On a recent lunch-time run through Tribeca, I passed a bridge between two buildings connecting a single apartment now on the market for something like $30 million. It would be nice to buy that apartment, so that you could watch the zombies staggering by on the streets below.
I crossed the West Side Highway at Harrison Street, risking my life for a perfect shot.
It was a perfect weather day: I was in shorts and a t-shirt. For some reason, though, there were no seagulls resting on the pilings. Another sign of the apocalypse?
I think this pier is going to be bought and transformed/”developed” by a noted “celebrity chef” and “extreme eater” into a pavilion designed to resemble an Asian food market, with tons of stalls. Maybe Google is going to be upstairs. Personally, I hope that they don’t have “fried tarantula,” which is something I saw featured in a recent travel piece about Cambodia and which my sister confirmed is a thing to eat there. I once saw a documentary about this pier and how it used to be where non-heterosexuals would go to have sex. Or maybe it was a different pier in the vicinity. If such a thing were happening now, it would probably get picketed by a lot of “outraged” right-wing crazies like [every single Republican presidential candidate], but back then, it seems like there was more space and less surveillance, and the lack of internet meant that “ignorance was bliss.” Now it’s possible to know everything that’s going on, more or less, and this knowledge creates a desire for power and control, which is futile, because even with the most sophisticated surveillance operations, you can’t control everyone, as a CNN “terrorism expert” pointed out last night in the context of the recent bombings/shootings in Paris. I was reminded of one of my favorite all-time songs by Stereolab, “The Seeming and the Meaning,” with the lyric: “Everything becomes so defined / That in the end there’s no definition.”
The path along the river is very manicured and pleasant, despite being filled with zombies.
I passed a tugboat and thought of the Galaxie 500 song. I remembered another life when I used to go to record-release parties on the Frying Pan (another boat I believe is still docked around here somewhere) and how at one of these parties the graphic novelist/musician Dame Darcy swept into the room in a long dress looking exactly like a Victorian ghost/gothic Emily Dickinson and we spent a few minutes looking through a porthole at the moon on the water and talking about haunted things and jars filled with strange, dead animals and other surreal remains (for such things could be found on the boat). It was one of those moments I will always remember, because sometimes you only have to meet someone once to <3 them forever. (The converse is also true, in my experience, but is not worth talking about.)
At the halfway mark, I turned around and ran into the sun.
Patches of red vine (Virginia creeper?) fell over the edge of the wall.
This sloping curve, just north of Chelsea Piers, is one of my favorite parts of the run. It’s easy to imagine that you’re in the country somewhere, which is one measure of a successful park. Plus zombies.
A little further south is one of my least favorite parts of the path, less because of the construction than because of the horrible signage: someone apparently thought it would be a good idea to split this very narrow path into four lanes, two for bikers and two for joggers, rather than just let the bikers and joggers remain in two lanes, as happens everywhere else on the path. I’m far from being a libertarian, but sometimes I think the government doesn’t give people enough credit, and official attempts to “micromanage” behavior result in even more chaos and injury than if they had done nothing.
After making it to the other side without getting run over by a bike, I took shelter under a magnificent honey locust (I think).
I took a picture of some glowing grass and thought about my old friend Brianny, who grew up in Perth (Australia) but said that she had to escape because the city and surrounding landscape was so beautiful that it gradually became stifling. She also hated grass as a garden feature. I’ve never been to Perth but have always been curious. I also don’t have grass in the garden, although it was hard to argue against it here.
This tree tunnel is another favorite part of the path. I felt mildly aggravated when a couple (straight, as far as I could tell) rode past me on their bikes while holding hands. (You can see them in the distance.) Generally speaking, I am opposed to any kind of non-bike activity — texting, listening to music, talking on the phone, and now holding hands — that I have witnessed idiot bikers engage in while biking on a narrow path. And to think that I regularly get yelled at by bikers for running on the brick shoulder!
I knew the roses agreed with me, because they were glowing.
