Tag: shopping

The Many Lives of the Hippest Street in America

What if YOU lived on the coolest street in America?

Ada Calhoun writes for the New York Times, (and has written for O magazine, The New Republican, The Atlantic, and Cosmopolitan, among others). She grew up as the daughter of 1960s Bohemians who came to live in the East Village during the Bob Dylan era.

Maybe the most ubiquitous thing about the most famous (and infamous) hip section of New York City is how commonly people declare that it’s not as cool as it was before. And strangely, there’s a 100 year- history of just that thing.

Calhoun researched the 400 year history of New York in the St Marks area and she has written a fascinating book called St Marks is Dead which is an excellent commentary on the idea of “cool” as well as a glimpse into one of the most culturally powerful streets in the U.S.

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Ada Calhoun / Author
Ada Calhoun / Author

Her book “St Marks is Dead” can be found here.

A peek at The East Village

SHOWNOTES:

MIN 1:00
The background for her article that went viral “The Wedding Toast I’ll never Give”

1:30
Realism for love and marriage.

2:30
The “and yet” philosophy of paradox in life and love.

3:00
The big flight fight.

4:00
Ada’s mother says, “The way you stay married is you don’t get divorced.”

5:00
The marriage “toolbox” for staying together only had a bent screwdriver and tweezers.

6:30
How her parents’ marriage defied the odds.

6:50
Thinking of a spouse as “family”.

8:00
Thinking of marriage, not as a dating phase, but as becoming family.

9:00
There’s going to be joy and pain both.

11:30
Ada’s parenting book about how you should ignore all the parenting books and look at your kid and figure out who they are, instead of worrying about being the perfect parent:
“Instinctive Parenting: Trusting Ourselves to Raise Good Kids”

12:00
On growing up as the child of 1960’s Bohemians of the Bob Dylan era in New York City’s East Village in the St Mark’s Place neighborhood and being one of the only kids in the neighborhood during a time when it was not child-friendly. (Many fires, the AIDS epidemic hit the area hard, drugs, junkies, homelessness and tent cities, prostitution were all nearby).

18:00
Working at the Austin Chronicle

19:00
On being a journalist in New York City

On her new book “St Marks is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street”

20:30 High rent, and neighborhood changes to St Marks Place cause people to wish for the way it was. They feel betrayed.

Ada researched and found that each generation had the same experience throughout the last century.

21:30
Malcolm Cowley: “Bohemia is always yesterday.”

22:00
What St Marks Place is like in 2015.

23:30
(Lisa) My first experience in New York City.

24:30
Complaining is the one constant in NYC neighborhoods.

25:30
Hippy boom, punk era, DIY art scene, then the GAP moved in in the late 1980s, then the tv show Kids era, then the Bloomsburg era.

26:30
Answering: Where in Manhattan is the artistic cultural hot spot now?

27:30
once a franchise moves in….

29:00
The franchises that opened and then closed in the East Village.

31:00
Places she recommends on St Marks Place. 3rd Avenue to Avenue A: 3 blocks that ends at Thomkins Square Park.

33:30
The median apartment costs more than a million dollars.

36:00
Neil Patrick Harris in Harlem and the upswing of that area.

37:00
Music, and art and going outside can happen in NYC public schools now.

39:00
What was St Marks Place like 400 years ago?

39:30
St Marks Place, the church, is the oldest place of continuous worship in New York City.

40:00
About the racial tension and the hippy priest in 1969, named Michael Allen who was kicked out of St Marks Place.

Encountering your own loneliness

solotext

 

Managing a wine tasting room is a great job for a writer because, when it’s not too busy, you can become a kind of social scientist: observing people and trying to see why humans do what we do.

You can even allow your curiosity to navigate some of the deeper questions about the human experience.

One recent observation:
The “poison apple” of the smart phone has changed how we do things alone–eating, drinking, or traveling, in particular.

FACT: People rarely come to taste wine by themselves (at our place).

That may seem obvious. Wine tends to bring people together, right? Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised that people only rarely come alone.

But it IS strange.

Think about it like this:
Shopping for food or clothes alone isn’t considered weird and people tasting wine are really just shopping for wine.

The only difference perhaps are presumptions, previous experiences, or maybe subterranean social exceptions.

• Feeling low…solo

When people visit the tasting room alone, I can usually sense their social discomfort. They might suddenly offer me a reason why they are alone this time or they might neurotically use their phone to look busy or connected.

The alternative, of course, would be to interact with and absorb the environment they are truly in or look for ways to subvert social fear through some modicum of meaningful interaction: friendliness, conversation, inquisitiveness, for starters. So terrifying is the prospect of looking lonely at a winery, that many solo customers barely experience it at all.

• Confronting fear

This observation got me to thinking of ways I try to numb or avoid these fears or points of discomfort in myself and in my life. What am I missing that I shouldn’t be. The default is to use technology to connect, but at what cost?

When I interviewed Rolf Potts, famed travel-writer and best-selling author, he talked about his own wrestling with the seduction of “not being where he was” by engaging with technology. One of the most memorable things he said was this:

“When you travel alone you are forced to confront your own loneliness and boredom, and interact with your surroundings in ways you can’t [when you’re] with a companion.”

We miss our chances for new experiences with the advent of constant so-called “connectedness”, don’t we?

The habit forms quickly. Only thoughtfulness will heal this malady.

(Here’s the video. He covers that bit around min 2:40.)

 

Do you question how you use technology and confront what it might be stealing from you?

Encountering our loneliness more deeply could create epiphanic moments of self-discovery and new insights into what we fear and what makes us each unique.

 

Maybe it’s time to do something alone to test your social fears, deepen your healthy sense of self, and develop a new sense of social, and even spiritual, courage and strength.

Maybe leave your phone is the car for the 30 min you shop, eat out, or exercise. Good things could happen.

If you like what you’ve read, consider getting my in-depth but consice weekly correspondence, starting soon.
Learn about it here.

Are you a ZOMBIE? 3 Ways to Know if you’re truly stuck and NUMBING-OUT

texting

As a kid I would see adults numb out. (I didn’t know it was that at the time.) They’d get obsessed with hobbies, drink too much, channel surf late into the night, veg-out with a bag of potato chips, flitter about with shopping, or keep their nose in a book. Smart phones hadn’t been invented but going numb abounded!

I sensed I wasn’t like them because I was always moving on to the next adventure. I was sort of powerless as a kid, but I wasn’t stuck. It wasn’t just their actions, it was their faces gave away that something had shut off.

I get it now.

I get that we grow to numb out because it’s a way to reduce anxiety. Anxiety doesn’t lessen with age. In fact, more disappointments have piled up and more is at stake after a few decades of life. Disappointment, pain, fear, and frustration all drive us to numb out. I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t do it in some variety.

The difference is that some people can block and judo chop numbness and start moving again, and others get stuck in a pattern they go back to it–like food, or stay stuck in it–like a bed. That makes you fat and sleepy. Undead. A Zombie.

 

I have to fight off a tendency to go numb and zombie out, too. Life is painful, I get it. But, I’ve realized it’s worth the fight. (It’s an actual life or death struggle.)

Blasting numbness takes skills.

But how can you tell if you’re numb or just in a slump?
Here are 3 Ways:

 

1. You just can’t “get to it” 

Whether it’s that you’re -super busy-, or that you feel the conditions are never quite right to get started, there is a special sort of “stuckness” that signals Numb territory. You meant to. You want to. You should. But, there’s lag and drag.

2. You’re distracted by design

You try to stay busy or occupied (whether you realize it or not). Maybe you check your emails a lot, or play apps or video games, surf the net for reading material or naked people, or scrapbook like mad. Maybe you text a lot, or you have to “get your run on” (frantic exercise), maybe you troll blogs, or do Facebook on your Smart Phone when you find a gap in your day. You want a break! It makes sense.

Or maybe, it’s more subtle. Maybe the kids have crazy schedules of activities you must attend to. Whatever it is, you have to admit that you’re trying to appease to your restlessness. You’re trying to stay moving but really you’re going nowhere. In the end, you only want more “soothing” or movement because you’re still in the same place.

3. You’re less connected

Have you really opened up to a friend lately, face-to-face? Can people get close to you or really know you? Have you avoided getting close to other people because they seem like a pain in the butt? This is because there is something painful about it. You want to avoid that stuff and you want to stay numbed out. People are a great source of anxiety for all kinds of reasons, but disconnection means you’ll stay numb. It’s time to be fearless.

What’s really so bad about going numb or staying numb?

Tons, but I’ll limit it to 3.

• You. Stay. Stuck. (Hardly anything is more frustrating. It’s like a jail. But, you made this jail. It’s time to get out.)

• You stop growing as a person. (Remember the cranky neighbor or the jerk boss? That is or will be you! Don’t be that guy. Remember, the mean librarian or pissed off gym teacher. Don’t let it come to that.)

• Deadness. Zombies look cool in the movies, but…hello…they. are. dead. (and they eat the brains of living people. gross. Wow. How true is that, anyway?)

If you are numb, you are deadened. You can’t feel the good stuff either, like love, acceptance, belonging, and joy. (This stinks because it’s hardly living when you’re numb to the good stuff!) You can’t fine tune numbness. It’s a categorical deadening.

I can’t stress this enough: Don’t be a Zombie.

In the next post, I’ll share best practices for judo chopping numbness in the neck…and getting on with your best life. (Click the content link in the right sidebar to get that post zipped right to you.) 

Now you’ll like this! Check out what a good judo chop can do.

(photo source)

Things you see at Christmas: Irony

Christmas time can be strange.

The pressure of donning Christmas spirit can produce mistakes.

Keep your sense of humor

 

When was the last time you wanted to wear this shirt?

Day 6-Weird Santa Photo (STRESSED!)

Sometimes Christmas is Stressful. You’ve just had it. The kid in this photo is at the end of his patience. I imagine he endured being dragged by his mum or dad to do a bunch of shopping for Christmas presents for a few hours, and then they had the nerve to subject him to posing with Jolly Saint Nick, for some insult to injury.

Have you reached this stage yet? Is it likely?

Any responses, caption ideas, or Christmas updates to report?

"As if it couldn't get any worse...now this."