I saw a city invincible to the attacks

"City of Friends"

"I meet George on the street and when he asks why I haven't visited, I'm embarrassed. I say that my last conversation with Sam was very disturbing, but George believes I'm repelled by the physical environment. "It got too much for you didn't it? he asks gently. "I know. It's OK though, kid. I wish you could understand how it is. It would be easier for you. See, no matter how ugly the camp seems to you, it don't matter to us, we don't see it that way because we're friends, and that matters more. For most of us, it's the first time we ever had a real friend."

He smiles brightly at the thought. "We're a city of friends. That's what Sam says." He winks at me and walks away without saying good-bye.

The phrase sounds familiar and I find it in Walt Whitman:

I dream'd in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks

of the whole rest of the earth;

I dream'd that was the new City of Friends.

(p. 211)

Jamall's Story

"Whether Jamall's birdlike people are real, natural caves are likely to run through the Manhattan bedrock of schist. Geologists describe schist as crystalline rocklike granite that has a folded structure and cleaves along parallel planes or slabs like the layers of mica. The shifting earth leaves gaps between slabs, which rain and spring water widen into huge caverns. The schist almost reaches the surface under the grass of Central Park before dropping a hundred feet or more below the surface elsewhere on Manhattan. Workers digging the subway tunnels early in this century are said to have found a ten-thousand-year-old standing forest buried deep under the Upper West Side, presumably inundated in a mud slide and driven into a cavern by an Ice Age glacier.

More plausible than Ghost Cliff is the huge underground room "with a piano and tiled floor and mirrors all around" that Jamall says he found. An elderly homeless woman later described to me a similar room in which about fifty homeless people live. She added a fountain to the decor. "Fantastic," she said. "It was just beautiful." The two compartments could be the same although Jamall and the woman placed them in different regions of the city, one in lower Manhattan and the other in Mid-Town on the West Side. These rooms are probably remnants of compartments dug and drilled out more than a century ago as part of the subway and rail systems and long abandoned and forgotten.

Jamall has come across communities in the tunnels that he has felt uncomfortable with, but he adamantly believes that no one in the tunnels should be evicted.

"They make a life for themselves," says Jamall. "They take care of each other better than up here. They sleep in places everyone up here has forgotten, and that's not stealing; that's being resourceful and surviving. Why take them out of there? They're not hurting no one. Give them some space and some time to heal." (p. 235)

Jennifer Toth's ethnography was truly fascinating. I've lived in New York City all of my life and had no idea that homeless people lived in the subway systems... I wasn't even aware that the underground reached such great depths. In some parts, Toth talks about some people living miles and miles underground. It's unbelievable. I was also surprised by the wide variety of people Toth encountered in the tunnels - many were drug addicts and criminals, yes, but many were also graduates from college with Ph.D.'s. Many of them were very smart. Some had minimum-wage paying jobs (McDonald's, etc.) but just lived underground to avoid paying rent. And I was surprised at the ways in which they survived. Some of the communities even had mayors! And nurses. And runners (their jobs were to bring back food). I think one community even had a teacher. I don't know, it's just all really incredible. Toth published The Mole People in the early 1990s, and I think by now the city might have removed many of them from the tunnel, but I'm sure that many continue to live there. The whole concept is just so interesting, and some of the characters were very memorable (Bernard!). I wonder what's happened to them.

"What drove him underground was red tape."

J.C.'s Community

"We descend through Grand Central Station, which is spread over forty-eight acres, making it the largest train station in the world. It also goes down six levels beneath the subway tracks. There is no complete blueprint of the tunnels and tracks under the station. Many tunnels were begun but abandoned. Some were built but forgotten. Some were sealed off, but underground homeless people have broken through, either directly by hacking a hole through the wall or by circuitous routes, to inhabit them now." (p. 192)

"It was to explain all this, he says, that he invited me to visit his community despite the opposition of his advisers like J.C. He wanted someone "from the outside" to tell the world that he and his community are "better off" than those aboveground, those who are sick. The mayor may see himself as Brown's "Manchild," but he is much more the "underground man" in Irving Howe's "Celine."

"A creature of the city, he has no fixed place among the social classes; he lives in holes and crevices, burrowing beneath the visible structure of society ... Even while tormenting himself with reflections upon his own insignificance, the underground man hates still more -- hates more than his own hateful self -- the world aboveground." (p. 202)

"City of Friends"

"What drove him underground, he explains, was "red tape. All that fucking red tape," he begins, with voice rising and face reddening. "How can you help anyone when there's that red tape? Kids would get abused to death in foster care and you couldn't get them out without that red tape. Two of them were killed before I got through the red tape. How can you live with that?" he demands, angrily waving his arms.

"How can you live in a society like that? he asks, more quietly now. "The rules don't make sense. They're not based on human needs or caring. The laws and the rules, and what they call morals, are logical and warped. They are based on money, not right or wrong. They might as well have come from a computer. No one really cares up there. Down here this is basic survival. We make our own laws. Our laws are based on what we feel, not preconceived notions of morality. We call it the 'human morality.' That's what we live by." (p. 209)

I think one of the most surprising things I learned while reading this book is that, many of the homeless people were perfectly happy living in the tunnels. They didn't consider themselves homeless, per se. They bonded over a shared animosity of the world aboveground.

When I go down there, I can't wait to come back up

The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City by Jennifer Toth

From chapter: Bernard's Tunnel

Like Bernard, Bob earns what little money he needs by "busting," or returning discarded cans and bottles to redemption centers. For 600 empties, they can receive $30, or a nickel each. A major problem is finding groceries to redeem the trash, however. Despite the law requiring stores to take up to 250 empties from any one person, storekeepers often refuse in an effort to discourage the homeless from entering their premises. A few nonprofit redemption centers exist, notably "We Can" at 12th Avenue and 52nd street, which was begun by Guy Polhemus when he overheard homeless at a soup kitchen complain about their difficulty. However, these centers tend to be inconvenient and very crowded, with long lines and long waits.
This has led to the rise of middlemen, also called two-for-oners although they should be one-for-twoers. They buy two empties for a nickel, half the price at regular redemption centers, but offer "no waiting, no sorting, no hassle," as Bob says. Some middlemen have become full-blown entrepreneurs, like Chris Jeffers, a twenty-year-old who was sleeping in Riverside Park just two years earlier but now makes $70,000 a year. He rents an empty theater at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street and keeps it open around the clock for the homeless to bring their cans and bottles; it pays half the price, but it's convenient. Jeffers, who says he took some college courses in finance in Tampa, Florida, resells the empties to "We Can" for the full redemption price, earning thousands of dollars a day. Most of the collectors go through the trash at night when they are less visible to the public. Many are addicts of one kind or another, Jeffrey says, and often want to redeem their cans after hours to feed their night needs. "I know some people will say I'm exploiting those with alcohol and drug problems," Jeffers admitted to a New York Times reporter. "But tell me, how is what I'm doing any different from what commodity traders do when they buy crops at low prices from farmers in distress? (p. 107)

From chapter: Tunnel Art

"When I go down there, I can't wait to come back up. I keep promising myself that the next mural will be my last. I hate the danger, I hate risking my life each time for something so stupid. But I get an idea in my head for a piece and I can't get rid of it, and I have to do it because, if I don't, no one else will." More than a decade ago, when trains wore graffiti, Chris gave designs to graffiti gangs eager to prove their daring by executing them. He was far less interested in braving the dangers than in seeing his concept completed and appreciated." (p. 123)

Perhaps his most famous work is the mural that took up the side of an entire subway car, a photograph of which almost got to the Museum of Modern Art as part of its "High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture" show. The exhibit featured great masters, their impact on street art, and in turn, street art's impact on them. Freedom's work was a version of Michelangelo's Creation, an ephemeral hand reaching down from a white cloud to touch fingertips with another from below. Across the bottom he scrawled the words "What is Art. Why is art." The photograph of the car with the mural was incorporated into the sixty-page catalog, but in the end the museum chose not to display the picture for fear it would alienate trustees and donors who might interpret it as an endorsement of graffiti. (p. 125)

My thoughts about this ethnography when I finish the book.

A magazine is an experience that you have as a whole

Esquire, March 2010
The Magazine Is The Message, David Granger
(Editor's letter)

"For the last fifteen years, all the hype has been about laying new pipe to facilitate the dissemination of idea. We've watched, awestruck and credulous, as AOL, and then Google, and then YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have given us new ways to move information from one place to another on all sorts of new machines. These are the technicians of the new media world. These are the pressmen. It's the equivalent of Gutenberg's press that's had us mesmerized, rather than the words and ideas that were suddenly given life because of it."

"The weird power of magazines derives from the unique collision of words and images and design - and it comes from the fact that a magazine is an experience that you have as a whole, that you spend time with, not glancingly as on the Web or in intervals as on mobile devices. None of this is to say we won't continue to experiment to find ways to enhance the magazine or to try to master the new forms. We're enthusiasts, and this is the most exciting time to be in creative media. As technology changes, we intend to harness that change to augment and expand this paper-and-ink creation. But what you are holding in your hand is not incidental to the Esquire experience; it is essential."


I was never too worried about magazines "dying," maybe because as much as I love the Internet, I've always preferred holding a book, holding a magazine, feeling the pages. It could've been denial. But now I think we (as in, the journalism industry), are starting to realize that new media will not replace publications, but give us the opportunity to enhance them

And he loved this parakeet dearly

Esquire, March 2010
Hood, Brian Mockenhaupt

Most of the time, the war doesn't exist to me. That's a terrible thing to say but true of everyone I know. It's not even on the news anymore. No one knows what's really going on and it seems that the most vocal are now tired of asking. It's far away. Reading an article like this brings it a little closer.


"Hood has been the lifeblood of the surrounding communities for nearly seventy years. With so many steady paychecks, the town has been insulated from the economic pain that has debilitated so many other places. Soldiers keep the restaurants full and the car dealers busy, and 70 percent of Killeen workers are employed by Fort Hood. The area had withered during the first Gulf war, when many wives and their children returned to hometowns, so Killeen built parks, improved the schools and public safety, helped build houses soldiers could afford, and lured popular restaurant chains so that when the next war came, families would stay. And when the war came, they stayed."

"It seems plain that Hasan had become radicalized and that the prospect of fighting a war against Muslims had contributed to the derangement. But Hasan also had a pet parakeet, and he loved this parakeet dearly, so much so that he would even let the bird eat from his mouth. And when he rolled over in bed one day as he took a nap and crushed the parakeet, Hasan would never get over it. And so to the guys at Ernie's Sports Bar, Hasan was a fanatic, yes, but moreover, a loser. And ultimately, the loser theory of Hasan's crimes may be more troubling than the terrorist theory. For in all the wide world, and at Fort Hood, too, there are a lot more losers than terrorists."

"Now it's obvious to everyone that Hasan should have been discharged from the Army. He received terrible performance reviews, colleagues complained about his extreme statements, and he made it known that his loyalties weren't with the Army. But it's also obvious why he wasn't kicked out. A decade ago, fewer than 80 percent of captains were promoted to major. Today, because so many officers leave the military, often burned out by repeated deployments, promotions have jumped to about 95 percent. And because Hasan served in mental health, one of the Army's most critical but most short-staffed fields, there was even less incentive to get rid of him. Between basic training, medical school, and a psychiatry residency, the Army had already invested twelve years and several hundred thousand dollars in Hasan."

I became overly strategic about my pants selection

I collect magazines. I'm addicted to them which sucks for my wallet because they're expensive if you don't have a subscription. I go through phases ... except I don't really want to call it a phase because phase indicates temporary and I never plan to move on. So we'll just say, that right now I'm reading Esquire and I love it. A year's (or two, or three ...) worth of issues will soon join Teen People, Teen Vogue, NYLON, Paper, Vanity Fair, GQ, Adoptive Families, ADDitude's (proud former intern!), Rolling Stone, TIME and many others on my shelves. I've never really read an issue of Esquire in its entirety until the March 2010 issue (hopefully this doesn't work against me considering I recently applied for its summer editorial internship ... think they'll find this? Eek). It is brilliant.

This post's excerpts will come from "Doing Without," which I almost don't want to link to because the Web site doesn't do the editorial spread's minimal, but fitting, design justice. It intelligently complements the point David Granger makes in his editor's letter (which I'll get to later). It's a better experience if you can read this one in your hands (not with the iPad) than from the screen and if you're lucky you can still get your hands on one (the April 2010 issue was released today).

So, seven Esquire writers were each given one (pretty essential) thing to go a month without.

Drinking, David Granger
"You've grown used to relishing the anticipation of the first one. The first drink is the one you've been waiting for, and it's just plain weird the first few times you deny it to yourself. In fact, the most difficult thing is not not drinking; it's saying to the bartender, "Club soda on ice, with a piece of lime." It's a little embarrassing."

E-mail, Peter Martin
"Then there were the inconveniences. Having to call our office assistant just to tell her that we were out of dish soap felt silly - and kind of dickish. I learned that Web links were never meant to be read over the phone. And one thing I didn't realize until I showed up at an office three hours early for a meeting: E-mails are really important as a means of confirmation. I felt handicapped. Pitied. And judging from most people's reactions to my asking them to call, fax, or write me a memo, annoying. I also felt out of the loop. E-mail has become so standard, so expected, it was easy for people to forget I wasn't using it. And so it was easy for me to be left out of things. Small things, like when my boss's mom sent holiday peanut brittle, but also big things, like the time I found out about an important meeting just three hours before it happened."

The News, Richard Dorment
"It did, eventually, and thirty-one mornings after I'd stopped paying attention, I checked out a news site and saw that, weeks after I'd heard the brief mention of Tiger Woods's car accident, it was still in the news. Weird. So I started to read about it, and, with all due respect to the Woods family, I was like a pig in shit. I moved on to the rest of the stuff I'd missed that month. The president's decision about Afghanistan, the one that seemed so imminent the day before I started my fast, still hadn't come to pass. Health care reform remained a holy mess. With the notable exception of Tiger, nothing had really happened, and all that stress about what I thought I'd been missing went up like smoke. I saw that most of what passes for news today isn't really news at all - it's just variations on the same stories, recycled over and over again, filling the void until something, anything, actually happens."

Underwear, Chris Jones (yeah, same guy as below. Hopefully this wasn't when he spent time with Roger Ebert?)
"When this ridiculous excuse for a magazine told me to go a month without underwear - OSHA's getting a letter, by the way - I was worried principally about chafe. I was blinded by my fear of it, in fact, made ignorant of more terrible possibilities. I became overly strategic about my pants selection."

Driving, Tom Chiarella
"I began to see routine chores as odd little challenges. I walked to the grocery store and schlepped home with a backpack full of potatoes. I walked to a distant pharmacy in a driving rain, walked to my son's first home swim meet on the night of the first real frost. The reward was ample enough: I always left on time, was never late, and my pants started to fit more loosely. I even fancied that I could forget my obsession with driving, forget my old ways, anyhow, and become a more careful, prudent driver by watching traffic as a pedestrian. It was all about choices, I told the empty space on the sidewalk next to me."

Google, A.J. Jacobs
"Usually, there are ways around Google - it just takes some Internet gymnastics. Dictionary.com told me the meaning of wassail (to toast with a drink). For restaurant addresses? Zagat.com. On the third day, I did something shocking: I called 411 - it still exists! - and got the address of the Apple store. Also, I occasionally cheated. I sent e-mails to my wife such as "Esquire is making me go without Google. Could you please Google 'ugli fruit' for me?" She did, not happily."

Sex, Mary-Louise Parker (yeah, how convenient, make the woman go without it, lol)
"I could write about giving up something else, like bondage, or Ebonics. Esquire said come on, how about two weeks. Two days, I said. Today and tomorrow. They said today is partly over, and how many times can you have sex in two days? I said you really want to know? and Esquire said kinda. I said I probably shouldn't share and Esquire said come on and I said what I thought was achievable and Esquire said whoa. The magazine agreed to two days."

As it ravished me, I longed for a freeze-frame

Esquire, March 2010
The Essential Man by Chris Jones

For this, I'm going to leave Roger Ebert's words and not Chris Jones'. It shows that despite everything that's happened to him, his essence is still there. And he can still write. I was never too familiar with Ebert - though looking at previous photos I do remember seeing him occasionally on TV - but this article got a lot of buzz so I read it and it moved me.

"Pedro Almodovar loves the movies with lust and abandon and the skill of an experienced lover. "Broken Embraces" is a voluptuary of a film, drunk on primary colors, caressing Penelope Cruz, using the devices of a Hitchcock to distract us with surfaces while the sinister uncoils beneath. As it ravished me, I longed for a freeze-frame to allow me to savor a shot."