newyorkette

Remember the gnat-like crowds of tiny jetcraft foretold in The Jetsons? I’ve been waiting for them to fill the skies since I was ten years old! It took me 30 years to realize that the future was never coming. But wait! It may yet arrive. According to the FAA, thousands of small aircraft seating four to six passengers—air-taxis—will be filling our skies in the near future, rendering obsolete the huge jumbo jets of our present archaic (according to The Jetsons and Buck Rogers) air-travel habits.

I’m overjoyed in a naive, idealistic sci-fi sort of way. Can you imagine what the new breed of air-cabbies will be like? Will they be like the old fashioned Frank Capra cabby, or like the Middle Eastern men who tell me to shut my mouth as if I were a wayward daughter? Or like Paul Robeson’s cousin (or was it his nephew?) who sang off-key but definitely in Paul Robeson’s voice to me all the way to 44th street from the LES? Maybe like the Spanish guy who turned his steering wheel back and forth to the rhythm of “Video Killed the Radio Star”? Or more like the ex-general from Africa who told me I had a future?

I can’t wait!
[NYT]

I don’t wanna keep flogging this thing, but it seems like it’s the duty of all of us to do so. Read this Washington Post article to which I was referred by the Daily Kos .

Overjoyed to have my Late Night Shows back, having had my fill of the 24-hour loop of Olympic repeats, imagine my surprise to see Colin Powell on Jay Leno, being his soft-spoken, bland-faced, baritone-voiced, soothing and confidence-inspiring self. Reassuring us that it’s a good idea to have Dubai run our ports.

Who do I believe? Who do I want to believe? Of course, I want to believe Papa Colin, in spite of the fact that he appears to be plugging on Jay Leno just like any other actor. He does great PR. When he’s on Bush’s side, he makes a very convincing case, particularly since he has never appeared to blindly go along with him in the past. The jury is still out on this one for me.

This is what you get for being up till dawn. (This cartoon was rejected by The New Yorker a few times, so I’m supposing it was just too dark. Dark but true.)

Not that I was trying to sleep. (I’m up trying to come up with a new cartoon that TNY might buy!) At least I’ve got one in the magazine this week, a fact that is a balm to my poor, uninspired soul tonight.
(image: carolita johnson)

I’m not a huge fan of Nolita, which I regard as basically a high-priced junky mall, but if you have to be there, and find yourself hungering for curry on rice at a non-peak hour (like after 2pm) you can duck into Rice, on Mott Street. The teeny-tiny high tables inset in the wall and barstool chairs are where you want to sit if you’re going solo. There’s not really enough room for two anyway, unless you’re on a hipster date, like the couple in front of me the other day. These dates are amusing to watch, so if you don’t have your New Yorker or your Chandler with you, you’ll still have the kind of cynical yet tender diversion you seek while passing the time waiting for your curry.

I used to avoid noisy, intimidatingly crowded, annoying Rice till I figured out that the off-hours are actually quite pleasant. Read the rest of this entry »

(image: carolita johnson)
The bird flu is coming closer, swans are dying in France. This is a health advisory for all you birds out there. Bundle up!
[IHT]

Anyone?

This week in New York’s concrete jungle was characterized by arabophobia, sutble racism, not so subtle Republican sneering double-talk, righteously stubborn if lecherous MTA workers, and civilian subway pervs.

Benefits, respect, and porn for the MTA, but no arbitration, please
Dubai Dubai Dubai, and Dubaya: [all posts on the Dubai Ports World deal]
Arabophobia raises its ugly head.
Gov. Pootaki.
NYU Law minority students showing low tolerance for non-minorities [minority lounge].
Live from the No. 1 train, pervs of both sexes.
But out there in the rest of the world, love conquers all, even the species barrier [man weds goat].

Benefits, respect, porn… I got three porn magazines at 34th street station for a conductor who called me over as I walked past his window. He gave me some cash and pointed at the platform kiosk guy (who was ready with the coveted ass mags, obviously the conductor is a regular). Read the rest of this entry »

Cagney at his most glitteringly insane. The train’s headlight piercing the first shot. The lip permanently curled into a gangster snarl. As Cody, addressing his earnest sidekicks, “Just do it! Stop the gabbin!’,” and “Why don’t you give him my address too?” The first shot of gangster-moll Virginia Mayo, snoring. Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight. A black guy in the corner seat. He’s got good color coordination going on, tan leather jacket, chocolate skin, woolly scarf tassles and dreadlocks. Catches my eye, sure. Looks kinda drunk, but not really. Maybe on drugs, or maybe just crazy. He’s in some kind of fog. Disheveled, but not dirty. But not clean either. Leering at me while I talk to my friend.

Leering and leering. I’m talking and talking, listening and listening. And, you know, pretending not to look. Pervs. Let’s face it. They’re incredibly hypnotic.

Next thing I know he’s got this huge tube of Jason’s hand and body lotion in his hand. The kind you get in that value pack at Fairway, comes with a natural sponge and a family size bottle of body shampoo. He squirts a huge amount of lotion into his other hand. Still leaning over and leering. I forget what I’m talking about for a second. Read the rest of this entry »

Man, it must be the constant reggaeton music playing outside getting the alleycats all heated up or something. I mean, it’s frigid cold outside, and yet there they go, reproducing and making sure we all know it. Yeah, a’right ya friggin’ cats. I’m working and you’re having sex, I get it. I hate my batch (cartoons for tomorrow morning’s New Yorker submissions). I’m probably not the only cartoonist saying that tonight, but… damn they’re loud! All night long, too. Meeeeee-ow, rrrrrreeeeeeyow! The utter abandon. Then the dogs start howling downstairs (a pitt bull for every apartment in this building, it seems, and all sad and lonely). The only sound I actually miss lately is the rooster crowing at 10am. I think he was a fighting rooster, because for a rooster 10am is really late. A safe bet he’s in that great chickenhouse in the sky now.

I had to ask the guy at Pak Punjab to spell it out for me, and this is how he spells it: glujamon. But he pronounces it “GLAH-jamon.” It’s spherical, it’s about the size of, well, aw jeez, the only thing I can think of that size is, ahem, uh, your average testicle. That said, it’s more like a baba au rhum, without the rhum.

Am I the only one who’s noticed this on the subway ad for The Simpsons, or am I the only person who just doesn’t get it? What is that gray blob coming out of Homer’s potato chip bag and streaking across his leg and thigh?

I’ve been wondering if it were some kind of obscure reference to Holbein’s “Ambassadors” painting:

Or a printing mistake? But it’s identical on every poster. Am I just missing the point? Anyone?

It snowed 26.9 inches Sunday: NY’s central park events. It all melted the next day.
The Table for One was cheap and cheerful (and near central park): TF1.
Another NY sport: trackdiving.
Horses get four months vacation on a farm in PA (pedicab drivers don’t): PETA on high horse.
The dark side of Long Island: Lawnguyland.
New Yorkers are always prepared, but soon they’ll be even more prepared for lovin’: I (heart) the idea of NYC condoms.
Don’t worry, but people from Dubai will be running NYC’s ports: “decision is final”
I think the bird parka could stop the bird flu at it’s source.
Last but not least: What’s so great about Brooklyn? And Washington Heights?

Well, don’t tell me, tell ABL! But do tell me if you love Washington Heights. That I’d like to know about. Only thing I’m missing is a good café. I’m still waiting for someone to make a cool, cheap n’ cheerful café out of this prime sunny NW corner
Read the rest of this entry »

The bird flu is getting closer every day. Here’s my modest proposal. The bird parka:

(image: carolita johnson)

Bird flu spreading: [AFP] [Washington Post] [BBC]

We Mac users have smugly watched PC users get the cooties, feeling oh so safe in our own little Eden. But that may be over. Nobody’s sure exactly what this worm does, and so far it depends on a Mac user’s complete sense of safety, since it literally asks to be let in. It works on the Landshark principle:
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Your mother with a… er, a photo album of my latest pics for you?
Yeah, right, at 3am in Washington Heights?
Um. Okay. Uh… knock, knock.
Who’s there.
Landshark.
Very funny, okay, come on in, Mom. But you sure are up late.

[Wired:Cult of Mac]

One of the images that are the subject of the uproar:

[NYT]
[IHT]