Photograph: All Saints Catholic Church in Brooklyn

All Saints Catholic Church in Brooklyn, New York, Throop Ave.

I walk past this church every day on my way to teach. It's a nice example of classic Romanesque style architecture. It is difficult to notice in this picture, but the rectory is a handsome building, as well. It sits to the left of the church in this photograph.

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Photograph: Bubbles

Boy makes bubbles in Central Park

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If You Try To Contact Me On My Website I May Just Respond (See Below For Details)

"Starry Night" gets more views than Stones of Erasmus.
But Who's Counting. Google check your algorithm.

Yes, if you e-mail me at the stonesoferasmus 

domain I will try to write back: unless your e-mail meets the following conditions:

1. spam. yuck. i don't eat the stuff

2. if you know me and just want to say, "hey"

3. hate mail. no one sends me hate mail to my other addresses, so why here? prolly won't happen

4. queries about hooking up (use another site)

5. homework help

6. queries to proofread (argghhh)

Although, I will respond most expeditiously to the following messages:

1. corrections. i like to be corrected on factual stuff. i'm no wikipedia

2. suggestions

3. rants

4. raves

5. ways you used my content

6. blah blah

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MTA Service Change Notice With Extras

On a service disruption memo left on the subway platform, a straphanger has scribbled the phone numbers of the New York Police Department Internal Affairs Department and the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

Someone Wants Us to Complain to the MTA/NYPD

I'm not so sure a call to the NYPD internal affairs office will help much with a planned service change. Gotta love the subways on the weekends. The funny part was two police officers were reading the sign just before I snapped the photo. The bottom left of the poster includes the phone number for the "Commission to Combat Police Corruption, 212-487-7350."

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Trinity Churchyard, Lower Manhattan, New York City

A quick visit to the churchyard at Trinity Church on Broadway in Manhattan reveals a little bit of early American History.

Trinity Churchyard, Manhattan

    Visit Alexander Hamilton's tomb here. And no, he was not a president. He was secretary of the treasury. He was killed in a duel by Aaron Burr on July 12, 1804.
     Showing this photography to a friend, he called it a memento mori. The financial center of the world rises in the background while the foreground reminds us of death.

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A Spring Update on the New York City Subway Stories Project

My Latest Book
In between teaching, being a philosophy graduate student, and making ends meet, I've been spending lots and lots of time writing about the New York City Subway. If you don't know about my project, read about it here - where I collected all of my writings into one book about riding the subway, living in the city, and how it feels like to be a New Orleanian wherever I am.

Why I Write
I write like a flanêur. What this means is I write as if I am collecting stories. What this means is that my entries on the subway are impressionistic rather than expository pieces. I am allowing the stations that make up the subway system to be points of creative entry for me. I try to draw philosophical and creative energy from the stations, the neighborhood surrounding the station, the people, and my own neurotic life to portray a pastiche for each entry.

I have no idea what the final product will look like or whether or not it will it have a completeness to it.

The coolest thing will be that I will have written my way through the system. It's my motivation.

But, I'm going at a snail's pace.

I think the reason for this is that I first thought the project would be simpler. But as I go from station to station the immensity of the system makes my project seem more immense. I feel like I am trying to pull a particularity out of a vastness that cannot be particularized.

I Write Non-Fiction Fiction (because it's all I know)
So, I make stuff up. Some of the stuff I write about is real while other are condensed (like in a dream) and other stuff is literally the way it happened.

The thesis of the subway project is as follows: by writing about individual stations and individual stories I will end up having a literary representation of a subway system that has only been thought of in terms of anything but Benjamin's flanêur.

I hope you enjoy this collecting project.

Peace,
Greig

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Book Review - Pursuits of Happiness: A Short Response

Stanley Cavell in his book Pursuits of Happiness writes about remarriage comedies in movies made after the advent of talkies (1934-1949). Cavell's list is as follows: The Lady Eve (1941), It Happened One Night (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), Adam’s Rib (1949), and The Awful Truth (1937).