THE BUS FROM JFK: It’s Like Mother Goose Threw Up

A foreign journalist arrives in the United States, having flown in from Malaysia to cover the American election for the New Straits Times. He hits the ground running, beginning his coverage immediately upon landing at JFK, and offering up some of the most peculiar, thru-the-looking-glass reportage ever.

2008 RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE: Getting a feel of good and bad in New York

By : UMAPAGAN AMPIKAIPAKAN

OCTOBER 27.

It’s just before 6pm and I’m standing in the visitors’ line at John F. Kennedy International Airport. I’m clutching my Malaysian passport and preparing myself for the third degree…

I wish I’d shaved. Because somehow, I’m always the one being randomly checked… as long as there [are] people out there who look[ ] like me intent on blowing things up…

But I was wrong… The gentleman at the counter…was courteous, polite and professional. Hell, he was friendly. The entire process took under 10 minutes.

7pm. I’m on a bus to Grand Central Station. It’s like a veritable nursery rhyme… it’s like Mother Goose threw up in here. A gentleman who looks like Humpty Dumpty waddles in and takes up the row behind me. Next to me there’s a woman who looks like she lives in a shoe… I ask her who she thinks is going to win on Tuesday.

That was my first mistake. She tells me that she’s voting for McCain. She tells me that America is at war with Muslims, Obama is a Muslim and she isn’t going to vote for a Muslim. I’m off to a great start.

I say to her: “Ma’am, I can assure you, that isn’t the case. Neither is Obama a Muslim, not that it should matter, nor is America at war with Muslims”…

She’s speaking at me now, in a tone of voice that is attracting attention. Peter the Pumpkin-Eater is looking at me funny. The Three Little Indians at the back are pretending like it isn’t happening. The bus driver, Korean I think, just smiles. Serves me right for using public transportation. I move to another seat to avoid the crazy [person]. We arrive at Grand Central. Tired, weary, and just a little afraid, I make my way to the hotel. The old lady goes back to her shoe.

Could it get any nuttier? (Starting with an international journalist taking a bus from JFK to Grand Central Station.)

Image credit: taopauly

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Fake Exotica & Williamsburg’s Young Hip Transplants

This is a rant about those who are nutty and shallow: the house of worship below, located in Williamsburg, is not a mosque, it is a church. More on that below, but first…

I knew a couple of professional hipsters, friends of my ex who were art dealers. Once, during a summer weekend with them at a borrowed Long Island vacation house, I set up my iPod so we’d have music in the house: first, some favorite Arab music — no problem — then some favorite country music — gasp, that just wouldn’t do!

My amused ex later informed me of the horror the couple expressed in the kitchen, all sotto voce like, so I wouldn’t hear…

Oh dear!

Arab music = cool… C&W = not cool… Can ya dig it, daddy-o?

So I wonder if that relates to the story here: some Williamsburg hipsterpreneur created a souvenir tote bag on which the Russian Orthodox Church is labeled a “mosque” — squint your eyes:

Tote bag depicting Williamsburg’s Russian Orthodox “mosque”

Question for hipsters: would a mosque be cooler than a church?

Some background on the Russian Orthodox Church, provided on the web page of the photographer who shot the photo up above:

Russian Orthodox Church, Transfiguration of Our Lord at 228 North 12th Street, Brooklyn, NYC. The Byzantine-style church, whose rector is the Very Rev. Wiaczeslaw Krawczuk, was built between 1916 and 1921. It was designed by Louis Allmendiger, who modeled it after the Cathedral of the Dormition in Moscow. The church became a city landmark in 1969 and was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

But maybe that isn’t exotic enough for some. Maybe the tote bag maker in question fled his/her hometown of Meatloaf, Kansas on a skateboard, a refugee from his/her own self-loathing or whatever who, without being conscious of it, equates ‘exotic’ with ‘cool’. And for whom thinking of that church as a mosque helps him/her feel a tiny bit hipper.

Anyway and ins’allah, read the fine source post and comments.

Photo credit: ifotog
Tote bag image: Etsy via newyorkshitty, I think.

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

Plenty more to read about groovy Williamsburg. Or maybe one of youse guys knows a nut you’d like to turn everyone on to?

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