NNAOPP Update
aka Bowling (badly)
in Brooklyn on Ben's Birthday
With a touch of Burma
and Bulgaria
Thanksgiving 2013
On Friday (11/29) we celebrated
Ben's birthday dining at a delightful Brooklyn restaurant, Five Leaves, with
Ben, his girlfriend Deb (a lively and lovely young lady), and several of his
friends. Ben and I enjoyed the
house burger special, a tasty concoction of a ground beef patty topped with
pickled beets, a slice of fried pineapple, a fried egg, and tomato.
The evening was capped off
bowling until 1:30 am, an unusually late hour for the Judester and me. The 8-lane venue shared space with a
bar and was nestled in an isolated, industrial neighborhood, presumably a
former warehouse. The loaner balls
were almost round featuring crevices in which one could secret a bag of corn
nuts. I bowled badly and even
managed to bugger up my most important banjo finger (thus postponing
indefinitely the date of my coming out performance), but it was a frolicsome
group, and a fun celebration.
Deb's family is from Burma, thus
adding alliterative luster to the lead.
One of the guests at Ben's Thanksgiving feast was an effervescent girl
from Bulgaria, adding yet another B to the string. Maria came to the U.S. for college and ended up at Cottey
College in Nevada, MO, surely a culture shock. Her family operates a dance troupe featuring classic Bulgarian
folk routines, and they have performed all over Europe. I told her she was the first Bulgarian
I had ever met. In her impeccable
English, she said she was glad to help broaden my horizons. From her I learned a new word, which I
like, concordantly. Ben can be
counted upon to assemble interesting company.
For those with a modicum of interest,
here are a few observations:
The nicer neighborhoods of
Brooklyn are mindful of 1950's small town America. We purchased our turkey at a small Italian butcher, then
went across the street to a wine store, then dropped the heavier packages off
at Ben's apartment, then back to a corner grocer for final provisioning and a
stop at a small hardware store. We
patronized a variety of nearby restaurants, all of the Mom and Pop variety, and
all excellent. Even though it was a gray, rainy day, people were uncommonly
friendly and in a festive spirit, presumably attendant to the upcoming
Thanksgiving holiday.
Giant corporate enterprises are
few and far between. It's
difficult to imagine how the merchants prosper in their tiny spaces given the
high rents and difficult logistics, but they do, and there are few empty
storefronts.
The food, both from restaurants
or local stores, is consistently outstanding in even the most nondescript
places. Ben's friend, Peter, noted
that the power of social media insures that any business not providing good
value immediately will die quickly.
Our stay was brief, 4 days, so we
confined our travels to Brooklyn, which I find to be quite pleasing. We're becoming fairly familiar with
Ben's Williamsburg neighborhood and have hiked to Prospect Park. We took the East River ferry down to
Brooklyn Bridge Park, hiked through Brooklyn Heights, then to downtown
Brooklyn, and stopped at the NY Transit Museum (a worthwhile destination). Brooklyn has a much larger population
that Manhattan (2.5m v. 1.6m), but it is noticeably less congested, occupying
triple the square miles (71 v. 23).
The pedestrian and car traffic is intense, but rather mild compared to
most Manhattan neighborhoods.
Tourist sightings are negligible.
I espied few children on our Brooklyn walkabout, but there was no dearth
of dogs.
Interestingly, one encounters few
overweight people. I presume this
is attributable to the necessity of walking as a mode of transport. Even the subway requires navigating
many levels of stairs. Upon
leaving Brooklyn we flew to our southern WHQ in Sanibel, FL. We stopped at an Olive Garden near the
airport for dinner and were comforted by the presence of large numbers of very
large people. Cracker Barrel would
have been even more comforting I'm sure.
Ben lives in a neighborhood
largely inhabited by hipsters. I
know this owing to the ubiquity of porpkie hats and black, tight, short jeans
worn by men. There is a noticeable
lack of color adorning the citizens.
Occasionally you'll see a dash of gray, brown, or dark green sprinkled
amidst the dominant black attire.
It was quite cold during our stay, concordantly I wore a day-glo
stocking cap that I thought might add a bit of cheeriness. It did insure that I was not mistaken
for a deer, but otherwise this micro-act of fashion rebelliousness went
unnoticed. People walk fast and
with their heads down, seemingly impervious to their surroundings. It's mindful of an Orwellian
streetscape.
If one is not already
sufficiently aware of their insignificance in the grand scheme of things, a
trip to a very large city will put you in the right frame of mind.
****
It's a miracle that more people
don't die riding in cabs here. Our
visit started off, as it almost always does, with a harrowing cab ride from
LaGuardia. Our driver was either
from India or from the Land of Stans. I can't be certain. The only understandable English words
he used in my presence were, "Where to."
I told him, "Take the BQE to
the Metropolitan exit, and I will guide you from there."
He offered no acknowledgement
whether he heard or understood this response. He just took off, and we buckled up. We successfully got on the BQE going
the right direction, so things were semi-okay save for the speed at which we
were traveling. It was dark,
raining heavily, and the traffic was predictably severe. Our driver was taking up two lanes
engendering honks, and presumably unmentionable mutterings, from the proximate
gasoline trucks, semis, and cement mixers.
Then our driver started chanting
and gesticulating wildly whilst driving.
At first I thought he was speaking to Judy and me, but then I surmised
he was listening to something on an earbud. I'll never know the true source of his agitation, but I
leaned forward to remind him that the Metropolitan exit was nearing. He was still in an interior lane, then
swerved to the right through two lanes of traffic to exit on Meeker Street
shouting something like, "Metropolitan! No good!" This was not pleasing, but we were
still alive and blessedly now forced to go more slowly. With the ad of Google maps, I guided
the cabbie to Ben's address ending the turbulent trip. Ben was quickly at curbside with an
umbrella. What a good lad. My terror of NYC cabs may be a function
of advanced age, but I don't think I'm alone.
****
Real estate in Brooklyn has been
on a tear lately with the highest values placed on locations closest to subway
stations, particularly those with the fewest stops to nearby Manhattan. One might classify Ben's Williamsburg
neighborhood as a "middle class" enclave based on outward
appearances, but certainly not on price.
Ben lives one half a block away from a subway station that is two stops
from Manhattan, concordantly it is a highly desirable location. Most of the buildings are three stories
with each story serving as a condo or apartment. Usually the buildings stand shoulder to shoulder with shared
walls, but occasionally, there is a walkway between structures leading to tiny
backyards.
On street parking is reasonably
available, but it is still quite a hassle to own a car. Many of the buildings are newly
renovated and quite handsome, some are rundown, but all are expensive. Ben
showed us a small two-story building that is uninhabitable with an asking price
of $800k. Decent residential space
in his neighborhood goes for $800-$1,000+ per square foot and rents run in the
range of $3-4,500 per month, but walking around you don't get the feeling
you're surrounded by prosperous people.
Ben explained, "Looks are deceiving."
The sidewalks and streets are not
particularly tidy. What passes for
a front yard, features an iron fence and gate surrounding a 6'-8' enclosure
between the sidewalk and the house.
This space is typically filled with garbage cans and bikes chained to
the fence.
Ben lives on the third floor of a
150+ year-old house that was built as a three story flat. The stairway leading to his top floor
unit is steep and narrow (30") giving one a sense of wonderment how the
furnishings arrived. The
handsome banister and wide board flooring in the common areas are similar to
the apartment in the French Quarter that serves as our Mardi Gras WHQ.
In contrast, the interiors of the
buildings are remarkably nice, if Ben's building is any indicator. His sunny place features a modern
kitchen and bathrooms, attractive flooring, brick walls, and skylights. Ben's
street is lined with large London Planes, close cousin to the Sycamore. They
provide a welcome sense of hominess to visiting Midwesterners. Ben has taken up his Mom's passion for
gardening and he keeps an abundance of well-tended plants including a 5' Ficus
tree growing in his dining room.
He also has a tiny backyard that is home to a variety of interesting
flora.
****
I was waiting on the stoop
outside of Ben's home, and I finished leaving a phone message for a client
while watching two young men get out of a nearby, parked car, a silver
Hyundai. They were both
heavily muscled, handsome, with military style haircuts. The one nearest to me pulled something
heavy out of the backseat and tossed it to his comrade. They both proceeded to put on
bulletproof vests that covered their torsos well below the belt line. They slipped on unremarkable shirts, boldly
surveyed their surroundings, and walked into the building directly across the
street. I'm thinking "Pulp
Fiction?"
When Ben and Judy came down, and
I described the scene that had just unfolded. I asked Ben, "What do you think that was all
about." His uninterested
reply, "I have no idea."
On Wednesday we dined at
Roberta's, a five-stop subway ride into the bowels of Brooklyn. It is noteworthy for their tasty pizza
and a prominent sign one might expect in a less urbane setting, "Farts are
just the ghosts of dinners past." Ben shared that on an earlier visit to
Roberta's, the lead singer of the Grizzly Bears was dining at a nearby
table. Seminal events such as this
make life worth living.
The subways on which we rode were
all shiny and clean, unmarred by the ugly graffiti that used to be commonplace
in NYC subways. Kudos to the
Giuliani and Bloomberg eras.
Did you know that a license for a
single cab in NYC currently goes for $1.2 million?
In the 1880's the new minor
league baseball team was named the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers, a pejorative term
hipper Manhattanites used in describing the conveyance avoidance habits of
their cross-river neighbors. This
was later shortened to the moniker now more familiar to fans in LA.
****
I sat next to a lady about my age
while waiting for our flight out of LaGuardia. She asked if there was a banjo in my case. I replied affirmatively, and the
conversation went thusly:
"Is it a four-string or
six-string banjo?"
"Five."
"My Dad used to play
banjo. He was born in 1903, and he
was really good. I still have his
old banjo. Do you think it would
be worth much?"
"Depends. If it's a Gibson, it could be quite
valuable."
"I don't know about that,
but it did have two light bulbs inside it."
****
On Thanksgiving Day I checked my
Amazon account and was pleased to note the sale of 2 copies of NNAOPP sometime
during the last 24 hours. Thanks
to whomever that might be. Sales
continue to trickle in, and I'm closing in on 1,300, but still a long way from
my goal of 1,750.
May the special blessings of the
holiday season be with you and your loved ones. Merry Christmas.
Chuck
