New York Day by Day: Thursday
Apr. 26th, 2005 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseTHURSDAY
We got up fairly early and headed into the city on the first off-peak train. The day was cooler (fine with me) and wonderfully sunny. My fine, shiny dome got burned.
I took Snake several places on this trip that I had visited without him and the first was Tyron Park and the Cloisters up at the top of Manhattan. Wow, I want to thank the parks system of New York for planting so many spectacular flowering trees. The whole city was in a drag boa of with white, pink and gold blossoms. We enjoyed the park design (by the Olmsted's firm, but a generation after he designed Central Park) and did yoga in a part signed as Abby's Lawn. Snake, who used to be terribly shy about acting "strange" in public was striking up warrior poses and downward dogs without a second thought.
In fact, we were noticing how different New York is from Toronto in terms of making room for people to be themselves. The weird is commonplace and it really makes you realize that Toronto hasn't shaken off it's stiff, hogtown conservatism. Talking to a stranger on the subway is liable to get you arrested as a possible troublemaker here. Snake says it is because everything is "purposeful" here. There must be a profit attached to all activity. So, if you look at me on the subway, you must want something.
This was a digression.
He loved the Cloisters as I knew he would because he's all into everything Mediaeval. Then we walked down the 100 stairs to Dykman Avenue and took out lunch from a South American buffet where we couldn't get anyone to understand anything we were saying. That's another thing that's different from Toronto. I suspect that in NYC, there are immigrant businesses where whitey goes and others where they don't. For instance, we went to a Chinese restaurant and all the food seemed to have been dumbed down -- less garlic, etc. -- to protect pale sensibilities. Then there were places like the one where we got lunch that seem totally unprepared for even the possibility of non-Spanish speakers coming in.
By contrast, in Toronto, I find that restaurant owners expect everyone to walk in and, while they might offer more or less hot or warn people about things others have found hard to take, they don't by default patronize the customer. The Korean places in my neighbourhood freaked out when we walked in three years ago, but they quickly figured out that there was money to be made in a tight market and learned the 50 or so words of English they needed.
Digression is my life.
After lunch, we headed all the way from the upper west to the lower east at the touristy South Street Seaport. I finally go to Bowne and Co. Stationers which I had heard about and got to operate a turn-of-the-20th-century press. Wow, the romance of hand-setting type blew my mind. Also, the 1901 press in there still operates perfectly. And my microwave was in the shop after three months.
We were back in Long Island for a late dinner, by which time my parents had also arrived. Pleasant family time watching a DVD of the performance of Pirates of Penzance that my sister directed at the high school and I made the music track for. I felt really happy to see it go down mostly flawlessly and was really impressed with the enthusiasm of these non-theatre students. I wish I had been there for the real show but I was being kept a secret. If the school knew I was the director's brother, it would have been even harder to get them to pay me. "Oh, I'm sure he can wait a month, can't he? Or do it for less? Talk to him!"
We got up fairly early and headed into the city on the first off-peak train. The day was cooler (fine with me) and wonderfully sunny. My fine, shiny dome got burned.
I took Snake several places on this trip that I had visited without him and the first was Tyron Park and the Cloisters up at the top of Manhattan. Wow, I want to thank the parks system of New York for planting so many spectacular flowering trees. The whole city was in a drag boa of with white, pink and gold blossoms. We enjoyed the park design (by the Olmsted's firm, but a generation after he designed Central Park) and did yoga in a part signed as Abby's Lawn. Snake, who used to be terribly shy about acting "strange" in public was striking up warrior poses and downward dogs without a second thought.
In fact, we were noticing how different New York is from Toronto in terms of making room for people to be themselves. The weird is commonplace and it really makes you realize that Toronto hasn't shaken off it's stiff, hogtown conservatism. Talking to a stranger on the subway is liable to get you arrested as a possible troublemaker here. Snake says it is because everything is "purposeful" here. There must be a profit attached to all activity. So, if you look at me on the subway, you must want something.
This was a digression.
He loved the Cloisters as I knew he would because he's all into everything Mediaeval. Then we walked down the 100 stairs to Dykman Avenue and took out lunch from a South American buffet where we couldn't get anyone to understand anything we were saying. That's another thing that's different from Toronto. I suspect that in NYC, there are immigrant businesses where whitey goes and others where they don't. For instance, we went to a Chinese restaurant and all the food seemed to have been dumbed down -- less garlic, etc. -- to protect pale sensibilities. Then there were places like the one where we got lunch that seem totally unprepared for even the possibility of non-Spanish speakers coming in.
By contrast, in Toronto, I find that restaurant owners expect everyone to walk in and, while they might offer more or less hot or warn people about things others have found hard to take, they don't by default patronize the customer. The Korean places in my neighbourhood freaked out when we walked in three years ago, but they quickly figured out that there was money to be made in a tight market and learned the 50 or so words of English they needed.
Digression is my life.
After lunch, we headed all the way from the upper west to the lower east at the touristy South Street Seaport. I finally go to Bowne and Co. Stationers which I had heard about and got to operate a turn-of-the-20th-century press. Wow, the romance of hand-setting type blew my mind. Also, the 1901 press in there still operates perfectly. And my microwave was in the shop after three months.
We were back in Long Island for a late dinner, by which time my parents had also arrived. Pleasant family time watching a DVD of the performance of Pirates of Penzance that my sister directed at the high school and I made the music track for. I felt really happy to see it go down mostly flawlessly and was really impressed with the enthusiasm of these non-theatre students. I wish I had been there for the real show but I was being kept a secret. If the school knew I was the director's brother, it would have been even harder to get them to pay me. "Oh, I'm sure he can wait a month, can't he? Or do it for less? Talk to him!"
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Date: 2005-04-26 09:34 pm (UTC)