The blog of a North Country Swede!

Friday, September 30, 2005

Madama Butterfly

There are times in my life when I fully understand the joy of living. Last night was one.

I went with a friend to the New York City Opera's performance of Madama Butterfly at the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center on Manhattan.

Shu Ying Li, making her house debut in the title role of Madama Butterfly, was given ovations during the performance and then met with a standing ovation for her bows at the end.

Robert Mack as Goro, Jake Gardner as Sharpless, and Kathryn Friest as Suzuki were superb among an excellent cast.

New York City is beyond one person's encompassing. It's boundaries of experience are beyond any horizon I can imagine, let alone see. It's diversity in all things human is incredibly unplumbable ... unfathomable.

Yet like swimming in the ocean ... all drops of water are connected, and the ripples from my strokes are radiated outward throughout ... even as the ripples of others reach me, no matter the conscious awareness of any given one.

Then there are the times like last night, when the surge of energy is a tidal wave of emotion—of human response—sweeping over me.

And in experiencing being part of this ... knowing that I bring an essential part to the huge wave ... being part of it ... in the close personal involvement with a friend and in the anonymity of the crowd, the audience ... I experience an unbounded joy of human existence.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

I am an existentialist, Part IV

I experience my own existence. What I experience is my own existence.

I have no idea whether or not what I experience “is real”. I experience it “as real”.

What this means is that I have no way of proving conclusively that there is any other conscious awareness of existence other than my own, but I experience my existence as though I am not unique in experiencing existence.

No matter how I approach my existence, I cannot avoid the necessity of choice. Not choosing anything in particular is itself a choice. This is the nature of the individual in the cosmos. I am alone in this responsibility. My conscious awareness in my mind is mine alone. I do not share my personal conscious awareness with any other living creature. What is more, I existed before I became consciously aware of my existence. Existence comes first. I believe it comes first at all levels of life. –from “I am an existentialist

I choose to believe that I am not the only conscious awareness of existence in the cosmos. I choose to believe that I can communicate with other “conscious awareness-es”, primarily human ones that share my form of communication. I choose to believe that I may influence those with whom I communicate, as they influence me.

I state “ I choose to believe” because these are all propositions that I have consciously considered and I have consciously decided to believe.

Which raises the question, are there beliefs I hold that I did not choose to believe in? That someone or something else chose for me to believe in and taught to me as "the truth"? And then, what if whether or not I believe in something signals whether or not I belong to a particular group of individuals within which I meet my needs? (Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?)

This starts getting very complicated very quickly.

What I can tell you from personal experience is that the process of rejecting my childhood faith which is the belief structure of my siblings, and much of my extended family, was traumatic. It has only been through the insights gained in the study of the various facets of existentialism that I have been able to replace my childhood faith with a coherent set of beliefs that allows me to maintain anything close to rational consistency throughout all the varied aspects of my life.

In a nutshell this rational consistency is simply understanding that if I maintain a basis (the means) for satisfying my needs that allows me to pursue the uniquely human experience of applying my imagination to "What might be" and selecting from the infinite range of options, "What ought to be," and then trying to make it, "What is",—then I am able to engage in choice at what I choose to believe is the highest form of human existence, being creative in a community committed to love.

(See “I am an existentialist, Part III” for my definition of love in human terms.)

I am an existentialist, Part III

[M]y take on existentialism is that it does not deny the hierarchy of needs but that it understands, as Maslow did, that our resolution of these needs impacts and and is impacted upon by our potential for self-actualization. -from "I am an existentialist, continued"

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-actualization

The choices I make in fulfilling my needs impact my potential for self-actualization. If I take things for myself without sharing, if I treat others as objects for my gratification, if I fail to engage with others as in:

I would add that I believe in nuturing the other person by sharing ... and particularly in sharing the creative experience, the uniquely human experience of applying our imagination to "What might be" and selecting from the infinite range of options, "What ought to be," and then making it, "What is." -from "Am I Christian Existentialist?"

If I do these things, then—I believe—I internalize barriers to my own self-actualization. For example, selfishness is an obstacle to the potential found in the principle of love.

What is love, in human terms?

I believe it is best defined by the concept of wanting what is best for the person who is loved.

This raises the issue of "What is best for another person?"

I believe what is best for the other person, is for her/him to fulfill the potential of her/his existence ... which in turn can only be achieved by the individual engaging in the process of self-actualization which for me is the uniquely human experience of applying our imagination to "What might be" and selecting from the infinite range of options, "What ought to be," and then making it, "What is."

Creating the community where this process thrives for all its members interactively, is what is best for humanity.

It should be understood, that with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a conceptual structure, I am declaring that the hierarchy of needs from physiological to safety to love/belonging to esteem leading to actualization have to be met. The struggle is to do this without blocking the individual’s potential for self-actualization.

Finally, choosing (selecting) “What ought to be” is meaningless if I do not also act to try to make it “What is”. Here we have the admonition of James in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, “Faith without works is dead.”

For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. -James 2:26

Monday, September 26, 2005

I am an existentialist, continued

Note: I received the following response to my previous post, "I am an esistentialist":
Interesting article. My personal opinion is that "You have a choice" is a generalization. It varies from issue to issue and many times you don't really have a chance. Existentialism is an interesting theory. However unless it allieviates human suffering and helps solving personal problems, some of the features of such theories are intellectual gymnastics. Philosophers also need to be practical.
This is my reply:

Thank you for reviewing my article.

I feel that I do not have to defend existentialism ... far more erudite individuals than myself have already done so effectively.

But you raise a few points to which I have to take exception lest someone gets the impression that there is no argument to them.

Having a choice for the existentialist is a concrete situation, probably most graphically demonstrated by those who have used self-immolation as a form of protest.

From wikipedia:

Famous people who have chosen this way to die:

* Romas Kalanta, in protest against the Soviet Union's occupation of his homeland of Lithuania.
* Thích Quảng Ðức, in protest against the oppression of Buddhism by the administration of Vietnamese Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm.
* Norman Morrison, an American who self-immolated in protest against the Vietnam War

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_methods#Burning_oneself_.28self-immolation.29 )

Granted not everyone has the option of suicide, but that represents a "special case" set of individuals.

And as Mahatma Gandhi taught us, we also have the option of civil disobedience, which can be the simple matter of stopping what we are doing and doing nothing. Cindy Sheehan was arrested today in Washington, DC, for this form of civil disobedience while protesting the War in Iraq.

In the possibility of negation of active participation--either in a specific activity set or in life itself-- existentialism points out that the individual has a choice in the matter of her/his own existence which is not theoretical.

Further, my view of existentialism couples readily with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, agreeing that the best state of individual human existence is at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of needs, self-actualization where I engage in the creative pursuit of fulfilling my imagined "objective" in my own existence.

I have been fortunate to have known no other situation during my entire life of 66+ years than this creative pursuit. And I have never been not able to satisfy my needs.

Of course, as Malow pointed out, if I am struggling to breathe, or to find water to drink, or food to eat, ... and so forth through the hierarchy of needs from physiological to safety to love/belonging to esteem leading to actualization ... I am not going to be otherwise engaged primarily. Self-actualization may have to wait at times. It's just that I have never experienced this other than in a situation where I have known I could satisfy my needs of the moment.

However, even without personal experience of dire unmet need--or quite possibly because of that lack of experience--my take on existentialism is that it does not deny the hierarchy of needs but that it understands, as Maslow did, that our resolution of these needs impacts and is impacted upon by our potential for self-acutalization.

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-actualization )

Thanks again for reviewing my article.

Best,
Gus

Hilding "Gus" Lindquist

Sunday, September 25, 2005

I am an existentialist

The essential character of the human being is the experience of our own existence. I believe that, in a very real sense, if I am not consciously aware of my existence, I am not fully human.

With this conscious awareness I can imagine a set of possibilities from which I can choose to pursue one or more. I cannot pursue all of them simultaneously either in the sense of time and resources, or in the sense of being personally able to pursue them even if I had the time and resources. In fact, some possiblilties such as suicide allow for no other possibility for me--ever, in the case of death.

No matter how I approach my existence, I cannot avoid the necessity of choice. Not choosing anything in particular is itself a choice. This is the nature of the individual in the cosmos. I am alone in this responsibility. My conscious awareness in my mind is mine alone. I do not share my personal conscious awareness with any other living creature. What is more, I existed before I became consciously aware of my existence. Existence comes first. I believe it comes first at all levels of life.

After existence comes conscious awareness for the being that is fully human. Following conscious awareness, the next act is always a matter of choosing from whatever set of possibilities exist at the moment for the human being who is consciously aware of her/his own existence.

From the set of possibilities--things that "might be"--I can choose something "to be". When that thing "to be" relates to the way something "is", then I am making a moral decision about what that thing "ought to be". Whether or not I want the thing to stay the same or change, I am making a moral decision. Choosing to have something stay the same is a choice, because we could choose to try to change it.

I alone am responsible for my choices, no matter how much I would like to foist the blame onto someone or something else.

There are a several caveats to this responsibility. One is for when as children we don't know any better. Then we only know what we know, what we have been taught as truth by those we have no reason to distrust.

Another caveat is for mental illness whether chemically induced by drugs or alcohol, or one of the clinically defined syndrones. There are other forms of diminshed capacity, such as mental retardation, all of which can limit an individual's arena of choice.

But this I believe: My ability to imagine possibility and my confidence in my ability to try to bring about some possiblity of my choosing is the core of the creative life ... the highest form of existence of which I am aware. The tension between "isness" and "oughtness", best described by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is the energy imbued in the human condition, the state of being fully human. I can choose what I ought to be, what I ought to do ... and in so doing participate in a creative evolution ... a butterfly flapping its wings, knowing full well the ripples will extend throughout the cosmos.

But no matter what, no matter how I cloak the process in some form of dogma or doctrine--religious, political, philosophical, whatever--I must choose out of my conscious awareness of my existence.

Finally, I am an atheist because as an existentialist, it is immaterial to me whether God exists or not. What is important for me is to be rationally consistent imagining possibility and trying to bring about what I think ought to be. In an earlier post I reflected on the designation of "Christian Existentialist":

Putting it another way, How do we humans become God? What God do I want us to become? The answer FOR ME is in nuturing the potential in the other person ... and this is what I believe Jesus' message to be ... hence am I a Christian Existentialist? Should I use the term "Christian" with today's mixed baggage of meaning? I don't know. I'll think about it.

I would add that I believe in nuturing the other person by sharing ... and particularly in sharing the creative experience, the uniquely human experience of applying our imagination to "What might be" and selecting from the infinite range of options, "What ought to be," and then making it, "What is."
See "Am I a Christian Existentialist?"

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Revisiting the military-industrial complex

I would suggest that in pursuing the subject, "Katrina and The Collective Good", (see posting of that title) it is time for us to revisit Dwight D. Eisenhower, Military-Industrial Complex Speech of 1961. The full text can be found at:


Note: If that link is blocked, try:


If THAT link is also blocked, google "military industrial complex" and you will be able to link to one of several sites that offer the full text from President Eisenhower's public papers.

The most famous paragraph from Eisenhower's speech is:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military[-]industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Earlier he spoke these words:

Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is [it] poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

Let me repeat for emphasis these words of Eisenhower's, "...; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration."

Please ponder his words in light of the path ahead for our nation. Where does "stay the course" take us?

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Folks, this is fascism

"'I don't think federal bureaucracy can handle the next disaster," said Toye Taylor, the president of Washington Parish, one of the hardest hit areas in Louisiana, who met with Mr. Bush this week.

"I expressed to the president that it would take a new partnership between the military and private sector," Mr. Taylor said. 'Because there will be another one and I don't think the federal government is going to be able to help." Indeed, Mr. Bush said in his address to the nation from New Orleans on Thursday night that the military would play a new role in federal disaster relief."


"FEMA, Slow to the Rescue, Now Stumbles in Aid Effort"
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and ERIC LIPTON
NY Times, September 17, 2005
Link to article

From wikipedia: The Doctrine of Fascism

The Labour Charter (Promulgated by the Grand Council for Fascism on April 21, 1927)—(published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale, April 3, 1927) [sic] (p. 133)

The Corporate State and its Organization (p. 133)

The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and usefu [sic] [typo-should be: useful] instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production.

State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management. (pp. 135-136)
Benito Mussolini, 1935
Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions
Rome: 'Ardita' Publishers

What the hell is going on?!

The Patriot Act, which limits the freedoms of patriots ... provocative by its very nature and thereby self-fulfilling in its proof of the need for further restrictions on freedom.

A strategy in Iraq destined to provoke an insurgency that can only be quelled by the Battle of Armageddon ... which we will win because we have the bomb, right?

And now after the purposeful gutting of the working govenment, we have the calls for the militarization of our nation.

What's going on? This is FASCISM, folks.



Thursday, September 15, 2005

Katrina and the collective good

A work in progress: 9/25 9:45AM update
Note: 9/25 edits below.

Note: Defining "the collective good" broadly, wikipedia—the free online encyclopedia—gives us the following: "the term 'collective good' describes all that is good for all people in a given community". (See collective good, community at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)

Let's begin by thinking for a moment about our community. How do we define it? Who belongs to it?

OK, with some "idea" of "our" community, no matter how clearly defined or ill-defined, formed or forming in our minds, let us think for a moment about three things:

1. What do we expect to be able to receive from our community?

2. What do we expect to have to give to our community?

3. To what extent do we believe we have these expectations in common with the other members of our community?

OK, we're getting somewhere. Now, in focusing on "the collective good" let us limit our expectations in 1 and 2 to only those expectations that we believe everyone in our community has a rational reason to believe that they apply to everyone. In other words, using 3 as a filter, let's rethink 1 and 2.

For example, I believe that some basic level of police and fire protection, and emergency medical care, should be available to everyone in my community. I also believe that everyone in my community should help pay for it. Yes—as they say—the devil is in the details. But I think you get the idea of the approach I am using to consider—revisit in my mind, and yours—the concept of "the collective good" in light of Katrina.

Another expectation I have that I consider part of the collective good of whatever community in which I am a member is that my community will defend my safety and security from our enemies. In this I expect my community to maintain as strong a defense system as necessary to keep the community safe and secure in the world as we understand it to be. In this regard, I support having a military as well as other support systems strong enough to provide that safety and security for my community.

I think you can see where this—the consideration of the collective good in light of Katrina—is leading in part.

As the gestalt continues to take shape in our minds, let us return to considering the question of who belongs to "our" community. Here is where--I believe--the issues of race, class, ethnic and cultural heritage, religious persuasion, and other identity factors play a large part in our sense of committment to others who may be within the geographical and political boundaries of our legally defined community, but who are not those with whom we share a la 3 the expectations of 1 and 2.

What about community? On one hand we have Hobbes dictum found in the following depiction of his thought:

Self-defense against violent death is Hobbes' highest human necessity, and rights are borne of necessity. In the state of nature, then, each of us has a right to everything in the world. Due to the scarcity of things in the world, there is a constant, and rights-based, "war of all against all" (bellum omnium contra omnes). Life in the state of nature is "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short"
Source: wikipedia

On the other hand we have the infantry platoon where individual soldiers often give their lives to defend the platoon or even another comrade. Under this banner of camaraderie we also find parents, firefighters, police officers, and a host of others sacrificing self for the good of the others either as specific individuals in need of rescue or entire communities.

Less dramatic than the willingness to risk one's life, is the willingness to share one's "treasure" ... and in the aftermath of Katrina we see the outpouring of this willingness to share our resources even with people we have never met ... and in the case of the recent tsunami, those who aren't fellow citizens either.

How then does this sense of committment to community take hold in the individual? Or maybe the question should be, how is it lost?

Prior to Katrina, we weren't rallying to do something about the poverty in New Orleans.

Was the difference that we saw the hurricane as something that could happen to us? The disaster created a common bond where before there was none because we had an "us" versus "them" view of poor black people? That somehow "they" HAD to be different then us, or why would they be poor? For some of us the determining factor (the ONLY determining factor) is the indvidual's relationship with God THE FATHER, who blesses us according to HIS wisdom and grace.

From my experience, what seems to emerge as the determining factor in how we relate to one another is whether or not we have something in common that unites as members of a definable group, allowing one to think of the other as "friend" rather than "foe".

For the time being let us define "friend" as someone we would share something with, and "foe" as someone we would withhold something from.

Yes, a "friend" for sharing a ride to work, could be a "foe" when asked to loan him or her money. this can get complicated.

Again from my experience, there comes to mind the religious divide of believer and unbeliever as the fundamental and unbridgeable division that separates us, one from the other. To the True Believer our common humanity is not enough ... except in the instance of the parable of the Good Samaritan, where we are united in the need for caring by one from the other, which then becomes evidence of the caregiver's faith in God and not necessarily his or her faith in humanity of the needy other. This seems particularly true when we are not willing to act to mitigate the circumstances that lead to the dire straits of the needy other, but only act to ameliorate the consequences of our earlier failure.

The other divisions determining "us" versus "them" I sugested above—of race, class, ethnic and cultural heritage, and so forth—come into play as barriers to developing a common sense of community.

There is also the factor of not being strangers to one another in the concrete sense of actually knowing the other person as someone we recognize or do not recognize. Then we can take a defined "person type" such as a person in a police uniform, or a teacher at the head of a classroom, or a minister or priest wearing a clerical collar, and so forth, all having more or less "friendly" images. On the other hand we have the "enemy" images ... and just describing them gives us a sense of difficulties we will face in attempting to build common ground in our diverse world.

Paul Krugman writes in his column, " Tragedy in Black and White" on the New York Times, Monday, September 19, Op/Ed page:

And who can honestly deny that race is a major reason America treats its poor more harshly than any other advanced country? To put it crudely: a middle-class European, thinking about the poor, says to himself, "There but for the grace of God go I." A middle-class American is all too likely to think, perhaps without admitting it to himself, "Why should I be taxed to support those people?"

Above all, race-based hostility to the idea of helping the poor created an environment in which a political movement hostile to government aid in general could flourish.


Please read Dwight D. Eisenhower's speech titled, "Military-Industrial Complex Speech", given in 1961. I refer to it in my posting, Revisiting the military-industrial complex.

Please read Robert G. Kaiser's Op/Ed column titled, "In Finland's Footsteps", from the August 7, 2005, Sunday Outlook section of the Washinton Post.


More to come ...

Below are notes that I am referring to as I write this essay

Title: Defining the Collective Good

- What do we believe is "appropriate help" that we should expect from the larger community to which we belong, and under what circumstances are we entitled to this help?

- How do we participate in receiving this "appropriate help"?

- What do we believe is "appropriate help" to give others in the larger community to which we belong, and under what circumstances are they entitled to this help?

- How do we participate in giving this "appropriate help"?

- How do we define the "larger community" to which we belong?

Sunday, September 11, 2005

The Greenwich Brewing Company




ww.greenwichbrew.com
Location map


Located on the southeast corner of 6th Avenue and 9th Street, and across 9th from Path's 9th Street Station, in Greenwich Village, the Greenwich Brewing Co. has been a favorite restaurant and bar since I first came to the New York City metropolitan area in 1999. Since then I have been coming here alone and with friends as frequently as the opportunity presents itself.

The Greenwich Brewing Co. is my preferred stop for an early dinner when I go to the West Village Conversation Group on Tuesday evenings at the Caffe Dell Arista, a couple of blocks to the northwest, up Greenwich Avenue.

When I am alone, I come here, eat and then spend a few minutes writing in my journal, capturing my mood and thoughts while immersed in the ambience of the Village.

I love it beyond words.

FYI, I usually have the Primavera Pizza with spinach, zucchini, mushrooms and broccoli.

Note: If you click on the thumbnails below, you can view a larger version of the photo.




Greenwich Brewing Co. from across 6th Avenue.


Greenwich Brewing Co. from across 9th Street.


The view from my favorite table,
just inside the front door.


Myself sitting at my favorite table,
summer of '05


Another view of myself with
my stenographer's notebook journal.


Cheers!

Monday, September 05, 2005

The Caffe Dell Artista


Caffe Dell Artista
Location Map
between 6th and 7th Avenues

Sunday, September 4, in the early evening I sat at the small table anchoring the west end of the large front windows of the Caffe Dell Artista overlooking Greenwich Avenue drinking coffee, eating strawberry cheesecake, and writing in my journal.

Sitting here on the second level of the building above a shop that is partly below street level has an aloof intimacy with the avenue and sidewalk that is enticingly engaging for the philosopher-poet (or is it poet-philosopher?) in me.

With bookends in place for my basic trip to Manhattan ... the Belly Delly on the top of Times Square where once Nick's Deli held sway, and the Caffe Dell Artista in Greenwich Village ... I have the underpinnings for variations on the main theme, the theme of being absorbed in the ultimate center of the urban universe.

Just do not think for a moment that I want you to come with me. I am a soloist.

I have tried to share my journeys with others. Shared, they are not the same. And in all but a limited set of exceptions when the company of another is equal to being alone, I prefer being alone.

I don't know why this is. It is.

I have tried to change ... but, alas, I have failed in doing so. Mostly, I suspect, because I feel no need to change ... nor desire.

In fact at the moment I was sitting at the table in the Caffe Dell Artista writing these notes in my journal in long hand among strangers at other tables, absorbing the energy of their presence ... their laughter and noise ... without having to respond, was rich in the awareness of others as I played by myself in the limitless arena of my mind ... thinking and writing ... the sensuous stroke of the pen on paper ... the cursive flow of my penmanship tactilely stimulating ... engaged in way that I can never be when typing on my computer, alone in my home's office.

Part of this feeling is also caught up in my brain overrunning my hand ... and while my mind loops into its own space, coming back to earth to finish the word, the sentence, the paragraph ... I am connecting galaxies of thought and memory in a way that has no equal for me.

Beyond all this is subliminal transcendental awareness of the history of Greenwich Village ... and my connectedness to the human spirit of this place. I love it so.

Note: If you click on the thumbnails below, you can view a larger version of the photo.




Caffe Dell Artista from across Greenwich Avenue.






Myself with my stenographer's notebook journal.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Next stop: easyInternetCafe


easyInternetCafe
234 West 42nd Street
New York, New York



I left the Belly Delly above West 49th Street around 3:30PM Sunday, September 4th, and headed south on 7th Avenue, crossing back and forth between 7th and Broadway as I wandered down to West 42nd Street and the easyInternetCafe where I went in and again logged onto the internet and into my blog.


It is Labor Day weekend and Times Square is teeming with tourists. The weather is gorgeous, sunny and not too hot with a bit of a breeze cooling the sidewalk crowds full of beautiful people interspersed among the rest of us ... in the incredible stew pot of diversity that is Manhattan ... nobody blending in until the residents start wearing black later in the season. The rich multi-color, multi-texture tapistry of people in New York on the warm days of summer.

Just thinking about making the trip to Manhattan raises my energy level several notches. Now I am here and thoroughly enjoying the moment ... expanded across an afternoon ... feeling the energy of the others crowding past absorbed in each others' energy ... knowing I am part of something that transcends each one of us ... knowing that if I stayed in the maw of this human maelstrom I would eventually burn out (maybe not so eventually in my case) ... but also understanding that it will not go away, it will be here whenever I come back.

I'm going to continue on down to Greenwich Village, where I will stop and have an Americano at the cafe where we have the West Village Conversation Group Meets on Tuesday evenings.


Caffe Dell Artista
46 Greenwich Avenue
between 6th and 7th Avenues
New York, NY


Then I'm catching the Path to Hoboken from the 9th Street station and going home.

Note
: If you click on the thumbnails below, you can view a larger version of the photo.



Looking west on West 42nd Street
from the 7th Avenue end of the block.


Farther along West 42nd Street
toward the easyInternetCafe.


easyInternetCafe from across West 42nd Street.

Cheers! I'll get back to you.






Nick's Deli is closed

I made the trip from Maplewood, New Jersey, to Nick's Deli on the corner of 7th Avenue and West 49th Street in Times Square via train and subway. When I got there it was closed ... apparently for good.

I hadn't been there for a couple of months, thinking each week that I would make the trip and then putting it off ... mostly I think because it was (is) summer ... and Nick's has always been best done in the cooler months. Now I regret the delay in going.

But all was (is) not lost!

I immediately set out to find another eatery on this end of Times Square. I checked out the Playwright Tavern across 7th and still on West 49th ... a wee bit too uptown for my tastes. I have to have something quite a bit more scruffy ... not in the sense of unkempt, but in the sense of showing signs of plebian wear and tear, a place for us common folk to sit and eat ... and for me, to think and write.

I think I've found it.


BellyDelly Deli
1625 Broadway
Between 49th & 50th St
New York, New York 10019

Tel: 212-333-5650, 5733, 5750
Fax: 212-333-7464


And guess what, not only do they make an excellent tuna salad sandwich and have good drip coffee, they have a real salad bar AND internet access both via wifi and computer kiosks. (In fact, I am posting this message from one of their NEXTNET public internet access terminals. I purchased a prepaid card at the downstairs register and got on.)

My imagination is running sort of wild at the moment ... having a deli as THE end terminus of this particular journey where I come to the north end of Times Square on the N or R Trains, have my standard fare of a tuna salad sand with a pickle on the side and coffee, sit and comntemplate my navel while making some entries in my journal ... then wander on foot back down through Times Square before either returning directly home via the Midtown Direct commuter train from Penn Station or continuing further south to Greenwich Village and catching the Path from the 9th Street station to Hoboken and then taking NJ Transit to Maplewood ... has always been a the big attraction of the trip. And now to also have internet access in the deli ... well, can we get any closer to heaven on earth?

Plus, this gives me some incentive to clean up my www.aheadinnyc.com website ...

One negative, they were out of pickles.

Note: If you click on the thumbnails below, you can view a larger version of the photo.



Nick's Gourmet Deli before it closed.


Nick's Gourmet Deli after it closed,
from across 7th Avenue.


Nick's Gourmet Deli after it closed,
from across West 49th Street.


The BellyDelly Deli
looking up Broadway


The BellyDelly Deli
looking down Broadway.


The BellyDelly Deli.

Cheers!

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Old, poor, and chronically ill in New Jersey

I take a deep breath and let it out ... once again ... and again ...

The mood swings of frustration and anger alternating with appreciation and euphoria through bouts of deep depression ... ebb and flow through my psyche as I deal with old age, poverty, and chronic kidney failure.

I get the feeling that most everybody has enough troubles of their own so I shouldn't be bothering anybody with mine. What am I, a wimp? "Suck it up and move on."

Well, in my circumstances, "sucking it up and moving on", is dying. So, if you don't mind, I think I'll explore some other options, thank you.

Let me describe the latest Catch-22 situation I find myself in. I was scheduled to have a surgical procedure this Friday, September 2, 2005, (like, tomorrow) which would allow me to go on in-home dialysis shortly. (Which to my understanding saves the State of New Jersey and Medicare a considerable amount of money over traditional dialysis, but I could be wrong--I'll ask for the facts next time. In any case, it leaves me far more mobile and actually will be better for my body, if I can be on it.)

I was doing all my pre-admission stuff and everything was on track--or so I thought--when I received a call on Tuesday, August 30, from the hospital's Financial Aid Office "reminding" me that I had an appointment with them the next day, Wednesday, August 31, at 10AM.

That was the first I had heard about any appointment with the hospital's Financial Aid Office ... and the communication deteriorated from that point on ... so I cancelled my procedure on Friday thinking the responsible thing to do would be to resolve the financial questions BEFORE I had the surgery. Because if it wasn't covered by some form of financial assistance on top on my Medicare A and B, then I had better rethink what I was getting myself into. (I have learned from experience that it is best to have these issues resolved ahead of time rather than afterward. I'm still paying off medical bills from 2002 that weren't covered.)

Anyway, I started asking questions about whether I qualified for Financial Assistance and they responded by telling me that I had to be committed to the procedure before they could give me that information.

Now, this sounded VERY strange to me. Here I have been reading all this stuff about the patient needing to "take charge of his/her medical care". So shouldn't I have the information I need to make a responsible decision? Like, can I afford what you're going to do to me? And shouldn't I have some kind of a reasonable estimate (like the range of possibilities) for what the outcome might be in terms of cost?

See, I had been going along thinking I was covered at this hospital, because I was covered at my other primary hospital, but, no, they said they couldn't tell me that ahead of time. The way I was understanding what they were telling me was that I had to accumulate the bills and THEN they would tell me whether or not the financial assistance program would pay them. How strange is that?

My first recourse was to contact the Social Services department of this hospital and review the situation. They basically told me that that was how this particular financial assistance program worked. When I replied that that put me between a rock and a hard place ... they offered to put me in contact with someone higher up in the Financial Aid Department. When I then asked if I could have something like a patient advocate to act as a mediator because otherwise I would talking to the person in charge of the rules which I was questioning. The Social Services response was that all they could do was refer me to the Financial Aid Supervisor. I told them that would be too stressful of a situation for me. They replied, "That's your choice".

I next went back to the surgeon's office. They informed me that I had to work it out with the hospital.

My next recourse was to share all this with a person in Essex County's Division of Aging. Here I began to make headway. This person and this department has been of great assistance over the past couple of weeks as I have been trying to sort out my health care options. She immediately responded and located a person in the hospital's geriatric department whom I can contact.

I went from frustration and anger to appreciation and euphoria, then settled into depression. I told the Division of Aging person how much I appreciated her help, and that hopefully I would have the emotional energy to pursue the contact by next week.

It's true growing old and being poor ain't for wimps. I'll let you know how "chronically ill" works out in the short run. In the long run, we're all dead.