sovay | From Long to Coney Island

derspatchel suggests I should start writing errata for my longer posts, because I kept remembering things I'd forgotten to put in. I am afraid I already stuck Peanut Butter & Co. into the original trip report as a late-blooming parenthetical, but here are some of the rest:

How could I forget Garak? Collectible figurine thereof. We stopped in briefly at Forbidden Planet before losing the rest of our night to the Strand and Rob bought him for three dollars from a case of assorted loose DS9 characters. He spent the rest of the trip setting alarms, running baths, reading maps, enjoying views, trying to get into locked pianos . . . The photos are on Facebook, but Rob is thinking about giving him a Tumblr of his own. 1/8th Gates was an inspiration.

I do not know why the young man at the Strand on Friday night asked if I was an artist, saying it was because of my wrists. (I said I was a writer, which was not what I thought he meant.) Then he told me I should part my hair differently. Rob came in for the second half of this exchange and as just as nonplussed as I was.

On the F train to Coney on Saturday, the two girls in the seat next to me were playing a clapping game. It was one I didn't know: shame, shame, shame, I don't want to go to Mexico no more, more, more . . . They looked between eight and ten. They kept breaking off and arguing with each other about the hand-claps, but they were definite about the lyrics each time. In this age of permanent connectivity and iPhones as soon as a child can tap a screen, I was both slightly surprised and incredibly pleased to see that this kind of play still exists.

Please tell me that I did not do myself a terrible disservice by leaving Nicholas Blake's The Smiler with the Knife (1939) in a hipstery little secondhand shop on Stillwell Ave. It looked excellent from the first couple of pages, but it was a thin little pulp (orange and blue cover, sixties kind of silhouette design) and the pages were already oxidizing to the point where I worried about leaving them on my fingers in flakes as I read. On the other hand, it was two dollars. It had better still be in print, so I can find another copy. Or terrible, so I don't mind about missing this one.

The no-name candy store was Williams Candy and they look like they might be famous, or at least locally known for their candy apples, which I did not get. So there's another thing to go back for.

I mentioned my Tenmen shirt on Sunday, but I did not mention that Rob was also wearing his Achewood T-shirt: What We Need More of Is Science. Because we were going to the World's Fair.

And this is not wholly New York, but I don't care. The last thing I saw online before I turned off the computer and fell over last night (rain-cool wind is even better than air conditioning) was Alicia Cole's "Artemis Speaks to Aphrodite," dedicated to me. It's a wonderful poem, and I am honored to be associated with it. Later this month, Strange Horizons will be publishing her poem for the Coney Island Mermaid Parade and I will shout about it, because it's just that good.

Today I get to do lots of catch-up work.

From Long to Coney Island

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