Mysterious are the ways of the Department of Sanitation. Now that it is law that alternate-side parking be suspended in the event of a snowstorm, so that the SDNY can mobilize its plows instead of its street brooms, the bulletins from the Department of Transportation have gotten spotty in their accuracy. Last week, snow was predicted for the evening, and alternate side was suspended while we waited for the snow, which didn't arrive. (Maybe it was snowing somewhere.) Alternate side was suspended again the next day, and the next, but the third day was a mistake, and the suspension itself was suspended. Today, it actually is snowing, and alternate-side parking is in effect.
If I were parking on the street, I’d be outraged. As it is, I had to trot down to the garage with my checkbook, an exercise I don’t enjoy, and point out to Julian, Julian’s superior, that my certificate of parking-tax exemption hadn’t resulted in eight percent off on my bill. Julian had to call Julio (or someone) while I stood outside the booth studying a flyer that said “Happy Cars Use Bumper Guards” (hmm). My bill for February was $152.36, but in March it will be $163.80; the parking-tax exemption was retroactive through January. Possibly I could have waited and trusted the parking company to prorate my bills, but I am determined to be vigilant and not let the parking industry (or the city) squeeze an extra dollar out of me.
Meanwhile, my sibling Dee was off to the Car Pound with five hundred dollars in borrowed cash to bail out her VW Bug, which had gotten towed the night before from a spot in Chinatown. She had parked in one of those sneaky areas with night regulations: No Parking 10 P.M.-4 A.M., or something. Dee was in town to do some recording, and luckily the recording was going well, so she didn’t mind, or at least her resignation in having to go to the Car Pound and cough up cash was tempered by the satisfaction of a job well done. The new CD will be out by the fall.
I still have not quit the Times, and am taken today by a piece by Charles McGrath, “Around the World in as Long as It Takes,” about an American, Rich Wilson, who is racing in the Vendée, “the solo-around-the-world sailing race” that begins and ends at Les Sables d’Olonne, France. “It is a route that exposes sailors to icebergs, the doldrums and some of the windiest stretches of ocean in the world.” Over the weekend, I accidentally recycled some chunks of the Sunday Times without first reading them, and I interpreted that as a sign that it was all over, that I could quit. I still had the Automobiles section, though, so I was able to read about the new “green” ice resurfacer that is being developed in time for the 2010 Olympics, posing a challenge to the great Zamboni.
According to the article, by Dave Caldwell, ice groomers first ran on gasoline, then diesel, and then propane, all of which pollute an indoor ice arena. Frank J. Zamboni built his ice groomer from spare parts in his back yard, in the late nineteen-forties. “In 1967, in Elmira, Ontario, a welder named Andrew Schlupp built his own ice resurfacer and started the Resurfice Corporation.” Schlupp has developed an electric model that is both green and much cheaper to use (though the machine itself is more expensive; Zamboni has one, too). I read on, anticipating the inevitable. “Essentially, all resurfacers work the same during what is called a flood. A blade on the back of the machine shaves the surface of the ice. The shavings are scooped up and a thin coating of hot water is sprayed on the rink, which is smoothed as the water freezes.” But the story did not have the expected payoff. The people who built the Resurficer (which, I have to admit, is pretty clever) failed to follow Zamboni's lead and name their product after themselves: the Schlupp.
Showing posts with label New York Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Times. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Crapthorpe
This is a sign either that I should drop my subscription to the New York Times now, in order to go out on a high note, or continue it indefinitely: This morning’s paper carries not only the news that President Obama (I love typing that) has already started to close down Guantánamo and make the United States a nation that doesn’t torture but a feature by Sarah Lyall, datelined Crapstone, on dirty-sounding place-names in England. She quotes one Ed Hurst, co-author of "Rude Britain," on the plight of a couple who bought a house on Butt Hole Road:
"'If they ordered a pizza, the pizza company wouldn't deliver it, because they thought it was a made-up name,' Mr. Hurst said. ‘People would stand in front of the sign, pull down their trousers and take pictures of each other's naked buttocks.’
“The couple moved away.”
The piece has a lovely map highlighting all the rude place-names.
The same page (A6) also has a piece on the misattribution of the Prayer of St. Francis (“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace,” etc.) to St. Francis of Assisi. Turns out that he didn’t write it at all—some French guy did. One priest brushes it off, as if to say, Oh, Catholics will swallow anything.
"'If they ordered a pizza, the pizza company wouldn't deliver it, because they thought it was a made-up name,' Mr. Hurst said. ‘People would stand in front of the sign, pull down their trousers and take pictures of each other's naked buttocks.’
“The couple moved away.”
The piece has a lovely map highlighting all the rude place-names.
The same page (A6) also has a piece on the misattribution of the Prayer of St. Francis (“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace,” etc.) to St. Francis of Assisi. Turns out that he didn’t write it at all—some French guy did. One priest brushes it off, as if to say, Oh, Catholics will swallow anything.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Trains, Boats, Planes
I am addicted to the New York Times.
After the Inauguration on Tuesday (only two more days till Bush’s helicopter leaves Washington!), I am going to give up home delivery of the Times—not reading the Times, just having it delivered and reading it first thing in the morning. I am getting spoiled, sipping coffee in a chair by the window with a fat cat purring on my lap. I should be out there shivering behind the wheel of a parked car.
When I first subscribed to the Times, which I have done on and off for the past four years, the first issue that landed on my threshold proclaimed the victory of George W. Bush in the 2004 election. I wanted to cancel immediately. Now that we have Obama, I will be overjoyed to look on the President’s face. But the New York Times is like a drug: it sets up a vibe in my head that makes it impossible for me to think my own thoughts in the morning, and I have newly resolved to be my own barometer.
The Times stories about Obama in the days leading up to the Inauguration and about the miraculous Hudson River jet landing with no loss of life, thanks to the pilot and the local ferryboats, have been bringing tears to my eyes the past couple of days. The Quotation of the Day in today’s Times should have been “You’re never too old to toot the horn” (Obama on the train ride to Washington). And the most touching, burblingly humorous detail of the jet-in-the-Hudson story, to me, was this, from an article by James Barron in Friday’s Times (Jan. 16, 2009):
“Many passengers rushed toward the back, thinking that was where the emergency exits were, [Bill] Zuhoski said, but that part of the fuselage seemed to be sinking, and flooding, faster. ‘I started to get, you know, close to my neck underwater. I just thought I was going to drown right there.’
“He stripped down to his underwear, the better to swim to safety. As the crowd thinned out, he crawled across the top of the seats and clambered out. He said he believed he was one of the last people off the plane, and he swam to a dinghy that was bobbing in the Hudson.
“Everyone else in the dingy had their clothes, and everyone was dry.”
Is it O.K. to laugh? After all, everyone survived, and when Zuhoski got to the dingy to huddle with the other passengers, “each peeled off something to outfit him.“ Anyway, the laugh is involuntary, and filled with fellow-feeling and relief. Imagine being the guy, who, on top of being rescued from a jetliner sinking in the Hudson River, was the only one who took his clothes off. It’s like that moment in a dream when you are onstage, or in front of a classroom, or leaning over the photocopier at the office, and you realize suddenly that you’re in your underwear. Only, Zuhoski wasn’t dreaming.
I am probably going to relapse and keep home delivery during the first week of the new Administration. I don’t want to miss coverage of the Inauguration. Or further details about the miracle in the Hudson.
After the Inauguration on Tuesday (only two more days till Bush’s helicopter leaves Washington!), I am going to give up home delivery of the Times—not reading the Times, just having it delivered and reading it first thing in the morning. I am getting spoiled, sipping coffee in a chair by the window with a fat cat purring on my lap. I should be out there shivering behind the wheel of a parked car.
When I first subscribed to the Times, which I have done on and off for the past four years, the first issue that landed on my threshold proclaimed the victory of George W. Bush in the 2004 election. I wanted to cancel immediately. Now that we have Obama, I will be overjoyed to look on the President’s face. But the New York Times is like a drug: it sets up a vibe in my head that makes it impossible for me to think my own thoughts in the morning, and I have newly resolved to be my own barometer.
The Times stories about Obama in the days leading up to the Inauguration and about the miraculous Hudson River jet landing with no loss of life, thanks to the pilot and the local ferryboats, have been bringing tears to my eyes the past couple of days. The Quotation of the Day in today’s Times should have been “You’re never too old to toot the horn” (Obama on the train ride to Washington). And the most touching, burblingly humorous detail of the jet-in-the-Hudson story, to me, was this, from an article by James Barron in Friday’s Times (Jan. 16, 2009):
“Many passengers rushed toward the back, thinking that was where the emergency exits were, [Bill] Zuhoski said, but that part of the fuselage seemed to be sinking, and flooding, faster. ‘I started to get, you know, close to my neck underwater. I just thought I was going to drown right there.’
“He stripped down to his underwear, the better to swim to safety. As the crowd thinned out, he crawled across the top of the seats and clambered out. He said he believed he was one of the last people off the plane, and he swam to a dinghy that was bobbing in the Hudson.
“Everyone else in the dingy had their clothes, and everyone was dry.”
Is it O.K. to laugh? After all, everyone survived, and when Zuhoski got to the dingy to huddle with the other passengers, “each peeled off something to outfit him.“ Anyway, the laugh is involuntary, and filled with fellow-feeling and relief. Imagine being the guy, who, on top of being rescued from a jetliner sinking in the Hudson River, was the only one who took his clothes off. It’s like that moment in a dream when you are onstage, or in front of a classroom, or leaning over the photocopier at the office, and you realize suddenly that you’re in your underwear. Only, Zuhoski wasn’t dreaming.
I am probably going to relapse and keep home delivery during the first week of the new Administration. I don’t want to miss coverage of the Inauguration. Or further details about the miracle in the Hudson.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Doomed
Uh-oh.
While I was enjoying my free parking spot yesterday, the Mayor’s aides were no doubt directing his attention to a piece on the Times Op-Ed page by Donald Shoup, the professor of parking studies at U.C.L.A. O Times, how could you? What Shoup says makes so much sense that I don’t dare repeat it here. Once the Mayor gets wind of Shoupism, it could put an end to alternate-side parking culture forever.
Let me say right up front that I feel guilty as hell for having a car in New York City. I don’t need it, it takes up valuable real estate, it pollutes the environment, and I squander hours a week either sitting in the car or plotting where to sit in the car next. But I can’t help it. I need the car to get out of the city; I adore occupying valuable real estate; I’m not the worst polluter around (the car is, after all, a Honda, and I don’t drive it to work in Times Square); and I’ve spent some very happy hours daydreaming in it.
Once, when I was still fresh in New York, my brother and I were in the back seat of a car driven by a man whom a friend of our older brother had met in a Learning Annex cooking class. In short, he was not our kind. The car was not a Cadillac, but neither was it a Hyundai. As we cruised down Macdougal Street, looking for a parking spot, he took a sudden right into a parking garage, and we lunged forward and screamed, “No! Not in there!” as if he were driving into the mouth of Hell. The horror!
Maybe it’s inbred. (Would a Gypsy pay for parking? I don’t think so.) Shoup cites George Constanza, of “Seinfeld,” who said, “My father never paid for parking, my mother, my brother, nobody. It’s like going to a prostitute. Why should I pay when, if I apply myself, maybe I could get it for free?”
Makes sense to me.
Since the Mayor's terrible error in not suspending alternate-side parking when there was a winter storm, he has seemed really afraid of offending the parking public. He was suspending alternate-side right and left, east and west, if there was so much as a flurry. We can only hope that he didn't read the paper yesterday.
While I was enjoying my free parking spot yesterday, the Mayor’s aides were no doubt directing his attention to a piece on the Times Op-Ed page by Donald Shoup, the professor of parking studies at U.C.L.A. O Times, how could you? What Shoup says makes so much sense that I don’t dare repeat it here. Once the Mayor gets wind of Shoupism, it could put an end to alternate-side parking culture forever.
Let me say right up front that I feel guilty as hell for having a car in New York City. I don’t need it, it takes up valuable real estate, it pollutes the environment, and I squander hours a week either sitting in the car or plotting where to sit in the car next. But I can’t help it. I need the car to get out of the city; I adore occupying valuable real estate; I’m not the worst polluter around (the car is, after all, a Honda, and I don’t drive it to work in Times Square); and I’ve spent some very happy hours daydreaming in it.
Once, when I was still fresh in New York, my brother and I were in the back seat of a car driven by a man whom a friend of our older brother had met in a Learning Annex cooking class. In short, he was not our kind. The car was not a Cadillac, but neither was it a Hyundai. As we cruised down Macdougal Street, looking for a parking spot, he took a sudden right into a parking garage, and we lunged forward and screamed, “No! Not in there!” as if he were driving into the mouth of Hell. The horror!
Maybe it’s inbred. (Would a Gypsy pay for parking? I don’t think so.) Shoup cites George Constanza, of “Seinfeld,” who said, “My father never paid for parking, my mother, my brother, nobody. It’s like going to a prostitute. Why should I pay when, if I apply myself, maybe I could get it for free?”
Makes sense to me.
Since the Mayor's terrible error in not suspending alternate-side parking when there was a winter storm, he has seemed really afraid of offending the parking public. He was suspending alternate-side right and left, east and west, if there was so much as a flurry. We can only hope that he didn't read the paper yesterday.
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