Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Menu From Topeka
Correspondent and TID friend Joaquin Dorfman sends us this Microsoft Word document, found on a used laptop recently purchased at a thrift store outside Topeka, Kansas. It appears a rather disturbed restauranteur-in-the-making crafted his plans using the machine.
View It Here
Correspondent and TID friend Joaquin Dorfman sends us this Microsoft Word document, found on a used laptop recently purchased at a thrift store outside Topeka, Kansas. It appears a rather disturbed restauranteur-in-the-making crafted his plans using the machine.
View It Here
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Don't Trip
So there I was, standing in the middle of Park Avenue South screaming at a fruit vendor. I know what you’re thinking—this is how all stories in this god-awful town start out; someone is always standing around screaming at somebody. Then some other guy joins in the argument and by the time it’s all over, everyone is drinking and singing in some bar. By the end of the night, everyone’s rhythmically dancing down the middle of the street like they’re in Thriller.
But it wasn’t like that. I was screaming at the fruit vendor because he had betrayed the honor of the peach. I hadn’t even been purchasing peaches, or even fruit for that matter. I had just been walking down 23rd Street and I overheard him telling a customer “who needs peaches anyways? They’re too sticky.” Well, sir.
Within minutes I was beating him about the face and thighs with an umbrella. I don’t know what it is, I guess I just grew up with an affinity for peaches, and I have a lot of good memories of them. So I don’t really like to hear people knocking them. I can understand you saying ‘I don’t like peaches, they’re too sticky,’ (although I’d still probably thump you about the throat because of it) but who needs peaches? That is an invitation to war.
I was calling the fruit vendor a “miserable sack of shit” and wielding my umbrella menacingly, when the pretty girl with the limp and the cane walked by. This gave me pause, because you never really see young pretty girls with limps and canes, not even in this city, which is a pretty big one, if you haven’t noticed.
The girl walked by and I stood with my jaw agape, which gave the fruit vendor ample time to get the hell out of there. The last I saw, he was running east towards the river and the low, gray clouds, waving his arms wildly. He almost got hit by a bus at one corner. What a certifiable fuck-head, as my postman used to say.
I started following the pretty girl with the limp and the cane, which wasn’t hard, because she was really damn slow. In fact, I overtook her between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, and had to dip into Best Buy to kill some time waiting for her to make it to the corner. I browsed some DVDs before realizing I didn’t even own a television.
Anyways, I walked out of the store just in time to watch her walk by. Something about the way she limped and used the cane made me feel her handicap was permanent. She just had this resigned look on her face that seemed well-honed over the years. I broke both my legs once in a chess misunderstanding, and I remember being confined to a wheelchair for a few months. During that period, a close friend told me I had a look on my face that was a mix between anger and laughter. I reckoned it was because I wanted all those people to stop looking at me, but I also somehow wanted to convey that it was only temporary, sort of like “hey folks, really, I’m not a cripple, really…”
No, something about the pretty girl with the limp and the cane told me she led a life less ordinary. She was a very pretty girl, and this was what threw me off so much. If she had been an average-looking girl, well, for some reason (if you can barely call it that) it just would have seemed more correct. But here she was, blonde hair pulled back, nice coat buttoned to the top, no makeup and dark brown eyes, slowly making her way among the crowds of pedestrians on the street.
But what was up with her cane? That was the puzzling thing. It was straight out of an elderly person’s closet—an elderly man, at that. It was wide, far too disproportionate for her slender frame. The material of the cane seemed to be a cheap imitation of wood, and it had this big, awful rubber stopper on the end of it. It wasn’t a very fashionable cane for a pretty young woman, but then I suppose there isn’t much of a market for fashionable canes for young women, at least not in a first-world country such as this one.
At Seventh Avenue, I had a bit of a revelation. First off, I felt a tinge of remorse for beating the fruit vendor. I felt bad, but still, come on! He talked bad about peaches. It’s a pet peeve, everybody’s got one. I also realized I was hopelessly attracted to the pretty girl with the limp and the cane.
Not a sexual attraction, at least, not primarily. What I mean is, the cane and the limp don’t turn me on, I’m not like that, no. And she is an attractive woman, and I would probably make love to her if given the opportunity, but it really never entered my mind. It wasn’t until now, for example, that I wonder if her limp would create any problems in terms of unbridled sexuality. But see, even thinking that, I get all pissed off at myself, because that’s not what it’s all about. It’s about this pretty girl with a limp and a cane. It’s about a girl who’s completely different from all the other girls. It’s about what that limp and cane have taught her—what they’ve turned her into.
Surely she can’t be like all the other girls. Surely, she has some insight into humanity and compassion and cruelty that all the other pretty girls don’t bear. Maybe she even has her solemn moments—there may be plenty—where she rues her existence and wishes for full mobility and the chance to live like the other pretty girls. Or maybe she’s so above all that. Maybe she’s reached a plane of thinking where she sees beyond the minor things and into what really makes people run, like a diagnostic into the engines of our souls. It’s possible that she’s seen so much, encountered such a vast spectrum of humanity, that now she regards it all with a wearied sigh, like a mother watching her youngest son skin his first knee.
I wanted to talk to this girl; I wanted somehow to tell her I didn’t care about the cane, that I just wanted to spend some time with her, that sometimes I feel like she does, like there’s no one else like me, that most people will never know the true me just because of the way I appear to them. I wanted to join her and the fruit vendor and spend the afternoon drinking whiskey and laughing, forgetting about all the bullshit, all the crazy guys like me who hit people with umbrellas, and all the snickering schoolkids who giggle at her limp and cane. We could have a perfect afternoon and then she and I could spend the evening forgetting about our respective handicaps, hers somewhere in her legs and mine in my head.
I got ready to approach her at Eighth Avenue. My hand was right next to her shoulder, about to tap it, while we stood at the crosswalk. And then in walked her man, arriving with a leather-coated thud. They embraced tightly and he grasped the cane as she wrapped her arms around him, kissing him sweetly on the lips.
I hate this fucking city.
So there I was, standing in the middle of Park Avenue South screaming at a fruit vendor. I know what you’re thinking—this is how all stories in this god-awful town start out; someone is always standing around screaming at somebody. Then some other guy joins in the argument and by the time it’s all over, everyone is drinking and singing in some bar. By the end of the night, everyone’s rhythmically dancing down the middle of the street like they’re in Thriller.
But it wasn’t like that. I was screaming at the fruit vendor because he had betrayed the honor of the peach. I hadn’t even been purchasing peaches, or even fruit for that matter. I had just been walking down 23rd Street and I overheard him telling a customer “who needs peaches anyways? They’re too sticky.” Well, sir.
Within minutes I was beating him about the face and thighs with an umbrella. I don’t know what it is, I guess I just grew up with an affinity for peaches, and I have a lot of good memories of them. So I don’t really like to hear people knocking them. I can understand you saying ‘I don’t like peaches, they’re too sticky,’ (although I’d still probably thump you about the throat because of it) but who needs peaches? That is an invitation to war.
I was calling the fruit vendor a “miserable sack of shit” and wielding my umbrella menacingly, when the pretty girl with the limp and the cane walked by. This gave me pause, because you never really see young pretty girls with limps and canes, not even in this city, which is a pretty big one, if you haven’t noticed.
The girl walked by and I stood with my jaw agape, which gave the fruit vendor ample time to get the hell out of there. The last I saw, he was running east towards the river and the low, gray clouds, waving his arms wildly. He almost got hit by a bus at one corner. What a certifiable fuck-head, as my postman used to say.
I started following the pretty girl with the limp and the cane, which wasn’t hard, because she was really damn slow. In fact, I overtook her between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, and had to dip into Best Buy to kill some time waiting for her to make it to the corner. I browsed some DVDs before realizing I didn’t even own a television.
Anyways, I walked out of the store just in time to watch her walk by. Something about the way she limped and used the cane made me feel her handicap was permanent. She just had this resigned look on her face that seemed well-honed over the years. I broke both my legs once in a chess misunderstanding, and I remember being confined to a wheelchair for a few months. During that period, a close friend told me I had a look on my face that was a mix between anger and laughter. I reckoned it was because I wanted all those people to stop looking at me, but I also somehow wanted to convey that it was only temporary, sort of like “hey folks, really, I’m not a cripple, really…”
No, something about the pretty girl with the limp and the cane told me she led a life less ordinary. She was a very pretty girl, and this was what threw me off so much. If she had been an average-looking girl, well, for some reason (if you can barely call it that) it just would have seemed more correct. But here she was, blonde hair pulled back, nice coat buttoned to the top, no makeup and dark brown eyes, slowly making her way among the crowds of pedestrians on the street.
But what was up with her cane? That was the puzzling thing. It was straight out of an elderly person’s closet—an elderly man, at that. It was wide, far too disproportionate for her slender frame. The material of the cane seemed to be a cheap imitation of wood, and it had this big, awful rubber stopper on the end of it. It wasn’t a very fashionable cane for a pretty young woman, but then I suppose there isn’t much of a market for fashionable canes for young women, at least not in a first-world country such as this one.
At Seventh Avenue, I had a bit of a revelation. First off, I felt a tinge of remorse for beating the fruit vendor. I felt bad, but still, come on! He talked bad about peaches. It’s a pet peeve, everybody’s got one. I also realized I was hopelessly attracted to the pretty girl with the limp and the cane.
Not a sexual attraction, at least, not primarily. What I mean is, the cane and the limp don’t turn me on, I’m not like that, no. And she is an attractive woman, and I would probably make love to her if given the opportunity, but it really never entered my mind. It wasn’t until now, for example, that I wonder if her limp would create any problems in terms of unbridled sexuality. But see, even thinking that, I get all pissed off at myself, because that’s not what it’s all about. It’s about this pretty girl with a limp and a cane. It’s about a girl who’s completely different from all the other girls. It’s about what that limp and cane have taught her—what they’ve turned her into.
Surely she can’t be like all the other girls. Surely, she has some insight into humanity and compassion and cruelty that all the other pretty girls don’t bear. Maybe she even has her solemn moments—there may be plenty—where she rues her existence and wishes for full mobility and the chance to live like the other pretty girls. Or maybe she’s so above all that. Maybe she’s reached a plane of thinking where she sees beyond the minor things and into what really makes people run, like a diagnostic into the engines of our souls. It’s possible that she’s seen so much, encountered such a vast spectrum of humanity, that now she regards it all with a wearied sigh, like a mother watching her youngest son skin his first knee.
I wanted to talk to this girl; I wanted somehow to tell her I didn’t care about the cane, that I just wanted to spend some time with her, that sometimes I feel like she does, like there’s no one else like me, that most people will never know the true me just because of the way I appear to them. I wanted to join her and the fruit vendor and spend the afternoon drinking whiskey and laughing, forgetting about all the bullshit, all the crazy guys like me who hit people with umbrellas, and all the snickering schoolkids who giggle at her limp and cane. We could have a perfect afternoon and then she and I could spend the evening forgetting about our respective handicaps, hers somewhere in her legs and mine in my head.
I got ready to approach her at Eighth Avenue. My hand was right next to her shoulder, about to tap it, while we stood at the crosswalk. And then in walked her man, arriving with a leather-coated thud. They embraced tightly and he grasped the cane as she wrapped her arms around him, kissing him sweetly on the lips.
I hate this fucking city.
