Category: Observed (Page 16 of 24)

The New York Times Magazine discusses Medium Footwear this week. The focus of the article? How the consumers in its target demographic “are hard to identify and thus may not even realize that they form a class at all.”

And to think I bought mine simply because they looked cool (and back in January, no less). Does that place me outside the target demo, or squarely in it?

The movie “Garden State” was, in my opinion, a rather mediocre movie: not particularly funny or moving, it failed to embrace me as I had been primed to expect.

I did, however, love the conceit at the heart of the film: that a young man could return home, after nine years without a single visit, and be embraced by his old friends as though times had hardly changed.

I have a group of friends from high school that has maintained itself for more than a decade. I count 10 of us, in my central core; various offshoots add several more. I refer to us as “the gang,” which my wife finds hilarious but my friends find matter-of-fact. For us, that feeling at the heart of “Garden State” rings true.

My gang is, at a glance, a pretty random bunch. Our group includes a handful of Jews, one German Catholic, one Filippino and one African-American. We live in five different states, from Boston to Chicago. Three of us still live within jogging distance of our childhood homes; two of us don’t own our own cars. Six of us are married. We count among us a policeman, a pregnant mom-to-be, an Ironman participant, an entrepreneur, four dog owners, five homeowners, two homeowners-to-be, four master’s and two associate’s degrees.

More than once my mother has asked me how I became close with my friend the cop. Simple: gym class, four years in a row, lockers next to each other, thanks to the alphabet. Life should always be that simple. Which is how we tend to view each other, simply, as old friends united by time, regardless of how often we see each other or the ways that we change.

We get together as a full group four times a year, on average. And when we’re together, the transition from past to present is almost seamless. We remain bound by long memories, effortlessly recalling frozen moments of our youth, cracking jokes new and old, enjoying each other’s company without blinking an eye. Even the events are timeless: we’ve gone rafting 7 or 8 times, held half a dozen steak dinners, been to countless pool parties. Each time, we recall “the last time we did this, when—” and forge new memories while celebrating the old ones.

Our comfort is wholly unspoken, because it’s unnecessary. Our friendship, our bonds, are known and assumed. (I am certainly the only one in the gang who would even admit all of this, much less write about it. No doubt one or more of my friends is going to read this and call me a big old sap.) And that’s the way it should be: comfortable, expected, known.

Life moves forward, and very little stays the same. My childhood bedroom is long gone, my best friend from my formative years far removed from my phone book. But I still have my gang. And that makes me a lucky man.

I’m generally not a fan of sport-utility vehicles. Bigger car, worse performance, rougher ride, worse mileage—buy a sedan, I usually say. Or a minivan if you need storage.

That said, I love the ridiculously over-the-top International CXT. Imagine carpooling in this thing.

My macroeconomics professor told us a great story last class about his brother, Helmut. Helmut was a banker on Wall Street, in a decently successful but nondescript career, when his firm was bought out and mass layoffs upended his job.

Helmut took some time off, and enjoyed it until his wife said, “Helmut, this is ridiculous, you have to do something with your time.” So Helmut got a certification and began driving a school bus. It made him happy, being behind the wheel all day and taking the kids to school and to ball games.

After a while, though, his wife said, “Helmut, you really need a better job, the neighbors are starting to talk about us.” So Helmut shrugged and got behind the wheel of a Lincoln Town Car. Same idea, a little more slick. He could still tool around all day and enjoy it.

Helmut now owns a limousine company with 36 drivers, a 28-car fleet, and a dispatching center. He calls himself an entrepeneur.

Follow your dreams. I’m working on mine.

There’s a big fuss today about NBC’s replacing New York City’s coffee cups to promote the Olympics this summer. But really, what’s the fuss? The Beastie Boys did this years ago.

In the few years I’ve lived in the neighborhood, Union Square has completed an extensive round of renovations. Metal rails have replaced chicken wire fences, concrete plazas have been resurfaced in stone, embedded plaques and sturdy park benches ring the sidewalks, and new plants and trees abound. Perhaps most importantly, though, is the resuscitation of the grass.

In recent years the parks department has done a commendable job with the lawns in the square: it spends 10 months out of the year fertilizing and watering, to the point where, come May, the central areas of Union Square look as good as a proud suburban yard. The rest of the summer is spent battling the masses as they slowly trample the lawns.

As a local dog owner, Union Square is, in a sense, my yard, and I am thankful for the healthy, fenced-in grass. In the wintertime, we let the pooch run free at night when it snows, watching him romp in untouched powder, sometimes with other joyous dogs and their owners, as the cold makes the square a semi-private play area. In the summer, though, the lawn, and the rest of the square, ceases to be ours. Long into the night it is wildly populated, with a mix of people and a palpable vibrance that shouts New York.

I find great joy in people-watching as I pass by the lawns, as I spy groups I encounter daily and one-off surprises: the bums that sleep flat on the grass, some face-up, arms over faces, some face-down like they fell there; the teenagers that lean against the rails and sit on the stone walls; young couples relaxing, snacking, laughing, necking; groups of NYU students sunbathing, the men shirtless, the women in bikini tops, as though water were nearby; the pair of didgeridoo players practicing together; the man emoting loudly to himself, deep in a soliloquy, warming up for an unspecified performance or audition; the off-duty stripper reading a book, her unrealistic implants causing double-takes; the boys with signs rating cute girls as they walk by, temporarily diverting their efforts to rate my dog. (They gave him 8s and a 10.)

It’s not a private, quiet backyard, but for now, it’s my backyard. And despite the occasional spooky moment, there’s something comfortably reassuring about the throngs of people across the street, who serve as a nice reminder that in this town, no one ever needs to be alone.

Call Continental Airlines customer service, and recorded and live representatives make it a point to state, “We know you have a choice with your air travel, and we appreciate your choosing Continental.” Ironic, then, that they don’t treat their customers that way.

This spring, I flew domestic and international Continental flights and booked a forthcoming trip with frequent flyer miles. Some of what I’ve experienced:

– Each and every time I called Continental, the customer service rep asked, “And will you be needing a rental car on that trip?” This was posed even when I was going places where their rental car partners don’t have a presence (Prague) or called to ask questions about flights I had yet to book.

– When I called to lodge a complaint about a delayed flight, a representative told me that only 75 minutes of my 150-minute wait was “Continental’s responsibility.” As a result, she refused to consider my flight “significantly delayed,” placing my complaint below the two-hour qualifying threshold for compensation. When I asked to be transferred to a supervisor the representative flat-out refused. (A supervisor called me two days later, apologetic, and as an apology sent me “gift certificate vouchers” that I haven’t yet figured out how to use.)

– On one trip, a flight attendant glowered at me and muttered under his breath when I asked for a can of soda rather than a half-full plastic cup.

– Having flown a variety of airlines over the past 12 months (American, Delta, JetBlue, Virgin Atlantic, EasyJet), Continental has the least amount of coach-class legroom.

– And the real kicker, in my book: following the safety instructions on my international flight, the airplane’s media system showed three minutes of commercials complete with loud audio accompaniment.

Compare these experiences to the generally superior legroom on American, the way JetBlue flight attendants give you extra snacks with a wink when you can’t decide what you want, the Virgin Atlantic representative who gave me her full name and extension so I could ask for her on return calls, and the time a friendly JetBlue gate attendant placed a block on the seat next to me so I could sprawl on an overnight flight. There’s no contest.

I may be a captive audience once my ticket is purchased, but airline travel from New York City is a highly competitive market, and it will be a while before I choose to fly Continental again.

1. Try and combine two frequent flyer accounts, two reward points programs, purchase-by-the-thousand mileage rewards, cash allotments and mileage gifting to purchase two tickets to fly halfway across the world, linking the accounts despite different outbound itineraries, spanning the Thanksgiving holiday. Business class.

Want the perfect New York dessert? Head to the east side of Manhattan, grab the uptown 4/5/6 subway, take it to 86th Street, walk east to First Avenue, hang a left, go one block up the east side of the avenue, cross 87th Street, stroll past the Radio Shack and turn right. There you’ll find Glaser’s, a great, century-old neighborhood bakery, where the Glaser family continues to make the best black and white cookies in New York City. They’re baked fresh daily and worth the trip.

I’ve been eating black and white cookies my whole life and Glaser’s are the quintessential example. Glaser’s makes excellent chocolate chip cookies, too, and challah every Friday. Every once in a while I wish I still lived in the neighborhood.

(cross-posted on kottke.org)

The scene: Barnacle Bill’s miniature golf down the Jersey shore, waiting at the 12th hole for a father and his 5-year-old daughter to play. The hole has a half-loop that leads to a raised green.

The daughter swings wildly and misses the ball entirely. She tries again, and makes contact; her ball flies into the air, hits the side of the raised green, and ricochets onto the lower part of the hole.

Father steps onto the hole and hits his daughter’s ball through the loop. As she watches, he reaches up to the raised green, taps her ball into the hole, and declares triumphantly: “Hole in one for Becky!” Becky raises her arms in triumph.