Part 2 - Critical Joke Theory

If you smoke marijuana in Amsterdam, it’s legal, but if you deal weed in Indonesia, you face 12 years of hard jail time… if you chew gum and spit it on the ground in NYC it makes a stain on the street, but if you’re caught in Singapore spitting gum, you’re fined $2000…. if you’re a woman in Saudi Arabia, you wear a burqa and cover everything except your eyes, but if you’re a Maori woman in New Zealand you expose your breasts and cover your pubic area with bunches of fragrant plant material. If you were black in Africa in the 1700’s you would be captured, enslaved, and transported to the America as a commodity, sold at markets, condemned to work the plantations, banned from reading and writing with all future offspring being legally the property of your owners, but if you were white you could declare yourself independent and free and celebrate your freedom every July 4th.

After spending a week listening to sociology lectures online I’ve come to the conclusion it would be hard to navigate the world as a time traveling pot smoking gum chewing maori woman. One moment you could be smoking pot in Amsterdam, savoring naked haka dance memories in New Zealand, only to travel through Saudi Arabian airports in full burka mode with gumless layovers in Singapore to a time travel machine into a life of slavery on a Georgia plantation. Behaviors acceptable for one group of people may not be acceptable to others. For reasons beyond the scope of my logical brain, when a society feels threatened by  women’s choice of clothing, or psychoactive drugs, or the color of one’s skin, or gum chewing, they find a way to regulate and modify group human behaviors through their legal system.

Having established the fact that cultural context drives the way people behave in the world, and pondering dark ideas that free will is an illusion, you may begin to think, is there a way to change society, to reverse global warming, end racism, or chew gum in Singapore?

(off topic side note: Chewing gum was causing maintenance problems in apartments, with vandals disposing of spent gum in mailboxes, inside keyholes, and on lift buttons. Chewing gum left on the ground, stairways, and pavements in public areas increased the cost of cleaning and damaged cleaning equipment. In 1987, the $5 billion local railway system, started running. It was then the largest public project ever implemented in Singapore.

It was reported that vandals had begun sticking chewing gum on the door sensors of subway trains, preventing doors from functioning properly and causing disruption to train services. Such incidents were rare but costly, and culprits were difficult to apprehend. In January 1992,  Singapore Statute Chapter 57, was enacted to ban the chewing of gum.)

While chewing gum may be a tough sell now in Singapore, there are movements in America to end racism that are rather active. Statues of Jefferson and Roosevelt are being decommissioned in NYC and sent out of public view. Schools are introducing counter narratives of the indigenous and oppressed that were part of the nation’s founding but silenced. The foundations of these movements are nothing new. They were laid by those brave enough to speak the honest truth that people were too afraid to speak in public, or in Foucault’s words, those people brave enough to hold up a mirror to society, “To confront, oppose, or find fault with another individual or a popular view in a spirit of concern for illuminating what is right and best.”

45 years before the emergence of the current woke movement, cancel culture and critical race theorists, Richard Pryor was pioneering critical joke theory. 124 years prior to Pryor and a day after the nation’s 76th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered this piece of fiery “What to the slave is the fourth of July?” critical race theory oratory in protest of the continuing enslavement of millions of people.

“But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.” (1852) Frederick Douglass, "What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July" • (blackpast.org)

Douglass is kind of boring and predictable, wholly logical, safe, and rhetorical. He’s a serious dude, very articulate but incredibly soporific. If I were a high school US history teacher designing a syllabus, I would have my students listen to Pryor’s Bicentennial Prayer instead.  

“We are…. gathered here today… to celebrate this year of bicentenniality in the hope of freedom and dignity. We’re celebrating two hundred years of white folks kicking ass. Now white folks have had the essence of disunderstanding on their side for quite a while. However we offer this prayer and the prayer is “how long will this bullshit go on?”

How long? How long. How long will this bullshit go on? That is the eternal question man have always asked, How long? When man first got here, he say how long will the animals kick me in the ass? How long before I discover fire and stop freezing to death?

We always here in our church of understanding and unity have tried to figure out how long. They say in the bible we will know how long when an angel come up out of the sea. He will have seven heads and a face like a serpent and a body like a lion. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to see no motherfucker look like that! If is see him come out of the water I shoot him in the air.

We only making one collection this year. We ask that this year you donate five or six hundred. We ain’t gonna fuck with you no more. We won’t be round your house asking for shit or nothing like that.

Let us offer as the choir sing that old negroid spiritual, “I will see” or “we will see” whether the case may be. if you sing alone it’s “I will see” if you’re singing with people it will be “we will see” see that shit works out right.

They’ve been rehearsing. Go ahead. (singing gospel: we will see, we will see, we will see, we will see, we will see… :||)

That was lovely. That was lovely. Yeah before I spend some more money on rehearsal, we will see. Bring me some shit like that.

Now I’d like to make some apologies to you because last Sunday, a spiritual thing happened. Nice family. the Walker family brought in their son. They asked me “can you heal my son?” well I apologize because he’s a big waterhead boy. And I wasn’t going to touch the motherfucker. Little nigger had a big head about this big and they wheeled him in. his head was bobbing back and forth. I was not about to touch that motherfucker. I’m telling you cause that shit is contagious. I said “go get that nigger a big hat or something. Leave me alone.”

And some of the deacons come down on me for that. And I like to say to the crippled people that come here. Can’t you find another church to go to? Goddamn you come in knocking shit down and breaking up furniture and shit. Learn how to crawl, shit. And you deaf and dumb motherfuckers, you motherfuckers that can’t talk. We don’t need you here. all the ‘hoo hoo’ shit kiss my ass. They got schools for you to go. Go learn how to speak goddammnit. Shit!

Also there’s some discrepancy about the baptisms last month because 3-4 people drowned. They was old people. I did not know a couple of them had asthma. I just put them under a little while I just thought the little bubbles were from the spit…” Bicentennial Prayer (Remastered Version) - YouTube

Pryor questions behaviors and social norms, provokes people with weird thoughts and makes people laugh hysterically. More than likely, he would get me fired as a high school teacher for his word choice and ‘colorful’ use of language. But if you look beyond his digressions into church donations, imaginary choir practice management, aversions to the physically deformed, degrading remarks about the crippled and the learning disabled, and dark jokes of baptism drownings of the asthmatic you can see how he created jokes using the same texts regarding Bible scenes of Second Coming mythical beasts from that Albrecht Durer read and illustrated 400 years prior. You can marvel at the creativity of delivering serious sermons in the persona of a southern Baptist minister that climax in vivid bible scenes. You can see his search for universal truths, like finding common ground between whites and blacks (ie., how to cope with oppressors, oppressive conditions) while speaking the truth about the reality of race relations in America. Simply put, you never know what Pryor’s going to say next in his monologues, like Durer and the rhino, he is able to weave existing texts into a jumble of truth, fantasy, and entertainment, and make you think.

Side Goals

Whenever I throw something out, I realize later I could’ve used it and I regret being so wasteful. Whenever I keep something, it takes up space in the apartment and I regret being so messy and slothful. It’s a no win situation. The ice cream maker and the instapot had been collecting dust and languishing in our apartment for years. Too expensive to throw away, yet too bulky to hide in the apartment. For our road trip I had the main goal of learning about American history. We have no exciting travel destinations, so we’re looking desperately for domestic places of interest... like bumfuck Virginia. The side goals I had were to make beef bourguignon without a stove and churn a homemade batch of chocolate chip ice cream. 

My family thought I was crazy, but I persevered through their criticisms, “why are you taking up half our trunk with these machines? You haven’t used these appliances ever before, why start now? you never cook this stuff in our kitchen but now you want to cook them? Are you fucking serious? Why are you like this?” To make space for the appliances, I told the family to pack extremely light, like 3 pairs of underwear max, 1 pair of pants, and 3 pairs of socks and 3 t shirts each.

With a day left on our jaunt, I can proudly say I met all main and side goals. While I try to write an entertaining post about slavery and the role of racial injustice in American history I’ve decided to write about how I met my side goals.

The instapot is not really instant. For those uninitiated instapot readers, the instapot is like a crockpot on steroids with tons of functions. It plugs into a standard 120 volt wall socket but then gives an array of functions like pressure cooking, sautee, stew, continuous temperature incubation for yogurt, etc… the instapot gives the user control of heat, pressure, and temperature. Thermodynamically, cooking with an instapot is like controlling all the variables of the ideal gas law, PV=nRT. The chef, (played by former chemist- myself) buys all the biochemical ingredients (onions, salt, pepper, chuck beef, carrots, potatoes, garlic, olive oil, corn starch, chicken stock, thyme, balsamic vinegar, bay leaves) and decides on n (the amount of substance). The chef then turns on the sautee function of the pot and sears the salt and peppered beef in olive oil in a controlled temperature setting. Once the hotel room smells and looks like a smokey steakhouse, the chef then sautees the onions and garlic for a few minutes while checking various news reports how a Johnson and Johnson vaccine made a Virginia man’s skin peel off. The chef then distractedly pours in a dash of balsamic vinegar to create the basis of the sauce. At this point the chef defines the volume of the dish by pouring measured amounts of potatoes, seared beef, spices, chicken stock and locks in a high temperature and pressure on the pot for 45 minutes. For the final 4 minutes of cooking, the pressure is relieved, the lid is opened and the carrots and potatoes are pressure cooked in a cornstarched gravy.

So within an hour, beef bourguignon is concocted in a random Motel 6 room off the highway in backcountry Virginia. The chef takes a bow after serving and feeding the family who 2 hours prior seriously doubted the chef could make anything as tasty as the numerous Cracker Barrel, McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken joints they had passed on thier way to the motel. 

I admit, the instapot is not really what I imagined. I imagined just throwing a bunch of ingredients into a machine, pressing a button, opening the lid to delicious beef bourguignon and then saying “voila motherfuckers” to astonished family members. Navigating PV=nRT is like sailing a ship. You have to adjust to the elements, and adjust the variables on the fly. After the beef bourguignon was savored and promptly demolished,  I proceeded to clean the greasy instapot in the bathtub with complimentary hotel soap and whip up desert.

Round 2

Like all fights, the (ice cream making) fight began with preparation. The night before the bourguignon, i had put the ice cream maker bowl into the freezer to get super chilled. As the ice cream maker bowl cooled, I whisked 6 egg yolks and 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste. After pouring 2 cups whole milk, 2 cups cream, and 1/6 cup of sugar to boil in the instapot, I shut the instapot off and waited for it to cool down to 180 degrees (as measured by my portable thermometer), to ensure that when I added the eggs they would be pasteurized, not cooked. Apparently egg yolks provide viscosity to ice cream. I placed this ultra high viscosity artery clogging soupy cream mixture in the freezer and waited for the cream to ‘mature’ (note: this is ice cream making verbiage, not my own verbs) before churning it the next day with a cup of dark chocolate chips. after a suspenseful 20 minutes of ice cream maker churning I exclaimed “Voila! Dark chocolate chocolate chip ice cream motherfuckers!” The desert was a success. The family was impressed by the culinary shenanigans I managed to pull off.

After I return home, I expect to further refine my instapot repertoire. While the culinary appliances inevitably collect a new layer of dust in the apartment, I will actively plot a duck a l’orange paired with home made Italian stracciatella gelato on my next Motel 6 adventure.

Tennis Anyone?

I’ve learned a lot of life lessons this past year. Like when you mount a bike rack to the back of your car, let the foamed bottom arm of the rack rest on the license plate rather than the body of the car. Apparently, the license plate area of the car body is structurally reinforced and can withstand the weight of bouncing bikes-- the other parts of the car body not so much. Within a week of buying our car and schlepping our bikes on a mispositioned bike rack over bumpy roads to Cape Cod, I noticed an irregular large dent below the license plate that made the car look 10 years older. It’s annoying to drive around in a newly bought damaged car, especially when the damage is self-inflicted but I figured these disfigurations were cosmetic only and not worth the hundreds of dollars it would take to fix it in a shop. To add insult to injury, over the past couple months of parking on nyc streets, like a moon marred with craters, the car has accumulated a multitude of miscellaneous scrapes and damages that have further escalated its devaluation.

Within the brown colored dented and scraped car I sat double parked waiting for alternate side parking on Friday. Much of life in NYC still remains impacted by corona. In the new normal, I haven’t taken the subway since March nor have I worked a minute in architecture since mid June. Theater, sports, and concert venues are still closed. The only thing that seems to be thriving is outdoor dining. Without safe indoor spaces to eat, restaurants have taken over parking spaces in the street for their tables and chairs. All these covid changes make parking more difficult.

After a couple months without street cleaning, alternate side parking returned to NYC late in the summer. It used to be that on Monday and Thursday a white Zamboni-like street cleaning vehicle would sweep the north sides of streets, and on Tuesday and Friday the Zamboni would alternate and clean the south sides of streets. Nowadays the city only cleans the streets 2 days a week - the northsides of streets on Thursday and the southsides on Friday. For those without experience alternate side parking in New York, it is like a game of high stakes musical chairs except no music or chairs. With more demand than supply, you have a surplus of cheapskate car owners like me vying for limited street parking after scheduled weekly street cleanings. If a street is supposed to be cleaned between 11-12:30 pm on Friday, people sit double parked in their cars on the north side of the street and wait for the street cleaning vehicle to pass before parking on the south side. Even if the street has been swept cleaned you can’t leave your car within the weekly alotted street cleaning time because police officers are liable to issue a ticket for unattended cars. People spend 90 minutes shifting their vehicles in this weekly car parking ritual.

If you don’t find a parking spot during street cleaning times, you’re like a lost soul left to circle around the streets till someone leaves. It could take hours to find a spot. In foraging for parking spaces, I’ve noticed building contractors usually vacate their spaces around 4 pm, teachers leave their designated school spots at 5pm, and vans at the farmer’s market in front of the American Museum of Natural History leave at 6pm on Sunday. You start noticing these things about the neighborhood when you’re cheap, unemployed, and looking for parking.

As I was waiting in my car continuing my Jane Jacobs urban analysis of the neighborhood, a gray pickup truck passed by and the driver inquired whether I’d like a quote to fix the dent on the back of my car.

“Sure” I replied, I had 90 minutes to waste.

He pulled off the side of the road and came by to explain his offer.

“I’m Jack.” He puts his fist out for a bump to initiate a handshake free covid salutation. “I’m in the neighborhood fixing cars for people who can’t bring their cars to the garage in the pandemic. I can give you a quote for the repair.”

“Where’s your garage?”

“28th street, but I can fix your car here.”

“Here?”

“Yes.” He started walking around the car and taking inventory of all the nicks and dents. After a survey of the damage he said, “I’ll charge you $200 cash. I can fix the dent on the back by pushing it from the inside.” In his hands he held an assortment of suction cups, mallets and wrenches.

“Cool.” For $200 I thought it was a steal. Bring the car to a garage, and they would probably charge $500 minimum. The car was already fucked up so I wasn’t too worried he would mess it up more.

As Jack was working on my car, the driver from the car behind mine approached me all curious about the in-situ repair. He looked and sounded like Larry David but was named Steve. It’s not everyday you have your car repaired on the street during alternate side parking.

After asking me about the repairs, Steve asked how long I lived in the area, I told him I’ve been here 25 years, and pointed to the building I lived in across the street. When he asked what I did for a living, I bluntly replied “tennis… actually I play tennis all the time because I lost my job in architecture. Our firm had 3 libraries and a poet’s café but then all our work was wiped out due to covid. Usually it’s embarrassing to reveal you’re unemployed... a sign of weakness that nobody finds you worth hiring. After looking for 4 months for a job without success, I’ve become quite good at tennis. I can rally for extended periods of time and position the ball anywhere on the court at will… so when Steve asked me what I do, I replied with my current strength: tennis.

Steve, unexpectedly revealed he too is also an avid tennis player and has played all summer on Fire Island. Interesting. He asked me to guess his age. He was spritely. I guessed 65. He said 77. He then said “I may look old, but I’m probably the best old person you’ll play at tennis. I play on clay because it’s easier on my joints, and I can’t run, but I’m good.”

“Cool.” I told him we could play in central park or riverside park one day and traded phone numbers.

When Jack finished working on my car, he started talking to Steve and recommending fixes to Steve’s Lexus. They circle around Steve’s car. For $100, he touches up the paint on Steve’s car. I continue talking to Steve while all this repair work is going on.

Steve excuses himself while he takes a call. It’s a woman out in staten island. Apparently he got involved with democrat Afgan war vet Max Rose’s election campaign, and he talks to fellow volunteers in public relations plotting to help regain democratic control of the house in NY state. I asked him what his profession was thinking he was in advertising. Steve replies “real estate developer… but I used to be a psychoanalyst.”

Thinking this conversation may now lead me to a job, I start asking him what kind of buildings he develops.

“Mixed use, retail and housing.” He responds. “We started buying property in the lower east side and flipping them.”

“Really? I worked on a building at Essex Crossing”

Steve says, “My office is a block away from Essex Crossing. What kind of work do you do?

“Schools, housing, university projects.”

“Do you file jobs with the department of buildings in the city?”

“Yes. I spent much of the past year dealing with city bureaucracy and filing building applications for my designs.” Filing with the city is tedious I think to myself, is this what my career has come to? Conversations about filing to drum up work from random alternate side parkers?

Jack was now finished with Steve’s car. I hand Jack $200. He pockets $100 from Steve. Overhearing our political conversation, Jack now rants, “Our country is too divided now. People today are too thin skinned. Kids are spoiled. Before we used to eat whatever you were given. We ate all sorts of offal, it’s what our family could afford. Nowadays kids have too many choices. One kid is eating pizza, another one eats a hamburger… kids used to play on the street. When I grew up as a Russian Jew in Coney Island, we had to get along with the blacks in the neighborhood. Kids went to the playgrounds to socialize, to learn how to navigate cultures and live with people of different backgrounds and cultures…”

When Jack leaves, Steve and I thank our good fortunes finding a skilled car repairman off the street. Minutes later into our conversation, a building superintendent came down the street and remarks, “isn’t that guy the worst? He’s like a Gypsy. He does bad work and make $200 here $100 there. He’s so rich he drives a Mercedes.”

Steve and I look at each other and think if we were fleeced. We then rationalize to ourselves if we had taken our cars to a proper auto mechanic’s garage the repairs would’ve cost well over the $300 we paid. In the end we were happy with Jack’s work.

What started as a mispositioned bike rack, led to an unsightly dent and then a repair that spurred a conversation of tennis, politics, and potential future architecture work.

Installing an Air Conditioner

I finally caved in. returning from maine to nyc was a shock to my system. Instead of comfortably cool nights with ocean breezes, our bedroom was 90 degrees and stuffy. i couldn’t sleep well all night long. When we did awake, we headed straight for the hardware store to purchase an air conditioner. Given my longstanding feud with my neighbor Pat regarding his air conditioner noise, (click here for air conditioning saga) I can imagine his expression when he returns to the city to find I’ve installed an AC in my window. All last summer, we told him we keep our windows open for natural ventilation and his AC installation made too much noise.

With nyc still in shutdown mode, we didn’t encounter any traffic while driving to the hardware store. There, I hauled a couple AC’s and mounting brackets up an escalator. I phoned the superintendent of the building and asked if he could help me install the machines. F. is a Kosovo Albanian immigrant. He was a rich potato farmer before the war flushed him out. I remember he tried to tell me stories about male potatoes and female potatoes. now he lives in the basement of the building and works 2 jobs to get by.

Usually you tip the super for work he helps with. It’s a gray area, there’s no price list for services rendered. sometimes he does a good job, other times you regret engaging the super and feel like you hired a potato farmer with no building maintenance qualifications (like the time he came to unclog the toilet and scratched the enamel of the bowl so bad with a terrible snake job you ended up replacing the toilet).

I tried to manage his expectations of the tip and said I lost my job when he asked me how I was doing. He replied his father had just passed away yesterday at the age of 86 and that he couldn’t fly to Albania since all the borders are closed to americans, he trumped any excuse I had for tipping him small.

The trick to installing an AC in nyc is to ensure it doesn’t fall out the window and kill someone. F, has a special way to ensure this. He screws a metal L-angle to the top of the bracket on top of the machine that is wider than the window opening. Should someone try to open the window, the AC would be kept from falling by the metal angle. It was an ingenious solution… a solution I’m surprised no AC manufacturer has thought about marketing. When he left, I tipped him large for his insight on how to install an AC like an Kosovo Albanian potato farmer.

see L angle screwed into top of AC

Laissez Faire

In first grade, my parents gave me a key to the house and basically I took care of myself after school for the rest of my childhood. My playground was the golf course across the street. Initially, it was a place to sled in the winter. I have many fond memories sledding for hours, doing jumps off sand dunes. The forests and trails and streams which look small today to me, were enormous expanses of wilderness. My friends and I would look for errant golf balls hit into the woods and sell them for 25 cents apiece to golfers. It was idylliic... but something happened around middle school. Paul, the Armenian, I had known since kindergarten started to sway me to the dark side.. as boys you always try to see how much you can get away with. Test people’s limits. That was the beginning of a 3 year period which led to my foray into black market fireworks dealing, petty theft and arson. 3 years later, i would no longer speak to my delinquent friends. This period of my life and these stories were held between us. 

It all started one summer afternoon, Paul had a magnifying glass and we were hanging out in the forest. like 2 curious boys we were lighting fires and putting them out. at one point the fires got bigger and bigger. then one got out of control and we couldn't contain it anymore. we threw things to try to put it out. and ran out from the billowing flames...  I remember some astonished golfers yelling "Fire!" and started chasing us. luckily we set the fire by the train station next to the golfcourse so when we escaped we blended into the crowd of onlookers hiding by feigning similar shocked expressions. You would think arson would scare us from illicit behavior but it didn't stop. 

Paul stole something from a drugstore in front of me and egged me on to do it too. My first theft was a calculator of all things.... I think I slipped it under my shirt and walked out the door. Paul couldn’t believe I did it. It was followed by stealing school lunches. I went to the same junior high that Louis ck went to. The school where he stole science lab scales to sell for his pot habit. The trick to stealing lunch was to get a tray of food. And slowly inch backwards until you were no longer in line but heading back to your lunch table.I refined my ‘craft’ in the cafeteria... which I would later use at stores in Boston. If I saw my 12 year old self today, I would give him a smack in the head and tell him to cut it out...we frequented Harvard square a lot. in the intersection there's a newsstand called out of town news. being boys, we went to the adult magazine section...with bag in hand. we stood there among dirty old men. but instead of free lunch we just put magazines into our bags...stacks and stacks of them we pilfered and then hid in the golf course. being entrepreneurs, we decided to sell them. all of our activities happened in the bathroom in middle school. 

with the proceeds of our illicit sales of our magazine sales booming. we heard a rumor from older kids there were fireworks being sold in haymarket.. the Italian section of boston where 2 Italian dealers would sit on a bench next to a basketball court with low rims.  with such vague directions, we went into town with the bills in our pockets. this was the first time i skipped school. we moved into our next phase of enterprise, fireworks. completely illegal in Massachusetts.indeed we saw a miniature basketball court and a couple old Italians sitting on a bench. we made an order. we'd like bottle rockets, roman candles, and jumping jacks and some m80's. they were sold in gross or bricks. an obscene amount of fireworks. we would make this trip many times. each time keeping some fireworks for ourselves and lighting them for fun, selling the rest for a profit... i saved up enough money to buy a stereo system with a record player. my parents never knew how i came to afford it. 

so with magazines and fireworks in line, we expanded our enterprise into music.there was a record store which sold cassette tapes.these are a little different from magazines as they are labeled electronically and can be detected in metal detectors.my friend Joe and i were thinking about how to pull this off. we grabbed a few.. and had them in our pockets and were trying to devise ways to strip off the tags by the detectors when we were caught.they took polaroid pictures of us. and we were banned from the store. we weren't to be prosecuted... but they did call our parents and we had to be picked up. it was embarrassing. for my transgrssions, i had to perform 3 months of community service.i shelved books at a library.everyone thought it was a side job, i was an honest boy making some extra cash... but it was to avoid a criminal record at 13 years old. 

at this point my parents forbade me to hang out with my 2 friends. the last i saw of Joe was when we were in a drug store together. he was hauled away for shoplifting. that was it. i started focusing on school in 10th grade as school records start counting for college admissions.  

Seinfeld on Family

After ending his eponymous show in 1998, ("a show about nothing") seinfeld spent the next 20 years getting married and raising a family. last fall we saw his ruminations about family life at the beacon theater.

"I got married late in life had some issues I was enjoying those issues quite a bit as i recall When I was single I had married friends I would not visit their homes I found their lives to be pathetic and depressing. Now that I’m married I have no single friends I find their lives to be Meaningless and trivial experiences. In both cases I believe I was correct.

Whichever side of marriage side you’re on you don’t get what the other people are doing. I don’t hang out with single guys.. you don’t have a wife We have nothing to talk about. You have a girlfriend, that’s wiffleball. You’re playing paint ball war... I’m in Afghanistan. You’re sitting on a merry go round blowing a pinwheel, I’m driving a truck full of nitro down a dirt road. Hey single guys here, “hey jerry what if I want to be a married guy like you, what do I got to have?” “I’ll tell you what you’ve got to have, you’ve got to have some answers, buddy. Women have a lot of questions, their brains are strong they’re on high alert all the time. You’re sleeping, she’s researching. Female brains are always cooking. The female brain is one of the most competent and capable organs of the biological universe. Girl power. There’s nothing the female brain can’t do. It will solve all problems of earth and life.. and once it’s completed that it will move onto the hypothetical. Theoretical situations that may or may not occur. The female mind needs to know how you might respond. “If you faked your own death I found out about it.. what would you say?” “What are we talking about?” “Oh I dreamt the whole thing last night so don’t deny it” Being married is like being on a game show and you’re always in the lightning round. I went out and bought a game show podium. I set it up in my living room. I wake up in the morning, stand behind the podium. Try to answer all my wife’s questions.. and get on with the goddamn day. I got a hand button clicker. “I’ll take movies we saw together for $200” my wife of course is the returning champion from last week. “I’ll take details from 10 minute conversations we had at 3 o clock in the morning 8 years ago... I’d like to bet everything I have on that, Alex.  I am going for the win.” “Your husband of course never has a clue. I’m sorry sir you did not win the weekend sex package. You’re pretelevised for the morning event. Thank you for playing ‘are you even listening to me’? and don’t forget to take that big bag of garbage with you on the way out.

Here’s what I do now. ladies your husband wants to make you happy. he’s working on it! planning it and thinking about it every second. but he cannot do it. sometimes we do it but we don’t know how we did it. and then you ask “what did I do?” that looks like you don’t know what you’re doing. you can’t do nothing. She says “I can’t believe you’re doing this?” the Man says “doing what?” the woman starts crying. the man says “I didn’t do anything”. the woman says “exactly.”

so... it is a bit of a chess game isn’t it? except the board is flowing water and all the chess pieces are made of smoke. You can make all the moves you want but you will not affect the outcome of the game. It’s a beautiful thing. Marriage. because it has its moments. Interesting moments. Fascinating moments. I saw a couple on the street other day. It’s true. husband in the car, wife on the sidewalk. he’s picking her up after work. he does not bring the car to a full and complete stop. she has the door open she’s hopping she has 1 foot in trying to get some kind of leverage to get in the car. One can only imagine the spirited exchange of ideas that’s took place in the car the rest of the evening. that’s what marriage is. it’s two people that’s it...trying to stay together without saying the words “I hate you”. you’re not allowed to say that... but you can feel it... that’s OK. don’t let it come out. say something else. say anything else. “so why is there never any scotch tape in this goddamn house?” Scotch tape is ‘i’ tape is ‘hate’ and house is ‘you’. it’s just better... it’s better to say “no normal human being leaves the bathroom floor that wet“ than “you’re stubbing out my soul like a cigarette butt”. you don’t say “I could kill you right now” you say “you’re so funny sometimes”... and and you’re not alone in marriage too so don’t forget that. culture, society, and technology even helping you on your journey of marriage. in your car, for example, separate buttons dual zone climate control systems in so many cars now. Gee, I wonder if it was a married person that thought of that. You know this could come in handy for someone you’re legally bound to you for the rest of your life. when you want him to shut up about the temperature “I’m freezing I’m frozen, I’m boiling, it’s blowing on me.” when my wife says “the air is on me” it’s equivalent of a normal person saying “a bear is on me.” that’s the urgency level and I respond to that level too. oh my God an evil breeze from a hostile vent is attacking my main life partner who currently bore me three children without anesthesia and probably could’ve caught the babies herself when nobody else was around but cannot survive a waft of air 3°Off her optimum desired temperature. It true this stupid dual zone thing totally works to keep different temperatures and air molecules from commingling inside a 3 foot wide compartment of an automobile because a lot of times I go to my coffee place in the morning I like to get my coffee black on the left side of the cup and cream and sugar on the right. marriage is a beautiful thing “but Jerry we would like for you to tell us in a little more detail how you transitioned because we saw you do it. 45 years regular single bachelor guy all of a sudden you turn on a dime... marriage kids life is better how did you navigate that? how did you acclimate? how did you cohabitate and procreate while learning to accommodate so as not to aggravate? very good question. because a man in a marriage will not survive if he does not have a strong brain to speech filtration system. you don’t just talk in marriage. it’s risky. when I’m with my wife who I love so dearly and a thought enters my little head.. the first thing I think is “well, I know I can’t say that... maybe I can say I heard someone else say it” and then she and I can share a warm moment together agreeing on what an idiot that person is. we get along great.

we have three kids. I told you that. my wife had me there I was there at the big sheet. I was allowed to be there I was in the northern hemisphere the baby was born the doctor picks up the baby the baby the head pops above the sheet like a goop. it’s traumatic. Obviously. It is the most Traumatic moment of human life any time two people walk into a room and three come out a major event took place. at the end of life, we go back basically into the same room... people around the same bed. same stuff and also a different number of people coming out than went in. but that’s the human being business. that’s a hospital’s job. we got to turn the inventory. new products. we got to keep the supply chain moving. the hospital’s job is get them in get them out.I love being a dad. My oldest my daughter just finished high school. She goes to college now. she just left a couple months ago. everybody’s asking me “jerry how do you feel the first kid leaving the house what’s it like? Are you ok.” I’m ok it’s like somehow if you found a baby alligator and you put it in your tub and everyone comes to check it out. “oh come on I found it put your finger in its mouth feel its little teeth” and then time passes and you go “you know, I think we should get this thing the hell out of here. It shouldn’t be here anymore. It’s too big. It’s scary. This thing needs to be out there murdering and eating other things. That is what nature wanted you to do. I love the whole thing when they were little. There was just that thing our generation. If you have kids you know what I’m talking about... you know what happened with it. you we got so into it can’t get enough of it.

When we were kids some parents didn’t give a damn about us. Where we were what our names were. I remember standing in line behind the ice cream truck. And the different ice creams they have.. the stickers the signs for them was right over the exhaust pipe if the truck. You had a Dixie cup it was the equivalent of smoking a pack of camels This is how you grew up you were born to people. You lived in their house. The day you moved out you turned around and went “that’s insane! I don’t understand 90% of the last 18 years. I appreciate it. I will be back to visit the minimum acceptable number of times. Nice doing business with you. That’s how we grew up. We couldn’t wait to get out of the house. Our kids can’t wait to stay where they are.

My Anus

“Did you have a good time in Mianus (my anus)? how did you like my anus?” with a name like mianus river state park, it’s funny to discuss with J and B. “my anus was ok..” they admitted.

My wife K, who tries not to pollute our kids’ minds too much with vulgar language asked, “do you think Mianus might be pronounced ‘me anus’?” “No. how do you pronounce Miami? My ammy right? So mianus is pronounced my anus…” I reply.

It was hard to get into my anus, since it’s so popular…. Indeed when we arrived the cars overfilled the trailhead lot and spilled into side streets where a douchebag cop was writing tickets to people who parked illegally. For Christ’s sake, people just need to get out of quarantine and get fresh air, don’t write a ticket and spoil their day. I asked him, “where can a poor city family like us get free parking?” He said “at the corner of westover and canfield drive. Make a left and a left about a quarter mile away.”

Great, we had to walk a little to get to my anus. We didn’t know what to expect when we went to my anus… who knew Stamford would have trails like this? the trails formed a web on the rolling hill landscape connecting rivers to bogs to pools. At the bogs, you could hear the bullfrogs make their calls. When we walked into private property along the east side of the dark shimmering river, we crossed the water on a serendipitous fallen tree to get back to the main hiking loop. The poplar trees met the ground like eagle claws. it was rather dark and comfortably cool in my anus as the tree canopy provided good coverage from the sun… People peacefully fished for salmon and trout in the shade. I threw pebbles into the water trying to bend reality. against the leafy green canopy, we saw Scarlet Tanagers. With their blood red bodies with jet black wings and tails, they are the summer princes of the eastern forests. They're also one of the most frustratingly hard to find birds as they stay high in the forest canopy singing their songs. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Scarlet_Tanager/sounds

Speaking of songs, My Anus River State Park was actually the 94 acre estate of singer Libby holman (1904-1971) before it was transformed into a state park in 1990. She sung torch songs like 1929 hit “Moanin’ Low” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsq9aIc07gs A torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, either where one party is oblivious to the existence of the other, where one party has moved on, or where a romantic affair has affected the relationship. The term comes from the saying, "to carry a torch for someone," or to keep aflame the light of an unrequited love. My torch songs pale in comparison to libby’s torch songs.

Looking into her love life, you see a web of tragedy and drama as convoluted as the trails on her estate. She was best known pioneering the use of the strapless dress and for her intimate relations with men and women including Dupont heiress louisa d’andelot, Reynolds tobacco scion Zach Smith Reynolds, and sculptor Louis Shanker. Her lover killed Reynolds in 1933 after she revealed she was pregnant. Her son from Reynolds died in climbing Mt whitney at the age of 17. In 1971 she committed suicide breathing in carbon monoxide in a rolls Royce. She was depressed schanker forbade visits from her lesbian lovers… and also her friend martin luther king was shot dead. it was libby that provided MLK the funds to visit India to meet followers of Mahatma Gandhi, whom he referred to as "the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.”

Upon leaving my anus in our brown subaru, we vowed to return to the enchanted forest. 

Scarlet Tanager

Poplar claw

Serendipitous tree crossing

                                   

Libby Holman

Locked Out

Once I shut the door I knew I was fucked. I was on the outside, and the only copy of the apartment key was inside. The key was on a special plastic handle so i hadn’t put it on my key chain. I went to the reception and asked if they had an extra key and the super even checked his office in the basement. No dice. I had to call a locksmith. You call a locksmith and then they page a roaming technician to come by to give a quote. It’s like a stupid dispatcher-roving technician drug dealing like system.

As I was waiting, the super came up to console me. I told him I couldn’t believe I made such a dumb mistake. I was on my way to pick up lunch and absent mindedly left the key on the dining table. I asked him how much he thought lock replacement cost... he said he didn’t know but he knew a woman who was fleeced $1700 in another building. Great.

I got a crazy idea. Since I had unlocked the patio door to provide some air while I was woodcutting, I knew it was open. I also knew the building has a series of terracing balconies. I asked the super if he had a ladder. He did. At that moment the locksmith arrived. A lanky Israeli in jeans with a gauze bandage on his hand. At the door I asked him how much... he said “how much you want to pay”. I say 100. Like a fucker he says “usually I drill a lock out that’s 115 and then I charge another 245 to install a new lock. The lock can’t be picked it’s automatic.” 15 minutes earlier I had tried in vain sliding a plastic card to open it. The Israeli made a hard sell. He calls his boss talks in Hebrew and says “250 in cash and I’ll do it for you now.”

Just then, the super came down the hallway, I told the Israeli I wanted to try scaling the ladder before dropping $250. He probably never saw a cheaper guy in his life. Climbing down from 16th floor balconies to avoid locksmith fees? We went to the apartment above. Fancy apartment with authentic Marilyn Monroe Warhol silkscreen paintings on the wall and we were weaving a 10 foot ladder over the kitchen island and fancy furniture.

Going to the balcony edge we dangled the ladder down but it was too short by about 3 feet. Shit. I was resigned to paying 250. The super told me the floor below the apartment may have a shorter floor to floor height. Riding the elevator between the 16th and 14th floors the super says, “at least it’s an interesting day!” For staff, it was exciting to figure out how to break into apartments. So we set up the ladder on the lower balcony but again it was about 3 feet too short. At this point, in times of potential financial loss I got an idea. There were a couple flimsy wicker tables and a metal plate. I said, why don’t we stack the wickers, put a protective sheet metal plate on top to prop the ladder up without having the ladder punch through the wicker. We rotate the wicker stack 45 degrees to fit the ladder on the diagonal and voila.

While we held the wicker baskets together so the whole rickety arrangement wouldn’t topple, the super safely climbed up the ladder over the guard rail and opened the door. I forgot to tell him to dodge the Japanese knives and my woodcut at the threshold. A day earlier I had gauged my big toe bloody on a knife. I had been carving a board of poplar to form an elm canopy silhouette for the past 2 weeks. Luckily the super opened the front door unscathed. He didn’t say anything but he must’ve wondered what arboreal transformations I had been working on.

Unofficial Meeting Minutes

A four hour meeting with various custodial, security, and administrative staff for the public library. A conversation that was surprisingly funny. I joked to R. we should disseminate all the jokes and nothing serious to see if the attendees even read the minutes..

Attendees:

P. the head of capital management projects at nyc libraries. Looks and acts like ray romano. Oversees 36 building projects in queens

R. - country boy architect from west texas

Me - slacker architect 1/2 paying attention

B. - DDC bureaucrat

T. - facilities manager for libraries. Oversees maintenance of 63 libraries 

First point of discussion - solar panels

By city ordinance, for any roof greater than 230 sf solar panels must be used. We put them into our roof, and now we were asked how do we use them. Do we attach them to inverters to convert DC power to AC (alternating current) to power the lighting in the building, or do we tie our power system back to the energy supplier, or do we store energy in batteries. Where do we place the batteries and inverters? Inside or outside? If outside does can it be replaced easily? If inside does it need to be in a fire protected room? If so, how big does the room have to be? This item on the agenda led to many questions.

Second item on the agenda - indoor planting. Who takes care of the plants? Do the plants grow in pots so they stay the same size and need less maintenance? How many species do we grow? Do we need biodiversity in our planters should certain species fail? We don’t want too much biodiversity because it’s hard to tailor 1 management plan to numerous species.  It’s a problem to put benches in the planters cause kids will jump on the plants. Do we put railings around the planters? If so the railings can’t have holes more than 1” wide for kids to stick their fingers into. Do we put backs on the seats? Do we put glass guardrails around the plantings? To avoid making a terrarium, The final resolution was to raise the planting beds so kids don’t climb on them.

At this point R. made a dark joke “why don’t we just put electric cattle collars around the kids necks so they get zapped if they go into the planters. We can use our solar panels to supply the electricity.” Everyone laughed. 

Third agenda item was zinc roofing panels. By the ocean, aluminum panels will pit and deteriorate fast. Zinc panels will last 100 years before replacement is necessary. The warrantee for zinc is 50 years. At this point the table got serious. All of us at the table would be outlived by the roofing material on the library. P. said, “this is depressing. I first started thinking about mortality when I had my first kid at 39... I wake up at night thinking about this. It sucks to die” B. said “at least you will have grandchildren to enjoy the roof... when will your oldest son have kids?” P. replied “the way my younger 17 year old son is acting I could have grandkids soon” R. said “I had my kid in my 50s... mortality struck me when my dad died. Back In west texas my mom said to me remember so and so? They have 17 great grand kids. Down south it’s easy to pump out kids”

Fourth item was door hardware. What kind of locks go on each set of doors. It’s a pretty dry conversation. This door gets a lock... this door gets card access... this door has a panic bar for egress... when we got to bathrooms, they wanted a knob that indicated occupied or unoccupied like a plane door. At this point someone quipped “we should have it in 10 languages... how do you say the bathroom is occupied in west texas?” asked R.  R responded in a slow southern drawl “I’m in here” .. then mused they would probably say something more like “I got a gun” then recounted going to a grocery store in west texas where moms hold guns on their belts since it is allowed. Curiously churches tell you to leave guns outside the house of worship. 

Fifth item on the agenda was security. You know the library is in a really bad neighborhood and people will break through glass to get in so we need to have some glass break intrusion monitors in these areas people shoot guns BB guns to crack the windows at this point R interjected “ I remember when I was a comb and we stayed at the top of the road when we shot the BB gun straight up into the air and we will see if we can hit the top of the roof down the street the one time we hit a window and we all got in trouble.”

Final agenda item was interior finishes. somehow We ended up talking about an artist  installation at another city library where there was a ceiling track with motto and provocative words that were motorized and moved around the room saying “what is Art” Custodian said that was a wacky stupid installation. sometimes you think what is that art? then we talked about banksy and exit through the gift shop and I brought up the origin of Banksy and the  Zabar’s  tag and then the art Basel banana that was duct taped to the wall and sold for $120,000 and the two bananas taped to a wall in Williamsburg we passed this weekend that were made as a joke on a subway station wall.

Politics 201 - Part 2 (Community Board Meeting)

Unbeknownst to me at the time, The Knights of Columbus is a large catholic fraternal organization that started in 1882 to support Irish immigrants by providing life insurance to widows. Many catholic leaders in America have been knights.... president J. f kennedy, mayor Dan Daly, coach Vince Lombardi, judge Samuel alito... The only thing I knew of the knights prior to the meeting was their ugly 23 story building designed by dinkeloo roache that greets visitors to new haven arriving from the highway. The lodge in far Rockaway was nondescript save for its coat of arms on a lit billboard by the parking lot. Inside there was a large ballroom with a square wood floor inset into a green carpet. The light wood floor was left open, the council members comprised of 50 unpaid members appointed by the Borough President that represent the District formed the tribunal and sat on long tables arranged on 3 sides... we set up our projector and table on the remaining side of the square. The public community members with all the lazy millennials, hot dog seller hirers, dumbass plastic bag questioners, beach lifeguard requesters, government sanitation and census workers, and disgruntled subway riders with grand plans were seated in rows behind the council members on all sides. I sat in the back right and estimated there were probably a couple hundred in attendance. Lyn took the floor and started the 5 minute slideshow which was projected onto a wall in a recessed alcove at the back of the room.

When Vitruvius wrote about dinocrates presenting to Alexander the Great in book 2 of his seminal treatise Four Books on Architecture, he describes him as “a man of tall stature, pleasing countenance, and altogether of dignified appearance. Trusting to the gifts with which nature had thus endowed him, he put off his ordinary clothing, and having anointed himself with oil, crowned his head with a wreath of poplar, slung a lion's skin across his left shoulder, and carrying a large club in his right hand, he sallied forth to the royal tribunal, at a period when the king was dispensing justice. The novelty of his appearance excited the attention of the people; and Alexander soon discovering, with astonishment, the object of their curiosity, ordered the crowd to make way for him, and demanded to know who he was. "A Macedonian architect," replied Dinocrates, "who suggests schemes and designs worthy your royal renown. I propose to form Mount Athos into the statue of a man holding a spacious city in his left hand, and in his right a huge cup, into which shall be collected all the streams of the mountain, which shall then be poured into the sea."

Although the appearance  for design architects has somewhat changed over the centuries, architects definitely have cultivated a certain look. instead of lion skins and wreaths... today thick rimmed glasses, sport jacket, styled hair, crisp dark gray shirt  is the codified dress attire. Like architects from 220 BC, R. played the part and dressed in the designer uniform for the meeting in front of the community board.

The presentation was 5 minutes and probably 90% incomprehensible to the masses. A series of plans, FEMA flood maps,  sections and technical drawings and renderings were flashed upon the screen. R.’s attempt to translate simple architecture jargon to laypeople fell flat. I’ve been at presentations where we received standing ovations at the end... where the presenters were like dinocrates and the audience members were sold on ideas and visions. at this presentation I felt we had presented an enigmatic puzzle, raising more questions than answers. we spent the next 50 minutes explaining and clarifying the design in a prolonged question answer session with the board after the presentation. 

Board  member seeking to beautify our building. “Can we add a little greenery, shrubs to the sidewalk by the building” I thought about frank Lloyd Wright’s funny quote about how to correct an architectural mistake. “A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.” I couldn’t tell whether this board member opened up this line of questioning with a motivation to fix our building which may be interpreted as a concrete bunker, or if they just wanted to introduce plantings to the entry. R. tried to evade this question by misdirecting the questioner to obscure street tree ordinances. All month, the head of queens library, J., told us he didn’t want grass or planting in front of the building because trash collects amongst the grasses. “There’s a series of laws regulating the spacing of street trees on site.. “ “no, I’m talking about vegetation along the building” here, R. tried to avoid the topic again “We’d like to plant another tree, but because of the regulations” “no I get it.. but I’m talking about the planting by the side of the building” R. relented and conceded we would look into providing plantings.

Technocrat board member. Technical questions are finite with easily definable answers. “will the skylight overload the air conditioning system?” “The skylights will have motorized shades”

Confused board member.  You cringe when someone qualifies a question by noting how stupid it is. “This is a stupid question but technically the addition is to the right of the existing library? “Yes. The library will be built on the empty plot between the deli and the existing library.” The board member revealed she watched the whole presentation replete with plans and renderings without knowing where the project was. “My next question is will you have a bike rack in front of the library?” “Yes and it would be good to have a bike lane.” At this point the audience booed and hollered. Apparently they like to bike without bike lanes there. At this point, to allay the mob, R. joked “I have some free reusable bags to give out, they’re in my car” the mob went from outraged to laughing. 

Board member trying to see the logic behind our building configuration. “I understand you’re building an addition that will double the size of the old library... can you build your library on top of the old library and save the expense of pile foundations?” “The existing foundations can’t handle the load... and if we built on top of the old library we would have to flood proof it which would have been cost prohibitive.” “Don’t you have to floodproof the existing building?” “Technically no, if we build a new building.” “Ok good luck”

Board member who asked the only question we were prepared for. “What’s your timeline and what’s the accessibility going to be like for the existing library?” “Our timeline to open is winter or summer 2023. For the most part the library will remain open during construction.”

Bitter Board member. “So the library on 94th street, Far Rockaway was promised to us for after hours use, but that never came through...  we see you’ve set up an after hours exit and community spaces.. will you guarantee these spaces can be used by the community after hours?” R. told me when the representative for queens public library, Richard,  answered this question for the team, the nature of the presentation took a dramatic nose dive  for the worse. Richard is a lion with a thick gray mane from Pittsburgh. He grew up in the 1970s when steel workers lived with pride, and a man’s honesty was his honor. You could imagine Richard with blackened steel dust nose and hard hat. In design meetings he always spoke his mind and was helpful.  At the community board meeting, all his positive traits became a liability.... he made the cardinal sin of telling the public the truthful intentions of the library operations. “The operations of the library will have to be discussed with operations... but the main entry to the library will be through the existing building.” “A lot of people commute to work and don’t get home till late so getting to the library during traditional hours will be hard.”

After this point, the floodgates opened for  all sorts of questions we could’ve never predicted. I couldn’t write my notes fast enough to record all the back and forth dialogue. My notebook record of questions aimed at us defined the collective dreams of what a community thought a library should be, and their collective fears of how it wouldn’t meet their expectations... R. tried valiantly to defend the design. “The deli on the corner is an eyesore. What can you do for that property?” <we will suggest modifications for the neighbor’s deli, perhaps offer ideas on signage changes> “Regarding global warming and flooding. I think the building should be built a little higher.” <we can’t make the building too high otherwise we’ll need an elevator which is susceptible to floods and makes wheelchair people feel excluded> “How are you relating the building to the beach community?” <we are using concrete panels with the wood grain impressions to relate to the weathered wood shingle housing vernacular> “The library is very small and it doesn’t allow for an expansion for books. You might as well tear it down and build a new library 4 stories tall. You don’t know what it feels like to go through a flood or a hurricane. We need a place for kids to innovate. The community is expecting 20,000 more residents and this library will not be able to accommodate everyone.” <Libraries all around are questioning how much space to allocate for book since people can read digitally now. Libraries are the last civic space. So our community rooms will address that need.  We understand your pain but the budget for the building was not determined by us> “Can you include space to exhibit local artists? How do local artists get involved?” <there is a percent for art program where we will invite local attorney to compete> “Will you utilize renewable energy?” <solar panels> “Will you have a backup generator? <no> “Why not?” <Cost of maintaining it, cost of wiring, lack of space on the roof> “Are you going to drive piles for the foundations If so it will be very loud and disturbing.” <we will try to use micro piles or drilled piles> “Why aren’t you floodproofing the existing library?” <there’s a loophole in the code that states if you classify an addition as a newly constructed separate building, you don’t have to floodproof the existing building. Raising the existing building 4 feet would basically use up all the budget for the project> “How are your ensuring the resiliency of materials for flooding” <by using concrete, zinc, and concrete panels which are durable> “what is your budget?” <8-10 million> “for that amount of money I don’t think we’re expanding the library. You have spaces but no extra books. People come to the library to read books. Now we’ll have 20,000 more housing units projected here, how are we going to serve them?” After 40 minutes of needling, R. finally broke down like a wounded animal and told the board his personal experience with small expansions with life changing consequences. <I’ve been living with my son sleeping in our room for the past 6 years. Just this past month, we’ve finished incorporating an adjacent studio to our apartment to give our son his own room. In giving him his own room, every other room in our apartment has benefitted and the functionality of our space has tremendously improved.> 

Sensing R. was  bleeding, the board members circled like sharks. More questions and concerns ensued. Everyone wanted to suggest a design. “Why don’t you move staff to the new library to make community space in the existing library? ... the last resolution at the meeting was  to reconvene at a walk through of the existing library site to discuss the plans with the board members to talk about different options. 

We left the Knights of Columbus Lodge feeling as if we had been ambushed. The night was damp with misty ocean air. You could see lights of planes trail just above the low night clouds in the sky as they landed at JFK airport. Up till that point, Queens public libary, and the public design commission had nothing but praise for the library proposal. We were expecting a victory parade and ticker tape adulation, but instead we were sent to the community board guillotine. R. was stunned at what had unfolded. If the library project ends or is delayed, it would be disastrous for the firm. R. worried about seeing newspaper headlines "Architect relates new library to story of his apartment renovation where gaining an extra room for his kid changes his life." Our train ride back took an egregious amount of time. 16 minutes we waited on the subway platform in the cold to get a train to Broad Channel. i kept thinking about the truth in what the MAN WIITH THE 1.6 MILLION DOLLAR TRANSIT PLAN had in mind. it was ridiculous the A trains didn't just continue along the far rockaway spur and spare residents annoying wait times.

This was R.'s third community board meeting experience. For the Bomb Squad job in the Bronx, which was put on hold indefinitely due to costs, residents questioned the open firing ranges where 27,000 officers would come and fulfill noisy bang bang outdoor target practice. For Dia Beacon, the community meeting was held at an old courthouse structure. "I didn't sleep or eat well before that meeting. I did a really bad job. at one point, some guy from the audience asks if we could plant more trees for the project. artist robert irwin was furious at this remark. Irwin gets out out of his seat, exits the half size wooden swing doors from the witness bench, and puts his face in the man's face and says "we planted trees in the parking lot, trees on the site... we've planted so many goddamn trees and you're asking for more? no way...." the man who asked the question turned out to be the planning commissioner for the town of Beacon. he got his revenge by making us plant trees up and down the road and reconfiguring the intersection in front of the museum.

To console R., i told him there was nothing we could do to prepare for this meeting. then i asked "who came up with the program?" (how did we end up making 2 large rooms of space for our library addition) i asked "initially, we put the children's section into the new part of the library, but Queens didn't want to have the staff to supervise it so they told us to put two lockable rooms in the new addition space. we tried to put the circulation desk in the new wing, but queens objected to that too. now, the community thinks we provided them 2 useless empty rooms, without books. it looks like it will not be useful to their needs."   In retrospect, i thought, we should've prepared a stance and attitude about our approach to the library. not some meek comfortable position like "let's just add more bookshelves and space".... we should've made an argument that "the future of the libary is a community space, a teaching space, a space to foster people's ambitions through teaching and interaction." oh well.

Pondering worse case scenarios, R. told me if we lost this job, we could divert our efforts to marketing. To my knowledge, R. and L. have never done marketing. Jobs just find them. a lighting renovation at a lincoln center library led to 3 library jobs for them. before that, they were involved with artists after working on the dia beacon museum. "the problem with working with artists is that they take all the credit. for dia beacon, robert irwin took all the credit. for our installation at the nytimes building, ben rubin took all the credit for the kinetic text installation. we did a job for joan mitchell foundation" "is she still alive?" i asked. "no, the manager there was a nasty person on the outside and the inside... but she wore haute couture to somehow mask her nasty personality.... artists or people who work for artists always want architects to work for free. we did a good job for the joan mitchell foundation.... but it was strange. after we finished the job, we asked to take pictures of the building, which they alllowed. when i posted the pictures to the internet, the manager had a fit. she cursed me out and said "how dare you take pictures of my personal space and upload them online. and those paintings shown in the pictures compromise our security! now all the criminals can look online and see all the valuable paintings we have in our collection." "we photoshopped all the pictures of the gallery, blurring out all the people and whiting out all the paintings. i heard at a dinner, the manager told ben rubin "R. and L. are very very bad people."

To divert his attention I asked him what the carriage house was. I’ve seen models in the office, and it had a strange name. “it is an exhibit space for old horse carriages. it's a barrel vaulted exhibit space made of corrugated metal. the contractors were so bad, when they poured the sidewalks, the concrete sloped into the building instead of away so much we couldn't even open the doors. during rains, water came pouring into the exhibit space damaging 1/2 of the carriages beyond repair. to allow the door to open, the contractors had to jack hammer away a depression into the concrete. the guy in charge of the project, benjamin,  was talented, but not detail oriented. during construction, he didn't notice the corrugated metal siding was supposed to overlap at the center highpoint. anyways, water started leaking through the joint. we used sprayfoam insulation on the inside for thermal insulation... so it's impossible to trace where the leaks are now. the water just shows up on the ground. the structural engineer said we're lucky the structure didn't fall down because the siding was supposed to overlap.” I imagined a jackhammered quarter circle of concrete in front of a door.... “as if this wasn't bad enough, for some reason. the intake fan was supposed to be mounted high, but it was mounted low. bugs would descend into the fan like kamikazes and then be sliced up into pieces and blown into the space leaving an unsightly slime of bug guts on the floor."

Ok, maybe talk of previous construction was not the best topic... I then asked how his weekend went. “i went upstate hiking with the family on Sunday. we saw an old mine. my poor sister, she got really sick (i found out today she went down with pneumonia)." as he showed me pictures of his hike i told R. about some nice abandoned railway lines that run upstate through forests that have been converted into bike trails. at their terminus were quarries for the stone used to build the brooklyn bridge. i asked if he was close to his sister, Peg. I had seen R.'s sister at his christmas party. she looked like R. except female. slender and tall with sunk eyes like R., she was a reserarcher of epinephrine neruortransmitters and parkinson's disease at NYU who straight talked with a oklahaman drawl. i told him, I talked biology for a long time with her at his christmas party. I noted to R., certain biologists are very verbal, and relate biology through stories. every molecule, every pathway are like characters playing a part of a story and can be verbalized. (i'm not that type of biologist) he chuckled at my observation. he had previously renovated her lab that was an old bellevue hospital room replete with odd surgical tools. these surgical tools, which look like gynecological implements with weird snippers sit in a metal can in our model shop in the office. R. answered my question, "ever since my son was born, my sister and I hang out a lot. before that, he had renovated her apartment in 1999 and they didn't speak for 10 years. i couldnt get my preferred contractor to work on the job, so i got some czech guys somebody recommended. everytime her bathroom would clog, she would call me to complain... also, my sister also didn't like the fact they took 10 days to tile her bathroom when it should've only took 1. i met with the czech contractors and my sister in a coffee shop. they said to us they better be paid, or else. my sister stormed out and threatened to call the cops. i asked my friend at diller scofidio who was czech and asked him what he would do in my situation. he said "pay the czechs... otherwise they'll sabotage your apartment, snip some wires.... or come back for revenge." i paid them." Every conversation ended in some sort of construction misery. 2 hours in a train was like our therapy. R. would miss the rest of the week of work — Probably suffering pneumonia and community board agony.

After the meeting I’ve been working hard, trying to just complete the design documentation milestone phase of design so R. and L. can get paid for their services. In my spare time, I’ve been scouring the internet for news or reported accounts of our disastrous community board meeting... nothing. instead I find miserable tidbits of previous community board meetings like this. “Two Far Rockaway residents said a serious problem is developing as absentee landlords are buying up bungalows on Beach 25th Street. They say these are being used to house up to 20 ex-convicts and discharged mental patients per unit, with no supervision.  This includes a number of sexual predators, they said.”

Dinocrates presenting to Alexander the Great