I had to call to run a question past the insurance people with respect to an application for a disability policy for the firm. The form asked if I had received surgery before or if I had been advised to have surgery. So I called:

Me: This question on the form, does it require me to disclose voluntary surgery?

Her: Well, what kind of voluntary surgery?

Me: A vasectomy and I am not at all sure that I recall it being voluntary, come to think of it.

Her: Gosh, no. That's personal. We want to know if you have had back surgery, or, gahd fuhrbid, can-suh.

To borrow from Cindy Adams, only in New York, kids, only in New York.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:42 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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New York won the Super Bowl, as I am sure you all know. The Giants were the subject of a parade down by the Wall Street area. Giants fans were in evidence all over midtown Manhattan today.

An observation.

The Giants, heavily hoped for underdogs, won. Yet:

*No cars were burned or overturned;

*No riots broke out;

*No storefront windows were broken;

*No assaults reported;

*No property damage noted;

*In short, nothing bad happened in New York as a result of excited celebration.

Almost makes you think New Yorkers have some experience with a sports team winning, huh?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 02:45 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I'm sure that even outside of New York, everyone has heard about the two firefighters killed in the recent fire at the Deutschebank building downtown. This was the building that was rendered uninhabitable as a result of the 9/11 attacks. It caught fire and two men died trying to put it out.

Today, I was walking up Fifth Avenue for lunch at a very grand private club on 5th when I started to run into groups of firemen in their dress uniforms. I knew, immediately, that today must be a funeral day at St. Patrick's Cathedral for one of the men killed downtown. The firemen milled about, in groups, smoking cigarettes, looking somber, some of them holding their children. It was very hot and not a lot of air was moving. The crowds grew thicker the closer to St. Patrick's I got. And there it was in front of the Cathedral: a firetruck hung with purple and black bunting for use as a hearse to take the coffin away for burial.

I stopped walking and, buffeted by those trying to get around me, just stood there and stared, stood there and remembered all of the 9/11 funerals when, for days and day after day, a similar truck was parked in front of the Cathedral. Some days, I would see women dressed in black holding hands with small children. Other days, just the truck, standing sentinel, waiting to carry its sometimes empty, sometimes full, coffin. It was a horrible flashback moment.

I stood, heedless of the time, and listened to the funeral remarks as they were delivered by a friend of the deceased. He was moving and the remarks touching. He even joked about the deceased's ability to spot an attractive woman from the fire truck at a thousand yards, in thick fog, and at night. I chuckled and with that little bit of laughter, the spell was broken.

As the crowd inside clapped at the conclusion, I smiled and turned to walk on.

The death was similar, the circumstances similar, but the difference I cannot express.

Thank god for our brave firemen.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:43 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 This was very poignant, RP. Thank you.

Posted by: Amber at August 25, 2007 10:08 AM (zQE5D)

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I just returned from an interesting lunch. Have you ever been to the 21 Club? I'm sure you have at least heard of it, even if you have never been. It is on West 52nd Street and has been around for a very long time. I gather that the bar and the main dining room are very nice. I wouldn't know. I just passed though the main dining room on my way to the door to the kitchen. I passed through the door to the kitchen and turned right, past food prep areas (very clean, by the way), and turned right again to go down the stairs. Then I turned left at the bottom of the stairs, through more food prep areas and turned left, and stepped down, into the wine storage area. I continued through the shelves, holding hundreds of bottles, some of them tagged with the words, "Private", until I came to a strange and dark opening in the wall. I bent down to bring my head below the lintel and I stepped up over the pipes running at the bottom of the opening and from there I entered the Wine Cellar where I found a lovely table surrounded by wine storage for even more bottles of wine, buried in the deepest, darkest recesses of 21. It is a vestige of Prohibition. It was really very cool.

I highly recommend the experience. The food was great, too.

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I was having this chat with my dad the other day. He and I agreed that having children changes a person. Not a very controversial position, frankly, but it was nice to kick around a not too difficult topic for a change.

This morning, walking to work after my morning squash match (lost, but it was close and who cares since it was so much fun anyway) and weight lifting, I cut across another guy's path to cross the street. I tend to walk very quickly and I easily passed in front of him without him even having to break step. Just the same, he spit out: "F*!k you". Maybe that's just normal behavior in his neighborhood, beats me. So, the post-three children guy that I have become responded, without thinking about it, not that way I would have 6 years ago "("Oh yeah? Suck my ****, you asshole!), but:

HEY!! That wasn't very nice!!!

Any street cred that I ever might have plausibly laid any potential claim to is now officially dead, kaput, gone, history, finished.

I am now officially rated G, even when angry.

That G rating does not apply when I am behind the wheel, however. Just saying.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:21 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Welcome to theKensington post office, Brooklyn. Please take a number and I will be yelling at your sorry ass, shortly. Video shot with a cell phone:

Like watching a slow motion train wreck. Although, I gather that this post office is well known for horrible service.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:09 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I drove into New York City this morning from the darkest corners of Coastal Connecticut. I was on the FDR at just about 9:15 and I was passing the corner of the FDR and about 120th or 125th street. There he was. A man standing on the corner. He was wearing a faded blue sweatshirt and a blue knitted watch cap of almost identical hue. It was 25 degrees without the wind. And he was just standing there. Well, not just standing there. He was holding something. He was holding an orange in each hand. He also had an orange in his mouth.

That would have been odd enough, I suppose. But it wasn't all.

He, while holding the two oranges with arms akimbo and the third orange crammed into his mouth, was also balancing what I think was a quarter of a watermelon on his head, rind side down on his cap, of course.

I cannot decide. It was either a protest against the war, a protest about low wages given to farm workers, or a protest about the coming rise in citrus prices due to the freeze in California. Or, it was art and he was commenting on man's inhumanity to man.

I love New York. Life here can be so surreal sometimes.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:15 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 My guess - he was selling fruit.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at January 27, 2007 09:56 PM (Z3kjO)

2 Or he was walking back from the market, had all the fruit in his hands because the sack had broken and was just waiting for the light to change---whilst regretting that he hadn't double bagged. But you're right: that's not nearly as interesting. Although, it sure beats having the Grannies for Peace hanging around. Much more visually stimulating.

Posted by: Kathy at January 27, 2007 11:07 PM (o9gi3)

3 May be he fled from a lunatic asylum?

Posted by: Alex at January 29, 2007 09:25 AM (ApHMk)

4 I didn't realize there were any dark corners of coastal Connecticut. I thought the only dark area of CT was New Haven.

Posted by: Shawn at January 31, 2007 02:12 PM (3BOpt)

5 Possibly celebrating the life-affirming qualities of crack cocaine? Just askin'

Posted by: Margi at February 03, 2007 11:48 PM (4b9SY)

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There I was, walking up 41st street, when I noticed a bunch (or would it be a gaggle?) of puffers (yes, certainly gaggle as puffer is closer to puffin which is rather closer to bird so within spitting distance (yes, I know, vivid) of geese so clearly a gaggle of puffers) all busy smoking away outside in their shirtsleeves, not a jacket among them, sheltered on three sides from the wind, warmed by a ferocious heater suspended from the ceiling. Who, I wondered, would be so beneficent as to gift smokers, detested by most landlords for cluttering the doorways and littering the sidewalks, with an outdoor heating source? Who could this prince among landlords be? Ah, yes. Of course. I was walking past the Philip Morris headquarters. Someone with a vested interest in making smoking comfortable.

I wonder, idly, what their health insurance premiums are like at MO (now: Altria)? Think Altria pays more? I would hope so.

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I won't let you. I don't deserve it. I played hooky for lunch today and took a taxi down to the Village (Laguardia between Bleeker and West 3rd) where I met an old friend for lunch. We sat outside. We watched the fetching young women in their summer dresses parade back and forth in front of the restaurant. We drank a bottle of Gavi, a happy Italian summer wine. The breezes blew on us gently. The trees shaded our table. The anchovies were strong. The fish was fresh. The espresso was properly bitter. And two hours after arriving, it qualifies as almost the ideal summer hooky day. Tomorrow we are back in trial but today, today I am an escapee.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:30 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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So, New York really is a collection of small towns. I grow more and more convinced by this everyday.

I was up in the East 50's today, delivering the baby’s passport application to the Norwegian Consulate so that we can take him to Norway as a Norwegian citizen, since he, like the other kids, has dual nationality. I had a funny exchange with the passport guy, by the way. We were discussing the intricacies of Norwegian citizenship law (I will spare you) when he told me that everyone always asks him why Norway can’t do it the way the Swedes do it. I interrupted him in mid-sentence and said: “I have been married long enough to a Norwegian not to give a shit about what the Swedes do or don’t do.” He laughed very hard.

Anyway, going up in the elevator, I noticed on the floor listings, the name of a company I sort of recalled. Turns out it was a company that a friend of mine took over after the founder, her father, died. That friend, let’s call her “L”, was someone I met many years ago taking Norwegian lessons together. See, she was also an American married to a Norwegian. We became good friends and also all four of us became friends. We lost touch after she and the Norwegian, “A”, divorced some six years ago.

So, after finishing my business with His MajestyÂ’s Representatives, I stopped by the office, on the off chance my old, lost, friend was actually there. Well, right place and right person but she had stepped out so I left her a note. Nice coincidence, thinks I.

I decided, after the huge lunch I had with clients today, involving a sinful portion of truffled creamed spinach, I decided to walk back to the office.

On the way back, my cell phone rings. I stop to answer it, turning off Park Avenue onto the steps of a random office building to get out of the pedestrian traffic stream. There, who do I spy on the steps above me? A. LÂ’s ex-husband. I had lost touch with him, too, you see and had otherwise no way to get into contact with him. I had been planning to ask L when I spoke to her, but, no need.

The universe is truly a random place and New York City is a collection of small villages.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:45 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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You learn stuff taking the subway that you never, ever could have the opportunity to learn by taking a taxi to and from Court. I went to/from Court yesterday on an emergency application by taxi and learned nothing. Parenthetically, the client called me at 8:30 that morning with his very real, very serious emergency and by 4:00 I was at the court house with an 18 page complaint, three affidavits and an order to show cause with a temporary restraining order. Now, that's an example of service-oriented, can-do legal practice, my friends. But, back to the subway.

Today I was not in a hurry. I could take the subway, which was faster anyway at rush hour, and I could observe away to my heart's content. And today I learned.

I learned an important difference between men and women, today. There are differences, you know. Some of them rather critical. This is one that I never knew although I might have suspected. Curious? Want me to share my hard earned wisdom with you? Ok.

A nicely dressed woman on the subway in New York City will never, no matter how hard she was digging away in there, no matter how much force was applied to the problem, no matter how great the effort expanded to obtain a successful resolution -- she will never eat her own boogers. I can't say the same about a man.

Interesting what you can learn on the subway, ain't it?

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This was not overheard by me, but was overheard outside of an Upper East Side restaurant and reported at the end of a review in the NY Observer:

Outside the restaurant, one of the customers was smoking a cigarette and talking on his cell phone. “I went home with one of the hostesses two weeks ago,” he said. “When she saw me tonight, she said I’d be waiting a long time for my table.”

Made me smile.

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I had a meeting that kept me in the city last night. As if I wasn't already busy enough, I also chair a committee that handles interview requests for applicants to my undergraduate university. You want an interview to said institution and you live in NYC? You come through my office. We had our annual admissions office meeting last night with the admissions staff member who handles our area.

I found myself, in the twilight (sounds better in Norwegian, by the way: skumring), taking a bus up Madison Avenue to the upper reaches of the 70's. It has indeed been a long time since I have done this. I used to live in the lower 70's over by Second Avenue (by still my beating heart, I know you miss it). That was a less swank part of the Upper East Side ("UES"). The swank bits are really closer to the Park. Anyway, I like bussing up Madison. I much prefer it to the subway. There are windows you can look out, you can watch people, you can look at the everchanging array of shops (they change, mutate, go out of business, reinvent themselves with startling regularity).

I was struck by how interesting the UES felt, now that I no longer live there or go there on a daily basis. There was something about it that was odd. It took me a while to put my finger on it but I think I figured it out. It was money and all that entails. Let me elaborate. There are many, many stores on the gold coast part of the UES. Many restaurants, many service establishments (spas, etc.). They are filled with people who are there to help you, to make you feel better, to fill your requests, to respond to your needs (real or perceived, doesn't matter), to help you figure out what needs you haven't realized are unmet yet, and to just cater to you. That gives off a vibe. It is sort of smothering to pass through it, even if, like me, you don't have the bank account to be part of the target audience for this horde of service people. But still, a vibe. A comforting vibe that suggests that you never have to leave this cocoon of the UES, that all of your desires can be fulfilled with a smile here, that you will be taken care of. Money buys that. Money makes it feel that way. Money drives the UES.

You don't get that feeling in the suburbs where I live now.

I miss living on the UES but I'm kind of happy I don't live among the perpetually catered to, the always self-satisfied anymore.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:21 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I have been dipping back into some Liebling (I find him comforting, frankly, as he could write like an angel. A New York angel but still an angel) and stumpled upon the following little bit I wanted to share as it amused the heck out of me:

The Colonel's ideal of feminine beauty remains constant.

In this he resembles an old wartime friend of mine named Count Prziswieski, a minor figure in the exiled Polish Government.

All my life I have been faithful to one woman, the Count once said to me --- a fragile blonde with a morbid expression.

He found this woman in every country, and she never aged, although the Count did. The fragile blonde with a morbid expression, wherever she turned up, was in her twenties.

Outstanding.

More to come later.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:16 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I had the great pleasure of spending some time in one of the New York City offices of the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles yesterday. I had to return license plates now that I have the cars registered in Connecticut. While there, I saw a t-shirt on a young woman which bore the following inscription on the chest:

Objects under this shirt may be larger than they appear

Based on my careful examination of her shirt, I'd have to say that my test results were inconclusive. Still, great shirt.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:52 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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In what other city could you possibly buy from a Japanese language bookstore, for $1, a copy of Bill Cosby's book, Fatherhood, translated into Norwegian (title: Kunsten Å Være Far), ?

Of course, I bought it. I mean, how could I not?

I love this city.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:50 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Lunch in New York, at a place with cachet, no matter that the cachet may be old, is conspicuous. Many are there to be seen, to see, to impress, to negotiate, to cut a striking figure, to cut a deal, to flatter, to flirt, or sometimes, to dine. But much of the time it is done conspicuously.

I just had lunch with an old friend. A friend who is both older than I am and a person with whom I have been friends with for long enough to qualify as an old friend. He was retired for some years, got bored, and is now back in the international finance game. In other words, he could afford to take me to a $250 lunch (I didnÂ’t mean to see the bill, but I did). $250 for lunch in New York is also conspicuous. Lunch for two people. One bottle of wine. It was delicious, donÂ’t misunderstand, but a part of me none the less is embarrassed by having been taken to a $250 lunch. That, by the way, was before tip.

What does one eat for $250? A bowl of chilled fennel soup with grilled tiger prawn and saffron oil followed by a burger. Not just any burger, mind you, but a burger of chopped sirloin stuffed with braised short rib, fois gras, and black truffles. We drank something white and delicious and I never actually got to see what it was. We spent about two hours there and caught up with each other.

On one hand, it was a delight. Catching up with a dear friend who is whip smart and well educated and opinionated is great fun. On the other hand, it was done in a restaurant not in my tax bracket and I think that made me a little bit uncomfortable. I can’t quite puzzle out why but I thought I could try here. Maybe it was the huge disparity in wealth between the two of us, although that never bothered me before. Maybe it was the in your face nature of the restaurant. Maybe it was being served wine in the middle of a very hot day – I am now officially sleepy, by the way. Maybe it was the sheer expense and the thought that $250 could have been spent better or wiser or just that it seemed like a lot of money to spend for lunch. Maybe I’m just hopelessly middle class.

Either way, I tried not to be conspicuously middle class. There was enough that was already conspicuously on display without me being there, too.

U P D A T E

I finally figured out what really bothered me about that lunch: it made me feel like we got suckered. It wasn't worth $250. I have spent that much and more on dinners before, really fine dinners. I should not, or my friend should not, have to spend that much at a place billed as a bistro. The food was quite good, but not great. The service was competent and professional, but not at the top of the game. The room was packed too closely together and too noisy. For $250 the restaurant should furnish you with more of a quiet hum than a loud roar. Conclusion? The meal did not represent good value for the money. And that's why I was so uncomfortable. I walked out feeling like a mark, a sucker, like we were just conned out of a lot of money.

I feel better now that I figured it out. A day later, mind you, but better late, etc.

Thanks for all the comments!

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Did you know that light bulbs used in the NY City transit system screw in counter-clock wise? Most light bulbs screw in clock wise. This means that if you steal a light bulb out of the subway, you can't use it at home.

And no, I did not learn this little fact by trying it out for myself. My father told me. I don't know if he learned it from experience, but you never know and I didn't ask.

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I am in a quandary about this post. I'm not at all sure how to write it, maybe because I'm not quite at all sure what I think about it. Maybe I will write this post as if I were musing aloud to myself. You want to come along on a disorganized musing?

We used to live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, in a beautiful pre-war cooperative. We loved this apartment and we loved the building and we knew our neighbors and even socialized with them. It was a lovely building in a desirable part of town. Parts of the building were pretty Social, too, with a couple of people in the Social Register and some captains of industry and a federal judge. It was a high powered little place. I have no idea how we passed the co-op board or why, for that matter, I was elected to serve on that board. But that's another story.

We made friends with a very high powered couple in the building who had a child shortly (six months?) after we had our first. The two little girls became very close buddies. They played together probably every day. It was sweet to watch them. Even after we moved, the girls stayed friendly and we continued to see the parents, irregularly, but we did stay in touch. The girls attend each other's birthday parties. That's why I was in my car, stuck in nasty traffic, on Sunday.

It took us 55 minutes to go from 86th and Columbus to 84th and Third. That's just too damn long. Although the Girl Child was the model of good behavior in the back seat and was only slightly concerned that we were going to be missing fun things at the party. She was looking forward to the party. She helped pick out the gift and she even wrote her name on the card all by herself. And she drew a picture for her friend.

So we get to the party, and here, my patient readers, here is where I begin the musing part of the post.

The party was held in a big hall, a sort of multipurpose assembly room, at one of the very fancy UES preschools.

A word about the preschool in Manhattan. Parents sweat blood to get their kids into these schools. They procure letters of recommendation from top CEO's for their 3 year old child. They drag their children from interview to interview. They attend open house tours, they are interviewed themselves, they demonstrate to the school how they could be useful to the school. It is a competitive sport. There are limited spots and the schools are hierarchically grouped according to educational role fulfillment and social status. Some schools are better able to place children at desirable private schools than others are. These schools are highly sought after and the parents are, for the most part, well off and have sharp elbows. I have no doubt that they also want the best for their children, but I question whether they happen to weight equally the prestige of the pre-school in the calculus of dinner conversation with their peers.

My wife and I rejected this dance when we moved to the suburbs. When we got to the suburbs, they way we found our kids’ preschool was by my calling a prep school class mate and saying, “we live here now, where should we send our daughter, we figure you probably have a good handle on it” and that was that. We got a recommendation, made a phone call, wrote a check and that was that. No interviews, no tests, no nothing. Simple as pie and my daughter has loved her little school.

Back to the party.

The kids were all adorable, as healthy little kids are wont to be. They played nicely together, following the soccer coach/party leader and his crew. The Girl Child jumped right in and participated, to my infinite pleasure. Watching her run around and kick at the ball was sublime.

The parents. The parents were more interesting. This was the oddest for me. I guess there were class issues and money issues and geographical issues. I looked around the room at these people who are supposed to be my peers, who I would have been living in tandem with if my daughter had attended this school or any other similar school and I felt out of place.

The women, and they were mostly women there, were mostly non-working women with personal trainer hardened and pilates lengthened bodies. They dressed in the latest of fashions. They wore clothes by, I suspect, people IÂ’ve never heard of. The conversations were vapid. They were, on the whole, waaay better looking than the suburban moms in my daughterÂ’s class. They were fun to look at.

The conversations dealt with preoccupations and money issues I donÂ’t usually hear about in the burbs. How many preschools one should apply to, the houses people were renting that Summer in the Hamptons, the rental of vacation houses in Italy (and bringing nannyÂ’s with you), the stress of managing the nanny staff while being a stay at home mom, etc.

These are issues of class and of money. Class and money are not the same thing. DonÂ’t make that mistake. If we had stayed in the City, this would have been my world. IÂ’m not sure we would have been able to play in this world as comfortably as others at the party suggested they could. One family was met on the way out by a privately chauffeured Escalade. On a Sunday. They had the chauffeur working on a Sunday. That takes a lot of scratch. The Girl Child and I were parked on the street some four blocks away. We had fun walking back to the car and looking in the windows together. We do not have a chauffeur.

So where am I going with all this?

I feel like I dodged a bullet when I got out of Manhattan. ItÂ’s a big city, New York, but intensely small in places. These people who we would have been part of. . . Let me say this, IÂ’m glad we moved, IÂ’m glad we chose not to subject our kids to that. We didnÂ’t want our kids to feel like the poorest kids on the block with everyone else jetting down to St. Barts on the private plane. I think that in the suburbs they are going to have a chance at a more normal life. Maybe. Maybe not, of course, but still, thatÂ’s the choice weÂ’ve made.

And that choice feels good after that party. DonÂ’t misunderstand me, I like the couple we stayed friends with, they just have made choices weÂ’d never make.

Did this make any sense at all? Or was it just another failed post? Beats me. It was hard enough to struggle through writing it, I am not going to torture myself by re-reading it!

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New York City is fun. Lots of people come to NY, sometimes for the City itself and sometimes just to pass through on their way to other places. Tonight, I'm going to go see Roger Kimball speak. I don't know which of these two categories he falls into to but I'm just glad he's here. He wrote a great book called "Rape of the Masters". I'm very excited and I'm bringing my copy with me to see if he'll sign it for me.

Kimball was the inspiration for one of my favorite posts: Art. Rape. Politics. Gender. A Reflection, in which I try to do my own modern analysis of a piece of art. It was great fun and I think you might enjoy reading it if you haven't seen it before.

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