Serenading Eleanor Roosevelt

Ben Arthur was out this morning serenading passersby with a song about the history of the UN. It was  commissioned by the on-line University of Phoenix as part of some kind of promotion. Ben did a fine job - even finding a rhyme for Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Somali), not an easy task. I'm sure Eleanor loved it.

Only in New York

There's a fellow who has been panhandling on and off at a nearby corner for at least fifteen years. He has a sweet face, which has been distorted by a stroke he had a few years ago, and a gentle, soft-spoken manner. Over the years I have learned a lot about his life, his wife, and his world view.

Yesterday, after I made my traditional donation of a buck, he surprised me by saying: "Would you like to be part of a survey?" I agreed to become part of his focus group and he said: "What's your greatest fear?"

I won't get into my response, which is only between me and my panhandler, but I asked him what other people had been saying. "One fellow was afraid of being hit by a car at 92nd Street and Broadway," he replied. "Do you want to know what my fear is?" Sure, I replied.

"I'm afraid of two things- lightning, because when I was a kid in the South I stood right near a tree that was blasted in half, and losing my wife, because I need some one to comfort me when the lightning comes."

I swear there's a blues song in there somewhere.

How would you have answered? Think about it.

Sukkoh City

An organization of young Jewish professionals called Reboot, which includes our daughter, Kay, put together a contest to design a modern Sukkoh - the outdoor structure that is part of the holiday of Sukkohs, and a reminder of a time when Jews were wandering around the desert for 40 years and sleeping in temporary structures. 600 entries were received from around the globe, and a group of architects and critics picked twelve to be built and exhibited for two days in New York's wonderfully busy and vibrant Union Square Park. Readers of New York Magazine voted for their favorite and we were present as Mayor Bloomberg announced the winner - a bubbly contraption that was our least favorite. A number of the sukkohs were sold and the money passed along to Housing Works for their homeless projects.

The event was New York at its best - creative people presenting their cutting-edge work to a crowd of skeptics, fans, skate boarders, street artists, chess players, local politicians and a great variety of others. Everyone was taking pictures, talking with the architects, who had come from places as far away as Berlin and Idaho, and, generally putting in their two cents. People were meeting old friends, the Mayor's hulking security team was keeping their eyes on the crowd, and we even bumped into our Rabbi - on his way to a guitar lesson.
Here are some pix:

This log weighed a ton and was supported by glass panels

A sukkoh built from simple wooden shims

Based on a pineapple?

Our fave - every grommet hand carved with a Jewish star

The crowd was a typical NYC smorgasbord, especially when it came to head coverings

                                        

Top notch buskers near the Central Park boat house

Irving, 84, plays a sweet and low version of "Ode to Joy."

Cooper-Moore, an internationally acclaimed jazz pianist, with his self-made harp.

The Boyd Family gospel singers are from Michigan

Richard, who loves to play villains, singing "Besame Mucho"

Are "gum dots" only a NYC phenomenon?

Yuck.

Although most of the time when I am walking in this great city, my eyes are pointed upward toward its wonderful, diverse faces and architecture, every once in a while I look down at the sidewalk.When I do, to my horror, I see t  thousands (probably millions, in toto) of "gum dots" that have been spit or tossed on to the sidewalk, stepped on and flattened, and congealed into hard-to-remove black blobs. In some parts of town, these are regularly scraped up by supers and porters and doormen, but in most cased they stay there - I have no idea how they finally disappear.

It's odd - in cities like Paris or Barcelona, you have to stay constantly alert for dog leavings, but you don't see the gum spots. In New York, we've nearly conquered the dog problem, and are inundated with chewable grafitti. Go know.

A reader's recommendation

Now that everyone seems to be enamored of the "Girl with.." police procedurals, I thought I would go back to my favorite series of police procedurals, which are also set in Scandinavia, and see if they still hold up. Boy, do they ever!

The ten books in the Martin Beck series were written from 1967 to 1977 by Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall. They were a journalist and a poet who decided to write one book a year for a decade and tell the story of the social changes in Sweden during the 60's through the eyes of a Stockholm homicide detective. They succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.

Just to make sure, I re-read nine of the ten ( I could not find my copy of the last book, which is also the weakest.) From the very first scene in "Roseanna", in which a nude corpse of a young woman is dredged up from a canal in the Swedish boonies, these books are totally captivating. The characters are vivid and believable, the police work is dogged and inventive, and the social changes that so interested the authors are vividly presented. We watch Sweden become a much more materialistic society, with a capitol city suffering from uncontrolled urban renewal and a police force that has been increased in size to face the "communist" threat.

My favorite of the books are "Roseanna", "The Laughing Policeman," (which was made into a very good movie starring Walter Matthau), and "Cop Killer."

At the end of the ten years,  Per Wahloo (who had married Sjowall) died.

If you can find these books - go get 'em.

A rare restaurant recommendation

For my birthday the whole family ate lunch at Del Posto, near the High Line. It was a perfect dining experience, beginning with the $30 prix fixe at a restaurant that easily runs $100 for dinner. Every bite was delicious, the service was friendly and charming, and the space itself was wonderfully operatic.

We walked off some of the excesses of lunch on the High Line, which is a totally successful addition to the New York park scene.  We sat in the amphitheatre near 16th Street and had a great time watching traffic zoom up 10th Avenue.

All in all, a terrific NYC birthday!