apple memorial

Thanks, Gawker, for this trip down memory lane where Apples were Lisas, phones stayed in one place and art directors' default type was Cooper Black. (For more remembrance, visit the Apple ad graveyard)

#33--pay phones that worked

Another thing about the old days, people walking by a ringing payphone would answer it. This guy used to prank-call the pay phone outside his window on 2nd Ave and 30th Street. Note the SUV-free avenue and the price of a hot dog: $1.

32 things I miss about new york

Today's NY Times memorializes New York Past, citing gone-but-not-forgotten institutions like automats, subway tokens, the Dodgers and other things endemic to the city when I moved here in 1979, meaning to stay just a year or two. For some of us, New York is like those old Roach Motels (where bugs check in, but they don't check out.)

Other icons of Manhattan that I used to think were forever:

1. grafitti "art" on subways

2. The Mill Luncheonette and its sublime egg creams (the first time I had one, I wondered where was the egg)

3. checker cabs with jump seats that folded

4. John Lennon

5. Pan Am sign on the Met Life building where I used to work

6. Alphabet City--such a better name than the Lower East Side

7. selzer delivered in colored glass bottles in wooden crates (although I cancelled our service after it brought in roaches)

8. Not having to dial 212 when you called someone in the city. Phone numbers had letter code "exchanges" that told you where someone lived: MU meant Murray Hill, CH meant Chelsea. So you'd know if a prospective hook-up was GU (geographically undesirable)

9. Andy Warhol

10. Studio (nobody said 54)

11. Rumplemeyers

12. orange paper transfers for buses

13. phone booths where you could make a call on the street in peace

14. Gimbels (where I bought our dining room table at its going out of business sale)

15. used book stores

16. Claremont Stables

17. cabbies who spoke English

18. buying subway tokens (with cutout Y) at the newsstand

19. straps on the subway to help keep your balance

20. Woolworths (where my toddlers were entertained by the birds in cages long enough for me to shop)

21. Being able to leave your toddlers safely for a few minutes in the pet section of a Woolworth's

22. Tower Records

23. Columbia Bagels on 110th & Bway

24. Fulton Fish Market

25. Plaza Hotel where I used to take my daughters for tea and a look at the Eloise portrait

26. Breakfast with Santa at Lord + Taylor, before the store opened, when counters were covered with sheets.

27. Thalia Theater which screened movie classics on the UWS

28. Russian Tea Room (not that I went there more than twice, but liked hearing about it)

29. Maxwell's Plum (hangout for young creatives)

30. smoking cigarette billboards on Times Square

31. the skyline

32. The chatty subway conductor on the #1 who had a running commentary all the way to South Ferry. His sardonic announcements like "Do persuade yourself to join us. Allow the doors to close" put you in a good mood, even if was Monday, even if you were going to work.

A few things I do NOT wax nostalgic for:

1. "window washers" with dirty squeegees who used to attack your car when you came out of Lincoln Tunnel

2. being afraid to walk in Central Park after, say 4 pm

3. dueling shoulder-mounted boom boxes on the subway. Although some riders play their IPODs loud enough for me to want to reach across and thumb down the volume.

4. ugly old Bryant Park 

5. meetings in smoky offices

art credit: My Father in the Subway III, 1982 (oil on panel) by Max Ferguson

new language: global brandspeak

A random comment on Jane's brilliant fun-with-brands post resulted in unprecedented bounce count for me yesterday. Her Brand Timeline Portrait (inspired by Noah Brier's Brand Tags) bounced me browsers from not only from our longitude but Mumbai, Warsaw, Cairo, Stockholm, Santiago, Zurich, Bucharest, Portugal, Helsinki, Lithuania, Slovakia, Croatia, Nairobi, Singapore.

What accounts for her viral's global virility? I think she invented a new language. Universal brand speak. The happy result of multinational corporations spending obscene amounts on global ad campaigns is, they've bequeathed to consumers an international language. All over the world, people who share a certain lifestyle know that google=searching. Nike=just do it. Mastercard=priceless. So now we don't have to go thru the pesky process of memorizing foreign vocab and tenses--we can say it with brands.

Looking for love? Put out the word in Global Brandspeak:

Anyone who can't translate older woman of real (if in need of some retouching) beauty seeking older non-metrosexual man to bring good things to life, well, you're not interested anyway.

super sassy and fun to wear!

Though some NYC middleschoolers hold the flattering assumption that I am cyber-savvy enough to shut down their facebook accounts (see under posted items), I'm actually kind of a computer dunce. I'm new to Facebook and Twitter. Haven't switched yet to Leopard. I still Quark, for god's sake. The only reason I can keep up this site is because Blogger is so easy to use, a caveman could do it. 

But even with such a simple webpublisher, I have to jerry-rig systems to successfully navigate. For instance, I've never figured out how to refresh my home page without toggling back and forth to "See Next Post." Which is OK. Because I get to a lot of interesting blogspots this way, sites I'd never find on my own. Like this one that appears to be hosted by a woman from Stepford:

How did I ever live without this handy (and stylish) apron? My BFF made this for me and hand delivered it this past weekend. This little helper is chalk full of details, including pockets that slant to the sides to prevent pens and tools from stabbing when sitting down. On top of it all...it's super sassy and fun to wear!

These would go like hotcakes in the back of Adweek, don't you think? Holds all those items (bberry, biz cards, ipod, building ID) harried ad execs are always misplacing.

twitter bully still at large-UPDATE

Blogger Ariel Waldman has been harassed on Twitter by a cyberbully since June 2007, but Twitter refuses to do anything about it because:

Unfortunately, although [this user’s] behavior is admittedly mean, [s/he] isn’t...doing anything illegal.

UPDATE- Read latest Twitter responses and AW's take on situation in new post.

Too bad Waldman isn't a parent of a middle schooler in New York City where she'd apparently wield more cyber clout. Middle school students at several schools across the city were dismayed this week when their Facebook accounts were unexpectedly closed, in conjunction with the shut-down by "an unknown force" of a pseudo-Gossip Girl site started by an anonymous 8th grader calling herself Miss ITK (Miss In The Know). The blog catalogued the class of 2012 into A lists and B lists causing consternation and tears among 8th grade girls--and their parents. (Cache of a blog page still here, as of posting.)

A spokeswoman for Facebook, Malorie Lucich, said accounts are disabled if terms of service are in violation.

See, Twitter? For the sake of abiding members, other providers take TOS seriously.

flesh-eating vegetarians aren't frauds, they're flexitarians

From today's NY Sun:

Broadway East might easily be mistaken for a vegetarian restaurant, with its plates of macrobiotic grains and dairy-free simulated cheeses. But close perusal of the menu turns up a roast chicken dish that's made with real chicken. The black cod is not ersatz either.

The new spot is built for flexitarians, that breed of mostly vegetarian eater that doesn't mind a helping of animal protein now and then.