Voyeurism

I went on a field trip to Harlem with my class yesterday. It felt like contrived tourism, with old guys sitting on their stoops or passing us by on the sidewalk, shouting, "Don't listen to him, he don't know nothin' about Harlem!" We were a mixed group of students, but the professor was an old white guy in a baseball cap.

But does it feel like voyeurism because of me and my whiteness and my subsconscious racial prejudices? Would I feel like a voyeur if I were to go on a trip of historic Greenwich Village? Probably not. So why does Harlem feel any different? Why should going to look at Zora Neale Hurston's old hangout, at the sites of old nightclubs, at famous streets, be any different from checking out where Allen Ginsberg used to hang? Why do I feel embarrassed?

In any case, it was cool to see all those sites, and also sad, because most of them did not have plaques or anything commemorating their history. The old nightclub, Small's Paradise, is now an IHOP; the former headquarters of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association is marked only by a small sign, and is now a beauty salon; the Savoy Ballroom site has a nice little monument, but is exploited nonetheless by the ironic phrase "hip & historic," as if the city cares about other former landmarks of the Harlem Renaissance.

In front of the Schomberg Library 

The current site of the former Cotton Club... 

...and the previous! Crazy

Summer Glut

Tour de Queens: underwhelming, to say the least. Average pace: 5 mph. Attendees: more than 2,000. It felt great to be a part of something huge and urban and active, especially an event that pisses off cars (blocked off Queens Boulevard for 15 minutes!). But an exciting bike tour this was not; I was told the NYC Century is more my speed. I'm still working on upping my endurance ride to 50 miles...

At Flushing Meadow Park, a relic from the World's Fair

Lots of cyclists at Forest Park

It also felt pretty great to be part of a massive group of Queens cyclists -- I felt a little surge of local pride, and hope that the event at least pissed off enough people (or pleased them! we got a lot of applause in Woodside) to make a stir in the headlines of some local papers. My fellow cyclists were serious, too, not a bunch of single-speed high-waisted skirt-wearing sideways-ponytailed too-cool-for-school types that never wear helmets. There were even little kids in Spandex!

In other cycling news, I finally met my goal of biking out to Levittown from Astoria -- and I'm not trying to seem ironically nonchalant by telling you it was not that hard. Scarcely 30 miles, the ride was pretty much a straight shot from Flushing Meadow Park to Broadway Mall, after which I risked it on about 3 miles of side streets. The Long Island Expressway is the trick; after scouring the threads from some New York cycling online forums, I discovered that the LIE Service Road is the "longest uninterrupted stretch of biking road in the New York area." The trip was far more relaxing than any city biking I've done, even the vaguely coastal trip to Coney Island. Seeing the LIE choked with cars on a Friday afternoon kept a smile on my face nearly the entire time, as did the shade from the massive deciduous trees lining the road throughout the length of the service road. Legend has it that you can take the LIE Service Road all the way out the the Hamptons... 

Animal Collective: once again, a frolic in Prospect Park to the electronic urban djembe beats of my beloved Baltimore musicians. Two years ago I chilled on a picnic blanket and enjoyed the music from afar; this time, I was crammed up in the front with the dancing facepainted fools. I was joined by Nicole, Chris, and Kelly (and all of her siblings!); it felt good to be around some kindred spirits.

The set in daytime -- the eyes and mouth of the big jungle face turned out to be screens onto which crazy images were projected. Yes!

Neon indians 

New friends (and facepaint proprietress) 

Set at night, jungle mask unlit

" "

The gentlest trick someone could play on a passed-out person at a party:

And the Wizard is a savage. After watching her gleefully tear apart a thumb-sized cockroach last night, we decided to buy her a feeder mouse and let her have at it. She first grabbed it, carried it in her mouth over to her food area, then proceeded to smack, bite, flip upside-down, and generally torture the poor albino until she decided it was time to crunch its skull. She ripped its head off like a pro and ate the entire thing.

Not a great picture, but I think it really conveys her instinctive insanity. Halfway through her meal, she looked over to me and Don and gave us a cheerful chirp, thanking us for the adventure. It seems like a cruel way to feed a cat, but how much worse is it than giving her canned pig and chicken parts that have been similarly dismembered, if only by a Bible-belt factory farm machine? I think this could be the start of an exciting new time in the Wizard's little life.

I subscribe to the belief that...

...there is no better way of preventing me from using that phrase than to hear someone else say it.

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I've learned from more than 12 years of personal research that a fairly reliable indicator of me having a good time is an absence of writing. And by research I mean reading my past journals and recognizing patterns. Maybe someday I'll code them and make a graph of my personal habits!

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Recent adventures, in no particular order:

Brooklyn Brewery: I took Don here for a tour on his birthday. The place smells like warm grain and goodness; a calico named Monster keeps watch over the lauter tuns. Weekday tour-goers are entitled to a sampling of the "Brewmaster's Concoction," a fanciful experiment done in small batches that is not available for sale. This one was based on a ginger cocktail; it was cask-aged and tasted like candied ginger and Lagavulin.

The kegging room. All bottled beers are produced in Utica, but the freshest stuff comes from here. 

The aroma!

July 4th Weekend: Don's insane carpenter/landlord friend Ilia bought a sailboat and invited us out for the weekend. We were a group of six on a 25 footer, barely prepared and all very excited about fireworks. We sailed out to the middle of Long Island Sound and watched about 10 different firework shows explode around us. I didn't take many pictures.

Fireworks in Astoria Park, Triboro Bridge in the background. 

 Not our boat (but it looked just like it!). Long Island Sound.

A pretty good summary of the weekend 

 Ilia & Jojo

Gay Pride Parade: a moment in history. The last time I saw so many people out celebrating a joyous political cause was the Inauguration of President Obama (minus the rainbow floats and shirtless gay men). A pretty great day all around; Don and I visited the new extension of the High Line Park after the parade. I think we both felt a swell of New York pride, pun intended.

Here we are being wastoids on the subway, making techno beats with Don's new synthesizer iPad app and drinking sake out of Vitamin Water bottles. A New York moment. 

Where it all happened. Funny that it's a One Way! 

Happytimes 

A float by Boxers, a gay sports bar 

Peeling Don's burned skin from his hairy arm. That strip of green in the top right corner is the High Line Park.

Obligatory Wizard photo:

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My plan for today is to get some homework done (ENGL646: West Indian Immigrants and the Harlem Renaissance -- talk about a class that's close to home -- I've got dredheads and Caribbean students and pink-haired poets all talking about race identity in a course taught by a Jersey-sounding white guy. Delaware this is not), take myself out for fancy ice cream, then head out to a party in Harlem with Don.

And did I mention Don and I are going to Iceland in September? Now I can finally realize my childhood dream of riding a purebred Icelandinc pony.