Weight Bearing Elements

The city stands on its trees. In early spring when the stick straight bareness begins to pubesce and bulb the buildings lose their winter prominence.  The bricks still stack all the way up to the sky, but their middles are missing, replaced by freshly minted leaves.  Brown grey branches end in elegant pink and white tips. Old bikes cannibalized down to their naughty bits lay chained to iron skirted guards, like the last reminders of winter's inhuman appetite.  The skeletons of conquistadors lay wrapped in strangling vines, speared by tall grass a mere mile shy of the fountain of youth. 

How many people can pass the same tree and have different thoughts? Shel Silverstein aside, what are the trees of New York?  The New Jersey wetlands do more to scrub the air in New York City than all of Bloomberg's million trees ever will.  The trees are under control.  Frederick Law Olmsted planted Central Park with the idea of a romantic garden in mind.  The trees were planted purposefully askance.  The grid gone spaghetti soft.

 

The trees break the sidewalk. The trees count your steps. Your stride fits between trees. The trees seldom show ill-use, outside of the occasional restaurant permanently celebrating Christmas with a wending choke of white lights plugged in year-round or sycamore trunk bearing a purple graffitied initial. 

The trees give your dog directions.  The trees hold scarves, hats and pilates balls. They get shaggy with blossoms, perfume bloated to over-ripeness.  They mark the seasons and track the sun.  They bend around corners and flick you the bird.  They hold onto rain showers and continue to drip for hours after.   

Treehuggers and treefuckers (and bear fuckers) beware: New York City's trees bear the weight of the whole hag-ridden Western world.  

Patagonian Dog Orgy

We were in Puerto Madryn walking towards a Parilla joint that had caught our eye on an earlier walk.  Parilla is a special kind of Argentine grill with smoked, salted meats and this particular place was a little off the beaten path.  We were tired and hungry.  That day had been spent bicycling to Punta Loma, where the sea lions congregate.  This had been our third attempt to reach Punta Loma sans car.  

The first two attempts were ill-advised hikes born out of our total ignorance of what a kilometer actual was.  For some reason we pictured 13 kilometers as being a reasonable post-prandial stroll after our free western style breakfast.  Both times we returned to Puerto Madryn rankled and sore, spilling sand from our crevices and malice from our eyes.  We got wise on the third day, rented bicycles and headed out.  There and back again just like Mr. Bilbo said.  The distance still proved to be formidable, even with wheels at our disposal.  We rode on a dirt trail and worked for the progress we made.  We reached Punta Loma and the sea lions were sounding off like a sex party in the gut of a starving giant.  Groans and belches and bellows and squeals.  We rode back with an eye towards dinner.

We had gone to Puerto Madryn in the off-season.  I have been told that the port in Jan- March is normally filled with orcas nursing their calves. Our whole trip to Patagonia coincided with their Fall, which meant gorgeous foliage, but no orcas, no penguins.  Everywhere we went we did notice what we came to understand as the Patagonian dog rule.  Patagonian dogs seem to belong to the community.  In the instance of our trip from the top of the glacier in Ushuaia we were attended by a single yellow lab who carried a stick in his mouth, walked in the center of the road and guided us back to town.  Perro.  

In El Calafate this became a bit more of an issue, since the dogs were much more pack-like and loved tourists.  We would walk down the street on our way to the bird sanctuary and suddenly be surrounded by the most tenacious pack of wild looking mutts and mongrels-- one still flaunting the remains of a broken chain around his neck-- a dozen others sniffing, trotting, growling, yipping, etc.  When we passed the random pony tethered in someone's yard we tried to sneak away while the dogs surrounded and sniffed at her heels.  To no avail.  Three steps on the dogs were at our side.  We finally had to walk back in to town and duck into a supermarket in order to lose them, thinking the keepers at the bird sanctuary would be none too pleased if our pack of dogs dragged their flamingoes out one by one.  

We had yet to really encounter the same effect in Puerto Madryn, though we did see the occasional pooch bolt the boardwalk that stretched for the length of the port.  Since we were there in the off-season a number of restaurants were closed.  This is frustrating for the weary saddle sore bicyclist.  We had decided upon the Parilla place after returning our bicycles because it looked authentic.  When we arrived the smell was enough to carry us to our seats, but we noticed-- just happened to see-- beside the restaurant, just outside the kitchen door there was a little dog orgy.  I've never really had the opportunity to see a dog orgy before, and for the uninitiated who wonder how you can tell if it is a dog orgy, don't worry it's one of those things that you know the second you see.  

There were four larger male dogs sitting, wagging, sniffing, circling around waiting for a fifth to finish with a smallish yellowy female. Each dog took their turn, each being pretty tender with the little female, even licking her belly.  A sixth dog, a sheep dog, was trotting around the perimeter of the restaurant as if on guard duty.  We watched for a minute-- I mean it was free and we were a little y'know curious it being our first Patagonian dog orgy.  We were wondering if this was a comment on the food, but we decided to go in and try the place out all the same since most of the restaurants in quick walking distance were most likely closed and were were tired and starving.

Where we sat we could watch the sheep dog make his rounds on the perimeter every five minutes.  We really began to wonder about his role in the whole thing.  What social status had conferred upon him the security detail?  We decided he must be the only one that was neutered. He looked like the only pure breed in the group and probably belonged to the Argentine naval officers who kept watch on the near-by docks.

The meal was perfect.  We ate and walked home looking for the perros. We didn't see any for the rest of the trip and it was left to us to imagine the bizarre canine concoction that little yellowy dog would birth in a few months.       

Handcuffed to a Naked Man in the Fridge

Winters accumulate, Summers drag, Spring disappears, and Fall is balding.  But Winters accumulate.  They collect in deepening pools.  Each year is a Winter added to the Winter bucket. One more Winter to drag around behind you like a shucked overcoat clinging at the wrists.  It may just be that Winter's astronomical phase is closer to the galactic norm, the elliptical skew showing us that much more night, that much more cold.  Winter's a reminder that we are floating in space and relative inches away from carbon based oblivion (hurray!).  

The city folds its little paper flowers every hour of every day, orbital phases be damned. Everything still moves, though old ladies and delivery men struggle in the slush and countless pedestrians drop knee deep into slush pothole pongee pits before being stippled with icy cabbie blow-back. Winter is an object lesson.  The sane are ushered over to the hob where they can reflect on Winters past and look forward to Spring.  

However widely the planet oscillates on its track the city picks up its own momentum and moves on.  Though once in a while the open clock works of the city gets caught on a sleeve of snow and stops long enough to enjoy pulling itself free.  On the twisted narrow streets in the older parts of Manhattan a good snow fall can sit for a day without salt or shovel. People walk in the middle of the street, breathe smoke and chatter in cliques. The sun rakes in benign in the early morning and for a minute it seems pristine, as natural a scene as a stand of cedars bowing beside a blue mountain.  The plows arrive, uncovering the oiled gray of the asphalt and the city's geometry returns.  There's nothing quite so beautiful as a New York City street deprived of its purpose.