Liberal Serving

Home is a pretty good place #2

Indeed, NYC is so unchristian. Beautifully, comfortably forgot-it's-Easter unchristian.

Tourist: I want to go home. New York is so unchristian. Look at this, they even have a place called "Satan Island"!

New Yorker: Oh yeah, we New Yorkers are the worst. We even sold our souls to the devil so we could all read.

--6 train

Overheard in NY via Feministe

Home is a pretty good place

My coworker (whom I love):

"What day is Christmas again? December 26th? 24th?"

She also asked me if there was a traditional Easter gift (and was surprised when I told her white lilies - which I only know as Easter Lilies). New York has about a million Jews, so your chance at going a whole day avoiding xtians is pretty good. Nice place, home.

Winter's Just A Few Short Months Away

St. Stanislaus, originally uploaded by ryanmurphy.

With temperatures forecasted to hit 100 degrees in New York City today, lets take a look back at happier times: "Blizzard '06" when NYC had almost (but no, not quite) two feet of snow. Ahhh, so soothing, all that snow. I could just cuddle up with it like a blankie today...

Upstate

Upstate New York is a place in between: East coast sophisticate and midwestern hick. New England blue states and Ohio red. Lively, exuberant industrial revolution past, decaying rust belt present. Hippie relics that fled New York in the 70's and the mall rat "hippies" that have nothing to flee...Boston and Seattle if you were so stupid as to drive route 90 all the way across the continent. It's a great place in so many ways, and yet horrible, horrible in others. It's like your friend with low self esteem who's attractive, yet thinks they're hideous so they never date, and dwells in the negative. I gave it a try as an adult, then left like so many others - regretting only that my escape hadn't come earlier.

There's not much going on for the past 50 or so years, so there's a calm stillness about the whole region. Yes, it's boring, but there is beauty in the quiet. To my eye, this photo perfectly captures the feeling of the place. It's from a (painfully attainable) real estate listing and it has it all: The pre-modern charm of what hasn't been replaced by decades of new development that never happened there. The bookish nerdiness of a dozen college towns. The frumpy welcome of a too-wide rocking chair...a cat.

The cliche says you can't go home again, and honestly, my family's house has much less forgotten-past charm, so it's not a literal itch. But nostalgia trumps the senses, and a part of me will always want to leave the big city - with all it's progressive safety - and go home.

Ms. Subways Says: Enthusiasm is Overrated

I sort of don't care that this was chopped a year ago and isn't even the pose I was googling for. Ms. Subways is some funny shit (!) regardless. For those outside navel-gazing range of NYC, Ms. Subways is a PR tool who preaches to us from subway ads to let pregnant women sit and other such gems of etiquette. Her enthusiasm is underwhelming. If my face was going to be plastered around the city I'd at least muster some ironic fake enthusiasm...

"Greenpoint Crew" Nabbed

More Brooklyn charm to share...

"The Greenpoint Crew" ran a violent organized-crime ring that specialized in extortion, and trafficked in weapons, drugs, stolen IDs - and a priceless antique violin, prosecutors said.

... In January, Sprysak told Kapelioujnyj and the informant that another defendant, Lukasz Zalewski, had obtained a Stradivarius violin that had been stolen in Europe and was worth about $750,000.

They asked the informant to find a buyer. At the direction of the FBI, the informant claimed he had found one. Instead, Kapelioujnyj plotted to rip off the violin from Zalewski and keep the cash.

via Gothamist

Brooklyn Charm

Keeping it "real" via A Brooklyn Life

I Heart NY, Trash

There has never been a more apt metaphor for NYC.  Beautiful, tacky schlock referencing at least 3 touchstones at once - each from totally different generations... and for sale(!) Via A Brooklyn Life.