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NEW YORK UNEASY
...an interesting time to leave New York
New York City, St. Patrick's Day, a Saturday. St. Patrick's Day should always be scheduled for the weekend, because this year  it has been unusually peaceful and subsumed into the city, which it almost never has been. Usually St. Patrick's Day subsumes the city. My
goodness, if St. Patrick's falls on a business day, it's all out there: Fifth Avenue blocked off; the parade with the bagpipes past St. Patrick's, the Cardinal in his red hat
on the steps of St. Patrick's waving to the crowds, the gay and Lesbian protesters following along glumly behind. It's a massive traffic nightmare for everyone, in car, on foot, and on bicycle. It's a sad day, too,
because there's no reason for the stand-off between the gays and the Church other than ecclesiastical orthodoxy, so on a day of celebration we have to be reminded of those the Church has cast out, and the
tortured reasoning behind their exile.
There is nothing like a fifth generation American
giant descended from the Irish, significantly inebriated in celebration of his heritage on St. Patrick's Day, to pose a potential and substantial
threat to Chinese-American delivery bicyclists, and others brave enough to be out of doors on St. Patrick's Day.
Today's mood was gentle enough and I stayed indoors until the end of the open-air festivities, and I imagine I will avoid the late night action after ten o'clock. In between, at
twilight, there was a gentle rain, and I left my house, laundry and dry cleaning in hand. I saw bulbs coming up all along the hospital's shrub border.
Friends. One friend has been given expensive Scotch as a gift. "One drink for St. Paddy's Day," he says. Uh, no. Let's not even open the bottle. That's letting St.
Patrick's Day into the house and I have carefully preserved a St. Patrick's-free zone of safety. Today I did wear a green shirt. That's because I slept in it. I slept in it because
it is soft, soft cotton and feels wonderful. But I wore it yesterday because it was St. Patrick's Day the next day and I figured, placate them. And today, the appropriateness
of the color gave me another reason not to change. See, everything works out! And if you believe that, you believe that revered St. Patrick did drive the snakes out of Ireland.
Friends. One of my closest friends has been given some bad math recently. There's a sixty/forty chance that she has a cancerous tumor, and if she has this
cancerous tumor, they would estimate she has three to six months left of her life. All through my life, and probably all through yours, there's been someone given this
dreadful equation, or something like it. Maybe even worse; an accident, with no time for good-byes.
When the seeming randomness of cancer hit close to me, I played a role very well. A roll of strength, comfort and caring. Beneath the surface was so much more, raw
fragments of memories of others' cancers, images of all the sterile medal tools of various "procedures" meant to ward off, detect or treat the various cancers that afflict
humans, my own limited knowledge of medicine, and fears; a fear of her death, a fear of my death, a fear of my own psychological fragility if she should die before me, fears for
her family. Kloop. Those thoughts were all temporarily disposed of into the hamper of denial, for which I can find a very tight lid.
Because she lives in a remote part of the country, like many of the others I love, I have told her to inform her companion that I may show up on her doorstep after a long,
dusty Greyhound bus ride. She said in her Southern lilt, "Well, I'd like that." One reason I haven't gone yet is that if I do go, I'm not sure I'd come back, and that would cause
various further problems.
It would be an interesting time to leave New York, because New Yorkers couldn't
be more sick of the bad winter, and nervous about virtually everything of a financial nature, and to a true New Yorker, virtually everything is of a financial nature. At one
time, everyone in New York was interested in getting it wholesale, understanding that fabulous riches were probably out of reach. Then, a whole lot of people with access to
a whole lot of money decided to live in New York City, driving up the rents on hellholes to Satanic prices. Then a "shakeout" in the technology markets caused a lot of small
Internet-based companies to fail, and probably as a result a lot of young marriages to fail, and further caused a tremor in the real estate market. Then the whole thing
happened with Bush and Gore, which unsettled people pretty badly, and then the whole thing happened with the Clinton's, right after we had elected Hillary Senator, which just
plain embarrassed and depressed almost everyone. Then the blue chips on Wall Street started feeling flu-ish, and before you knew it, the Ides of March had arrived and
the stock market as measured by the Dow was pushed below its "floor" of 10,000.
One friend blew up at me last week when I mentioned the downward movement of
the Dow. "It's just a composite of the stocks of representative companies," she said. "It doesn't mean a thing if it moves up or down."
"Yes, but what about everyone who has invested in mutual funds? Virtually
everyone's portfolio is down about ten per cent from where it was a year ago."
"Well, we had seven years of a bull market and everyone made a lot of money and now we have a pull-back, and boo hoo, everyone lost ten per cent. How much did you
make during those seven good years?"
Well, naturally I didn't feel like divulging that information. I am a WASP, though a darn unaffluent one. Hey, anywhere else I would be affluent. Here, I am hanging on by
my fingerprints, which is even more precarious than hanging on by my fingertips. Well, actually I hang on by the cashing of my weekly paychecks. And small loans here and
there. Okay. That's it. End of subject.
So a Greyhound trip to the South seems like a pretty good idea. The financial convulsions in New York aren't going to be pretty. Recessions come with good things,
like people staying put in neighborhoods, strengthening the schools and the community; and recessions come with bad things, like your downstairs neighbor out of work for
months on end, facing eviction not only from her rent-stabilized apartment, but from New York City itself, because such an affordable bargain of an apartment could never be
found again. To be a New Yorker, you gotta pay the rent, and everyone's watching to see what the rent's going to be next year, and how it's going to be paid.
Your New York Uneasy Correspondent.
© 2001 by Sarah Scott
MINNESOTA FOX TALES
Granted, it’s Papua
Well--wish me well! I've got a ticket on the next plane to New Guinea. A research grant
from a conservative Republican think tank is supporting my study of the treehouses of the Korowai tribe in Papua.
If you think I'm kidding, check out the link on my website to the Korowai treehouses -- there's a f----- slide show of Korowai treehouses for C--------sake! This is a major
achievement which only scratches the surface of tree house research.
These primitive people are one of about 750 different tribes in Papua, all with different
languages. The reason they live in treehouses is for defense from other warring tribes. I can only imagine that the other tribes have not yet invented fire or axes, or the Korowai
would be in big trouble!
The difficulty with research among the Korowai of course relates to the language, and
also to the suspicious nature of Korowai, who have a rather profound distrust, largely deserved, of outsiders. The researchers who visited the Korowai recently, and bravely
took these photos, suspected they had worn out their welcome when the warriors began making grimacing gestures, waving bows and arrows. The visitors smiled, bowed, and left hastily.
The reason I've been given this grant is not entirely clear. Originally, I had submitted two proposals to the think tank. The first was to be an expose of the George W. Bush
presidential election campaign, documenting links between big money contributors and W's recent policy initiatives. In my proposal, I suggested as my first project I tackle either that, or:
Alternatively: the Papua expedition. A three-year one woman in-depth study of the treehouses of the Korowai! This I thought they'd probably veto because it is so risky,
given the remoteness of the location, the rampant diseases --TB and malaria--and the intertribal warfare, cannibalism and so on.
So frankly, I'm kinda surprised that I got the grant at all! You just never know! I think I have a real future with this group! :o)
yours truly,
Dot
your faithful correspondent,
© 2001 by Rachel Scott
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