MY URBAN KVETCH

Subway Stories: Winter

Most people are too busy to be paying attention to other people on the subway, especially during the AM commute. But not me. I'm free. And endlessly fascinated with other people. Good news for a writer; bad news for you, buddy. (And you know who you are.)

****

The visitor has two enormous bags, on wheels, but still, overstuffed like couches. In fact, there could be couches in there, the bags are so big. I know he's a visitor, because a New Yorker would suck it up and take a cab with bags that big. He asks a simple question--whether the train stops at Times Square, and of course, it does--and is treated to a seminar on the geography of the NYC subway system by the apparent-MTA-professor-at-large he has happened to query. After Professor Subway tells the visitor about Times Square and Grand Central and how they're not the same place even though they're both on 42nd Street, he starts with the S vs. 7 debate, and shares information from the future, that soon there will be a subway that stretches from the Lower East Side to the Upper West Side. Then he begins a mini-lecture about the buses, at which point we arrive at 42nd Street, and visitor guy rolls his bags out of the lecture hall subway car.

****

Asian dude has the smallest iPod I've ever seen. It's smaller than the Mini, or the Shuffle. It's like the size of a fingernail. This inverts the model of "bigger is better," but is so tiny that when he holds it--pinkie slightly extended to those of us who are too observant--it could almost be replaced by a delicate teacup.How can he even read the screen? It's the iZoolanderPod.

****

Racing down the stairs from the F at 14th Street--I still have that long tunnel west to cover before I can catch up with the 1, which on weekends has been running uptown on the downtown local track. If I stop to think about all the different steps, I'll get confused. But there's a woman ahead of me with a big suitcase. Thump. Thump. Thump. The wheels thud with every step down, and she seems to really be struggling--she's breathing heavily, almost gasping to support the bag and keep it from falling to the bottom of the steps. I've been that person before, insistent that I don't need a cab (or can't afford one), so I offer to help. "No," she says, "I'm fine." I smile, friendly. "It's no trouble, if you want it," I say. "No, thanks." She's firm, so I move ahead, picking up the pace and resuming my sense memory journey east to west. The train is slow in coming, so she catches up. I hear her at the top of another subway stairway, thump, thump, thump. Someone else offers help. "No thanks, I'm totally fine." I think of the old story, with the famous punchline: "who do you think sent the lifeboats?"

***

It's negative ten degrees outside, and I worry as I enter the car that my fingers will get caught in the closing doors, and that it won't hurt, but that my frozen fingers will snap off from the pressure of the doors and clatter to the subway platform. But the woman across from me is wearing a string around her neck, nooselike, that is feigning scarfdom. This is the weather that tries men's souls and women writers' patience, as we are forced to watch people sporting non-functional scarves in a climate that demands flannel. I'm cold for her. Channeling my mother, I'm tempted to give her my sweater.

****

More subway stories to come...

 

NY Jewish Film Festival: "A Hebrew Lesson"

One of the great things about living in New York and writing about Jewish life is that there's never any shortage of events, venues and festivals to attend. For instance, last week, I was invited to the opening night of the NY Jewish Film Festival, which is held annually at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Cinema. "Praying With Lior" --a film by my friend Ilana Trachtman--opened to great reviews, and was being featured at the Festival (and it's going to run starting February 1 at Cinema Village, so don't miss it!). But I wasn't invited because of Ilana's film...this was a film about a Hebrew lesson.

In 19-ninety-something, I was in an ulpan class at Hebrew University with two Japanese men, one German theology student, and two Americans with Israeli parents. (And then there was me. Not sure how that happened.) Our common language was Hebrew and we all came with remarkably different stories. The ulpan environment draws eclectic backgrounds into a single room with a single aim: to learn Hebrew.

                

Apparent Synagogue-a-Thon Continues

Maybe it was because I'd attended that presentation on emergent prayer communities on Friday, but it's been a synagogue-a-thon ever since. My friend Lindsay and I visited three synagogues over the course of Shabbat (Bnai Jeshurun, Manhattan Jewish Experience and Kehilat Rayim Ahuvim) -- all in under 24 hours -- and now I'm posting a video from IntotheBox (a site about real estate in NYC) about the new building of Lincoln Square Synagogue, a modern Orthodox congregation near Lincoln Center and all those new Trump buildings on Riverside. I haven't logged this much shul time since the High Holidays.

For the record, the fact that I'm not a member at any of these synagogues points to the fact that the rumors must be true: I'm really Jewish.

The outside of the new building is supposed to recall a tallit (prayer shawl) being folded, which is nice, but I found myself wondering about the interior; Lincoln Square (known back in the day as "Wink and Stare") had this great, unique theater-in-the-round type layout, where every seat had the same view of everything. I'm curious to see what happens with the new building.

Splantaneity: Making a Spontaneous Plan

At midnight last night, I was sitting in my apartment, typing and making soup. Why make soup at midnight when one is not a witch? Well, it started about 6:45 pm last night, with me making soup.

It's not like I spend a lot of time making soup, that it should figure so prominently in a story. Still, it's been quite an evening. Friend and colleague Lisa Klug (author of the forthcoming book, Cool Jew) called me. "Wanna go to a concert?" I was wearing yoga pants (hold the yoga, but the pants are comfy) and a thermal shirt. I was making soup. I was home for the night. Until she said the two magic words: "Idan Raichel."

Quasi-Jury Duty

New York City jury duty is odd. I was called for Monday, and I went, expecting that I'd either be picked for a trial or serve the rest of my three days in the pool of potential jurors. But instead, they gave me a number to call along with instructions to wait until Wednesday to call. So I called, and I didn't have to go in. They told me to call again on Thursday, and they told me not to come in on Friday (which made me very happy, because it meant I could actually eat a meal before Yom Kippur started), but to come in again Monday (tomorrow). This leaves me with one more day after tomorrow to go through the motions of availability; with the rest of the Jewish holidays imminent, I can't serve on a trial.

So I go back, feeling like I'm only halfheartedly participating in one of the only civic duties that this country demands of me for my residence. (Unless you count taxes, and I'm not thinking about those until the year turns.) Maybe it's the 25 hours of Yom Kippur, uttering phrases like "I am a vessel of shame" and beating my breast black-and -blue (yes, Mom--that's hyperbole, don't worry) for my sins from the past year  -- and let's face it, the sins from every year, because they're always the same -- but I feel guilty for not serving, which makes me unfit to serve.

If it were any other time of the year, I'd want to serve. But I feel like this dance of going in and sitting in a room without coffee or wireless internet, or a phone (they confiscate them on your way into the court building), or even outlets (the room is pristine, dignified and electronically prehistoric) is a waste of my time and theirs. But it's part of the civic process, and I guess for now I'll just have to be satisfied with the game.

9/11/07: Mourning Becomes Eclectic

What's there to say about 9/11 in New York City? It seems to have become an American birthday of sorts, not the type you'd celebrate with cake or cocktails, but the birth of a new, sadder, more hardened--if more patriotic--American spirit. Sometimes, that spirit manages to relax the traditionally defensive stance of the cliched New Yorker, but only in favor of a nationally defensive position.

The tragedy is not just New York, and on some level, even New Yorkers know that, but ours is the unfortunate urban epicenter of what happened, ours is the metropolis that drew people not just from within New York City's boundaries, but beyond, in search of "making it here so they could make it anywhere." And so we remain, literally or emotionally, standing at the edge of the Pit, contemplating the vast crevasse's emptiness and what that void, in its once vibrant and solid opposite, means to us today.

To learn about today's September Concert series (featuring my friend and Rosh Hashanah Girl Michelle Citrin in Union Square this afternoon) click here. To read my reflections from last year, click here.

Upper West Side Rainforest

So I'm coming home from a perfectly lovely evening downtown--forget for a moment that it was on the Lower East Side and took me an hour to get there, and I digress--in celebration of the Kvetcher (no relation), and all the kvetch enthusiasts from all around this great city, including Jewschoolers Shamirpower, EV and Mobius himself (plus Kyle's Mom) were in attendance. True, many of my homies are still in the Holy Land, and I miss them something fierce, but it was nice to throw back a cocktail or two and relax a little.

Thanks to our great decision to take a cab, I ended up home a mere twenty minutes after leaving the party, and all was right with the world.

Then I heard the noise. It was faint, and not wholly recognizable at first. Was it the whir of a neighbor's A/C unit? Was it air, passing through a screened-in window? A television, trumpeting jungle sounds? Maybe, yuck, it was a cockroach or four skittering across the tiles in my bathroom? Or was it...dripping? I hadn't left the sink on, had I?

Entering my apartment, I flipped on the light for the bathroom and beheld the glory of a rainstorm happening inside my bathroom. It was highly localized; with drips coming down from the ceiling in almost every corner of the bathroom. Luckily, my laundry was unmoistened--because, ugh, moist dirty laundry, gross--but the floor was covered in a thin layer of water. The "rain" was still coming down. And it was 1:30 am.

What's a girl to do? Is she the crazy downstairs neighbor who raps on her upstairs neighbor's door at 1:30 in the morning? What if she were to be whisked inside and held prisoner, with no Elliot Stabler to rescue her? No, she needed help. Then she remembered: the super.

Of course, this made her the crazy upstairs neighbor who disturbs her super at 1:30 am. But that turned out to be the right decision. He accompanied me to the apartment and he knocked on the door, learning that the dude--clearly a Rhodes Scholar in the making--had drawn a bath and left it running, probably for hours. He just forgot. But did he say he was sorry? I'll let you guess.

And so I returned to the rain-slick tiles of my bathroom, removed the sodden magazines I'd hoped to read this week, and looked at the cracked and frayed ceiling, wondering if it is possibly going to fall in in the middle of the night, or whilst I am next relieving myself. I thought back on the other adventures I've had with this toilet, and can't help but Carrie-Bradshaw-wonder: why do we pray and pray for a sign to show us what to do, and when it arrives, we refuse to see it?

And now, back to my regularly scheduled program. Which is basically kvetching and promoting my work. So that's a treat in store for y'all.

A: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Nobel, Pulitzer

As Karnak might have put it, the answer is: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Nobel and Pulitzer.

And the question is: Name five awards not received by Esther Kustanowitz this year.

Too bad. I thought I had a shot at the Pulitzer with my article about the Jews on the Upper West Side.

So much for the Jewish media conspiracy.

My So-Called Social Life

Last week was such insanity from Tuesday to Thursday, with every night dominated by the NY literati and bloggerati in one form or another, that I plumb tuckered out without blogging any of it except PresenTense's Thursday night exhibition, PresenText, at the Bronfman Center (photos of which are available on Facebook in many locations).

The blogger reception at the 92nd Street Y was on my calendar for what seemed like months, and I was excited to finally attend an event which was itself a nod that my blogging endeavors--and those of my fellow J- and non-J-but-interested bloggers--were of rising importance and visibility. The excuse was a lecture/conversation between neighbors Patty Marx and Adam Gopnik, and invoked three of the seemingly most holy words in NY hipster culture: :The New Yorker. (Gopnik and Marx both write for the New Yorker, and were promoting new books--Gopnik's a collection of essays and Marx's a novel about a late-night comedy writer, which she used to be.) Gopnik's piece on the rodential infestation of his building was hilarious and unfortunately all too relatable from plague-besotted New Yorkers, and Marx's fictional humor piece, which featured a woman giving a museum-style tour of her ex's apartment, provoked much audience laughter.

The blogorganizer-general was Andrew Krucoff, who famously had the first Jewlicious bar mitzvah on record and defected from Gawker for a glamorous life in Jewish non-profit life without speaking with me first. Others in attendance included Lilit (also of SavetheAssistants), Judith (KesherTalk), the JDub guys, Isaac Galena, EV, Rebecca from Six Points, and the omnipresent Steven I. Weiss.

Then Wednesday came along, with a reception at the Jewish Museum in honor of Scott Shay, Chairman of the Board of Signature Bank and author of the newly reprinted Getting Our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry. This drew a slightly different set (the only overlap seeming to be Rebecca from Six Points), with JTA writers, Jewish community leaders and bigwigs whose names I knew but whom I had never met in person. The reception was lovely, and I'm making my way through the book, which so far is depressing me with every Jew's favorite subject: the shrinking demographics of Jews in America. But, judging the book by its title and its impressive endorsements by Jewish names like Michael Steinhardt and Lynn Schusterman, I'm hopeful for some provocative ideas and suggestions as I proceed through the book.

Then, Thursday brought PresenText. And on Friday, I collapsed. But it's all in the service of the Jewish people. To whom I will be sending my rent bill.

Wishing everyone a good, so-called-social life this week.

Intimacy Intermezzo

I walk into Starbucks and take a seat, setting up my computer near an available outlet. Behind me, a couple sits at a table and ponders the state of their relationship and the slate of medications that they're currently on. The woman, an attractive Latina in her thirties, tries not to sniffle into her decaf skim macchiato, while her companion, a fortysomething man with wild, graying hair and strongly accented speech, makes excuses for his mental state.

He runs through the litany, one after another, in a cascade of whining so cliched that it seems like a mantra or a roadblock in a bad romantic comedy. He's not ready, he’s not mature, he likes her a lot and enjoys her company but isn’t ready to “take life serious.” She pleads meekly, barely audibly, to the man from whom she wants something more. She whispers, her pain muting her words. He prattles on, loud enough for us all to hear. I feel kind of bad listening, taking notes on their conflict, but I’m a student in the university of life; when a high-volume lesson comes along, I take notes, no matter where and when.

He soldiers on, "trying not to lie to her" and “trying not to be one of those people,” but that he can’t rise to the level that she wants. “Why can’t you just leave things the way they are? I’m immature. I never grew up. I can’t rise to the level. I won’t do it to you or to anyone else. I’m damaged goods. My parents screwed me up. I had bad parents. I’m bad news, I’m telling you. I don’t have the goods that can make you happy. I like your scarf.”

He recaps what he wants (to not be serious) and what she wants (a relationship) and notes that the two are incompatible. All the while, I eavesdrop on the attempted honesty and feel complicit in the deception. Every time he says "I’m not going to lie to you," the "honesty" of what comes next seems suspect.

"I enjoy your company," he says. "Let’s change the subject. Is anything good on TV tonight? " "CSI," she says, somewhat weakly. Meantime, I perform my own autopsy, on the conversation itself and on these two pathetic people—one incapable of connection, the other making a poor choice in her heart's pursuit. They transition from the serious to small talk about stores that have gone bankrupt and closed, despite the fact that they were a great addition to the neighborhood. After some deliberation over that most citycentric of conundra--where the original Original Ray's Pizza actually is--the two pulled up their conversational roots and took their leave of my living conversational laboratory.

As they walk out the front door and disappear into the throng of Saturday night dates on Broadway, I exhale as I intone, "Wow." I can't believe that they had such an intimate, personal, shoulda-been-private conversation in a public arena, at that decibel level. What circumstances could have led to that conversation in that space? I cannot imagine for the life of me making that choice...to reveal my soul to another is a choice I seldom make even when privacy is assured. But to engage in such self-exposition before the eyes and ears of my fellow daters and Saturday night dissertation writers is something I cannot understand. As a writer, I'm glad they were there, granting me an insight into the conversational reality of relationships that is absent from movies and TV dramas and plays.

And that's why I sit there, representing the writers--plugged into the outlets in the walls and plugged into the relationships of fellow citydwellers, our individual creativity ebbing and flowing in a collective as we look to the human parade before us to distract, inspire and spur us on as we continue to churn out the pages that we hope will--someday, to someone--make a difference.