Starbucks Series Part Two: The Outer Boroughs

Outerborough Starbucks

This Bronx Starbucks is a neighborhood joint, no other way to describe it. There are walk-able shops in the vicinity, a supermarket, shoe repair, hardware store, tax preparer, optometrists, pharmacists, lawyers, dentists and other real services. If need be, you could survive in the area without a car by just doing everything on foot. But it might also mean using iceberg lettuce in your salad on occasion.

Cooking at home however is not the only option. The neighborhood has a slew of restaurants, none of them great, but often this is just how it goes. At least four varieties of Asian in addition to Mexican, Spanish, Greek, Italian, Irish, real pizza, a couple of kosher eateries, diners, two soft serve yogurts, and a Jewish delicatessen- one of the last in the city. The pizza is pretty good.

And except for the Starbucks, they all deliver.

Minutes from the glamour and lure of “downtown”, which is how we refer to Manhattan from the Bronx, this outer borough Starbucks is having none of that. To begin with, although it sits on a sunny corner, the windows are always noticeably dirty, which doesn’t make the afternoon pick-me-up of a double shot of whipped grande mocha seem so very appealing. It is not trendy. And yet people go in.

Once inside, the smell of the signature, acrid brew tells you that the familiar, bitter caffeine of the brand lives here and decaf too. This is not the Upper West Side. The demographic is relaxed, no Manhattan Masters & Mistresses of the Universe. You don't feel like you're interviewing for a job when you order your coffee. Exceptionally weird characters are at a minimum. There usually is at least a little bit of a line and a bunch of students, retirees, a few baby carriages and one or two roaming toddlers doing their cute toddling thing and telling their mommies what they want to order, but clearly this is neighborhood all the way. After three the teachers come in.

Not a destination Starbucks, many of the customers are scruffy and shlump around in sneakers and old sweat pants. The barristas are just kids working after school. There is not a whole lot of cache or élan. It is not always sunny. Outside  a couple of benches might be taken up at a certain time of day by health aides and their charges, the aides screaming into their phones as seen through the large windows. Occasionally, like very rarely and usually in the summer, a couple of tourists will have made their way uptown to this most northern reach of the boroughs and are huddling close together at the window, intently poking at their GPS and wondering how they got there.

This is dangerously starting to sound like a somewhat suspect riff on “Our Town,” Bronx style, but please rest assured the neighborhood is really quite urban, very real and gritty, people tend to look gritty, urban and real, it's exceptionally diverse in population yet like Grovers Corners, friendly for the most part. There are smart phones and laptops everywhere, not enough free time, no one marries the boy next door, and subways, buses,highways and large public schools nearby. 

To the best of my knowledge I have never seen anyone produce a little gold rimmed compact to powder their nose then smooth their perfectly ironed blond hair in this particular Starbucks, though I am not saying this couldn’t happen- I’ve lived long enough to know anything is possible. Surprisingly though, dirty windows and smudged counters and all, the coffee is damned good! Once in a while there can be an aberration of course and you could wind up with some truly sad, tepid, watery swill, because as we all know, stuff happens.

So please keep this information to yourself- the place does not wish to be discovered. Then again, would anyone really want to venture up to this northern tip of the city to chance a lukewarm, thin cappuccino? Go Tell whomever you want. No problem.  It’s the Bronx. 

Starbucks Series: Southern California

Starbucks I’ve Known: Orange County

The Starbucks in parts of southern California are in a completely differently galaxy from those on the east coast. In truth, the whole area near the southern border seems to comprise an alternate, somewhat distant corner of the Milky Way.

There is a strangeness to the southern California landscape, and by extension, to its everyday living. Most businesses are located in one of a zillion malls that dot the desert- some of which are themed like tacky Disney parks. But once in a while you may happen upon the remnants of a faux western town, a place that actually served as a sort of outpost for the no-there-there crowd, but has long since been converted into a strip of souvenir shops. The shops feature random “antiques” sitting in the windows, like an old Schwinn bike, or a typewriter, perhaps a jar of Ovaltine, all intended to lure you into buying some jelly beans, a funny greeting card, who knows what.

In such a town you cannot purchase groceries but there are a couple of sidewalks, a few restaurants, and also several pizza places- usually part of a chain- that specialize in tasteless, cardboard crust and a variety of unlikely toppings that really do not go with pizza, even fake pizza; and yet these places always seem insanely busy and crowded. In addition, there will be a simulacrum of an “old fashioned ice cream parlor” with cracked, red vinyl booths, possibly a juke box and/or a gum ball machine. There could very well be a college nearby and of course a Starbucks; sometimes you will find even two within the few blocks that comprise “the town.”

The plastic, shrink wrapped Starbucks brownies turn out to be ambrosia of the gods next to the stale little hunks of concrete in the old fashioned ice cream parlor. The Starbucks is not the only place to get coffee. The other lone option is an egregiously pretentiousoverly overpriced, teeny-tiny, hole in the wall of a trendy, gourmet coffee shop, with hand polished beans that promise brewed nirvana straight from the jungles of Coffee Exotica Heaven and can deliver this.  But there is no place for you to sit and quietly drink your mocha latte Americano- only a couple of uncomfortable, rock hard bench-like things, though I did have an unbelievable thing called "flat brown." So the Starbucks is where many people go.

And it is there, in one of those two somewhat disparate representatives of the chain- though each with the comforting familiarity and aroma of hot, bitter coffee wafting through the place- that you just may find yourself rubbing elbows with tourists, retired locals and the occasional homeless person, or, depending on which place you choose, Young Republicans.

You know they exist, sometimes In profusion out there, although many of them, being young,  are not yet completely cognizant of their assigned place in the universe of realpolitik; they would prefer to perceive themselves as cool millennials. They also tend to lean toward the candy store Starbucks.

So having tried the more “traditional” Starbucks in town, the one so cleverly embedded in the lobby of the old bank building and peopled mainly by local semi-retirees and tourists, I finally opted for the smaller, more kitschy café, the one that is brighter and feels like a candy store. Actually, it is quite near to the more serious bank Starbucks, but I did not feel like crossing the street as I had finally succumbed to the lethargy of way too much happy ultra violet and was in dire need of a cappuccino with a double shot of espresso. And maybe some irony too. 

It’s usually quite warm or incredibly hot in southern California, so it was no surprise to find the only other customer a student from the nearby college who seemed to be channeling mid-century modern in some way. She was wearing pink California-colored shorts and a school t-shirt. From the little, rather tres chic bag on her shoulder, a beaded accessory in a style a tad formal and incongruous to the casual beach attire- as if she couldn’t decide whether she was a student or a debutante- she proceeded to extract a small, gold rimmed compact- yes, a compact with a powder puff, a la the 1940’s.   She then did what one would expect with a little gold compact (even if you have only seen this in the movies)-  she dabbed her face in the little mirror, checked her lipstick and fluffed out her blond hair. 

This happened in a Starbucks in southern California. She snapped the compact shut and neatly replaced it in the little bag before digging into the grande-mocha-double-frappucino-lattecino with a sprinkle of M&Ms, lots of froth and a few generous dollops of mindless optimism.

(Next week, The Outer Borough Starbucks. . . .)

It’s All Leigh Hunt’s Fault (Or Why I Read)                   

It all really got out of hand in Junior High, the penchant for reading, though of course I had been grappling with the addiction since early childhood. 

An adored seventh grade teacher read us Leigh Hunt’s rhythmic and nicely quatrained paean to chivalry, “The Glove and Lion." The poem tells of a haughty damsel who throws her glove into the lion’s den to test the valor of a particular knight, and several neat stanzas later thus it culminates: he threw the glove but not with love right in the lady’s face.  Wow. It doesn't get any better than that for a seventh grader enraptured with high romance, rhythmic, rhyming poetry and allusions to knights and ladies and lions. Later on in college, having already begun the chosen course of study, I learned that love also may have something to do with a “lady in the mead,” men who are occasionally “alone and palely loitering” (innocently or not), abject misery and  diaphanous creatures who “walk in beauty like the night,” inspiring us all to become dazed though well turned out insomniacs. The settings could very well involve “starry climes.”

So while following my own starry climb through a major in English, I continued to learn all sorts of interesting and weird things about dashing, romantic and flamboyant poets themselves, some of the information quite paradoxical to the romantic idea, if not downright unsettling. More curiously, the dates of names and settings in some of the novels written during the period often were indicated by blank lines. So when Leigh Hunt for example scavenged for his best buddy Percy B---- Shelly’s heart in a hastily arranged funeral pyre on the sands of ---- in Italy in the year 18 ----, the term “romantic” finally entered the twilight zone of any possible suspension of disbelief. It was Hunt, you see, who took possession of Shelley’s heart at the funeral pyre on the beach, refusing to return it to Mary Shelley. Now, how could anyone of reasonable mind who accepts that beauty is truth- truth beauty and that is all we (and ye) need to know, reconcile this ghoulish act with the same sensibility that penned the perfect, lilting and light-as-a-feather rondeau, “Jenny Kissed Me” (Jumping from the chair she sat in . . . .)?

Easy. Nothing is ever what it appears to be.

Here’s Hunt's playful verse:

Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in:
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.

Yes, the heart fetishist was capable of whimsy too;  but he was not necessarily being chivalrous here. Jenny, often regarded by readers as perhaps an enthusiastic, spontaneous child or charming young woman, actually is generally believed by scholars to have been a grown up, not a girl, or maybe a sort of girl, but a pal’s wife,  and alas (no pun) a bit of a downer (and can we blame her?); apparently Hunt actually did not care for very much. . . . So he was jesting you see, using his pen for mild satire. But as the centuries sped, this eternal ditty was repeatedly taught in middle and high school as if it were a classic tribute to the unchecked and ebullient, spontaneity of innocent, childish, romantic action. This stuff just feeds on itself.

I picture Hunt, tall, imposing, enshrouded in grief and a long, dark cloak, not bothered by the environmental nastiness of the burning flesh,-very much in keeping with his early Zen leanings by the way- a fearless, charismatic and egotistical journalist, father to far too many progeny, poet and ersatz radical often described as “a child” himself in the ways of the world- oblivious to all but his own sense of mourning and loss coupled with a strange desire to hold onto something tangible and warm amid the flames that was once beating in the breast of his dear friend.

Was Leigh Hunt jealous of Shelley? Was he fueling his own poetic grandiosity with a gruesome, though historically unbeatable gesture? Why did he give Mary Shelley such a hard time about returning the organ? In fact, Hunt even had someone else burn a hand fishing out the valentine from that simmering mound of literary campfire then pass it back over to Hunt, proving that he was not entirely out of his senses after all with overwhelming grief. 

Let’s face it. Shelley’s demise was gruesome enough, nearly post-modern in fact in its grim portrayal of depraved obsession gone terribly, terribly wrong, yet still so relevant in its eerie suggestion of twentieth century cinematic imagery. He simply should have brought the darn boat back to shore when he knew there were hints of a terrible storm. After the tragic event, the famous poet’s body was thrown back to land minus parts ravaged by sea urchins, not a very romantic vision. At that point you could say he even was in worse shape than his beloved Ozymandius, and it all really did seem more depressing and gothic than romantic, although there may be no contradiction here. Yet addicts for romance continue to revere the antics of fast living, reckless literary heroes and plod through the poetry with a longing for places like Xanadu, haunted by visions of mutability, restless clouds and the transient nature of existence.

Romanticism-  the root of all folly! 

Shelley was only in his twenties when he refused to bring that little skiff back to the safety of dry land and decided instead to take a leap into immortality, an arrogant, son-of-gentility early hippie, gifted womanizer and giant ego. Think of what a monster he might have become had he lived!  He no doubt would have grown as corpulent as Byron and silly as Falstaff, besotted with epicurean and sybaritic pleasures. If he had lived in the twenty-first century he would be hang gliding in perilously cloudy skies, playing havoc quite recklessly with baby drones, rock climbing on crumbling peaks, or careening stupidly along on motorcycles way past his prime and continuing to write inaccessible poetry with far too many mythical allusions.

Who were the Romantics in truth, and why am I so still entranced and obsessed by the thought of them? Look at all the time I just spent on the escapades of the Byron/Shelley/Keats gang for example. Wildly imaginative, bright and mischievous, unstoppable, attention-crazy, a tad violence-prone, manipulative, talented , sex crazed with a limitless and seductive capacity for gorgeous bullshit-  in other words, a short synopsis of western culture encapsulated in an idea that was put into serious motion by a small though somewhat radical group of writers, whose time had come in the latter part of the eighteenth century.

And so as a result of the machinations of a few early spinners of fairly tales, a slew of romantic poetry and many novels to follow, and the similar outpourings of highly emotional scribblers from long, long ago as well as the recent past, my life got off to a rocky and precarious start and stayed that way. I was hooked, plain and simple. This was true at least from the time I was old enough to march my small, elementary school legs to the local library each week and lug home as many collections of fairy tales from the children’s section as the kindly though at times severe librarians would allow. Actually, they allowed six, that was the rule, but all the volumes were hard cover, many of them thick and heavy, always smelling deliciously of ink, varnished wood, hints of citrus, oak, lemon and previous use with a smooth finish, and all kinds of magic and mystery. During the long walk home I could savor the imminent unraveling of each incredible story to come. 

Later on I switched to Robert Louis Stevenson, and even eventually to the lesser known but tremendously swashbuckling Rafael Sabatini - I was completely out of control by then. What a romantic name that was! Rafael Sabatini. . .  his literary escapades were made-  perhaps even written-  for the silver screen and the likes of a Captain Blood,  played by Errol Flynn in a silly pageboy hairdo traversing windy masts in grainy black and white; thankfully I did not know about that movie at the time. Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters were waiting exultantly in the wings and certainly would keep me busy for a while. Let's face it, the stock of tales was endless. You could not live long enough to read it all!

In a world before Sesame Street, Baby Einstein and Curious George, computers, smart phones, instant knowledge, delayed wisdom, virtual reality and reality shows, facebook, nook books, twitter, twaddle, the arrival of book clubs en masse and for every taste, ubiquitous screens with all kinds of fulfilling misinformation, before all that, readers settled for what they could get their starving and curious little paws on. 

So how did you become an avid reader? 

Chapter Ten in The Adventures: The Laugh

Nootchie appears to have two, distinct kinds of laughs.

Laugh “A” is the result of a method, or perhaps I should say THE Method, the one that she has perfected like a true Stanislavsky thespian; it has a rather arch, phony sound. Her attempted recreating of adult social phenomena obviously comes to pass from observing the dynamics and niceties of all those silly people around her who constantly seem to be cracking up- mainly at her antics, though of course she is not fully aware of her role in this situation yet. She just sees a bunch of open, happy, laughing mouths and wants to be like one too.

The laugh goes something like this: Ha! Ha! Ha! Her voice kind of crackles and snaps as she belts out- nay, forces- each “Ha!” in what can only be described as an enthusiastic and petulant sort of way. Occasionally she just shoots out one of those imitative Hahs in an especially firm HAH! Then it’s like a projectile, or a dare, a challenge. It’s similar to the polite but insistent and rather loud “ahem” cough that adults sometimes use and often says look at me! The laugh is her way of asserting herself as a member in good standing of the eccentric laughing tribe with whom she’s been consorting daily. See, I can laugh too! I know how to enjoy myself in small, idiotic, crazily laughing groups!!! Hah! She’s practicing. She knows she can do it.

Laugh Number Two is the real chuckle, the genuine article. It’s the fierce bubble of uncontrolled delight and madcap merriment that occurs during reckless episodes of tickling, swinging, turning upside down, being swished back and forth and other such hilarious infantile adventures in the lunatic and playful world of the uncharted baby wild. Now it’s her turn to crack up, spontaneously and completely, without inhibition. She squeals, screams, giggles uncontrollably and totally allows herself to be the laughing maniac that clearly she has become at that very moment. Wheeeeh! Ooooooh!!!! Yeowwww!!!!

Not even a year old and already she’s learned the art of subtlety.

But just try tickling her, or acting like a friendly monster, or engaging in a raucous turn of upsy daisy, and then see where all that baby sophistication winds up.

  

And so the Nootch continues to scoot along on her tushy, one leg folded in at an angle, the other straight out and fueling a kind of fierce propelling motion; her hands slapping the floor for traction as she moves around through space amazingly fast, speeding through time toward year one.

 

Annie's Story (or How I Got On with It), Part One

For "Bedouin Women" readers who wanted to hear more, this is a reprint of an earlier story.

Aaaaaarrrrgghhh!  

If anything annoys me more than a fellow member of the masses sneakily edging for my latte stained table at Barnes & Noble, it is the fiction that the 1960’s were simply a diluted version of the 1950’s-  a kind of watered-down, mind-altering sequel to that earlier, more significant era of Bohemian Originality and beat generation shtick.

To dismissively view the entire decade, equally pretentious though it may have been, merely as a giant rock concert exuding psychedelic special effects, or paint the era as a time capsule designed to distract an emerging rebel-rabble flaunting their head bands and peace signs, is just plain ridiculous. This is a myth generated by publishers of Alan Ginsburg's poetry and novice PBS documentarians with a yen for nuspeak; it is further fueled by individuals with unhealthy fixations around goatees, sandals, and ever newly published editions of “On the Road." The end result  is an hour-long emulation on channel thirteen by some bearded, beret-bedecked, poetically-challenged pseudo-intellectual on prime time “educational TV” while the Sixties are relegated to replays of George Harrison concerts on ad riddled “network” TV, or as background music for health insurance commercials. The ongoing obsession with Bad Boys is irritating. This seat is not taken, is it?  Great!

I’ve also got to remind myself to stop coming here straight from school- it’s like an addiction, the craving to be violently jostled by sweaty strangers as I fight my way into the “café level” just to get some writing done. It’s clearly part of a compulsion to join the throng, any throng, so that I can enter the creative trance. My soon-to-be random table companion, a wiry teen with a python tattoo curling up her arm, whines uh-uh to my polite inquiry about seat vacancy, without looking up from the magazine over which she’s collapsed, both ears and an upper lip corked with glistening, small shards of precious metal.The mid-afternoon cache of mostly non-paying customers has already begun to gather, a conglomeration of truly weird souls occupying skimpy, unsteady café chairs. Baby strollers block narrow aisles snaking between tables; laptops, ipods, ipads, iphones, your phone, their phones, my phone and finally the random coffee-spotted pages that decorate chipped surfaces. Bits of pointless but intense-sounding conversation alternate with the sputtering and hissing of a giant espresso machine manned by a couple of surly minimum-wagers; in other words, the perfect place to crash for anyone with even a touch of ADD, a condition incidentally that for some strange reason is now being referred to as the ability to “multitask.” 

Why am I ranting about the Beats today? Well, I like to rant, it’s fun, it’s cathartic, it prevents me from thinking about upcoming elections and also because as a woman of more uncertain years than ever dreamed possible, I am  weary- not of life, but of perusing the hallowed and tired book review each week only to learn about the “re-discovery” of yet another narcissistic, female-hating, naked lunch type- possibly a fifties-vintage druggie. I do this knowing, knowing only too well, that if and when my own work ever comes to public view this is likely to occur posthumously through the pathetic research efforts of some bored, distant relative laboring over a doctoral dissertation, and that only if I’m lucky. Seeking to embellish a terminally prosaic family history no doubt, while simultaneously using the “find” to pad an insufferably limpid thesis, he or she will be going through my things one afternoon in the hopefully very distant future, when under a pile of nineteenth century novels a manuscript will surface, and then another. . . .  a fate that seems grossly unfair, this hope for posthumous celebrity.

I say unfair because my scribbles do show a mild familiarity with syntax and are devoid of crowd pleasing disaffected howls; no one would guess any of this though from the text-smothering sentences and hyphenated descriptors I generously make use of, testimony to a florid nemesis: a deep fondness for run-ons, comma splices, winding, circuitous rants of all sorts, the occasional cliche and way too many adjectives. It’s also been hinted my characters are not “introduced” quickly enough. In fact, I seriously must ask myself why I continue to enter these idiotic, sophomoric, ego-driven excuses for writing contests!!! The one I am wrangling with at the moment has the usual prosaic yet vaguely appealing title: Strange Journeys.

Whoa Silver- time out- we’ve just been upgraded to red alert! The conspicuously ill-fitting, strafed black leather-jacket over by the condiment stand, loitering in between the straws and little brown packets of raw sugar, who spied, mere seconds too late, the desirable seating arrangement I now irretrievably own, yes, yes, the very one and same individual with the half-drunk bottle of Arizona peach nectar protruding from his over-stuffed back pack, is brazenly eyeing my cozy corner near the powdered cinnamon with open, unashamed table lust.  Speaking of strange beings from times gone by, what a perfect throwback is this character-- a combo between mid twentieth century Boroughs Refugee and Bartleby the Scrivener, a true time traveler.  Bulky, slovenly knapsack, dazed expression, eccentric yet non-violent, no one, not even the security goon at the entrance forced to mouth pained and hollow good afternoons each day to bored and wired customers as they pass through the electronic gotcha!-scanners at the doors, would ever conjecture that this guy has a bomb tucked away somewhere on his person. No, absolutely no danger here, aside from the terror of possibly having to engage in any close-up contact. 

Mr. Retro Man probably still sleeps in a rent-controlled tenement, empty tea bags, torn papers littering a formica table of bent, aluminum legs, cat feces permeating the air, he unquestioningly regards the local mega book emporium as his rightful living room.  It is also so obvious that he just can't wait for me to get up and go to the bathroom so that he can lope over and spread his dog-eared travel books or whatever onto my side of the table, pretending not to realize of course, when I confront him quizzically with thinly repressed rage, that I had been planning to return to my chosen, well fought for seat all along.

Well, screw him. For spite I will hold it in.                                                        

Don’t get me wrong. I completely understand that neo-fascism does breed class warfare and that ordinary citizens will kill for the last piece of pre-wrapped, chocolate biscotti and a rickety chair near a sunny window.   But does the daily battle for territorial supremacy in cellophane littered public spaces inevitably have to occur between two underpaid public school employees, the one pretending to be a scientist, the other posing as a future author-interviewee for The New York Review of Books?  The guy’s got “Board of Ed” stamped all over his forehead, and the timing of his entrance is a dead give away; school is just out. His laughable stab at offbeat insouciance does not fool me for one minute. I assume that my table rival is in biology or perhaps environmental studies, most likely ninth grade because he does not look brooding enough to be in the humanities, or mean enough to grapple with high school seniors, and his pants are way too short. I see him slouching at his desk smugly and with just a hint of a wry smile as he warns his roomful of raging hormones about the tragic consequences of mis-sorted recyclables.

The terra cotta leather cape I grabbed on the way out today (an amazingling cheap Italian knock-off from Filene’s before it went under!) is tossed casually but with just the right hint of territorial aggression over the back of the empty chair next to mine; this in hopes that such a strategic placement will help defend my stake, this near-perfect corner acoustically privy to just the right amount of background noise from whence to compose a prize- winning tale of irresistible daring-do. Or is it derring-do??? A story with authentic and compelling voice.  A narrative of grit and passion, pathos and humor. A yarn to mesmerize even the most persnickety of editors. 

The contest theme, Strange Journeys, is a tad limiting I admit, but I have an idea, and besides, the entry fee is only ten bucks, much cheaper than the usual pound of literary-contest flesh one is confronted with these days, so what the heck, even if this is yet another scam to add my email to a growing list of suckers somewhere is Latvia or Uzbekestan.  I will pretend not to notice Dr. Frankenstein dribbling over his fruit juice and continue to meticulously avoid any accidental eye contact, in hopes that he abandons the dark plot of moving in on my table, accepts and accedes to the reality of his situation, and makes the wise decision to construct his little rat's nest elsewhere.  He must face the probability that there is no hope, none, of my vacating this spot for a good long time, if ever.

What luck, no one's up at the counter, a perfect time to make my dash. Hi there.  Busy today, aren’t we?  I'll have a tall triple skim espresso latte, half caf, lots of foam, double paper cup—and  please, pleaze don't fill it to the very top whatever you do. Got that?  Thaaanks.  Perfect, perfecto, that’s perfect- thank you soooo much.  Wait, I’ve got the pennies. Uh huh. Have a great day! Bye! Oh my god! This is outrageous. Seven dollars and fifty-two cents for an anemic cup of frothy swill? One thing I’ll grant those beatniks, the little devils, they probably would never have put up with this kind of exploitation, particularly since they weren’t paying. Doesn’t the word "beat" have the most ridiculous connotations when you come to think about it?  In addition to reminding one of that ominously dark red and seldom used vegetable, it hints at masturbatory fantasies and the fate of fragile, uncooked eggs before they are splattered and fried up as omelets.  Eggs of course always remind me of kibbutz, just as all communal living reminds me of the Sixties, a much more interesting thought than the Fifties. Perhaps the mere mention of that era does conjure up the stereotypical chimera of the flower bedecked wild child and guitar-strumming consort.  But at least things were happening then. The decade could possibly be described as an incredible time of weirdness and giving.  Or not.  
                                            

I’ve got it- that’s it! Weirdness, giving, danger-seeking. . . . A border kibbutz before the Six-Day War with hostilities brewing on four fronts, thus providing the ideal setting for an escape-from-Amerika global road trek, a journey of immense discovery in the years following JFK’s shocking head injury- a true haven for an onslaught of adventurers and dropouts from all points on the planet: among the friends I make there in that far off land to name a few are an epileptic parachute jumper from Australia, a mad Scotsman hell-bent on hiking each and everyone of the Arab countries in the noonday sun with just a camel and a flask of Cinzano, and a Wasp from Oregon who looks a mite like Mama Cass, clearly destined to become my central character. . . .
                                                                        

New York Noir

I recently took a trip to New York in the late 1940’s. 

It was not virtual but happened live on Christmas day.

The sidewalks were all but empty and held a reasonable number of itinerant weekend strollers, most of them taking their sweet time amidst an almost complete absence of tourists walking five abreast and being generally annoying. There was no jostling, and since it was a holiday, no rush hour either. Most strikingly there were no alternate side rules, a system of driver torture that did not begin in earnest until around 1950. The wind up was a sudden abundance of parking spots in Gotham. Well, perhaps not an overflowing cornucopia , but more than just a scarce few here and there. And so there was an unusual bounty of free hitching posts on which to tie your horse, making it seem an average day in an earlier part of the last century. Not everyone had a car or two or three and people took their time.  

The panhandlers were few and the streets fairly clean. Men wore fedoras at rakish angles and women teetered along the sidewalk in wedgies. In keeping with the colors and hues of a foggy December day-  three quarters of a century back- everything appeared subtly lit,  variations of muted blacks, whites and grays, whispery greens. It all seemed so peaceful and carefree and optimistic and post WWII, that just for a moment I began to believe this was not simply an illusion but a sign! Perhaps with a little imagination one could do it all over again- with not so great expectations a second time around but still a chance to start anew. I am born. My life begins modestly. Alas, there is no Dickensian benefactor to bail me out, but knowingly, I plan. 

And then it dawns on me. The complete horror of being young and having to cope once more with all those terrible, wrenching decisions! No, I just can’t do it. I’ll confront my mortality and make the best of it. 

But wait- maybe there is another way. . . .

Naaah. . . who am I kidding??? And what’s more, to make matters worse I have no idea where this story is going, or possibly could go, short of some weird sci fi thing about time travel in the year 2801.

So with all this in mind (and a brief nod to those alluring fantasies of times gone by), for my New Year’s resolution I vow the following: not to romanticize the past, to be appropriately optimistic, clear-eyed and forward thinking, to continue faithfully, unflinchingly and adoringly with Downton Abbey, and suggest you do same. Honestly, at various moments of particular poignancy in the characters' lives last Sunday night, I almost wept with sadness or joy, depending. 

Episode One of what will be the last season promises much more of this to come. Who can ask for better?

Cheers.

NooNoo Chapter Nine: The Queen

She who must be obeyed rules over her subjects with just the proper hint of divine right befitting such a situation. She sprinkles her royal fairy dust generously over her courtiers and ladies, and they in turn pledge their undying fealty.

It’s a shame we don’t use words like fealty anymore incidentally, probably because we no longer engage in tales like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and their ilk (ilk, another long lost word!), but be that as it may, I know where my allegiance stands! To her majesty, of course.

Apparently, this feeling of abject loyalty is ubiquitous throughout the court as well. Quite simply put, she’s won over the kingdom and the people have laid down their arms (or put them up as it were) for Nootchie the Queen!!!  And her beneficence is ample repayment to her subjects. As she’s carried out of her quarters each day to greet the admirers, she extends her arm graciously and blesses the multitude with that beaming, toothless grin that captures all hearts.

Oh, but what’s that I hear. . . . the Divine One cries out?  I must go at once, as her every wish is our command. I believe what she desires at the moment just may be the coveted sauce of apples. Or perhaps she craves the elixir of life, a drop or two of water in her uniquely designed chalice, the one called “sippy.”

She may even need a hug or two to alleviate the uncertainty of her careworn young brow. Indeed, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. We oft find that baby talk works wonders too.

The world of sovereignty works in mysterious ways! What should we make of all these fortuitous, rather occult coincidences from the majestic macrocosm of the heavens that rain down their good fortune upon our blessed heads? This is the ninth chapter in the saga of her first year of rule, and The Royal Nootch as it happens has just turned nine as well! Nine months, that is. . . .

But what of it? Can true divinity be measured in human years? I think not!