Prada or Fraud-a?

Over the weekend, my best friend Courtney came down from Boston to show me a thing or two I didn't know about Chinatown. After stocking up on essentials, like a jar of pre-minced ginger for an absurdly low price and fruit from stands whose appearance and prices make you feel like you're in a developing country, we headed off on our real mission.

It seems that every time Courtney comes to New York, she wants to scour Chinatown for knock-off "designer" purses. I, in my efforts to both save money and pare down my belongings, wasn't that into the idea in the beginning. But then Courtney described the process to me and it began to sound very exciting. The basic protocol is this: You walk down the street or enter a stall with lots of bags on display. Someone will approach you and, in a low voice, ask you if you are interested in designer purses. If you answer in the affirmative, you follow them either down a staircase or to the back of the store where a false wall is swung backward to reveal a stockpile of bags made to look like Gucci, Prada, Luis Vuitton, you name it. Why the secrecy? Selling products that have designer names on them if they are not actually made by that designer is illegal. Many of the shopkeepers will ask you which designer you want your bag to be associated with, then glue the nameplate of your choosing in place. The going rate is anywhere from $25 to $45 for bags that look almost exactly like purses that sell for at least ten times that in stores like Bloomingdale's. Needless to say, I was intrigued.

 Courtney and I started walking down Mott Street. The main strip for this sort of thing is Canal, but we wanted to go to the famous Wo Hop Restaurant, located on Mott, for lunch, and so perused different stalls along the way looking for purses. We both decided that we'd love to have a simple, small, sleek black purse for going out to nice places in the evenings; both of us have plenty of huge, colorful purses that don't exactly exude sophistication.

Alas, as it turns out, the simple things are the hardest to come by. It seems that big purses are in, and so we saw almost no small ones. Anything that was remotely near the size we wanted tended to have a loud print or be covered with rhinestones or decorative chains or something. Because we were on the wrong street for it, we didn't get to go into any clandestine back rooms, but we did get to paw through bags of purses pulled secretively from inside hidden cupboards and behind curtains for our inspection. The whole experience was exhausting. We must have scoured at least 30 stalls, all of which were hung with purses from floor to ceiling, and we were at it for hours. Everything started to look the same, and indeed many of the purses were the same. I suspect that many of the stall owners are in cahoots with each other, and those who are not get their merchandise from the same suppliers. Courtney ended up finding a purse she liked and was able to bargain the seller down a few dollars - in Chinatown, haggling is expected, but don't for a second think you're going to be able to knock much off the asking price. She also found a great pair of silver earrings. Other than a tasty plate of noodles and some snap peas and bananas, I didn't end up with much, although I did find a great canvas for an upcoming art project in a discount art store that we passed on the way back to the subway.

So although I didn't find a purse, I did have a great time getting a look at just one of the many underworlds that lurks beneath the surface in this city.

Inter-Blog

I work with a company called Mosaic Tutoring, which helps match me with students around New York. Cory, the founder and owner, is fantastic to work with, and recently emailed me to say that I might want to read her latest blog. She had some rather nice things to say about me, so of course I had share it!

Back in the Saddle Again, then Right Back Out

Despite my concerns about my left knee in the days leading up to the marathon, it felt pretty good and has given me little trouble since (although I accidentally knelt on the remaining bump during yoga the other day and had to suppress a yelp). For about 10 days after the marathon, however, my right knee was pretty painful, so much so that I skipped the race I had scheduled two Sundays ago. This past Sunday, however, I decided to go to another race I'd signed up for a few weeks in advance. My knee hadn't hurt at all for the last couple of days, and it was only four miles. And Central Park is lovely in the spring. I was anxious to see how it would hold up, but we pretty confident that I'd take the race pretty easy and all would be well.

I made it through the first 1/3 of a mile with no problems. Then the honeymoon came to an abrupt end. Both knees actually twinged on and off throughout the race, but my right knee was far worse than my left. Every few minutes I'd get a stabbing pain that made me wince. I had to finish, though, because I had a Zipcar reserved for 9:30 and the fastest way to get there without missing my appointment time was to finish the race, grab my stuff, and head for the station... My knee was sore throughout the day, although it got steadily better and by the next day felt pretty normal again. Still, this is a sign that I'm not ready to get back into training mode again. I really want it to heal completely before I start putting strain on it again. The situation is frustrating because the weather is finally starting to sort of improve (by tiny increments) and I'd love to be out in it. But I figure that by taking time off now I'm ensuring that I can have an uninterrupted late spring and summer ahead.

New Roommates

As some of you may already be aware, Dave is moving out in just a few days. The place will feel awfully empty without him, but I hesitated to find someone new to live with. I wanted someone quiet and clean, who would not eat the last granola bar in the box without replacing it or smoke out the windows. Definitely no one who would stomp around and drive the downstairs neighbors crazy, leave fragrant shoes all over the living room, or neglect to close the refrigerator door completely. (By the way, I am not insinuating that Dave does all of these things. Just most of them.) Enter the new additions to my apartment:

Virgil, in the background, was camera shy.

After much careful thought, I decided to name them Dante and Virgil. I don't have a great history with goldfish (don't tell Dante and Virgil!) and so I imagine that, for a fish, living with me would be sort of like descending through at least a few of the layers of Hell. Virgil is a bit more battered looking than Dante (the lady at the pet store said it looked like he'd been bullied and so it was a good thing I was taking him), which makes sense because in the book, he was in Hell longer and served as Dante's guide. I hope that, together, they'll survive the ordeal of life under my care. So far, all systems are go; they're both active and look cheerful if it is possible for a goldfish to look cheerful. I brought home sushi the other day and was very careful to eat it where they couldn't see me.

Already, though, the responsibility of taking care of two living things is starting to weigh on me. I have visions of pouring them into an empty mayonnaise jar and boarding the subway with them to take them to a friend to feed if I go out of town for a while. Hm. Well, first they've got to survive that long...

Fueling my Addiction with Foer and Keret

This is a bad time to pick up a pricey addiction. I'm about to invest in some new furniture, and although I've had some interviews that went pretty well, I'm still waiting to hear back from several schools about whether or not I'm going to have a job (and its accompanying paycheck) in the fall. But the habit I started forming at the Franzen/Lahiri reading looks like it may be here to stay.

I've been wanting to go to a performance at Symphony Space for ages. I've heard things recorded there on NPR, most notably their Selected Shorts programs, and loved them. Also, the theater is very close to where I live and I walk by it all the time. I got lucky when, the other day, I finally remembered that I'd been meaning to check the schedule and found that there was a reading of Jonathan Safran Foer's work (and some other guy I'd never heard of) scheduled for the following week. I bought one of the few remaining tickets to the show, and last night after my final tutoring appointment I went over to the theater.

 

It seemed that most of the patrons at Symphony Space were on the older side. (By this I mean that I was about the only one there with pigment left in my hair that was actually my own.) I knew this observation was accurate when I looked at the list of ticket prices and saw that you can get $10 off your ticket price if you are under the age of 30.

Etgar Keret

 After an introduction by Isaiah Sheffer, and portly man with wild white hair and thick glasses who used to serve as the artistic director of Symphony Space - now, I believe, he does only Selected Shorts - Etgar Keret took the stage. I thought I'd never heard of him, but as it turns out, I had; Jane recommended a podcast to me in which authors who have had fiction published in The New Yorker select a piece of fiction from the magazine's archives to read and discuss. A story I'd listened to just recently was one of Keret's, and I was pleased to make the connection because I really enjoyed the story. He is Israeli, and was wonderfully articulate, although his thick accent might make you think otherwise if you don't listen carefully. He's got several short story collections out, and after introducing both stories ("Suddenly, a Knock at the Door" and "Lieland"), he stepped aside so that two different actors could each read one. One of the actors, Josh Radnor, is a huge fan of Keret's, and he took the time to fly out from filming the very funny sitcom How I Met Your Mother to read one of the stories. The readings were outstanding, and Keret was very charming.

Here comes the addiction part: After the Keret readings there was an intermission, and I realized that my autographed Franzen novel must feel pretty lonely on my shelf. So I paid full market price for a collection of Keret's stories and a copy of Everything is Illuminated, my favorite of Foer's novels. Had I planned ahead and gone through Amazon, I'd have gotten a better deal, but I didn't think about it until I was sitting in the theater. Whoops.

Jonathan Safran Foer

Foer, Sheffer said almost helplessly after the intermission, has won too many awards to list. His two novels are the one I bought and a newer one called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. He also wrote an investigative piece of non-fiction called Eating Animals, and because I'd heard an interview with him after its publication, his voice was familiar to me when he took the stage. He's a slightly built guy who looks much younger than he is and much, much younger than he sounds: There are authors out there who are more comfortable with a typewriter than they are with other people and who save their articulation for the page, but Foer is not one of them. He was wise, insightful, and far more humble than he had any business being. The first piece of his was a short story, a new one, called "The Thing Itself" read by Liev Schreiber, movie star, director, and Foer's close friend. It was outstanding. The second was the second chapter of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, titled "Why I'm Not Where You Are." Sheffer performed it, and it was beautiful and heartbreaking.

After the readings, both authors perched on high stools in front of microphones and talked. There was no mediator, no pre-fabricated questions, just a chat between two friends (they have known each other for years) who are wildly enthusiastic about each other's talent. I think this is the part that made the reading seem so superior to the Franzen/Lahiri reading. That conversation felt forced, but this one was fascinating.

Highlights:
-Foer said that Keret writes with "a singing ease," which I thought was a gorgeous phrase
-Keret said that he was inspired to write a short story after reading a recent piece Foer wrote. He said after 20 minutes at the computer he had pages of drivel and was reminded of the warnings that precede WWF matches: These acts are performed by professionals - do not try this at home.
-Foer talked about the impersonal way most people communicate and express themselves lately, citing Facebook as an example, a site that has a blue motif because its founder is colorblind. It was clear that "colorblind" was a metaphor, which lends a whole different layer of meaning to the observation.
-Both writers noted that major themes in the works that we heard, as well as in their work in general, is the struggle of the individual to make a connection with other people.
-Foer asked Keret about the seeming duplicitous nature of his work: His language and his storylines are deceptively simple, but the underlying themes are incredibly complex. It's very difficult to write that way, and so it was mildly infuriating to those of us who don't share Keret's incredible gift to watch him shrug and say that, for him, life is the hard part and writing is easy. Easy?? When Foer pressed him, Keret admitted that coming up with an idea was sometimes difficult, but the second he had one the story just sort of took off. He said that writing felt weightless for him.

After the discussion wrapped up, I joined a very long line of people to get my brand new books signed. Keret drew me a very nice picture, which I had to photograph and share (below). Foer, noticing that the book I'd purchased had a crease in the cover - something I saw the second I got back to my seat after it was too late to exchange it - rummaged around in a pile near the table and found a pristine copy for me, which he autographed and handed over.

Isn't this a riot? I peeked at the one Keret signed for the guy in front of me and it was a totally different picture. (For one thing, he did not get a heart-shaped smoke puff.)

"For Beth, with thanks." Aw.

I guess there are worse habits to have.

Yoga for Runners

Yoga is one of the few things I enjoy despite the fact that I'm terrible at it. I'm constantly embarrassed by women twice my age bending double with apparent ease while I strain to get my fingertips marginally close to my toes. I've never been flexible, even as a younger kid when I went to gymnastics, and I've stiffened up considerably since then. Distance runners are known for their inflexibility, and I don't stretch nearly as much as I should. So when an offer for a $10 yoga class designed specifically for runners appeared in a newsletter to which I subscribe, I signed up immediately.

The class was in Chelsea, at a studio called YoGanesh (a combination of "yoga" and "Yo, Ganesh," the Hindu elephant god) which was pretty much a narrow room and some cubbies for shoes and bags. Seven other people showed up. All of us were clearly athletic, but I knew the instant class started that I was among friends because six of them were just as inflexible as I was. It was great. The poses themselves weren't any different from other yoga classes I've taken, but it was incredible to be on the same level as everyone else in the room. No one had dreadlocks, and there was no talk about cleansing herbal teas, prayer flags, or meditation. Everyone was there just because they wanted to be in better shape for running, and it was very refreshing. Instead of listening to Tibetan flute music or ocean waves, we listened to U2 and African-sounding rap with a mellow beat. Our instructor encouraged us to stretch farther by saying things like, "Your goal is to get your chest on the floor," but it was clear she didn't mean it. There was no way that was ever going to happen for any of us and she knew it. I mean come on. We were runners.

There is none of this nonsense in Yoga for Runners.

I learned that the class is actually $5 for full-time students, and I am one according to my TC ID. I plan to go back, if not every Friday, most Fridays. Both my body and my ego felt better after that class than after almost any other yoga experience I've had.