Overseen at Booth 5: Smith and Company Building

At one time this building actually housed offices that made something.  Nobody quite remembers what that something was, or who were in those offices.  Faded letters on the bricks on the side of the building say "Smith and Company" but that lends no clues to what sort of work might actually have gone on inside those walls.

In recent times it was a storehouse that shipped out large bulk supplies of building materials.  Now they have moved.   Nobody knows where.

Most likely a developer will soon buy the building.  They will either renovate it for luxury apartments, or tear it to the ground to build yet another dull row of condominium houses.

One more faded memory of Chelsea Heights.

6th and Waverly Place.

Overheard at Booth 4: Kids These Days, Season 5

Writer 1: OK, so we've got the twins who've already transitioned into each other's gender.  What should we do to open Season Five?

Writer 2: Open it up with their wedding.

Writer 1: To each other?

Writer 2: And Ben.

Writer 3: The family dog?

Writer 2: Yeah.  We'll call the episode "Three Way in Vegas."

Writer 1: But they're still only 14.   I don't think you can marry that young even in Vegas.

Writer 2: Fine, we'll send 'em to Alabama, then.

Overheard at Table 5: The Mortal Instruments - City of Bones

There is a device in the movie that it a portal, a gateway.  It looks somewhat like a gelatinous pool of water.  The hero tells the main character (the heroine) that you have to focus where you want to go, or you will end up in limbo, with no way of returning, lost forever.

I believe that into this pool is where the director threw the plot of the film.

Other than that, this film is basically like many other films, some of those others were good, some not so good - all of them better than this film.

Let's see, we have the Twilight connection (werewolves vs. vampires), we have the Star Wars Empire Strikes Back ("Luke, I am your Father!") we even have the Star Wars, "ooh I kissed my brother!" aspect.  Only in this one they actually ARE sexually attracted to each other, even AFTER they find out that they are brother and sister (which is frankly, a little gross).  We have demon hunters and demons, which reminded me of Max Payne.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Except for one last point: as these characters roamed around all these ENORMOUS abandoned hotels and churches in Brooklyn, I was awestruck by the amount of unused space there still remains in New York City.

Amazing.

One last argument, though.  My wife insists that Lily Collins looks just like her father (Phil Collins).  I don't see it at all.   She's a lovely young lady and maybe some day she will have a movie in which she can have an actual role to play.

Overheard at Booth 4: The Don's a Con ...

Dever Dodd:  How could anyone possibly want to vote for Donald Trump?  The guy's filed bankruptcy a billion times!

Clare O'Casey:  Only four times.  And it was corporate bankruptcy.  Never personal bankruptcy.  He uses Chapter 11 as a business tool.

Dever Dodd: That just means he knows how to cover his own ass.   Frankly, that ain't someone you want responsible for the lives of 310 million people!

Overheard at Table 3: On Gentrification

... you know what I don't get about all this buying up the houses in the Heights and putting up new ones?  They tear out all the old shit and just replace it with new shit that LOOKS like old shit ...

I call that BULLshit!

Poem of the Day: Summer 1957

Summer, 1957

She was summer, all summer,

In plaid skirt and cat’s-eye glasses,

She had a smile as bright as the sun

And eyes the color of a cloudless sky.

Her hair dark, black like the smooth

Shadows of that first weekend in July,

Ink-black, shattered by the fireworks

Of her laughter and she could spin,

Boy, could she spin,

Around and around to the music

That came blaring from the radio

Propped on the shelf

Just above the sink

In her mother’s kitchen;

Window open, music pouring

Out of the house into the yard,

Where she danced, and I danced, and

We danced,

Darting in between the pillowcases and

Sheets dancing on the clothesline.

She whisperlaughed, “You and me, we

Are dancing between the sheets!”

She stole a kiss from my innocent lips.

And then she danced away,

As the warmth of her sunlight

Poured from every pore of my skin.

MR

2015-0727

Overheard at Booth 2: A Way Out

... man I'll never understand girls sometimes it seems.  this one girl.  I was dating her, oh I don't know about six months I guess, and we were in a cafe kinda like this one, and just outta nowhere she says, "I've been looking for a way out ever since I got here."

... and man I have to say that at that moment and the way she said it, I didn't know if she was talking about the place we were at, our relationship, or life itself!