Being alone isn’t a bad thing. Not at all. It’s actually good. It’s a time to collect thoughts, reflect and be and all of that. It can even be reveled in.That said, it’s not good to look alone, when someone is likely to approach with the dreaded words, “Oh, you look so alone.”
“I look alone? Really? Well, I am. We all are, don’t you know?” What’s wrong with staring off into the distance? Why must standing apart be seen as a telltale sign of depression? What is so bothersome about being alone?It’s sure as hell better than having to listening to someone else chatter on. “Can you give me a couple of bucks? I lost my bag. They took everything.”
Valerie texted with both thumbs and a forefinger, her long fingers with ethereal pink nails, furrowing her brows, curling the corner of her mouth, her feet splayed out sideways, her knees pressed in. She looked almost a caricature of herself, everything exaggerated and intense, tight inside herself, not even there, aware of nothing but her screen.
The Chamber of Commerce Building, at 65 Liberty Street, is one of many buildings in downtown Manhattan with doric columns.Built in 1900-01 to house New York State’s Chamber of Commerce, it was vacated eighty years later. The building was restored in 1990-91 and now houses a pair of banks: The Megabank of New York and Bank of China, Taipei.
In contrast to the heavy finance going on inside, the front of the building is consistently lined with rows of bikes for a local food delivery service.
I trailed after my wife, navigating around a cluster of pink bedecked girls dancing to electro-pop beats during “ Open Studio Weekend; the place looked like a Hollywood set.“Even the graffiti looks fake.”
A scruffy juggler in white tights called over, “Try to stay positive!”
I glared back. “Stay focused on yourself.”
“It’s okay, man.” He dropped his pins. “It’s all good.”
Cristian Daniel Torres is a plumber and an artist.His creations are enigmatic, evoking child-like wonderSome are mechanical, even functional. (Click the image below to see him demonstrate a computer desk.)All of the work can be seen at Mr. Torres’ studio at Local Project in Long Island City, Queens.
The New York Times: …set postures, lines and deliveries, while throwaway humor has been exaggerated in ways that perversely shrink its impact.
The New Yorker: …sour-voiced schtick…a cynical manipulation of sentimentality and humor.The Wall Street Journal: (Larry David’s) playwriting debut, a poor and embarrassing excuse for the kind of Jewish humor that went out of fashion with Gertrude Berg, (is) bursting at the moldy seams with embalming fluid.
It’s not as if Larry David made any highfalutin’ claims. “I saw Nora Ephron’s play, Lucky Guy. I just thought, ‘That must be a really interesting thing to do.”
The hate from New York’s papers is perhaps best summed up by the theater critic in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman: I’m gonna turn in the worst review anyone has ever read and I’m gonna close your play. Would you like to know why? Because I hate you and everyone you represent. Entitled, selfish, spoiled children. Blissfully untrained, unversed and unprepared to even attempt real art. Handing each other awards for cartoons and pornography.
Luckily, the real-life critics aren’t having so much luck. Larry David’s play has broken box office records and been greeted by constant laughs and ovations every night. Fish in the Dark, as Mr. David is not ashamed to say himself, is “pre-tty, pre-tty good.”
That said, it’s not good to look alone, when someone is likely to approach with the dreaded words, “Oh, you look so alone.”
What’s wrong with staring off into the distance? Why must standing apart be seen as a telltale sign of depression? What is so bothersome about being alone?
It’s sure as hell better than having to listening to someone else chatter on. “Can you give me a couple of bucks? I lost my bag. They took everything.”
