As a Californian used to spending lots of time with trees, especially pine trees, New York City can be a barren place. These East Coast maples and elms have lost all their leaves. If it’s a pine smell you want, hail a taxi that has a tree-shaped air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror. Or […]
Entries from December 2008
Day 179: The Royal Tenenbaums
December 25th, 2008 · No Comments
Tags: East Coast v. West Coast · Encounters with Nature · Museums & Art · Sights & Scenes · Why I Love This Town
Day 177: What the Stylish Beast is Wearing This Season
December 23rd, 2008 · 1 Comment
The holiday season has been too a-bustle for me to blog about every store window that has turned my head. Now, two days before Christmas, allow me to present the best of the best: the display at the Bergdorf Goodman store on Fifth Avenue. The designers ditched the egg nog and cherubic children — yawn […]
Tags: Encounters with Nature · Museums & Art · Sights & Scenes · Why I Love This Town
Day 175: A Briefly White Christmas
December 21st, 2008 · 4 Comments
The weathermen have described the snow and sleet this weekend as nasty, but that all depends on your perspective. All Friday I kept pressing my nose against the window and watching the snowflakes fall out of the sky. This was my first New York snowstorm and I have been waiting for it like a seven-year-old […]
Tags: Encounters with Nature · Sights & Scenes · Why I Love This Town
Day 171: A Joo-ish Christmas
December 17th, 2008 · 1 Comment
The tree has been standing unadorned in my living room for the last two weeks, and when my partner Joo visits me she looks at it suspiciously. It makes her sneeze. Joo is a Hindu, half-allergic to Christmas and fully allergic to pollen. “OK, OK, OK, I’ll help you decorate it,” she said yesterday, sniffling, […]
Tags: Deep Thoughts · Personalities
Day 169: Theater, by Brute Force
December 15th, 2008 · 1 Comment
Many moons ago, on my first trip to New York, some good friends (that’s you, Mike and Dan!) took me to see this new show in the East Village called the Blue Man Group. The Blue Men’s blend of vaudeville and gadgetry, combined with loads of toilet paper, just knocked my socks off. I wasn’t […]
Tags: Entertainment · Why I Love This Town
Day 165: A Day for Webbed Feet
December 11th, 2008 · No Comments
For the second day, New York is under a gray blanket of rain. Nothing epic or torrential, just a dose. Half an inch every 24 hours. Call me in the morning. The puddles at the curb are just deep enough to flood my shoes. Indoors, everyone’s jackets and umbrellas shed drops and leave a thin […]
Tags: Encounters with Nature · Sights & Scenes · Why I Love This Town
Day 163: The World’s Most Exciting Commute
December 9th, 2008 · 1 Comment
The most thrilling part of my day in New York is often astride my bicycle, the Super Star, on the morning commute. It’s a great workout, the scenery spans all of Manhattan, and of course there’s the adrenaline rush that comes with racing transit buses I thought I’d share the excitement with this handlebar’s-eye guide […]
Tags: Encounters with Nature · Sights & Scenes · Sports · Urban Survival · Why I Love This Town
Day 161: The Lie in the Switch of the Wardrobe
December 7th, 2008 · 7 Comments
A few weeks ago Joo and I traveled to Boston, where temperatures were in the twenties, and the clothing dilemma that I had mothballed for months gained a sharp, aching clarity. Winter is coming, and this Californian had arrived on the East Coast woefully unequipped. The problem isn’t staying warm, exactly; it’s staying fashionable. I […]
Tags: East Coast v. West Coast · The Rat Race
Day 159: Subscribe to This
December 5th, 2008 · No Comments
Loyal reader Melissa Griffiths pointed out recently that my RSS feed was broken, and that any attempt to subscribe to AYINY resulted in a page of gobbledygook. After a few sparring sessions with my computer I persuaded it to work. You’re free to subscribe again. For those not in the know, that “RSS” button on […]
Tags: Uncategorized
Day 158: Horsing Around in the Snow
December 4th, 2008 · 1 Comment
I have neglected to mention Thanksgiving and the utterly different side of New York I saw over the long weekend. I rented a car and took a five-hour drive upstate to Wellsville, New York, all the way to end of a dirt road where my friend Rich Shear owns a farm. I met Rich on […]
Tags: Encounters with Nature · Getaways