I really like the little people by Tom Otterness
There are more than 25 little people
in the subway by 14th and 8th

And an alligator
eating a little person

I also like the 27 seals by the East River
by Gerry Augustine Lynas

And I like the graffiti on the gates of closed stores or restaurants in the East Village.
I saw these early in the morning while walking a friends dog.

Normally I am never out
when those places are closed
and the gates are down.

Thank God for little dogs.

But there is this rabbit hanging high up in the air
at the beginning of first street.
Why is it there ??

A long time ago
I lived with a man
who was a teacher
at an art school
on 23rd street

He had a new student
who said she had a part
in a new film.

We didn’t know this film
but went to see it
expecting to see her being
and extra
or a waitress
or someone getting out of a taxi
or somebody’s friend’s friend

Something small

But this student
at that art school
on 23rd street

she was the star of the film

Never, ever just presume
anything.

And –
that’s all I have to say about that !

Pig and Khao
In an area that is exploding
with new restaurants
Pig and Khao is one of
the very few restaurants
that feel like it is in keep with
what the neighborhood once was

For more than a hundred years
these streets were home to
different streams of immigrants

Streets that during the 1980s
were occupied by crime,
are now so gentrified
you do not recognize them

except for Pig and Khao
It fits in

It’s on Clinton Street
The Chef is Leah
The food Filipino-Thai inspired

Always sit at the counter
and watch
the kitchen
at work
So good

And the music in the kitchen
is always
old school hip hop
by the way

So I had 3 separate
Russian guys
trying to pick me up
today at Brighton Beach
near Coney Island

The first one came up to me
with his phone to his ear
and asked
if I just tried to call him

???
(Was that a good pick-up line you think?)

The second said he worked
For the Russian government
And that he recognized me (?)
and then asked me if my husband
was Russian

He was disappointed when I said
he was Swedish
He left with a ”my bad luck”

The third just said something
In Russian
I stared at him and
looked down at my book.
See – I had taken the subway
to the beach to enjoy
the last late-summer temperature,
and to be by myself and re-visit
my youth by reading “The Mudd Club”

Meaning that every time
one of those three guys
came up to me and
wanted my attention
I looked up from the book
And – since I was in my
20-year-old mind –
I got very confused to see
a 55+ Russian man
wanting to talk to me

As this never happen to me
in my usual neighborhoods
I wonder if I should consider
this experience
a compliment
or an insult?