2010

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

July 13, 2010 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Lentils. (Image by Zyance.)

MY BIG KEHUNA FOR LENTILS (Upper West Side)

Hi… I’m sick of being a KOHEN. Just too much responsibility.

I’m not selling my rites, but will trade it for LENTILS or a PRIUS.

But before you commit, you should learn more.

Even though the following goes into detail… all you have to do is get up three times a year in your dirty socks (and on high holidays) and hless the congregation. Not too hard. I recommend this for SINGLE MEN 18-32. After that stuff gets really complicated.

WHAT IS A KOHEN?

A Kohen (or Kohen, Hebrew ëÉÌäÅï, ‘priest’, pl. ëåäðéí, Kohanim) is a Jew who is in direct patrilineal descent from the Biblical Ahron. The Kohanim comprise a family dynasty within the larger Jewish Levitical tribe. Kohanim enjoy an honored status in Judaism, with certain designated rights and responsibilities[1].

Today, Kohanim have a distinct, honored status and remain bound by Torah and Rabbinic laws in Orthodox and, to a lesser extent, in Conservative Jewish communities.

Although Kohanim may assume their duties once they reached physical maturity, the fraternity of Kohanim generally would not allow young Kohanim to begin service until they reached the age of 20.[10] There was no mandatory retirement age. Only when a Kohen became physically infirm could he no longer serve.[11]

Certain imperfections could disqualify a Kohen from serving in the Temple. Since the Temple was a place of beauty and the services that were held in it were designed to inspire visitors to thoughts of repentance and closeness to God, a less than physically perfect Kohen would mar the atmosphere.

These blemishes include:

  1. blindness
  2. lameness
  3. an excessively low nasal bridge (such that a straight brush could apply ointment to both eyes simultaneously)
  4. disproportionate limbs
  5. a crippled foot or hand
  6. cataracts
  7. a white streak that transverses the junction between sclera (white part of the eyeball) and iris
  8. certain types of boils
  9. crushed testicles- That’s got to hurt!

A Kohen who was afflicted with one of these imperfections was held unfit for service. However, should it be a correctable imperfection, he would become eligible for service should the defect be corrected. At any time, he was permitted to eat of the holy food (same source as above, including adjacent verses and commentaries). Kohanim with these blemishes would be assigned to secondary roles in the Temple outside of performing the service itself.

BUT WAIT THERE IS SOME GOOD STUFF!

The twenty-four Kohanic gifts

The Kohanim were compensated for their service role in the Temple through 24 special “priestly gifts.” These were:[13]

Gifts given in the Temple area were portions of:

  1. an animal brought as a sin-offering
  2. a bird brought as a sin-offering
  3. a burnt-offering
  4. an offering for uncertain guilt
  5. a peace offering
  6. the olive oil offering of a metzora
  7. the two loaves of bread brought on Shavuot
  8. the Showbread
  9. the Mincha offerings
  10. the Omer offering

Gifts given within the walls of Jerusalem were:

  1. the firstborn of any domestic kosher animal
  2. the Bikkurim (first fruits)
  3. the inner organs of certain offerings
  4. the skins of certain offerings

Gifts which could be given inside or outside Jerusalem were:

  1. Terumah (a portion of the harvest)
  2. Terumat Ma’aser (a tithe of the Levite’s tithe)
  3. Challah (a portion of dough)
  4. the first shearing of the sheep
  5. the Forleg, Cheeks and Abomasum of all non-sanctified, ritually slaughtered domestic animals
  6. Pidyon haben (five silver shekels for the redemption of a firstborn Israelite son)
  7. a sheep or goat redeemed for a firstborn donkey
  8. a property or possession dedicated to the Temple without specifying to which use it is to be given
  9. inherited fields that were dedicated to the Temple and not reclaimed
  10. the theft repayment to a convert who has died, leaving no heirs.

Toyota Prius. (Image by Gnsin.)

Females, who did not serve in the Tabernacle or the Temple, were permitted to consume and/or derive benefit from some of the 24 priestly gifts. But if a Kohen’s daughter married a man from outside the Kohanic line, she was no longer permitted to benefit from the priestly gifts. Conversely, the daughter of a non-priest who married a Kohen took on the same rights as an unmarried daughter of a Kohen.

In every generation when the Temple was standing, one Kohen would be singled out to perform the functions of Kohen Gadol (High Priest). His primary task was the Yom Kippur service. Other Kohen Gadol unique acts included the offering of a daily meal sacrifice, and the prerogative to supersede any Kohen and offer any offering he chose.

Although the Torah retains a procedure to select a Kohen Gadol when needed, in the absence of the Temple in Jerusalem, there is no Kohen Gadol today.

NOW HERE IS WHERE THINGS GETS TRICKY!!!

Ritual defilement

The Kohanim formed a holy order. For the purpose of protecting them against ritual defilement, the Torah imposed on them the following rules for ritual purity, which are still maintained to a certain degree in Orthodox Judaism.

Kohanim are forbidden to come in contact with dead bodies. They are permitted, however, to become defiled for their closest relatives: father, mother, brother, unmarried sister, and child. Defilement of a Kohen to his wife -although not biblically explicit- is permitted by Rabbinical order.

• A Kohen is forbidden to enter any house or enclosure, in which a dead body (or part therof), may be found.[14 Practical examples of these prohibitions include: not entering a cemetery or attending a funeral; not being under the same roof (i.e. in a home or hospital) as a dismembered organ. The exact rules and regulations of defilement are quite complex, but a cursory rule of thumb is that they may not enter a room with a dead person or come within a few feet of the body. Proximity to the corpse of a non-Jew is less serious and may only be an issue if actual contact is established.

•A male Kohen may not marry a divorcee, a prostitute, a convert, or a dishonored woman (Hebrew “çììä”).[18] A Kohen who enters into such a marriage loses the entitlements of his priestly status while in that marriage. The kohen is not allowed to voluntarily forego his status and marry a woman prohibited to him.[19]

Talmudically, were a Kohen to marry in disregard of the above prohibitions, his marriage would be effective. Children born of the union do not have mamzer status. However, these children are termed Chalal (“disqualified”) and do not possess Kohen status.

The Kohen Gadol may marry a virgin only.

During the period of the Holy Temple, Kohanim were required to abstain from wine and all strong drink before and while performing their priestly duties.

LOOK IF THE MESSIAH COMES IN YOUR TIME…you are in great shape. If PETA isn’t up your butt, you could make a nice living.

Decoder: Newt Gingrich’s Recent Comments About President Obama

July 13, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

Newt Gingrich: Moonlights as a scarecrow. (Image by Pete Souza.)

Newt Gingrich: [President Obama] is not like Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was an Arkansas, Southern Baptist, sort of understood middle Americans. While he had some Yale overtones of being liberal, the truth is Bill Clinton was quite happy to move to the right.

Decoder: What’s funny is during the 1990s, I called Bill Clinton an “enemy of normal” and painted him as a radical, a socialist and an extremist. So I was either lying about him then or I’m lying now. Also: If I thought Bill Clinton was really a middle-of-the road guy, why did I spend so much time trying to force him out of office? That kind of makes it look  like I’m a partisan windbag who’s not to be trusted.

Newt Gingrich: The people [Obama] appoints are more radical than he is and less competent.

Decoder: Hillary Clinton, Janet Napolitano, Kathleen Sebelius and Sonia Sotomayor all seem like competent and reasonable people, but I disagree with them philosophically so I have to label them as radical rather than intelligently argue the issues.

Newt Gingrich: [President Obama] is a disaster. His principles are fundamentally wrong.

Decoder: My principles are the right ones. Like, remember how I used to lecture everyone about family values? All three of my wives agree that it was the right thing to do.

Corncobs: Newt keeps us safe.

Newt Gingrich: It’s fair to say that by February the groundwork will have been laid to consider seriously whether or not to run [for President]. I’ve never been so serious.

Decoder: It’s fair to say that I threaten to run for President every six months or so because I love my ego very, very much.

Newt Gingrich: I think likable is a word you have to think about a lot. If people believe their country is in trouble, they want a captain of the lifeboat, they don’t want a fraternity brother.

Decoder: Even I know that I’m a hateful, hypocritical, lying sack of crap. I’m just hoping things get so bad that it won’t matter. Maybe if there’s a plague of frogs or an apocalypse.

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Excerpted: “Cary In The Sky With Diamonds,” Vanity Fair (2010)

July 13, 2010 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Esther Williams: "I reached up with my boy's large, clumsy hand to touch my right breast and felt my penis stirring."

As universities begin studying the effects and uses of LSD again, Vanity Fair takes a look back at the drug’s origins and its popularity as part of psychotherapy in Hollywood in the late 50s, before Timothy Leary had taken even a single trip. “Cary in the Sky with Diamonds” is an article by Cari Beauchamp and Judy Balaban. The latter is the daughter of Paramount Pictures president Barney Balaban; she not only experimented with the drug herself but has first-hand knowledge of all of the principals involved.

In one passage, swimming great and movie star Esther Williams, who experimented with LSD when she was in her late thirties, recalls the profound and strange effect the drug had on her. Williams believes the experience helped her confront the deep pain and unhappiness she carried with her since her beloved older brother died when she was eight years old. An excerpt:

“Under LSD, Esther saw ‘my father’s face as a ceramic plate. Almost instantly, it splintered into a million tiny pieces, like a windshield when a rock goes through it.’ Then she saw her mother’s face on that terrible day, and ‘all the emotion had drained out of her, and her soft, kindly features had hardened.’

During the session Esther realized—’observing it from a distance as if I were acting in or watching a movie’—that ever since the day her brother had died her life had been consumed by the necessity to replace him in every sense of the word, and “suddenly this little girl was in a race against time to be an adult.”

Does Esther Williams think she has a penis or am I just really high? (Image by Philip H. Bailey.)

Exhausted but calm, Esther left the doctor’s office and returned to her Mandeville Canyon home, where her parents, still emotionally broken by Stanton’s death, were waiting to have dinner with her. She “understood them that night in a profound way, and while I sympathized, I was also sickened by their weakness and their resignation. I saw that they both simply had given up, which, no matter what life had in store for me, was something I could never and would never do.”

But the evening wasn’t over for Esther. After she had said good night to her parents, she went to her bedroom, undressed, and washed. When she looked in the mirror, ‘I was startled by a split image: One half of my face, the right half, was me; the other half was the face of a sixteen-year-old boy. The left side of my upper body was flat and muscular.… I reached up with my boy’s large, clumsy hand to touch my right breast and felt my penis stirring. It was a hermaphroditic phantasm.’ Esther has no recollection of how long she stood there, but there was no question that now ‘I understood perfectly: when Stanton had died, I had taken him into my life so completely that he became a part of me.’”

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Featured Video: “Girl Water Diviner” (1954)

July 13, 2010 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

A boy water diviner from the early 18th-century.

Water divining or dowsing or water witching is the process by which a human being allegedly uses some divine gift to find where water is located below the earth’s surface. This magical thinking helped folks decide where to dig for wells. It’s hokum, of course, but hokum with a long history. In 1954, a brief newsreel profiled Catherine Bent, a Brit who supposedly was an expert in the field. She believed fully in her “powers,” her body going into wild spasms as she received information about where the H2O was hidden. Watch it here.

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Harvey Pekar, American Original (1939-2010)

July 12, 2010 in Books, Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

Harvey Pekar: "I've always been a fiend for one thing or another, either sports or comix or, you know... jazz, different kinds of literature." (Image by Davidkphoto.)

A fond farewell to the dyspeptic and brilliant graphic comics writer and Letterman foil, Harvey Pekar, who passed away in his Cleveland home yesterday at 70. If you’re not familiar with his work, Pekar’s autobiographical writing brought a realism to comics, focusing on his sad-sack life as an Ohio file clerk rather than superheroes. He collaborated with the artist R. Crumb, among others.

If you’ve never seen the excellent movie based on his life, American Splendor, you should definitely check it out. I interviewed the directors, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, right before the film was released, and they are really talented and generous people.

I present you with an excerpt from an interview Pekar did with Walrus Comix (the images on the page are broken, but the Q&A is really good). An excerpt from the section in which Pekar recalls his first meeting with R. Crumb and how he developed his aesthetic:

“So in ’62, Robert Crumb moved to Cleveland from Philadelphia, and he lived about a block and a half from me and he’s the guy that sort of — he and his roommate — hipped me to the underground scene, you know… and he stayed in Cleveland… he worked for the American Greeting Card company for about four years and then I guess he figured he went as far as he could go here and then moved out to San Francisco in the Winter of ‘66 or ’67… But by that time — see I was really into underground comix and I was mainly doing jazz criticism then — I started thinking that comix were generally… you know especially in those days, people looked down on comix, if you said something was like a comic book you know, you were putting it down…. But I saw there was no reason to think that they were intrinsically a limited form… ‘Cause you could choose ANY word that was in the dictionary… You got the same choice of words as SHAKESPEARE… and you got a huge variety of art styles that you could use. Comix are WORDS and PICTURES… WORDS AND PICTURES… you can do ANYTHING with WORDS and PICTURES…

So I just realized that comix at that point had never got beyond the superhero stuff mainly because of the publishers. They were just in it to make a buck and this is what sold and they didn’t want to get away from that formula. Which, I guess, if you’re a businessman and you don’t care about art too much then that’s what you can expect.

So anyway, I started thinking about ways that comix could expand and one thing I thought about was more REALISM… ‘Cause comix never had a realist movement like just about all other art forms had. So I figured if I could do some realistic comix, even if people don’t like ‘em , then maybe I would’ve gained a footnote in history… and so then I thought about doing stuff about the QUOTIDIAN LIFE… you know, ‘every day’ life… because, for one thing, that’s all I knew… I always had a flunky job and lived in these little cramped apartments and was UNRELIEVED at that life.”

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Old Print Article: “A Monkey Wheelman,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1897)

July 12, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"Here the monkey sits, dressed in a pair of little red bloomers." (Image by Rob.)

Monkeys had free run of metropolitan areas in the late 19th-century. How else can you explain a newspaper report about a Philadelphia monkey who drank out of fire hydrants and took bicycle rides? This story from the Philadelphia Record was so vital to the continued freedom of our democracy that it was picked up by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and run in the January 24, 1897 issue. An excerpt:

“Not content with having a dog, cat, white rats, rabbits, turtles and other pets, Aleck Munchweiler, a downtown boy, purchased a monkey about two weeks ago. Because of the little animal’s penchant for drinking water from a hydrant, he has been named Spigots. Spigots has developed a mania for cycling. His master has arranged a little seat on the front of the wheel and here the monkey sits, dressed in a pair of little red bloomers.

The queer pair were out on their wheel the other day and attracted much attention. Spigots enjoyed himself hugely, and looked with disdain on the dogs that barked as he rode by. All went well until the wheelmen got as far as Broad and Wharton streets, and there Spigots attempted to stand up in his seat, getting frightened at two vicious looking canines, which were springing up at him. The result was that he fell and had his right foot run over. Aleck took him to a nearby drug store and had the wounded part bandaged with care. Spigots now presents a queer sight, sitting on the front step, with his arm in a sling, and at the sight of a wheel runs into the house crying piteously.”

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    Thank You, HerbalMo@groupexperiment.ru, For The Spam Email You Sent To The Afflictor Inbox

    July 12, 2010 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

    Fake boobs. Stay classy, New Orleans. (Image by Howie Luvzus.)

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    New Weekly Program Coming Soon To ESPN: Lebron James Discusses His Pecker Variety Hour

    July 11, 2010 in Fake, Humor, Sports | Permalink

    Lebron James: South Beach has much better pecker weather than Cleveland.

    Coming off the ratings bonanza of Lebron James’ The Decision show, in which he revealed which NBA team he would play for next, ESPN has greenlighted the latest program idea from Camp Lebron, a show that has the newest member of the Miami Heat discussing his pecker. While James’ ego was somewhat satisfied by the non-stop attention from journalists and billionaire team owners and his ability to talk about his “talents” in front of millions of people, there was precious little time left for him to discuss his pecker. James is hoping the new show will remedy that oversight and help his pecker build a global brand.

    ESPN President George Bodenheimer quickly cleared the programming slate when he found out Lebron and his pecker were available, especially since King James agreed to donate proceeds from the ad sales of his program to charity. “Not only will this be groundbreaking programming,” Bodenheimer said from ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut, “but just think of the good Greenpeace can do with all that pecker money.”

    Host Jim Gray will be on hand to ask Lebron tough questions about his pecker’s life on and off the court. The program will be immediately followed by Charles Barkley’s Vampire Disco Bullfight Execution Hour, in which the former forward will get effed up and just wing it.

     

    Charles Barkley: I decide which matadors get to live. 

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    Featured Video: “Let’s Say That Your Opponent…Walks…Kind Of Funny”

    July 11, 2010 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

    I already posted a video by that tool Ryan who created instructional videos about the art of trash talking. But I can’t leave well enough alone. The dipshit made a bunch of clips on different aspects of talking smack, including one where he teaches you how to use physical imitations to humiliate your “opponent.” Watch closely, aspiring actors: This is how young Olivier did it.

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    Excerpted: Newly Published Mark Twain Essay About The Art Of The Interview. It’s Grouchy.

    July 10, 2010 in Books | Permalink

    Mark Twain: "The interview was not a happy invention."

    A hundred years after his death, Mark Twain’s three-volume autobiography will finally be published later this year. It’s pretty much Mark Twain fever everywhere all the time now. Can you feel it? No?!? But I can feel it. Aw, forget it. I give up with you.

    They have the fever over at that PBS site, where a previously unpublished Twain essay (screed) called “Concerning the Interview” is online. You have to think Twain sat for some pretty excruciating interviews in his day. An excerpt:

    “No one likes to be interviewed, and yet no one likes to say no; for interviewers are courteous and gentle-mannered, even when they come to destroy. I must not be understood to mean that they ever come consciously to destroy or are aware afterward that they have destroyed; no, I think their attitude is more that of the cyclone, which comes with the gracious purpose of cooling off a sweltering village, and is not aware, afterward, that it has done that village anything but a favor. The interviewer scatters you all over creation, but he does not conceive that you can look upon that as a disadvantage. People who blame a cyclone, do it because they do not reflect that compact masses are not a cyclone’s idea of symmetry. People who find fault with the interviewer, do it because they do not reflect that he is but a cyclone, after all, though disguised in the image of God, like the rest of us; that he is not conscious of harm even when he is dusting a continent with your remains, but only thinks he is making things pleasant for you; and that therefore the just way to judge him is by his intentions, not his works.”

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    Listeria: Aliases Of Infamous Con Artists Working In The United States Right Around 1940

    July 10, 2010 in Books, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Three Card Monte. (Image by ZioDave.)

    According to David W. Mauer’s The Big Con.

    • The Big Alabama Kid
    • The Clinic Kid
    • Devil’s Island Eddie
    • Fifth Avenue Fred
    • The High Ass Kid
    • The Honey Grove Kid
    • The Indiana Wonder
    • John Henry Strosnider
    • The Leatherhead Kid
    • Lilly the Roper
    • Little Chappie Lohr
    • Plunk Drucker
    • The Postal Kid
    • Red Lager
    • Slobbering Bob
    • The Square Faced Kid
    • Tear-off Arthur
    • The Yellow Kid Weil

    “Highlights” From Another Week Of Afflictor Slop

    July 10, 2010 in Misc. | Permalink

    Afflictor: Making pairs of Iranian men fall asleep on opposite ends of park benches since 2009. (Image by Bertil Videt.)

    Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

    July 9, 2010 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

    Away from me, you vampire!

    Custom Vampire Fangs / Dental Tooth Flippers/Caps – $69 (Lower East Side)

    We Are One Of The Best and Only Stable And Well known Custom Fang Makers In NYC (Just Ask About “Penguins and Vampires). We Use The Top Of The Line Dental Acrylic (all ADA Approved)and Customize each pair to the customers teeth for the most realistic Fangs that will have your own mother have Nightmares. We Also Make Fake Teeth That Clip in between Your Own teeth or Tooth Caps For Chipped/Broken Teeth.

    Our Shop Has bin around For Over 20 years and Have bin know for its custom Guitar Straps, Leather goods including: S&M Selections That Supply most NYC Fetish Shops. Sub culture T-Shirts. Custom Collectible Brass Knuckles, And Many More Thing That you Would Never Think you Can Have customized.

    By Appointment Only.

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    Thank You, BestMax@padhit.ru, For The Spam Email That You Just Sent To The Afflictor Inbox

    July 9, 2010 in Humor, Misc. | Permalink

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    Featured Video: “Your Boyfriend Or Husband Is Having Relations With Your Cousin”

    July 9, 2010 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

    This footage, from something called Expert Village, is an apparently sincere how-to video in which a dillweed named Ryan teaches you how to talk trash to your “opponents” and defeat them with your brilliant insults. Never, ever take any advice from this genius or you will be punched repeatedly in the face.

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    “He’s The Booth Who Saved A Lincoln’s Life”

    July 9, 2010 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Edwin Booth in his Hamlet costume five years after his brother assassinated Lincoln. (Image by J. Gurney & Son.)

    Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation relates the author’s road trip to those sad places where American political murder has occurred. I think just about everyone knows that Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, came from a famous theatrical family, but Vowell zeroes in on an interesting sidebar: the life and career of the celebrated Shakespearean performer Edwin Booth, the killer’s brother, after the horror of the murder. A passage in which the writer explains to a friend who Edwin was:

    “I tell him how Edwin was known as the Hamlet of his day, how his father, Junius Brutus was the greatest Shakespearean actor in England, until 1821, when he emigrated to Maryland, at which point he became the greatest Shakespearean actor in America; how three of Junius’ s children became actors themselves–Edwin, John Wilkes and Junius Brutus Jr.; how the three brothers appeared onstage together only once, in Julius Caesar here in New York in 1864 as a benefit performance for the Shakespeare statue in Central Park;

    how their performance was interrupted because that was the night that Confederate terrorists set fires in hotels up and down Broadway and Edwin, who was playing Brutus, interrupted the play to reassure the audience; how the next morning Edwin informed John at breakfast that he had voted for Lincoln’s reelection and they got into one of the arguments they were always having about North versus South; how Edwin retired from acting out of shame when he heard his brother was the president’s assassin, but that nine months later, broke, he returned to the stage here in New York, as Hamlet, to a standing ovation; how he bought the house on Gramercy Park South and turned it into the Players Club, a social club for his fellow thespians and others, including Mark Twain and General Sherman; how he built his own theater, the Booth, on Twenty-third and Sixth, where Sarah Bernhardt made her American debut; and how, in the middle of the Civil War, on a train platform in Jersey City, he rescued a young man who had fallen on to the tracks and that man was Robert Todd Lincoln, the president’s son, so he’s the Booth who saved a Lincoln’s life.”

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    Excerpted: “Welcome To The Slavoj Žižek Show,” Spiegel (2010)

    July 9, 2010 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

    "His last wife was an Argentine lingerie model, 30 years his junior." (Image by Andy Miah.)

    A very entertaining douchebag who needs to be smacked with both hands, the Slovenian philosopher and Leftist cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek is the subject of a profile by Philipp Oehmke on the Spiegel website. An excerpt:

    “He gives more than 200 lectures a year and has held visiting professorships at elite American universities. He recently spoke to an audience of 2,000 people in Buenos Aires. He is the subject of two documentary films, and in another film he interprets movies from a psychoanalytical point of view as he speeds across the ocean in a motorboat. There are Žižek T-shirts and Žižek records, and there is a Žižek club and an international Žižek journal.

    His repertoire is a mix of Lacanian psychoanalysis and Hegel’s idealist philosophy–of film analysis, criticism of democracy, capitalism and ideology, and an occasionally authoritarian Marxism paired with everyday observations. He explains the ontological essence of the Germans, French and Americans on the basis of their toilet habits and the resulting relationship with their fecal matter, and he initially reacts to criticism with a cheerful ‘Fuck you!’–pronounced in hard Slavic consonants. He tells colleagues he values but who advocate theories contrary to his own that they should prepare to enter the gulag when he, Žižek, comes into power. He relishes the shudder that the word gulag elicits.”

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    Old Print Article: “Bears In Terrific Fight In Central Park Zoo,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1902)

    July 8, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Come get some, Garibaldi. (Image by Sakurai Midori.)

    People seriously had nothing to do in New York back in the day, so they would stand around for hours at a zoo and watch a couple of bears beat the crap out of each other. Thankfully, a reporter from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle likewise had nothing better to do and was on hand to file a ridiculously long and unnecessary article for the September 28, 1902 edition. The piece was subtitled, “Rocky, the 960 Pound Grizzly Boss of the Cage, Meets His Equal at Last.” An excerpt:

    “While nearly a 1,000 people cheered and groaned alternately, Garibaldi, a 450 pound cinnamon bear, fought to a standstill a 960 pound grizzly bear called Rocky in the most terrific and bloody fight ever witnessed in the Central Park Zoo yesterday afternoon. The battle was fought on the cliff in the bear cage, and, although, neither one was killed, both were so badly used up that they lay on the ground panting for half an hour.

    Garibaldi is a trained bear, and this fact is probably responsible for the defeat of his heavier rival. He was presented to Director Smith of the zoo a week ago by Joseph Sareix, a wandering Italian showman, who told Mr. Smith that Garibaldi was becoming so ugly in his temperament that he was afraid to keep him longer. Sareix said that the animal had been trained for a number of years and was as agile as Jim Corbett. He knew all the tricks of wrestling and was especially strong. His long confinement had made him ugly and Sareix was afraid the animal might turn on him and kill him.

    Rocky has been in the zoo for some time and has been master of the bear cage. He is an ugly looking brute and has always been considered dangerous. Director Smith feared if the two were put together a fight would ensue, and he concluded to keep Garibaldi in a wooden cage until he got used to the feed and the ways of the keepers in the zoo. So the new bear was put in a cage near the big bear cage and the keepers soon discovered why the Italian showman did not care to keep him any longer. The first day he was put in the cage Garibaldi attempted to force the sides.

    This will be my best story ever for the "Eagle."

    The climax came yesterday morning when keeper Billy Snyder went to feed the cinnamon. He discovered that the bear had gnawed a large hole though the cage and that it would be a question of a only a few hours when it would be large enough for the bear to crawl through and make his escape. Snyder reported the matter at once to Director Smith, and, after a consultation with other keepers, it was decided that the only thing to be done was to put Garibaldi in the big bear cage. It was concluded that the little bear could not kill the big fellow, and if the cinnamon was killed the city would not be at a loss, for the animal was a gift.

    The word was spread rapidly through the park that the bear was to be transferred and that there was liable to be a fight, and a big crowd gathered. The reserves were sent from the Central Park station and the crowd was kept at a distance by a roped line. When all was ready the cage was carted up on top of the hill and Garibaldi was admitted to the big bear cage.

    Rocky had been attracted by the crowd around the cage and the roars of Garibaldi, who tried to resist the efforts of his keepers. He recognized a foe and made ready for his entrance into the cage. The cinnamon didn’t flinch, but waited for the grizzly to approach the top of the cliff and then suddenly springing into action dealt the big fellow a blow on the head. Garibaldi had knocked the chip off the other fellow’s shoulder and the fight was on.

    The terrific growling of the bears served to attract a greater number of people than had witnessed the transfer, and when the battle opened there were nearly a thousand people surrounding the bear cage. Men yelled and cheered the little bear on and women groaned and some cried as blow after blow was struck and the bears clinched. For fully twenty minuted the fight continued, first one, then the other, seeming to have the advantage. When the fight was about half over both animals were covered in blood and the sight was so sickening that the women were forced to go away and dragged their children with them.”

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    Urban Studies: I’d Like A $14 Pack Of Cigarettes And An Inflatable Couch, Please

    July 8, 2010 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

    Notice the “Urban Outfitters” sign below the yellow “Grocery” sign.

    In the Wall Street Journal’s commercial real estate section, Anton Troianovski has an interesting note about the forthcoming Urban Outiftters store set to open at 2629 Broadway (near 100th Street) this fall. Instead of the store’s usual facade, it is going to have four faux storefront facades: bodega, bar, hat store and hardware store.

    A chain store trying to make some sort of ironic comment about the disappearance on Mom & Pop stores in Manhattan depresses me a little, but I have to say that the branding firm Pompei A.D. has done a pretty spectacular job on the facades. (Thanks to Boing Boing for pointing me toward the article.) An excerpt from the WSJ piece:

    “Philadelphia-based retailer Urban Outfitters plans to split the facade of a new store on the Upper West Side into four distinct ‘storefronts’: a hat store, a hardware store, a neighborhood bar and a bodega.

    ‘The whole idea was to do this kind of ironic statement of lining the building with storefronts that would be reminiscent of independent businesses,’ says Ron Pompei, creative director of Pompei A.D., which designed the store, slated to open in August. ‘It’s the story about the streets of New York as they once were.'”

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    Decoder: Rush Limbaugh Accuses President Obama Of Willfully Harming The Country

    July 8, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

    Rush Limbaugh: Feeling no pain in his 2006 Palm Beach booking photo.

    Rush Limbaugh: We’re now governed by people who do not like the country, who do not have the same reverence for it that we do. Our greatest threat (and this is saying something) is internal.

    Decoder: I can’t just disagree with Obama on the issues. I can’t simply say that I favor deregulation and other facets of an unfettered free-market system because even though such policy can lead to periods of economic turmoil, it is the best way to foster wealth creation in the long term. I need to demonize Obama with ridiculous ad hominem attacks because I have made my living catering to a base of simpleminded hatemongers.

    Rush Limbaugh: [Obama’s] going to do everything in his power to help our economy create jobs? You mean like shutting down offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska that’s going to wipe out a hundred thousand jobs?  Is that what you mean?  You mean all the other regulations that you are placing on other areas of business that are going to result in a loss of jobs?

    Decoder: Actually it was a lack of regulations that allowed banks to sink our economy and ruin the job market and likely also led to the Gulf oil disaster. And if anything, Obama has been reluctant to step up regulations in the financial sector.

    Rush Limbaugh: We have plenty of external threats, enemies across oceans, but we have a threat inside as well.

    Decoder: Well, I do, anyhow. It’s called my heart. I’ve ingested a lot of pizza delivery and pain pills in my day.

    That'll be $22.50, Butterbean. (Image by Axelv.)

    Rush Limbaugh: Bill Clinton and Hillary were and are pedal-to-the-metal liberals.  But they didn’t want to destroy things. This bunch does.

    Decoder: If Hillary Clinton had won the Presidency, I would be accusing her of willfully destroying the country as payback for sexism.

    Rush Limbaugh: It is exactly how I think Obama looks at the country: It’s payback time. I think that he’s been raised, educated, and believes on his own that this country has been (as you know) immoral and unjust…we have become as large as we are not because of any uniqueness or exceptionalism or greatness but because we’ve simply discriminated against the real people that made the country work, all the minorities…there’s no question that payback is what this administration is all about, presiding over the decline of the United States of America, and doing so happily.

    Decoder: Obama wants to purposely harm the country because he thinks white people need to be taught a lesson for a slavery, and that is why he ruined the economy. Except, of course, the economy collapsed under a white Republican President who I endorsed and supported. Oh, whatever. I just say stupid, irresponsible crap and people give me bags of money.

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    Featured Video: The Tallest Man Ever (1930s)

    July 7, 2010 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

    Robert Wadlow was an attraction for Ringling Brothers in 1935.

    Robert Pershing Wadlow was born in 1918 in Alton, Illinois, and never stopped growing during his brief life because of a pituitary gland malfunction. The tallest human being in recorded history, Wadlow reached close to nine feet high before his death in 1940. British Pathé made a pair of 35-second newsreels about him, in which he appeared to be a good-natured guy with an artistic side. Watch them here and here.

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    The Many Faces of Carl Van Vechten

    July 7, 2010 in Photography | Permalink

    Iowa native Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) was a cultural critic, novelist and photographer, who used his trusty 35mm Leica camera to create portraits of an astounding number of artists. Look at a few below and see more here.

    Cab Calloway, 1933.

    Agnes de Mille, 1941.

    Marlon Brando, 1948.

    Harry Belafonte, 1954.

    Carson McCullers, 1959.

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    Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

    July 7, 2010 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

    Wow, that hurt like a bastard!

    selling bullet proof look alike vest – $75 (Upper West Side)

    selling bullet proof look alike vest. the vest looks like the real deal but its not bullet proof, i has gun holster, clip pockets mase pocket, clips to close the vest. selling for $75 no less text or call only if serious dont waste my time

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    Afflictor Nation: Welcome Aboard, Singapore!

    July 7, 2010 in Misc. | Permalink

    The Singapore Chamber of Commerce.

    The traffic numbers from this weekend are in and those of us in the Afflictor offices in Brooklyn are excited to announce that we have our first visitors from the island nation of Singapore. In many ways, Singapore is a sophisticated, modern country. It has a diverse populace and economy, a dense population that allows for efficient use of resources, a thriving port and great cuisine. But there’s one sort of embarrassing thing about Singapore. How do we put it delicately? They can’t stop caning the living shit out of each other. Since the country has little serious violent crime but occurrences of petty crime (the kind that will get you a caning), we have to assume they’re into it, they’re really, really into it. Maybe it’s a sexual thing. Who knows, but Singapore is the caning capital of the world. Well, apart from the vicious and repeated canings, you have to give Singapore credit for its sleek and comfortable rail transportation. It’s good for the environment and it gives citizens a place to rest their bleeding asses. Anyhow: Welcome, Singapore, to Afflictor Nation!

    Small, Strange & Forgotten Films: All The Vermeers In New York (1989)

    July 7, 2010 in Film | Permalink

    From the time it was called New Amsterdam and controlled by the Dutch, New York has always been about money. But there was a sea change during the 1980s when speculation came to be treated like a sure thing, junk bonds like treasure and art frauds like the real deal. It was only the beginning of Manhattan transforming into a playground for tourists and the wealthy, but what a bracing start it was. Jan Jost’s discomfiting 1989 indie, All the Vermeers in New York, is a bitter, withering takedown of such vapid plastic-and-cash culture.

    Mark (played by artist Stephen Lack) can only vaguely describe his Wall Street job as “money mover” and he’s even more at a loss for words when he spies aspiring French actress Anna (Emmanuelle Chaulet) in the Vermeer room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. From the start, their courtship feels like a negotiation. Mark is looking to acquire some kind of beauty to gird him from the terror of faltering stock markets and Anna is looking for…well, it’s not really clear, but it probably has something to do with cold, hard cash.

    Jost had said at the time of the film’s release that he chose Vermeer’s work because during the artist’s life a Dutch speculative market for tulip bulbs crashed and the filmmaker recognized similarities between the absurdity of old-time bulb traders and modern junk bond kings and art-world hustlers. Jost was spot-on about these parallels, but he was wrong about one vital aspect: The director thought he was making a dirge for a decade of greed, but sadly it was less elegy than prelude.•

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    An interview with Jost at the time of Vermeers:

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