Yup

One night last week a bunch of us went to Kristeva's public lecture uptown at the Low Library at Columbia University. We pulled up in a shiny black cadillac, since we had taken the wrong train uptown, and had to use a car service to get across to the West side (it pulled over for us three white kids on Malcolm X Blvd without us even having to hail it). My friends and I were all from Kristeva's class, and when we arrived, she singled us out from the crowd of ivy league faculty and students to give us a warm, enthusiastic two-handed handshake and thank us for coming.

Afterwards, we went for dinner at a Paris-in-New York resto called Le Monde. I had the salade de crevettes, and Grace had the moules frites, and we lingered over Stellas and espresso and the best dessert menu I've seen in ages and I turned to Grace and said, "Yeah, when I decided to come to New York to do my PhD, this is pretty much what I imagined."

Now back below 14th street with you.

Stolen content: the best content

My favourite new website being www.overheardinnewyork.com.

Patron: I'd like a grilled special.
Waiter: We don't grill 'em.
Patron: Yes, you do. I had one last week.
Waiter: You got lucky.
-- Katz's Deli

Middle schooler #1: Yo, is there, like, a gay country?
Middle schooler #2: Hell no, son!
Middle schooler #3: Naaah. There is. I think it's called 'The Village,' but I don't know where it is.
--Brooklyn Middle School

Conductor: This is a downtown C train making all stops. Spring Street, World Trade Center, we go there. We do all the stops. Get on this train! [Pause.] Hey, you, still on the platform -- did you not hear what I said? Why didn't you get on?
Man: I'm waiting for the A.
Conductor: I'm going wherever the A's going. Get on my train!
--C Train

Preppy guy waiting for walk signal: Hi there.
Hot girl: Um, do I know you?
Preppy guy: No, I was just being friendly...
Hot girl: Oh, yeah? Well then why don't you say hi to her, too? [Points to fat chick nearby.]
Preppy guy, to himself: God, I hate New Yorkers...
--Central Park

Mom to toddler screaming in stroller: That's it, sweetie. Let it all out. Doesn't that feel good?
--TJ Maxx, 19th & 6th

Mom to two small children struggling to get through the crowd: Just push them all as hard as you can! Use your fists and elbows, too!
--34th & 6th

Kid: Dad, what's a novel?
Dad: It's a story written down in a book.
Kid: What's a short story?
Dad, staring at kid: Are you freakin' kidding me?
--Father Demo Square

Screaming hobo: ... But you know she was artificially inseminated by aliens!
Suit: Wait... Who?
--NYU

Hobo: Go shorty, it's your birthday...
Drunk black woman, joining in: Yeah! Go, go!
Hobo: Shorty, it's your shorty...
Drunk black woman: You singing it wrong. It's, 'We gonna party like it's your birthday.'
(Passerby gives hobo two dollars.)
Drunk black woman: You need to give me half of that, I helped you out with the words.
--E train

Mom to toddler: Joseph, stop walking like a tourist!
--51st & 5th

Ghetto mom to lady with cigarette: Bitch, you just ashed on my baby!
--Outside Times Square Toys 'R' Us

Hobo singing: Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten. From the Battery to the top of Manhattan. [To transit worker] 'Scuse me, sir. Where we at right now? Brooklyn? Queens? Manhattan?
Transit worker #1: We're anywhere you wanna be, brother.
Hobo: What borough is this?
Transit worker #2: This is the Bronx.
Hobo: The Bronx?
Transit worker #1: The boogie down.
Hobo: The boogie woogie? [Walks away singing] Boogie woogie oogie 'til ya just can't boogie no more...
Transit worker #2 to #1: If you just hopped into that train and drove it on time we wouldn't have to watch him wander around the platform.
--1 train platform, 242nd St

Sexually ambiguous guy: Yeah, Natasha is having a party tonight, but I didn't want to go because she has bedbugs, and I was afraid that I'd get bedbugs and bring them home. Everyone who's going has to wear plastic bags.
Female companion: Why is she having a party?
Sexually ambiguous guy: It's a bedbug party.
--St. Mark's Pl

Granny: Be careful!
Man jaywalking with several bags in hand: Ma, I know how to walk the streets in New York. [Car comes to screeching halt in front of him and honks. Man yells to driver] Fuck you! [To granny] See, I'm fine.
--Main St, Flushing

Bus driver who wouldn't let anyone pay to get on, claiming she'd won the lottery: Nice day today, huh? Y'all wanna go to the beach? Bring a blanket? Three p.m. -- meet me at a secret location. MTA going your way! They won't mind if I take it for a few hours. Madison is next.
--M79 bus, 79th & 5th

Girl: This has got to be the hottest station in New York.
Guy: It's good for you. It's like a sauna -- it will open your pores.
Girl: I don't want my pores open down here!
--5 train, Fulton St station

Janitor: I'm sorry, ma'am, you can't wear boots on the equipment.
20-something woman wearing Uggs on elliptical machine: But these are orthopedic boots!
Janitor: I'm sorry, but it's against policy to wear the boots on the machines.
20-something woman wearing Uggs: Why are you doing this to me?
--Dodge YMCA, Atlantic Ave

Hobo: Hey, you got any money?
Nice lady: I don't have any change, but I can give you some on my way out, or get you something to eat.
Hobo: I'll take the money. But don't worry, I ain't gonna use it to buy booze or drugs.
Nice lady: As far I am concerned, you can use the money for whatever you want.
Hobo: Whoa, lady! That's way too liberal for me.
--Outside health food store, Brooklyn

Hyper bus driver playing with overhead marquee while driving: I can set it to police bus, training bus... It's like a microwave -- what do you want? Corn? I like to change it to 'Harlem.' Then people get really confused. [Changes sign to 'B6 Limited' and comes up to bus stop. No one gets on bus.] What do you need, the B6? No? [Keeps driving.]
--B4 bus, Sheepshead Bay

On pigeons

So there are lots of pigeons, even in the winter, right? ("right" = "eh") Because birds don't migrate for warmth; they migrate for food. And there is plenty of hot dog and pretzel detritus on the streets of New York 365 days a year.

The other day, friend is walking down the street, and he sees a pigeon feasting inside a discarded take-out box. When he gets closer, he looks inside and sees that it contains fried chicken.

...

It took me a while to get it, too.

So these piegoens waddle down the sidewalk, full of chicken and hot dogs and pretzels, and sure, they'll concede the right of way, cuz you've got boots on, but be damned if they're actually going to fly to get out of your path. I used to sort of hesitate and give them time to clear the road, because it seemed like they were moving so slowly that I might actually kick one. But then I decided that made me a big non-New York wimp, and now I force myself to keep pace. It hasn't happened yet...

The Brooklyn Bridge

Friend and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge the other day, because everyone I know in New York has caught this same PBS documentary about it at some point in the past few weeks, and all of those people have told me in turn about how it was designed by a student of Hegel's! (some philosophy guy), and he like, died and his son took over the project, but then he got the bends, and there was a car crash, and something about faulty coil, and many other interesting facts as well.

So I went with the first person to tell me. It was a phenomenally warm and sunny day [wink], and we avoided the usual brisk wind off the East River. In fact, the nice weather brought out all kinds of tourists and couples and stroller-moms, ambling slowly from one borough to the other, pausing to take snapshots of the urban skyline or to read the descriptive plaques, and interrupted only occasionally by type-A trader weekend warrior assholes riding by on their $2000 bikes with their $400 biking leotards screaming "BIKE PATH!!! CLEAR THE LANE!!! BIKE PAAAATH!!! BIKE PAAAaaath!"

Then we went and visited Grace at her Brooklyn market and ate croissants and doughnuts and I got free stromboli and cheesecake to take home (thanks, lady!).

The subway cat call

is actually remarkably consistent.

The context: Walking towards each other, going to pass each other on our way to our respective destinations.
The set-up: Prolonged eye contact. Not lewd or leering or aggressive, more like excited about the seduction bomb he's about to drop on you.
The climax: Lean in at the moment of passing and deliver choice line. (Tonight: "Moviestar!")
The follow-through: Mercifully none.

Grace is going to hell. Or not.

Friday night Marianne and I were at a dinner party in Bushwick - a hispanic neighborhood in Brooklyn where there are a lot of barber shops, pastry shops and street racing. Yeah, there are all these souped-up civics squealing their tires all over the place, it's weird and cool and pretty bad-ass. Anyway, I wore my new shoes (bought a pair of black heels last week), but before I could wear them, I took them to the shoe repair guy to have the hard plastic end of the heel replaced with a softer, rubber end. Anyway, told the man what I wanted, and he said he'd have them done by Monday. I said that Monday was too late, that I had a party to go to tonight, and so I'd need them by five pm that day (friday). He looked at me, smiled and exclaimed, "you're jewish!" - i didn't know if it was a question or a statement, but I knew the right answer was... So I told the 50 year old Jewish man I was Jewish (understanding of course that implicit in his question/statement was the reality that if I wanted the shoes done that day, I had to be Jewish, right? right). He was all excited because there was some kind of holiday/event going on at the synagog that night, and he assumed that that's what I was going to (are you even allowed to wear black leather pumps to the synagog?!?!?!)... So, instead of this little lie clearing everything up, and getting my shoes fixed in time, it created a whole new set of problems. He wanted to know where I was from, so I said Canada, and he said, 'no, no, but where are you FROM?" I had no idea what to say, but again he prompted me, he said, 'are your parents from Israel, Russia, where?' so I said Israel, and I could feel myself getting in WAY over my head... He said something in Hebrew, and I said I don't speak hebrew, and he gave me a look that was kind of like him saying, "what kind of Jew doesn't speak hebrew" (not in an offensive way though; he was just trying to figure it all out, he was trying to convince us both that I was Jewish). Then I had to write down my name - but I was losing my ability to keep up the charade, so instead of being clever and writing Gracie Goldberg or something, I just wrote Grace Hunt - which may be one of the least jewish names out there. So now I had to account not only for the fact that I didn't speak a word of Hebrew, but also that I had a suspiciously WASPy last name, and a very VERY WASPy nose. So I told one small truth, I said my Dad was British-Canadian... Then he said, 'oh, so you're mixed?!' and I said 'yeah, mixed' (??!). He said one more thing in Hebrew, I smiled and just shook my head and asked again what time the shoes would be ready. Totally fearing he'd figured me out and would tell me to come back for my damn non-Jewish shoes on Monday, I couldn't look at him anymore. Luckily, he said come back at 5pm. Phew!! Oh man, I got outta there fast and ran down the street part screaming/laughing/crying at what I'd just done. I ran back to the coffee shop where Marianne and I were studying and I sat down and said, "i'm going to hell". I told her the story and she informed me that Jews don't believe in hell. Thank God.

Um, like, I think so. That's what my one Jewish friend in Calgary told me once.

P.S. She left out the part where we giggled about swearing on Yahweh's grave that she was Jewish. Or Jesus's.

Toasted Cocoa Madeleine Clusters

Grace and I had a beer tonight at the cutest, most elegant little candle-lit bistro bar in the West Village. And they were playing Frank. Sigh. Then we drank espresso and read.

If any of you see me slacking off in the next few weeks, kick my ass back to work, because a maelstrom of academic fury is about to rain down on my complacent self. Madame Kristeva returns next week, with a 7-book syllabus we are supposed to have read before she arrives don't waste this woman's time, I have a ten-page paper to write and present for Gadamer on March 15, the same day a ten-page paper is due in Spinoza, and any minute now I may get an email from those journal editors to whom I am overdue with a book review. Plus two reading groups, logic tutoring, bla bla bla.

What on earth have I been doing with my time, you ask? Well, I've been buying a lot of cereal lately, especially since friend reminded me, Proust-like, of the teenage indulgence that is eating a giant pastabowl of it in the evening when it's totally not even breakfast time. I've been revisiting all of my favourite kinds too, like the little wheats with cinnamon frosting on one side (that's the side you want to be face-down when you eat it. Sometimes you have to spend a long time bobbing them around in the bowl. This gets harder as you run out of milk), and Cinnamon Toast Crunch - did you know Cinnamon Toast Crunch is now whole wheat and has SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT less sugar? Jesus, that is (was) a lot of sugar. You can't even tell, though you can tell about the whole wheat. Thumbs down on that. I'm now on to Golden Grahams, which sog really effing fast. I mean, I like my cereal to be a little mollified by the milk, but these things peak after about 10 seconds.

I've also been coming up with new things to blog about every day.