Lilacs

The lilacs are early this year. This is not something I would normally notice, but for the past few years the smell of lilacs have always been accompanied with finals. The building where I spent much time while at college has a lovely lilac collection, with many different hues of purple. One particularly bad finals period (I think it was my junior year) I turned in my last paper and skipped out of the building (I don't normally skip) and threw myself into the lilac grove and lay there on the ground and inhaled the scent.

Lilacs may be my favorite flower because of how good they smell. The purple doesn't hurt, either. Fortunately for me, the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens have a sizable lilac grove, which is where I took these pictures. What totally surprised me was how people react when they see (or smell) them. Hardened New York types, whom I would assume would have no real interest in plant-life, barrel over and bury their faces in the bushes. I saw an older woman, bending over them, murmuring, "heavenly, heavenly, heavenly." People don't take as many pictures of the lilacs, but they certainly are interested in them. It's nice to see this type of love and devotion for flowers.

To me, lilacs mean school, and having silly finals adventures with my friends, that had nothing to do with books and everything to do with being outside. But my love of lilacs goes farther back than that. My grandmother's house had lilac bushes on the side of it and as children my sister and I and two of our cousins made worlds in there. Usually they were households, which each of us having a separate section or imagining different rooms. I spent a lot of time in those branches. My parents, too, have lilacs in their backyard. My sister and I would play badminton (and still do) back there without a net and would be forever trapping the birdie in the lilacs, and did not always take the proper care with getting it down. Lilacs are bigger than Brooklyn in my eyes, but they never cease to make me happy.

The Great Plumbing Adventure of 2010

There are many things in this world that I don't know enough about; for example, basic geometry, boning a duck, staking tomatoes, quantum physics, Scrabble words, ethnic conflict in Eastern Europe, and...the mechanics of bathroom plumbing. So when I got up the other morning to find the toilet clogged (mysteriously, but sometimes weird things happen with the sewer since we're on the first floor) I did what I know to do--test flush, plunge, flush, which resulted in the water rising ominously...rising, rising, rising, overflowing! I went through my general stages of dealing with a crisis, abbreviated as LP3CL.

Lecturing inanimate objects: "Stop it! Do you hear me? STOP IT."
Pleading: "Oh, please stop it. C'mon, you are a wonderful toilet normally, let's not get a bad reputation." [note: this was idle flattery--it is NOT a good toilet; the handle always falls off.]
Creative swearing: [you'll have to use your imagination, since this is a family friendly blog. Keep in mind that I have a good arsenal from watching football with my flatmates.]
Calling my father: 3 times. He is a helpful advice giver, but that doesn't help when the valve to turn off the water is rusted shut. Fortunately, he is also an early riser.
Creative problem solving: tie up that ball-thingy in the tank to the wall with dental floss, which stops the water from running.
Laugh: my life is generally a series of farcical situations, and this was no exception. As some of you may know, I don't technically have a bed here, so I (usually) sleep on an air mattress, and my mattress picked the night before Plumbing Armageddon to deflate. So I was not looking or feeling my best, especially considering the fact that I am never that alert when I first wake up. Mostly this just made me giggle.

The next step was to assess the damage. A lot of water, in this case, which I mopped up quickly and bailed out. I went to harass my upstairs neighbors (who are related to our landlord, and take care of immediate problems). It is a 3 generation family up there, and the father (as opposed to the grandfather or daughter) is the one who is kind of in charge of the place. He speaks mostly Bangla, so we did some extensive hand gesturing (I had a good one for "plunging," he got in a good one for "floods".) He said, "ok, I'll call him," which I assumed meant the plumber. I emailed the museum to say I would not be in, and hunkered down to wait.

Instead of the plumber, he actually called the landlord, and something got lost in translation, because he called my roommate and told her that the apartment was flooded (which has happened before.) She took a cab home from work, and after calming down, we called my cousin (the other roommate) so assure her that all was well. The landlord called the plumber.

I waited for the plumber. He arrived, was misogynistic (definite vibe that young women didn't know anything about plumbing, which in this case was sadly true) but fairly nice. And he fixed it, with one of those metal snakes, so that is fine with me. He also checked the sewer and we got the all clear. We went upstairs for him to get paid, but it was prayer-time, so the plumber came out and sat on the sidewalk in front of the apartment on a crate, and when I asked him if he wanted anything to eat or drink, he said he was just going to "soak up the rays." He was paid, I mopped, my cousin called to see why she had multiple missed calls from us, and all went back to normal.

Lessons learned?
--When you get older you have to deal with grown up stuff like plumbing and taxes. It's not necessarily a bad thing, and if you're me at least, you're going to have some help.
--Having a landlord usually means you don't have to pay for repairs, which is nice.
--Rosemary Clooney is good music to listen to while mopping. I think I heard "Mambo Italiano" about 12 times at high volume.
--I am really dependent on modern conveniences.
--Make sure you have dental floss on hand, not just for tooth health but for minor household repairs.
--Try not to flood your bathroom on Earth Day. Your friends will never let you live down the water-wasting.
--It is a lot healthier if you can laugh about this stuff.
--My bathroom is fixed!

City Rhythms

Brooklyn has a special pulse to it, which is something I can't really describe and I think can only be felt after you live here for a little while. It is a sense of constant movement that can be both exhilarating and exhausting. Here are some sensory examples from a sunny--yet ordinary--Wednesday morning.

I sat in a coffeehouse up the street from the apartment. I was there to wait out while my laundry dried, and to catch up on my correspondence (how very Jane Austen of me!) It used to be an old glass factory, and the decor is minimalist, but light and airy. The door and windows (the whole front of the building is glass) were all opened and I could hear two delivery drivers chatting in Spanish on the sidewalk. Bikes are tied to the railing in a jumble, and a bulldog sits outside while his owner gets an espresso to go. I was perched on a green stool, scanning the NY Times, reading about volcanic ash plumes, Long Island racist crimes, and health insurance. If I was a poet (which I'm not) I would write about the feel of the newsprint under my hands, the clink of the small silver spoon next to my glass cup of mocha, and the dusting of cinnamon that speckles the foam on top. I would write of the crunch of the croissant I am eating as I try to pick crumbs off my plate, and the clicking of the hipster next to me as he types on his Mac. The baristo (is that the male form of barista? beats me) hurried outside to yell a greeting to the woman on the red bike. He is wearing a denim shirt, jeans, a red neckerchief and his arms are covered with black and red tattoos. He has a mohawk and an Australian accent and has swirled a spiral into my drink before handing it to me. I may have a crush on him. The Beatles played in a ceaseless blend of calm and noise (Strawberry Fields Forever) and prisms of light bounced off the old, leaded windows and the scarred table where I was sitting.

The sidewalks are a pockmarked mass of gum stains, tobacco stains, and spilled juice, water, and beer. Last night as I was taking the subway I noticed the same phenomena at the 86th St station--the pavement takes on an almost polka-dotted appearance with all of these marks. The security guard at the hospital center says, "good morning, miss" as I walk by. Another older man, wearing a suit, hat, and pink shirt, taps his cane on the sidewalk. "How's it goin', baby?" he asks. "Good morning, sir," I say to them both.

I am the only person in the laundromat, other than the older, stooped woman and the younger, thin woman who work there. We exchange smiles, as they snap snap snap other people's clothes that they are expertly folding. I have seen these women every 2 weeks, and I will leave here and never know their names. The completed laundry in their colorful bags look like misshapen larvae in a large pile on top of the washers. I haul my maroon bag over my shoulder and walk home, my keys clinking in my pocket, which matches the clicking cadence of the woman who passes me, hunting for change in her purse, hurrying to catch the 48 bus. I slide open the windows of the apartment and sit down to write this, to put off folding my laundry.

Ellis Island

My parents were here last week (yay!), and we went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Being a history nerd-o, I really enjoyed both (even with all the tourists). Many European-descended types in America have some sort of Ellis Island story, mostly about relatives who came through the glass doors of that imposing fortress, and some who were never allowed to leave. Some died there, some were born there, some were deported--one of the worst stories I heard was of an elderly woman who had to go back to her homeland because she had a growth on her finger, and they didn't want her to infect Americans (it probably didn't help that she was old, female, and poor). Her entire family had emigrated* here and she had to go home alone, and none of them ever heard from her again. Most first and second class passengers passed through without a problem, and then those in steerage waited..and waited. If they didn't pass the physical test, then they waited for other tests, for days.(thanks to the Ellis Island site and the National Parks Service for providing these images. Minus people, the room looks much the same.)

Most of my maternal relatives emigrated in the 1880's, which was before Ellis Island was the entrance point to the United States. (At that time it was Castle Gardens/Castle Clinton, which is in Battery Park, and where my then-7 year old great-grandmother remembered picking the flowers.) However, my maternal grandfather's mother came through Ellis Island in 1893. Her name was Anna; hence, my name is Anna.

(not my relatives, but they are someone's relatives, and I am borrowing them for awhile.)

When Anna entered the United States she was 19 years old. She was alone. Young, unaccompanied women were considered a serious threat when entering the US in this time period, as they could have turned to prostitution or other unsavory means of supporting themselves in the big city. So I'm guessing someone must have met her there, or she was able to get around that rule, because in short order she got to a small town outside of Mt Jewett, PA and had married, given birth to a son, been widowed, and remarried by 1896. What was most odd about Anna's journey is that there were only 340 passengers on her ship from Liverpool, which could have held 2000. Who were they? Were they mostly young? Why leave Europe then?

I don't know anything about Anna's family or parents or much of her life in PA. She had 8 children all told, and after her husband died in a gas explosion (very young) she had to raise the children by herself, which included sending 3 of them (my grandfather included) to an orphanage in Meadville to make sure they had enough to eat. I hope her time at Ellis Island was quick, painless, and not too frightening. Although how could it not have been? Doctors with sedate suits, handlebar mustaches, practiced hands, and button hooks (BUTTON HOOKS) which they stuck under your eyelids to make sure you weren't infectious? People quizzing you about money and what you have in your bags and who is meeting you there and what your plans are? Feeling sick and hungry and homesick? How COULD it be non-awful?

Although, maybe I am just weak. I am moving to Indiana in four months and the thought of finding an apartment and meeting new people makes me feel ill. I am not hardy, and could very well have thrown up on the ferry to Ellis Island, never mind a 2 week journey on the Atlantic Ocean. Like every other tourist who visited the Island in search of their past, I am spoiled by the excesses of this country, excesses which my Anna, my matriarch and my ancestor, never experienced. Was her life in this country better than Sweden? I hope it was. And hey, I'm here because of it, so I'm glad she was here too. I picture her sweeping into Ellis Island, acing her mental test, marching to the ferry with aplomb, and setting off for New York City and promise and adventure. I walked in her footsteps last week. I sensed her terror and excitement, and I wished I knew her.

*Emigrated is when you leave a country to go to another. Immigrated is when you enter another country or new location. I honestly had no idea which of these to use until I looked them up about 5 minutes ago. Kind of like how until my senior year in high school I thought a Molotov cocktail was a drink.

The wisdom of Bob Dylan

These images (of a bong store and a fancy apartment building) are 116 MacDougal St and 160 Bleecker St, respectively. And I can guess your reaction: who cares? Well, you should! 116 MacDougal is not only where Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsberg used to hang out, but also where Dylan lived for awhile. It used to be known as the Gaslight Cafe, and there were readings there by Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. 160 Bleecker is where Dylan wrote "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall."

I knew that Bob lived in Greenwich Village, but after googling it, I found a few definite addresses, and MacDougal Street has quite the history! For starters, Bob Dylan once got in a fistfight there was Andy Warhol. And here's a shortlist of the people who lived and wandered around there: Eleanor Roosevelt, James Baldwin, Ernest Hemingway, ee cummings, Miles Davis, Dylan Thomas, Gore Vidal, Paul Robeson, Eartha Kitt, Joan Rivers, and Richard Pryor. Now it's peopled by hipsters from NYU, which I feel like Bob would have something to say about.

Having been on an unofficial, meandering Bob Dylan walking tour (first with my cousin, then with my sister, about 7 months apart) I can say that if you have any interest in the musical culture of the 1960's, Greenwich Village is the place to be. To walk the same street that features on the album cover of the Freewheelin' Bob Dylan? Pretty awesome.

Moreover, Bob Dylan lyrics are good at describing everything, for a variety of situations. After consulting with my cousin, here are some examples:

Places we would like to be, other than NYC:
I like to spend some time in Mozambique
The sunny sky is aqua blue
And all the couples dancing cheek to cheek.
It’s very nice to stay a week or two.
--Mozambique, 1975

Lost love/lost friendship
I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better, but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right
--Don't Think Twice, it's All Right, 1963

Freedom
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
--Mr. Tambourine Man, 1964

Post-grad life, sometimes
You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it
--Like A Rolling Stone, 1965

Post-grad life, sometimes
I’m out here a thousand miles from my home
Walkin’ a road other men have gone down
I’m a-seein’ your world of people and things
Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings
--Song to Woody, 1961

Post-grad life, sometimes
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’
--The Times They are A-Changin', 1963

Unsavory bosses
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
Well, she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law
Everybody says
She’s the brains behind pa
She’s sixty-eight, but she says she’s twenty-four
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
--Maggie's Farm, 1965

Sound Life Advice
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows
--Subterranean Homesick Blues, 1965

Corporatism
Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
--Hurricane, 1975

When considering upcoming birthdays (!!)
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young
--Forever Young, 1973

Art
Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo, this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
--Visions of Johanna, 1966

Being in a Rut and Getting Out
My clothes are wet, tight on my skin
Not as tight as the corner that I painted myself in
I know that fortune is waitin’ to be kind
So give me your hand and say you’ll be mine
--Mississippi, 1997

P.S. I don't think me quoting song lyrics constitutes plagiarism, but if it does, and you're reading this Mr. Dylan--I'm sorry, and I'd be happy to buy you a drink to make it up to you.

Peeps and Sweeps

Melting peeps, from seriouseats.com

Confession: I don't really like Peeps, although I give props to the sick genius who decided to coat marshmallows with more sugar. But what they do provide are nostalgia. My sister blowing them up in the microwave. Mailing deliberately stale Peeps (with a slit cut in the packaging) to one of my friends, who prefers them stale. Spending all of last Easter editing my big paper, binging on Peeps, and leaving a trail of pink smudges all over the art department. The creepy sweetness of them is comforting, sometimes. And I used some leftovers a few days ago to make rice crispy treats, which was an excellent idea.

There are lots of Peeps tidbits on the interwebs. Here is a gem from wikipedia: "Peeps are sometimes jokingly described as 'indestructible'. In 1999, scientists at Emory University performed experiments on batches of Peeps to see how easily they could be dissolved, burned or otherwise disintegrated, using such agents as cigarette smoke, boiling water and liquid nitrogen. They claimed that the eyes of the confectionery 'wouldn't dissolve in anything'." And the recipes! Peepshi? Check. (and see picture below). Peeps afloat on a bed on blue jello? Check. Deep fried Peeps? Check. Peepsicles? Check.

Peepshi, also from seriouseats.com

As for all of you peeps reading this (ha ha! That was a wonderful transition, wasn't it?) I just wanted to say thanks--for reading, for humoring my ramblings, and (most of all) for being in my life. Also, I'd like to encourage you to check out the blogs I have listed on the side, as I have just linked The Cranky Professor there. I am a prior student of said cranky professor (although he's not really that cranky), and it's a fun blog.

As for the sweeps part of this post: I would like to announce that until I leave Brooklyn I will be working hard to visit EVERY neighborhood in Brooklyn, and then writing about each one for you. There might be pictures. There might be the quoting of song lyrics. There might be adventures! Also, I'm thinking of doing an art sweeps week too (an artwork a day, from little known places or artists I especially like, in the NYC area.) Stay tuned.

Thomas Cromwell & Me

A few weeks ago I finished Wolf Hall, a door-stopper sized book (and Booker Prize Winner) by Hilary Mantel. It took me awhile to read, but it was one of the best books I've read in the past six months, or ever. It tells of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's chief minister for 8 years, and one of his most trusted advisors. Cromwell grew up the son of a poor blacksmith who beat him, and he was one of the very few members of the court without an illustrious lineage. He was smart, canny, and knew how to choose the winning side--although he worked for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey for many years (and liked him), after Wolsey's fall and death he allied himself with the Protestant cause, and agitated for Anne Boleyn to become queen.

What I like about Thomas Cromwell is that while he was a go-getter he also cared about his family and even his enemies--Mantel plays up the differences between Thomas More and Cromwell, and you get a real sense of his remorse when More is executed. A scene from Cromwell's childhood where he witnesses a Loller being burned at the stake will stick with me for a very long time. Cromwell was also fluent in French, Italian, and Latin, and had many friends in Antwerp. He did some shady work in Italy after fleeing his father, and he had military training. He liked pets and children and treated them respectfully. He consorted with ambassadors, painters, astronomers, and kings. This was a person who lived. Mantel is very good at giving the reader a sense of 17th century England, and the mannerisms of the court, the clergy, and the common folk--from the bitter Duke of Norfolk to the heretic nun.

I found myself at the Frick Collection recently, and turning a corner, I saw the portrait of Thomas More by Hans Holbein, to the left of the fireplace. I was excited, as I know a bit more about him now, but my excitement grew as I looked to the other side of the fireplace and there he was: Cromwell.

(Thomas More, 1527) (Thomas Cromwell, 1532-33)
Both works by Hans Holbein, and both images from the Frick Collection Online.

Here is part of the description from Wolf Hall, discussing the portrait:
"He sees his painted hand, resting on the desk before him, holding a paper in a loose fist. It is uncanny, as if he had been pulled apart, to look at himself in sections, digit by digit. Hans made his skin smooth as the skin of a courtesan, but the motion he has captured, that folding of the fingers, is as sure as that of a slaughterman's when he picks up the killing knife...He had time to think while Hans drew him, and his thoughts took him far off, to another country. You cannot trace those thoughts behind his eyes.
He had asked to be painted in his garden. Hans said, the very notion makes me sweat. Can we keep it simple, yes?"
(Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel, p. 430)

This gave me pause--imagine that you used a mirror occasionally, but your main sense of personal appearance came from what others said about you (in Cromwell's case, that he looked like a murderer.) And suddenly, you have been painted and you are looking at yourself, really looking, for the first time. What an odd experience that must have been. In a way, Cromwell looks, well, ordinary, especially compared to More's green curtain and royal chain, not to mention the velvet sleeves. The turquoise ring was bequeathed to him by Wolsey, and it is his only ornamentation. The furnishings are wealthy, to be sure, but more in the realm of a prosperous merchant, and not the right hand man of the king.

The Frick does not have wall labels, so you listen to the descriptions and information about the works on free audio guides. I held it to my ear, and heard much about Cromwell's reforming spirit, when suddenly came this phrase: "executed in 1540." I had no idea, as Wolf Hall finishes in 1535. I gasped, audibly enough that a guard came over and asked if I was ok. A deep sense of loss, one that I really was not expecting, came over me, for a man who worked so hard and did so much, whose wife and daughters died of the plague, whose enemies fought him and connived and finally entrapped him. Henry VIII approved his execution mainly because Cromwell orchestrated the marriage to Anne of Cleves, who Henry refused to copulate with, and which resulted in some messy alliance-making stuff. Henry claimed to his death that he was remorseful for Cromwell's killing, which I can just about believe--the impression I got from the book was that Henry VIII really did admire and respect him...but kings can be changeable.

Thomas Cromwell was anything but simple. He lives on, and for one short moment on a sunny Thursday afternoon, I saw him in his study, surrounded by his books, shuffling his papers, with his sons and apprentices shouting outside. He straightens his back, pulls tighter his fur-lined coat, jokes with Hans, and goes out to face whatever comes.