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Curb Your Traditions

Sinterklaas Eve. Dutch tradition. December 5th. Putting carrots out for Sint Niklaas so he will fill the wooden shoes with candy for the children. No chimneys involved. Nor toys. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could leave it at that? Done! Kids can get toys & games all year long now anyway. On Amazon. Not only is bricks & mortar retail on its last gasp. So soon is consumer Christmas! Back to families, carols & food. Yay.

Larry David & Lin Manuel Miranda’s Fatwa! the Musical. Please. Broadway!

btw Deutsche Bank isn’t Dutch.

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The Upside Down

9 hours of Stranger Things. An allegorical sci-fi thriller with an exorcism thrown in. Kids are good actors. Weekend diversion. Another season assured. Follow the Three Musketeers wrapper to Dustin’s buddy d’Artagnan crashing an upside down Snow Ball dance. Now-memories.

Downside up. As discussed, the #MeToo movement may have unintended consequences. Sheryl Sandberg agrees. Men may eschew women in the workplace. Dating done?

Upside. Claire Underwood lives! House of Cards continues. Frank killed off?!
And. Christiane Amanpour. Replacing Charlie Rose on PBS.

Holiday photo by G. Levine:   Shelburne Centre, Western Massachusetts. 

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Twelve Days of Central Park Christmas

Twelve twirling dog-poop bags.
Eleven grinding garbage trucks.
Ten horns a honking.

 

Nine tourists searching for Strawberry Fields.
Eight nannies yacking on cell phones.
Seven kamikaze skateboarders.
Six clueless Citi-Bikers.
Five gritty horse-drawn carriage drivers.
Four scamming pedi-cabs.
Three rats a running.
Two turtles sunning.
And a pigeon under a ginko biloba tree.

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Throwback Thursday

The Gates. 2005.

Daily gaits. 2017.

No snow in sight. So far.

 

 

 

Tiger Woods is back on the links. Under par.

Dennis Rodman of Celebrity Apprentice fame. Mutual friend of our Portly President and North Korea’s Dumpy Despot. Could he broker a summit to thwart nuclear war? Just to be safe. Revert to 1950’s duck and cover under your desks. Or huddle in the nearest bomb shelter.

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Parade Views 2017

Finally! The parade.

 

From our bedroom perch at 7am we heard buses. A marching band from Houston Texas alighted with brass & drums. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then at 9am the parade begins.
Lucky to have a warm vantage.

first balloon


Jimmy Fallon gives this year’s parade a “thumbs up”.  

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Cosmic Comedy

The Leonid cosmic show is peaking this weekend. Likely obscured by clouds and rain in NYC. But. Just down the road Meteor Shower is in previews on Broadway. Got to see it last night. 

Steve Martin’s homage to the narcissistic relationship-sharing nineties. Set in Ojai California 1993 at a modest modern hilltop home. Amy Schumer & Jeremy Shamos invite a new couple Keegan-Michael Key & Laura Benanti over for cocktails to watch the meteor event from their terrace. Hilarity and marital combustion ensues.

It’s not deep nor serious dramaturgy. But anything that can make you laugh for the better part of ninety minutes to forget the “male-strom” here on Earth is a wonderment.

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Reining Men

Okay. Al Franken. Several congressmen. Journalists. Directors. No industry nor political persuasion seems immune from viral misbehaving men. How to rein them in? Speaking out is a good start. Finding strength in numbers has opened the floodgates. It could also unleash a pandora’s box of blaming men for every ill. I’m still liking most men. They can be and have been champions personally and professionally. More of them than those jerks encountered along the way. But. It’s necessary to put a fence around criminal behavior. For sure.

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Retro Grade

Rear view mirror. Back to the future. What if Bill Clinton’s accusers in Arkansas were believed as Roy Moore’s are in Alabama? The Atlantic  ponders that thought. Dan Rather to Don Imus at the time regarding Juanita Broderick’s claim of rape which she contemporaneously reported to people, “That was a long time ago. People want to move forward.” Many such dismissals of Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones. And then there was that very young intern Monica Lewinsky.

The Washington Post did an investigative report on these cases, but was ignored by the Democrats and the media at large. In today’s New York Times, Michelle Goldberg’s column “I Believe Juanita.”  So. Is it a culture thing? Should all women be believed? Have times changed?

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Chinese Evolution

Don & Melania will dine within Beijing’s Forbidden City which hasn’t changed much in 500 years. It still harkens back to Emperors and Eunuchs. Okay. Too easy.

However. The surrounding city is unrecognizable from even a few decades ago. Skyscrapers, highways, Beijing today looks more like L.A. Back in 1982 post-Mao there were no cars, a few buses and vans. Mostly bicycles. Guest houses rather than hotels. Western tourists a novelty. And a Polaroid camera was magic. Selfies never seen. Literally.

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City Life

Another evening on Central Park West. Commuters walking by. Bicycles too. No matter that above the trees fireworks booming and flashing. We went to the corner to watch. People looked at us rather than the show in the sky. Yes. That’s everyday life in the City.

Oh and. There was that marathon. Runners came out of the Park donning their hard-earned blue ponchos with a sense of pride and accomplishment. But. Not many fans were around to cheer. Rainy day damper. Congrats nonetheless. They were finishing well into the night.