New York City

So it completely slipped my mind. If you want me to send you a postcard from lovely NYC, drop me an email (not comments) with your address.

Well, I had a pretty interesting day that didn’t seem to slow down. I woke up and pretty much went straight to my Columbia Wind Ensemble audition. Went alright. Not sure if I made it, but I’ll find out tomorrow. But I heard wind chamber music coming from one or two apartments away, so if the CWE doesn’t work out, maybe I can jam with them. Rachel and I tried to go to get croissants and hot chocolate at Fauchon…

So begins (or rather ends) another week in New York. I saw this painted on the side of a building walking east on Baltic St. in Brooklyn not 15 minutes ago. I’m out here killing time/exploring the nabe as I came from Cobble Hill, where my potential French tutee lives. I was just interviewed by her Mom at their nice brownstone. Don’t know if I’ll get it, but things seemed promising. In a little more than an hour, I have…

A small collection of the best photos that I took at the Axis of Eve panty flash in Battery Park this evening. This was easily the most entertaining event of the RNC Week. Heading back to Berkeley in a few hours — which seems like the more appropriate place for this sort of thing. Update: From: eve@axisofeve.org Subject: Re: Photos from the Panty Flash Date: September 2, 2004 2:32:09 AM EDT To: cfarivar@cfarivar.org Reply-To: info@axisofeve.org Cyrus Eve : Your photos…

And such was the prophetic wisdom of Abdoulaye Diawara, an octolingual cab driver that drove Dallas and Martin and I back from Spanish Harlem on Friday night back to my apt. I was wearing a bootleg replica jersey of Khalilou Fadiga, No. 10. “What is that, Diouf?” he said, referring to the most well-known Senegalese soccer star. “No, Fadiga,” I replied, leaning into the window of the cab. I smiled. “Na nga def?” I asked, switching to Wolof. His eyes…

So we had a break from our NYPD RNC briefing for about an hour before Jack Shafer of Slate fame (who interestingly seemed to dismiss the concept of j-school in this Slate article circa 2002) and I headed down Broadway to supplement my two-hour-old lunch of a single small apple. I came upon Absolute Bagels today, the best bagels in the city (according to Pacific Time on KQED) and had a $0.95 cinnamon raisin bagel with butter. It was firm…

Guerrilla Dancing Update (from John Perry Barlow, of the Grateful Dead and EFF fame): Along with fifty or sixty others, I’m going to dance at them. Dividing ourselves into several platoons of guerrilla dancers disguised as ordinary pedestrians, we are going to roam the sidewalks in Republican rich zones, periodically erupting into wild and inexplicable explosions of dancing. We will sustain these for a few minutes before melting back into the crowd and heading off to strike someplace else. I…

First things first. My Wired story is now online here. Last weekend: On Saturday morning, we left for Montreal from Hartford through upstate New York at about 7:30 am. There’s not a lot to see en route, except for that at Saratoga Springs, we found a cool coffee and bagel shop which provided great respite from the pounding rain that we encountered nearly the whole way. Once we got north of Plattsburg, we approached the Canadian border — and I…

That’s a slogan that I saw on a hair salon called Ghetto Fabulous in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Friday — my first initial foray beyond the confines of Manhattan. Crown Heights, a 50 minute subway away, is more or less divided along the Eastern Expressway, with Hasidic/Lubovitch Jews to the south, and Jamaicans/Guyanese/Trinidadians/Surinamese/Haitians to the north. Should be a neat community to cover this semester. I spent nearly two hours walking around there just getting an initial feel for the…

Philly is a cool place. In a nutshell from these past few days: Thursday: Pizza with Sarmad at Sal & Carmine’s, Farmer’s Market on Broadway Friday: Crown Heights, Dinner with Peter and Veda at CafŽ de Bruxelles in the Village, Belgian beer rocks. Saturday: Philly via Chinatown bus. Chez Giselle. UPenn, Downtown Philly, Liberty Bell, Jim’s Steaks (Philly Cheesesteak), Nap, Dinner/Jazz at Ortlieb’s Sunday: Sleep in, Phillies game, Saw Matt & friend Diane, Caribbean Festival @ Penn’s Landing, Chat with…