WhatISee

While enjoying a beautiful Saturday afternoon in the park, we ran across Thoth again. If you're not familiar with him, he's a Prayformer who regularly sets up underneath the terrace at the Bethesda fountain. He's been prayforming there for years and is one of those "only in NY" people you see around town. Our friend Rachelleb found out about him while she was still living here.

In 2002, a documentary about him won an Oscar. It doesn't seem to have changed him or his vision though, he's still out there day in and day out. Well, actually, Sunday is his last day in NY this summer. He's heading to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. So if you wanted to stop by, hurry.

It seems it's the week for seeing bloggers out and about. Whether it was on purpose, a coincidence discovered after the fact, or completely random like today, it's still a reminder that our city of 8+ million is pretty small.

So, back to today, after our walk through the park, we took a break at the Boat Pond. As we were getting up to leave, I saw a face that I recognized. It took a few seconds to realize how I knew it though, since I've never met Elizabeth Spiers in person before.

She seemed a bit surpised to be picked out of the crowd, but was happy to exchange pleasantries. I believe Maccers was there as well, but she was holding a place in the drink line so I just waved from a distance. In case it's not widely known, Elizabeth seems to have broken her foot and is wearing an impressive looking cast. She casually dismissed it as a party favor (ok, maybe I misheard that).

After wishing her a pleasant day, I caught up with "M" on the way to the Met.

Update: The New York Times has Teller review Penn's new book, Sock. As you may recall, whatisee attended one of the readings.

I particularly like Teller's full disclosure at the end:

Six times a week onstage in Las Vegas, Penn fires a .357 Magnum revolver at my face. It's a trick. ... I survive, in large part, because Penn always does his part of the trick correctly. I assure you, however, this would never skew my view of Penn's literary achievement.

Another last day at a neighborhood restaurant. Il Forno, at the corner of 79th and Broadway. While it wasn't famous and isn't listed in either Citysearch or Zagats, it's been there a long time and it was a reliable slice of pizza on the upper west side.

I had a friend years ago who was into Dragon Boat, where teams of 20 rowers and one drummer paddle slim shallow boats in a very short race. Why? Apparently, the paddling scares the fish away so that they don't eat a dead poet.

In any case, this city is large enough to have TWO sets of races. Whatisee wandered by the end of the Manhattan races in Riverside Park sponsored by New York City International Dragon Boat. Next weekend, the 14th annual Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival is being held out in Flushing Meadows, Queens. Apparently, it's a large enough sport that they have Chase as a corporate sponsor and a magazine covering it. Who knew.

The contestents were certainly psyched today. And they wore cool t shirts with fierce logos. Oh, and lots of bare skin and fit people.

Thanks to Curbed, I found about Sky Cowboys, a wonderful fotolog by an iron worker in NY.

I've always liked climbing to the top of buildings to see what the view looks like. In College, I explored more than one locked rooftop. I also read a few books on building skyscrapers.

Every year during the Marathon, they inevitably have a camera on top of the Verrazano, which has always made me want to climb up there. Which is why at some point, I'll be doing the Sydney bridge climb. Finally, I've had a few opportunities to watch the ironworkers put up buildings from the bedrock up, right across the street.

All of which means I love this guy's website!

Evidently, one run in, wasn't enough for these guys. Now they're hanging out in Midtown. Perhaps they're stalking me...

Update: Others have commented on this, including what appears to be a British Poker Magazine.

Google search for same damn song

Apparently, we're now the number one pick by Google for the search string Same Damn Song. This is based on an article we wrote in May about the Mr Softee truck that likes parking outside my apt, venting diesel fumes into my window and most annoyingly playing that same damn song over and over again.

On 57th and Bway, police set up a truck checkpoint, waving them over for inspection

I've been hearing a lot about the Hotel Gansevoort (a nice Dutch name) in the Meat Packing district. So, a few friends and I stopped by on a "quiet" night. As you can see, quiet is relative. I believe Time Out NY described this rooftop bar as "first to shove, first to serve" and it's an apt description. The girl behind us in line brazenly pushed her way into the middle of our group trying to get past us. All of a sudden, we all turned to face her and she flipped out that we were surrounding her.

Anyway, once upstairs, we didn't even bother trying to buy the overpriced drinks. The line at the bar was very very deep and the waitresses clearly weren't going to make it back anytime soon. So we wandered around, looking at the views. That's the pool at Soho house glowing dimly.

By the time we left, the line had become quite long, which was oddly satisfying. "We only waited 5 minutes suckers"

I'd go back on a Monday or Tuesday, just for the view.

Photo Friday: Originally from Roosevelt Island. how do you handle a category like this. well, this is my try

This is a pair of what looks to be 11 or 12 year old Rollerblade Lightnings. These were really the skates that started "rollerblading" back in the day. Practically indestructible, they weren't too expensive and were extremely popular. I personally chose the Aeroblades at the time, because they were a lot lighter and more comfortable. I wonder if these sat in a closet the whole time or if they finally just wore out.

We've been really lucky to have landlords that not only are human, but want to be good landlords. It seems the deli owner at 931 Eighth Avenue isn't so lucky. Back in November 2001, they had a bad fire. Interestingly, I have a photo of this fire that's been passed down a few times, originally from S. Long.

Since then, the landlord (Montgomery Trading Co) and the deli owners (who lived next door) have been waging a protracted war. We started seeing these signs pop up on the outside of the deli last year. Every so often, someone rips them down and then right before the next court date, you see them pop up again.

Who's in the right and who's in the wrong? It's hard to say without knowing all of the details, but clearly this is an ugly situation. Unfortunately, it looks like it can only be resolved in court. Neither side is likely to be happy with the results of that.

If you want to read the whole saga, you'll need to visit the store before someone rips the pages down again.

This location turns over new restaurants every year or two. Nothing ever sticks and it never looks like you should go in. It seems to have happened again. While the restaurant may think they're merely remodeling, the other notice suggests it might be a long wait. My money is on the Marshal.

From CNN, a fascinating study of how blocking a gene turns ordinary monkeys into workaholics. In the article, they explain that primates (ie: including humans) like to leave things till the last minute and are reasonably good at guessing how long things take.

Blocking this gene apparently affects dopamine receptors. They slyly mention that employeers may be interested in this, though the scientists claim to be doing it to help people suffering from disorders such as OCD or Depression. Interesting stuff.

Photo Friday: Tranquility. Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY.

Two months ago, slashdot and the NY Times mentioned that Reason Magazine would be printing each cover of it's June magazine individually for subscribers. To prove the point, they were going to put a satellite photo of your house with a big red circle around it.

That was enough to get a whole bunch of people at work to sign up for a subscription. After we signed up, they said it would be 3-4 months before our subscription would start, which implied that we wouldn't be getting our cover photo.

Happily, this didn't prove to be the case. My issue arrived with the rough area of my Manhattan neighborhood , my apt building (and half of my block) in the red circle and my name in BIG TYPE on the cover saying "They know where you are!"

The letter from the editor gave me various statistics for my zipcode and said it didn't envy me my 29.5 minute (on avg) commute. It then goes on to say that this will eventually turn into the "magazine for an audience of one: you". Inside, their database nation article explains more about what they were trying to do.

Kind of like Blogs -> RSS -> Aggregators -> You

We've always loved going up on roofs. So when a friend had a party on the roof of their Williamsburg loft, we had to stop by. 7 flights up the dark staircase, over the impromptu rope barrier and wow, what a view.

11th Ave is going through some changes. Daisy May opened a year ago, various clubs and upscale strip clubs (ok, so that's the west side hwy, but the Penthouse club is cross the st from Landmark) have shown up in the past few months, and now, some old time restaurants are either closing (Munson Diner via curbed.com & gothamist) or going on "vacation". There's more going on, but I'll have to cover it in a different post.

It's been at least a week now (that I can attest to personally) since the security gates came down. Something tells me this falls under the restaurant secret code for "not opening again soon", rather than an actual vacation. Perhaps it's the rather permanent nature of the note in the window. Or perhaps it's because their phone number has been disconnected. Asking the neighbors about it, they said it's been closed for a while now and there are vague rumors of closing just for August. We'll see.

The Landmark Tavern is full of history, from 1868 when it opened on the waterfront to today when it's 1/5 of a mile away from the Hudson. The bar is carved from a single tree and the door is from Prohibition days.

Hopefully it opens up again soon and is exactly the same inside. Unfortunately, I never took pictures inside before it was too late.

Sure glad I stopped by MisShapes party a few weeks ago to see Brian Battjer.

He's heading to SF in a week or two. I'm sure he's going to have a fantastic going away party. In the meantime, he's put up a great picture of Choire Sicha who you may also know from Gawker and his own website

Warning, some of the links are NSFW.

Maine 2000, shot on film and scanned. For Photo Friday's Analog challenge The joke is that this is a binary way of looking at the world.

49th st and 9th Ave

Enjoying a late afternoon snack at Cafe Spice, all of a sudden the sun came out after a day of rain. The color was fantastic, otherworldly. The camera didn't really capture all the subtle tones.

Looking up the street, lots of people were pulling cameras out to try to record it. One woman saw the cameras, looked up and said, what's causing that light. She didn't believe it was the sun.

The light kept changing every few seconds. We wandered around until it eventually faded away. Oh, and I did not photoshop them, other than to resize the images.

Update: Callalillie saw this as well

Amy Langfield's visiting England right now and mentions that although everyone is nice to her, the "British loathing for America is about on par with last year". She goes on to say it's mostly about politics. She was having a problem finding proof of this, until she read an article in the Guardian. She pulls her own quote out, but I think the end quote is more amusing. It's worth reading the whole article.

"About the only thing we do any better than them is cookery programmes. Cookery programmes, and hating the French. They're really very haphazard and inexperienced when it comes to hating the French."

I'm sure everyone's already seen this, but can you spot the arrow in Fedex's logo? Look betwen the E and the X. Ahh. I've known about it for a long time and yet, still, had never seen Fedex actually acknowledge it before.

Anyway, in a related note, watching the Olympics, one of the sponsors is Chevrolet. When their logo is displayed on the flat screen in the "lounge", you can barely see it's reflection (inverted of course) in the glass table. Maybe I've been reading too much spam, but I distinctly see saw something else. Do you see it?

Again, as kind of a doubletake thing, I saw "cheaphotel". BTW: I spent a few minutes going through the Chevrolet web site looking for their logo to invert and wound up just typing it in by hand. With the official logo and font, it would probably be even more noticeable.

Every so often, we see a procession from the local church marching around the neighborhood. Previously, we saw them going through the stations of the cross. This time, it was carrying a statue of either Mary or their patron saint around.

I love photo number 4, it really captures the close relationships these people clearly have. I caught them at a "shift change" and watched them all shake hands as they switched positions.

Brian Battjer (previous article) is moving to San Francisco which means he had to throw a huge karaoke going away party. Just the invite alone practically demanded a visit.

"MC" and I stopped by around midnight. Unfortunately, we forgot to pick up beer and since Chinatown apparently revoked the "must have 24hr deli on every corner" rule, we had to trudge back up to Spring st's supermarket.

Anyway, the crowd was great, everyone was friendly, and we got to explore his loft. Pretty good deal too if I heard the price right. It was really nice to meet some of the people he's made into blog celebrities such as Grant, Em and Lo, Leigh, and of course Sarah.

Overall, a fun party and well worth suffering tiredly through my 9am conference call :)

Congratulations to E and K on their engagement. It was nice chatting with the two of you a while back.

Something appropriate for Photo Friday: Modern

From last week's Williamsburg adventure. It doesn't look like it, but this is on the roof of a loft building with an excellent view of Manhattan.

Supposedly the big protest is tomorrow, but we saw plenty of people walking around with signs and tshirts.

There was a guy in Union Square selling anti bush tshirts for $7, $6 if you put it on right then and there.

All in all, pretty peaceful in the city today, other than a bomb scare or two and lots of police everywhere.

If you can't see it too clearly, she's wearing a toilet seat with a sign saying it's the "Asses of Evil"

Besides all of the obvious differences in culture, accent, and attitude, one of the things that used to divide NYC and London was the awareness of unattended bags and packages. In NY, people weren't too worried about bags or packages being left alone. You would care if it was yours, but you didn't even notice ones that were left by themselves. In London, if you stepped away from your bag, they'd start evacuating the block. And for good reason, as I discovered when a number of bombs went off on the street outside my hotel.

New York is quickly becoming the same way, as shown by this backpack in Union Square. We didn't stick around to see the Bomb Squad show up, but Rion and Ekavet have some good photos of other scares. Update: I believe Ekavet was able to photograph the bomb squad opening this backpack.

I was glad to see NY1 showed up right away though. A whole bunch of people started pulling press passes out and huge cameras. My little optio just didn't compare :)

When I spent a month in London, back in the early 90's, I saw a number of things that at the time seemed to be from another world. Bombs going off on crowded streets, 5 swat type police with h&k mp5's frisking people outside Harrods, and just a general awareness that bad things were happening. It was part of the ongoing "Irish Problem".

On the way home one night, there were vague reports of road closings on the taxi's radio. The driver kept going this way and that, finally dropping me off a few blocks from my hotel. I walked down the street until I reached the bobby holding back traffic. Pointing at my hotel, I asked what was going on. He said there had been a few garbage can bombs going off and they were waiting for this street to be checked. I asked if I could go to my hotel which was only a 1/2 block away. His answer was "if you think that's best, go ahead, but we've already had one bomb go off"

Billionaires for Bush have certainly caught the media's attention. We wandered by their gathering in Madison Square park today as they finished their march. We're pretty sure most of them are actors, but what a great and funny idea. I particularly like the girl with the champagne class. She reminds me of the Motion Sculpture project.

Quite a range of styles, topics and seriousness in the signs and shirts. Unfortunately, Bush's name sets up a whole bunch of jokes.

This guy was drawing Chalk hearts every few feet along the way. He didn't carry a sign or say anything other than draw a little symbol on the road. Update: HipHopMusic took a lot of photos, including a picture of the same guy a few minutes later in Union Square

Others were carrying a large somewhat inflated pig or jamming with about 30 different instruments while walking. At the point we were at, there were no restrictions on the crowds movement. The cops stood in the shade and made sure nothing bad happened. Everyone was laid back and enjoying the day. Even the ones chanting slogans sounded more upbeat than angry.