Greenpoint
Lorven Pharmacy
Culture on the Cheap
The Sights & Sounds Of Atlantic Antic
I am spending this lovely (if a bit brisk) Monday afternoon recovering from my jaunt to Atlantic Antic yesterday. My feet may be killing me today but it was totally worth it: not only did I have a lot of fun but I also bumped into Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report! Anyhoo, here’s a short film highlighting some of my favorite (and in one case, LEAST FAVORITE) experiences at this year’s Antic. Enjoy!
Be sure to check out my photo set on Flickr for more highlights from this year’s event!
(Yet) more to come!
Miss Heather
Enough With The Anal Glands Already!
I have been rather grumpy of late. This is due in large part to a seemingly never-ending series of pet-related maladies. First it was an abscessed anal gland. In treating that the veterinarian noticed the front of our cat wasn’t looking so good: this entailed having three teeth pulled. An appointment was made. Next it was two (other) cats getting ringworm. We are treating this with some level of success on our own.
After getting a deep cleaning of my own teeth (which entailed being given Novocaine) I hurried home (and in so doing got spritzed with cement) took a bath and ventured back out to retrieve our cat Artemis from having his teeth extracted. I was not in a good mood. So I arrive at the vet. As is usually the case I had to wait a good 20 minutes.
Then it was my turn. I am told the surgery went well and then the vet said:
That anal gland is healing nicely. Have you looked at it?
I took a deep breath and replied:
You are the second such person to ask me this question this week. The fact of the matter is I have looked at that cat’s asshole more in the last two weeks than I ever cared to. For a lifetime. If you and my husband say it is healing well I’ll take your word for it.
Believe it or not I think the vet understood. He thought it was funny in any case. He’s paid (handsomely, I will add) to look at this shit anyway. I am not. I seemingly cannot avoid this subject matter. It is follows me where ever I go. Those of you who are old enough might remember the old Tootsie Roll commercial: their cheerful protagonist saw Tootsie Rolls everywhere he (or she— cannot remember which) went. I see anal glands where ever I go— or are forced to talk about them. This is no way to go through life.
CASES IN POINT:
I have been wanting to get back to doing collages. I am not only good at creating them and I also enjoy the process. It relaxes me. To this end I needed material so I picked up this book at the junk shop. I get home and crack it open. Here is what I saw.
A few days later I went to dinner with a friend. She asked me how Artie’s anal glands were doing. I said “just fine”. Then she regaled with a tale about the time her old dog’s anal gland got backed up and the vet had to “drain it”. It seems like everyone has their own anal gland story and now I have mine. Lucky me.
This week I went out with a friend for a walk. As we were walking down North 12th Street I spied this.
Me: Hey look, another tree twat.
Friend: Tree twat?
Me: Someone has been going around Greenpoint and Williamsburg painting knot-holes pink, which lends them a certain “sexual” feel. I call them tree twats, although this one looks more like an anal gland.
Friend: It does?
Me: Yup, only less disgusting.
It was at this point I realized I had a problem. I needed to quit anal glands and move on. I needed closure (in more ways than one). So I decided to try a little art therapy on India Street.
Every dog has a pair of anal glands located on the sides of and just below the opening of the anus. These small glands secrete a lubricant which helps the dog move his bowels easily. Sometimes these anal glands become clogged and accumulate a putrid mass in side. When this happens, the dog becomes listless, his eyes appear dull, and he often tries to lick the anus or pull himself across the floor on his haunches for relief.
The Complete Poodle Clipping & Grooming Book by Shirlee Kalstone.
If you’re wondering if rabbits have anal glands: they do. Someone has even written a dissertation about them.
Miss Heather
Williamsburg Photo du Jour: P-Doody
This image hails from North 12th Street and goes out to my pal P-Diddy. My advice to you Mr. Combs: watch where you walk.
Miss Heather
Art Therapy Part II: Welcome To Booblyn
The powers that be provided me a pair of “AA” mammary attachments. I have never had a problem with them. They don’t interfere with my use of power tools and I can wear tube tops and go bra-less with total abandon.
As long as the elastic is tight, the kids are alright!
I always said. Until the boobadiers got to me. “Bigger is better” they said. They were right.
I felt inadequate until I was provided a pair of DD cups. My life has become much more enjoyable upon acquiring my new rack. No back pain, special bras or silicone: just pure Greenpoint girlie joy. What’s more, when I am done with my mamazons I can throw them into my backpack and move on.
I mention this because my first installment of Brooklyn Boobification garnered some curious praise:
Bitchcakes writes:
That was great, Miss Heather! What a great use of plastic boobies! I only hope there will be more adventures for this rubbery pair.
SuzyO writes:
holy hannah, heather, this takes the cake… you consistently amuse and inform, but this is mad genius. i especially love the starboobs … it is just so pink vanity table, you know?
Bodmin raves:
In the thirteen years I lived in Greenpoint I will confess that I sometimes felt the neighbourhood had more than its share of boobs. You have just proven that it could be improved by the addition of lots more – at least in the right places. Brilliant!
And lastly…
Rowan writes:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! i choked on my coffee looking at these. hopefully it will become a series. Can you try to pose these somewhere with the Shit Tits in the background?
(the only thing funnier would have been if there were such a thing as fake heinies. Greenpoint would become Moonpoint.)
They have fake heinies for sale (at “Just For Fun” I think) but I have yet to invest in one. I bought one too many rubber dicks and fake tits on margin. Hopefully the Feds will bail me out. In the meantime this paltry offering will have to do.
I call this composition Ten Tits At Sunset: Eight Blue, Two Pink. It was pretty brisk last night on the Pulaski Bridge so my gals (all four of them*) were pretty perky.
Miss Heather
*The same logic goes with buying my url: $1,000 (or $500 a boob) doesn’t cut it. So don’t expect to see “Mary Kate & Ashley” (as I like to call them) anytime soon.
P.S.: Look very carefully at the image gracing the beginning of this post. Better yet, click here and see a larger image. You might find it amusing.
P.S. #2: In the wee hours of the morning (2:57 a.m.) I received the following email regarding this post. FranklinSt134 writes:
Hi, I don’t wish to spoil your fun, but I think Booblyn is a insult to Breast Cancer patients, survivors, and families who have lost loved ones to Breast Cancer. I hope you never experience Breast Cancer or lose a loved one from it. Maybe a donation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure would be in order.
Your wish is to spoil my fun. That said, perhaps I should do a photo series using said boobs, sell prints and give the proceeds towards to said foundation? Why not raise awareness of sexism, street harassment and breast cancer in one clean sweep? Does this sound like a good idea to you “FranklinSt134”?
Labor Day At The Nature Walk
Filed under: Bum Shit, Dung of the Day, Greenpoint Magic, Long Island City, Other Shit
Most New Yorkers like to go out of town over Labor Day weekend. I don’t; I stay home and savor the silence. I sojourned to City Island on Saturday and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on Sunday.* When I got up yesterday morning, Labor Day, I asked myself:
What do I want to do today?
My “little voice” said:
Go to the park!
I have learned to trust my “little voice”. So I threw on some shorts and sunblock and proceeded to the closest park: the Newtown Creek Nature Walk. I was hoping to find a discarded rubber or get some nice photographs of the skyline. I was disappointed in regards to the previous but I got the latter…
(I am contributing a big phat juicy print of this to the Greenpoint 100!) and more.
Someone clearly experienced some serious gastronomical distress and saw fit to use the Nature Walk as a toilet. He (or she) is neither the first nor the last person to use Greenpoint in such a manner: Newtown Creek is the pissoir for the masses. When some jocular he-man ties off a used rubber in Murray Hill and flushes it down the toilet… guess who gets it? We do! Go Team Greenpoint!
Thank you, cum again!
But I digress…
I am guessing the above stick was employed as a primitive form of toilet paper. After taking the above photograph (using my cell phone to establish a sense of scale) I discovered a number of other revolting things at the Nature Walk. I carefully documented them and called the “authorities”. Hilarity ensued.
I initially planned to do a series of “a minute in (insert neighborhood/place here)”. But after experiencing this level of ASS** I decided a comparison of Gantry Park (in luxury waterfront condoville, Long Island City) and the Nature Walk (in decidedly NOT luxury waterfront condoville, Greenpoint) would be a more appropriate use of this footage. The lesson here (as best as I can comprehend it) is: if a neighborhood acquiesces to having an ENORMOUS luxury enclave on her waterfront (READ: Long Island City) said residents get a nice park. Otherwise, you can eat look at shit.
Miss Heather
*Save a rather rancorous post about Sarah “June Cleaver/Coupon Clipper” Palin getting the Vice Presidential nomination. I felt sort of bad about calling her a “bimbo” so I Googled “alaska” “bimbo” “v.p.” Here’s what I found:
Clearly I was not alone when I made the assessment that Ms. Palin is, in fact, a bimbo. Nonetheless my inner feminist was upset. She asked me:
Would you have called Sarah Palin a bimbo if she was not a woman?
My answer:
Yes. We, as a nation, got our first bhimbo for Veep in 1988. His name was Dan Quayle.
And with that reply my “inner feminist” vanished in a puff of logic.
I was delighted to learn that Ms. Palin is against sex education. What could school possibly teach her daughter Bristol? It is pretty clear that Bristie pulled herself up by her own boot straps and figured out the fundamental mechanics on her own (with a little help from a friend). Now she is going to be a teenage mother! Bristol “Jamie Lynn Spears” Palin should be teaching the rest of us!
**The man on the phone asked what county this was in. After some hesitation I said “Kings” (Newtown Creek does, after all, straddle two: Kings and Queens). Then he asked me what FUCKING CITY I lived in! I said Greenpoint. Then I pointed out that Greenpoint is part of Brooklyn. And Brooklyn is part of New York City. At one point my polite (if utterly useless) phone pal apologized and confessed he was in the Adirondacks had no knowledge of New York City geography. With civil servants like this who needs enemies?
Crapped And Tapped
Filed under: Bed-Stuy, Bum Shit, Dung of the Day, Long Island City, Other Shit, Queens
I have a predilection for documenting shit: be it human, canine or sub-standard construction. I also have a fascination for public pay phones rendered useless by human abuse. But alas of late I have become jaded.
This paltry specimen from Bed Stuy didn’t impress me. The receiver is gone, someone lost his shirt, yada, yada, yada…
I wanted MORE.
I got it...
courtesy of Queensboro Plaza. I can’t honestly say I will miss this eyesore. But the construction fences demarcating what is arguably one of the UGLIEST BUILDINGS in New York City leaves much to the imagination…
and the incontinent. It reeks.
Note the happy people gracing this pay phone kiosk. They’re all “thumbs up”— not unlike our fearless leader. Neither they nor King George the Second (fighting the war on terror overseas) would want to pick up— much less use— the phone contained therein.
Which is worse: a crapped phone* or a tapped phone? Go to Queens Plaza and figure it out for yourself.
Miss Heather
*That is shit. Trust me. How the hell they got it ON the phone is beyond me.
My Trip Up Shit Creek: Part Deux
Filed under: Asshole, Dung of the Day, Greenpoint Magic, Long Island City, Other Shit, Queens, Williamsburg
I learned a funny thing yesterday. A “friend” will invite you on a boat ride of Newtown Creek. He will later even laud the photographs and the footage you shot. That is, until some person at Channel 13 (who hired said boat and seems to think all the intellectual/creative property gathered from it is his) raises a stink:
Hey Heather,
I’m glad you enjoyed the trip on Newtown Creek the other day. I’m not sure if we officially met but I know you talked to my associate Daniel. I’m writing because I was checking out your blog and I noticed you’d posted several videos of the trip. I don’t mean to be any sort of stickler but it makes me a little uncomfortable to have other people reporting on the same thing which I hired a boat to capture. I don’t have any problem with you posting photos or stories about the trip but the video just happens to be exactly why we were there and sort of crosses lines of exclusivity. So, let me profusely apologize for having to ask but I would really appreciate it if you would take the videos down.
So, my other question would be how you knew about the trip. I didn’t have any problem with people coming out with us as long as they were out of the way but no one told me we should be expecting guests so I don’t really know how that came about.
Anyway, sorry again. If you’d like to chat about it, feel free to give me a call or email back.
Thanks much,
-t
I’m not a chatty kind of gal. Just ask my parents. I rarely answer the phone, much less pick it up and call some condescending chap who wants to “chat” about why my seven minutes of film footage does not undermine his “vision”.
Dear old dad taught me a few things about anger management, albeit accidentally. One of them was I can channel anger in a constructive manner whose effect, in turn, is actually quite the opposite: destructive. Call what I am about to do passive/aggressive or one of life’s little ethical loopholes and/or gray areas. Call it whatever you want. Sure, I yanked the “video” showcasing said “exclusive material” —and I replaced it with another one. This. Now I am bringing back the original.
Pa Heather, this one goes out to you. You know better than anyone that no one can make me shut up.
Miss Heather
P.S.: I’m not taking this one down. If the peeps at Channel 13 have some special interest in publicly humiliating my husband (or training him to recycle correctly) I want a piece of the action. Simple as that.
The Fedders Friday That Wasn’t
Earlier this week I quipped that I would be hard pressed to top this lovely specimen Fedders Friday. Well, I was right. This week I have nothing in the way of Feddertecture to offer up for your delectation. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a piece of abjectecture to share. I do. Boy do I ever!
It’s been a while since I checked in on this beauty at 152 Broadway. Intrigued to see the process of Fedderization complete, I swung by yesterday to have a looksee. What awaited me was quite breathtaking…
and not in a good way. For those of you who are wondering: yes, this building once matched the one to the left.
Now it has been thoroughly and irrevocably crapified. I don’t know about you, but I really like the balcony on the top floor. It’s sort of like a parting “Fuck You” in the face of good taste.
Seriously. This has got to be one of the ugliest modifications of an existing building I have ever seen— and I have seen quite a few. Whoever is responsible for this vomitorium should have their architecture degree torn into little pieces. Instead I will have to be satisfied with giving 152 Broadway this week’s second New York Shitty Award of Excellence In Abjectecture.
Mazel tov!
Miss Heather
Priceless
A giant inflatable dog turd by American artist Paul McCarthy blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a greenhouse window before it landed again, the museum said Monday.
The art work, titled “Complex S(expletive..)”, is the size of a house. The wind carried it 200 metres (yards) from the Paul Klee Centre in Berne before it fell back to Earth in the grounds of a children’s home*, said museum director Juri Steiner. — Yahoo Canada
I knew there was a reason I liked Paul McCarthy so much in graduate school. I’d pay top dollar to see an encore performance at Carroll Park.
Miss Heather
*Thanks for passing this along Flatbush “Big Shit Meet Little Shits” Gardener!
Photo Credit: Applelogen.be
Summer Doldrums
Today I have made two efforts to get out of the house and take a walk. Both times I found myself hauling my ass back home in the rain. I guess it is just not in the cards for me to go out today.
To alleviate my boredom I have tried— really tried— to spend my time productively. Over the last hour IÂ have fired up the dishwasher, bagged recyclables and even made preparations to vacuum the floor. The bugger is being productive is dull as dishwater. What’s more, I had a creative itch to scratch. Not wanting to bother cleaning this up so I would have a work surface, I decided to venture around the block. It didn’t take long for me to find inspiration.
This piece is entitled “Orphans”.
When I got done I noticed I had an extra leg, so I said “What the hell?”. Waste not, want not.
Surprisingly enough, it didn’t take much time for my petit opus to garner attention. This man not only stopped and looked at it, but he also took several photographs of it with his cell phone.
Back to bagging up trash.
Miss Heather
NYS Flickr Pool
You must be logged in to post a comment.