My favorite bridge in Chicago

The Amtrak bridge at Ping Tom Park

My favorite bridge in New York

Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge

Hi from the Brooklyn Bridge

Shout-out to People-Watching in NYC

One of the best parts of the a holiday trip to NYC was the excellent and entertaining people-watching, and the novelty of a new city that allows for the time to notice. What follows is a shout-out to all the characters my brother and I saw...

• Blow-up doll salsa dancer
• 15-year-old jewfro
• Pin-striped suit tourette's theater-goer
• Baldy in the Starbucks who asked if I was going camping
• "First woman actress" and Manhattan matron
• Dawn, who is "really is loved" by the guy on the message
• Farmer-blow guy on the Brooklyn Bridge
• John Nelson of the Navy Reserves

Blow-up Doll Salsa Dancer

I was passing through Grand Central Station in New York City this week, on my way to turkey paradise. During my few days in New York, I saw a few musicians or dancers in the subway but nothing that made me stop en route.

However, people-watching reached a new high when I saw a well-groomed latino man wearing a black suit. He had a radio that was playing some salsa music, and was dancing a salsa-waltz with a blow-up doll. The doll had long red hair, and a short magenta dress. Quite a crowd was gathered around to see this performance.

Did his salsa partner called in sick?
"Hey sweetie, I can't dance the New York gig today, you're going to have to find a replacement..."

Or was he showing off his "female companion" after hiding in shame for too long?

I delight in the thought of this dance as a sincere gesture, because either of the above options would reflect a ballsy zest for life. But I suppose it's possible that there was irony in this performance.

If this is the new avant-garde, show me more!

Anger Funk Delay

Do you ever listen to Earth, Wind, and Fire?

I swear, it is impossible to listen to that music and maintain an angry or depressed mood.

Yesterday, I almost got mowed down by a bike messenger at the Thompson Center (after a steady series of other day-breaking mishaps.) Lucky for him, I was lost in an EWF reverie. The expletives I was about to shout were on funk delay and he was too far away before I could let him have it. Still listening to "Fantasy" 5 minutes later, EWF smoothed over my angry face and all was okay again.

They make simple lyrics like, "When you feel down and out/Sing a song, and it'll make your day" so... well, believable.

The Maltese Falcon

"The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter."
- Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon

Gypsy Rose Lee

When I was in seventh grade, my grandmother took me to see the musical, "Gypsy" at our local theater.

"Gypsy" is a thrilling musical (based on true-story) about the well-known and sassy stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, and how her overbearing stage mother, Mama Rose, forced her and her sister to come of age on the stage. Gypsy is satisfyingly "turned out" after cowering in her sister's shadow for her entire life; feisty Mama Rose is a woman with a dream that is larger than life (song: Coming Up Roses); the music is lusty and fresh.

One of the choice songs in the show is called "You Gotta Have a Gimmick." In this song, Mama Rose has just pushed young, naive Gypsy into her first burlesque strip show, and the lowbrow strippers are giving her some tips. They each have a tag line to go with each of their respective gimmicks, which they express like this:

"If you wanna grind it, wait 'til you've refined it."
"If you wanna make it, twinkle while you shake it."
"If you wanna bump it, bump it with a trumpet."

Charming, no?

I, of course, shared these lyrics with my friends, and we recycled them heavily into our 7th and 8th grade class performances, and I think even a high school lip-synch. Yikes.

But Gypsy Rose Lee was more than just a stripper with a gimmick, she brought class and culture and art to burlesque. When she became famous for her classy acts, she branched out into movies and books, including a book called "The G-String Murders." I picked up this book at the library, recently. Here's a line when Gypsy discovers the murder victim:

"As long as I live, I'll remember seeing that bloated, bluish face, the twisted, naked body, and the glitter of a G string hanging like an earring from the swollen neck."

A witty performer, a artistic seductress, an entrepreneur? Yes.
A role model for a 7th grader? Sure.
A writer, she ain't.

Cranes landing near Chicago during a migratory trip.

Hamburgers As Peace Offering

I got a note from my downstairs neighbors yesterday, accompanied by a chocolate croissant from Au Bon Pain. The subject of the note is their dumb and naughty puppy (Lulu), who barks himself hoarse every time I go up and down the stairs to my apartment. In the past two days, I had run-ins with Lulu in the yard and on my stairs. A "run-in" consists of me being bum-rushed by Lulu, barked at, and sniffed, but not bitten or humped. Then said neighbors grab a hapless Lulu by the collar and drag her inside with a mumbled, "Sorry."

Lucky for me, my neighbors began to realize that their puppy is, um, a little anti-social. In the aforementioned note, my neighbors proposed that a "formal introduction" to Lulu would surely calm her nerves, and turn her feisty territorial behavior into a charm befitted to a southern belle.
This "proven" ritual of animal taming consists of the soon to be former stranger (me) tossing a bunch of hamburgers to Lulu. After gobbling up the hamburgers, and presumably some sniffing, we are friends and no longer strangers. Clever?

This ritual is set to take place on Sunday, November 13.

Jazzamatazz

"The Valve" was the name of my hip hop radio show in college.
It comes from a quote by Guru of Gangstarr.

He says something like, "hip hop is a valve for youth culture."

I'd posit that Blogging is also a valve of sorts for youth culture.