Turkey Day in the Big Apple

So I didn't have to fly home twice in less than a month, my family came to New York to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. It was great, even if the weather didn't cooperate. The weather on Thursday was among the worst we've had since I moved here: 40 degrees and pouring rain with high winds. If you watched parade on TV, you saw what it was like. Rather than stand in line freezing to death for hours to see inflatable Big Bird for 30 seconds, we scotched the parade, missing our chance to finally see something that we've watched on TV every single year of my life. We did happen to pass through Times Square just as it was ending, so we saw Garfield's butt from several blocks away.

On Wednesday night, before my family got here, I went to the inflating of the balloons at the Museum of Natural History, so I got my chance to commune with Super Grover and Dora the Explorer -- the balloons aren't as big as you might think. Anyway, I think I'm all set on going to the actual parade from now on. Going to the inflation, you see all the balloons in about 20 minutes, with no waiting, no inane Today Show patter, and no crappy pop star musical performances. I forgot to bring my camera to the inflation, so this photo from the Times will have to suffice.



The parade was out, so our large contingent (my parents and brother, along with aunt, uncle and cousin Kate) had to find other ways to amuse ourselves. We braved the rain to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree (again, not as big as I'd imagined) and David Blaine. He was in the midst of his latest dumb stunt: if he escaped from a gyroscope dangling from a crane before the stores opened on "Black Friday," Target would give needy children a shopping spree! Great corporate synergy! I did have my camera for that, so here you go. He actually escaped -- and fell through the plywood stage and was taken to the hospital -- about an hour after we were there.



After all that time in the rain, we went to Brookstone, the one store we could find that was open on Thanksgiving, just to warm up. Here's a picture of me, Kate and my Uncle Joe (in the red hat) flagrantly violating the time limit for trying out the $4,000 massage chairs.



After that, it was time for a not-quite-traditional Thanksgiving dinner at a 50s themed diner where all the waitresses sing showtunes. Ellen's Stardust Diner may not be exactly Norman Rockwell (I think only my mom actually had turkey), but it was definitely American. The singers were really pretty good, but they walked around the restaurant belting out Little Mermaid songs and stopping at tables, waiting for you to...I don't know what. We mostly felt embarrassed for them and looked down at our food. One waiter waltzed passed and got right in my dad's face to sing "Que Sera Sera." I thought my brother would die laughing. More below...

Turkey Day in the Big Apple, Part II

That night, we went to see the new James Bond movie, partly because it was something we could all agree on, and partly because my dad is fanatically obsessed with Bond movies. He's seen all 21 of them multiple times, and has been asking me "When is the new Bond coming out?" since approximately five minutes after we saw "Die Another Day" on Thanksgiving 2002. This new one was quite good -- Daniel Craig was great in the role, and it wasn't nearly as preposterous as the Brosnan movies (no invisible car, in other words). My dad loved it, if a connoisseur’s opinion means something to you.

The next day, we went to Ground Zero, since neither my parents or brother had been (my parents were last in New York maybe 10 years ago, and Pat had only been to the city for a day or two for work last year). After that, we went on a “food tour” of Greenwich Village, where our guide talked about the history of the neighborhood and stopped to sample various cheese-based goodies. Seriously, everything we ate had some kind of cheese in it, except the chocolate -- two types of pizza, cannoli, some kind of cheese ball, and a cheese plate from Murray’s Cheese Shop. I’m certainly not complaining.

One of the neatest things on the tour was a stop at a speakeasy, which is still running after 60 years and looks exactly as it did during Prohibition. Chumley's is a little hole-in-the-wall place with no signs or markers that you need to walk through a courtyard to get through. The walls are plastered with signed photos of all the famous writers that used to drink there, which is pretty much all the famous writers. We didn’t actually eat anything, but now I can say I’ve been to a speakeasy. The one, in fact, where the term "86" was invented -- it's at 86 Bedford Street. (Kristen: the idea of visiting a working speakeasy strikes me as the kind of thing you’d find highly amusing. Let me know if I’m right.)

Oh, and we saw the apartment building where Monica and Rachel lived on Friends. I'm not nearly a big enough fan to recognize it from the show, but Kate knew it instantly.



All in all, it was a way fun holiday. Certainly more interesting than eating and falling asleep watching football games I barely have an interest in.

Strange Chance Encounter

For the four years I worked at the Gazette, I sat about 10 feet away from a guy named Dan DeNicola, who writes the weekend calendar listings. In that four years, I don't think I ever said anything more to him than hello. In fact, I don't think anyone did. The only people I ever saw him talking to were his editor asking if the calendar was finished and the tech support people, whom he seemed to call on frequently. Not that I had anything against him, but he just radiated this odd kind of "don't talk to me" vibe. Probably had something to do with having the most mind-numbing job in the editorial department.

So yesterday I was on the subway, and who sits down next to me but Dan DeNicola and his wife. We went through the whole hey, how are you, what are you doing in New York thing, then he asked about Columbia, etc. It turned out he was in the city to visit his wife, who lives there. For the whole 20 years they've been married, he's lived in Northampton and she's lived on the Upper West Side -- he works at the Gazette during the week then goes to see her on the weekends. Twenty years! Told you he was odd.

Anyway, the fairly normal conversation I had with him over the course of five subway stops was far and away the longest I'd ever spoken with him, even after four years of his face being directly in my field of vision every day for eight hours a day. I asked how things were going at the Gazette, and he said the paper had been sold...which of course happened well over a year ago, and I only left at the end of the summer. Anyway, he said he'd tell people at the Gazette I said hi, but I realized he might not actually know my name. ("I saw that tall kid with glasses on the subway.")

Whenever I'm in a big crowded city, I always have this kind of notion/hope feeling in the back of my mind that I'll run into someone I know from long ago and we'll reconnect it'll be this whole fun, memorable experience. Instead, I run into people I barely know and have to awkwardly come up with things to say to them. Who knows what kind of random person I'll run into next? Someone I worked with at the amusement park in high school? The parent of a kid I interviewed about gingerbread houses? The possibilities are endless.

Visiting the Old Gray Lady

When I was in 8th grade, my science teacher signed my yearbook by writing "I'll be looking for your byline in the New York Times someday." I got some similar sentiments in congratulatory cards when I graduated from Colby. I don't have a particular desire to work at the notoriously hypercompetive and stressful NYT, but y'know, I wouldn't turn them down. Today I got my first chance to visit what people seem to jokingly think of as my destiny when I went on a tour of the Times building in (where else?) Times Square.

The trip was arranged by my classmate Sugi, who teaches journalism to high school girls at the Asian American Writers Workshop, and invited the rest of our arts seminar at Columbia to come along. Besides finding time to teach a class outside of J-School, Sugi is one of the people discussed in a post below who has a way more impressive resume than me. She graduated from Harvard the same year I graduated from Colby, was hired by the Atlantic Monthly right out of school, then wrote for the Wall Street Journal and the Chronicle of Higher Education, before getting a degree in creative writing from the Iowa Writers Workshop. A few days ago, she signed a two-book deal with Random House to publish her novels. To reiterate: I covered the school board.

Anyway, Sugi is friends with Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee, who led the tour. (Yes, that's the number 8 in her name. You may have come across her "Man Date" story, which was one of the NYT's most emailed for a long time last year.) She was really great and had some fun stories about her experiences, but as she talked, I realized that working at the Times didn't sound all that different from working at the Gazette. The deadlines, getting called out to cover such-and-such at the last minute, having editors chop up your stories, etc.

I don't know what I expected her to say. Being a reporter for the Times seems so glamorous, but I guess the "reporter" part of the job description seems to be pretty much the same everywhere. Same with the office itself -- completely indistinguishable from the newsroom at the Gazette or anywhere else, with desks and papers and computers. The only major difference: the long, long hallway with pictures of every Pulitzer winner from the Times.

Last word on Election '06

Don't worry, this isn't turning into a politics blog. Just thought this cartoon was great.

Oddball News from my Neighborhood

Someone stole George Washington's head! I walk by here everyday, but I didn't notice this until I saw it in the paper. Shades of Jebediah Springfield on the Simpsons.