Chronicles Continued

Have had these burgundy wine classes since engagement in Brussels.  Glad to pass them on.  Was ‘funny’ to see them on the shelf

Last evening attending OSLO at the Lincoln Center.  Seated next to me is an older couple, well-dressed, nice looking, cultured.  Until.  They pulled out little brush-teeth-cleaning-sticks and used them, somewhat discretely, before the start of the play.  When they left for intermission and at the end of the play, the used sticks lay on the carpet in front of their chairs.  Words fail me!

Read about it, looked for it, and then just chanced upon it yesterday.

Just one of the many art pieces, but this one I found timely because it was all done with mirrors.  There were these rooms, but none of them were actual rooms.  They were placed and reflected multi times to form the image of a room.  Rather like politics, mirrors creating the image of real.

Everyone does their best to contribute:

Theirs:

Mine

As one ages, one is aware that younger is more desirable in many aspects of life as defined here in the City; certainly men to women.  For example, I am eye candy to someone 20 years my senior.  They to me however are not an option.  The other day, I popped into the White Horse Tavern to pick up a copy of Time Out which is available on Wednesday and days thereafter.  On the Thursday I entered, the tavern was full to overflowing.  Could have been the weather, the time of day, an economic report, any one of a number of variables.  As the door closed behind me I saw that the corner stand holding the magazines was completely inaccessible.  There was a trio of good-looking older-than-middle aged men between me and the magazine stack.  But on a mission, I walked up to the one directly in front of the display on which he had laid his coat and said, ‘I think’…and before I could say more, he looked up from the phone in his hand with a big smile on his face.  In that instant I could see a number of reactions.  In this crowed place, a female had chosen to approach him, not his friends, a female he didn’t know, a female period.  His day was getting better by the second.  And then I finished my sentence, ‘…you are right in front of the Time Out Magazines, perhaps you wouldn’t mind handing me one?”  The smile stayed, he removed the coat, reached for and handed me a magazine, to which I gave him my thanks and left.  On the outside of the door I paused for a moment.  i considered the option of going back in and ‘chatting him up- even instantly had an opening line.  But i didn’t.

And there I was, in Williamsburg Brooklyn, early Friday evening and the sirens started.  I wondered if it was the end of the world… you never know.. so I looked it up.

This is from:GOTHAMist:

“If you’re ever in Williamsburg ten minutes before the sun sets on a Friday night, you’ll have heard the eerie sirens that wail far and wide throughout the neighborhood. It isn’t a test or drill, it’s the warning that Shabbat will be starting soon, and it’s time to go home (if you’re Orthodox Jewish).

It’s not just one siren, but several, installed on different Yeshivas in South Williamsburg, a neighborhood that’s predominantly ultra-Orthodox Jewish. The sirens are controlled independently, which is why they can sound overlapped and echoed. The Torah says that the start of Shabbat is announced with the blowing of a “shofar,” a ram’s horn. The noises you hear are from STH-10 model mechanical sirens… close enough. I found two of them: one on 152 Rodney Street and one on 163 Clymer Street, and was surprised at how far south they were. They’re easily heard as far up as Greenpoint.

These things are loud . In 2004, a Yeshiva in Midwood, on Avenue N, received five noise code violations from the Environmental Protection Department for their siren, the Daily News reported. Technically, the city exempts religious institutions from this code, but neighbors complained that the volume was too extreme. The noise decibel level accepted by the city is 45 decibels, and the yeshiva’s siren was at 127. In the end, they agreed to lower it. In particular, war veterans were most agitated by the noise, which reminded them of another time in New York’s history when sirens blared weekly.”

So there is was, not the end of the world, but the beginning of the Sabbath!  Rather like the church bell effect better

 

When you are the last car on the block.