Originally the diary of 4 months spent in Antarctica working as a documentary film sound recordist, this blog has evolved into an online repository for the thoughts, travels and trivia of the writer Richard Fleming. For McMurdo Station, Antarctica, and polar exploration, see August through December of '06. Currently you are likely to find in these pages chronicles of my actual and literary meanderings, as well as notes on my many other passions. Also, did I mention I wrote a book?
One of the huge array of free services and products that Google provides in order to get our data in their clutches is the automated transcription of voicemail messages. I have my cellphone set to forward all unanswered calls to Google Voice, which then instantly transcribes any left message and emails it to me. While typically garbled in whole or in part, the transcript is usually enough to gauge the basic content and urgency of the message. It is far easier to read an email than go through the rigamarole of dialing in and entering prompts to listen to a message, with the result that I no longer do the latter. Sometimes the transcripts are so incomprehensible as to be amusing. Blame Marty Markowitz's heavy Brooklyn accent.
Tomorrow is election day; don't forget to cast your vote!
Down in deepest Sunset Park the other day, I pulled the car over to send a text (don't text and drive, kids!) and found myself parked right in front of a Mexican specialty store. From the contents of the front windows, it looked like its taste in Mexican specialties ran pretty deep. I'm a sucker for that stuff, so I ponied up for 15 minutes worth of parking credits and went in to check it out. With an unpronounceable name like "Plaza Xochimilco,"* it's a fair bet the place was not designed or stocked with gringos in mind. I was not disappointed. The shelves held dozens of varieties of dried chiles, obscure brands of Mexican soda pop, nixtamalized corn,** molcajetes and nuestras señoras de Guadalupe up the ying-yang.
In the front was a fridge case with plastic bags full of fresh epazote and papalo**, this year's most fashionable Mejican ingredient out on the west coast, but one still near-unobtainable around this way. I had some in a sandwich at the Red Hook ball fields a few weeks ago, and have been on the lookout for it ever since. In the front window was a poster for Carlos Menchaca. His is a smiling face I got to know well, almost a year ago, after Red Hook was walloped by hurricane Sandy. Menchaca was the guy who marshalled the large quantities of volunteers who came down from dryer neighborhoods to help clean up the hood. Tireless and invariably pleasant and friendly while surrounded by mountains of soggy rubble and dozens of eager-but-anxious volunteers, all raring to go, with nobody quite sure yet what they could do, Carlos brightened the mood when a lot of us residents were wandering around wondering if we would ever again live in our houses, drink in our bars or eat in our restaurants.
I don't frankly know if he had already considered running for office, or if this experience of organizing and helping people pushed him in the direction of city government, but he's getting my vote. It won't be easy. City Councilperson isn't exactly mayor or president, and most people, I fear, will vote for the incumbent simply because they may have heard of her.****
Carlos lives in Red Hook now, having fallen in love with the neighborhood in those trying post-Sandy weeks. I'm not surprised to see his posters in most every neighborhood window here, but I was surprised and pleased to see his face behind glass in the demographically very, very different depths of Sunset Park. I think he's going to get elected. He helped us. You should help him.
*I'm going to go with zhou-chee-mil-co. For all you would-be papalo-purchasing punters, it's on 5th Avenue between 62nd and 63rd. (Brooklyn, obv).
**I've only just noticed that "tamal" is embedded within this word.
***Known to some as "summer cilantro", this may be a bit of an acquired taste. This weekend, my sister told me "your corn salad tastes like soap." Well, maybe, but if so that would be a cilantro-grapefruit artisanal body bar.
****S_____ "no hace nada" G________z, who won't be getting a name-recognition-boosting mention from the likes of me.
Corn Salad Recipe:
12 ears Jersey sweet corn
1 red bell pepper
1 medium red onion
1 pint sweetest cherry tomatoes
12-15 fresh papalo leaves
1 lime
1/4 cup fine olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Cut the kernels from the cobs of corn. Chop red bell pepper and red onion very fine. Chop papalo into fine shavings. Halve the cherry tomatoes. Mix well in a bowl. Juice the lime and mix with the olive oil, salt, and pepper to make a dressing.
The entryway to my bathroom, where renovations are ungoing, needs, among other finishing renovatory touches, a door. To ensure the privacy in that most private of rooms, I've been making the rounds of the Brooklyn salvage yards and upcyclers, looking for just the perfect portal.
Underneath the Smith and 9th Street "F" train station, itself eternally closed for renovations, lurks a vendor of previously owned clawfoot tubs, iron railings, doors, mouldings, and commemorative framed photographs of President Obama.
What a difference four years makes. Here I found poor Barack, available for a very negotiable, unfixed price, nestled right up against the antique mirror frames and unwanted fireplace mantles of brownstone Brooklyn. How long did it take the owner of this jubilant print to become disillusioned? Will Obama ever rise again, to be hung on the wall of some other proud American? I certainly hope so, the alternative being too dire to contemplate, but I also understand the feelings of dispossession and disappointment that brought this poor commemorative artwork to this low place. I'm afraid I was not buying it.
Obersturmführernkadet Ricardo Perry in full-on patriotic purple turtleneck Texas A 'n' M swashbuckler mode, photo via nedslist. This image alone is enough to get me charged up about the Obama reelection campaign.
UPDATE: In response to the above, jumping on the Obama bandwagon, an anonymous friend sends the following photo of Michele Bachmann corndogging her way around the Iowa State fair. Not surprisingly it seems already to have gone viral.
Regular readers know that only on the very rarest of occasions does antarcticiana stoop to play the game of political endorsement. But sometimes a candidate is so impressive that we have to get down off the fence of dissatisfaction and exhaustion to shout "Antanas Mockus for president!" You want environmentalism? Mockus is a visionary urban planner and bicycle path specialist. You want transparency? Mockus laid his medical records on the table and explained that despite a diagnosis of Parkinson's he has twelve good years left to lead. You want style, pizazz, and razamatazz? Mockus looks like a cross between Slavoj Zizek, an Amish farmer, and Fidel Castro. You want a man to lead Colombia away from 40 years of conflict and blood? Vote Antanas Mockus!
Warning, cheesy music! We are still waiting for the power cumbia Mockus remix.
On inauguration day in the deep south the excitement in the capital arrived over the car stereo as a crackly, intermittent report of distant goings-on. Thankfully, antarcticiana's DC correspondent Mr. Johnny Stuart was on the mall to capture the scene. Obama may not yet have saved the American people from themselves, but nobody will ever diminish that first day of hope and celebration.
"Yes, we can" morphed into "Yes, we did," right before our eyes.
This guy was out of a job almost as fast as Gee-Dubya. Ending the tortures and indefinite detentions of Gitmo was to be one of Obama's first proclamations.
Does this shuka make me look fat? The Kenyan posse, like everyone else, refused to let the sub-freezing temperatures throw a chill over the proceedings.
The Gowanus Lounge says these are up all over Williamsburg. I'm almost tempted to drive up to that dreaded corner of the borough and archive one of these beauties, except it turns out you don't need to. Just print out your own, drive a stake through it, and plant it in your front yard!
Yesterday, in the water, underway just off the tip of a Wall Street engulfed in the flames of greed, I spied this Hunter 41, sporting a custom-made Kevlar McCain/Palin promotional sail that must have cost upwards of $40,000, and was presumably a rush order, once McCain's thoughtful and inspiring choice of a vice-president had been announced. What obliviousness to the world's realities must it take to commission, pay for, and then proudly raise this repugnant, ostentatious frivolity of a mainsail? The only good thing we can say about this is that the extraordinary arrogance of it is guaranteed to repulse, driving yet more voters into the Obama camp. I'm sensing an Obama landslide, after which this sail will be nothing more than an embarrassing, amusing historical curio, available on eBay.
I much prefer this Red Hook waterfront expression of political support, which cost nothing more than some sweat equity and a couple of cans of paint, and is visible to all the traffic in New York harbor.
Went down to the polls after bagels and lox. Just around the corner on Van Brunt and Lorraine. I was glad to see they are still using the old-school voting machines in the old school gymnasium. These require you to pull down mechanical metal switches next to the name of the candidate of your choice and then yank across a massive lever sticking out of the floor, as if you were a lineman diverting a train. They are solid, antique devices from the pre-computer era that make satisfying clicking and clanking noises, the sound of democracy expressed, in response to one's performing one's functions as a voter. Manufactured in an era when this country actually manufactured things. None of this absurd nonsense of flawed and hackable software and the notion, already introduced in far too many states, that we are somehow better off e-voting.
The long-awaited Linden Elstran show opened last night in the back room at the legendary Sunny's Bar and Grill, the local Red Hook watering hole now frequently frequented on weekends by Manhattanite hipsters so desperate for a dose of real life that they will risk a long taxi ride to this dark corner of the ancient waterfront just to escape the theme-park ambiance of the lower east side.
The hordes assaulting the cheese platter ("I don't think this cheese is from Fairway," said Nadia, after taking a nibble. And she meant that in a good way) and the cantaloupe cubes were not disappointed. Elstran's "Alcoholic Alphabet" is a tour de force, a series of 26 copper plate etchings, each representing a letter, and all featuring the trademark character beloved by her fans. This often grumpy and dismayed, but always expressive line-drawn female figure, a sort of Dora the Explorer on meth, wanders through the alphabetic landscape in various postures of festive disarray, celebrating, as is appropriate in a bar, drinking culture.
Grumpy girl with latte waits for B61 bus: it doesn't get any more Red Hook than this!
Hold your breath. Wait for it. Now run, do not walk, all the way to Sunny's at the southern tip of Conover St.! For a measly fifty bucks you can own the letter of your choice.
But wait; there's a catch. As big-hearted as she is talented, Elstran isn't even going to keep your money. The picture of Ulysses S. Grant you exchange for an etching goes not into the Elstran coffers, but to the presidential campaign fund of Barack Obama. A bitter, cruel dilemma indeed for those short-sighted enough to be supporting any other candidate. Luckily, I don't have that problem.
Antarcticiana's firm commitment to journalistic integrity and our unswerving dedication to presenting only the facts are, of course, known from one end of the world wide web to the other. You may read here about the "beauty" of a particular species of bird, or even the "superiority" of one sort of flooring to another, but we generally try to withhold judgement, always preferring that you, the informed reader, draw your own conclusions. We are all about empowering you; we leave polemics and politics to the blowhards, those puffers of hot, garlicky air who pollute the byways of the internet in such tedious abundance.
But lately the barrage of attention being paid to our humble blog has made us aware of the great power we have; power which must be used to do good, lest it go to waste, falling like ripe fruits from the trees to rot uneaten on the ground of the orchard. In short, we feel much like Bono; with so very many ears cocked in our direction, to remain silent seems to us an abdication of the grave responsibility you, the dear reader, have invested in us.
It is therefore, with pride, and a sense of urgency, that we end our long moratorium on the endorsement of political candidates with the announcement that we firmly and fully support Barack Obama in the upcoming Iowa caucuses.
Why Obama? And, having gone out on a limb and chosen a young, gangly, light-skinned black man whose name sounds scarily like "Osama," why hedge and endorse only for Iowa?
As to the latter question: the presidential elections are scheduled for November 4th, 2008. The Iowa caucuses for January 3rd of the same year, but only just. (Next year, by the way). Eleven months are a very long time. Significantly longer than a pregnancy, and we all know how long and trying those can be. Give or take a few weeks, in fact, this period represents a full one-quarter of a complete presidential term. This absurd state of affairs, which results in our electing a president who serves for all of two years before launching his re-election campaign, requires our discouragement. With such a vast span of time dividing the primaries from the actual election, Obama, despite being by far the youngest serious candidate, could well die of old age before the elections even take place. Or do something so stupid that we would be forced to withdraw our support. For the moment, Iowa. Then we'll see how things go.
So, why Barack? In six words: he is earnest, brilliant, and inexperienced. We live in a time when the so-called world's greatest democracy has been reduced to a two-party tyranny of rule by corporate interest. Fat old white men, some in blue diapers, some in red, all paid for by lobbyists, sit on either side of a great sandbox slinging handfuls of grit at one another. Why on earth would we want to elect as president someone who has demonstrated that they are adept at playing this game? Obama honestly seems to agree with us that things cannot go on this way. From here, his inexperience looks like a major benefit; he hasn't been at it long enough to have been corrupted and destroyed by the endless series of incremental, criminal, soul-destroying compromises reached daily between our elected leaders and their golf partners. Should we really prefer, for instance, a woman whose every decision appears to have been taken in the calculation (or miscalculation) of its political consequences, rather than any actual belief in the rightness of it?
Plus, Barack is a brother. He doesn't talk about it much, and he did go to Harvard, which doesn't play so great in the 'hood, but what I'm hearing is that he is actually a bro'. Almost fifty years after legislating racism out of existence, the contemporary attitude towards race in our country is one of denial. Today's solution to chronic black unemployment and resultant potential unrest, now known euphemistically as the divisions within our society, is an offer of two choices to the disenfranchised: incarceration or military service. Those who complain are reminded that they have just as many options open to them as anybody else, because back in the 1960s they became equal. It is about time we proved it.
Video link courtesy of ATLAS + the Balakrishnan dynasty.
so I set my sights on the letter U, which will go nicely in my kitchen; I'm sure you'll agree once you've seen it. "How much are these beauties?" I asked the artist.