Those We Do Not Speak Of

When I was very young, I used to pass a Sicilian social club every day on my way to school. The club is still there, its walls covered with all manner of pin-up girls and signed photographs of various sports teams from the early 1980s. Aside from these items there is little else besides a wood bar and a large television set. But while the place itself has changed little in the last 20 or perhaps 30 years, its clientele -- i soci in the mother tongue -- have become both older and fewer.

It is rare now, for example, to see anyone sitting outside the club except in very hot weather. There are times during the day when no one is there at all. Back in the mid-80s, however, there was at least one man who could always be found sitting on a lawn chair on the sidewalk out front. His name was Peanuts.

Much of my memory of Peanuts comes from what my parents have told me. All that I can recall for certain is that he generally wore a light blue or gray suit and a fedora, and was a friendly but somewhat intimidating fixture of the block over which he presided. In the summer months the suit jacket gave way to a wife beater, but the hat remained. Back in those days, such an enforcer was still a necessary part of the neighborhood fabric, appreciated by old-worlders and new gentry alike. The bulge on his ankle indicated to all passers by that Peanuts was a man of business, and it surely deterred more than a few errant youths from choosing Sackett Street as the locus of their next scam.

To anyone who did not grow up in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, in the 1980s, I am unable to adequately convey the sea change that has taken place in the neighborhood in the decades since. Indeed, such difficulty extends also to the adjacent precincts of Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Park Slope, Fort Greene, and even Red Hook: nothing I might say about these places would do justice to the overwhelming tide of gentrification that has swept Eastward across Brooklyn in recent years. Now, the Vice magazine set is living further and further afield from Williamsburg -- in Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, Flatbush. Their homogenizing march is relentless and cruel in its pace.

Of course, only Chicken Little would tell you that Brooklyn has suffered irrevocable damage as her real estate values have doubled, tripled, and doubled again. There is, after all, no other place like it. It is the home of Coney Island, of Junior's restaurant, of Nathan's and of stick ball. But one still cannot quite escape the feeling that each passing day erodes away a little more: soon, this will be just like every place else.

But this cannot be the case. In Manhattan, it is still fashionable to bemoan the difficulty of traveling to Brooklyn, and to deride friends who are forced by their poverty or poor taste to reside there. For these residual sentiments I am grateful. Even those Manhattanites who occaisionally make the trek to Brooklyn tend to favor six-month-old bars and restaurants to the real stuff of history and culture. Maybe I'm getting out just in time.

So tomorrow I will leave Brooklyn for the third time. As always, I will come back to visit often and will probably return someday, for better or for worse. I only wonder what I will find when that day comes. I don't know where Peanuts is, but there are really only two possibilities -- dead or on Staten Island (or, I suppose, both). But one thing at least is certain: Peanuts got out at just the right time. He couldn't have stomached what has happened since.

Beginning on Tuesday, March 29, the Mister Sketchee! Truck will be parked semi-permanently in Washington, DC. This will mean a happy reunion with Halfzie, a tasteful redesign of the site, and Nationals Baseball. Be sure to stay tuned.

Big Fish, Big City

Reading over my last few posts, I can easily see that some readers may be under the impression that I have fallen into some kind of melancholy trance. I can only assure you that this is not, in fact, the case. As I prepare to make the big move down the coast, I have lost the free wireless connection I had been filching off the neighbors (they have moved). This leaves me with only dial-up, crawling around the world wide web at a snail's pace.

But, as always, there are things to report. Today I spent the afternoon re-grouting the tiles in my parents' shower. I had no idea this task would be so tedious, nor that making bare-skin contact with the grout mix would be akin to sticking one's head into a narrow tube lined with sandpaper. The shower looks pretty good now, however.

I also saw a very interesting documentary last night on the Sundance Channel: "Gotham Fish Tales" (2003). I learned that there are over 250 species of fish now living in New York City's waterways, including 20-lb. striped bass. I also learned that it is more or less safe to eat these fish year-round, unless you happen to be a young child or a pregnant woman. This is, quite frankly, astounding, especially given the fact that when the Clear Water act was passed in 1972 no fish could survive in the oxygen-depleted environment of New York Harbor.

The film's best moment, perhaps, was an interview with a man who spends every day fishing off of the Gil Hodges Bridge. He explained that "Orientals don't throw nothing back. They don't know the law and they eat everything they catch." He went on to say that Russians are similarly lawless when it comes to fishing. Then, as he was briefly interrupted to tell a passing acquaintance what he was doing talking to a camera, he said, "That's my friend. He's Pork-u-jeez. Don't speak no English."

For my part, I have never caught a fish in the waters around New York, but I am encouraged to hear that they are available in such abundant quantities. I would probably stay away from bluefish caught in the East River, but a hefty striper from Coney Island sounds mighty tasty. Apparently, the nutrient-rich slurry ejected from sewage treatment plants brings smaller fish and their predators in droves, but I'd rather not eat one of those if at all possible.

Fish are on the brain for other reasons, too. You're Okay just got an apartment in Bed-Stuy, and word has it that some puffer fish and lobsters will be joining the fray in the near future. I could never own pet lobsters; they wouldn't stand a chance.

Moving On

Dearest Readers,

Without growing overly rhapsodic, I should nonetheless make some mention of the events that have led to my recent inattention to this page. Most recently I was attending a family memorial service for a wonderful and well-loved great aunt. The service was very nice, and even under the mournful circumstances it was good to see the extended family and catch up with cousins, aunts, uncles, and the rest.

The job I have found is at a small residential architecture firm specializing in green design. The homes are energy efficient and built from recycled materials, and green in color only on occasion, and entirely by coincidence. As for the question of where I shall live, a firm answer has yet to be developed. My girlfriend, who recoils in horror at her not being included in my ramblings, tells me her roommates are none too warm to the notion of my moving in, for any period of time. In the fast-paced landscape churned out by the D.C. real estate engine, I may have to settle (temporarily, of course) on the futon in Halfzie's Adams Morgan English Basement apt.

I should also note here that my girlfriend is a wonderful and brilliant person. This statement requires no further qualification. Nonetheless, the matter of putting a some-time roof over my head is daunting. D.C. is no place to become experimental about one's living arrangements. I shudder to think what I will find for the lowly sum I am prepared to pay, but ultimately I am certain that after a few months I will have devised a nice set-up.

Final note: This evening, after the memorial reception and a light supper, I went to see The Pearl in concert for a second time. I can offer no link to the band's website at present, but I fully intend to do so in due time.

From the dark will come light. Dark is nothing without the hope of new light, to define it and round its sharp corners. From the questions, draughts of joy, and from any sorrow, a new day leads again.

Safe.

Metal teeth can chew, can they?

Since the inception of this page back in November, I have posted, on average, once every three days. These past two weeks I have failed to post anything at all, and not for wont of internet access or appropriate fodder. But job interviews, birthday parties, assorted illnesses and general sloth have kept me silent for a fortnight, and I have finally caved in and decided to shout anew into the great abyss.

The good news is that the most recent round of interviews managed to turn up an actual job, which I will be beginning just after Easter. As my mother pointed out, this is a liturgically appropriate schedule. More importantly, having a job will allow me to afford to buy things occasionally and to move to Washington, D.C. for good -- and just in time for the Nationals home opener.

Meanwhile, this past weekend I was among the proud few who feted Halfzie's twenty-second. I'm sure he will provide more detailed reports of the weekend's activities in due time, but my favorite episode was certainly the Saturday afternoon outing to Ikea. A few months back I read about the stampede that occurred at the openning of an Ikea store in Saudi Arabia, caused by the offer of a free sofa for the first visitors. That panic became understandable, especially after having seen the place now for the first time since I was about seven years old. Even if flimsy furniture and mass-produced bachelor pad art aren't your speed, who could object to a 2-dollar shrimp sandwich -- let alone a free couch or two?

Finally, this: after so many years on this earth, one might think I would know better than to get my hopes up at the first sign of Spring, but the same thing happens every year. The temperature hits 60 degrees in early March, I begin thinking of barbecues and jacket-free perambulation, and the very next day Mother Nature snows on my parade. It will be in the 30s for the foreseeable future in New York, with sporadic snow and rain to spice things up. To make matters worse, things aren't much better in D.C., where an extra three degrees of heat and a slightly more bearable wind-chill will do little to lift my spirits. But April is just around the corner, I suppose, and the BBQ will be roaring in no time.