clue free

Dearest acquaintances: I am writing to inform you of our great happiness by consequence of an event of which, perchance, you may have heard. This past Sunday afternoon, with some pomp and great cacophony, our Metropolitan Transit Authority replaced the cars of one modern and convenient “V” subway train with those of its precedents.

It completely rocked. The best part was being able to walk between cars again: wildly-jostling floors, screeching wheels, howling winds, and all. One woman, about my age, was just standing in the doorway and riding between cars with a huge dumb grin on her face. She had the right idea. I didn’t realize it when I was 12, but I sure miss that visceral* experience now that using those doors is impossible/illegal. Back then, if you didn’t stand between cars on the way home from school calmly discussing whether Snake Eyes could beat Storm Shadow in a nunchucks-only fight, you were clearly a word that meant cigarette.

* “Visceral” means “relating to, situated in, or affecting the viscera.” The ‘viscera’ refers to the intestines. YUM. Riding the subways used to be an intestinal experience, and now it is not, at least not for the right reasons, and I am sad.

Classic subway cars! (at the Flickr.)

Woohoo!  This August 9th, 16th, and 23rd, Park Ave will be closed to motor vehicles.  The route will connect the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park (at 72nd Street.)

NYC is becoming way more car-hostile in recent months, and as a walker/biker/subway-rider, I could not be happier. Maybe one day, in the future, people will work near where they live, rather than commute 2 hours each way. Maybe one day, in the future, people will dismiss wasteful things as wasteful.  Maybe one day, in the future, it will start getting easier to breathe, rather than harder.

Nature is pretty cool sometimes.

Growing up in New York, you kind of become immune to a lot of the majesty of skyscrapers (and they are majestic, really, even if you don’t care for their particular style.) Visiting other cities, you can gloss over what has gone into the towers, transportation system, utilities, and the general state of the place.  For many years I was completely unaware of the poor air quality in various cities because I was so used to Manhattan’s smog.

It’s fully a cliche when NYers do impressions of tourists with their jaws dropped and their necks bent back, and their feet all a-waddle, as they try to get their brains around even one building being that tall, let alone most of them.  “Why are they snapping so many goddamn pictures?”  It’s impressive.  It’s a massive feat of design, human drive, and engineering.  And there are hundreds of them.  If you have the time to think about it (and we don’t), it can make you feel a lot of things… including, well, small.  Artificial infinity is staring down at you.

But then I recall JD’s assessment of Hawaii: “it’s really nice in the sense that it’s the kind of place where you’re assured on a daily basis that Nature loves you.”

This was one of the first pages to go online with high-res pictures the day of the attacks.