Today is Santacon.
It is the day when people young and old, big and small, dress up as Santa Claus. Or if that's not your thing, just wear felty or furry brown and put on a pair of felt antlers and that works too.
I see such diversity in costume today, maybe just the hat, maybe just the pants, as I walk the 1/2 mile to the Saturday Farmer's Market. I look for basically two items.
The first item is brussel sprouts on the stalk. If the brussel sprouts are very fresh, you can eat the middle of the stalks. They have a carrot-like texture and the taste is a mild kind of horseradish with a slightly skunky smell that you find in cabbage or broccoli which brussel sprouts are related to. For the last month or so, they have been appearing at the Farmer's market.
The second item is concord grapes. I like them for their pissy taste. That taste comes from a native grape called the "fox grape" that is native to the northeastern coastal part of the U.S.
I have never had a fox grape and would like to try it. Like raspberries or low-bush blueberries, they are a bit fragile and do not transport very well. So people make jams with these.
Historically, I imagine they are interesting for this reason. Since they are the native grape, I imagine that some ancient Viking real-estate developer hit on the idea of calling this area "Vinland" after discovering one if these. I imagine also that this was the same guy who previously had a successful real estate run after naming this other piece of land: "Greenland". There is a spot not far from NYC across the great psychological divide, the Hudson River, which one of his descendants named "Meadowlands". This is a double lie: it is a swamp.
Anway, today I could not find either at the Farmer's market. I imagine it is this kind of specificness that people from NYC contributes to why others, not from the region, may view us as "snobby".
On the way back, I stopped into a large bookstore on Broadway. Yes, that Broadway; the bookstore is just not in the theater or show-business district.
I have this weird idea that one day I will find a script to a Radio show I once heard by David Mamet and someone else that has music to the lyrics:
Hail to thee, George Topax
'ner against the foe lax,
Tibia quo pax,
Ee-i-ee-i-o.
As we move along,
through the goolagong,
we know where you belong,
on your big fat throne, so ..
here's to thee, George Topax, ...
I don't find it. I check also the science and math section. And being a geek, the computer section as well.
I see a book called "The Computer and the Brain" by John von Neumann.
From the photo attached you can see a 1950's style computer, complete with wires on the front. Those large cylindrical things are some sort of memory.
I open it and read the table of contents. I am interested: PART I: THE COMPUTER. ... PART II: THE BRAIN
Von Neumann is, of course, responsible for the architecture of the modern-day computer with its CPU and memory. It is not surprising to me that he was also interested in the brain. He was that kind of guy. And I find it cool and reassuring that right from the beginning, to his way of thinking he separates and distinguishes how a computer of his design works from how a brain works. As I look to see the price, and I come across this:
$4.00 - I can afford that. And then I notice the writing. M. L M-something-or-other. Cambridge, Mass Nov. 1960.
Then it hits me. ... Could this be Marvin L. Minsky? The beginning matches, but I don't see anything that looks like the end: "sky". I look on my phone to see if I can find a signature for Minsky. This is in the dingy and slightly damp basement of the Strand. No cell phone connection is available. I pass it by, and move on looking at other sections.
But I figure: for $4, why not?
So I go back and pick it up. At the cash register I see that I should have looked at the back of the book, it was $20 not $4 which was the original price of the book. The $20 figure is because his book is "out of print". Yeah, I can understand why that might be.
Coming home, I look to find Minsky's signature. Signatures he writes in "signed copy" books do have a visible "sky". However I asked a friend who know more about handwriting analysis and says that the "M" and the "k" do look like they were formed the same way.
According to Wikipedia, Minsky joined MIT (in Cambridge MA) in 1958, the same year as this 3rd printing. The book's topic is clearly a topic he was interested in.
What do you think?
Anyway, it was his. That's my story -- and I am sticking to it!
To come back to the title, here is an example of what is cool about NYC. I am just kind of lumbering around on a routine walk and stumble across something like this. On another occasion, pretty much that same route, I was walking home and passed a theater that said: "World Premiere". It was Samuel Beckett's penultimate play, Worstward Ho I thought now there's something you don't see every day (a phrase Edgar often says to Chauncy in the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon) . But then I thought. Well, I am tired tonight. I'll go tomorrow night, and did.
Another time I was walking around, about 3 blocks from my apartment on an Easter Sunday, and there is no one out on the street except this guy, Philip Glass who I later learned lives here.
As for the "but I wouldn't want to visit" part, the touristy kinds of things tend not to thrill me.
I did however like going up the top of the World Trade Center because of inside the view was very myopic and all four compass sections are very very different. And then you could go to the top and see how it all pieces together. But to really appreciate something like this you have to know something about the area.
