A report on an August trip to New York City. My favorite sign was one in the subway, officially reminding customers that it is white women who are typically the most poorly behaved group of humans. Why won’t these Speakerphone Americans use headphones?
Also new, I think, are the land acknowledgements near Central Park regarding Seneca Village, a settlement of “approximately 225 people” who were Black. Examples from the Public Theater and from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
This is kind of confusing. We must acknowledge Native Americans, who were dispossessed usually without any compensation, and condemn the dispossessors (white people). In the case of some of the land that is now Central Park, apparently there were dispossessors who happened to be Black. Unlike white dispossessors, the Black dispossessors are virtuous and must be acknowledged. (According to Wikipedia, the Black property owners of Seneca Village were paid market value for their land because it was acquired by eminent domain.)
Who else must be acknowledged? Those behind the “Latinx Freedom Movement” in the 1960s (they were Latinx ahead of their time and the term “Latinx”?). The billionaires who created today’s Hudson Yards remind us that capitalism is the root cause of inequality (humans were equal prior to the advent of this evil system, which, unfortunately is still practiced in Palm Beach County where one of the above-mentioned billionaires fled).
More of the exhibit, which reminds us that the reason we have immigrants is not due to an open border+cradle-to-grave welfare state, but rather because of U.S. military intervention in Guatemala, Cuba, an dthe Dominican Republic. (Our military interventions in India also explain the large number of Indians now living in the U.S.?)
Speaking of Hudson Yards, “The Vessel in NYC’s Hudson Yards reopens with safety netting 3 years after spate of suicides.” (CNN, 2024; the Chinese can build thousands of miles of high-speed rail or several new NYC-sized cities in 3 years, but Americans need 3 years to install some ugly nets?)
Don’t forget to mask when outdoors on the adjacent High Line:
It is safe to unmask when inhaling healing marijuana, however, which is available on nearly every block. LA Olympics ambassador Snoop Dogg has his own brand of weed, apparently, and smoking cannabis all day is “safe and legal”:
I’m too stoned now (just from looking at the above images) to continue writing, so I’ll post a follow-up with the rest of the photos…
Whenever people ask me about these thing I point out I am immensely proud of the fact my father’s family made his way from Swabia with Duke Liudolf (son of Emperor Otto the First), and got given their land South of Forli after vanquishing whomever was there before, and that my mother’s family were part of the Norman invasion of Sicily, fought their way all the way up to the east of Naples, and took their land there — taking it from whomever was there before, it goes without saying. All true, and a fantastic way of getting some people shut up and go away without me even asking them to!
Good idea: complain about the net. Bad idea: actually photograph the net or the closure of the top floor. It’s not visible in typical drive by snapshots. Surprised so many evolved monkeys would rather die than be able to comment on the greenspun blog.
Despite everything that has happened over the last 10 years why do these still keep showing up?
The Vessel — a stairway to nowhere. Maybe they should also build a net over the Grand Canyon. (I guess being out in nature makes one less suicidal, urban NYC more so? How can a 14 year old decide to kill themselves, they don’t even know who they are yet, 3 years closed doesn’t seem like enough time for the tears to end.) The last time I was in a wilderness area, some hypoxic urban madwoman tumbling downhill nearly knocked me off a 200 foot cliff. They need one there too. Also fences ten feet along both sides of trails, about the distance people who wander off-trail average to get lost.
How can anybody hear anything, over the ambient screeching of the subway cars? It’s like saying “Your perfume bothers me miss [or mister], it blocks the smell of homeless urine.” Phil is in the subway?…rich people slumming it, or maybe he sent an agent in. I wonder if women still go braless (one thing that didn’t end with the OG hippies in New York anyway) on the subways, and how the new Islamic overlords with deal with that?
Every once in a while in the ’80s a marijuana retailer would pop up in Harlem for a few days until the DEA shut them down. They used those payment windows with bullet-proof glass like you see for after hours at convenience stores in Florida. Weed? More likely a moss with rat-poison blend for $10. Snoop Dogg has a wine brand too, Snoop Cali.
I found a used, yellowing (but with spine uncracked) copy of The Town and the City by Kerouac, pre-stream of conciousness, and have been busy reading that. Is Phil the new Kerouac? Follow the Rainbow Pride Road… Am I? How does the Internet perturb the karmic fabric of the universe? Phil might find out if stands outside in the NYC weed-haze too long.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly6ZhQVnVow