Watching the marvelous 2006 movie The Devil Wears Prada makes me long for the New York of the before times, meaning the pre-COVID-19 New York.
In the movie, starring Meryl Streep, we see people on the streets, in restaurants, fashion shows, art galleries, and in the workplace (the offices of the fashion magazine Runway) without a face covering, without social distancing, without a single hand sanitizer dispenser in sight.
If only we could bring back that New York ASAP!
On the sidewalk at the northwest corner of Broadway and 110th Street and the sidewalk at the northeast corner of Broadway and 106th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, someone wrote with a blue marker pen this message: "IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY 11-07-20." Obviously, it was to commemorate Joe Biden's defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
But despite our elation over Trump's defeat, we shouldn't forget that that doesn't mean he will fade away. It just means he will no longer occupy the White House and that he will no longer be in power.
You can be sure his presence will be felt in other ways via Twitter, rallies, conservative talk radio, etc., criticizing and belittling Biden and the Democrats every chance he gets.
Trump will definitely refuse to go gently off the stage. His enormous ego will not allow it.
This past summer, a young black woman stood in line about three or four people ahead of me, outside the Trader Joe's supermarket on Columbus Avenue, near 93rd Street, in Manhattan. She carried a canvas tote bag that was printed on the side with this message: "Reading Can Seriously Damage Your Ignorance." In the center of the words was a drawing of an open book.
Being a book lover, the message struck a chord with me. I thought it was a wonderful way to promote the reading of books and to celebrate the life of the mind.
Radio talk show host Thom Hartmann, a liberal, once briefly interviewed a scholar who worked at a libertarian think tank. The scholar had written a paper regarding the colonization of the moon as a social experiment.
That idea got me to thinking: what if lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people established a moon colony? Would that society be just and egalitarian or corrupt and totalitarian?
On October 24, in the year 1820, according to the U.S. Capitol Historical Society's 2020 calendar entry for that day, "J[ohn] Q[uincy] Adams notes that his father [John Adams, the 2nd U.S. president, 1797-1801] is victim of flu epidemic raging in northern cities."
In light of today's COVID-19 pandemic, I would like to get an answer to the following questions: how did they handle the flu? Who was most at risk back then? How severe was it?
We might be able to draw a lesson or two from this history.
In the November/December 2020 issue of Poets & Writers, you will find the 5th Annual 5 Over 50 profiles of writers age 50 plus who have published a debut book.
I just started my subscription so I was unaware of this annual acknowledgment until now even though I've read Poets & Writers for several years off and on. Somehow I missed those previous 5 Over 50 profiles.
Nevertheless, I was happy to see them. Usually it's a celebration of writers under 30 or under 40 who get most of the ink.
Finally, the 50 plus demographic, of which I'm a member--AARP's constituency--are getting some respect from the literary community, who have been too youth-obsessed when it comes to first-time authors.
As the editors at Poets & Writers have rightly pointed out, " 'new' and 'emerging' are not synonymous with 'young.' "
Can I get an "Amen" to that?
I don't know if Aja Brown, a young African-American urban planner, is still the mayor of Compton, California. Assuming that she is, I will point to an article that appeared on Los Angeles magazine's website dated October 2, 2013. (I accessed the article on February 5, 2019 while looking for anything about the city I once called home in the 1960s.)
What caught my attention, you ask? It was Ms. Brown's prediction, her desire, her belief that Compton will be the new Brooklyn. Disheartened, she said, by "the impact rap has had over Compton for decades," she wants to "rebrand our community."
As any mayor worth his or her salt would do, Ms. Brown touted Compton's many assets: "We're 15 minutes from downtown [it's not clear if she's talking about Los Angeles or Long Beach or both], the port and LAX. We're surrounded by freeways and have light and heavy rail and great institutions....We're ready to have a renaissance."
Let's hope that that renaissance she favors doesn't displace the city's current residents. I don't know if Ms. Brown has ever been to Brooklyn. But before Compton is turned into a hipster's destination, she should bear in mind the many longtime Brooklynites, like the African-Americans living in the Crown Heights section, who had to leave because the area became too gentrified, too hip, too expensive.
There's an old saying, be careful what you wish for, you may get it.
