Category: Manhattan

Happy New Year, 2011!

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy new year 2011!

Andrew Cuomo has been sworn in; we have a new governor in NYS, and he acknowledges that he has a lot to do and he has already started it.

Lina Kulchinksy, lawyer-pastry chef-pretzel maker, branching out to a cart.

The very dangerous and probably illegal but terribly exciting and exotic thing about touring NYC’s tunnels.

On New Year’s Day, the NHL had to push the Winter Classic – the outdoor hockey game with Penguins v. Capitals – until the evening but still in the rain, since the temperature was too warm.  It’s possible that the tv ratings came off well for NBC and the NHL, but I kind of wondered if NBC got lucky, since the bowl games weren’t on that evening and it was otherwise a quiet tv prime time night.  The Capitals won, with the Penguins star Sidney Crosby getting dinged to the ice by the Capitals.

I personally like watching the game since it’s kind of crazy to watch hockey be played outdoors, but to make it a new prime time tradition?  Hard to say.  The stunning effect of hockey outdoors in a baseball or football stadium just looks cooler during the daytime.  But, that’s my two cents on the subject.

Also, the Daily News in the hockey section (can’t find a web version of this) posed the question of whether the NHL might consider having the NY Rangers host a future Winter Classic on New Year’s Day.  Apparently, Yankee Stadium might not be available for such a venture, since they now host a bowl (seriously?  Yes!: the Pinstripe Bowl with Syracuse v. Kansas!  And Syracuse won!).  I mean, that’s  too bad and all (Fenway did host a Winter Classic, but aren’t Bostonians bigger hockey fans than New Yorkers?).  Then again, apparently, the Daily News noted that it’d be even tougher to do a Meadowlands Winter Classic, since the Devils would want to be in on it and the national ratings for a Devils v. Rangers game wouldn’t be hot at all, even on New Year’s Day.  Oh well.  Wishful thinking!

Movies that I saw during the holidays:

Saw “The King’s Speech” at Cobble Hill.  Colin Firth really gets at the feelings and struggles of the stutterer Bertie, a.k.a. Prince Albert, the Duke of York and then George VI, and Geoffrey Rush was great at the speech therapist who had his own imperfections.  Helena Bonham Carter, as Elizabeth, Duchess of York (future Queen Mother to Queen Elizabeth II), was quite good; as Dana Stevens noted on Slate’s Culture Gabfest, Bonham Carter was acting as her old “Merchant Ivory self” rather than her recent career trend acting as crazy costumed woman – see “Alice in Wonderland,” “Sweeney Todd,” the Harry Potter movies, etc.).

The craziness and the banality of the Royal Family really got through; Firth as Bertie, who struggled with the balance of duty and loyalty to his father and his brother and a lot of other baggage – and happiness with his wife and daughters.  Bertie was also admirable for his loyalty to his country – in the face of World War II, he didn’t have actual power, but had to be the face of one of the un-invaded countries in Europe to stand up to Nazi Germany.

Is “The King’s Speech” the Best Picture for the Oscars?  I can’t really say, but it had a lot of stuff going for it, I thought, because Bertie was facing a modern world and the traditional trappings behind it.  There were the emotions, hopes, failings, and humanity in all involved.

Saw “Tangled” at the Park Slope Pavilion.  Even if a little derivative in putting together stuff from “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Little Mermaid,” the movie was sweet and heart-warming, in a great old-fashioned Disney way.  Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi are pretty talented voices actors.  Who knew that Levi (Chuck from “Chuck”) had it in him?  And, it was nice that Rapunzel was no wallflower; she wanted to see the world – and was willing to help everyone else along the way (which it took some time for Flynn Rider to figure out too – talk about a protagonist who was willing to make a sacrifice to do the right thing).

NY Times’ dance critic Alistair Macaulay makes some conclusions from his project of seeing way lots more Nutcrackers than most of us normal folk.

Oh, and Time Out New York on what 2011 things to look forward to checking out.

I hate that the holidays are winding up.  But, let’s see what’s next.

New Year’s Eve 2010

Well, the last week of 2010 hit NYC with a mallet, with the Day After Christmas Blizzard and the horror stories that came after it.  I suppose the pleasantry was short lived – you can have all the cooperation and Christmas spirit and good will and fun in the snow.  Then, comes the crushing reality: if the city can’t get moving, then the city will bite you in the ass.

At least, I think the fine folk of City Hall and the MTA (so NOT going your way) are realizing that now.

On 12/26/10, I honestly thought I’d go to work on 12/27.   Hey, it wasn’t like the mayor was calling for a snow day/state of emergency.  Yeah, we had snow-mageddon/snowpocalypse back in February 2010 and it didn’t stop us (seriously: I was at work all day and I was so hoping to leave early, since I was frightened that I wouldn’t be able to get to south Brooklyn, due to my living in an subway line with an open-trench exposure to the weather; it ended up being more than fine.  Sigh.).

Meanwhile, on Sunday, as I watched “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” on tv, the news became worse about the state of the snow.  At some point, after the movie, I watched the non-stop snow coverage on the local tv.  There’s something addictively entertaining watching the local reporters drag themselves in sometimes dangerous or amusing situations.  NBC/Channel 4’s Brian Thompson brought out his (old-school wooden) ruler!  ABC/Channel 7’s Phil Lipoff stuck in Red Hook, NJ, chatting to people leaving the bars after the Jets game.   People were still shopping at Macy’s at Herald Square for Day After Christmas shopping.  Greg Cergol on Channel 4 wore a nifty hat. Some reporters didn’t have hats!  LIRR was in nasty conditions!  Stay inside!  The mayor had his one press conference that afternoon and everything seemed fine.  Or so he said, anyway.

Then, the amusing part didn’t seem so amusing.  I lost the cable/Internet/landline phone service, since Cablevision got knocked down for unknown reasons (weather-related?  Who knows; no service for three days; had to enjoy my cell phone and regular HDTV).  I hunkered on, watching “Sound of Music.”

Monday had no subway lines going out of Coney Island, so south Brooklyn was essentially stranded.  I had a snow day, but the mayor (the “boss,” if you will) didn’t call it for me; Mother Nature did.  It wasn’t like I would have gotten to the subway and if I did, no buses or subways were available.  No plowed streets; I don’t think I had ever seen so much impassable streets in Bensonhurst.

Staying cooped up at home, actually feeling guilty to have to Monday off unintentionally (yeah, I felt guilty; how sick was that?), I continued to watch the non-stop coverage on the local news on my regular HDTV (no NY1 without cable, after all).  Anger arose: how do you have no subways?  Where were the plows?  Yes, it’s lovely to see NBC Channel 4’s Katy Tur at Columbus Circle, where people were playing in the snow or seeing ABC Channel 7’s Kemberly Richardson at 23rd Street/Madison Ave., where it was hard to walk but did not look as ridiculous as it did in my neck of the woods.

But, then the afternoon wore on and seeing Channel 4’s John Noel in a very impassable looking Park Slope in Brooklyn, and you’ve got to start wondering how people in Manhattan seemed to be a little less inconvenienced than the rest of us outside Manhattan.  Brooklyn Boro President Marty Markowitz finally got to ask: while he was not going to knock on the mayor and Dept. of Sanitation, what was going on here?

The mayor’s press conference on that Monday afternoon seemed to strike the note of: the city’s operating as expected.  Yes, it’s inconvenient, but take mass transit, enjoy a Broadway show.  It’s a near-normal Monday.

Seriously?  Not really.  When the subways aren’t running (except for the R, which is completely underground), don’t expect me to believe that it’s normal.  When only two people of a city agency unit managed to get to work, don’t tell me that the city’s operating as usual.  Don’t tell me to take mass transit when there is no mass transit!  I walked around my neighborhood just to see how bad was bad; it was bad when the snow was past my knees.

By 5pm, I checked out Eyewitness News on ABC Channel 7.  David Navarro (who I haven’t seen in awhile; not that I’ve been that dedicated a viewer of Channel 7) was at Ovington Avenue – Bay Ridge-ish/Dyker Heights-ish.  Stranded cars.  No plows.  Navarro began the specter of asking: hmm, this is starting to look like 1969 and the Lindsay thing, right? (paraphrasing Navarro).

Mayor John Lindsay and the snow-bound Queens – the thing that haunted his administration, no matter its ideals.  Lindsay’s handling of that snow set the bar for NYC mayors since.  Did Bloomberg met the challenge?

Well, the analyses and investigations are still unfolding.  This NY Times article was pretty illuminating for how short-sighted NYC and MTA were.  Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News questions the workings of Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith.

Honestly, as much as we could blame the workers (and there have been plenty of complaints about the Sanitation and MTA workers), it’s the management and their ideas and actions that bother me.  Morale is as bad as it is because of something other than any worker’s own bad attitudes or sour personality.

Plus, was it wise for the mayor to promise streets plowed at least once by Thursday, 7am?  Clearly: not really.  My own block didn’t get plowed until after 2pm on Thursday and there are streets that are still horrific, even after one plow attempt, needing one of those frontloader trucks and much more work before blacktop could be seen.

Honestly, message to the mayor: some promises shouldn’t be made without some actual – I don’t know, let’s call it “certainty” – which ain’t gonna happen in a blizzard that was either as bad as expected (by the meteorologists) or as unexpected (by the very government that’s supposed to serve us).

Are New Yorkers whining too much?  Does the Internet make that too easy to do?  Yes, on both counts.  But, then again: we’re New Yorkers.  Complaining is what we do.  And, so is trying to get around and expecting the government to do something.  The city handled past storms well; maybe we got spoiled?  Even so – what made this one so bad?  The combination of bad storm, low morale of workers, poor management, and the stupidity of drivers who thought that they could chance and got stranded with their cars, blocking the plows?  I doubt it was one factor.

I wasn’t surprised by the mayor’s tactlessness; I’m surprised by how surprised some voters are about it (saying that you’re a supporter of him and then “shocked” by this: please!  This is exactly what you get, voters!  Maybe I am setting my bar of expectations too low, but I’d like to think I’m being pragmatic or even a tad realistic).

Do More With Less is a mantra that can’t work and when lives were at stake, it gets disheartening.  Let’s hope that we’ll learn our lessons before the next snowpocalypse (and it’ll happen – we’re in a state of climate change).

At least: Dogs had fun in the snow; soooo cute!  And, if you are able to get around the city (and with this nice weekend, yes!) – from us at triscribe to you: NY Times’ Frugal Traveler Seth Kugel spends a $100 weekend in…NYC!  Yep, it is possible to not go overboard in town.  Kugel described a really good time, I must say.  And, the NY Giants – can we still have hope for them as the new year arrives?  Can we have hope for anything?

Let’s hope for the best for the new year.  Maybe.

Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  Some stuff to keep us entertained at this time of year…

Time Out New York has a terrific hot chocolate list.   The list looks soooo tempting – and decadent – and… not cheap… dare I dip into the wallet, in the midst of Xmas shopping, for this… Hmm…

Time Out New York also has a nice holiday walk through midtown.

Just a question: if everything’s on sale before Christmas, what’s left for the after Christmas sales?

And, I just find the Lowe’s Christmas commercial with the APA couple to be great.  They’re APA’s!  And, she’s just buying a power drill for her tool-crazy husband, and he’s just pretending that he’ll be surprised for Christmas!  It’s so normal and so… American!  (now, if only I can find a link to the video).

Ken Jeong in the Pepto Bismal commercial – that was a little over the top.  I think a little Jeong is okay; too much and it’s a little creepy and not funny.    Plus, he’s a medical doctor in real life (see his imdb entry, after all); maybe he can actually tell us if Pepto really is any good for the holiday over-eating.  Well, maybe medicine and comedy don’t quite work, but Jeong’s pointing out the foolishness of holiday foods wasn’t that much fun.

I haven’t had much in the way of Christmas cards this year, beyond those so far from a few friends.  Slate has an interesting article about whether Facebook killed the Christmas card.   Well, I still believe in Christmas cards, so I still send them out (holiday cards, at the rate I’m going; thankfully, there are days of Christmas/Kwanzaa and even New Year’s Eve/Day left!).  But, the Internet is both a curse and a blessing…

And, in case you haven’t gotten the perfect geek Christmas present – seriously: a Voltron USB drive? Angry Asian Man says it does come with a Blazing Sword AND an episode of the cartoon! And, it’s officially licensed by the Voltron people. But, it does not mean you get 5 thumb drives that form into one Voltron. Aww. Still: one can totally geek out on this.

PBS Newshour’s Jeffrey Brown did an interview with Garry Trudeau, on the 40 anniversary retrospective of Doonesbury.  Kind of cool that Trudeau made some observations about the next generation: Alex Doonesbury and her dating Toggle, the Iraq War vet.  (I’m still puzzled by the whole Jeff Redfern’s misadventures in Afghanistan – Jeff is such a weirdo; but otherwise, the struggles of the armed services in war and at home as portrayed by Trudeau has been rich stuff).

Because we’re lawyers here at triscribe: in light of my current superhero obsession (wherein I’ve been reading a bunch of graphic novels / compilations of Batman and friends), it’s kind of fitting that the ABA Journal and the NY Times covered this fascinating blog (blawg?), Law and the Multiverse, by lawyers who ponder on the legal implications of the superhero world.  Thumbs up!!  (someone has to answer questions about whether Batman’s searching and seizing is unconstitutional and whether Superman can be a US citizen or is a really illegal alien (literally), and whether Hank McCoy (Beast of the X-Men) has a claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act as a mutant).  Awesome!!!

Because Santa showed up a lot in the DC and Marvel worlds, the Law and Multiverse people did a legal analysis of Santa’s actions.  Cool…

Some pictures of snowmen:

Slate had a slide show in honor of winter solstice earlier this week.  Some of the snowmen in the slide show are creepy looking snowmen (which had me laughing like an idiot for some reason).  Unsurprisingly, the photo of the snowcouple of Central Park were the cute snowman/woman; the Tokyo one was funny; and yes, the creepy ones were creepy…

I loved the NPR photos of “Snowmania” – where the snowmen’s poses were inspired by Calvin and Hobbes’ snowmen stuff.  These photos were kind of sick and funny.

At Columbia, my undergrad Alma Mater, had this weird tradition of the announcements/voice mail lady reading the “T’was the night before Xmas” poem (yes, voice mail lady was real!).  And, Clement Clarke Moore, the man who wrote the poem was a Columbia prof prof.  Here: we have Harvard scientist saying that the idea of Santa and flying reindeer came from hallucinogenic ‘shrooms…. Thanks, Harvard!

From Time’s Techland section: Links to holiday tv things. To paraphrase the writer of this blog post, Merry Christmas, to everyone who celebrates; everyone else: have a great weekend! (and enjoy He-Man and She-Ra fight Skeletor and Hordak from ruining the season’s greeting for everyone).