Simple Syntax Needed

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I might be the first female to say this in all of New York City, but I think I understand Mr. Big before his and Carrie’s wedding in Sex and The City: The Movie. I need to be reminded that at the bare bones, it’s me and my love – whether that be my boyfriend, my fav read, whatever. Because right now, I’ve never felt so overwhelmed by luxury in all my life. 

My boyfriend is trying to plan out this fantastical weekend set in a historic – and incredibly swanky – New York hotel, complete with an entire floor to ourselves, a private Jacuzzi, the works. And while I appreciate the gesture, I can’t help but feel like it’s all too much. I mean, while he was planning this romantic getaway, I was planning on how much it would cost to get to the Statue of Liberty and whether or not my Chucks would weather the storm if it rained. Now, should I be pulling out the heels, the one Coach bag I got as a gift? And what does this make of our relationship?

In many ways, life is always comparable to a good book. Or at least you hope your life turns out to be a decent read. And every book worth reading has good, simple yet effective syntax. The problem is here, in my life, my boo is turning our relationship, a simple declarative sentence, into a complicated, multi-dimensional, too-many-clauses-having, over-the-top, adjective-loaded, three-line sentence (complete with unecessary parentheses). See what I did there?

We’re going from $1 pizza around the corner from my college dorm to $50 appetizers on Central Park West. I don’t even know how this happened. And while it all sounds great in theory, I don’t think the right message is coming across. I want it to feel like me, him and time. Not me, him, time, money and the nosy old lady at the front desk.

So how to edit this run-on sentence: find the message and reword. I’m going to have to remind myself, and him for that matter, that our tale is going to be a classic. And for that to happen, we need to make sure that we live out our story in a way that we understand and will compel our future selves, our readers so to speak. Our language has to be simple. It doesn’t mean we can’t throw in a few upper echelon adjectives, some longer sentences here and there, for a break from the monotony. But first, let’s set the pace, get a solid setting, and paint a clear direction for where this tale is headed.

Creativity is still alive!

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Last Thursday, it was as if the air was alive with the arts. Songs, readings – all burned with the passion of young angst. One of the freshman residence halls at NYU teamed up with the Minetta Review to present their Fall 2012 Open Mic Night. Students –mostly residents from the building – came down to share their funny stories, their most heartfelt poems, and their musical talents. This writer even got up there to share one of her best works. Editor-in-Chief Joshua Borja, in the midst of coordinating the acts, also decided to read a couple of his works to the crowd. As we both left the stage, we were each saluted with applause. “This is a good environment for this,” said Borja. And it was.

There was no order to the acts – it was your turn when you stood up to head to the stage. Held in the small Black Box Theatre on the second floor of the building gave the event a very intimate feel. People removed their shoes, really got comfortable – all to listen to the creations of their peers.

Leave it to freshman to teach us “jaded juniors” a little lesson: creativity is still alive and well.fall-2012-open-mic

Turning the Page on Streetside Books Pt. 1

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The sun comes in and shines on the neatly laid out books atop the white plastic tables. Many classical novels, from Platos’s Republic to Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, are side by side with such contemporaries as Jonathon Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Eating Animals. While these books, whose edges are fraying and pages are yellowed are laid out on this table in cardboard boxes in neat rows, people rush past the table, glancing on their way to class. Zachary Aptekar, the man who sells these books in front of the Stern Business School courtyard reaches to fill in a spot left empty on the table by his last sale. “It’s hard to catch people moving by at, say, 4 miles an hour,” says Aptekar, “so I’ve got to keep up the display books.”

Aptekar became a book vendor in 1993 after meeting another friend of his that got him interested. After seeing his friend go buy books from a giant booksale, then turn them around to sell them himself, Aptekar became intrigued. He got his own books and started to sell them at a smaller table. He used to also collect books he found from these booksales. “Now I don’t have the time,” says Aptekar.

Book vending is not a new phenomenon. It’s something that has been a staple of both academic and leisurely centers around the city. But recently, the number of tables on the street have decreased. With the proliferation of digital publishing and mainstream stores, small book vendors – especially those located on sidewalks outside of major businesses – have taken the biggest hit of all.

The food truck popularity has even taken business away from these book vendors on the street – and they don’t seem to be too happy about it. They started to really become visible on the NYU campus about a year ago, lining the street from Laguardia Place down to Mercer Street, the same segment of the street many book vendors also liked to occupy.

“There used to be ten or so of us [book vendors] out here,” says Aptekar, pointing up and down West 4th Street. “Now there’s only two of us.”

Food trucks such as the ‘Seoul Food’ truck to the immediate left of his table comprise what Aptekar calls the new “restaurant row,” the booming culture that’s taking sidewalk space– and money – away from the book vendor’s that were once there on West 4th Street. There seems to be a silent bond between the Halal vendor that is to the right of Aptekar’s table. “It used to be him and a guy out here selling coffee,” back in the nineties he stressed, but now “the food trucks are everywhere.”

Aptekar is steaking out his territory here on West 4th. Partially because of writers like me and because of his persistence, he has made a name for himself – well, at least a known presence on NYU’s campus. Let’s hope that continues.

 

Zachary Aptekar sells books every weekday outside of Stern’s courtyard

A Little Hope – Revisiting an Old Story

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I’m sure it’s always nice to revisit an old source – to keep in contact with them could really help out. So it was lovely to run into the Editor-in-Chief of the Minetta Review, NYU’s student-run literary magazine, the other day while walking throughout campus. It reminded me that there’s always more to do –  a story is never really over. It can be remade, redone, or just edited better. Journalism is a progressive effort, and even when something doesn’t turn out well the first time, it can always be done well the next….

The story is never over….

Nuyorican Poets Cafe Welcomes You

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Located on 3rd Street between Avenues B and C, in a neighborhood shrouded in the rich Puerto Rican heritage, and laced with artistic angst is the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Only a cafe in name, this is the place for emerging and wanna-be artists to get their big break.

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe opens up their doors to a multitude of talents, ranging from musical performance to slam poetry and spoken word and even to theatrical pieces. The purpose of their stage is to make it accessible for everyone to have a shot up on stage, a chance to showcase whatever it is they’ve got.

The exposed brick walls, small wooden tables seating about 4, and the wooden bar all help to create a relaxed environment where the audience can really focus on the art coming from the stage.

Grab a drink, feel at home

At its finest: The Correction

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See here! Corrections happen everywhere, even at the most esteemed New York Times. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be striving for complete accuracy in our journalistic careers. It just assures those just beginning that small things can (and will) go awry, even at some of the most major publications.

Even then, this article is a very interesting review. Beginning as an article in Marie Claire, Yael Kohen’s book “We Killed” is based off of the female comedy world inspired by NYC’s comedy landscape.

Yael Kohen and her new book reviewed by the New York Times

 

Ethically Speaking…

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I am currently writing a piece about a bug. Well, more of a beetle. Yes, a small, black beetle with tan outlining making its way up and down a deck I happened to be sitting on.

My unknowing subject

The clicking sounds of the keyboard were my only signs of movement. I was deceptively still. As I watched its six legs shuffling across the deck, I kept both of mine still. I even found myself holding my breath at times. After the bug decided to vacate the area, due to boredom, or just random bug thoughts, I realized that this is somewhere near the subject-journalist compendium that Janet Malcolm talks about in her book The Journalist and The Murderer.

This should be every writer’s go to guide on ethical relationships between the subject and the writer. It poses many ethical questions, but focuses on the aspect of deceit. How far is a writer allowed to go, to empathize with the subject? Is there are point when it becomes entirely unethical? Are you allowed to be friends?

I’ve interviewed a friend or two for an article before. Does that make me a bad journalist, even if the friend was a very relevant piece of my story?

I’m sure that writers in other fields may have this same problem. Maybe it’s not as much as an ethical proposition as in the case of journalists, but there has to be some ethical pull to this all.

They don’t really stress this aspect of writing in school when we’re learning about the writing process. Do we put “make sure you’re ethically interviewing a subject” before or after the rough draft? That may be a little too complex for children. But then again, their senses of ethics are less touched by the pressures of the world, so it may be a beneficial aspect to add.

Bye Bye Buggy

Anyway, the bug kept trudging along, and eventually shuffled out of my sight. I like to believe it found its way to a nice leaf, maybe even decided to take a nice little nap near a warm, sandy rock. But as a journalist, I can only say it crawled away, leaving me and my keyboard alone. Silent.

I say NYU claims Junot Diaz…period.

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He was once a professor here at NYU, so I say we get to count him in as one of our very own seasoned word-workers. Congratulations to his  MacArthur Fellowship! His works have had such an impact on many o’classroom, especially one of his most famous novels, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Glad he’ll be visiting NYC this Friday. You in?

The first step…

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Interviews are the always the first step. So as journalists, we keep at it, tracking people down and finding the best times to hear what in many cases turns out to be their whole life story. This week was a lesson in time management, but not in the traditional sense. I mean managing not only my schedue, but someone else’s too. It’s a big lesson to learn, but hey, it had to be done.