very simple

Happy new year to everyone!  I’ve foregone actually doing anything this new year’s eve in favor of (i) closing a deal this morning and (ii) packing for my trip, which I leave for in one week.  Maybe next year I’ll have the energy to actually have a party.

Photos from last Sunday’s ING New York City Marathon are now up.

[Update 2015] In an effort to reduce the number of holdover pages on the blog, I am slowly (very slowly) integrating these albums into the appropriate historical posts on the blog itself. As such, this album now appears below.

With the TV writers strike, I was actually thinking that it might be a boon for things like theater, since folks will be more actively looking for things entertainment-related to do.  Unless, of course, all of the Broadway stagehands also go on strike. 

Maybe this would be a good time to recommit myself to reading the giant pile of books that only ever seems to get bigger. 

I’m totally supportive of the writers in this whole TV writers strike, but I kind of miss having new episodes of The Daily Show to fall asleep to…

I was still at the gym (just about to leave and head over to Central Park) when Paula Radcliffe won – everyone was gathered around the TV to watch – It took me a few minutes to get to the race route, where I managed to get a spot at the “200 yards to go” spot – These were the first female and male runners that I got to see in the marathon:

Bib number F23: Victoria Ganushina of New York (yeah!). Placed 18th among the women.

Bib No F22: Heather Killeen-Frisone of California. Placed 19th among the women.

and

From the official ING NYC Marathon page:
Aleksandr Kuzin [bib No. 10]
Ukraine
Age: 33
Residence: Ukraine
Kuzin amazed the running world by winning the Linz Marathon on April 15 in 2:07:33, the fastest time by a European (and second-fastest by anyone) this year and nearly a three-minute personal record. He has set two Ukrainian marathon records (the last beaten recently by Dmytro Baranovsky’s 2:07:15), and he has run on Ukrainian teams at several major events, including a respectable 18th at the 2001 IAAF World Championships. Kuzin must now be considered a serious podium threat at the ING New York City Marathon 2007.
***
He came in 9th place overall.
I’ll try to get an actual album up (with lots of photos of the not-so-professional runners) in the next few days.

the NYC marathon is today, and this is the first time, since I moved into my Upper West Side apartment, that I’ll actually be in town for it (last year I was living in Milan and the year before I was holed up at the offices of a financial printer in London.  Before that, I lived downtown, far away, in city terms, from the marathon route).

I’m not sure how much I’ll actually get to see, because you have to reserve seats on the bleachers to get a really good view, and I’ve got to meet my trainer from 11 to 12, but I’m going to drag my camera with me, and hopefully catch some finishers when I get out of the gym, which is conveniently located on 67th and Columbus, only one block away from the marathon end-point at Tavern on the Green.  They’ve also blocked off my street, even though I’m a few blocks north.  My doorman said that most people have to "exit" via my street, because it’s the first major cross street north of the finish.  So I should be able to get some good people shots at the very least.&nbsp

They’re actually expecting the first finishers (competitive men) to finish right after noon, so the timing (crowds permitting) is pretty perfect.  I imagine I’ll be able to see people hobbling around for most of the afternoon.

So I went down to Union Square to have dinner tonight (Yama, yay!), and as I was leaving and walking over to sixth avenue to catch the bus back home, there were about eight gazillion police cruisers driving in formation across Union Square North.  Half the time, these things are random practice runs, so I didn’t think too much of it (the last time I saw this many cars in a row was after the steam pipe explosion).  But no, it’s not practice, and it’s not our crumbling infrastructure. 

NEW YORK (AP) – Authorities were taking extra counterterrorism precautions Friday in response to what they said was an unsubstantiated radiological threat to the city.

Officials said they had not changed the city’s terror alert status in response to online chatter mentioning a truck packed with radioactive material. But police deployed extra radiological sensors on street, water and air patrols, and were stopping vehicles at checkpoints in lower Manhattan and around the city.

Niiiiice.  And just the other day, after the subway mess, my boss and I were discussing that we were resigned to the fact that we were goners if something ever happened that required a large-scale citywide rapid evacuation.  He was wondering what would happen if the bridges were taken out, since that would obviously slow evacuation from our island, but I noted that in such a scenario, we’d all have to leave, but not necessarily particularly fast.  I could certainly live for some time on the food in my apartment.  What I was worried about was something…well, something more like this most recent scenario. 

Good thing it’s "unsubstantiated", huh?

But I still wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

Sometimes it’s amazing to me that this city doesn’t just collapse in on itself. Packed like a sardine on the M7 bus this morning, due to the fact that about 8,000 extra people were trying to get on the bus at my stop alone thanks to the flooded subways, I remarked to someone that this city is like a giant house of cards – anything goes wrong and it’s like the entire place comes to a grinding halt. Of course, then I said that I still wouldn’t live anywhere else, and they all smiled and laughed and generally agreed with me.

So, my morning.

Woke up at 5:30am for no apparent reason (I realize now that it was probably due to the thunderstorm outside). Dozed until about 6:30, when I got up to go to the gym to meet my personal trainer, with whom I had a 7am appointment. Trekked 5 blocks through a torrential downpour to Reebok, worked out for an hour (even the over-air conditioned gym was a bit humid), and then went home. Noticed on the way home that there were about 100 people at my normal bus stop at 8am, which seemed a bit unusual.

Got ready for work, and then went to catch the bus at a little after 9. Again, there was an unusually large number of people at the stop, and someone explained that the subways weren’t running, or were only running on a very limited basis, so they were directing everyone to take the bus instead. Six buses went by, too crowded to even attempt to get on. Bus number 7 had a sign indicating that it was only going to 42nd street, so I thought this was my best bet. Squeezed myself on, although the guy behind me almost got his arm amputated by the closing bus doors. Make a few stops, people squeeze on an off the bus, and then…

Then we get to Columbus Circle, where every subway train that was running at all had decided to terminate (the elevation is lower the further downtown you go, so there was probably more flooding below 59th street). There are hundreds of people standing there, to the point where everyone at the front of the bus, and the driver, start laughing at the improbability of any one of the people actually getting on the bus. In the meantime, there are a few trapped poor souls who actually need to get off the bus at this point. So, the doors open to let them off, and before they even have a chance, the bus is rushed by crazed people, including one woman who forces her way on, pushing the rest of us into immovable objects like metal bars, and then tries to say that she’s trying to help the people getting off the bus by moving further back! Never mind that she was essentially the cork that stopped the entire flow of people moving.

At this point, I realize, of course, that none of these people are bus people, they’re all subway people, so none of them bother to read the front of the bus. So I helpfully start announcing that the bus is only going to 42nd street, and if people want to go further south, they should wait for a different bus. At which point this woman starts freaking out that she’s on the wrong bus and pushed her way back off.

People actually applauded me. The driver was laughing, and we all had a nice collective bonding experience over the sheer ineptitude of our fellow new yorkers.

Just another day in the big city…

By the way, it took me an hour to get the one mile from home to work.

From keeping up with my RSS reading, I saw that Doppleganger over at 50 Books had posted another of her famous lists, this time in connection with Freedom to Read week in Canada. It’s similar to Banned Books Week in the US, except that it’s occurring now, instead of the last week of September. Since I didn’t feel like waiting until September to see how many books I had read, I thought I’d add them up now. The list is derived from a variety of banned book sites, including those cited at 50 Books, the ALA and Wikipedia. My list is only at 70, but I’m sure that I’ve read other banned books that just weren’t listed.

Andrews, V.C.: Flowers in the Attic
Angelou, Maya: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid’s Tale
Blume, Judy: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Blume, Judy: Blubber
Blume, Judy: Superfudge
Blume, Judy: Tiger Eyes
Bradbury, Ray: Fahrenheit 451
Capote, Truman: In Cold Blood
Carroll, Lewis: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Carroll, Lewis: Through the Looking Glass
Dahl, Roald: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Dahl, Roald: James and the Giant Peach
The Daily Show with John Stewart: America (The Book)
Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Great Gatsby
Frank, Anne: The Diary of a Young Girl
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Handford, Martin: Where’s Waldo?
Golding, William: Lord of the Flies
Grimm Brothers, Little Red Riding Hood
Hinton, S.E.: The Outsiders
Huxley, Aldous: Brave New World
King, Stephen: Carrie
King, Stephen: Christine
King, Stephen: Cujo
King, Stephen: The Dead Zone
King, Stephen: Different Seasons
King, Stephen: Firestarter
King, Stephen: It
King, Stephen: Pet Sematary
King, Stephen: The Shining
King, Stephen: The Talisman
Lawrence, D.H.: Lady Chatterly’s Lover
Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird
L’Engle, Madeleine: A Wrinkle in Time
Lewis, C.S.: Chronicles of Narnia (series)
London, Jack: The Call of the Wild
Miller, Arthur: The Crucible
Miller, Arthur: Death of a Salesman
Mitchell, Margaret: Gone With the Wind
Moore, Michael: Stupid White Men
Morrison, Toni: The Bluest Eye
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Orwell, George: 1984
Proulx, Annie: Brokeback Mountain
Rowling, J.K.: Harry Potter (the series)
Salinger, J.D.: The Catcher in the Rye
Sebold, Alice: The Lovely Bones
Shakespeare, William: Hamlet
Shakespeare, William: Romeo and Juliet
Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein
Silverstein, Shel: A Light in the Attic
Silverstein, Shel: Where the Sidewalk Ends
Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Men
Stowe, Harriet Beecher: Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Twain, Mark: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Various: The Bible
Vonnegut, Kurt: Slaughterhouse Five
Walker, Alice: The Color Purple

What really amazes me is that I’m fairly certain that at least 80% of these books were read for school. I’m also kind of amazed that the bulk of the list consists of books that I read when I was younger – I suppose as I’ve gotten older, the books I’m interested in aren’t targeted to kids in the first place, making them less likely to be the target of wrath by bizarre closed-minded parents. And I don’t even mean that as a dig against right-wingers. Huck Finn gets banned regularly for the use of the N-word, even though it’s clearly literary irony, since Jim is by far the best individual in the book (and it’s Huck’s recognition of that throughout their journey). Gone with the Wind was banned for depicting slavery in a positive light. Now, I’m obviously sympathetic to the sentiments of the people who don’t like the book for that reason, but banning books is never the answer. The answer, first and foremost, is to read the book and try to understand it. Not to agree with it, but to understand it.

In college, I took a core class in american studies. Since it was taught by a literature professor, we basically read a variety of books (most of which are on this list) throughout the semester. I was apalled at reading the Great Gatsby’s intensely anti-semitic characterizations of jews in the book, but that didn’t mean that the book should be burned. It meant that we had some really deep discussions about Fitzgerald’s anti-semitism and the society at the time the book was written.

Then, of course, there were the bannings that can only be described as ironic. Anne Frank? sure, let’s supress a book by a girl that was murdered by one of the most oppressive governments in history. 1984 and Brave New World? Let’s control and limit peoples’ access to books about future dystopias where every thought and action is controlled! And of course, the granddaddy of all ironic book banning, Fahrenheit 451. I know it’s pretty much a cliche at this point, but banning a book about…banning books! That’s how we teach our children that we live in a free and open society!!

And then there’s just the silly stuff. Judy Blume is one of the most banned authors in history. I read her by the truckload as a kid, and somehow I didn’t end up entirely warped. Shel Silverstein gets banned because he apparently teaches kids to misbehave. in a book. I agree that books can be powerful and life altering, but come on!

So. When I get home next week, there’s clearly going to be another trip to the bookstore to pick up a few suggestions off of one of the lists. I’ve never read Lolita. or Heart of Darkness. Those may have to get added to the “to read” pile shortly.

So, the NY Times travel section regularly does this little feature called "36 hours", where they visit a city for a weekend, and then essentially publish the itinerary, which consists of reviews as well as advice on what to see and what to skip when you’ve got limited time in a city. So earlier this week, I figured I’d see what they had listed for Paris. I’ll be there for more than 36 hours, but not much more when you discount Christmas Day, when I assume everything will be closed. But when I went searching on Monday, they hadn’t done one for Paris. Which kind of surprised me, but I set about printing out some of their other articles just to get myself oriented.

So then, I click on the Times this morning, and yup, 36 Hours: Paris was posted. It’s like they knew. At least now I’ve got my itinerary for the weekend (I’ll probably jumble things up a bit, and I’ve been to certain places before, so they get de-prioritized (not that I won’t fit them in if I’ve got time, but the Louvre can be a four day trip in itself).

I’m off to go finish packing, and to figure out how I’m getting to the damn airport. Again.