The Archive

Franzen Coen Day

Started the day with a bracing walk (in the rain) around Central Park. It really is something, a huge rectangle of green in the heart of high-rise urbania (is urbania a word? Who knows, but I’m sure you see what I mean).

In fact, the park was established in 1853 as a reserved green space in the city where ‘people of all ethnic and social backgrounds could mingle’ and mug each other I guess.

Apparently the park fell into disrepair and was something of a no-go area in the 1970s, but in the 80s a group of concerned citizens got together to return it to its former glory. So it’s supposed to be quite safe now.

But you’ll notice I didn’t go there at night. I’ve played The Warriors on the playstation, I know what happens in these places.

I was originally intending to walk the entire park, but when I found out it was 85 acres and had over 50 miles of paths, I went for plan b, which was a quick circuit and then in to town.

So next stop, as I wandered down Broadway (which conveniently runs the length of Manhattan) was Times Square.

My primary goal, when there, was to try to get run over by a taxi so I could shout ‘Hey watch it. People walkin’ here’ (10 points to anyone who gets that movie reference).

However, although Times Square was once home to the seedy side of New York life, the peepshows and XXX movie theatres have all been replaced by Starbucks and Virgin records so that it’s now essentially as interesting and noteworthy as Picadilly Circus. In other words, if you like neon and you like all the stores you can find in any city centre, you’ll love Times Square.

One interesting thing was that there is a Police Box on the square and above the door it has a big NYPD… also in neon.

At first I thought it was a diner with a police theme. I nearly went in and ordered a pork sandwich, maybe with a side of racial assault.

After this I came to the NY public library, which was holding an exhibition of illuminated manuscripts (or medieval comic books, as I like to think of them).

There was a wide range of religious and academic books, all nicely illustrated, although to varying degrees of skill. Some were truly works of art, but others looked suspiciously like the cowboy illuminators in:

“Yeah missus, it’s a big job but we can give you a good price.”
“Well I’d really like to have the first letter on the page nice and big and colourful, with some subtle marginalia added. Nothing too showy.”
“ooh, marginalia eh? Listen love, we can either do this with the full set of brushes and inks and get the monks in for the colour work. It’s gonna cost you though. Or we can let Barry here do it for half the price.”
“Will it be as good as the monks?”
“Absolutely. It’s not the inks, it’s the labour see? And Barry here’s a real talent.”
(Barry drools and sucks on his crayon)

Sadly, in all the displays there was no sign of a Neconomicon, bound in human skin and written in the blood of a hanged man. Although you could get a replica one in the gift shop.

Actually, it turns out the project of making a book involved all sorts of skilled people working together to a master plan to create the finished article. Which was strangely reminiscent of the Pixar display at MOMA.

At this point, I was going to write something about technology changing but the essential need for people to work together for a common goal. But I don’t want to have to call myself a pretentious hippy and beat myself up, so I’ll just move on.

On my travels, I also came across a Papaya King restaurant.

Now in the world of burgers, I understand the need to stand out from the crowd and establish your position as number one with the use of the King name.

But, I thought to myself in a superior, European style, how many other Papaya based outlets can there possibly be. I planned to blog this amusing comment.

Except it turns out that there can in fact be an astonishing number of Papaya based restaurants, from Papaya Land to Papaya World to just plain Papaya Place.

So it just goes to show, I know nothing and should probably shut up.

In fact, I am going to shut up right now.

Cheerio.

posted by Peter The Great @ 5:04 PM