my friday morning coffee-glugging and internet puttering began with a thorough investigation of L.A.'s top dogs (via my sis) - that is, an integrated database of dog names and breeds in los angeles county (also searchable by zip code). a magnificent subsection: lord of the rings names. it makes my heart smile to know that, somewhere in los angeles, there is a dachshund named gandalf.
a home entertaining pitch then led me to yesterday's new york times and "the dining room takes to the streets," a piece on how locals are reappropriating public space for personal use: throwing dinner parties on the brooklyn bridge, turning the empty loading dock next door into a home office, and so on.* the loading dock lady sounds pretty irritating from where i'm sitting, and i haven't decided how i feel about sharing the sidewalk with socialites on safari: "conscious gesture[s] of civic engagement" sound lovely, but what about bringing enough to share with the whole class? that said, times readers' weird, marvelous comments on the article (on memorable 'public' meals) pretty much charm my pants off. easter dinner on a submarine! a banquet in a chinese sewage plant! i need to befriend some foreign dignitaries, or throw together some flash fiction about those meals.
we'll be sticking to personal spaces this weekend, i think: poor joe is in his second week of a tolerable-but-exhausting mystery malady that has stumped new york city's many lazy specialists (seriously: it took two days for the vet to give us the three-legged cat's full blood panel, and it took joe's doc a week to figure out whether or not he had mono), and i will finish a craft project or die tryin'. air will be conditioned! soccer games will be watched! dunkin' donuts workout socks will be worn! i'd sell you the whole seat, internets, but you'll only need the edge.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 heard any good pet names lately?
02 how do you feel about private parties in public spaces?
03 ever strolled by a sidewalk cafe and had an almost irresistible urge to grab one of a stranger's french fries?
*on the flip side, a san francisco-based art collective has gone national with PARK(ing) day, a project that transforms parking spaces into temporary public parks. i loved that idea when it got rolling on the west coast: hooray for pop-up parks out here!
3 comments:
01 i had a coworker with a huge, boisterous samoyed named vinyl. oddly, the name suited the dog perfectly.
and on the LOTR front, i know someone [ahem] with a female corgi named frodo (which leads to great nicknames, like frody and froyo, and of course just fro).
02 the only ones i see are kids' birthday parties at the park, and i have no desire to join them for elmo cupcakes.
03 that would have to be one good cafe. i did see someone steal someone else's fries at a burger king on the massachusetts turnpike when i was about 8. clearly it was traumatic to witness if i still remember it.
oddly, i don't actually want to eat strangers' food: it's the ruckus-causing pilfering that appeals. they just sit there, the fries, totally unaware of the danger they're in.
i have a food-moving thing, too. a little rose potato (with a drawn-on face) migrated around our apartment for a few weeks (hidden under pillows and the like) several years ago; he was pretty cute until he sprouted.
Love me Park(ing) day. I've been reading his wife's blog since, well, I first knew about blogs... 6 years ago now. I however, would like to be invited to a party on the Brooklyn Bridge. Apparently I have a bridal shower coming up in good old NYC sometime in the fall, that might be a cutting edge theme to take care of the retro shower idea?
Post a Comment