Hey there. I was gone for over a year from this blogg. Maybe I needed time to figure out what it was I wanted to write about. I started out wanting to write poetic contemplations on my New York existence: like the bums on my block (there are several regulars), the music still played in my neighborhood bars, the Russian more-than-middle-aged men trying to pick me up on Brighton Beach, the love of food from everywhere – the simple everyday pleasure of walking around in the city of New York that refuses to be anything than the big melting pot it’s been forever. New York City makes it a promise to protect the people that make the city work. Therefor I love this city.

So I am back. Writing about what I see and think about. And for today – I am starting with Huerta – our own neighborhood Basque restaurant.  I am going there in two hours with my friend from Rome and my husband who is half Estonian and half Swedish.  eating Basque tapas. And tomorrow it might be northwestern Chinese.  All within a short stroll from my apartment. That is one of the reasons why I love New York my friends.

So I will continue with just these type of short contemplations on my life. See you!

Is it really closing?
my favorite NYC movie theater.
And rumor is that the developer
is not even keeping
the iconic front of the building

It opened in 1909
as a Yddish vaudeville venue
Re-named Sunshine in 1917,
was the Chopin theater
until it closed in 1945
and became storage
But still with that iconic front
i think.

And
since the mid-1990s
It has been
the Sunshine cinema
screening all of my favorite flicks
on the same Houston street
block as the
Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery

I hope they will stay….
But that is just a hope.

Please go and try a Knish today…

A clear sign of gentrification
in our neighborhood
was when Lenin
moved across the street

He had been on our roof
since the fall
of the soviet union.
We used to have great
sunset parties
by his feet

When our building was sold
to a real estate developer,
the old owner took Lenin with him

Now he stands on a roof
on Norfolk street
still keeping a check on
Wall Street

You can see him if you stand on
Houston and look south

We are very few of the old tenants left
and we no longer have
Lenin-sunset parties
on our roof

In 1992
I made
a very short film
five minutes long:
A Woman’s Point Of View During Sex

It was quite a success
won prices in Monaco
and Uppsala

I was interviewed

and it was sold to TV
in several European countries

A simple idea
You see the sex-act from
a woman’s point of view
The ceiling
And then the floor
and a woman’s
hands holding on to a sink
while the camera is moving.

You get the picture…

You will soon be able to see it
At the Swedish Film Institute’s
online library.

I tell you when.

And that was my
15 minutes of fame  nr.1

Now to
15 min of fame nr.2a

I wrote a novel
In Swedish
We had the book release
at the NK department store
in Stockholm.
That felt very special.

If you click here you can read about it
if you like.

And 15 minutes of fame nr.2b
was when the book
was translated to English

and we had a book release
party in New York.
The Black Cats NYC
were playing
This is how happy I was
at the end of that

Now – I just got back from the
bookstore at the
Museum of Modern Art
in New York
and that is my
15 minutes of fame nr.3

Robert Carrithers
and Louis Armand
has put together
this book
“Citiy Primeval
New York, Berlin, Prague”

and a piece of my writing
is in it
with photos
Page 225 – 229
It is for sale at the
MoMA Bookstore.
Imagine that.

This Friday Nov 10
there will be a book release
with performances
at Howl! on 1^st street
Please come !!!

So those were
my 15 minutes
of fame
times three

I am sure you
have had your
15 minutes of fame
Please tell me….

 

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?

 

 

 

 

See, there isn’t just
the guy in white
there is another New York mystery guy
too
The guy with the suit-cases
.

His base is Houston street
between Avenue A and B
Sometimes he has only
5 suitcases,
all locked up together in a pile
Sometimes the whole block
has little stations of suitcases
with anything from 5 – 15 suitcases
placed in different parts of the block

All with locks

…and he is somewhere near by
having this constant conversation
with somebody invisible

He sounds angry and concerned

You might have seen him
He is maybe around 35
White
A little heavy.

Around 11pm,
he sometimes
goes through the trash
from Union Market.
There is left-over sushi there
In nice packages

He sits on the steps
near his suitcases
and eats his sushi
talking to the air

But I still wonder …
those suitcases –

where do they come from?

These days
when the world
seem to fall apart
I am embarrassed
and a little ashamed
to admit
that since I was 25
I’ve been desiring
a Kelly
or a
Berkin bag

A real …..

It will never happen