Bug-eyed

For those of you out there that don't know, I recently got a new job. I'm a copywriter a small marketing/advertising agency focused solely on travel clients. Needless to say, I'm very excited. Writing about travel beats just about anything for me. Makes the morning commute more purposeful and more exciting… and I can’t remember ever having that feeling on the way to work before.

So, I’m learning all of the new idiosyncrasies and tasks that a new job entails. Among all of the job-related things I learned last week, though, I also started to get to know my new work-neighborhood: Soho.

The first thing I learned in Soho is that the amount it costs for a turkey sandwich in this neighborhood could pass as a dowry in some cultures.

The second thing I learned is that Soho is essentially a collection of small streets populated by some of the most attractive people the planet Earth has yet produced. It’s all high cheek bones and impeccably coiffed hair. I feel attacked by attractiveness just walking down the street. When I worked in midtown I used to feel like I could blend in, and I generally felt good about myself. In Soho, I'm barely recognizable as a hominid among the adonises, and the feelings I have could best be described as a unique cocktail of wonderment and self-pity. As problems go, however, this is one I'm prepared to deal with.

The second thing I learned is that I have a long way to go clothes-wise in this ‘hood. Being a fashion hub, Soho is crawling with people wearing the latest and greatest in clothing and accessories—and being sartorially stunted as I am, I tend to stick out like a sore mannequin. The most notable example of this: sunglasses. Gold-rimmed seems to be a trend right now. Some aviators seem to be making a run at style, and a modified version of Elvis' signature Vegas shades. Traditional dark sunglasses, thank God, are still around (I bought mine at EMS about two years ago). But it's not the styles that stand out to me--it's their acreage.

Sunglasses are huge right now. I mean that literally. They take up 50% of the average otherwise-gorgeous woman's face on Broadway and Prince Streets. Dudes wear giant shades too, though not quite as large as their female counterparts. Essentially, the streets are crawling with ludicrously attractive people who've purposely made themselves resemble a housefly.

The funny thing about this is: I used to always have a hard time finding sunglasses that didn't make me look like a big-eyed bug. I sometimes would try the children's section of a department store (or one of those spinning cases in gas stations) to find a pair that fit my apparently diminutive face. I've spent the better part of my life trying not to look like a bug, and now it appears that fashion wisdom is instructing me to do just that.

I won't give in, though. I'm going to move on, commit to making my own trends downtown. Because apparently, that's what I am: a trendsetter. I looked like a bug before looking like a bug was cool.

The Elevation of Conversation

This post contains strong language and an old dude with a cowboy hat.
-----

I don't like the elevator.



The elevator is where interesting conversation goes to die. Prior to its untimely death, conversation struggles against it, and does a sort of unseemly convulsion. That convulsion might sound a little like this:



"I'll tell you, I'm glad it's Friday."



or



"The weekend? Too short, as always."



The subject of meteorology is another favorite. "They say its supposed to be nice by the weekend." Which is something that, I now know, is tooooo short-- but at least it will be temperate.


There's something about the forced interaction in a cramped space that makes people inane. I'm no different. I don't know what to do in an elevator. Sometimes, to avoid a conversation with someone i find particularly painful, I will wait--just stand around the corner, mind you--until that person has already gone up or down on the elevator. I've started to become convinced that I could yield to the sad truths of elevator talk, or I could start looking for jobs solely on the first floor of buildings. And then...


He was an old man. The skin below his eyes looked like a sack of bricks--another one added for each year of his already long life. This might normally give him a look of sadness, but he wasn't sad. He was wearing a cowboy hat.



"Good morning!" he said as he ambled aboard the elevator with me. He looked like a short version of John Wayne.



"Good morning," I said, pleasant but tentative.



He exhaled triumphantly. "Haaaaaaaaaaaah."



I wondered if this was his way of telling me today's chance of precipitation.



He pressed the button for his floor. "Ahh. You're going to sixteen, huh? Who's on that floor?"



I told him Blue Cross Blue Shield.



"Huh. You guys still fucking the customer?"



And then something switched in me.



"Yep. Always."



"Man, I don't know how you guys do it. We don't have a chance." Straight-faced, but with a buried smile. He was a happy curmudgeon.



It was his floor. Already. "Alright, you keep at it. Have a good day."



"You have a good day too."



I'm not sure I've ever meant that more in my life.

Symbolic Indignance? Aisle Nine.

Sometimes, the people speak, and they will not be ignored.

Sometimes they speak with the written word. Others times, they let the sheer volume of a march or demonstration say it all. Sometimes, they speak with their nuts.

In response to the recent cancelling of the apocolyptic TV show 'Jericho', fans of the show apparently got together via the internet and organized a campaign to save the show. After what amounted to a passionate and compelling plea from the devoted fans of the show, the mighty corporate monolith CBS capitulated--'Jericho' was renewed for seven additional episodes in mid-season.

I read about this on CNN.com. I haven't watched the show, but apparently there is more than one website devoted solely to saving the show. On one page, they have over 25 different threads discussing "Proposed Brainstorming and Action Categories" around increasing viewership. Actually, the last thread is devoted to "Ways to thank CBS for their Renewal Decision". One couple suggested a huge vase of flowers (those people are pictured here-I was impressed by their shared fashion sense, and the fact that they appeard to have one body with two heads).


They have press releases--the first one closed with the demand "Jericho deserves more time to tell its story, we accept no less". Another one noted that fans had purchased full-page ads in Variety expressing support for the show.

But my favorite is the nuts.

An allusion to someone on the show saying "Nuts!" about the concept of surrender, viewers sent CBS over 50,000 pounds of nuts. That's 25 tons of nuts, sent via post, to a major television network, as a defiant statement of solidarity in the face of unjust programming decisions. I guess it's my favorite because it allows me to trace the progressive rage of a hypothetical Irate Jericho Viewer.

1. Irate Jericho Viewer won't take it anymore.


2. Irate Jericho Viewer reads Save Jericho websites, and rage against the network machine grows.
3. Fury takes the form of stomping to car, driving like a bat out of heck to local store (IJV still treats other motorists courteously, as it is not their fault that Jericho was canceled).


4. IJV walks at brisk pace toward Nut Aisle.


5. IJV puzzles over which nut sends the best message; which kind demonstrates the most disgust and steely, Neilsen-damning resolve.


6. IJV chooses chestnuts with a wry smile, as chestnuts are a sentimental nut--the kind you roast over a open fire, such as the fire that crackles in his belly.


7. IJV notices a magazine in the 10-items-or-less line talking about the situation in Darfur, and can't help but think that it might make a good topic for a future drama. IJV swipes Frequent Shopper card for small discount on his message to unfeeling suits in fancy CBS offices.


8. IJV takes packages of nuts (two, because screw them!) to local post office, along with hastily-scribbled screed of support.


9. IJV waits in line for 15 minutes, tapping foot all the while to the syncopated rhythym of revolt.


10. IJV sends nuts via Registered Mail, so he will know the name of his enemy (or at least his enemy's executive assistant).

It worked. The IJVs won with their statement-sacks of tree nuts and legumes. And who am I to judge their actions--I haven't saved a TV show this month. I've noted their methods, though - and I've got an half-eaten bag of almonds just waiting to screech my ire should they decide to cancel "The Office".