Greenpoint
Lorven Pharmacy
Culture on the Cheap
New York Shitty Day Ender: Four Faces
One of the things I love about Greenpoint (and New York City for that matter) is you can walk down the same street a hundred times and still find something new. Take these great grotesques which grace the front of 735 Manhattan Avenue, for example. Although they may appear to be identical in actuality they are not.
Do go down in person and check them out. They’re really neat!
Miss Heather
Greenpoint Photos Du Jour: McGuinness Boulevard
Filed under: 11222, Area 51, Crazy People, Greenpoint, Greenpoint Brooklyn, Greenpoint Magic, Street Art
For those of you who are not in the know, McGuinness Boulevard (by the Pulaski) is a veritable paradise of street art.
It seems to rotate, but these big-eyed birds keep showing up. I’m not complaining: I adore them.
What’s more they have a few friends…
and this formidable (but friendly looking) fella. Across the street you can find this.
A little Pulaski poetry…
and indecipherable German-esque gibberish.*
Scrawled in dirt (?).*
With hearts.*
And this.*
If anyone knows “Ted”, has expertise in Chicago zombies or can decipher the above missives please email me at:
missheather(at)thatgreenpointblog(dot)com
or leave your findings via comments. Thanks!
Miss Heather
UPDATE, 8:30 p.m.: Here are some ideas I received in my inbox!
Sean writes:
The German on the wall, I believe, basically says that love, to who ever wrote it, is that he cant be without a woman.
Jason writes:
I believe the last glyph that you posted was the Japanese character for Enter or Entry… That would explain the arrow as well…
Griff notes:
That last pic looks suspiciously like a logo for Aphex Twin?
UPDATE, August 22, 1:30 p.m.: Here’s a few more!
Robert writes:
I saw that graffiti the other day while walking my dog. I thought to myself that someone was copying the style of A.R. Penck. A German artist whose work in the early 70’s was a mix of made up symbols and language. I work at MoMA and we have a few examples on our website of his early 70’s work.
http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=86742
wiki say
Despite the anti-art aesthetic the rough and ready quality of their construction, they have the same symbolic, archetypal anthropomorphic forms as his flat symbolic paintings. The paintings are influenced by Paul Klee’s work and mix the flatness of Egyptian or Mayan writing with the crudity of the late black paintings by Jackson Pollock.But who knows?
Not writes:
http://www.newyorkshitty.com/?p=24135
that’s the lowercase greek glyph, lambda..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambdacontext: it’s a usage popularized by the video game, half life..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_(video_game)
Erik writes:
The “lambda” looking symbol with an arrow that you photographed is actually taken from the video game Half Life 2. It is the symbol for the rebel/resistance organization fighting a conquering extraterrestrial species. The lambda symbol appears throughout the game painted on walls, with arrow directing the player to a safe room stocked with weapons, health, etc.
See http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/halflife2/routekanal1/31.jpg for an example.
*I had to do some Photoshopping to make these images easier to read.
That Person
(Or: Thank You, Come Again… and again...)
I have a knack— “mojo” if you will— for attracting total strangers who feel comfortable “opening up” to me. I guess I come off as the kind of person who “will understand”. Truth be told I wasn’t very understanding at first: I simply smiled and nodded (usually to a friend in the hopes he or she would disentangle me from the labyrinth of someone else’s sordid consciousness I had somehow found myself mired in). But after 15 years of accumulated (and unsolicited) “openness” under my belt (and socked away in my brain— forever) I have, indeed, become that person.
Hence why, a week ago, when a highly intoxicated chap told me:
You’re hot. You gave me french fries. I like you.
it didn’t really faze me. This man was not even a “blip” on my “freakdar”. What’s more, he really needed/wanted those fries. I figured that out after he poured 3/4 cup of catsup on them and proceeded to scoop the resulting slurry into his mouth with a knife.
Not that I want to come off as judging the previous gentleman for his dissolute state— or unconventional take on flatware usage. We all have those days; you knock back a few beers after a rough day and before you know it they’re knocking you. We all need “friendship fries” at one time or another. Especially in Greenpoint. In these times.
That said, all because I might (probably) understand the problem which afflicts you doesn’t mean I want to know to know about it in the first place.
DATELINE: August 20, 2009;Â Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 11222
Sweaty mid-fortysomething man plops a VHS porno tape on the counter:
These are $2.00 each, right?
Me: Uh, I think so.
SMFM:
If I already have this one can return it and get another one?
Me: (Speechless)
(This is getting into territory I care not to tread upon. No worries, he goes there anyway.)
SMFM:
I’m buying this for my father. He has Parkinson’s Disease, you know what that is?
Me: Yes, my grandfather died from it.
SMFM:
Well, the medications he’s on. They have side effects. He wants to do nothing but buy lotto tickets and watch porn. My sister buys him the lotto tickets…
(ASIDE: If purchasing large quantities of lotto tickets and watching copious amounts of pornographic films is a “side effect”, I suspect a fair number of folks in my community are afflicted. Without fail if I need maxi pads— or beer (to go with said pads)— STAT— I get stuck behind some man purchasing $20.00 worth of “Quick Picks”. Or porn. Often both.
In the lattermost case(s) the person in question will ask me to help select his literature du jour: BIG BLACK BOOTY or the more prosaic (but straight to the point) ASS HOLES? That is the question— because I have become “that person”. An ad hoc Dorothy Parker moderating a round table of round rumps.
As I said before, I do not begrudge others for their human frailties. I have my own. I just wish they wouldn’t coincide so often. At the local bodega. When I’m on my period. I’m learning things about people I really don’t want to know. Which brings my back to the conclusion of this post.)
I’m buying him this movie. It’s the side effects. All he wants is lotto tickets and porn. He’s on something that had to with brain chemistry. Dope… dopa…
Me: Dopamine.
SMFM:
Yes! And that’s what makes him crave this stuff. I researched it on the Internet and it said so.
Me: Do you want a bag?
SMFM:
Yes, please, I do not want to be seen with this.
So I dug up an “Apple Store” bag that happened to be laying around, replete with drawstring, frosted plastic and silver logo. I grabbed Gang Bangers Vol. X…
Or was it Unfaithful White Trash Housewives
Or Dirty Debutantes Volume 45?
In the Astroglide slick, John Holmes thick, dark and hung highway that is my memory— replete with occasional DDD cup speed bump, big booty bypass or butt plug— I simply cannot recall which movie it was. After awhile it all becomes a blur of body parts. A geyser of guy juice. A mountain of mams. A world where Grey’s Anatomy has gone way, way, awry— and household objects are not used correctly.
I dropped the tape into that sack of respectability and mustered what little enthusiasm I had left and said:
Thank you, come again!
And I’m certain he will— in more ways than one.
Miss Heather
New York Shitty Day Ender: Best. Front Door. EVER.
Well, okay second best— but being #2 isn’t so bad. You’re still a winner in my book if you are lucky enough to come home to this everyday.
Miss Heather
From The New York Shitty Inbox: “Craigslist Play Night”
When I got word of this one a few minutes ago I simply HAD to pass it along— even as scant as the details are. Tomorrow, August 21, starting 8:00 p.m. our very own Church of the Messiah will be hosting an evening of entertainment inspired by the most enchanted place in cyberspace: Craigslist. With subject matter as ripe for the picking as the List that is Craig, one would have to try very hard not make this a rollicking evening of entertainment. What’s more, at a paltry buck a play (yes you read me correctly ONE WHOLE DOLLAR), who can complain it if isn’t? Check it out!
Craigslist Play Night
August 21, 2009 starting at 8:00 p.m.
Church of The Messiah
129 Russell Street
Brooklyn, New York 11222
Miss Heather
A Huron Street PSA
If any of you, dear readers, happen to be knocking around Huron Street on this stifling afternoon kindly keep the noise down. Some of us are trying to get a little shut-eye.
Thank you.
Miss Heather
NYS Flickr Pool
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