Northeast Corridor
November 15, 2011
He awoke to a phone. Slowly, groggily. The ring was meant to sound like the bells inside an old rotary phone, but they weren’t as substantial. They were thin and flimsy, barely enough to top the heaviness of his sleep. He noted the tone with nostalgia. Then he was mildly awake, his brain moving to some other time.
He brushed his teeth, remotely, dizzily, making a note inside his thoughts not to forget to bring his metallic dental pick. The dental pick was not part of his tool kit, but it would be useful.
They say the most effective way to get attention is to yell “fire!” if you want someone to help you. A passerby, that is. He wanted to tell that to his daughter before she went to school today. She had turned thirteen, and he wanted her to know that people would be more inclined to help her, or at least stop what they were doing, if it was possible their own lives were in danger. He had to get to work, according to his phone.
So he went. He went scraping and peeling. Not paint, but he treated it like paint. He put on his thick plasticine gloves, to protect the pores in his hands; he put on his mask to protect himself from the smell, which would remind anyone of death. So he went, about maneuvering his industrial-strength tongs. All the while, he imagined it was nothing more than cleaning up after a barbecue.
Clickity- Clackety. “It was pretty messy, yeah. But…”. A voice trailed off under the sound of a keyboard. The trains weren’t delayed. She stood reading her book, until a man brushed past her, bumping her shoulder. Looking up, she noticed everyone rushing towards the same little doorway. Where is everyone going?
Finally she sat down, but the chatter of Conversations to People Not Present never receded into white noise. She heard a man giving his opinion on the upcoming election to his invisible, opinionless friend. She heard the woman behind her asking an unseen babysitter to please not give the child gummy vitamins so late at night. There was the voice of another man she couldn’t place, as loud and clear as if he were addressing her directly. He might have been talking to the woman with the babysitter, the two talking over each other as if in an argument about entirely different subjects. He wasn’t shouting, but he was angry and wanting that other someone to Listen Carefully. You gotta talk quick, Babe, or I’m gonna lose ya. Everyone loves the holidays; everyone hates the holidays.
The man next to her was from South Africa, she guessed. He wasn’t distinct looking, but when he finally spoke, she was happy to recognize his accent and have him look her in the eye.
The train chugged along, over God knows what. She stood up, nearly falling over as she said goodbye to the South African she would never see again. She tossed her paper coffee cup into the trash.
Nearly everything is disposable.
Why I Choose to Live in the 19th Century
October 9, 2011
I mainly hate the internet. Yeah, streaming music and self-diagnosing illnesses can be great (Thank You, Pandora and WebMD). There should be a term for the physical discomfort associated with being a Luddite. Oh! How my heart aches for the days of yore! I would go back to microfiche and dusty libraries in an instant if it meant the obliteration of Twitter.
(Okay, I got this picture from Wikipedia... Thank You, Wikipedia)
For the record, I do not, and probably never will, have a Twitter account. So whoever this “realjuliastiles” is, can suck a robotic dick. And stop emailing friends of mine pretending to be me. The real rub is when other blogs, which are gossip pages feigning some sort of authority, pick up stories that have no merit. The problem with the almighty internet is that there is no accountability.
Can a sister get some accountability?!
Again, not me, in case you care which you probably don’t so nevermind.
Let Us Hold Hands, and Point Fingers.
April 25, 2011
A few months ago, I wrote about my time in Cuba for the Wall Street Journal. Well aware of the complicated history surrounding our relationship to that country, I tried to keep it lighthearted and apolitical. The simple act of traveling to Cuba as an American, though, is a political gesture, and nothing is observed in a vacuum. Even so, I was not prepared for the vitriolic comments that followed from readers who clearly used my writing as a platform for their own intractable, preexisting anger. It was frustrating to be misunderstood, but I chose to ignore the comments because, let’s be honest, the internet is a powerful tool sprinkled with asinine vomit. One thing worse than a pile of vomit, is an even larger pile of vomit.
Many of the responses struck me as unrelated to what I had described in my traveler’s journal. One reader raised the issue of human rights abuses under the Castro regime. He wrote, “Her article is littered with evidence about what is REALLY wrong with Cuba i.e. that it is a murderous, dictatorial, communist regime that robs people of human dignity and individual liberty.” I’d like to think my article wasn’t littered with anything of the sort, but you can be the judge- (Here). I wasn’t really writing about Cuba in general, more about Cuba as I saw it in two weeks. When I travel, I understand I am a guest in another country, and it takes time to experience the full range of nuance and complexity. I don’t travel to foreign countries to make sweeping indictments of them, particularly in print.
There certainly is evidence of injustice under the Castro regime, starting with the death of jailed hunger striker Zapata Tamayo. I didn’t feel it was within the scope of my experience or knowledge to include any of that in something for a Weekend Section. I have nothing to offer on the subject beyond what one could find elsewhere on the internet.
I bring this up now only because today’s New York Times covers the Wikileaks documentation on Guantanamo Bay, and includes an official response from the U.S. Government. What baffles me, is how we as Americans can condemn other governments for the flaws in their legal system, when our own seems to be showing signs of decay.
Statue of Jose Marti, Malecon, Havana.
Madness
February 17, 2011
All I saw was a puff of curly, red hair atop a bright green sweater. The red was a kind of faded dye job, and the texture dry enough to give it some extra breadth at the ends. I couldn’t describe her face, but I saw enough in that instant to know she was either not having a good day, or not having a good life, or both. That was all I needed to see to know that this woman was unusual.
“All from her hair and sweater,” you ask?
Yes. That is how people pass judgment on one another. In an instant, and based on wardrobe choices, color schemes, textures and dryness of hair.
The traffic light was still red when my brother turned to me out of the quietness of his thoughts.
“Imagine if there was a Cure for mental illness…”
I waited.
“…then what about art? You think it’d just stop?”
And Now for Something Completely Different
February 5, 2011
A SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON!
In short, this claymation guy is basically told his angst is his own problem within his own mind. But then…
Me Alegro, Me Honra
January 26, 2011
Thank you, Internet! This made me proud-
En Espanol: http://desdecuba.com/generaciony/
En ingles: http://desdecuba.com/generationy/
(Scroll down, it’s now old news)
(That’s me patting myself on the back…)
La Habanera
January 15, 2011
Ooogachuckah, Mother Nature.
December 28, 2010
Snow.
Snow.
Snow.
Snow Drifts and Snow.
This city really never stops. In the midst of a massive snow storm, the first of the year, I managed to cash in on a Christmas gift and see an amazing play (“Mistakes Were Made- The Barrow St Theater- Michael Shannon! Real real good.)
I left 45 minutes early (unheard of!) and was surprised I wouldn’t have to wait on the cold, wet platform. I employed my best downhill-stairs-slalom in order to catch the very prompt Subway. Of all days, the MTA was unspeakably on my schedule!
The show went on, and to a nearly full audience. No one could see straight after, but only because of the weather. In the windy, blanched streets, a few brave souls walking in the West Village walked slower- each sinking knee deep and battling an onslaught of icy gusts.
Taxi’s rolled and spun at curbs. Some dude from Jersey got out of his Four-Wheel Drive SUV to push and help, in a T-Shirt, mind you! And the city earned it’s slogan about never sleeping. AAAAGH.
Now Mayor Bloomberg is getting flack for cutting back on snow plows and public transportation. Manhattan, the borough where you exhale money and fart coins, seems to be plowed just fine, and the trains chug along. Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx-all the parts of the City that people sometimes forget are actually part of the City- that’s another story. Those are some large boroughs, with lots of people living in them.
Maybe NY1 News is messing with my head, talking about how inefficient the snow storm response is, in a very convincing way. But Mayor Bloomberg is featured in so many videos all across the five boroughs, expressing his sympathy for the many snow bound. He seems to be getting around just fine. I’m not being sarcastic… how does one get to Staten Island right now?????!
Happy 2011, New York!
Fiction… I Am Not That I Am.
November 22, 2010
This is also the story of Katrina. One morning Ed witnessed her march through the park with her head buried in her mobile device. He was so preoccupied with the speed at which her thumbs popped around those tiny keys, so preoccupied he was at the sight of those bright stripes on her tights as her legs moved blindingly fast, he nearly missed the fact that she was crying. She didn’t make any noise, and the muscles on her face didn’t contort like on some girls when they cry. But you can tell can’t you? When lashes are wet, Ed thought to himself, or the red blood vessels in the eyeballs make themselves known. He would have asked her what was wrong, or offered a trinket of kindness if he could have, but she was on the move and busy reaching out to someone else.
Chinese people do Tai Chi in the park. Usually they are only a few in numbers, dotting the grass and stone in random places. Sunday mornings they collect in a group, even though they don’t move in unison. Ed watches them all lost in their own exercises but still somehow joined. Some bounce up and down, some glide elegantly, others are a little more violent about it. Maybe that depends on where they are in the program, Ed thought, but the aggressive ones can look a bit silly. At least they are together, he notes to himself.
Some shadow dulled his newspaper, making it hard to pretend he was reading. It was the girl in those striped tights, only this time she was wearing all black ones.
“What’s your name?” She asked him, staring down at her own shadow. Her makeup was smudged, making her look like she could be in one of those perfume advertisements that always make you stop to look because they smell like sin. It took Ed a moment to muster open his mouth. He wasn’t scared by the abruptness of her question, he was just maybe operating at a slower pace than she was on that exact morning.
