Category: NYC

Nostalgia: Bleecker St, Tekserve, Blueberry iBooks, and old SF magazines

I went down a rabbit hole this morning, following a couple of threads from a couple of articles I was reading, which stirred up some old memories and made me do a bit of spelunking on the internet. I thought it was interesting enough to justify a blog post, so here we go.

I think the whole thing started with this article about all the empty storefronts on Bleecker Street in NYC. This led me into a reverie about the “old days” of cool record stores and book stores and computer stores. Which reminded me of Tekserve, which went out of business about a year ago. (Tekserve’s collection of old Apple hardware is now owned by MacPaw, an Apple development shop in the Ukraine, which seems kind of crazy to me, but that’s probably because I’m old.)

I’ve also been reading through old TidBITS newsletters, and hit one this week that mentioned Tekserve’s closing, and linked to this video from an old Sex and the City episode that includes a couple of scenes shot at Tekserve. I’ve never actually watched Sex and the City, but that clip is kind of fun.  Aasif Mandvi (from The Daily Show) plays the Tekserve employee who handles her laptop, and there’s a bit with a Blueberry iBook that made me a little nostalgic for my old Tangerine iBook.

And, going back to the Bleecker Street article, Sex and the City was apparently one of the main reasons for the beginnings of the real estate bubble on Bleecker Street, after Magnolia Bakery made an appearance on the show. And that got me thinking about the changes in Greenwich Village, in general, over the years, including Bleecker Bob’s getting replaced with a yogurt shop in 2013, and Kim’s Video closing down in 2014.

The Kim’s Video article includes this quote: “Manhattan in the 21st century is this Disneyland for the superrich,” from Richard Hell. And that reminded me of a science fiction story I read in 1989, which basically used that concept as its premise. The story was called “Do You Believe in Magic,” was written by Paul Di Filippo, and appeared in the January 1989 issue of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. And, no, my memory is not nearly good enough to have remembered any of that. I had to do a bit of searching to figure that out. (I’m glad to have found The Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index, by the way. I may need to use it again some day.)

I’d like to reread that story, but if I still have my copy of that issue, I have no idea where it is. (I looked around my apartment a bit, and did find some F&SF issues from 1964, but none from 1989. I can’t remember where I got those 1964 issues from, but the covers sure are nice.) I found that it’s contained in a collection titled Fractal Paisleys, which is available on the Kindle for a little over $5, and contains a bunch of other stories that are probably also pretty good.

So I think that brings me full-circle, back to 2017, where I use the internet to track down old SF stories and then buy DRM-protected digital copies of them from a giant global monopoly retailer, without ever leaving my apartment. (Which I guess is why we don’t have book stores, or record stores, or independent computer stores anymore…)

A busy day in New York

I took a trip into New York City today to see a few things. First, an overdue trip to the Met to check out Seurat’s Circus Sideshow. As a young computer nerd, I was always fascinated by Seurat, as his method seemed particularly relevant and even prescient: putting images together pixel by pixel. The exhibit isn’t a general Seurat exhibit, rather it’s an exhibit of one particular painting, and a bunch of related material, some by Seurat and some by other artists. The Times has a good overview article on the exhibit.

I then walked up to the Guggenheim. I wanted to see Jackson Pollock’s Alchemy, and the little exhibit they have related to its restoration. The painting itself is at the very top of their main rotunda. The exhibit about the restoration is hidden away in the basement, and a bit hard to find. But it’s worth seeing, if you’re a Pollock nerd like me. The main exhibit in the rotunda is called Creating a Modern Guggenheim, and is kind of a catch-all exhibit of miscellaneous works from the Guggenheim’s collection. Aside from the Pollock, there’s a bunch of other interesting stuff, though there’s no real theme, other than “look at all this stuff we’ve got.”

Finally, I went to MoCCA Fest. I’d thought about going to MoCCA Fest before, but never quite managed it. I wasn’t really even aware of it this year, until I saw a mention of it yesterday, so I figured I’d stop by. MoCCA Fest is basically a comic con, but without all the low-brow superhero stuff. (I don’t say that judgmentally. I love the low-brow superhero stuff.) So it’s all indie comics and weird artsy stuff. They had a nice little exhibit of Drew Friedman’s art from his Heroes of the Comics books, and Friedman himself was there. I really love his work on those books, but I can never talk myself into buying them. Cliff Chiang was at the CBLDF booth while I was there. The Wonder Woman books he was signing were probably the most mainstream thing at the show. I’m honestly not that familiar with his work, but it does look interesting now that I’m poking around on the internet learning a bit about him. There were a couple of other guests I would have liked to have seen, David Lloyd and Gene Luen Yang, but neither one was around while I was there. I feel a little guilty that I left the show without having bought any books, but I didn’t see anything that I really wanted. I feel like I should be reading and supporting more indie comics, but there hasn’t really been much of interest to me lately outside the mainstream. Anyway, it was a fun little show, so maybe I’ll go back next year.

Overall, a good day, with decent spring-like weather and a fair bit of walking. Now I’m tired and need a nap.

The Carnegie Deli

I haven’t been to the Carnegie Deli in quite some time, but I’ll sure miss it. I wanted to go back one more time before they closed, but I never got around to it. Here’s a letter to the Times from the owner of Katz’s. (Speaking of which, I’m not sure I’ve ever been to Katz’s. I should fix that.) And here’s some last photos from the Carnegie from Gothamist. My current calorie budget doesn’t really allow for frequent pastrami sandwiches and cheesecake, but once in a while, I can make an exception.

Mastry and Monster Men

I took my own advice (from yesterday) and took the train into New York today and visited The Met Breuer. The Kerry James Marshall exhibit was really impressive. I knew next to nothing about him, going in, and honestly my expectations were kind of low. But the exhibit is great. I have a lot of respect for him now, especially since I found out that he’s a fellow comic book collector! And the exhibit includes a bit of comic-strip work from something he calls “Rythm Mastr.” I’m a little unclear as to whether or not Rythm Mastr is a completed work, and/or if it’s ever actually appeared as a printed comic book. I found a couple of articles that mention it here and here, but I’m still not sure.

Speaking of comics: on the train, I read through the recent Night of the Monster Men crossover that ran through six issues of Batman, Detective, and Nightwing. I’m not usually a big fan of multi-title crossovers, but this was a pretty good one. I’ve really been enjoying the current Rebirth iterations of Batman and Detective. I had really only planned to pick up a few of the DC Rebirth titles through to the end of the summer, then I was going to drop them, but all of the ones I’m reading are good enough that I want to keep reading them. So now I’m thinking that I’ll reassess everything at the end of the year. But, for now, I’m still buying 5 or 6 DC titles regularly.

Not at NYCC

New York Comic Con started today, and there’s already a lot of buzz about it on Twitter and elsewhere. Even The New Yorker is getting in on the action.

I missed out on getting a full four-day pass this year, so I decided to skip the con entirely. (I could probably have gotten a single-day ticket for Sunday, but I wasn’t really that interested.) But right now, I’m thinking it would have been nice to have gotten that four-day ticket, and have taken today and tomorrow off, and have a nice four-day weekend in the city. On the other hand, I’m suffering from some backache and headache issues right now, so it’s probably for the best that I didn’t spend the day trudging around the Javits Center, carrying a backpack full of comics.

There’s a lot of stuff on sale right now at Comixology, related to NYCC, which you can see at this Oktoberfest page. I will likely be spending some money on digital comics this weekend, though I probably shouldn’t. But hey, it’s the best of both worlds, right? Cheap comics, and I don’t have to carry them around with me all day.

Weird Al and Weird Art

My weekend didn’t go exactly as planned, but it went well. I skipped the Star Trek thing, and instead went to MoMA and saw the new Kai Althoff exhibit. It was interesting, but easy to make fun of, if you’re the kind of guy that likes making fun of modern art. The NY Times review is a bit harsh, I think, but, yeah, it would have been fine to see the paintings without having to step around an old suitcase full of dirty dishes.

The Weird Al concert was as good as I expected, with a few fun surprises. I’ve seen Al twice before, so I was already familiar with a lot of the stuff he typically does as part of his stage show. There was a brief guest appearance by Lin-Manuel Miranda, which I wouldn’t even have known about if I didn’t see it on Facebook the next day. (At the time, I didn’t catch his name, and I wouldn’t have recognized him, even if I was seated close enough to see him clearly, which I wasn’t.)

I stayed overnight in an embarrassingly fancy hotel, and went home Sunday morning. Then, after I got home, I drove down to south Jersey to visit a friend. Normally, I would consider that to be a bit too much activity for the weekend, and… I would have been right about that, since my neck hurt quite a lot on Monday. I managed to get through it all without any migraines, at least, but I was definitely in some pain yesterday. And today, the neck pain is gone, but I feel like I might be coming down with a cold. So I’m limping my way through this week, and hopefully I’ll get myself back on the straight & narrow soon enough.

Weird Al and Star Trek and other stuff

Fairly soon, I will be heading into NYC for a day of (hopefully) fun. The main purpose of the trip is to see Weird Al at Radio City Music Hall tonight. A secondary purpose is to drop in at the Paley Center and maybe watch a couple of episodes of Star Trek. So, yes, I’m a nerd.

I’ve been working on my migraine problem over the last few weeks. I haven’t actually had a migraine with aura in more than a month, so that’s good. But I’ve been getting (relatively) minor headaches on a somewhat regular basis, and sometimes they’re bad enough and last long enough to be a real nuisance. I’m hoping that I can get through the day today without any problems. But I do have a hotel room booked, so if I get a headache this afternoon, I can always hole up in my hotel room, draw the curtains, and take a nap.