Great Romance

Is each great romance 

Destined neatly in advance 

Or the fruit of chance?

Standardized Test

Life is like taking a standardized test. You start with what you know, eliminate bad choices, and trust that if you can stay focused, you’ll figure out the rest before time is up.

Easily Distracted

I didn’t hear you 

I’m easily distracted 

And you look so nice 

Effortless

Practice what you do until it’s effortless and precise. Celebrate what you’ve accomplished and enjoy putting it into action. Then go practice something else, because if you’re not challenged, you’ll feel bored.

Random Thoughts - 20190829

You don’t have to be an expert to know when someone is full of baloney.

Don’t call it a momentary delay if it’s going to last longer than a moment.

Boys are like toys. Wind them up and watch them go!

Why do what other people do? Be special. Be you.

Make someone happy, but be careful. It’s contagious.

The best thing that you can do for yourself is the best thing that you can do for someone else.

Let Other People Inspire You

Don’t be discouraged when someone does something better than you can. Let other people’s successes inspire you. Realize that you can learn to do the same things in the same way that they did. You might not end up being better than they are, but that’s not the point. You’ll be better than you were before. Personal growth is more important than personal comparisons. None of us will ever be Mozart or Michelangelo. We don’t have to be. We can become a better version of ourselves, and when we do, the sense of fulfillment that comes along with it will be uplifting and genuinely deserved.

New York Minute 157 - Cracking The Code

I saw a sign on the subway yesterday advertising continuing education classes. The headline read:

Get Trained.

Get Hired.

The sign was positioned to be read by seated passengers. From my standing position, I didn’t have an unobstructed view of the top line. A light fixture blocked all but the very bottom of the letters.

I had a clearer view of the bottom row, but a vertical pole blocked the middle of the message. I couldn’t see the ‘H’ or the ‘T’.

Presented with this incomplete jumble of letters and partial letters, my mind read: 

Get Framed.

Get Fired.

Perhaps I’ve been watching too much television.

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

All Rights Reserved

New York Minute 156 - Times Square Station

I ended up working late last night. A storm blew through in the early evening, and I decided to wait it out, because I had plenty of work to do. I ended up leaving the office around 9:30. I debated going home by taxi, but I hate to waste the money, and the air was clear and warm. I decided to walk to walk past a couple of available taxis and take the subway. 

Two blocks later, I had second thoughts about that decision. It started raining again, and before long, it was coming down hard. I hadn’t brought an umbrella; the weather forecast hadn’t mentioned a chance of rain. Before long, I was soaked and looking for shelter. 

I normally take the Q train home, but that station was still several blocks from my current position. There was a station for A, C, and E trains nearby, so I decided to take one of them uptown and switch to the Q at 42nd Street/Times Square.

The first train to arrive was a C. The A (express) was eight minutes away according to the monitors, so I decided not to wait for it.

The C plodded along for the first few stations, but it increased in speed after West 4th Street, and I arrived at Times Square without further delay.

I have walked the length of the Times Square subway station many times before (I think that every New York commuter has at some point). I remember it being a long and complicated path though cramped tunnels and up and down a series of staircases. But last night, it seemed to take forever. It probably didn’t help that it was late, I was, tired, hungry, and wet, and the station was inexplicably mobbed for that hour of the night. But wow! It felt as though I’d spent an entire weekend underground. They should give out medals for people who make that trek.

The silver lining was that the air temperature in the station is well managed. When I first started working in New York, subway stations didn’t have air conditioning. That wouldn’t seem like a problem, given that they are underground, but a surprising amount of heat builds up down there. 

The subway cars are air conditioned, and they blow heat out into the stations. Steam pipe infrastructure probably contributes heat as do the million plus people who ride those trains every day. I remember walking through the tunnels under Times Square when it was at least 110 degrees Fahrenheit. (I a, not exaggerating.) That was a special kind of misery.

Transit fares have gone up substantially since my early days in the city. But as long as those trains get me to where I’m going, and as long as the MTA keeps those air conditioners on line, I’m not going to complain.

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

All Rights Reserved

Back On Tour

God bless the bands that didn’t save money. They’re back on tour.

Working Through Lunch

Working through lunch is like paying taxes while making love. Give your food the attention that it deserves.

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

All Rights Reserved

Sadness And Happiness

Sadness and happiness are like a brother and sister growing up in the same house. Occasionally, we’re alone with one of them, but most days, we deal with both of them at the same time.

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

All Rights Reserved

Love And Romance

Romance is best expressed in grand or intimate gestures: bouquets, candlelit dinners, poetry, or an evening of dancing. 

Love expresses itself in simpler, more utilitarian ways: mending a shirt, getting the kids up for school, taking out the trash, or buying someone’s favorite ice cream when it goes on sale.

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

All Rights Reserved

How News Networks Structure Debate Questions

How news networks structure debate questions:

Senator Adams, you’ve proposed giving electric yo-yos to all school children under the age of six. Governor Baker claims that your plan is unworkable and calls you an orthogonal platypus. How would you respond to Governor Baker?

A Stark Difference In Priorities

A child dies in federal custody. Republicans take no action, blame the parents.

A child molester dies in federal custody. Republicans demand an investigation, blame the Clintons.

Unsettling Dreams

Like runaway trains 

Unsettling dreams 

Rampage through places 

Where they shouldn’t be 

Race forward with fury 

‘Til they run out of steam 

And we sift through the chaos 

Searching 

For what it all means 

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

All Rights Reserved

If You Are Waiting For The Right Time

If you want to do something but you’ve been waiting for the right time to get started, stop waiting. Get started today. Get started now. If this thing that you want to do is important, if it will add to your life and the lives of those around you, it’s critical that you start working on it right away.

Delaying buys you nothing. It only robs you of time, hours and months and years that you will never get back. Time is the most precious resource. Why would you give it away? Why would you not make full use of it? Procrastinating won’t move you toward what you, what you need. It only makes it harder to reach.

There’s no such thing as the right time. It’s an illusion and a dangerous distraction. There will always be conflicts in your schedule. There will always be challenges in your life. You will always be busy. People will always need you. You will always have to deal with competing interests and demands.

Make up your mind today and take that first bold step forward. Carve out time in your schedule, even if it’s just a few minutes here or there. 

No one ever says, “I wish that I’d started later.” You’ll wish that you had started EARLIER. You’ll with that you were farther along. You’ll recognize the cost of the time that’s slipped away.

But it’s more serious than simply wanting to be farther along in your journey. Delay too long, and one day, your dreams will be pushed permanently out of your reach. Missed opportunity is one of life’s great tragedies. Don’t let that happen. Make up your mind, take the initiative, and get started today. 

Friday Hugs

It’s Friday. Give someone a nice, warm hug. If they’re far away and you really miss them, give them a video chat that they’ll never forget.

Egomaniacal Judgment

It was heartwarming to see the outpouring of sympathy for Jussie Smollett when he claimed to have been the victim of a hate crime. But what really impressed me, and what gives me hope for the human race, was all of the people who owned up to their mistake and apologized for rushing to judgment when the whole incident turned out to be a hoax. 

I made that last part up. Nobody did that. None of those vindictive, vociferous critics who screamed loudly and angrily about the unfairness of that alleged beating bothered to speak up and admit publicly that they were wrong. The world is full of seething, judgmental egomaniacs. Mankind is a mess.

INF Fallout

August 2: The US withdraws from the INF nuclear arms treaty with Russia (originally negotiated by President Reagan).

August 8: A radioactive explosion kills engineers testing a new secret weapon for the Russian military.

That didn’t even take a week.

The Purpose Of The Journey

The purpose 

Of the journey 

Is not simply 

To arrive 

But to enjoy 

Being fully alive 

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

All Rights Reserved

Everyday Blessings

Every day brings blessings. On some days, we have to look more closely to notice them.

New York Minute 155 - Recycling Plastic

Recycle a plastic bottle in New York, and the state will pay you five cents. The money doesn’t actually come from the state. It’s a deposit that was collected at the time that the bottle was purchased as an incentive to recycle. But a lot of people don’t bother to recycle; they just toss their bottles into the trash. 

Other people, people who need money, go through trash cans and trash bags collecting any bottles that they can find. They trade the bottles in for cash. It’s a common activity; I see people scavenging for recyclables every day.

They tend to do this early in the morning or just before sunset. Mild temperatures could explain this timing in the summer, but the schedule seems to hold steady throughout the year for reasons that I don’t understand.

I saw a couple of scavengers picking through a garbage bag this morning as I was walking to the office. I was a bit concerned when I saw them, because they were picking through a pile of broken glass to collect their plastic bottles. I don’t know if the glass came from the garbage bag, or if someone had broken some it in the vicinity, but there was a lot of it.

I’ve see an alarming amount of broken glass in the streets and on the sidewalks this year. Smashing glass bottles seems to be one of the current fads for people with a lot of rage and limited productive outlets. Vandals have been smashing the screens of the free Internet stations that the city has provided, as well. It’s a shame. It’s dangerous, and in the case of the Internet screens, expensive to the taxpayer.

At one time, plastic bottles seemed like a wonderful alternative to glass. They don’t break or leave hazardous shards behind. I would be much more comfortable taking a plastic bottle into a slimming pool, for instance. But the environmental impacts of plastic are severe. 

One potential solution to plastic pollution is to return to distributing beverages in glass bottles. Glass can be sterilized and reused But glass requires care, and this isn’t a careful world. It’s a break it if it can be broken world. 

I don’t know what the ideal product is for replacing plastic containers, but if it’s breakable, it’s not going to work. Some people derive a bit too much pleasure from breaking things.

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

All Rights Reserved

New York Minute 154 - Subway Sampler

While waiting to board the subway this weekend, I noticed that the first two cars of the train were nearly empty, while the rest were crowded. When cars are unexpectedly empty, it can signify a problem, like a smelly passenger or a faulty air conditioning unit. Being alone on an empty subway car increases your risk of being isolated with a criminal. I decided to avoid those cars and push my way into one of the crowded third ones.

As soon as the doors closed, I was confronted with the annoyance of someone playing their music out loud. I have written about this before; it’s a returning nuisance. After blasting music in public in the 70’s and 80’s, people became more discreet in the 90’s and 00’s. They wore headphones and enjoyed their tunes privately. But not anymore. 

The music was pleasant, but it was unwelcome in the context of public transportation. No one wants to be forced to listen to music while they are locked into a moving vehicle. The sound seemed to be centered around a gentleman who was holding his phone in his hand while seated. I couldn’t figure out how his phone was playing the music at such a high volume, but I didn’t spend time trying to figure it out. I did my best to ignore him. Finally, I noticed that he was wearing battery-powered speakers on his belt. The speakers weren’t huge, but they were a lot louder than a phone. People were giving the guy annoyed glances.

I had had enough. At the next station stop, I stepped out onto the platform and dashed over to the next car, one of the two that I had avoided earlier because they were empty. 

As soon as I stepped in through the doorway, I realized why the car was empty. The interior was hot. The air conditioning wasn’t working, and the system was blowing heat. I hung on for a couple of stops, but I didn’t want to be covered with sweat when I reached my destination. I also didn’t want to go back to the car where Mr. Beatbox was playing his tunes, and I feared that the other empty car might have some new unpleasant surprise in store. I took a deep breath of hot air and a bolted to the car at the front of the train.

The air conditioning was working fine on the first car, and there was plenty of space. One person that I walked past had body odor and smelled of ear wax, but it didn’t fill the car. I stood far enough away that I didn’t smell them. 

Finally, I felt comfortable, as comfortable as one can on feel while riding on the New York subway system. At the next stop, a very large transvestite come on board, but she was quiet, sat at the end of the car, and kept to herself. All things are relative; this was the best spot on the train.

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

All Rights Reserved

If Stupid Were A Color

I swear! If stupid were a color, some people would paint themselves with it.

Defeating Nationalist Extremists

Americans once crossed an ocean to defeat violent nationalist extremists. Today, nationalist extremists kill us in our malls and our churches, our festivals and our neighborhoods, and our leaders claim that there’s nothing that they can do about it. These career political hacks, who have long since outlived their usefulness, cower in terror at the thought of upsetting the one percent of the population that buys fifty percent of all of the firearms sold here. It’s irresponsible and it’s pathetic. Vote them out.

Random Thoughts - 20190808

Love is knowing a person’s faults and still wanting to be with them.

Disingenuous politeness is more irritating than forthright contempt.

It’s not enough to know it; you have to show it. It’s not enough to want it; you have to prove it.

I walked in that way because I do own the place.

If you want to feel happy, first give that feeling to someone else.

Deadly Scourge

Yesterday, August 6, was the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, when an entire city was destroyed by a nuclear weapon. Tens of thousands of people died instantly. Many of those who made it through the initial blast and the intense heat died in the following weeks and months of gruesome radiation-related illnesses. Long term survivors carried the scars of their burns and the shock of witnessing the most horrifying spectacle in the history of warfare.

It amazes me that so few people are aware of the date and its significance. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 9) are not dusty chapters of history; they are harbingers of a horrifyingly probable future. There are thousands of nuclear weapons in the world today, each of them far more powerful than the devices that were deployed in Japan in 1945. Any one of these devices could massacre millions of human beings in an instant. Mankind has lost the sense of the seriousness of nuclear war would be. It’s become an abstract idea, like a scene from a heroic movie that we can switch off when we want to. But we can never switch off the threat of deployment of weapons of mass destruction. They are real, they are terrifying, and the people in charge of their deployment are, in some cases, reckless in irresponsible. As long as these weapons exist, the threat of their deployment is imminent, and the damage that they would cause is incalculable, a massive deadly scourge on an already troubled and brittle planet.

Endless Massacres

White men commit endless gun massacres while the Trump Administration protects us from Central American toddlers.

New York Minute 153 - Mobile Breakfast

On two separate mornings this past week, I watched someone walk onto the subway, take a seat, pull out a container of cooked food, and eat their breakfast on the train. It was a guy in both cases (not the same guy), and their food had a repulsive smell. The smell was so strong, I was compelled to move away several steps each time in order to avoid feeling nauseous.

The fellow having breakfast on the train yesterday morning took dining on public transportation to a new level, eating like an unsupervised toddler. 

In the small, clear plastic container that held his breakfast was a chicken breast, an ear of corn, and a serving of angel hair pasta. I couldn’t see into the box, which was wrapped in an opaque plastic bag, but I saw him pick the chicken and the corn up with his fingers and inspect them before deciding what to start eating.

He began with the angel hair pasta. He struggled with it, because the only utensil that he’d brought along was a plastic spoon. To be fair, I would have struggled, too, using just a spoon, but I might have waited until I could get my hands on a fork before attempting to eat capellini.

He held the spoon in his somewhat unsteady left hand and tried unsuccessfully to pick up bits of pasta. He had to reach in with his other hand to help scoop the pasta onto his spoon. This went on for a while, during which time the poor fellow dropped a fair amount of pasta onto his clothing. Each time he dropped a bit, he would carefully pick it up strand by strand with his fingers and put it into his mouth.

After a while, the guy gave up on the pasta. It was too laborious to eat it with a spoon. He picked up the ear of corn and ate it slowlyand methodically. I didn’t see him attempt to eat the chicken breast; he might have been saving it for later. 

After working on the corn for a while, the gent returned to his capellini. This time, he didn’t even attempt to use the spoon. He just ate with his his, pinching one strand at a time with his fingers (I’m not kidding) and putting each strand into his mouth. 

I hope that the guy enjoyed his meal. He worked hard enough for it.

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

All Rights Reserved

New York Minute 152 - Higher Standards

I am a photographer in a big city, and sometimes I photograph people without getting their permission in advance. If they are speeding down the street on a skateboard, I can’t strike up a conversation with them. But I do try to conduct myself in a way that won’t make my subject or the people around me uncomfortable. I never try to hide or sneak up on people. I’m open about what I’m doing. I am approachable if people have questions, and when it’s practical to do so, I will chat with them beforehand and ask their permission before taking their photo. More people are agreeable when you approach them respectfully.

To put this in context, there is an entire of genre of photography that prides itself on sneaking around and snapping pictures of people surreptitiously. Practitioners of this genre believe that the photographs aren’t genuine if the subject is aware of what’s happening before the exposure is captured. 

I have an issue with this. It makes me uncomfortable when I catch someone taking my picture without asking permission, and as a photographer, I notice this happening more often than the layperson would. People who conduct themselves in this way are anti-social chickenshits who try to justify their cowardice with delusions of photojournalistic authenticity, but I digress. 

Rather than lowering myself to the level of cowardly snipers, I hold myself to a higher standard. I do what I can to avoid making my subjects uncomfortable, and I avoid taking photos that are not flattering. I ask myself, “If the subject were to see this picture on my website, would they be pleased with it?”

Which brings is to today’s New York Minute...

While walking with my camera at lunchtime, I spotted a handsome young gentleman standing on a shaded patch of sidewalk, painting a colorful picture on an easel. My camera was out and ready. I could have squeezed off a shot before the guy knew what what happening, and he may never have been the wiser. But that would go against my standards. Since the fellow wasn’t speeding away - has fast can you run with an open easel and a wet canvas? - I had a chance to approach him and ask his permission before shooting. 

The guy was fine with it. “Sure! I don’t mind!” he said warmly. 

I turned to walk back a couple of steps to frame the shot, and there was some asshole standing there taking a picture with his phone of me talking to the painter. Good job, chickenshit! Thanks for making my point!

I took my shots and thanked the painter for his time. As I was about to continue on my way, it occurred to ask him for his card. He offered it to me cheerfully. I haven’t had a chance to check out his website, yet, but if the work is as good as what he was painting today, I’ll gladly share the URL and help to promote his business. 

I gave him my card, as well. I got my photos, I made a contact, and I didn’t leave anyone feeling uncomfortable. Win-win! It pays to maintain high standards.

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

All Rights Reserved

New York Minute 151 - Crossing Against The Light

I was waiting at a corner for the light to change when two well-heeled ladies in their seventies walked past me and stepped into the street. A lady with dark hair stopped short of the traffic lane. The other one, a blonde, marched right across the street without checking for traffic. 

A silver Mercedes Benz was approaching the intersection. The driver, another fancy-looking lady in the same age bracket, calmly stopped her vehicle short of the crosswalk and avoided hitting the jaywalker. 

The woman who had crossed carelessly defied logic further by stopping in the middle of the street, right in front of the slowing car, instead of scurrying to safety on either side of the street. After shooting a nasty glance toward the driver, she finished crossing. The driver, who deserves a medal for her calmness as well as her caution, proceeded on her way as though nothing had happened.

Since no other cars were coming, the dark-haired woman who had waited before crossing now walked to the other side to join her extremely fortunate blonde friend.

“I missed the light,” the blonde admitted, “but she could have stopped!”

I was aghast at the arrogance. “She DID stop, you self-important imbecile!” my internal voice screamed contemptuously. “If she hadn’t, you would be lying in the street right now with broken bones and life-threatening internal injuries!”

One of the amazing qualities of human beings is the ability rewrite history as it unfolds, and then walk away fully believing their own self-supporting bullshit.

Copyright © 2019 Daniel R. South 

All Rights Reserved