The B Train Don't Ride to the Beat of the Mardi Gras Mambo

A woman peers out the window

on a subway train (near Coney Island).

To be from the South. It's forever. The South is my ultimate frame of reference.

Some Yankee asks, "Why live down dere where it's below sea level?"

Anger is easy to erupt. But the Yanks don't get it.

Riding the B train I realize my heart beats to the rhythm of the Mardi Gras Mambo. All writers know that. Frank Levy taught me that.

It does not help that I start singing, "Mardi Gras Mambo" — a blonde hipster gives me a dollar. 

I admire her Trader Joe's bag.

Hey, I say. We got Winn-Dixie.

And she thinks I am talking about some fucking children's book.

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Cat Set Against a Moving Background

A cat meme is set against a moving background. Best used when under the influence.

Title: Unknown; Artist: Unknown Re-posted from putaindesatan

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Paul of Tarsus on Childishness

ὅτε ἤμην νήπιος, ἐλάλουν ὡς νήπιος, ἐφρόνουν ὡς νήπιος, ἐλογιζόμην ὡς νήπιος: ὅτε γέγονα ἀνήρ, κατήργηκα τὰ τοῦ νηπίου. 

When I was a child — I spoke like a child, had feelings like a child, and I had a mind like a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away those childish things.

Paul of Tarsus, First century A.D.
First Letter to the Church in Corinth, Chapter Thirteen, verse Eleven.

Paul of Tarsus as depicted by a statue of him 

in front of the Church of Saint Paul 

Outside the Walls in Rome, Italy.

Paul in this quote from a letter he wrote to the church at Corinth (circa 56 A.D.) assumes childish things are something to move away from, to discard — and secondly, he assumes he has become a man. All grown up. The Greek word for "man" is ἀνήρ which can also be translated as "gentleman". I can imagine Paul wants us to also shed this notion of Christianity as a baby's religion, as something infants do, crying like children to their grown-up silent gods. Paul is a gentleman and assumes his God responds in kind. Paul loved writing letters — and he loved to extoll his own weaknesses as strength. He was a child! He said childish things! Perhaps he pouted when his mother would not take him to bathe in the salty goodness of the sea — or maybe he prattled on like a child in the way children do? But he is a man, now! Paul surely sees children as mewling, puking, and speaking nonsense, having nothing really important to say — as if faith is something only grown-ups do — what children do is make-believe. To have a mind of a child is in Paul's mind to be imperfect — what we mean when we say childish. But Paul informs us that he has become a man — a full-grown person who has evidently discarded such puerile traits such as insouciant idleness and unabashed temper tantrums. I must agree I prefer the mature man to the mewling babe — but I am somewhat suspicious that in a strident act of becoming all childish things are banished.

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Yes, I'm Ignoring You

Just ignore the math! Photo by Peggy Sirota Copyright 1992 AVANTI

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On the Double Humiliation of Standing Inside and Outside of the Vernacular

 

It's humiliating to speak only in code, only in a punished, subaltern idiom; but it's humiliating to stand outside that vernacular, too, and not comprehend it, and feel its disrespect.

Wayne Koestenbaum, Humiliation, pg. 151

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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind — Quote on Conversation

Kirsten Dunst plays the role of Mary in the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

The human race is having this constant conversation with itself. Y'know?

Mary in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Shooting Script)

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"Discovering Columbus": New Nishi Art Installation Above Columbus Circle

Nishi's Design for the Living Room

Today in the New York Times there is an article about the art installation at Columbus Circle by Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi. The project, entitled "Discovering Columbus" is sponsored by the Public Art Fund. The New York Times article is worth reading for it explains the various bureaucratic hoops projects like this must go through in order to get greenlit — a process, the article implies, made easier by Mayor Bloomberg's enthusiasm for public art displays.

Evidently, people will be able to enter a specially made structure built around the statue of Christopher Columbus, completely enclosing it inside of a living room complete with sofas and TV (no wifi).

Nishi had done something similar in Basel, Switzerland. He built a temporary apartment on top of the cathedral church in Basel enclosed around a bronze weather vane of an angel:

I am curious to see what the finished room built above the traffic of Columbus Circle will look like.

A similar idea is mentioned in the aforementioned article but I will repeat it: I think projects like this help us to see familiar things in an unfamiliar way. Is that not what art is?

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