You decide (11)

The same, quite different, or similar?

Naga sadhus along the Ganges

Nude sunbathers, Englischer Garten, Munich (what's English about this you ask?)

xo

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You decide (10)

Disturbing or fascinating? (Don't be afraid: click on the picture for an extra-large view.) You decide.

xo

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P.S. Sorry for the long silence in my posts. It's been one of those periods. Busy? Yes. But the kind of busy that saps your energy to do anything. It might well have to do with gyrations of temperature that we've been experiencing.

P.P.S. Though the spirit of "You decide" is that, well, you decide, in this case it is almost an "Explain, if you can". There was something about this that fascinated me. Yes, I'll admit (to you and my shrink): there was a beauty, pathos, don't-want-to-look-but-can't-look-away. I can't quite explain it. Perhaps you can...

You decide (9)

I went from this...

... to this...

Upgrade, downgrade, or apples and oranges? You decide.

You decide (8) or On the street where I live

Ugly or futuristic? Impressive or monstrous? ( I am referring to the tower with terraces and stacked levels.) You decide.

After you've decided, you can follow this link, and if you do let me know whether you changed your mind!

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P.S. It's the street where I live in Mumbai...

You decide (7)

Cute urbanites, annoying overachievers, or just another New York couple?

Kenneth Dickerman for The New York Times

For the full details, you can read the article here. But the gist (liberally drawn from the NYT article) is as follows:

Emily Nemens, the communications director for the Center for Architecture/AIA NY:

• Age 27,
• Was writer-in-residence at the Kerouac Project in Orlando, Fla., where she completed a short-story collection called “Scrub.”
• She contributed to a graphic novel version of Studs Terkel’s “Working,”
• Played the baritone saxophone at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, twice
• She paints, she sews, she plays soccer and she is a virtuoso cook.

Benjamin Shuldiner.

• Age 33,
• Became the state’s youngest high school principal seven years ago at age 26 when he co-founded the Crown Heights High School for Public Service.
• Ran for Congress in a district north of New York City, where his family lives, coming in third in the Democratic primary.
• Was a junior state chess champion.
• As a student at Harvard, the host of his own hip-hop radio show.
• He’s also an ace marksman with a light rifle.

Emily and Benjamin decided to live together, but preferred to rent two apartments right across the hall from each other, "spaces so close that the two of them can dart back and forth in their underwear with little fear of being seen by the neighbors". Their apartments are in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, right near the trendy Bedford Avenue L-train stop. They spend most weekends at Benjamin's three-bedroom house in Mohegan Colony in northern Westchester County.

xo

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You decide (6)

Order, chaos, or harmony?

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You decide (5)

Bizarre, beautiful, or both?

{from Scouting New York}

You decide (4)

When I first began living by myself, as a student back in the 20th Century, my parents helped me to move into my place. As my parents were leaving, I noticed my father slip an envelop into my desk drawer, but was too busy saying my goodbyes to my mother to ask.

I didn't think it was money, since I had already gone through a series of big talks with my father (my parents more generally, but in general my father took the lead in these talks, interestingly even if the topic was domestic matters - something like cooking - in which he had little experience) on how to get by. I was half right, and half wrong.

It was indeed an envelop with "Emergency Cash" written on it, containing a hundred dollars. When I asked him about it over the phone a few days later, he said that I should hang on to it for one of those situations in which I lose my wallet and the bank doesn't open for another day.

The envelop remained unopened for 18 years, indeed until yesterday.

It's not that I had specifically avoided opening it, but I'm a pretty organize person. Thankfully, I've never had my wallet stolen (although someone did once pickpocket me for some poems, but that's another story). But yesterday I left my wallet at the office. I didn't feel like driving back, but I had a yearning for ice cream.

I thought about trying to offer them Euros from my leftover travel money or pooling together leftover change, but then I recalled that somewhere in my current apartment that envelop must still exist. It does. Orange-honey-ginger and rosemary ice cream never tasted as good.

Tonight I'll top up my emergency fund for whenever I need it next.

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You decide (3)

Abstract? Or all too real?

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You decide (2)

Genius, evil, or evil genius?

{all images Michael Nagle for The New York Times}

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You decide

When I was 13 or so I told my father that I wanted (needed, really) a pair of gloves. I needed these gloves because when we went traveling every summer I would help my father with our baggage, which had an impressive mathematical inevitability: five people, two bags each, ten bags total. Add to that a European sojourn on our way to India, rolling baggage carts that had only three wheels, at least one of which always pointed in a different direction from the other two. I liked to try to be helpful. But lifting those bags would leave my hands a little raw, so I thought a pair of gloves would solve the problem.

I imagined something like leather driving gloves, something jaunty and fun, for which it's true I did expect I would find a few other uses.

My father thought it over, and told me that the only gloves he could offer me at the moment were a pair of oversize cotton gardening gloves.

So I wore these - without any embarrassment - for a few summers while we were at airports. I stopped using them after an immigration officer in Tokyo asked me to remove my gloves and to show him my hands.

You decide.

xo

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