Man Ray and Jewish Identity
Though in retrospect it seems ridiculously daft, it did not occur to me that the reason the Man Ray exhibit was up at the Jewish Museum this past winter was that Man Ray himself was Jewish.
Read MoreReborn Saints and Newborn Babies: Complex and Contradictory Themes in the Advertising and Halftime Show of Super Bowl XLIV
Leave it to America to present a geriatric sexuality on its biggest stage, in swift and sharp reaction to the one moment a naked boob was seen on live television.That single second of boob exposure catapulted us into a now six-year cycle of men in the target market for Viagra.
Read MoreOn Love
Did you ever sit on rock in the midst of a thunder- and lightning-storm, holding hands with someone you could only see every few minutes for a fraction of a second while the rest of the time you sat in pitch-darkness under all that noise and falling water, soaked and shivering not with cold but thrill as it was hot, high summer? And then wonder later why the only romantic experiences that made you feel anything at all were those that made very loud noises and were illuminated in tiny increments of time and often felt like they might wash you away? Which came first, the desire to see the thunderstorm or the thunderstorm you saw?
Read MoreSelfishness
I was crossing through Gowanus on Union Street the other day when I saw the most beautiful light coming through the scrim of a pair of enormous, undulating curtains. I was just west of that parody of urban water features, the Gowanus canal, in the spate of warehouses and row houses between the pollution and the South Brooklyn Casket Company.
Read MoreOn the Proper Placement of the Gideon Bible in the Home
The Bible guys were all over the neighborhood the other day, practically on every corner. “Would you like a Bible? Would you like a free Bible?”Unlike many yoga practitioners, I do not believe that your average street-corner proselytizer “might be the next Messiah.” After all the wars and priestly buggery of children I’m deeply wary of anyone who claims to act in the name of God.
Read MoreBicoastal
New York is buildings and money, food and drink, glances and remarks. It is streets, not roads. It is filth, not dirt. It is noise, not sounds. It is highways, not freeways, five-hour drives of one hundred miles in stop-and-go traffic instead of five-hour drives of four hundred miles doing 80. It is rats, not […]
Read MoreYou Gotta Believe
The You Gotta Believe post from 2007 was published today on Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood.
Read MorePeonies
Just before 2 a.m. I had a sudden craving for peonies so I went out to the very expensive deli in pursuit of them. There were no peonies, however, only a team of Latin American laborers restocking the juice and milk display. It was too beautiful an almost-summer night for anyone to be shopping. Everyone […]
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