Little Shop Of Horrors I – Everything Is Free

Everything Is Free – Gillian Welsh

I can’t believe I am getting all this excitement on a Tuesday morning, and for only two bucks. Sure, the sign at the entrance of New York's Museum of Natural History states you can buy an adult ticket for the grown-up rate of sixteen dollars; but my friend Victor from Amsterdam and his girl Tara (they’re in New York after spending Thanksgiving together with her family in New Jersey) have inside information. They have taken me here to see the Cape York meteorite. It is 4.5 billion years old; so heavy that its supports go through the floor, straight down to the solid rock beneath the building; and best of all, you’re allowed to touch it. Or, as Victor happily suggests, lick it. So off we go, to the museum, to go lick a meteorite.

Tara used to live in the city for years, and, with her being a Jersey girl and all, she knows things that your average NYC newbie doesn’t.
For instance, that the entrance fee for the Museum of Natural History is not mandatory. It is a suggested fee, as the small print on the sign informs the more perceptive visitor. If you wish to make a smaller donation, all you have to do is make your wish known at the cash register. So we decide to get in for less. Or rather, Victor and Tara decide, and I scurry after them with glowing cheeks and that immediate mixture of envy, embarrassment and girl-crush I tend to get whenever there’s a take charge woman around who isn’t afraid to ask for things that are perfectly legal – albeit unorthodox, and, in the long run, quite possibly devastating for (in this case) the museum’s very existence. We can’t just walk in and not pay, I shriek. What if everybody decides not to pay the full amount? What if nobody would pay for anything anymore ever again? What if the museum goes broke and we’re totally to blame? What if the cashier spits in our faces for disrespecting a trillion years of natural history? What if the line behind us turns into a stampeding vigilante, looking for literal payback? Show me a random cluster of people and I'll show you an angry mob waiting to happen.

I struggle to sugarcoat my hesitation with morality, so I don’t have to consider the fact that, for all my exterior boldness, I am a coward at heart. Especially when it comes to buying things. I am one of those people who will pay full price for anything, no questions asked. I never bargain for discounts, even when stuff is clearly damaged or broken. I don’t have any particular ideology to back up my just-pay-and-get-it-over-with mentality, nor any deeply rooted childhood trauma type of explanation. I am generally not afraid to earn the scorn or contempt of strangers. I’m not easily embarrassed; I seldom back away from any opportunity to make a fool of myself in public. I just can’t get myself to go up to a vendor and say, ‘Hey, what do you say I take this junk off your hands for half?’ Just thinking about it makes my ears burn. I’d rather shoot myself in the kneecap; I can’t believe Tara and Victor would have the bravado to just go ahead and barter, without so much as blinking.
It’s simple, Tara figures. She’s an underpaid artist who likes to sniff some culture every once in a while. If she had the money, she’d pay. But she doesn’t, so what’s a poor girl to do? Just because people can’t afford the financial hemorrhage it takes to witness the Cape York meteorite, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to see it. Or does it?
I got nothing. My friends shrug the shrug of the brave and free, pick up their pace, and trot, heads up high and backs straight, to the nearest cash register – with me whimpering in their wakes. Tara tells the lady behind the counter we would like to pay less than the suggested fee. The lady merely asks us how much we are willing to donate; when Tara puts six bucks for the three of us on the counter top, she takes them and asks if we would like a floor plan. We take one and off we go – full speed ahead to the meteorite!

For about two minutes, I am light-headed with angst. I feel like I have committed some kind of cultural crime, an educational burglary. I am swindling my way back to the origin of man! But after a diorama or two the sensation wears off, and makes way for giddy, glorious curiosity to see the miracles of life this museum has on offer. I promise myself that, next time, I’ll pay double. For now, I plan to absorb it all. So here I am: watching Victor as he's about to lick the Cape York meteorite at two bucks a pop. Good times!

Little Shop Of Horrors II – Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict

Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict – Pink Floyd

The ancient lady holds the antlers up in one furrowed hand, and shakes them over her head like a trophy for the gnarly. 'See, this isn’t a tree – although it sure looks like a tree, don’t you agree? It looks like bark covered in moss. But it’s really bone, growing straight out of the moose’s skull. And sometimes when the moose fights with another moose, the antlers on his head break off. Just like that!' She makes a remarkably nimble cleaving gesture with both hands. Rip! Fretful field trip faces stare up at her from hip-height, hanging onto her every word, breathless. Twenty-something pairs of eyes gleam with excitement – including mine. Shredded antlers! Hostile moose whose furry mouths froth in agony, their skulls torn up and glistening - nature is not a happy place.

Behind the lady two life-size adult moose specimens loom, frozen in mid-battle inside a colorful diorama. Their antlers look unscathed, but you can tell it’s pure luck that their strange and instantaneous death happened when the clash was still at an early stage, so their antlers and heads were still in one piece when they were handed over to the taxidermist.
The moose's new half-dome home at the Museum of Natural History is like a snow globe for giants; I half expect a pair of monstrous hands to pick it up and shake it, for the bored amusement of watching the moose battle it out in a blizzard. A minute or two ago, I stumbled into this group of kids, as the lady was telling them that a grown moose can weigh up to 1,580 pounds – about twenty times the weight of an average eleven year old. Now I am trying to act casual and inconspicuous. Look at me, intently studying the pastel backdrop that makes for the combating moose’s perpetual arena, hands behind my back for fear of breaking anything invaluable. Inside, I am in turmoil. Is there any way for death and destruction not to ensue in this scenario?

'Ooh, now, don’t you worry', the title holder for Best Antler Storytelling In The World croons, to everyone’s relief. 'For the moose, losing an antler is just like losing a baby tooth. A new piece will grow back over time.' She holds the piece of defeated animal up one more time and slowly turns it left to right for everyone to see. 'Now', she concludes, 'Who wants to touch it?' Forty-something tiny hands swarm out from behind tiny backs, and up, reaching as high as they can, elbows fluttering, cheeks glowing. The smaller kids nearly get trampled in all this antler mayhem, but they don’t budge and they don’t care about their trodden toes. This is not the time to be delicate. Touching a real live bone from a real dead animal! Who doesn’t want a chance to do that?

New York's Museum of Natural History is pretty much the most magical place on earth, especially on a Tuesday morning. Kids swarm across the Hall of North American Mammals where Grizzly bears look ready to jump out of their private, seemingly endless dioramas to wreck dusty havoc. Families trip over each other to look four-million-year-old Lucy in the eye while storybook grandmothers and grandfathers disguised as museum guides tell the flocks about the history of all things, extinct or living. The museum is one of those rare, non-Disneyfied ones where the air is still a bit musty, and it hints of formaldehyde; the quarters and hallways hold endless secrets to discover in low lights and high ceilings. Mounted ferrets, mangy with age, their fierce poses dim from years of being overlooked; dinosaurs towering across mammoth halls, full-sized fossils strewn about; passages of native Indian totems rising like carved hydraulic platforms.

How poor and disappointing is a visit to the museum shop in conclusion of this incredible celebration of never-ending mortality that grabbed you by the throat, scratching, teeth saliving, from all floors. Ears tingling with excitement, nose filled with the smell of a billion years of evolution, you suddenly find yourself in the overly lit, exceedingly dust-free and horridly eco looking Museum Shop. Biodegradable Great White sharks the size of your hand don’t even remotely resemble the mega jaws you saw dangling off a ceiling earlier. You can build-your-own-origami-Cro-Magnon. A My First Excavating Set contains an undersized toothbrush and a tiny recyclable shovel, neatly fitted in with a miniature smiling dinosaur compressed in sand. The chewy models assure parents at first glance that the only excitement they will ever risk to evoke is the feeling of hurt wholesome pride as their kids toss them. Lame! The stuffed moose and bears are unexpectedly cuddly here, and fluffy, stripped of all fierceness and fang.
It's just not right. The entire museum is designed to show you that evolution is an incredible force, thrusting and thumping ruthlessly throughout the ages; that all nature – big or small – is honed to survive, eat, fuck, kill, die, and then do it all again. The museum shop tells you bears are cute. They like honey.

How did a museum with the world's largest collection of vertebrate fossils (nearly one million specimens) end up with such a sterile shop filled with fake, odorless crap? Sure, they have actual astronaut food (you can buy a freeze dried ice cream sandwich in a sealed bag), but that is fake, odorless crap to begin with. Has the evolution of political correctness got the better of the world’s natural history, too?

Little Shop Of Horrors III – Little Shop Of Horrors

Little Shop Of Horrors – Theme Song Little Shop Of Horrors

All is not lost. Two blocks away from the Museum of Natural History you can find the shop that should have been the museum’s, and it would have been, if only the museum had been run by Tim Burton or David Cronenberg. Maxilla and Mandible, Ltd. was founded in 1983 by a former Museum of Natural History night watchman – or so the story goes. I picture him, a visionary, slowly but surely tunneling his way out of the museum (spoon-style) in the dark of night, over a period of years, burrowing right to the basement of the store. His pockets would be filled, at first, with trinkets found in the museum’s dust bowled depot, no longer on display, slowly eaten away by the toothless mouth of oblivion. Later on, I imagine, he would start to get more reckless and free small stuffed mammals from their sectioned up niches in some of the dimmer halls; he would carefully tuck them under his wide coat and walk to the nearest exit unnoticed. The specimens would not be missed until the day some watchful boy or girl would point at a dust-free outline of little paws on the floor behind the glass. The kid would tug at a grownup sleeve and ask, 'Mom, where does the armadillo go when it has to pee?'

Well, it went to Maxilla and Mandible, where it curled up and is now hanging from the ceiling behind the counter. Next to it, a glassy-eyed ferret can’t seem to decide whether it wants to jump the armadillo or make a run for it. The shop shows a wildly random reverence to anything to do with nature’s remnants. Stacked on racks from floor to high ceiling are baskets filled with dog’s teeth, emu toenails, and minerals; collections of beetles and butterflies hang off the wall; plastic dinosaurs lie next to fossilized shark teeth, a cast of a baboon’s head, snake vertebrae, a pile of chicken feet that contract and relax as you pull and release the tendons still sticking out; posters display the evolution of nature and the anatomy of man; an entire freeze dried mouse in a glass cube ogles the black capuchin monkey with the white face that is wondering how the hell it got here; a camel skull (in two separate parts) sits next to the shrunken human head – unfortunately, says the guy behind the counter, the head isn’t real. It’s a prop from an eighties horror movie. Rumor has it, he says, they used to have a real head on display, back in the day when the shop had just opened – until someone bought it. At Maxilla and Mandible, everything around you is the real deal, unless the price tag specifically says it isn’t.

New customers ring the doorbell, a man with a little girl. As they walk in, the man points out the assortment of 3 million year old shrimp fossils, and a bear’s head. The girl carefully pats the bear on the head, then lets her fingers glide oh so cautiously along each of its fangs, before she crouches and starts rummaging through a basket on the floor, filled with miscellaneous dinosaur bones.
A thick-set guy has come in with them. He waltzes straight up to the counter where he stops, leans over and stares at the shopkeeper for a full minute. Then he booms, 'YOU HAVE… YOU… YOU… YOU HAVE A…' He sways lightly on his feet as if the act of thrusting the words out is throwing him off balance. The shopkeeper is polishing the glass cube in which the mouse stands on its hind legs, paws in front of its chest like a tiny boxer. 'HAVE A VERY NICE DAY!' the guy spits out. He turns on his heels and pushes out to the street again. The shopkeeper shrugs as he watches the door fall shut behind the guy.
'Look, Yayla, it’s Marcel from Friends', the man in the shop says. 'You see the little monkey up there?' But the girl is fully engulfed in the vials that hold lightning captured by sand. 'When the lightning strikes the sand, it gets so hot that the sand that’s hit by the lightning bolt melts and then solidifies around it. So what you get is a little hollow tube in the shape of the lightning', the shopkeeper explains. He turns back to me. 'Ever since I was a little boy and my dad took me here, I dreamed I would one day work in this place', he says as he holds the freeze dried mouse up to the light, a trophy for life and death eternal.

I end up buying seeds to grow my own carnivorous plant (it will get rid of any fly problem I might have in my apartment, promises the bag. I am thinking, if my scientist sweetheart can spur this thing on a bit, it might get rid of any rodent problem the city might have, too) and a little silver bracelet with stringed together ceramic dentures from the nineteen forties the owner of the shop managed to pull from a dentist’s practice (although it makes for animated dialogue with the shopkeeper, it turns out to be somewhat of a conversation stopper outside the shop. 'Aww, what a cute little bracel… Ewwww! Are those real teeth?')

Maxilla and Mandible is a Natural History Museum shop the way a Natural History Museum shop should be. Like nature (and history), it is not for the faint-hearted. It is for those who realize that everything in existence has a beginning and an end – and it could have an afterlife in your very own window-sill.

The Piano Has Been Drinking

The Piano Has Been Drinking – Tom Waits

'So whaddya think about the war?' the guy sitting on my right suddenly comes out of left field. It’s ten fifteen on a Tuesday night, in a wine bar around the corner from where we live. The place is about as empty as the dark side of the moon. That’s unusual, even for a school night. It might have something to do with the New York Yankees making it to the World Series for the first time in nine years, and this being one of the rare bars in our neighborhood without any flat or other screens. (‘World Series’ being the rather megalomaniac definition for what is in fact an all-American event in baseball.)
The man sitting next to me is drunk, very drunk. He is the type of guy who, when abroad, will stubbornly stick to English; should the local bartender/hotel manager/masseuse not understand what he wants, he will just repeat himself in a louder voice, confident that the key to conquering any language barrier is merely a matter of volume. We have been talking politics – or rather, the guy has been giving me his two cents on the current state of affairs that is threatening the American Way. He has been saying things like, 'Goddam Democrats are gonna kill this country!', and, 'I’m not paying no goddam health insurance for no goddam slackers!' He is the type of guy who would mistrust a sunset. 'Too goddam red, if you ask me.' For the past fifteen minutes, however, he has been gazing infinitely into space; I figured he had forgotten we were talking. But no.

'WHAT! DO! YOU! THINK! ABOUT! THE! WAR!' the guy says again, thundering this time. He spills his beer as he hoists himself up from the bar stool to turn and look at me, making an effort to redistribute his weight and keep his balance. What war? I think. Ask any Dutch person to talk about ‘the war’, and they’ll either dish out a heroic resistance saga involving their grandfather in World War Two (which, as far as the Dutch are concerned, can be neatly summed up as five days of bicycle-throwing before being run over by German efficiency) or mutter a vague unpleasantry about the Dutch contribution to the war in former Yugoslavia (which, as far as the Dutch are concerned, can be neatly summed up as a pretty dark day for military bureaucracy).
Our mandatory military service was discarded in 1997; every soldier deployed in international crises after Yugoslavia has been a professional combatant who voluntarily joined the army. Unless Prince Woof from Belgium decides it is time to reclaim The Netherlands, no 19-year old Dutch boy will ever be drafted again.

My nation’s war history is a puny one, compared to that of the US. No less than 47 wars have been declared by the US since the British settlers fought out the American Revolutionary War or War of Independence among themselves. Only 2 of those 47 wars involved a foreign nation trespassing on what was considered US soil: the War of 1812 against the British Empire, and the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. Save for a first excursion into Korea in 1871, the other 25 wars of the 18th century were all civil: from the actual Civil War to the whole lot of wars against Native Americans. However, not a single one of the 19 wars the US has been part of since the beginning of the 20th century has been settled on American soil. That’s 110 years of fighting in other people’s countries, for other people’s freedom.

'You know, our boys in Ahf-gha-ni-stahn?' the man clarifies. What do I think about that? I tell the man I really don’t know anything about war. 'Dam right you don’t', he says. 'If it weren’t for us, you’d all still be talkin’ goddam German.' Although I am sure it has been a while since anyone actually said this to anyone, out loud, I still want to assure the man that Europe, The Netherlands, and myself for that matter, are very grateful indeed for the Americans saving us from the linguistic claws of Nazi Germany. I married a Canadian for Christ sake! I want to tell him. How’s that for gratitude! But the man has slouched back onto his stool, and is staring pensively into his beer. 'My nephew’s there right now', he says finally. 'Fightin’ for goddam peace.'
With 19 independent wars over the past 100 years, all battled out on foreign territory, the US spits out a war veteran pretty much every five years – that’s not taking into account that most wars go on for years, needing fresh soldiers to fuel every new tour of duty. The list is endless. This guy’s grandfather might have fought in World War Two; his dad could have been in Korea, an uncle or two in Vietnam; he looks like he could have been drafted for the Contra-War in El Salvador in the early ‘80s. His younger brother might have been sent out to play a part in the Gulf War; his son may have fought in Somalia or Yugoslavia, and now his nephew is being alternately bored and terrified to death in the War On Terror. Somehow the 'My grandpa used to hide his pigs from the Germans' I had in mind as a counter seems to fall short, as would a light-hearted 'Well, whaddya know! Us Dutch sent some boys to Afghanistan, too!'

I think about how hard it must be to deal with, to grow up in a country whose war veterans stay 19 forever, what with them being yearly renewed. How do you memorialize war when war is ongoing, and how do you commemorate dead soldiers that keep on dying? Then again, America has its own peculiar way of paying respect to fatalities of war: to honor the victims of 911 they built a war ship forged from steel salvaged from the ashes of the World Trade Center. 'On September 2001, our nation’s enemies brought their fight to New York… The USS New York will now bring the fight to our nation’s enemies well into the future', the website promises happily. I tell the man this. I am not even sure what I mean by all of it, but he definitely takes it the wrong way. 'Goddam!' He shouts, his voice wobbly. 'Goddam! If you don’t like it here, why don’t you just go back to your own goddam country!' He slams his drink on the bar. Tom Waits without the poetry.
What does that have to do with anything? I want to say to him. And, Yeah mister, that’ll really hold up in six-year-old court. But all that I can muster is a rather lame 'Well, that’s not a very nice thing to say.'
The man throws me a look, the startled, helpless look of a drunk who nodded off smoking and is just now waking up to find his hair is on fire. 'I––I’m sorry man, I didn’t mean to be rude', he says, his bloodshot eyes slowly filling with water. It’s time to go home.

White Wedding

White Wedding – Billy Idol

'Ahem… Uhhhh… Well… Yeah… I guess… I mean, yes… I do. I do.' His dandelion mustache trembling, the boy strings the words together much in the manner his prospected spouse used to take her birth control pills: irregular, absentminded and strangely convinced that, if you just make sure to finish the strip at some point, all will be well. His fiancee is clutching the wedding bouquet her mother purchased from one of the smooth operators standing day in, day out, at the base of the steps outside the New York City Marriage Bureau, selling (and, on bad catch days, reselling) posies for fifteen bucks.
The will-be groom's suit itches. Any sudden movement might urge his imminent stepfather in law to seize him by the collar of his borrowed attire lest he make a run for it. So instead of scratching, he studies his immobile feet, cemented in the floor of the Marriage Bureau like a Mafioso about to sleep with the fishes.

The registrar wipes his brow, simultaneously glancing at his watch. He is sweating profusely; little streams of wet salt trickle down his chest and settle, for now, in the basin of his belly button. Somehow the conditioned air in the Marriage Bureau never seems to reach the little white alcove that is impersonating a small town wedding chapel. Just off the spacious main entrance hall, its dimmed lights, white curtains, candelabras and all the near-intimacy in the world can't hide the fact that The New York City Marriage Bureau churns out a fresh Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So roughly every 10 minutes. That's 42 wedding albums a day (210 a week; 10,920 a year) filled with pictures featuring the alcove and the outside steps and the Bureau's brick walls.
The registrar finds some relief in the triple mint gum he has been chewing since he directed his first ceremony of today. People never comment on the drudgery his jaws deliver with the vows uniting them till death do them part, he ponders. Couples getting married at the Marriage Bureau tend to be quite modest when it comes to expectations on the part of his performance. The registrar's main concern is not with them, but with the precious minutes leaking from each ceremony like the brackish drops that ooze from his pores. He looks out the alcove and into the Bureau lobby, at the next couple already waiting to be served; a blissful looking middle aged duo surrounded by boisterous friends, number 17 today. Better wrap things up.

My sweetheart and I are sitting in front of one of the computers in the center of Marriage Bureau entrance hall that are poking each other in the ribs like a huddle of wired bridesmaids bracing themselves for any incoming bouquets. We are applying for a marriage license, and vaguely consider the possibility of getting married right here, at the Bureau; all it takes is a 24 hour wait and an appointment. It's cheap (a total sum of $ 60: $ 35 to apply for a marriage license, another $ 25 for a ceremony, performed by an appointed official), quick, and painless – we remind ourselves that romance is dead, anyway. After we get a number to have our application certified and bonafide by one of the Office of the City Clerks, we take a quick look around.
If marriage is an institution, the New York City Marriage Bureau is its undisputed headquarters. From the first line you stumble into upon entering the neo renaissance hall (to state your affairs); via the line for the computers (to apply for your license); down to waiting your turn for the City Clerks (to complete your application), and the final queue for the actual institutionalization; along the way, everyone’s love story is minced in the meat grinder of bureaucracy. This morning, there is a hive of shotgun, tourist and drunken monkey weddings to be performed, already buzzing around the entrance hall, and peeping into the make-believe wedding chapel; as morning grinds to afternoon, they slowly make way for the low budgeters, third timers, and elopers who'll start bustling in around lunch time.

For a city where the pursuit of individual happiness reigns supreme, a whopping average of 182 marriages are performed every day, adding up to a solid 66,483 mutual 'I do's in 2007 alone. Promising enough, the state of New York can boast the country's third lowest divorce rates (with 8.1% in 2008, only in New Jersey and North Dakota do couples stick together better). We decide that romance isn't dead, after all. Not only is it very much alive; it is calling out our number. Next! (We decide to get married somewhere – anywhere! - else in the city, where there are bound to be fewer strangers, no lines and only one bride around. Well, anywhere but the Grand Prospect Hall in Brooklyn.)

'By the power invested in me by the State of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife,' the registrar brings the ceremony to a close. He slams his folder shut. The groom's wistful upper lip jumps to attention. He may kiss his bride. Should he use his tongue? Or just give her a quick peck? How does one go about these things? His girl looks at him, blushing. She tilts her head, expecting once more. Where does he put his hands? He should have thought this through! Too late now. He closes his eyes and lunges. The mother of the bride, too, shuts her eyes, in reluctant anticipation: the inevitable clatter of teeth will make for a clanking first toast to their happy ever after.

Dear Doctor

Dear Doctor – The Rolling Stones

Instant nausea. Sweating. God, can I sweat. My mouth is watering. I need to throw up, there's no way around it. Only thing is: I am afraid to even blink, let alone heave. Standing between me and a purifying round of projectile vomiting is the metal instrument that, from the feel of it, is trying to stab my frontal lobe to shreds by way of my right ear. The doctor at the other end of the stick is trying hard – sweat on his brow, too – to scrape a full summer's worth of caked ear wax out of my head. His assistant, a worrisome twenty-something, is holding up an awkward looking, '80s desk lamp to my right lobe, her eyes shut tight against the bright light. Or maybe she's trying to shield her innocence against the clotty mess the doctor is hauling out of my ear with grim resolve – brains and all, if necessary. I press my nails into my palms and sit quiet as a mouse – well, I am squealing like a piglet getting a shave, obviously, but without so much as a whisker twitching.

Out of 30,085 (give or take) practicing physicians in New York City (says NYC.com) I have dug up one right around the corner from our place, on West 97th Street. Or rather, I have found two: one general practitioner and one gastroenterologist sharing a practice. It's open for consultation, all day long, the lady on the phone reassures me. In a long, healthy family tradition I have waited to see a doctor until my loved ones couldn't stand my pseudo-brave litanies ('Really, I'm feeling much better – Don't touch it!! What, are you crazy?!') any longer. Last straw is the moment I whine out loud on how our apartment seems drenched in stale French cheese for three continuing weeks now – and my sweetheart delicately (and from a considerable distance) points out that really, I am the only one actually smelling Camembert where ever I turn to the right and maybe, just maybe, is it possible that the smell is coming from inside my own head? There is no further denying: I am suffering from a bad case of cheese-ear and it's not going to heal on its own. To the doctor's it is.

The doctor's office is fitted with four rows of tepid smelling patients, some moaning softly, some explaining in assiduous Spanish why they really, seriously should see the doctor right now. Either of them. The desk ladies are in perfect control of everything, except of the incessant tears streaming down the face of one of them, a tremendous ruin of a woman. In between the friendly and firmly directing of patients back to their seats and the copying of identity cards, nameless rivers are leaking from her crushed face. Every time the phone rings, she resolutely addresses herself in Spanish, snorts and answers in a tone that is just a bit too bold, 'Doctor X and Y's office, how can I help you!' She listens, answers in Spanish and sometimes in English, hangs up the phone and buries her crumpled face in her plump hands once more.

Then she looks up, sighs, and calls out my name. Do I have insurance? Of course I do, I nod confidently as I flash my Dutch Achmea World Health Insurance Card. The desk lady and I both stare hopefully at the plastic card for a bit, as if, any second, it can transform into an exotic doctor who will magically heal my cheese-ear and whisk her away from her tear stained life, to a place where everything is good and beautiful and well insured. No such luck. The lady sighs again, then smiles and says: 'Do you have anything else on you?' Not yet, I start valiantly, but you see, as soon as I am registered as a legal partner I will be added onto my sweetheart's insurance. So I do not have any actual health insurance in the US, at this moment? Well… I can't just be tucked away into the line of 46.3 million Americans without any kind of health insurance (says the U.S. Census Bureau, statistics 2008), can I? 'You know what, dear', the lady solves any upcoming am-to, am-not insured debate, 'what if I make a copy of your ID and enter that into our system for now, and you can go see the doctor for 110 dollars. Once you are insured, you will be reimbursed for the money.' And so it is done.

So here I am, in a pretty bad state. Without puking, or moving, for I am sure this doctor will not hesitate to yank my sense of humor out through my ear, for all the world to see. His private office forces itself upon the corners of my eyes: a row of peculiarly put up – for every single one is askew at the exact same angle – paintings (crying Gypsy boy, ocean panorama, still life with fruit), dust flecks on the carefully slanted frames. Stacks of papers on the desk, the floor, the window sills, the bookcase, the relentlessly patched up upholstered chair.
On a wash table coated with a determined grease film, a glass jar filled with surgical instruments. No two minutes ago the doctor, using his pen, pulled the metal stick that is now jammed down my ear from that same jar. On a coffee table next to the door are a couple of happy family pictures: the doctor, his arms around two successful looking young men; a little girl on a swing. Not a glove in sight. Or a professional examination lamp, for that matter – hence the assistant. Next to me lies the full scale model ear the doctor used to explain what he had in store for me. 'Ay theenk you hab ay sure-o-money infection, si, and plus a regular eer infection, tambien', he declares after a whiff of my ear. 'Forst, I wheel take out dee eer wax, and after, wee will see. I know dat aroma, ha ha! Dat aroma ees classico!' We both laugh.

That was ten minutes ago. As it is, the doctor is using one leg to brace himself against the examination table; his free hand freeze-fixes my head as he is rummaging around my most inner thoughts. Suddenly, with a horribly smacking plorp sound, he pulls back his arm. He almost trips, grabs his perplexed assistant by the head to steady himself, lets out a breath of relief and says, 'Bueno! Dat ies part one!' Another ten minutes and one woozy ear flush session later, I am back in the lobby, clutching a prescription for antibiotics and one for eardrops – to cure both my regular ear infection and my additional Pseudomonas infection – and a check-up appointment in ten days. I leave behind my inner beauty in a metal dish: a pestilent, pungent nugget in stark yellow and clotted red. Nice.

Rapture

Rapture – Blondie

‘Beware! Never receive the mark of the Beast! The number will be 666! If you receive it on your right hand or forehead, you will go to hell! Christ is coming! The Rapture is nigh!’ The man does not pause to breathe between exclamations. The end is so nigh that there is no time for any respiratory break, not even for dramatic effect. The man is holding a thumbed bible up to the false light illuminating the subway passage below 42nd Street, but his eyes stay transfixed to a point somewhere at the end of the long hallway, as if he expects god to come running around the corner any minute, to catch the last train home.
He knows what his bible says – and he knows what it means. Anyone who is not a true christian will be missing out on a one way ticket to heaven when Rapture comes; they will, instead, be forced to endure unspeakable sufferings under dictatorship of the Beast, who will dominate the earth in a terrifying reign of digital consumerism.
His sidekick, a woman with a mop of rather despondent hair, hands me a brochures as I pass, explaining it all in a step-by-step fashion: when Rapture is coming, how to recognize the signs, and – not irrelevant – what to do when it comes around and you are found wanting in the religious department (‘Suggestion # 1: do not panic; that is absolutely useless now.’[ ...] ‘Suggestion # 4: pray like you have never prayed before in your life.’). I for one am glad I got one. You never know!

The end of the world as we know it does not hold any secrets for the man and woman, and they must spread the word. After all, even habitual sinners deserve a shot at salvation, or at least an honest heads up. Now, what better place to find the lord’s lost causes than directly under Times Square, the decaying core of modern day Sodom and Gomorrah? Lines A, C and E Uptown to your right; lines 1, 2 and 3 Downtown to your left; every fork a gaping mouth to the pits of hell. The underground umbilical cord connecting Times Square and Grand Central turns and twists and throbs with prodigal souls. A highly maintained lady rapidly click-clacks by. ‘God’s wrath shall be upon all who take the mark of the Beast! The signs of the return of Jesus Christ our lord the savior are unmistakable!’ The lady sucks on her cheeks and curls her lips – a typical frown for the botoxed – in displeasure with such an exhibit of poor taste, and speeds up even more, her heels tapping a licentious dance on the hallway tiles.

Rapture-announcers in the US don’t have to rely on multi-interpretable bible predictions or random guesswork anymore; they have got a website, RaptureReady.com, ‘to standardize those components to eliminate the wide variance that currently exists with prophecy reporting’. Forget about christian Wikipedia and its creationist near-science: key feature of the Rapture site is a Rapture Index: the irrefutable, calculated probability, at any given time, for the prophesized Rapture to occur. The Index is based on a set of categories (Unemployment, False Prophets, Iran and Russia, Floods, and Liberalism, to name a few), each with their own weight to them, that add up to a number. That number is the Index, an accurate indication of prophetic activity, to be interpreted thus, according to the ‘prophetic speedometer’:
‘- Rapture Index of 100 and Below: Slow prophetic activity
- Rapture Index of 100 to 130: Moderate prophetic activity
- Rapture Index of 130 to 160: Heavy prophetic activity
- Rapture Index above 160: Fasten your seat belts.’

The Index at the time of writing, early September 2009: 163. Don’t say they didn’t warn you.

God Only knows

God Only Knows – The Beach Boys

On the corner of the street, next to the subway entrance of 96th Street and Broadway, a man holding a bible is shouting at his fellow men, a mound of brochures neatly stacked on the sidewalk. I pass him almost every day when I take the train. The man dictates and quotes unwearyingly – even on an ominously overcast August afternoon like this one. ‘For six days, work is to be done! But the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest! Holy to the LORD! Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death!’ The man’s face flinches involuntarily. It is Sunday. Thank god he does not get any reimbursement for the warnings he is heeding to passers-by.
No need to repeat that god is almighty or that Jesus loves you; people know all that by now. What they don’t know, is that god can be mighty pissed off. And that it’s best to be on his good side when he gets angry. The lord is not squeamish when it comes to acting out his wrath, the man on the corner knows. ‘Hear Lucas 19:26-28! I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given! But as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away! But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them – bring them here and kill them in front of me!’

God is great in the US. Although numbers are dwindling slowly, 87% of the population still actively professes their belief in a higher power – or several. In New York City, catholics and protestants make for a respective 40 and 30% of that number (occupying over 200 churches); 8.5% is jewish (with a solid 50 synagogues), 3.5% is muslim (saying praise in a surprising 100+ mosques); 1% states to be buddhist (and does so in no less than 20 buddhist temples), and 13% (a bit poorly, in their own homes) either believes that god does not exist, or does not believe that god exists – not as a man with a beard, anyway. ‘That there’s something out there’ does not constitute as an official religion – at least, not that I know of. Among the 4% that is left non-specified are, at any case, enough people to fill 15 jehovah’s witness churches and a couple of hindu temples. I wonder where the man on the corner has found his niche.

It starts to rain, a genuine summer downpour. Within seconds, the man’s shoes are as saturated as his nylon suit. He does not mind. After all, Noah wasn’t intimidated by a little drizzle, now, was he? Within minutes, water is gushing along the sidewalks and the hopelessly under-equipped city sewers; over the steps and down the subway it goes. By the end of the day, water will be seeping through the cement construction and onto the heads of the men and women on the platforms below. For now, the man’s brochures soak together; next thing, they are swooped up by the rivulet and carried away, doomsday newsprint boats, to the sewers of West End Avenue. The man watches them go with a hint of nostalgia. He's not afraid of any upcoming floods. Bring it on, judgement day! There will be a seat saved for him on the boat.

Don't Tell Me

Don’t Tell Me – Madonna

I am spending the second weekend in August on island time. We’ve rented a beach cottage on Sanibel, a sheller’s dream dropped down the ankles of Florida like rat poo in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant - small and inevitable. We're here to witness the wedding of our two friends. The bride to be and I have escaped the wet woolen blanket heat to check her email for last minute wedding ceremonial hiccups. As she starts up the lobby computer, I leaf through a Harlequin romance novel I found in the tiny bookcase next to the resort’s brochures. The Boss’s Inexperienced Secretary. As I vaguely wonder how mogul and typist are ever going to get each other in the end (what with the age difference, not to mention the polarities in temperament), a voice booms from behind. ‘Are you the line for the computer?’

My ‘Nope, we’re all together’ collides with my friend’s ‘Almost done, I am trying to print out these wedding ceremonies I’m supposed to choose from’. The man’s face lights up like fireworks down a mailbox. ‘Ahhh, the young lady is getting married? Congratulations! Well, well, aren’t you just cute as a button! And you’re the proud mother?’ he says as he turns to me, all smiles. The grand iceberg of my emotional range suffers instant meltdown, translating into a look on my face that hovers somewhere between an incredulous giggle (you’ve got to be kidding me!), a sub-zero smile (what the hell mister?!), and an anxious swallow (ohmygodIlooklikeamom?!).
Oblivious to my mental defrost, the man cries out, ‘Wouldn’t you know, it’s me and the wife’s fifteenth anniversary tomorrow! And we’re still happy as a clam, ha ha!’ Before I can even recuperate from my initial shock to either ignore or congratulate the man, he continues, ‘Of course it hasn’t been easy for her, what with me having the brain tumor and all. I’m in remission, it’s about the size of a golf ball now. I don’t feel sick or anything, what it does is it messes with my emotions and feelings, you know? I don’t know whether I’m mad or sad – or the people around me for that matter, ha ha! Who’d have thought that a little ball in your head could do that. Doc says it’s located right here, over my left eye!’ He points at a spot just above his right eye, delivers a glorious smile, and stops talking.

Americans have an uncanny talent for springing intimate information on random strangers with an air of spur-of-the-moment carelessness that makes for instant awkward conversation – at least, when that stranger is me. What are you supposed to do with something that private coming from someone you really don’t know? The thing is that this random candidness, on second glance, isn’t that impromptu, or personal, at all. To the average well meaning American, spilling the beans is just another way of making small talk, and subject to the same type of rules. You’ll receive a scripted monologue on someone’s medical history, or a detailed rendition of a life defined by bad decisions, but were you to ask an engaging question, your company will react as if stung by a bee, instantly on the defensive. Why are you prying into their personal affairs? And so your cordial attempt to diffuse the embarrassment backfires hopelessly. All of a sudden, everybody feels awkward. Best case scenario is that your company will frown upon your questions, and add commentary to your all-too-liberal, disaster-prone Old World etiquette. Silly European!

The man is still flashing his expectant smile. It’s obviously my turn to speak. I don’t even know this guy’s name. What can he possibly expect me to say? Don’t ask any questions! I remind myself. I take a deep breath and decide go for firm yet non-committal. ‘Jeez, mister, a brain tumor, that sounds like quite the ordeal.’ This is horrible! I fight the impulse to run out the door and jump into the Gulf of Mexico.
– ‘Well, doesn’t that just sum it up?’ the man replies happily. ‘Of course I had the skin cancer before, on my back. The sun’s pretty murderous out here, you know. That’s why I always keep my shirt on these days. Ha ha! Especially when I’m on the boat. I’m a sailor, you know. Been boating all my life. The wife didn’t care for it at first, but she likes it all the same now. Are you ladies going to rent a boat while you’re here?’ And just like that, we’re out of awkward time and back on island time.

Help!

Help! – The Beatles

The place is dark blue and ill lit. Coming in from the sun dappled street it feels like you stumble into a solar eclipse. Knifed to the wall are bodiless mannequin heads covered in what looks like candle wax. The atmosphere is moody and unstable – vampire’s lair meets the wildest little whorehouse in the West. Behind the entrance a deejay is crouched over a double deck, adding to the general confusion by drowning the place in a beat like a heart in frenzied fibrillation. My man and I are at the Diesel Fifth Avenue store, trying to locate a specific pair of jeans. The Diesel Fifth Avenue store is very current. We convince each other that our temporary night blindness and the consequential bumping into random displays is a small price to pay For Successful Living. As our eyes gradually get used to the semi-dark, we distinguish various piles of jeans mashed together in sideboards in a far corner of the store. I start to fear there is no way we are ever going to find what we came for. We decide to stay close together and wait. Anytime soon now, from all this interior designer’s limbo, our savior should appear.

Shopping for clothes on Manhattan usually means having a personal assistant at your beck and call.
– ‘Hi, I’m Brianna/LeShawn and I’ll be assisting you today. Can I set you up a changing room?’ The second you set foot inside, a girl or boy dressed in the leading smile of the season hurries over to help you out. After all, only they know exactly what the store holds, where everything is to be found and what size you really are.
Not all stores do assistants. Some just have a regular entourage of employees filling racks and cash register. The difference between the two types of store is astounding. Employees in a non-assistant store have no idea what brands the store carries; they couldn’t tell you where you can find that dress in the window if it would save their life. If anything, they will avoid you. Five more hours until my shift ends! their heads loll in dull anticipation.

All this, of course, applies to traditional stores. Diesel Fifth Avenue has little to do with tradition. Tradition is not current. Diesel Fifth Avenue is. However, from the darkened vapor surrounding us, far-away fog-horns (‘I wasn’t joking, try it in a size 12’ and ‘I already set up your changing room’) define the Diesel store as an assistant type of getup. So what is keeping our denim redeemer?

Then, in a sudden outburst of strobe lights, our eyes shoot Polaroids of a highly androgynous silhouette in skinny jeans standing quietly in the far corner. It must be an insider. Up close, the heavy-lidded eyes and pale complexion assure us this boy must spend a lot of time inside the store, but as we sidle up next to him, he looks the other way and appears perfectly unaware of our presence. Is he ignoring us?

– ‘Hi!’ I try. ‘Can you help us?’ The boy blinks. We look at him expectantly. He looks at something infinitely interesting, right over my left shoulder. ‘Hello there!’ I try again. ‘We are looking for these jeans and…’
– ‘Uhhh, yeah, so… I’m… uhhh…. Jimmy…?’ the boy asks rather unexpectedly, his bloodshot eyes slowly swimming into focus. ‘No, we’re not Jimmy. These jeans, we believe the model is…’ I continue, but the boy has already swiveled out of sight. I grab onto my man’s hand. ‘We should just get out of here!’ I whisper. That’s easier said than done. I am not even sure I can feel my way out of this premeditated puddle of boudoir chic. Then the air in front of us seems to condense – and the boy has reappeared, looking even more waif-like than before. This time he’s clutching a pair of jeans. ‘Yeah… so… these should do… Jimmy…’ he mutters blankly as he hands them over. ‘How do you know if it’s the right…’ I start, but my voice trails off. I am talking to thin air. The boy has gone up in smoke. This time he has vanished for good. We happenstance into a dim changing room; the jeans are a perfect fit. Next thing we know, the girl at the cash register is asking us who has been our assistant today. We’re not sure. She seems to understand. Damn, Diesel Fifth Avenue is current.

Pure Shores

Pure Shores – All Saints

The insides of my eyes glow a warm orange. Absolutely nothing on my mind. From a distance, unfamiliar voices buzz and hum and drum and laugh; every once in a while a high pitch toddler’s shriek jumps up above the pleasant drone. The muffled, underground noise of feet shuffling in the sand churns inside the cellar of my head. Overpowering the background of voices is the endless breaking of wave on rock. I absently brush some lazy sand off my belly. The sound of breakers is getting closer, louder. Way louder. A deafening roar. A bellowing howl. Something is about to come crashing down on my head. I squeeze my eyes shut tight, and then I remember: this is not a Dutch beach.
I am spending a day at Rockaway Beach in Queens, on what is rapidly becoming one of the most sweltering days so far this summer. The howling comes from the numerous airplanes leaving JFK Airport – their take off is routed straight over the beach. The planes shave so low over that you can easily recognize the carriers printed on the aluminum: Emirates, KLM, Lufthansa. On their way, undoubtedly, to exotic yet friendly beaches whose bathers need not fear it’s the end of the world, every fifteen minutes or so.

New York beaches aren’t cozy. You will find no rose, no lazy lounge music, no chaises lounges – and therefore no tourists. For lack of entertainment, there are plenty of lifeguards on the beach. Every 100 feet you find a high, orange chair looking out over the breakers. Alas, without the expected Baywatch glamour – riptides off the coast can be so mean and unpredictable that, on Rockaway Beach alone, over 30 swimmers have drowned in the past 10 years. A mile or so from where I lay, a three story high shark washed to shore only a few days earlier. In a couple of weeks, millions and millions of jellyfish will torment the unsuspecting swimmer. The Atlantic coast doesn’t do cozy; it does currents and jaws and tentacles.

I open one eye and draw myself up, resting on my elbows. A British Airways plane elegantly arcs across the horizon. Its screech slowly dwindles back down to the hypnotizing crash of summer day breakers. In the water, three gold bikinis fretfully try to keep their earrings and peroxide hair dry. Five muscled Speedos anticipate the perfect wave. A dozen small gulls are bombing the waves, kamikaze style. The sky is vibrating on the horizon. Surf’s up. The world won't end for another fifteen minutes or so; the wide range of chops and white-rolled back dead eyes are unseen for now, lurking in deeper waters. I am about to get mangled and muddled by the merciless pound of the Atlantic. Rose and lazy lounge music? I don't think so. Body surf, broken skin and a wild beating heart. That’s entertainment.

Castles Made Of Sand

Castles Made Of Sand – Jimi Hendrix

With the exception of Manhattan, all New York boroughs sport ocean beaches. Staten Island, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx: you can go for a swim anywhere you like – within the specific hours and confined boundaries set by the New York Coast Parks Commission, that is, but still. And that’s exactly what New Yorkers do on a hot summer day. However, spending a day of leisure at the beach is not as straightforward as it may sound. Bathers in New York are pretty much left to their own devices. Rockaway Beach in Queens sets a sad example, even on weekends. There is no ice cream truck, no burger joint, not a single chaise lounge to rent. There’s one hot dog guy, squeezed in between the public bathroom and a vendor of cheap sunglasses. A cover band plays Pink Floyd and CCR on a desolate playground, later in the afternoon. But that just about sums it up. No beach hotels, no promenade lined with shops, no restaurants. Not a beach pavilion in sight.

On any Dutch beach, you can’t slipper ten feet without stumbling into a pavilion, right on the beach. Lazy bikinis lounging on easy chairs or bean bags, sipping rose or enjoying a late supper; toes curled in the sand; a dj playing music. Even with Dutch summers being notoriously drizzly, there are still a dazzling 34 beach pavilions, making the best of a mere two miles of sandy beach in Scheveningen alone. The contrast couldn’t be any bigger.
Except maybe in comparison to Orchard Beach, lovingly dubbed the Rivièra of the Bronx, where 90% of its visitors don’t even make it to the crescent shaped beach; the parking lot and meadow leading to the sand, on the other hand, are cram packed with families having extensive barbecues. Elaborately set tables, party tents, music, and laughter in Spanish. Fun and cozy as it looks, it’s hardly a day at the beach.

New York City makes for one of the most enthusiastically developed pieces of land in the world. How come its beaches are still left unscathed? (Alright, to be fair, things are stirring in the world of coastline development – but slowly, very slowly. The vacant lot behind the Rockaway boardwalk promises a beach resort, with a YMCA. And a Pizza hut. ‘In a future phase’, according to carefully placed signs along the empty road. For now, unkempt weeds and wildflowers are skyrocketing on site. No one has been constructing anything here lately.)

The one beach that offers some kind of entertainment is Brooklyn’s Coney Island. To get to the water one must pass through the wonderfully derelict Coney Island amusement park donning the scariest ride ever (signs along the line boast: This wooden ride hasn’t changed since 1928! Sufferers from heart disease enter at own risk!) and past two and a half viciously competitive hot dog sellers (signs along the boardwalk warn: These tables are only for Giro Corner customers. Not for Nathans!). The beach itself looks a little forlorn. More shards than shells. A handful of overweight, overly tan Russians sagging in little home-brought chairs dominate the scene. And again, not a beach pavilion in sight.

You Never Give Me Your Money

You Never Give Me Your Money – The Beatles

A man in a wheelchair just got on the subway. He pushes off the platform with his left leg; the right one is amputated well above the knee, a helpless stump that nonetheless moves with every physical exertion. With visible pains he maneuvers around seats and poles until he screeches to a wobbly halt in the centre of the near-empty car. It’s a steamy hot Friday morning in July; rush hour has just died away on the A-train to Far Rockaway Beach. ‘I’m messed up!’ the man says. ‘Gimme some change.’ The few travelers in the car try their best to ignore him – including me. Still, our averted eyes cannot ignore the ripe smell that is clinging to the man like a wet fur coat. The man winds his chair around a pole a couple times and tries again. ‘Listen yall, I’m just completely fed up with this shit. Come on. Just gimme some cash.’

In the summertime the number of beggars and buskers on the New York train seems to explode. Every line reveals people making the most of their bad situation: they sing a song, do a little dance, sell candy, rap, tell their story, juggle, recite poetry, and in turn they accept small change from travelers. It’s great, really: no need for anyone to be self-conscious or embarrassed, for nobody is bluntly asking for money, and it is only natural that displayed talent does not go unrewarded. Smiling faces everywhere. Everybody wins. Except, of course, this guy, who has no leg and no talent – he doesn’t even have a sob story. Could be he’s genuinely worn out; could be he’s a genuine dick. Maybe he just told his story one time too many.
Maybe he simply does not have any skill whatsoever – not even to ask nicely.
Television gives you one commercial after another for the Financially Challenged. For every car commercial there’s a law firm commercial sporting an official-looking spokesman guaranteeing have-nots a small fortune. The most promising one is from LawyersGroup. ‘Were you injured in a car accident? Does your child suffer from birth injuries? Do you have brain injuries? Did you fall or slip? Get fired? Bit by a dog? Die a wrongful death? There is no reason you should keep suffering financially or mentally any longer. Contact an injury lawyer in your area NOW absolutely FREE and get the money you deserve!’
The man has a minute to explain how everyone is entitled to damages of some kind or other – even if you bit the dog first. The company’s website, LawersGroup.com, explains things in further detail. ‘Even if you are partially responsible for your injury, you still may be entitled to money, depending on the amount of blame that is placed on you.’ If you can believe the narrator on TV (the phrases ‘not an actual lawyer’ and ‘compensated spokesperson’ flash onscreen, next to his tie), there is really no reason anyone should stay poor in the States. The thought that starts tapping the belly of your brain the tenth time around, is, inversely: if you don’t even have the talent to get some kind of legal compensation for your misfortune, you will end up getting exactly what you deserve. Which is absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile, our car is shrouded in an uncomfortable silence. Then, a crisp clear woman’s voice sounds over the intercom. ‘There are vagrants on this train. Please do not give them any money. Help us keep the MTA safe and operating in an orderly fashion.’ The voice falls silent. The man has listened intently, his face screwed up, head cocked towards the speakers. He now lets his chin drop onto his chest. The train snorkels on forever. Every ripple on the tracks has all of us lolling involuntarily back and forth in our seats in unison, wheelchair and stump included.

When the train finally comes to a halt, the man reels onto the platform on his hind wheels. Not to the exit. He turns to face the little window in the car next to mine, to the tiny compartment containing the lady who announces all stops and ensures nobody gets stuck between the doors – she must be the one who broadcast just now that we shouldn’t give money to beggars. He points a finger at her, trembling with rage. ‘Why the hell d’you say that, goddammit?’ he screams. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ The lady leans out the window, towering over him. ‘Sir, just leave, before I call security,’ she says. The man is determined not to be intimidated. ‘How am I supposed to get my money now, bitch? Yo! I’m talking to you, bitch!’ he keeps yelling up at her. A genuine dick. The lady is hardly impressed. She knows the MTA angry passenger flowchart by heart; she has dealt with tougher customers. ‘Those are the rules. I do not make the rules. I am just doing my job. Have a nice day,’ she says dismissively. A born public officer. She closes the window and pushes the button for the doors. I can’t make out what the man yells after her as the subway accelerates, but I’m pretty sure they both deserve better.

American Pie

American Pie – Don McLean

The water boy, a hummingbird in black jeans, darts in and out of sight, promptly dipping a decanter into our glasses whenever we put them down. The lanky hostess prepares to pounce and cite a significant list of desserts to choose from. But she has to wait for us to finish our entrees first. She stretches elaborately; her nails scratch the register. Whenever she catches our eye, she leaps up to our table and asks how we are managing. Ready for dessert now? We are just fine, we nod, mouths still stuffed with the rack of lamb, the mozzarella, the lobster, the artichokes. Dessert is not even an itch in our bellies yet. ‘Take your time!’ she prompts us with a toothy smile as she bristle-tails off again. The maitre d’ is aimlessly hovering up and down the narrow pathway between our table and the exit, a dragonfly deftly dodging the bus boy consigned to clear our plates between courses. He in turn operates from shadowy corners. He dashes into the light only to lunge at any serving dish that looks finished, picking off unattended platters one by one in a flurry of quick, ruthless hits.

Eating out in New York City is about as relaxing as wandering around, lost, in a night-time jungle. However exciting, it has very little to do with enjoying a lay-back night of good food, wine and company – a smiling patron gradually dimming lights and music as the hours turn wee, happy to join in with a fresh bottle of wine. New Yorkers don’t do slow food. They spend an average of 48 minutes in an eatery – and that is not including fast food joints. This is actual restaurant statistics, places where people are welcomed by a maitre d’, invited to sit down and take pleasure in a carefully prepared meal presented by a proud chef. From the second customers are seated to the second they hand in their credit cards, it takes a joint effort of staff and guests a mere half a soccer game to choose, prepare, serve, enjoy, finish and clear appetizers, entrees, desserts, a bottle of wine, coffee and a bout of quality conversation. (Interestingly, that is roughly the same amount of time it takes any Dutch waiter to acknowledge your existence.)
New York City has different and wonderful kitchens in abundance. Why is it, then, that New Yorkers don’t take time to dine? It just seems anomalous for a city that harbors such a significant amount of Latin-Americans, Italians, Spaniards – no amateurs when it comes to marathon meal sessions – to cater mainly to the anxious eater. And what’s worse, to run down those who wish to slow-dine.

We glance at each other, keeping a fork to our plates at all times. It’s getting hot in here. Did someone just turn off the air conditioner? What was that, over there in the dark? As I start chewing on my last bite of lobster tail, a bit wary but looking forward to the legs on the plate in front of me that are yet to be devoured, the bus boy angles in from an unexpected corner. He’s after my dish. I instinctively throw my body between boy and food, and, to his and my own horror, I hear myself actually snarl at him. ‘Grrrrrrrrrrrr!’ I can’t help myself. No one approaches our table for a bit after that. Then the hostess slowly steals closer. She stays downwind, careful not to draw our attention. Six feet, two, one… She abruptly flings a tab onto our table and leaps back, purring, ‘We loved serving you – please come back again!’ No second bottle of wine for us. No dessert. No coffee. It’s been over an hour. We must leave now. There is a hand drawn smiley face at the bottom of the check, next to the suggested tip. We look up. All lights are on. The music’s off. The staff are all looking positively hungry at the exit door where the maitre d’ is busy buzzing a new group of hungry customers to our table, inviting them in for what’s bound to be yet another early night in the urban jungle.

The Sun Always Shines on TV

The Sun Always Shines On TV – A-Ha

- ‘He's still alive. You piece of lint!’
- ‘Die, you marmaluka!’
……
- ‘I said, “All right, I'll tell you something: go feel your mother!” ’
……
- ‘Now go home and get your lovin’ shinebox.’
- ‘Get my shinebox?! You, you finking piece of chintz!’

That does it. No more Goodfellas for me tonight. Movies aren’t what they used to be. Or rather, movies on American TV aren’t what those same movies are in theaters. American networks, after they buy the rights to show a feature presentation, can choose to show their own cut of a movie, edited for content before any viewing. That means they use bleepy sounds to cover up any profanities or blasphemies, or sound-alike voices to turn vulgar language into minced oaths. Mincing an oath can be a rather delicate procedure. If the mincer takes pride in his work he makes sure the oath stays close to the original line so as to minimize any disturbance to the flow and soundtrack of the movie. However, it’s still disturbing to watch a movie and discover it’s been teleported to a parallel universe of near-freedom of speech, a world of artistic almost-expression.

Random example. When Keanu Reeves tells his interrogator in The Matrix: ‘How about I give you the flipper?’ waving a digitally touched-up fist, he unwillingly crowns himself king of nerd castle. This nincompoop can’t be The One! It gets worse when Bruce Willis’ signature ‘Yippee-Ki-Yay, motherfucker!’ at the end of Die Hard is lopped off to a meager ‘Yippee-Ki-Yay’, sometimes leaving the camera on Bruce Willis as he mouths part two; the hearing impaired are left to their own devices. More concerned networks replace the entire line by a whopping ‘Yippee-Ki-Yay mother trucker!’ – reducing the razor tongued action man to a cowboy impersonator who, well, has a thing for wide loads.

When deemed necessary, networks delete what are considered inappropriate sounds or scenes altogether. You’ll see paint dry before you’re allowed to see the (ostentatiously fake!) old ladies’ boobs in There’s Something About Mary (director’s cut: 134 minutes. TV runtime: 117 minutes). On rare occasions, so many scenes are cut that a network actually throws in restored, never-before-seen footage to fill the allotted runtime – apparently pitting David Cronenberg fans against each other in heated discussions on which was better: the director's or the TV cut of Videodrome.
Movies on TV can be verbally sanitized to absurdity. Hilariously well done at best – watch Samuel L. Jackson decide ‘I’ve had it with these monkey fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane!’ – but mostly it’s just depressing.

Who decides that ‘finger’ in The Matrix is an inappropriate word and prop? Who seriously came up with mother trucker? Why would a network choose to show Scarface if it intends to neuter Al Pacino’s performance into a ride through Candyland? ‘Never fool with me, Tony,’ the Bolivian drug lord warns him. ‘I warned you not to fool with me, you foolish little monkey!’ Who’s afraid of this Disneyfied fiend? Pacino sure isn’t. He continues to shoot everybody to a bloody pulp with his little friend. Darn drug dealer boys and their silly ways!

There are exceptions to the rule. Networks like Sundance Channel and IFC (Independent Film Channel) show uncut or theater versions of movies. These networks are rare islands of resistance - never mind that they show Korean cult classics and Harvey Keitel's penis rather than All American Blockbusters.

Why the country with the largest number of murders in the world seriously thinks its citizens need protection from fake violence, is between it and its god, I guess. I find little solace in one thought: in a future world rated E for Everyone, the people who wish to expurge any unseemly content on TV will in fact end up being the only ones to teeth-grind their way through entire director’s cuts – albeit right before they snub them. Take that, you foolish little monkeys!

Cross Town Traffic

Cross Town Traffic – Jimi Hendrix

We are having Visitors this week. They will be landing shortly at La Guardia Airport, up in Queens. Not having a day job makes me the picker-upper by default. And so I’m taking the M60 bus from West 125th Street to the airport. A guy in a baseball cap takes a seat in the front, next to a little old lady; I find a spot halfway down the aisle. As we start driving, the guy looks around and mutters something unintelligible. He pauses and says it again, louder this time.

- ‘Pissassniggawhitebitch!’

Pardon?

- ‘Imafuckingkickyourblackmotherfuckingfaggotass, youcrazyfuckinglilywhiteskank!' he proclaims, to no one in general and everyone in particular. At first, nobody moves. When the guy charges on, apparently confusing baffled silence with approval, the little old lady can take no more. She tries: ‘Well, now, mister. Is that really necessary?’

Contrary to what the movies teach you, New Yorkers are surprisingly soft-spoken. People really don’t swear in everyday life – the incidental try-out gangsta rapper aside. In general, people express their inner turmoil using minced oaths like ‘shoot’ and ‘oh my gosh’ and ‘darn’. They don’t do excrements, or sexual slurs, or profanities. People are happy to self-censure up to the point where the fishmonger in my grocery store, when he gets to the punch line of one of his dirty jokes, actually says ‘f**cking’ – clenching his teeth between the ‘f’ and the ‘ing’ – so as not to be offensive.

Meanwhile, back on the bus, tension is mounting.

- ‘Cocksuckingmotherfuckerbitchass!’

The little old ladies’ courteous reprimand is hopelessly trumped by the guy’s ongoing random abuse. Others try to intervene, slinging shots the likes of ‘Sir, I urge you to please stop talking, please,’ and ‘Come one, man, cut it out’. Then a middle aged man in a borrowed suit rises from his seat. He turns to the guy, triggers a finger at him and states, calm and deliberate: ‘Now you better shut the fuck up, you god damn mother fucker.’ The guy’s face turns a distinct gray. He abruptly falls silent and ducks into his seat where he continues to stare morosely at the man. At the next stop, the guy jumps up and darts to the exit door. He squeezes past a still perplexed lady to freedom. ‘Fucsssscuze me,’ he manages before he runs off.
I can swear I hear the old lady send him off with a heart-felt ‘Serves you right, mother crusher!’

I go to sleep

I Go To Sleep – The Pretenders

The voices slowly spiral closer.
- ‘Is it real?’
- ‘Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t see the chest go up or down.’
- ‘It moved! Did you see that? I think she moved.’
- ‘Wait, let me just… Real careful now...’
- ‘Please refrain from touching the art!’ a kind, unwavering voice loops from across the room.
I know that voice. Calm, cool, collected, master to all the other voices in the room. My body is made of syrup. I am light-headed. All is soft and good. The voice is watching over me. I am a snail in a warm bath. I trail back to sleep.

Click. Click-click. Click-zap. Click-zap. Where did those flashes come from? For a second time I slow-motion my way out of an ocean of slumber. I carefully keep my eyes closed – bright light! – and gradually turn onto my back.
- ‘You are allowed to take pictures of the art, but please do not use flash photography!’ the voice bubbles again, gently reverberating in my cotton-candy head.

More people stop beside my bed: women, children, guided tour groups. Their breaths travel to the far depths of my subconscious. They speak English, French, Spanish. I feel the warmth of their bodies as they arch over me, the watchful eyes of the warden scrutinizing their every move.
- ‘In this work by Chu Yun we see a paid volunteer, transformed into a piece of living sculpture. Her sleep is induced by sleeping aids. The artist wants to pose questions like: What is the role of the female body in the history of art? What is the role of the museum as a platform of self-display?’
The participants are islands of enviable calm. They seem to exist in a charmed atmosphere, unperturbed by the fast pace of contemporary life or the exhibition around them, the sign on the wall of the New Museum exhibition room informs the non-guided visitor.

- ‘She looks so vulnerable.’
- ‘Not at all! She’s protected by the covers, isn’t she?’
- ‘Sure, but to be out there, for everyone to see…’
- ‘I think she’s just fine. She looks perfectly comfortable to me. Completely relaxed.’
- ‘She’s not relaxed, she’s drugged up! I think it’s weird. And a bit creepy.’
- ‘There, see? She moved again. I’m taking a picture.’
- ‘I kind of like it. And she still has the privacy of her dreams and thoughts. We might see her body sleep, but we still don’t know who she is.’
- ‘Whatever. I’d never do this. She's totally exposed.’
- ‘So what? She’s making money, isn’t she?’
- ‘Ten bucks an hour! That’s more than I make.’
- ‘Where do I sign up?’
- ‘I don’t like it.’
- ‘I wouldn’t mind a little snooze. You think there's room for one more?’

Could we perhaps turn down the volume a bit? I muse, half on my way to nowhere land again. The Art is trying to get some sleep here.

'This is Carlijn' is part of the exhibition 'The Generational: Younger Than Jesus', April 8 - July 12 2009 at the New Museum, New York City.

Going underground

Going Underground – The Jam

I love the subway. To plunge underground, burrow through the blind earth and come back up for air in a different place, I think it’s magic - however dark. Especially in wintertime. Late in the afternoon the trains are packed with heavy coats and stoic faces. They drone past bleak, dreary science fiction stations. Something is always leaking, seeping through the ceilings, leaving dark wet spots on the platforms. A concrete future of high humidity and quiet desperation. Think Blade Runner, or, better still, 1984. The subway as a brick version of Orwell’s boiled-cabbage smell. Eye contact is to be avoided at all cost while on the train. Only beggars and fanatics will try to fix their eyes on yours, looking to dig out the soul inside for fast cash or salvation. To answer the call of the crazy is at one’s own risk. The message of the commuting crowd is clear. You keep to yourself or you’re on your own.

I am on my way home. Above ground, an icy January afternoon is paper cutting its way through the streets. Underground I find line 1, the local train that stops at every station from South Ferry to 96th Street, where I get off. At Lincoln Center a young family gets on board: a man and a woman in their late twenties, and a toddler. The boy wraps himself around his mother’s legs and presses up against her as the doors close and the train starts moving.

The man takes a deep breath and clears his throat. ‘Can I have a moment of your attention please?’

As I am writing this, there are 100.000 homeless in New York City, 75.000 of whom are families roaming the streets. Couples with children, single parents, pregnant women. Every night there is room for 38.000 individuals somewhere in the city’s shelter system. Some 34.000 people are eligible for financial and other assistance from the New York Department of Homeless Services – a wonderful initiative to get people back on their feet, says the government. Just another temporary scheme to keep the poor out of sight, say the critics.

‘My name is John,’ the man says. ‘This is my wife Samantha, and the little man down there’s our son Michael. I am a technical engineer. I was laid off four months ago. We lost our home four weeks ago. The Department of Homeless Services is providing us with shelter, and for the time being they are paying for my wife’s tuition.’ The man speaks in a low voice, but I am pretty sure everyone in the car has heard him. When he mentions his wife, I can’t help but look at her. She nods in recognition as she looks back at me, and then continues to look at everybody in the car. One by one. ‘We are very grateful for their help. It means we have a roof over our heads, at least for now, and food every day. What we need is a future. I need work. I need to buy diapers for my son. I want to be able to buy flowers for my wife. If there is anyone who can help us out…’ I look around me. All eyes are on the couple. By the time the train starts slowing down for the next stop, nearly everyone has reached into their wallets. One dollar bills, five dollar bills, business cards. ‘Call my office in the morning,’ one man says as he gets off the train. ‘Maybe we can work something out.’ He pulls up the collar of his coat, puts his hands deep in his pockets and disappears to the nearest exit, outside, skyward.

Love in an elevator

Love In An Elevator - Aerosmith

I am staying in today. It’s time to conquer the proofread that has been staring at me all week. Nonetheless, procrastination demands that laundry be done first. For the second time this morning I flip-flop into the elevator and push the button for sub-ground level C1 – off to collect a first round of clean clothes in the laundry room. There’s a boy and a girl already inside, going down. I give them a nod of neighborly recognition and settle into the far corner.

As the door closes, the boy says: ‘It just grosses me out to see two people all over each other like that in public.’ Me, too! I think. Nothing worse than having to endure a couple of outdoor smoochers – it’s the kind of thing you really can’t tolerate unless you’re the one actually doing it. The girl isn’t pleased. She snorts at him and says: ‘Hmph. You know, some people like to see other people happy.’ There is something in the girl’s tone of voice that isn’t as mild as it could have been. The boy seems oblivious to the undertow in her comment. He flounders on: ‘Yeah, well it grossed me right out of the room.’
They both fall silent for a bit after that. Ten, nine, eight… The boy moves his lips as he helps the elevator count down the floors. But the girl is brooding. When we pass the fifth floor, she has reached a decision. ‘I am giving you a two week warning,’ she announces. ‘After that, if you’re still the same person, I’m gonna start seeing other people.’

A two week warning? Fortunately, the boy knows the idiom. ‘You mean you’re gonna see that other guy again?’ Oh boy, I think, here it comes. ‘No, it’s not the guy you know about. It’s someone else,’ the girl says matter-of-factly. The boy nods. And that’s the end of it. Four, three, two… I guess there is really nothing more to say. But shouldn’t some kind of further explanation be required? Where are the hot tears of misinterpretation? They both seem to understand perfectly what turn their love affair is taking from here. I, on the other hand, am left struggling. I speak the language, I hear the words, but I have no idea what just happened. Did they break up just now or didn't they? Is he planning to be a changed man in two weeks? Will he start seeing other people, too? Not as of now, mind you! Not for another fourteen days. And then what? She won’t mind him being the same guy he always was as long as they’re not exclusive? He won’t mind her dating other guys as long as it’s been properly announced?

The elevator touches ground level. The boy gestures for me to step out first, but no, I am going further down. ‘Oh, right, you’re just hanging,’ the boy states as they dart past me, into the lobby. The door closes again, and I’m off to a decidedly flooded laundry room with a superintendant shaking his head in dismay at a machine filled with my still dripping delicates. Why would I be hanging out in an elevator? I wonder. Is that something people do around here? Or was the boy trying to tell me something else? Was he in fact including me in yet another coded message, well understood by the locals, but completely lost on me? And if so, how will I ever know what it all means?

Almost Cut My Hair

Almost Cut My Hair - Crosby, Stills & Nash

It’s two thirty on a Thursday afternoon, somewhere halfway through December. I figured it was time to get myself some New Yorkian career hair, and have ended up in a somewhat expensive salon on the second floor of a building on 35th Street and Broadway. My assigned stylist sighs as she rakes a comb through my hair, thoroughly unimpressed with the result of 20 years of do-it-yourself dye. I decide to take the fifth and slowly sink into a slumber as she works her magic. ‘So I say to him,’ the ageless lady in one of the chairs behind me suddenly honks, stirring me from my haircut stupor. ‘I say, not Martha’s Vineyard again! I want to do something fun for our anniversary for a change!’ The lady is quacking away at her reflection in the mirror. With a seasoned flick of the wrist she downs a glass of champagne. The assistant-stylist rushes to refill her flute as she waves it in his general direction. To keep up with the ageless look of her oldest daughter, the lady must at all times feel at least one and a half times younger than she actually is. And have a weekly ritual drop-by at her stylist.

The stylist standing behind her chair struggles to angle a pair of scissors into the flawless do – to no avail. The lady has so much to talk about that it makes her head shake. From the moment she stilted into the shop and set off on her endless anecdote, it was the already coiffed friend in the chair next to her who has been listening so intently she seems transfixed to her seat. The stylist, secretly pining for the friend’s petrified head, barely manages to dodge the lady’s right ear. He decides to step back and wait for a window of peace and quiet.

‘I mean, our surgeon friend X gave me the new insides of my thighs for crying out loud,’ the lady seems to wrap up her story on a revealing note. I am on the edge of my seat, hanging on to every word. The friend has started to nod triumphantly. She starts: ‘I know, I had the…’ But before she can finish her intro she is cut short by the lady. ‘Then again, I deserved a present after my little incident the other day,’ she natters on good-naturedly. The undisputed queen of mini-pause.

The stylist lets out a near inaudible sigh, only noticed by his shoulders. Overpowered once more. He routinely waves the scissors over the lady’s head a couple more times before he holds up his little mirror and declares: ‘There. All done. What do you think?’

‘Perfect’, announces the lady. The friend nods in agreement. The two women slowly sink into their chairs. The lady steals one more glance at the mirror. She raises her hand to rake it through her hair, but changes her mind in mid-lift. The fingers hover, aimlessly stuck at shoulder-hight. They tremble a little. A vain rivers its way to the hem of her blouse, changing its course every time she moves a tendon. The lady swallows hard; the image disappears. Did anyone else notice? The stylist is staring stoically into oblivion, the friend seems to be studying her nails. With an unexpectedly swift turn, the lady's gaze suddenly meets mine. Caught in the act! I am so startled my head jerks to one side in abrupt panic-reflex. ‘Don’t ever do that again!’ I hear my stylist hiss. I stumble an apology, then carefully glance back at the lady. I’ll never tell!, I pray she reads the vow in my terrified stare. I try a feeble smile. The lady glares at me long and hard. Then she draws a careful breath, winks at me and turns away from me. ‘Sure, why not – I’ll have another sip’, she continues to steer her glass towards the assistant. One more ageless year.