Gustav vs. The Love of My Life

I thought Katrina was bad. Gustav sounds like it could be extra scary for New Orleans.

Funny that my friend Erin was just blogging about relationships with cities and these lines are at the end of a CNN story about Gustav zeroing in on The City That Care Forgot (one that has frequently been referred to in relationship terms, throughout history and literature--Faulkner, when he was writing for the Times-Picayune and came to town at the suggestion of Sherwood Anderson, had written those New Orleans Sketches and referred to the city as a "kindly old whore"):

"Bette has the means to leave new Orleans. She and her husband could jump in their car and take off. During Katrina, she briefly relocated to Houston, and while happy she made that choice, she couldn't stay. She had to return to her city.

Like a relationship that suffers a bad break-up and is stronger after a reunion, she worries that she hasn't got the heart to leave and then return a second time.

"When you stand out there by that river and look at that levee," she said, "you are just so blessed to live here. I am in love, and so I make my choice."

I feel a spell of insomnia coming on.

Roosevelt Island

Last weekend, I continued on my tour of NYC islands and visited Roosevelt Island. It felt like a big suburb in Queens, or like an offshoot of Jersey City's Newport residential area.

There's something about islands in the rivers surrounding this one big island of Manhattan--a sense of defying the impossibilities of their own existences, maybe. Roosevelt Island is so narrow--you can almost see the other side as you stand on the opposite shore. It feels like a little getaway, and at other times its history as a prison island seeps up from the soil (anarchist Emma Goldman was in prison here, and so was Billie Holiday--for prostitution!).

Before we'd even circumnavigated the entire island, we felt like we had to leave. It felt claustrophobic. Maybe the ghosts of prisoners were tapping on our shoulders, shuddering a collective, "Escape while you can!" That was a weird sensation.

The thing that struck me most was the rich juxtopositions present in the skyline: the stacks of plants visible from a grassy ballfield, for example. Industry looming in the distance, everpresent and unavoidable.



Even getting there was strange: there was a cloistered entrance that felt like a labyrinth you had to walk through to get to the bridge.


And once you arrive, you "land" in a parking garage that houses a dusty, defunct escalator.

OMG, I'm dyyyying....!

I have recently revisited one of the funniest blogs I've ever seen. I'm lucky I didn't pee my pants just now.

Visit The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

Governor's Island

As part of my project this summer, Operation Explore New York, I have been riding my bike a lot and going to cool places I've never been but always wanted to check out. One of them was Governor's Island.

My friend Erin and I had fun galavanting around this former Army barracks on an island in the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn this weekend. This place called Castle Williams once imprisoned Confederate soldiers.



Also, there was miniature golf.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Ephemera

My entry for the first time in a while: a poster for the freak show at Coney Island--one of my favorite places on earth.