I sort of love Times Square. I mean, I don’t love it like I want to live there, or I want to work there, or that I wouldn’t rather stay in some other part of Manhattan when I’m in town. But I’m glad that a place like it exists in the world, and I’m happy to partake of its almost neurologically-altering flash in small cautious doses, much as the tourist to Amsterdam might smoke some hash in a coffee shop or the tourist to Prague might partake of absinthe. It’s like being physically dipped in pure electronic media. (Albeit old electronic media, as even the computer generated displays are non-interactive). Didn’t Marshall McLuhan say something about the electric light bulb being the purest form of media?

So, there are a couple of Times Square billboards that caught my eye.

First, doesn’t it look like these holy warriors are worshipping Christiane Amanpour? And like she is sort of their priestess, smiling coolly in acceptance of their adoration?

Second, doesn’t it look like Justin Timberlake is dancing with some sort of electronic uterus?

“Sandra, what are the chances my daughter is pregnant?” the manager at “Kerbooz”, the bar in Penn Station where I had lunch since the Acela Express was 30 minutes late.

“Did you hear Phil Rizzuto died?” (same manager).
“Who’s Phil Rizzuto?” (same Sandra, behind the bar).
“I am not talking to you for the rest of the day. He’s dead so it doesn’t matter.” Pause. Manager visibly tries to stop talking to Sandra, and can’t contain himself. “He was a great Yankee. A great American. And I would say a great broadcaster.”
The manager walked into the kitchen.
“A great spokesman for The Money Store,” (me, not quite fast or jackassy enough to say it before the manager was out of earshot).
Blank look from Sandra, probably too young to remember those 80’s UHF-TV station ads for sub-prime personal loans.

Construction worker on a cell phone: “I got my hearing tomorrow. Yeah, I get to find out what they’re going to do to me. LIKE I FUCKING CARE.”

You know that plot thread (such as it is) in Lost In Translation where Scarlett Johansen stubs her toe in her Tokyo hotel and after a few days it starts to turn black? That’s sort of what happened to me Sunday night, not long after I posted my dispatch.

The Comfort Inn near Times Square* gives the impression of once having been a nice-ish hotel in the early 20th century, a pretty seedy hotel 30-40 years ago, and now a Comfort Inn: it has narrow halls, small rooms, and a decorated but worn marble back staircase. I decided I needed some ice, and the only machine was in the basement. I took the stairs, and on the way up, tripped over one of those lovely but worn marble staircases, and somehow managed to — please stop reading if you’re squeamish– nearly fall in such a way that I broke off part of my toenail and sheared off the very tip of my toe with it.

Shooting, shooting pain. At first I thought it was broken (not merely bleeding). Yesterday I decided it wasn’t. Today I’m again not entirely sure that it’s not. It is still grotesquely black and blue. It has stopped filling my socks with blood. That is a good start. Wearing dress shoes (comfortable ones, but still) my first day in the new office was probably a bad idea, “good impressions” be damned. Yesterday and today it was left foot dress shoe, right foot gauze bandage, tape, black sock, sandal. (Had I not been wearing sandals when I fell, none of this would have happened).

*not my choice! I think all concerned (mostly me) would have preferred to be closer to the HQ office of my new company and much further from Times Square.

Due to a misreading of one small letter (”E” vs “W”), I ended up having to walk down 46th street, across half of Manhattan (so, width-wise, but still) this evening. I saw the sign for the Gotham Book Mart, and thought “oh, yay, I’m going to be able to go to Gotham Book Mart on my way home from my first day on the new job tomorrow”. And then I saw the bars across the windows and the “building for sale” sign in the window. No matter, I thought, I know they moved a couple of years ago, so this must be the old site.

Alas, no. It looks like the Gotham Book Mart is done for.

After I got to my hotel, I checked around, and realized the sad truth. So I walked back over and snapped this shot. The guy pictured seemed to be camped out there. He was writing furiously in a notebook both times I walked by, within about 90 minutes of each other. I’d like to pretend that he is just sitting there, waiting for them to re-open.

I feel a little like the chronicler of Lost Institutions on this blog sometimes, and, really, I’ve only been to Gotham Book Mart 4 or 5 times in my life, but, geez, this was like one of the most well-beloved bookstores in the epicenter of literary America. Who the hell else has a chance?!?

Like the Passat Wagon I mentioned earlier, here’s one more to file under “non-SUV owners who aren’t smart enough to make sure their car is more fuel efficient than an SUV before putting a smug anti-SUV bumper sticker on their fuel guzzler”. Volvo wagons get between 14 and 18 mpg generally. Hummer H3’s get 15.

That said, I’m not going to be getting a Hummer anytime soon. Nor will I be wearing Hummer cologne.

Yes, but Hanlon’s Razor (”Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”) says that “#3 is most likely.

Among my siblings, the coordination and athletic ability are somewhat unequally distributed. Either you’re a professional ballet dancer, or you’re …well, the type to manage to pitch your wedding bouquet only about three feet behind you, like Ab did.

When Abby’s bouquet made its abrupt and quick landing, most of the single girls sort of didn’t know what to do, and just sort of stood rooted in their spots. The whole lot of them stood frozen for a few seconds, and then cousin Margaret got this “oh, for pete’s sake, what’s wrong with you all?” look on her face, and just walked up and took it. One of the many reasons why Margaret is great.

I feel like I’ve been in a whirlwind since around July 1, and I expect it to stop sometime around September 1. I’m enjoying the ride, but it’s been a while since I’ve had a minute to breathe. So it’s strange that today, just a few hours before Abby’s wedding, I have had a whole hour of almost forced idleness, and probably another hour more before we head off to do some errands before the wedding.

Most of the whirlwind I have not been able to blog about, even if I had had time, because one of the things in the works has been getting a new job. The first week of July was supposed to be a vacation in Pennsylvania centered around a shower for Abby and a retirement party for my mother-in-law Sue. And we were there for both of those two events. But I ended up having to take some time out of the middle for a job interview in NYC. So in about 36 hours, I went via car, train, and subway from central PA to NYC and Boston and back to NYC for a job interview and then back to central PA (with a small stop in Allentown for dinner with my uncle Tommy). And then we went back to Boston.

The next week was pretty filled up with both some more phone calls and paperwork around the new job, but also with getting the new 1500-lb letterpress ready for its move to our new studio space at Joy Street Studios in Somerville. And then the following week, it all came together. I took the new job, helped the movers move the press (mostly by staying out of the way, but there was some pushing and heaving involved), and gave notice at the current/soon-to-be-old job, again, in the space of about 36 hours.

This week, it’s been all about wrapping things up at the old job, getting ready for Abby’s wedding, driving down here to Pennsylvania from Boston again, and helping out with the wedding errands. There honestly hasn’t been too much of that because Abby is one of the most ridiculously organized people I know, and there just wasn’t that much left for us to do.

And now, there is still much work to be done in all of these changes. I have to move the press slightly away from the wall (which involves getting it jacked up and putting pipes under the wooden skids), there is still a lot of tools and equipment and paper to take over to the studio, I need to go to Ikea and get some cheap shelving for printing suplies and equipment, I have to wrap things up at the old job, start the new job at the headquarters in NYC for the first few weeks, and go be a groomsman in Matt Shaw’s wedding in Santa Barbara.

And you know, I feel like I’m just outlining it. There are more things that have happened that don’t fit into the narrative arc:

• we went to ArtBeast 2007 with Trixie and Mr. Villain and had a fabulous time and enjoyed some good bands, at least one new-to-me (Hallelujah The Hills). Editrix wrote it up better than I have time to right now.
• we ran into into Jeff, who was a friend I met on our Junior Year Abroad program in Ireland and later a roommate in my first Somerville apartment, and his wife and kid, on Holland Street on our way home after ArtBeast

So, it’s nice to have a few hours to sit down and blog about it all.

Last night, after the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, we stayed at a Holiday Inn by the old Allegheny County Airport, where Terri’s parents; Kim, Glenn, and Hope; and also my uncle Tommy are staying. We stayed on the farm Thursday night, and we probably could have squished in there for our whole stay. But now that everyone’s arrived, there are 11 people staying there now. Of course, while it seems crowded, there were actually 11 of us living there at one point, though 5 of us were kids, and we also weren’t trying to get gussied up for a wedding every day. Still, I think my parents are happiest when the place resembles The Burrow (the Weasleys’ house from the Harry Potter books). When the chaos of the inside of the house gets too much, there’s always acres of room outside to wander around in. Unfortunately, it’s also wicked hot here, so that’s not as appealing as it might normally be. Anyway, we’re hanging out here at the hotel now, in air conditioning, while Hope is taking a nap downstairs. We’re doing some blogging (Terri beat me to posting!), and in about a minute, I should start donning my outfit.

Stay tuned for my next update, probably either tomorrow, or sometime in early September…