dumpster versus ikea, or a (k)night's tale.
Thursday nights are supposed to be movie nights, because by the time my last class for the week finishes at 8.00 pm, i am going crazy.
(new crazy habit to add to an already long list? Speaking to myself in the shower, in Farsi, in the formal register. - Hal e tun chetowreh? - Bad nistam. Pass the shampoo please.)
Of course, so far, the plan isn't all that it's cracked up to be. I'm usually a zombie by Thursday night with too much caffeine, too many thousand pages of reading and too little sleep. And indy/alternative/art cinema of the type I like watching is definitely not light entertainment. This Thursday's movie was The Proposition, written by Prince of Darkness, Nick Cave; a film which takes being 'visceral' entirely too seriously. (I'm tempted to watch Jackass 2 next Thursday.)
Fortunately, the evening improved. Lynn and Daniela have just moved into a new apartment in Harlem, so after the film, we walked over, with a bottle of wine. On the way, on the other side of the street, suddenly visible in the corner of our eyes loomed a dumpster, hulking in the faint sodium light, bristling like a porcupine with chair legs sticking out.
We considered this monster, let loose from the mythic depths of Morningside Park.
- Chairs, said Daniela, we need chairs for the apartment.
We swarmed over to the dumpster, pulled up, and looked in. It was an embarrasment of riches, enough to keep the Chor Bazaar in Dilli going for a day. There were tables and chairs and chests of drawers, car tires and broken tvs, metal pipes and overhead projectors. We pulled out two chairs with ease, but the rest required some archaeology. Into the dumpster the conquering hero ventured, and five minutes later - we had four chairs, arranged as if for a conference in the middle of 123rd Street. We posed with our prizes... and then, as all knights errant must do, headed for an evening of wine and conversation and actually sitting down at the dining table. (The cork actually had the sign of the Templars on it - go figure.)
Four chairs and a bottle of wine - beats going to Ikea, doesn't it?
(The dumpsters of the Lower East Side are supposed to be even more fabulous creatures, yielding leather couches and velvet sofas and other such wondrous accoutrements to the brave and venturesome).
still to come -
- Saussure and the Answering Machine.
- Jewish New Year, or why I still don't have a camera.
- Those cool cats called Babur and Taimur, and their war on computer cables.
- Ahmanedijad almost came to Columbia, but they kept him away to defend democracy . (it wasn't just the 'hardline jewish group' protesting, but the Columbia Student Union as well.)
- Why if there is a paradise on earth, it is St. Nick's Pub on 148th and St. Nicholas in the wee hours of Saturday Night/Sunday morning.
(new crazy habit to add to an already long list? Speaking to myself in the shower, in Farsi, in the formal register. - Hal e tun chetowreh? - Bad nistam. Pass the shampoo please.)
Of course, so far, the plan isn't all that it's cracked up to be. I'm usually a zombie by Thursday night with too much caffeine, too many thousand pages of reading and too little sleep. And indy/alternative/art cinema of the type I like watching is definitely not light entertainment. This Thursday's movie was The Proposition, written by Prince of Darkness, Nick Cave; a film which takes being 'visceral' entirely too seriously. (I'm tempted to watch Jackass 2 next Thursday.)
Fortunately, the evening improved. Lynn and Daniela have just moved into a new apartment in Harlem, so after the film, we walked over, with a bottle of wine. On the way, on the other side of the street, suddenly visible in the corner of our eyes loomed a dumpster, hulking in the faint sodium light, bristling like a porcupine with chair legs sticking out.
We considered this monster, let loose from the mythic depths of Morningside Park.
- Chairs, said Daniela, we need chairs for the apartment.
We swarmed over to the dumpster, pulled up, and looked in. It was an embarrasment of riches, enough to keep the Chor Bazaar in Dilli going for a day. There were tables and chairs and chests of drawers, car tires and broken tvs, metal pipes and overhead projectors. We pulled out two chairs with ease, but the rest required some archaeology. Into the dumpster the conquering hero ventured, and five minutes later - we had four chairs, arranged as if for a conference in the middle of 123rd Street. We posed with our prizes... and then, as all knights errant must do, headed for an evening of wine and conversation and actually sitting down at the dining table. (The cork actually had the sign of the Templars on it - go figure.)
Four chairs and a bottle of wine - beats going to Ikea, doesn't it?
(The dumpsters of the Lower East Side are supposed to be even more fabulous creatures, yielding leather couches and velvet sofas and other such wondrous accoutrements to the brave and venturesome).
still to come -
- Saussure and the Answering Machine.
- Jewish New Year, or why I still don't have a camera.
- Those cool cats called Babur and Taimur, and their war on computer cables.
- Ahmanedijad almost came to Columbia, but they kept him away to defend democracy . (it wasn't just the 'hardline jewish group' protesting, but the Columbia Student Union as well.)
- Why if there is a paradise on earth, it is St. Nick's Pub on 148th and St. Nicholas in the wee hours of Saturday Night/Sunday morning.
posted by Anand at 11:18 am
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