Matcha and Oatmilk are supposed to be good for you. Maybe they are sneaking the syrup in there? Except, I'd taste it and know it. IDK.

Off to watch Vox Machina. I'm re-watching Seasons 1-2. I loved S1. My favorite character is Percy, who is an aristocrat, engineer, strategist, and gunslinger. He has white hair and spectacles, and a long coat. Is somewhat snarky. Thin and gangly. And yes, I know, I have a fictional character type. I also like Vex - the half-elf swashbuckling adventurer who falls for him, and is badass.

( Percy from Vox Machina )

The voice actor, Tailsin Jaffe was an accomplished child actor, in various situation comedies( Mr. Mom, Facts of Life during the 1980s), who has grown into an accomplished voice actor for video games and anime.

Here's the actor going over his iconic lines and characters - showing his voice ability: Here

Oh, I adore him, he has an essential tremor too. Maybe I should take up a role-playing game? Is 59 too old?

This is for the sailors and would be sailors out there (threemeninaboat ).

It was a pretty day today, warm with a nice breeze, so I decided to take a long walk. Original plan was to walk to the Freedom Tower and 1 World Trade to see the "Walk of Heroes" virtual exhibit, but I decided that it will be crowded and not nearly enough time. Also it was 83F/23C, and humid. So instead, I chose to walk up the pier and check out the boats. This was after checking out the smorgasbord and open air market of vendors in Bowling Green aka Immigrants Park. They had all sorts of foods on display, only one that was clearly gluten-free, and a lot of expensive cut crystals and stones. I just grabbed a bunch of maps from the tourist information booth, high tailed it back upstairs, deposited them in my back pack, then went back downstairs for my walk up the pier. Breaking Bad (my boss) was out of the office today, as was practically everyone else - so no one noticed, not that they would anyhow. And I did manage to make it back by 1:15 pm, Chilled Matcha Latte in tote.

I managed to make it all the way up to Pier 16, where the Seaport Boat Museum was located.



This was after I wandered about on a wooden deck with plenty of grass, overlooking the harbor and the city.
( Deck and tall buildings )

And took a picture of one of the tall boats from the deck:

( tall clipper ship )

Then wandered a bit further up the roof top deck to take a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge, and a few smaller boats.

( Brooklyn Bridge and smaller boats )

Here's a picture of another tall boat, and the mall at Pier 17 behind it:




Here's a broader picture of the big tall boat and the museum:



I told threemeninaboat a while back that the Tall Clipper Ship gave cruises, but in reality its part of the Seaport Boat Museum. NYC is basically a huge city on a bunch of islands, surrounded by bridges, tunnels, rivers, bays, ocean and boats. It's one of the things I love most about NYC. There's always the slight scent of ocean in the air or water.
And being near the sea is oddly freeing in a way. Perhaps because I've always loved the water? I find it calming.

It was a calming walk - and by the time I returned to my work place, I was sweating and more than ready for air conditioning - because it was also just a touch balmy.

This is my third post for the January Talking Meme - and we'll see where this takes me.

January 10: masqthephilospher asked - I'd like to hear about "your" New York City. What your neighborhood is like, where you shop, what sorts of residences and businesses are on the blocks nearby, the feel of the neighborhood, transit, etc. What it's like living in that neighborhood, and other places you like to go in the City as a whole.

NYC believe it or not is the only place that I've deliberately chosen to live in. All the other places that I've lived, were either due to college, study, or family. But NYC I moved to without a job in place. And as of this year, it is now the place that I've lived the longest. 18 years this March. I moved here in 1996. And it has changed through the years in various ways, yet also stayed the same. We've been through a lot together, NYC and I, and as a result, I am a New Yorker, it is in my blood and in my soul. I love and hate it in equal measure. And it will take a lot to get me to move out of it. I believe the place you choose as an adult is the place from whence you came, not the place where you were born and really had no choice in.

At the moment, my New York is cold, rainy and drab and all I want to do is stay in my cozy little apartment. Perhaps that's the best place to start? The word apartment is sort of misleading, makes you think of well an apartment building. Flat may be a better word? It's an one bedroom at the top of a brownstone. Most of the buildings in my area are brownstones, the sort you might see in an old school Martin Scorsese or Woody Allen film or maybe the 1980s films Moonstruck or Do the Right Thing. And depicted in the Cosby Show. It's called a brownstone because of the color, but in reality they are all shades, or rather their entrances are, one has been painted purple, and look more like brick and mortar row townhouses. With big front stoops. There's gardens in front of each, and the streets are lined with trees. There's a huge oak tree in front of my bedroom window. And out my kitchen and living room windows - the view is a pseudo industrial landscape of transit bridges, warehouses, a bus parking lot, construction and cement plant. I can see the F and the G subways meandering their way over the viaduct bridges towards my subway station, and sometimes hear the dull rumble of the cars on the tracks. Yet amidst this rugged landscape of steel and concrete, is also a small pink house situated on top of a warehouse - below, the walls of the warehouse are painted green and blue. And there's a winding canal, called the Gowanus. This is the site of an EPA super-fund and amongst the most polluted canals in the state. Yet people canoe it in the summertime and there are apparently boat tours. Towards the far right, a church steeple, whose chimes rung out the song What Child is This this past Sunday. It's a rather large Catholic Church, Saint Mary Star of the Sea, in the overdecorated 18th century gothic style - lots of bleeding saints, and a rather graphic depiction of Christ hanging on his cross, with dark stained glass windows shining morosely on the congregants. Haven't been in it in a while, so it may have changed.

My street is residential, but if you wander a bit eastward, and over the little road bridge that crosses the canal you will run into the shiny and brand new Whole Foods store. Across the street from it are abandoned warehouses, with the following message spray-painted in big block white and black letters, at the very top of the 20 story buildings, "Protect Our Children, Say No to STOP and FRISK". Wander in the opposite direction, towards the West, you will eventually stumble upon the Transit Garden, a coop vegetable, tree and flower garden located directly opposite the subway which now lies below a 15 story luxury apartment building. Across the street from it - is the bodega that I've visited for well nigh 18 years now. It changed ownership recently and the products have changed as a result. Was owned by a Korean Family (who spoke mainly Korean) and is now owned by a Middle Eastern Family or Arabic, who speak that language. I don't go to it as often as I used to...due to my diet, even though its selection has broadened. Down the street from it is the Dona Joseph Salon, an Italian salon where I get my hair colored and cut, along with my nails manicured. Everyone speaks Italian with just a bit of English. It's expensive, so this is not done all that often. Also they have a lot of turn-over. Two doors down from it, is my laundry mat, where I've been taking my clothes for close to 15 years. They know me by name. When I broke my foot and hobbled past in a boot, the laundress, Margaret Chen, came out and asked in a halting English, how I was and if I was okay. She's from China, and speaks basic English. We gesture a lot. And beside it is another little bodega, where I used to buy chocolate and potato chips and soy milk. There's also a rather cool little shop of environmentally inspired art - with delicate origami earrings - made of colored paper in intricate little designs. Butterflies, birds, snowflakes.
( Read more... )

1. While reading the NY Times this morning at the laundramat, which was a nice and warm, so much so the windows were literally sweating, I discovered that the Catholic church near me - been to Mass there five or six times, was where Al Capone got married. Its called St. Mary Star of the Sea and the congregation is made up of mostly Italian and Irish residents.

2. Again in the NY Times - this time the letters column, got even more information on the Transit Strike, causing me to realize this is not a black and white affair, not something you can really be definitive about.
Both sides were wrong and both sides were right. The Transit Union was right to want to keep their pensions, to have that security. Especially since they put money towards them at certain point. Although, I'm somewhat confused about that - since one group says they never put money towards their pension and don't think they should have to, and another says they have and don't want to lose that money. I can understand the desire for a pension and the fear of losing one - have that fear myself, having just joined a company that had one, which is merging with a company that does not and appears to be contemplating the idea of doing away with it completely.
On the other hand, I'm not sure that fear justifies walking off a job and endangering thousands of souls livilihoods, safety, health during a period in which those three things would be at greatest risk. Should a cop walk off a job if his pension is done away with? Yet - should we expect civil servants to be slaves for the public good? IS that what they do when they choose this line of work? Should we treat those we depend on and really cannot live without less well than movie stars and celebrities, who we most definitely can survive without? Why does the baseball player or movie star make 14 million a year and live in the mansion and the person who puts him or herself in danger each day making less than 60,000 if that? I don't know. The world makes very little logical sense most of the time, methinks.

3. Just read a lengthy article on Philip Pullman in the International Writers Edition of The New Yorker. Pullman is an oddity. I agree with half of what he says and half of it has me rolling my eyes. But I think part of that discrepancy has to do with dissimilar backgrounds. Pullman believes you story doesn't begin until you think or realize you've been born to the wrong family. But what about those of us who did not have dysfunctional families and feel we fit with ours? Are we instantly less creative, less artistic than those who had parents who more likely than not should have never had children? And what about Pullman's children - does he believe they should come to that realization about him? I do to a degree agree with this comment though - that while truth may not be a tangible object, if you think of it like an imaginary number - like the square root of minus one - you can use it to calculate all manner of things without it. I also agree with some of his criticism of Tolkien and CS Lewis. Did not realize he disliked Tolkien as much as he does. He considers "The Lord of The Rings - a fundamentally infantile work" - "Tolkien is not interested in the way grown-up, adult human beings interact with each other. He's interested in maps, plans, languages and codes." Yes, but what is wrong with that? Why should a story be only about the interaction? And I'm not completely sure this is true - how do you account for the father/child relationship/friendship between Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins, which keeps spinning about until you can't really tell who is which? Or the relationship between Frodo and Sam? Or Gollum, a character who is in an eternal struggle with his own baser instincts? Yes, the mythology on its surface may seem a tad simplistic, but
there are items within that which do provide depth. Tolkien wrote the story as an anti-war allegory. How can Pullman miss that? On the other hand, the books are a tad dense with language, maps, plans, codes and battle sequences that I can see how some readers may become a bit lost in them. But perhaps that was part of Tolkien's point? That we lose a bit of ourselves and our ability to interact by becoming far too distracted with the intricacies of what was originally created to make that interaction possible. Pullman does address this himself - stating his frustration with adult contemporary literature and preferring children's stories: "In adult literary fiction, stories are there on sufferance. Other things are flet to be more important:technique, style, literary knowingness...The present-day would-be George Eliots take up their stories with a pair of tongs. They're embarrassed by them. If they could write novels without stories in them, they would. Sometimes they do." Is this true though? Or is it a condemnation of style over substance found in some works notably William Gaddis' novels? You could say the same I suppose about Cormac McCarthy, except I found a beautiful story well-told in All The Pretty Horses. And same with James Joyce - whose tale of Leopold Bloom does not become buried by the technique so much as enriched by it. I guess it all depends on how you view story, how you see it.
Then there's his criticism of CS Lewis' Narnia series, which in some ways I always felt Pullman's own triology "His Dark Materials" was a counter to - even though it is based on Milton's Paradise Lost. I can't say I completely disagree, but I find it oddly interesting that as child I was completely unaware of the negative messages I see in the series as an adult, or if aware, I dismissed them and concentrated on the portions of the tale I wished to concentrate on. I think that's what people do actually - see what they want to see, push aside what they don't. So much information - you know. Impossible to take in all of it. Even now, here, I am taking bits and pieces of a ten page article - remembering what I wish from it, ignoring the rest. Interacting with it.
I agree with Khalad Hosseni's comment on Book TV a while back - "Reading fiction is an interactive experience." But I'd extend that to all reading. We superimpose our own views and experience and understanding on to that which we read, taking from it what is useful to us, and disposing of the rest. That said, I do agree with the criticism of Lewis, a criticism I'd extend to a few other children's novelists here and there - "The idea of keeping childhood alive forever and ever and regretting the passage into adulthood - whether it's gentel, rose-tinged regret, or a passionate, full-blooded hatred, as it is in Lewis - is simply wrong." Yes, agreed. It was the problem I had with Lewis' later novels in the series and why I barely made it through some of them, even as a child who liked being a child and was in no hurry to grow up, I saw this as troublesome.

4. The above paragraph reminds me of a comment Wales made over the weekend - she was quoting her film professor, Wales has been taking film analysis courses: "Every film made is about the men struggling with their father and eventually becoming their father or the very thing they struggled with." After watching three episodes of La Femme Nikita yesterday and The Outsiders, can't say I disagree. So many of our stories are about the relationship between parent and child and the fear the child has of becoming the parent or either losing childhood or the desire to escape it as quickly as possible. In La Femme Nikita - the series ends with Nikita becoming more or less her father, metaphorically. Cool and distant, running his organization, as he has molded her to do. And in Angel the Series, we see Liam/Angel grapple with the fact that he in effect is no different than his own father - in his need to control his son's life and his struggle with that awareness. On the female side of the fence - depending on the writer - it tends to be more about not becoming or becoming one's mother.
That struggle. And watching each show unfold, I find myself wondering if only those who came from dysfunctional families are the ones that get their stories told? Or if we feel those are the only stories worth telling?
Perhaps not...I do see exceptions to that rule. Not all tales are about that. Nor all stories. So I'm not sure Wales' professor's generalization holds. But then that's the problem with generalizations, isn't it?

Now off to eat lunch and debate whether to see a movie - four to choose from: Memoirs of Geisha, Narnia, Brokeback Mountain, and Syriana at my local theater. Or sit home, veg, and watch DVDs. Nice to have options.
Need money though - laundry sort of took a good portion of it. Three loads - 12 dollars. Sigh.