Rabid Little Island

Unbelievable - as I was walking home on Staten Island roads in the cool night under a full moon reminiscent of Kuindji, I was surprised to look up and see the Big Dipper. In almost seven years of living in New York, this is the first time I've seen a constallation in the night sky. 

A more typical City experience was the night of my Columbia Orientation party, when I saw the shadows of Midtown buildings reflected onto the sickly vermillion sky and sulfury yellow clouds.

Anyway, I need to catch up on Staten Island news. Let's begin with RABIES!

I credit my friend Alexia with this one. Apparently, between 1992 and 2007, Staten Island had 37.9% of cases of documented rabies in the five boroughs - 133 cases.  That includes 42.4% of rabid raccoons, and 70% of rabid cats. 

In comparison, the Bronx has the lion's share of rabies - 53.0% of all cases, and 52.1% of rabid raccoons! Only one rabid cat, though. Van Cortlandt Park seems to be a breeding ground for the stuff.

Still, Staten Island can claim something none of the other boroughs have - RABID GROUNDHOGS - by the scenic South Shore.  My North Shore just seems to have humdrum rabid raccoons.

Some other tidbits: 

Wednesday, June 11th - Staten Island's two Republican Councilmen hold positions of Minority Whip and Minority Leader - because how many Republican city Councilmen are there? And the Post (of course) notes that a man was arrested for exposing himself to a young woman on the Staten Island Railway. Haven't ridden that yet...

But the worst has to be the New York Times's obnoxious blog, which tried to use clever alliteration to say that Staten Island politics is "part Aeschylus and part E!" But the reporter is referring to the Oedipal struggle of father Frank Powers and son Fran Powers for the Congressional seat - in other words, Sophocles's Oedipal Cycle! If it were Aeschylus's Oresteia, Vito Fossella's underage daughters would be running for office, or at least, killing the Virginia police officer who had arrested the representative for drunk driving. Learn your Classical references, you Times snot.

The past weekend - I completely missed the borough's music festival Rock the Harbor, and I missed the exhibitions and bands showcasing Art by the Ferry, but you can catch the bands performing again this upcoming Saturday. I will be out of town.

All this artmaking again tried to raise the public value of the Island, but another story has overshadowed the Island - mysterious house fires. And they turn deadly.

Fran Powers lost the Libertarian nomination, but he tells the New Yorker he may create a Free Party. To which the New Yorker asks, "get it?"

The Staten Island Yankees lost to the Brooklyn Cyclones 3-1, - and I had to read a Wisconsin website to learn the score?!???

Oh well. At least the Staten Island Russians are happy. As are the Chasids.

So let's drink some Tuscan-style wine, grown at the public expense by my borough president! Prego!

OMG the Mall

So, it's been a while since I caught up on this thing... I started this post during the tail end of last week's - sing along - HEATWAVE, but the heat turned my brains to jelly. Then, my coworker developed health issues, and so we two remaining web writers of NY1 have had to pick up the slack to get our website going. For whatever reason, the thought of typing and sitting in front of a screen on my off-time from typing and sitting in front of screens bummed me out. Granted, I spent all of yesterday typing and sitting in front of screens, but... well... shut up!

So let's catch up on the past week and change: the heatwave made it the season for "weather stories" on the news! What do New Yorkers do to beat the heat? They express their pride, or stomp on grapes, or go to city-operated cooling centers, which apparently aren't that bad.

My favorite story has to be this reporter in Bergen Country, Jerz who (unwittingly?) expressed contempt for everyone who didn't automatically go to a pool in a hot day. 

Like an obstinate Englishman, I've remained in dark clothes, long sleeves, and frustrated baths of sweat. But one day last week, when my old glasses finally snapped, I took a 50 -minute busride into the interior, to the STATEN ISLAND MALL. It's a very good, two-floor standard-issue agora of our modern version of Hellenism. You can get over-sweet and savory Sakura teriyaki chicken and Bourbon "Cajun" chicken and frisbee-sized cookies in the foodcourt just as you can in any other mall. Macy's is Macy's is Macy's.

For whatever reason, I got a strong lesbian vibe at the mall - I saw many happy Hip Hop lesbian couples strolling, one girl in baseball cap, big T-shirt and jeans, and the one girl in tank top, shorts and long hair. 

The salesperson in LensCrafters regaled me with stories of camping with her girlfriend, and the dangers of straying far from the comforting realm of a proximate LensCrafters. She also sweet-talked me into buying a pair of glasses that will look more like jockish sunglasses. Eh, I'm young enough to still make fashion mistakes. The salesperson was a cool person, she's part of a Staten Island rock band called Bombshell Betty, which has a song about my neighborhood of St. George and which alerts us that there will be NO butt touching! So think not of it!

One last image - the mall is next to a large mound of landfill, looking like it came out of the pre-Columbian Missippian culture. A giant bread loaf of green grass, filled with refuse of past decades. And when I left the mall, new glasses on my face, I saw the dark green landfill loaf against the pink sunset sky. Beautiful Staten Island sunset. 

Hey, tonight as I finish this, I'm into the night owl hours, watching the right-to-die "Mar adentro" (which is really good, the paralyzed man flying to the sea in his dreams - F.U. gringos who didn't like Javier Bardem in that Coen Bros. movie). And right before that, because it was the Kooky Sundance Channel, I found a TV program that actually would make me want to see... 

THE LOVE GURU! That horrible, horrible, horrible upcoming "Austen Powers" rehash, which I first thought was Mike Myers's pathetic attempt at recapturing psychedelic $uce$$ that has evaded his sad Cat-In-The-Hat middle age. And while that is probably true, it is But oh, the horror grows greater, it turns out that this debacle of comedy is Mike Myers's attempt at profound thought. Start with TV Guide for more details, but here's my summary.

Last year, Deepak Chopra and Mike Myers gave a joint lecture at the Magnet Theater, where I've seen much improv and where Allie and I had our first date. The two talked about comedy and the relationship to the spiritual. Life is transient, and laughing is one way of dealing with the imminent tragedy, of looking beyond your own condition and gleaming the . Deepak puts it, "enlightening by lightening up." I came up with a similar conclusion, that laughter is a way for humans to deal with situations they cannot rationalize, comprehend - only I tried to be less pretentious about it.

According to Mike Myers, "The Love Guru" is about "faith vs. choice, self-love, and internal validation vs. external validation." That, and fun with tossing midgets. I can't wait.

I'll stray back to Staten Island, I promise.

"ha-ha" "aha!"