NoHo

When I first moved to New York City, in order to attend NYU, I thought that NoHo was probably the coolest place in the world.  MacDougal Street, Thompson Street, Bleeker Street... I was pretty much in awe.  There were all kinds of shiny, flashing lights mixed in with beautiful brick and stone three to six story buildings, jazz clubs, hookah bars, and restaurants serving nationalistic cuisines I didn't know existed.  Ethiopian food was pretty much a new concept to me at the time, and so was Jamaican.  I mean, I know that they had food, I just had no idea what the hell it consisted of.  At this point, I was also pronouncing Houston Street like the city in Texas, rather than the proper house-ton, so basically what I'm saying is that I was totally clueless but fascinated by everything.  NoHo seemed like the center of the world.  It is the area between Washington Square Park and Houston Street, aka North of Houston, which leads to NoHo.  SoHo is named such for being South of Houston (but more about that tomorrow).  

Still, I think of NoHo as an excellent night-time hang out neighborhood, or a great place to grab a cafe lunch and sit outside.  There are so many options, all so close together.  Plus, there are some excellent murals and little niche shops crammed in between the residential buildings and restaurants.

Just remember... TASTE THE DIFFERENCE.

Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Street Fair

It really is amazing the type of random stuff we remember from our childhoods.  There are all kinds of seemingly important details that I probably wouldn't be able to tell you about my early life.  I most likely don't remember the names I gave to some of my favourite toys, or even the names of some of my friends and teachers.  I most likely couldn't pick many of them out of a lineup.  Many people forget the silly, easy little grammar rules they learn (such as their, they're, there and your vs. you're).  But, I remember this song about a street fair.

When I was a little kid, my parents were really good about making sure that I listened to lots of children's music.  We did listen to pop and rock on the radio in the car, but I also had quite a bunch of tapes full of children's songs.  Yes... tapes.  Remember tapes?  We even still had a record player when I was a kid, and not in an "ironic" or retro kind of a way.  There were actually old records because records were what was there.  I didn't get my first CD until I was about eleven years old, and it was Leeann Rimes.  I remember it clear as day.  Anyway, one of my favourite of these children's singers was Tom Chapin.  He is the brother of Harry Chapin, and writes and records predominantly silly, fun songs for kids.  In addition to being pretty hilarious on tape, he also did a yearly free (or extremely cheap, this I don't remember) concert on the grounds of a museum near our house, where he would perform with his band.  We went every year, and it was a very good time.

I can remember every word to almost every song on every single one of his tapes.  I'm not lying.  I just went through about six of them in my head as I was writing the last two paragraphs, and I'm rather certain that I recalled them in their entirety.  My neighbors are probably wondering why I'm singing kid's songs at 11pm at night on a Saturday, but whatever, I'm not really concerned.  This is New York- if they think that's weird, they've chosen to live in the wrong city.  So, yes.  I remember most of these songs, completely.  And, as songs do, they pop into my head when I see things that remind me of them.  For example, every time I make pancakes, or it is Mother's Day, I am reminded of the song "Mother's Day," in which the children and clueless father make the mother buckwheat, chocolate chip, apple raisin pancakes in which they've used baking soda instead of baking powder, as breakfast in bed.  See, I told you that I knew the lyrics.  When I see a lemonade stand, I think of his lemonade song, where the lemonade is fifty cents, not from concentrate, fresh-squeezed, straight from trees, and really, really great. Lemonade totally is never only fifty cents here... or not from concentrate... but I still get reminded of it.  

The worst one, however, is "Street Fair," from the album "In my Hometown."  Because, well, in New York City, there are an asinine number of street fairs.  It is excellent- I love street fairs.  It's just that every time I see one, I think of the Tom Chapin song.  Then, it's stuck in my head for the entire day, like it has been today.  Ah, well.  I'll just have to share some of it with you, along with some photographs of the fair, which I encountered just north of Washington Square Park today.  

"Street fair, street fair

Unique and antique this stupendous affair

Everyone in the whole town will be there

We'll eat and we'll eat as we walk down the street

And we'll eat in the street at the fair"

Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Sundresses, Horses, Puppies, Balloons, Sunshine, Shakespeare, and Other Awesomeness

On nice days, you see a strange, wonderful migtation in New York City:  everyone emerges from their apartments, offices, and cracks in the sidewalk to hang out in the parks.  Park culture is amazing here in NYC.  Considering the majority of the limits are composed of a crazy concrete jungle, it's nice to get a little green in your life, instead of the concrete, asphault, brick and brownstone.  In some parks, including parts of Prospect Park, Van Cortland Park and Central Park, you actually cannot see any buildings.  This gives you the illusion that maybe you are actually in a forest, but really, you're smack dab in the middle of one of the world's largest cities. 

I love the parks, and on nice days, I especially love people watching in them.  There is this fantastic phenomenon that my boyfriend and some of the guys he works with have dubbed "sundress day".  It's basically a holiday, and like Easter, it floats.  Sundress Day is the first gorgeous, warm, and not windy day of spring, when all of the women of New York whip out their favourite sundress, be it new or the one they have been dreaming about repeating since last September.  Then, they all sit in the park and flaunt how awesome they feel in said sundress.  Guys all over the city then also flock to the park, and try to look as excellent as possible to impress all of the fabulously dressed ladies.  It is quite a show, and in smaller parks like Union Square and Washington Square, it can actually be difficult to get a bench seat. 

These photos were not taken on sundress day- I was unfortunately working when it happened.  But, they were all taken during sundress season- the week or so after sundress day when all the girls are still excited, and wearing summery stuff.  And, all of them are from Central Park!

First, we have the delightfully chill hipster chick, relaxing on a bench with her banana snack, looking like she just doesn't care.  Hip- like a hipster.

Then, we have this criminally adorable little puppy.  Going to the park does NOT help my dog-lust.  Ever.  Parks are fully of dogs, and I want a dog so badly... and that's bad.  I can't care for a dog right now- I have no backyard and barely any budget.  Plus, I'm thinking about going to grad school in a different country.  It's not time for a dog... but this one is so cute!

I titled this photograph "The Horse and His Boy".  It seems to make sense to me.  The horse and his carriage driver look like they are having a conversation to me.  The horse is asking for something, and his bowler-becked buddy is saying "Whadya want?" in a stereotypical Brooklyn awesome accent.  The horse sounds like Mr. Ed, because he is the only talking horse from pop culture that comes to mind at the moment.

This photograph is titled "Think True Love Acted Simple Modesty," which is a quote from one of Juliet's monologues in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.  This statue is in front of the Delacorte Theatre, where Shakespeare in the Park is performed.  My boyfriend is working on the shows this year, so hopefully, I'll be around there quite a bit.  I love the area surrounding the theatre- the statues of the Shakespeare characters, the Shakespeare Garden, full of beautiful flowers and plaques with quotes from the Bard's plays and sonnets, the Belvedere Castle atop the cliff.  It's gorgeous. I'm not sure if this statue is meant to be Romeo and Juliet... I'll have to read the plaque another time.  But, the quote seemed to fit.  This dip is so elegantly romantic, I feel a bit swoony.  In a great kind of way. 

This next photograph makes me giggle.  This man was making and selling balloon animals and swords for children outside of the Central Park zoo.  However, at this moment, his placement of some of the swords is, well, kind of hilariously awesome.

Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Photobucket WTF

Dear Readers,

I am so sorry that the majority of the photographs on the page right now are not working.  If you have visited the site since about 2:00pm eastern standard time today, instead of being able to see any of my original photographs, you have seen this image...

I don't really know why I bothered finding the image and posting it here, considering the fact that it is currently all over my site.

So, why am I telling you this?  Well, it's because, frankly, there is nothing I can do.  Photobucket allows each of its users up to 1000 photographs, or approximately 25 megabytes of space every month.  I have gotten warnings that I was near this limit before, but I have apparently never exceeded it, because this has never happened.  If you're wondering, yes, I really do upload that many photographs.  Anyway, instead of not allowing me to upload any photographs over the 1000ish that I am permitted per month, Photobucket kept me go on uploading.  I was happy about this, and assumed that the bandwidth thing was just an empty threat.

That is, until I looked at my blog about an hour ago, and saw the above image, plastered over all of my hard work.  Then, I read my email.  There is only one way to fix this... PAY THEM MONEY.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen.  Either I have to wait it out until May 29th (when the bandwidth resets) or, I have to pay Photobucket, which is "supposed" to be a free website.  I have to get a pro account.  They tell you this very subtly on the image above.

The moral of the story is- if you want to create urls for  your images, or store them online so your computer doesn't explode, and have lots and lots of files... Do. Not. Use. Photobucket.
 Don't do it.  Just, just don't.  Their system is scam-tastic.  

The second moral of the story is- I'm very sorry everyone, but you're going to have to see those images for a few more days.  Because I am totally not going to pay Photobucket any money.  Sorry.

Yours truly (and truly embarrassed),

~Emily

PS... I almost named this post "Photobucket Phooey".  I don't know if you have noticed, but I try to keep this site as G-rated and clean as possible, and I do a pretty tidy job of it.  My mom and grammy read this, and heaven forbid I sound like a heathen kid to them, or anyone else.  I check the curses and generally attempt to find classier and more intelligent language, which seems to work out better anyway.  With this one though... #&*% it.  Phooey sounds like a bad joke out of Beetle Bailey or Blondie (or some other 50's comic that ceased to be funny once the 50's ended).  WTF is how I feel right now.  Thus, it is the title.  For some reason, I felt the need to explain myself for this.  So, I hope you enjoyed the explanation.  :)

Give the World the Best You've Got

So... where I am right now, it's Sunday night, May 22.  If you're reading this, I think it's safe to assume that you didn't get raptured yesterday.  And, if you didn't, I think it's also safe to assume that I didn't get raptured yesterday.  More importantly, no one got raptured yesterday.  Logic wins, and the world carries on as normal!  Huzzah!

In celebration of all of our near-apocalyptic experiences over the past day or so, I've prepared one of my favourite quotes.  I mean, I didn't really prepare it... I copied and pasted it.  Anywho, I love this quote.  It's a good reminder that sometimes, people push away what they know is good and important, and that trying the make the world a more beautiful place than how we found it is, well, tricky.  There are a lot of obstacles when it comes to doing good, but we shouldn't let them stop us.  Because, basically, we are born with the potential to do extraordinary things.  Every one of us has the opportunities to change lives, even if it is just little things here and there.  Giving an hour of your time to a charity, or $5 to one can make a huge difference in someone else's life, but it can also change your own.  Listening to a friend who had a bad day, being there for someone else- it's amazing how much love that can create.  I could go on and on about this, but I think that being selfless reaps benefits for everyone, including yourself, as long as you don't let the selflessness go too far.  

So, yeah.  Be good to each other.

Oh! Just as one final nudge at the rapture, before I put it to rest:

Did you really think that God would kill off a world that spawned MOTHER THERESA??

... didn't think so...

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.

Love them anyway!

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.

Do good anyway!

If you are successful, you will win false friends and enemies.

Succeed anyway!

The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway!

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway!

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway!

People really need help but may attack you if you help them.

Help them anyway!

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you’ve got.

~Mother Theresa

We'll be back to the normal photographs and such in the next post.  

In the meantime... I hope you liked the quote!

~Emily

Inspiration Fridays: John William Waterhouse

Before there were mori girls, before there were hipsters, before there were blogs and tumblr and Etsy...

There was John William Waterhouse.

I love paintings- they are one of my favourite art forms.  I have no skill at painting whatsoever... just ask my boyfriend.  We have some awesome puff paint stick figure drawings rotting on our bookshelves somewhere.  But I appreciate them so, so much.  I especially love paintings with romantic themes.  As much as I appreciate very well executed work, I am a sucker for content, and I like to see pretty women, flowers, handsome men, and long, flowing dresses.  Most people like that type of thing.  I enjoy the type of painting that makes me want to take a book of Gothic poetry and sit in the park on a cloudy day for hours with a latte.  To be honest... a lot of things in life make me want to do that, but the work of John William Waterhouse definitely does!

The themes are from folklore and literature.  The women are pretty, and either elegantly dressed or delicately nude.  Curiosity and despair and prevalent and draw you into the painting, evoking so much feeling.  I respond very emotionally to his work, and I hope that you find it inspiring as well.  

All of these paintings are by John William Waterhouse.

Yeah.  I love his work.  I hope you enjoy it too!

PS.  I hope I wasn't too doom and gloom yesterday.  This upcoming "Apocalypse" just gives me a moment to highlight my main intention of this blog- pointing out that we all need to be a bit more optimistic and realize that our world is pretty darn lovely and awesome, and so are the majority of the people in it.  Have optimism, have faith, make beauty, make art, love one another, accept one another, and enjoy the ride tomorrow, kids.  Hopefully it won't be a bumpy one! 

~Emily

Our World Is Lovelier than We Think it Is

I'm not sure if you are aware, but according to various sources, the world is set to end on Saturday.

 In two days.

Yes, that's right.  You heard me.  The apocalypse is "supposed" to happen on May 21, 2011.  Forget everything you heard about 2012, this stuff is coming early.

If you haven't yet heard about this, a group called Family Radio has been spreading terror, or as many of their advertising campaigns say, "sounding the trumpet," or reminding you to "save the date" for Saturday, May 21, 2011 because, oh, right... you're going to die.  If you die, that's the good thing.  You're going to be "raptured" or taken up to heaven with God. If you don't die, well, that stinks, because you have about six monthes of hellish torture before you are actually sent to the bad place.  How did they determine this?  Apparently, this guy, from the USA, found a mathematical code in the bible, and used it to determine the date of the rapture.  Please, don't mind that the Bible wasn't written in English and, oh, right, wasn't written directly by God.  There is a lot of historical documentation that people wrote the majority of the Bible- perhaps with the guidance of God, yes, I grant that, but he didn't just go BAM!  BIBLE!  And it fell out of the sky.  As cool as that would be, that totally didn't happen.  Ten commandments, maybe.  Whole Bible?  Yeah, no.

I have all kinds of problems with this upcoming advertising campaign.  Scaring the shit out of nice, normal people is my first problem.  I'm scared.  I'm pretty nice.  I donate my time to working at a charity that provides free acting training for low-income high school students in New York City, give homeless people muffins on occassion and generally try my best to be polite and courteous.  Not that I haven't made mistakes, I absolutely have, but I'm genuinely sorry when I hurt people, even if it isn't intentional.  I think I'm a decent person.  And, I am a bit scared.  However, I'm not as scared as some people.  I read recently about a woman who sold her home, and used all of the money to fund this advertising campaign to warn people.  She realized that she didn't have enough time left in her life to have a kid, like she had always dreamed about, so she gave up everything.  Stories like hers have been circulating, and I just feel so badly for them. I feel bad for them if they are wrong, obviously, because there go their life savings, and there goes the would-be kid's college fund.  But, I also feel bad if she is right- because she just then spent the last few monthes of her life warning people about something that was totally inevitable, and that they could not change, instead of enjoying herself.  Also, that she sent her money there instead of, you know, helping starving children, or AIDS research.  I just feel badly.  

Mostly, I think that these people cannot possibly be correct.  The number thing seems sketchy, that's for sure, but wow, have they noticed how awesome people are?  I wrote about this just a few days ago in lieu of the humanitarian, compassionate, and just overall sane response that people have been having to the death of Osama Bin Laden.  People seem to be getting nicer, and the world is a more peaceful place than at basically any other point in history.  If God wanted to punish the human race, why would they punish the people alive today?  The people I constantly see smiling at strangers (yes this really happens in New York City), holding doors for one another (if you don't do this in NYC you are going to get some dirty looks), donating to charities, creating beautiful works of art, helping one another up stairs, encouraging compassion.... these people are supposed to take the fall for all of humanity?  What is going on here?  I thought God was supposed to be loving.

So, there is my opinion.  The Apocalypse, or Rapture, or Judgement Day is not coming on May 21, 2011 because, well, if God is up there and has been paying attention, he will see that we aren't that bad, and he has no good reason to smite us.  I think this world is too pretty.  The little birds sing lovely songs, going about their lives oblivious to the works of men half of the time- are they going to be destroyed by an earthquake sent by a God who is supposed to be benevolent?  My logic is screaming, "No".  

Maybe I'll eat my words come Saturday.  If I do, though, we'll all either be already dead, or enduring so much hellish torment that laughing about it my incurable optimism will make us all feel a bit better about it.  In that case, I feel like I have nothing to lose.

Calm down. You aren't going anywhere on Saturday.  Our world is lovelier than we think it is, and people are better than we think they are. At least, I think so.

I have faith in our human race, faith in the future, and, dare I say it, faith in God.

I mean, just look at these flowers.  See how pretty they are?  Why would God burn that?

Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

** Sorry for the rant.  It's just meant to increase optimism instead of fear**

~Emily