Time to Pretend

One of the greatest pre-Christmas activities has to be walking along railroad tracks in between shopping excursions. Last Tuesday, I stumbled across this nondescript old warehouse along the Monongahela River on Pittsburgh's South Side, a neighborhood so rich in industrial history that it's literally like biting into a chocolate truffle to go exploring there.


Can't see it? Ok, Mr. Demille he's ready for his closeup.


For whatever reason, the scene just grabbed me. I thought of my September post on Bollywood Escapism. Would one consider this act of obviously planned graffiti an act of American Escapism?

Then my mind drifted to the subject of the artwork - that beautiful sunny country. I thought of being on the Costa del Sol at age 15. The sight of the blistering sun still floods my memory whenever I think of that trip. Was this what the artist intended to convey? Regardless, this was the effect - most people think of Spain (even if they have never been there) as a sunny place, far removed from the often bleak landscape of America's Rustbelt, England's Midlands Region, or Germany's Ruhr Valley. Yet, here it was spelled out before me - why?

We Americans love to escape so much, perhaps even more than Indians or Europeans. We have overdeveloped a peninsular swamp (Florida), created whole government agencies (NASA), and even built a desert emerald city (Las Vegas) for this purpose. Perhaps it was this strain of Americana that brought us Spain along the Mon Valley.

Looking east beyond the warehouse, I snapped the tracks continuing under the Tenth Street Bridge. This bridge has always given me the ultimate yellow brick road feeling, and I thought if these tracks stretched in a perfect trajectory across the Atlantic, they would take me back to Malaga and those warm sands of ten years ago.

Sidewalks of NYC: Little Italy Revisited

How little can Little Italy get? No, it is not completely obliterated like the former Lower East Side Jewish neighborhood to its east. It seems, however, that New York's Little Italy is living up to its name more and more with each passing year. Mulberry Street (pictured c.1900 at right), the neighborhood's historic main drag seems at present to be the only street in the once massive neighborhood. The neighborhood once encompassed over 50 city blocks, stretching from the Bowery to the east, Lafayette St. to the West, Bleecker St. to the north, and Bayard St. to the south.

In the 1920s the area was acclaimed for its strong cohesiveness, familial relationships, and vibrant street market. Perhaps it was these factors that kept Mulberry St. itself so intact while the Grand St. nerve center went into decline. Today the street has lost much of its marketplace image, but the Italian feel is still very much there. It is filled with restaurants and no shops seem to cater to the neighborhood's residents. In a way the street seems to be living on as a memorial to its former self. The streets surrounding it evoke a decidedly Asian-American feel.

Sidewalks of NYC: Lower East Side

The Lower East Side, according to the 1923 tour book, is the area east of the Bowery and south of 10th St. The author strangely refers to this area as simply, "the Ghetto". So the author described several ethnic neighborhoods in the book, so I did not understand why he described just one of them, the then primarily Eastern European Jewish one, as "the Ghetto". The term ghetto, after all, in modern use seems to refer to any neighborhood that is occupied primarily by any ethnic minority. Then I learned that prior to World War II the term "ghetto" was used almost exclusively to refer to Jewish neighborhoods. In fact the first "ghetto" was the walled Venetian Ghetto in Italy. Ghetto is the Italian word for "foundry". Lesson learned.

In the 1920s the neighborhood was described as, "everywhere, Yiddish signs, Yiddish newspapers, Yiddish beards and wigs". One of the neighborhood's main drags, Hester St. is described as being "alive with pushcarts where everything is sold on the sidewalks from pins to fur coats".

While there certainly are several neighborhood in Brooklyn where such a scene can be had, the Lower East Side is certainly not one of them. All of the signs are either in Chinese or Vietnamese now. Hester St. does not boast such a lively scene - the pushcarts seem to have been replaced by cell phone stores and the southern end of the street, west of the Bowery has been taken over by a massive, extremely ugly public school that look like it's right out of A Clockwork Orange.

The author makes the several blocks bounded by the Bowery to the west, Allen St. to the east, Grand St. to the north, and Hester St. to the south, as the nerve center of the neighborhood. Allen St. (pictured below), which at that time had an elevated rail line running above it, is called, "a virtual tunnel of a street" and as the "home of little brass shops, and in its basement and dingy stores ... one can find charming Russian candlesticks, samovars, and andirons (horizontal bars for fireplaces)". Today Allen St. feels almost suburban - the elevated tracks are gone, and the boulevard the tree-lined boulevard that has replaced seems like it would be more at home in Nassau County than in Manhattan.


The neighborhood is vastly disappointing, and not because it has changed hands from one ethnic group to another, but because it just seems so irrelevant now, like an outpost, a few secondary commercial streets to stop off for some fruit on one's way home from the subway to the many high-rises that tower along the East River. It is an outgrowth of the ever expanding Chinatown, with eastern Canal St as its verve center. The Bowery which clearly divided the Jewish enclave from its western neighbor, Little Italy is simply a large Chinatown street. This section of the city seems so balkanized in the 1923 description that it was difficult for me to feel as if I was in the same place. As I was walking from what had been fairly WASP-ish, to what was extremely Italian, and finally wholeheartedly Jewish in 1923, it seemed strange to be immersed in a remarkably homogeneous Asian-American neighborhood.

SF Dreaming

So I am missing SF big time. Perhaps it's because I just saw Milk last night, but more likely it's that I've been away since Thanksgiving. I saw this sunrise-sunset tilt-shift on a sister blog Mission Mission and my heart skipped a beat. Enjoy!


Dawn and dusk in mini San Francisco from captin nod on Vimeo.

Traversing the Big Apple - One Sidewalk at a Time

Recently, a friend gave me a small antique tour book from 1923 titled, "The Sidewalks of New York". The book chronicles seemingly every street in Downtown and Midtown Manhattan as a passerby would have seen it. Many of the passages are quite dated, with references to several groups of people that are considered quite offensive today. My goal over the next couple of days is to post side by side comparisons of the neighborhoods included in the book with their 2008 counterparts. Stay tuned.

Indiana Snow

A dusting of pure white blankets the fields.
Life is constrained,
Growth does not penetrate,
Emptiness surrounds.

This State of Being grasps and pulls.
My brain searches, searches, searches, yet nothing new appears.

Indiana snow permeates my mind.

In solemn contemplation I know I must go forth and continue to explore.

Saturday Evening Poetry

Just a few short poems I jotted down a few days ago while laying in Dolores Park.

The Stand

Laying next to you, I feel nothing.
My head throbs, my throat is dry.
You caressed me with such a formula.
I reacted, but my nerves felt worn out, disconnected.
There is nothing here.
Nothing here.

The apex comes anew.
All is settled.
Time to go.

The Bar

Red lights calling.
BAR, BAR, BAR
The ants stream in to meet their queen.
Eyes are opened wide. It is time to go headstrong into the throngs.
Human touch surrounds.
The air is heavy, the bodies warm.
I am one of the masses, part of the body.

The music envelops, the bass grabs my circulatory system as if it was a grapevine.
It pulls it down, and pushes it out.
I am gone, an individual no more.

Return to the Bay

I've been back in the US for three weeks now. Returning from India to anywhere in the United States would probably hit anyone pretty hard. Such stark differences in smell, sound, and culture would send anyone's mind into a fog, whether they were returning to New York City or Peoria, Illinois.


Coming back to San Francisco though is such a stark contrast. As a friend recently told me, "You live in a fairy tale". Indeed I thought back on that description many times when I was in the subcontinent. In a way India is also a bit of a wild and raw sort of place. The extreme number of Hindu holidays, the beautiful colors of the textiles and garments, and of course the stark terrain serve to make it, at least on the surface like a trip to Oz. Yet, when you actually live day to day in India, one realizes how constraining the culture really is. The men hang out with the men, the women hang out with other women. Many marry early without spending nearly enough time with their betrothed. Sodomy is illegal and sexism is rampant. Sure enough, much of this is changing, but it is present still nevertheless.

While I was in India, all of these elements made me feel constrained and constantly on edge. I realized that I need tolerance and cultures that see gray areas. Would I feel the same way if I was on a sojourn to some of the more socially conservative parts of my own country? Of course, and I have. It's all a social process, and India is making significant progress. Its leaders know that greater tolerance is to their economic advantage. Still they aren't there yet and it will take a long time. India is one of the most diverse and confusing societies I have ever attempted to understand. It will take some time.

Ok, so back to my return to my wonderful fairy tale city. San Francisco also has many festivals, beautiful colors, and was built on perhaps the most beautiful terrain in the United States. The difference is at these festivals, colors, and terrain are enjoyed by such a variety of subcultures and informal groupings that I could never hope to be able to name them all. This is what I love. The groupings are not a hundred years old or even fifty years old in most instances. The power of the individual and the ad hoc relationship is so much stronger here, so much more acceptable. Perhaps this is more the result of being on the Western edge of a country that so values the power of the individual, I don't know. The important thing to me is that it is where I feel most at home, and I missed it.

On Terrorism and History's Lessons

A few days ago a series of bomb blasts rocked Connaught Place, the largest business district in India's capital city. That evening as I sat watching the Indian presses reaction to the blast, I was reminded of some passages that I had just read inIndian historian William Dalrymple's The Last Mughal.

Metcalfe's police in Delhi came increasingly to suspectthat the mujahadin network had begun to revive. Acting on a tip-off, they conducted a dawn raid on the premises of various known extremists and found evidence for what they believed was 'a Wahhabi conspiracy' in Delhi itself, seizing the correspondence of the fanatics [who were] preaching a crusade 'against the British'...

If the missionaries reinforced Muslim fears, increasing opposition to British rule, driving the orthodox towards greater orthodoxy, and creating a constituency for the jihadis, so the existence od 'Wahhabi conspirancies' strengthened the conversion of Jennings and his supporters that 'a strong attack' was needed to take take on such deeply embedded 'Muslim fanatics'. [Dalrymple 84]

This passage references a series of events in September 1852. It goes far in showing how these types of events have always been a part of the histories of Delhi and India. O the same page, Dalrymple provides a pointed analysis of the situation bringing their meaning full circle to the present day.

The histories of Islamic fundamentalism and European imperialism have very often been closely, and dangerously, intertwined. In a curious but very concrete way the fundamentalists of bothfaiths have needed each other to reinforce each other's prejudices and hatreds. The venom of one provides the lifeblood of the other. [Dalrymple 84]

These words came flowing back into my mind on Saturday night. The act was awful, but these awful acts are not unprecedented. Authorities and leaders should aim to learn from them and put them in context rather than sometimes acting ignorant as if the lessons of history do not exist.

Bollywood Escapism

Since coming to India, I have become quite the Bollywood fan.

The other day I saw one of the most recent celluloid products out of Mumbai, Bachna ae Haseeno (Beware Pretty Women). The story is rather simple - boy leaves girl, boy leaves girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl leaves boy, boy apologizes to girls, boy and girl live happily ever after.

Okay, perhaps not as simple a story, but how simple could it be with over three hours to fill up. The cinematography was absolutely spectacular with musical numbers that I haven’t seen in any American film since West Side Story.

We watched two other older Bollywood films on DVD as well, and the combination of all of them made me think deeply about their popularity and what this popularity says about India and indeed all of Asia where they are more popular than their Hollywood counterparts.

Most Bollywood films have a few common traits. All are full of colorful and expertly choreographed musical numbers, seemingly coming out of nowhere in the story line. Despite a great deal of sexual suggestiveness, sex scenes are forbidden, and screen kisses are usually quick and passionless. Violence is also rare, and even in a thriller about an international thief with multiple gun fights, Dhoom 2, the gratuitous blood loss and explosions that define most American films in this category, simply don’t factor in.

For a film connoisseur like me, who usually trend towards the serious, the deeply analytical. I found my booming enthusiasm and foot tapping extraordinary, yet most welcome. I suddenly didn’t care about deep meanings and movies that taught me something -- and best of all it felt great!!

My first two weeks in India had been challenging. The country is growing so fast and the rapid increase in the number of cars is overwhelming to any newcomer. New infrastructure projects abound in any city, but many are not keeping up with their project deadlines causing muddy messes along major roadways in most cities. Though I haven’t been to China, Vietnam, the UAE, or other Asian economic hot spots, I can imagine many of the same growing pains must exist in those countries as well.

This goes a long way in explaining Bollywood’s popularity. This escapism is not new, it was a huge factor in the original popularity of the Hollywood musical in the United States in the 1930s as the U.S. and most of the industrialized world was in the grips of the Great Depression. Check out this clip from the 1930s musical, Gold Diggers of 1933. Could Hollywood have been any more blatantly escapist?

Perhaps Hollywood could learn from Bollywood and adopt some of its lighter, non-violent, and excitable tendencies. As I sat watching the latest news out of my country (McCain/Palin Surging, More Home Foreclosures, 33K Jobs Lost in August), I felt like stringing up my arm and getting yet another Bollywood fix.

Delhi Metrosurfing

Metros have this strange power over me. I grew up in a very suburban setting, in a city with very limited public transportation. My first metro experience was with the world’s best and largest - the London Underground when I was fifteen. The multitude of lines going in every which direction called out to me like a giant bowl of spaghetti encouraging me to take in each of its many lines. I can remember heading all the way out to Wimbledon for no other reason than the fact that the place name was familiar and that it was situated at the end of a line. During that ten-day trip I probably spent more time beneath London than above.

Since then I have been on many high-speed rail systems - I have used them as a commuter, a student, and in many cases again as an avid tourist. I have fallen asleep on the DC Metro and ended up in Shady Grove just as the entire system shut down, witnessed two assault and batteries on the New York Subway, been absolutely crushed on many occasions on the St. Petersburg Metro, and been chastised simply for being an American on the Paris Metro.

Indeed each system has its quirks. Some are only one stairway below the street - like New York’s, other’s like Washington’s and St. Petersburg’s require you to descend leagues beneath the Earth’s surface. Some, like the socialist realist Moscow Metro, are very ornate with beautiful ceramic tiles and even chandeliers, while others like my home city’s BART are relatively drab looking dark cylinders.

In each instance, however, these systems have become channels of a city’s lifeblood - they have channeled urbanization and daily city life in ways that no bus or streetcar line could ever do. As time moves on they come to represent a time of growth and hopefulness for the large cities and expanding national economies that they serve. After all London built its system in the mid 19th Century, when few would challenge the fact that the city’s economic prominence was quickly reaching its apex globally. By the turn of the century as several train companies simultaneously built the lines that now make up New York City’s MTA Subway, it was clear that there was a new kid on the block challenging London as the economic center of the world. Stalin’s development of the opulent Moscow Metro as the common man’s palace in the 1920s and 1930s was clearly an attempt to showcase a challenge to the capitalist world order.

So it is with this historical perspective that I took my first look at the brand new Delhi Metro. On the flight to Delhi, I watched a Discovery Channel program about the system. There are currently only three lines, but considering that construction started only a few years ago, I count that as quite an accomplishment. Once the system is completed, it will be the second-largest on Earth. The London Underground will remain the largest.

Perhaps, it is the extreme congestion and chaos of street-level Delhi that makes the system all the more special and inviting. From the muggy heat and bleaching sun that typifies a summer afternoon in the Indian capital, one is suddenly transported to an air conditioned, well-lit, and spacious underground oasis.

I entered at the Rajiv Chowk (Connaught Place) Station and went two stops to Central Secretariat Station. The cars are structured similar to the NY Subway cars, but with absolutely no seats facing forwards or backwards. All passengers face each other with many bars and hanging handles ensure that there is adequate space for all standing passengers to ride comfortably. The short ride south between the city’s commercial center and its political heart was perhaps the most comfortable.

Most people get on at our stop since Connought Place is the city’s largest business district. Still, when you compare it to getting on a train at 34th and Broadway or even DC’s Metro Center Station, the passenger numbers aren’t quite there yet. This is a challenge for all new public transportation systems. When does a new way of getting from Point A to Point B become the norm? When will the novelty die out? Then I realized the passengers aren’t there because the city the planners want is right now in a constant state of flux, and it is the planners who want a hand in charting that development, not the other way around.

As I stood looking at a massive map detailing the location of all the future lines and stations, I thought about all of the real estate speculators are buying every centimeter of land within 2 square kilometers of these existing and planned stations. Unlike in developed countries, where planners must hold meetings to determine environmental, traffic, and cost of living ramifications for any tiny change to their daily grind, planners in developing countries are the protagonists, they are the actors. Their business is not merely reaction to the world the way it is, they are able to chart a new course and form a wholly new city. This is what happened in the London of the 1890s, the New York of the 1910s, and it is happening in Delhi today. Riding this beautiful new system was a way to get a premature glimpse of the new capital city that is to come.