Halloween in the Big, Razor-Free Apple

Observation on October 31, 2004 on Halloween in New York:
-The crowds full of normal people intermixed with a few costumed people calls attention to the costumes New Yorkers wear every day: Hipster, ho, Hasid, high-stakes money manager, everyone's got a look tonight just as every night.
-Down in the Village, Halloween night is Halloween. Up in the Upper West Side (ie: The Toddler District), it's repurposed for greater convenience: Yesterday, Sheryl and I saw a Hispanic nanny leading a little Batman and a little Bob the Builder out for a more time-efficient Saturday October 30th afternoon trick-or-treat.
-And, earlier in the day, at the 100th St. school fundraiser street fair, where the costumes were already being put to good use, I witnessed an all-politics-is-really-local moment, when I was waiting to buy some mac-and-cheese with my four ($10 for 1o) tickets. A gray-bearded man in a Montessori T-shirt chided the food vendors for charging way-over-market prices for these cheap foods. They kind of sputtered, completely not expecting this, until I went to place my order. Suddenly, despite my silence, I was a part of the dispute. One of the women pointed to me and said, "See? He doesn't think it's too much." I continued to hold my tongue, but she then correctly identified my motivation, "because it's for a good cause." To which he replied, "No it isn't - because that school doesn't involve the parents." They replied, "We are the parents." After he walked off, one of them said he was hired by the city to challenge such activities as theirs. I couldn't quite figure out: was it because parental fundraising makes the city look bad, or was it a teachers'-union-versus-parents power struggle? All I know is, I enjoyed the mac-and-cheese and thought I really got my four tickets' worth.
-My favorite costumes spotted:
*A full-body, headpiece-included, plush "Red Hook" bottle
*A girl in a white robe and a helmet that was either a papal mitre or a Power Rangers helmet. ("I smite thee in nomine patria, Rita Repulsa!")
*a sleek-black-coolie-hatted "The Good Earth"-era-ninja, and his belly dancer girlfriend
*a guy in an Andy Warhol wig waiting impatiently outside a liquor store to see if it would open, stalking off when it didn't (in the future, we will all manage to stay off the wagon for 15 minutes.)
-A variety of headgear-only, otherwise too-cool-for-costume New Yorkers, but with headgear that's perfectly outrageous: rainbow wigs, huge outsized hats (in one case, a couple with pink-and-blue his-and-hers plush derbies), massive afros (one on a scowling guy, his scalp-based whimsy clearly not trickling down). This year's hot head item: electric flashing devil horns.
-In front of "Krust," a Caribbean fast food place, an orange-wigged woman portraying a Western-type witch to entice passersby in. Ironically, an authentic Caribbean witch costume might have proven more of a lure.
-Also amusing: My taxi driver (taking me home from just seeing the coincidentally zombie-themed "Shaun of the Dead") is unusually pissed at the traffic backup due to the imminent Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, grumbling, "I fucking hate this shit." At first I think, "That's not in the holiday spirit." But then I think more of what the holiday represents, and I realize, "Yeah, I guess it is."
-But the evening's biggest irony: I was unable to go to the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade -- where Sheryl and I started dating -- because Sheryl felt it was unsafe, in New York in this pre-Election Day weekend, for me to be at such a large public event. Actual fear was hindering participation in our culture's elaborate pageant of fear.

Brazil Naughts

On a whim, Sheryl and I went to see Caetano Veloso -- the "Paul Simon of Brazil" -- at the historic Beacon Theater Wednesday night. Even though we bought tickets 45 minutes prior, with the cashier telling us, "There'll still be some left" when we said we needed to go to an ATM for cash -- there were still at least four scalpers outside. After a full half-hour delay for seating people, and some proactive audience applause to urge the show on, Veloso came out and introduced each of his touring group by name, and then "these New York musicians," at which point a black-clad mini-orchestra stood up, with no further identification than that. Veloso did an accentually idiosyncratic, mellow-guitar-inflected version of an American standard. Then another. Then another. Turns out he was doing many of the cuts off his new album of American standards, "Foreign Sound." Among his interpretations was a compelling "I'll Take Manhattan" -- complete with a jokey ad-lib of "perfect for a Jew and goy" which was no doubt hilarious to the largely Brazilio-American crowd -- a much happier-than-the-original cover of Nirvana's "Come As You Are, and a rap, during which this silver-haired, black sweatered gentleman in his 60s sat down on his stool, put on his reading glasses, and read the rap off a lyrics sheet, occasionally stopping to make "pistol" signs with his hands. Basically, Veloso could do whatever crazy physical business occurred to him, and be guaranteed a huge crowd reaction, as witnessed when he did a 20-second, lethargic, non-travelling "Moonwalk" at the edge of the stage. And this dynamism even worked against him, as when he seemed to be trying to signal us to sing along during the "Memor-y-a" chorus of "CAYA", but might have just been making big hand scoops in the air -- wasn't clear. The sequence after "ITM" was nice, because he then read from his book a passage about Manhattan, then played one of his own, Brazilian songs about it. But for the most part, he played sadistically none of the songs that had made him legendary enough to bring all these compatriates (and at least 2 distinctly gringo Jews) out to hear him. At the end, he came out for his encore and mentioned the names of these songs -- so he couldn't well plead that he'd simply forgotten them -- but then launched into just one of the lesser ones.

The Birds & the Bees & the Loofas & Falafels

Actual quotes from the "Sex" chapter of Bill O'Reilly's new advice book, "The O'Reilly Factor for Kids":

"Thanks to some of the loonier films and magazines today, many of you know a lot about unusual sexual practices." (p. 72)

"No matter how much you know about bodies, positions, practices, and preferences, you are nowhere near having the combination of maturity and insight that meaningful sex requires."
(p. 73)

"Your shoulders are getting broader, your breasts are becoming more prominent..." (p. 73)

"When you are interested in someone only on the basis of physique, you are dehumanizing him or her, seeing that person only as an attractive object." (p.74)

"By the way, the person you have sex with IS likely to tell. Think about that before you do anything." (p.74)

"Guys, if you exploit a girl, it will come back to get you." (p.75)

"Are you surprised by my thoughts on the subject? Did you think that O'Reilly would tell you sex is off-limits? As you know, things are more complicated than that." (p.75)

NY Encounters: Where Hollywood Buys Its Mentos

Sheryl and I were out walking on Broadway this afternoon, and we stopped at a news-bodega at 95th Street to buy the Rolling Stone with Jon Stewart on the cover. Feeling exuberant, Sheryl pointed to the cover and me and told the vendor, "That's his boss!" The vendor replied, "Want to see a picture of me? It is not what you would expect." Frankly, we weren't expecting to be asked in the first place, but we consented. The man - whose name we would soon learn was Zahir -- produced a photo album, the first page of which showed a younger, barechested Zahir. I didn't know if I liked where this photographic exchange was going, but Sheryl quickly (and correctly) guessed that he used to be a body-builder. Then Zahir posed a challenge: "I have met a famous person. Can you guess who?" Despite this painfully obvious clue, we were unable to guess. Sheryl said, "John Kerry?" Zahir said no. I said, "George Bush?" Zahir made a face like he just ingested a rancid lemon. Finally, Zahir showed us his collection of him and various celebrities, taken at his old news shop at Columbus and 86th: Zahir and Paul Newman, Zahir Zahir and comedienne Wendy Liebman, Zahir and a local NY TV news anchor neither of us recognized but both nodded as if we did, Zahir with someone we didn't recognize at all but nodded even less convincingly at. Then, breathless with excitement, he recounted the celebs who'd come in his shop but he lacked photo evidence of: Alec Baldwin & Kim Basinger, Kevin Bacon, and either Kevin Kline or Costner -- it was never made clear. All I can say is, if Zahir keeps accumulating A-list cred like this, there may come a day when a musclebound bouncer (a proto-Zahir, if you will) stands by the bodega, refusing to let you buy your TimeOut "Cheap Eats" issue if you're "not on the list."