Going to try out something newish here. One of the reasons for starting this was to capture the ‘physical life’ of the city (look down there, says it every day). That has mostly ended up being the buildings and streets that comprise it, and the battles over them. But there are places and events in the city that are part of the proverbial fabric that makes it a joy and a frustration, a never-ending struggle that manages (most days) to seem worthwhile. Part William Whyte, part Jimmy Breslin. Each Wendesday (or as often as I can muster) will feature an hopefully interesting anecdote that rattles around my head.
WE ARE A TOWN OF immigrants that strive to accentuate our distinct backgrounds, particularly if they provide adequate contrast in making our journey all the more impressive. The flip side is the relentless quest to establish our credentials as somehow more real than the person in the door just behind. Natives are looked at with a mixture of disdain and envy — and no small amount of confusion, theirs being something unfathomable to those who find their lives here as the terminus of a journey.
Measuring ourselves is the distraction, sport, and obsession that fills our days. Not as simple as the concept of ‘cool’ it is a series of experiences and command of the relative regard of a multidimensional array of objects, people and places calculated with terrifying precision and speed when disporting ourselves.
With the advent of untrammeled wealth and real estate, this all becomes murky, since the magnitude with which such markers interpose themselves skews the calculus, most often by simply piling atop all the difficult crests already in our path. To be sure, this was always the case. But the ineffable mythos that drew us had seemingly inviolate archetypes: starving artist, aspiring writer, gadabout, and it seems they are being slowly pressed in the mud under the heel of a largely uninteresting, but phenomenally affluent overclass.
Still, we struggle to identify corners of experience, names or events that are insulated from the vicissitudes of stock market millions. For years, an old roommate and I harbored a secret trip, saved for all our weekend visitors. It was a grand event, the culmination of every trip, entirely divested of the straining concomitant with all the culture consumption and more literal largess that fills most vacations.
With a word, it will be obvious — but perhaps not. I have given up mentioning it, since it is gone, but even before it passed into lore, I was surprised at how often I’d be met by perplexed stares when I would tell the story.
We would start small, mention at some point the first night that we were saving the best for last, that we would organize Sunday around a trip. To the most amazing thing, guaranteed to astound the most jaded visitor, that would provide the best story to relay to the yokels, that would leave them awestruck. We would regale them over the course of the weekend, check into see if they were excited. “Are you excited? can you wait? We are going to see the chicken!”
The Chicken, as many of you know, is the Chicken on Mott Street. Or better, the Chicken on Mott Street that Played Tic Tac Toe. There was also the Dancing Chicken, but that was even before my time. The way worked was that they put a chicken an old looking arcade machine, behind a glass wall, and you put in two bits (four? I can’t recall) and played the chicken a game of Tic Tac Toe. The chicken usually won, or at least tied, because it went first. Why did the chicken get to go first? Because it’s a chicken! (I was told by a friend that this bit of wisdom came from a radio call in show wherein a caller asked the same question, with no context whatsoever, and instantly received that response). You could see its head make little bobbing gestures before each move.
Not to ruin the mystery, but all that was happening was that there was a grid that reflected the game board, and the rudimentary computer inside would issue a food pellet to the location it was about to play. Chicken would reach for the pellet, and an ‘X’ lit up.
The response to people varied: our out-of-scale exhortations, over the course of three days, often affected their decision. In truth, it was our own little litmus test: if you couldn’t absorb the bizarreness of what was in front of you, coupled with our completely absurd run up, an not see it as a truly singular event, well, then the hell with you, New York wasn’t your kind of place. I mean, who wants to get that excited about going to the Met?
Most everyone did in the end get it, some because we browbeat them a little more to insure their wonder. Fewer actually played. Why bother? You could never win.
The Chicken is of course gone, likely the result of diligent pro-animal sorts. That definitely did in the Dancing Chicken, wherein you put a quarter in a machine and a pen covered in chicken wire was electrified, causing the chicken to, um, dance. But the Tic Tac Toe chicken was robust fella. It’s not like it had less space than a commercially-raised peer. Hell, did they think it went to some free-range farm after the game was removed? It was eaten the next day. Maybe each only spent a few weeks in the booth getting fattened up before moving down the street to become a nice fried rice dish. That’s not some racist slur — it was a healthy looking bird; I wouldn’t have minded eating it. Maybe that was the gimmick in the way back — you win, you eat the chicken. That would have really gotten Ricki Lake exercised.
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Wednesday Lore: The Best Thing Ever.
Going to try out something newish here. One of the reasons for starting this was to capture the ‘physical life’ of the city (look down there, says it every day). That has mostly ended up being the buildings and streets that comprise it, and the battles over them. But there are places and events in the city that are part of the proverbial fabric that makes it a joy and a frustration, a never-ending struggle that manages (most days) to seem worthwhile. Part William Whyte, part Jimmy Breslin. Each Wendesday (or as often as I can muster) will feature an hopefully interesting anecdote that rattles around my head.
WE ARE A TOWN OF immigrants that strive to accentuate our distinct backgrounds, particularly if they provide adequate contrast in making our journey all the more impressive. The flip side is the relentless quest to establish our credentials as somehow more real than the person in the door just behind. Natives are looked at with a mixture of disdain and envy — and no small amount of confusion, theirs being something unfathomable to those who find their lives here as the terminus of a journey. Measuring ourselves is the distraction, sport, and obsession that fills our days. Not as simple as the concept of ‘cool’ it is a series of experiences and command of the relative regard of a multidimensional array of objects, people and places calculated with terrifying precision and speed when disporting ourselves. With the advent of untrammeled wealth and real estate, this all becomes murky, since the magnitude with which such markers interpose themselves skews the calculus, most often by simply piling atop all the difficult crests already in our path. To be sure, this was always the case. But the ineffable mythos that drew us had seemingly inviolate archetypes: starving artist, aspiring writer, gadabout, and it seems they are being slowly pressed in the mud under the heel of a largely uninteresting, but phenomenally affluent overclass. Still, we struggle to identify corners of experience, names or events that are insulated from the vicissitudes of stock market millions. For years, an old roommate and I harbored a secret trip, saved for all our weekend visitors. It was a grand event, the culmination of every trip, entirely divested of the straining concomitant with all the culture consumption and more literal largess that fills most vacations. With a word, it will be obvious — but perhaps not. I have given up mentioning it, since it is gone, but even before it passed into lore, I was surprised at how often I’d be met by perplexed stares when I would tell the story. We would start small, mention at some point the first night that we were saving the best for last, that we would organize Sunday around a trip. To the most amazing thing, guaranteed to astound the most jaded visitor, that would provide the best story to relay to the yokels, that would leave them awestruck. We would regale them over the course of the weekend, check into see if they were excited. “Are you excited? can you wait? We are going to see the chicken!” The Chicken, as many of you know, is the Chicken on Mott Street. Or better, the Chicken on Mott Street that Played Tic Tac Toe. There was also the Dancing Chicken, but that was even before my time. The way worked was that they put a chicken an old looking arcade machine, behind a glass wall, and you put in two bits (four? I can’t recall) and played the chicken a game of Tic Tac Toe. The chicken usually won, or at least tied, because it went first. Why did the chicken get to go first? Because it’s a chicken! (I was told by a friend that this bit of wisdom came from a radio call in show wherein a caller asked the same question, with no context whatsoever, and instantly received that response). You could see its head make little bobbing gestures before each move. Not to ruin the mystery, but all that was happening was that there was a grid that reflected the game board, and the rudimentary computer inside would issue a food pellet to the location it was about to play. Chicken would reach for the pellet, and an ‘X’ lit up. The response to people varied: our out-of-scale exhortations, over the course of three days, often affected their decision. In truth, it was our own little litmus test: if you couldn’t absorb the bizarreness of what was in front of you, coupled with our completely absurd run up, an not see it as a truly singular event, well, then the hell with you, New York wasn’t your kind of place. I mean, who wants to get that excited about going to the Met? Most everyone did in the end get it, some because we browbeat them a little more to insure their wonder. Fewer actually played. Why bother? You could never win. The Chicken is of course gone, likely the result of diligent pro-animal sorts. That definitely did in the Dancing Chicken, wherein you put a quarter in a machine and a pen covered in chicken wire was electrified, causing the chicken to, um, dance. But the Tic Tac Toe chicken was robust fella. It’s not like it had less space than a commercially-raised peer. Hell, did they think it went to some free-range farm after the game was removed? It was eaten the next day. Maybe each only spent a few weeks in the booth getting fattened up before moving down the street to become a nice fried rice dish. That’s not some racist slur — it was a healthy looking bird; I wouldn’t have minded eating it. Maybe that was the gimmick in the way back — you win, you eat the chicken. That would have really gotten Ricki Lake exercised.