Running To Stand Still

It’s a sad reality about furniture in the city, but often times in order to move the furniture we love through narrow hallways and stairwells, we have to amputate the legs. This legless couch doesn’t deserve an end like this, but life is hard, especially for big couches in the city.

“Running To Stand Still” is an excellent song by U2, from The Joshua Tree cd.

Said I got to do something about where we're going...

Sidewalk HAL 9000

HAL 9000: Ranked #13 on list of greatest villains of all time.

This monitor, left atop a cheap, empty desk, appears as if it is still in someone’s apartment somewhere, and not on a sidewalk. Sometimes, in the chaos of transition, people like to create a sense of order.

Who loves order more than HAL 9000, from the Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The blackness he woke to on those nights was sightless and impenetrable. -- The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

There is something beautiful about furniture trash night — when people throw out the bigger objects of their lives along with the smaller ones. Tonight was littered with upturned kitchen tables, bedside night stands, broken chairs, dilapidated air conditioners, antiquated televisions, dingy coffee makers, and mattresses, box springs and futons leaning against trees and stoops as if they’d been spit out of a tornado.

There was a beauty to it all. As if the apocalypse had arrived. Perhaps, in a very slow, almost indiscernible way, it did for many people who live in the neighborhood.

Speaking of the end of the world, check out The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

An excellent read.

Time to kick it!

It’s been a long time coming, but the 2010 World Cup is finally here, and the sidewalks of New York City are awash in people draped in vibrant olors representing their countries of origin.

Are you one of those Americans who still just isn’t into the World Cup? Then check out The Glorious World Cup: A Fanatic’s Guide by Alan Black and David Henry Sterry. And don’t worry. It’s not some snooty European diatribe on our lack of appreciation and inferior culture. It’s actually funny and informative. As one readers says:

Goooaaaalllll!

“Hilarious, insightful, an examination of why this is the most important game on the planet. A joyful celebration of the random acts of madness, tragedy, and triumph that can happen when 22 people get together and kick a football around. Wicked sharp writing, can’t recommend it highly enough!”

Board to death

Sure, we all like cheap stuff, but it often comes at a price — a price our minds tend to rationalize, ignore or bury in our subconscious like Poe’s beating heart beneath the floorboards.

Affordability supersedes all other concerns, and our desire for that inexpensive pair of socks or kitchen appliance often trumps our concern for the environment or even our fellow human beings who manufacture these products.

However, in our endless quest for affordable products, perhaps no other invention has had a greater impact on interior design and home decoration more than particle board. And for good reason: particle board is cheap, and products made from particle board typically serve a practical and functional purpose. In fact, on any given day the sidewalks of New York City are littered with a variety of furniture that utilizes particle board.

But this fact also tells us something: particle board isn’t a quality material, and products made from particle board break down much faster than products made from more stable materials. Also, furniture made from particle board tends to be purchased by people who have recently moved into their first apartment, or are on a budget. But when those same people make a change in their living arrangements, chances are they don’t bring along their particle board furniture.

For some particle board products, such as the shelves pictured here, the journey ends on a humid summer sidewalk in New York City alongside garbage bags.

DIY and help the whole world.

Looking for an alternative to particle board? Something with a little more soul? Then check out Made By Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World by Mark Frauenfelder. Mr. Frauenfelder was on The Colbert Report last night and seems like a great guy — creative, smart and nice. And an original thinker, which we love at Hnyc.

As one reviewer puts it:

“At the heart of Mark’s wonderful book is the notion that there is something special about making things ourselves – whether they work or not.”

I'm done with Sergio

“Jane Says” I’m a Junkie – KYTSR (?)

This guy strikes again. Any Upper East Side readers out there know who this is?

Same Jane?

Nothing’s Shocking by Jane’s Addiction

End of the road

There is something sad about discarded luggage. The end of a journey. The end of a road. Sometimes even the end of a life. Regardless of which hands lugged this suitcase across which countries and aboard which planes, taxis and trains, the journey for this piece of luggage is over.

Dog Gone

“Could it be that Americans are a restless people, a mobile people, never satisfied with where they are as a matter of selection? The pioneers, the immigrants who people the continent, were the restless ones in Europe. The steady rooted ones stayed home and are still there.” – John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America

Capitalist unshrugged

So, “Who is John Galt?”

Clearly there is a fan of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged somewhere on the Upper East Side.

Fans of John Galt also have their own website.

In case you don’t know, here is a quick Wikipedia explanation of John Galt.

“John Galt is a fictional character in Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. Although he is absent from much of the text, he is the subject of the novel’s often repeated question, ‘Who is John Galt?’, and the quest to discover the answer.

As the plot unfolds, Galt is acknowledged to be a creator and inventor who symbolizes the power of the individual capitalist. He serves as an idealistic counterpoint to the social and economic structure depicted in the novel. The depiction portrays a society based on oppressive bureaucratic functionaries and a culture that embraces the stifling mediocrity and egalitarianism of socialistic idealism. In this popular mass ideology, the industrialists of America were a metaphorical Atlas of Greek mythology, holding up the world, whom Galt convinces to ‘shrug,’ by refusing to lend their productive genius to the regime any longer.”

A world of capitalism

Atlas Shrugged

A Sign of the Times

Today, and for the past many years, Brighton Beach is home to many Russian families, and the perfect place to visit for anyone with a desire to visit Russia, but doesn’t have to the time or budget to actually go there.

However Brighton Beach, like other sections of NYC’s five burroughs, has a long, tidal (in many senses) history and has often been the home of immigrants from various places and generations.

Another chapter in Brighton Beach's long history.

Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs — both the play and the movie — underscores this reality well.

Crossing over

The first hot day of 2010 brings a steamy death to this discarded couch on an Upper East Side sidewalk.

New York Couch Pillow

Love New York? Have a couch? Check out this New York Couch Pillow!