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Sally and Suzy go to the beach
Saturday, October 20 2001
Today Ray and Nancy (who have a car) loaded their big black dog Suzy into their car and drove over to our place, picked up Gretchen, Sally the Dog and me, and drove us to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The beach we went to was in Jacob Riis Park, in the middle of a long narrow spit of land that juts westward from Long Island below Queens and Brooklyn. The spit is technically part of the Borough of Queens.
Technically too, we couldn't bring dogs to Jacob Riis Park. Technically we couldn't even park in the little beachside parking lot because we didn't have the necessary sticker. But it's no longer summer and summer rules have broken down. One of the great things about New York is that, much like in Europe and other crowded places with complex histories, there's a difference between what is illegal and what isn't tolerated.
Still, there are always those who know the rules, who abide by the rules, and don't like to see others getting away with flaunting rules. We ran into such a guy at the Jacob Riis parking lot. He acted like he was doing us a big favor by telling us we were risking a $50 "Federal" parking ticket for not having the appropriate sticker and further penalties for walking our dogs on the beach. But we ignored him. Gretchen tells me that the worst thing that ever happened at Jacob Riis Park was a ranger yelling at Sally for chasing Canadian Geese.
We walked some distance westward down the spit as the dogs cavorted happily on the sand and in the surf. Suzy was mostly interested in retrieving her tennis ball, whereas Sally was preferred to hunt for things to chase or eat. Every time Sally came upon a seagull, she slid into the same stalking stance she uses when approaching squirrels. Whatever technique Sally uses, it's never been effective. She's never once caught a squirrel, seagull, rabbit or pigeon. She did catch a Norway Rat once, but I made her let it go. As for food, the choicest morsel Sally could find was a plastic bag full of grated cheese which had melted and resolidified several times.
Other things found on the beach included a perfect lens-shaped piece of clear beach glass, a similarly rounded piece of brown pottery, a piece of balloon shredded such that it resembled a tiny squid, and several clear jellyfish body disks, each resembling the bottom of a Coke bottle.
Off on the southern horizon it looked as if there was an endless low city skyline. But these things we saw weren't the spires of buildings, but instead the masts of naval ships forming a Maginot Line guarding the maritime approaches to New York. God save the navy attempting a sea-based attack against our greatest city!
After we were done with the beach, we drove into nearby Coney Island to eat at Mrs. Stahl's Knishes, a humble Jewish diner which has been in continuous operation since 1935, when Gretchen's Great Grandmother Bertha lived in Brighton Beach. Over the years, the Yiddish-speaking Jewish population of Brighton Beach was gradually replaced by Russians, and the staff and menu has changed accordingly. Now Mrs. Stahl's is run mostly by Puerto Ricans and offers, among many other things, a plate of shrimp, and burgers with cheese (though it's 25 cents extra). We, however, stuck to authentic Jewish faire, Mrs. Stahl's specialty, knishes. For those who don't know, a knish is a fetus-shaped dough confection stuffed with seasoned potato mash, barley, or cheese. They're similar to samosas and other Southwest Asian finger foods. Mustard is the preferred knish condiment, unless it's a dessert knish.
While we were eating out knishes, a little Russian girl stopped in the doorway to pet a striped kitten sunning itself in the doorway. Her mother, who had unusually white hair and unusually red lipstick, said something about it and the word I could make out, one of the few Russian words I know, was "koshke." Then a subway train rumbled by on the tracks directly overhead.
Interesting architecture at Jacob Riis Park.
Nancy with the dogs.
No swimming, no surfing, no wading, no sharks.
Sally in the Atlantic Ocean.
Suzy and Sally in the surf.
Ray, Gretchen and Nancy.
Me with Gretchen on the Jacob Riis Park Atlantic Ocean beach.
Distant naval vessels guarding the North American coast against... the Afghan navy!
Gretchen, Nancy and Ray at historic Mrs. Stahl's Knishes in Coney Island.
Non-kosher dishes have intruded into Mrs. Stahl's menu as
Coney Island's Jewish population is gradually replaced by immigrant Russians.
I'd like to officially endorse WinMX as my post-Napster "information liberator." Tonight Gretchen and I were sitting around wanting to hear various tunes from our childhoods, and we had no trouble finding and downloading them as quickly as we could think of them. My results with Napster replacements/enhancements had been unsatisfactory up until now. Gnutella was essentially useless, perhaps because I didn't know what I was doing. And Napigator completely stopped working a couple weeks ago (well, all of it except the part that throws monotonous popup ads onto my screen at regular intervals). WinMx takes advantage of all the existing Napster and OpenNap infrastructure while automating the Napigatoresque searching of multiple databases. As with Napigator and Gnutella, you can hunt for \/\/@rez (like a pre-cracked never-have-to-register CD ROM image of the \/\/!ndowsXP !nstall) as well as MP3s. All that stuff is information, and does it ever want to be free!
But what did I do back in the days before I could call up any music I wanted? How many hours did I waste as a teenager, lying in bed at night with fingers poised over the buttons of my tape recorder, waiting for an elusive pop song to come on the radio?
While downloading these nostalgic songs, it occurred to me that there is definite reason for why they're included in the soundtracks of recent movies. These songs have an enormous emotional power, especially the "disposable pop" songs that were played incessantly in the late 70s but cannot be found on any radio playlist today. For someone my age to hear "Baker's Street" or "Afternoon Delight" in 2001 (as I do when I rent a movie like Good Will Hunting) means triggering a lot of long-dormant neural circuits, unleashing unpredictable cognitive processes from a period when you were very different from the way you are today. Of course, there's a downside to this technique. It might make Good Will Hunting extremely emotionally powerful for me because the 70s were my formative years. But "Afternoon Delight" is nothing but meaningless fluff to someone born in 1980, much like "Softly as I Leave You" is to me.
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