I'm a lasagna boy!

Precedents for pedestrian zones

The Vision42 Project, a tightly-organised group of Midtown activists, have a great page about the precedents for their proposed pedestrian zone along 42nd Street (and its accompanying light rail).

      In many ways, creating an auto-free street is largely a political, rather than a technical decision. A main stumbling block to the reintroduction of light rail in New York has been a reluctance to take any street space away from automobiles. In Manhattan, where only 23% of the households even own cars, perhaps a different set of priorities ought to obtain.

NYC beats down on cyclists

... are being held in NYC this summer: Cycle Messenger World Championship web site. Mmm fixie. The dates (originally 30 June through 4 July, yeee-haw) are now up in the air as the NYPD have not granted approval for that weekend.

I was amazed to see a sign in the window of the meeting place on Houston explaining that advertising Critical Mass was illegal: the Parks Department huffily claims that gatherings of more than 20 people require a permit. I was tickled to see the menu board at florent bearing the day's special omelet and a subversive advert for the previous night's Critical Mass.

Everything was fine at Coney Island

'though it's too early in the season for the Sideshow at Coney Island to be open on a slow weekday,
David Grubbs has a nice piece entitled "Coney Island, 2001" which will put you in the mood for Eak the Geek and others.
Anna and I went to see Ivak the Walrus and his consort at the Aquarium. When we arrived, we were just in time for the morning walrus feeding! I love these sessions, because the keepers so obviously know and love their charges, and spend much time explaining the social behaviour and natural science of the walrus to the attentive audience (someone always asks "Where are the tusks?" -- at the Aquarium, all of the walruses have developed tooth infections, and thus the tusks were removed to prevent further infections and decay). But to our surprise, only a scuba diver with a gasping air hose was in the enclosure, and he was lying prone and helpless-looking on one of the rocky outcroppings. We watched him do nothing for a while, and then wandered off to look at the beluga, ignominously hidden behind a massive construction site; the wetlands, undergoing reconstruction; the jellyfish, mobbed with school-children (note to self: never, ever visit a zoo during the school-day!); and the seahorses, many of whom were mysteriously absent from their tanks. Somewhat disappointed, we made our way back to Ivak's tank, and from the underwater viewing area saw him mock-fighting with one of the teenage females. We later took in the early-afternoon feeding, before going off to do some of our own. Yum.

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The Big Takeover tells me what to do, a welcome guidebook to new records and CDs (if it were the New York Times, that would be "records and CD's").

Mole People

I finally read Jennifer Toth's emotional account of underground homelessness in New York City, Mole People. Toth was cutting her teeth as a journalist during the daring research and writing for this book, and sometimes the writing reflects lofty literary goals. At other times, the phrases become repetitive and the stories too brief to impart meaning or much empathy. She pursued a remarkable and difficult story, and the book is a stirring testament to that.
"Mole People" reminded me of Dark Days, the film so acclaimed at Sundance a few years ago. I hadn't the chance to see the film during its short run (at the late Castro?), but I really wanted to. Turns out that one can now obtain Dark Days on DVD

I loves Alien Loves Predator

High-larious. A photo-realistic comic comic strip which features Alien (of Alien) and Predator (ditto) as room-mates.