six degrees of peter feld

youngmanhattanite: 6h057: I just realized how old Young...

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:09:59 -0500

6h057:

I just realized how old Young Manhattanite is.

We recently tallied the cumulative Manhattan living experience of YM, not including the time Spiers had a roommate named Mario Armando Lavandeira in the West Village (ask her about it!), and it was 54 years. A little more than Peter Feld.

My cumulative Manhattan living experience is less than you think, only 21 years total. However, I have lived in Manhattan in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and ’00s.

Nov. 22, 1963

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:09:00 -0500

Nov. 22, 1963

Lyndon Johnson is sworn in as president by Judge Sarah Hughes...

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:00:20 -0500

Lyndon Johnson is sworn in as president by Judge Sarah Hughes aboard Air Force One, Nov. 22, 1963.

This may be the best video on all YouTube: my friend Maura...

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:27:00 -0500

This may be the best video on all YouTube: my friend Maura Moynihan — urban planning advocate, Tibet rights activist, Yoga Hotel author, ex-Warhol It Girl and stand-up comedian (and daughter of ex-Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan) — performing her song “Vision Of The Light.”

Dion, “Abraham, Martin and John”

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:04:00 -0500

Dion, “Abraham, Martin and John”

Mad men and women: New York office workers, interviewed by NBC...

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:52:22 -0500

Mad men and women: New York office workers, interviewed by NBC outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza on November 22, 1963, one hour after JFK’s death, blame right-wingers who had been whipping up hatred against the President.

“He Was A Friend Of Mine,” The Byrds, with a Dylan...

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:46:02 -0500

“He Was A Friend Of Mine,” The Byrds, with a Dylan song they adapted for JFK, harmony by David Crosby and Roger McGuinn. “Leader of a nation for such a precious time.”

dailydoseofdylan: Cocaine- Bob Dylan 1962.

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:52:56 -0500

dailydoseofdylan:

Cocaine- Bob Dylan

1962.

Kris Kristofferson, “Sunday Morning Coming Down”

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:24:46 -0500

Kris Kristofferson, “Sunday Morning Coming Down”

Phil Ochs, “That Was The President,” written in the...

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:45:58 -0500

Phil Ochs, “That Was The President,” written in the wake of the November 22, 1963 assassination of JFK.

I still can see him smiling there and waving at the crowd
As he drove through the music of the band
And never even knowing no more time would be allowed
Not for the President and not for the man

"...these people at HarperCollins—even the dullest of them—are not unsophisticated. They are versed in the national semiotics, are familiar with the elements of portraiture. They know that this photo of Palin is mocking. They know this photo will make half the world recoil, or snort. And yet no one at HarperCollins stopped Sarah Palin from being made a laughingstock by her own dust jacket."

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:30:00 -0500

"...these people at HarperCollins—even the dullest of them—are not unsophisticated. They are versed in the national semiotics, are familiar with the elements of portraiture. They know that this photo of Palin is mocking. They know this photo will make half the world recoil, or snort. And yet no one at HarperCollins stopped Sarah Palin from being made a laughingstock by her own dust jacket.":

You might want to read Rudolph Delson’s close reading of Sarah Palin’s new memoir, on The Awl:

…It is plain from the first that Palin writes carelessly, and the reader adjusts. The phrase “an economic train wreck”? It doesn’t evoke any railroad images, it is just a poorly engineered synonym for the noun “disaster.” “Climb into bed”? A sleepy variant for the verb “accommodate.” If she were not deaf to connotation, she would not use the verb “cling” (as in “they cling to guns and religion”) without irony; if she were not deaf to music, she would avoid the repetition of “lifeline” and “Pipeline.” But, again, in terms of vice-presidential memoirs, this is only averagely bad. At least it still makes sense. Continuing:

It didn’t make sense.
It seemed that true public service, crafting policies that were good for the people, had become increasingly derailed by politics and its infernal machines.

And so the prose goes to hell. One paragraph earlier, the train was the economy, and it was speeding toward a wreck. In this paragraph, the train is public service, and it has been derailed. In fact, the train is “increasingly derailed.” Never mind that, in English, a train cannot become “increasingly derailed,” any more than a fetus can be “increasingly aborted,” or than Christ Our Savior can be “increasingly born”—we already knew that no wreck and no derailment could stop this particular vice-presidential locomotive: