Boston vs. New York: The REAL Subway Series

New York has long since switched to a card-based entrance mechanism for its bus and subway mass transit lines. The simple, lightweight card, known as the "MetroCard", fits easily into a wallet or pocket and is thus more convenient for subway-riders such as yours truly. It also helps the police fight crime, by making it easier to track an individual's movements through the mass transit system. Most significantly from the transit authority's point of view, however, it facilitates fare hikes and makes it easier to steal money from unsuspecting consumers (they code in an expiration date for the dollars you have stored on a pay-per-ride card).*

The phenomenon of transit authority fare hikes (and commuter protests) is not a new one, of course -- one of the most colorful protest songs ever is "The MTA Song" (made popular in 1959 by the Kingston Trio). It features a hapless Boston-area commuter named Charlie who sets off for the office one day, blissfully unaware of a 5-cent fare hike, and who is not permitted to leave the subway train because he can't cough up the extra five cents to cover the full fare. (Much of the humor, of course, is the lovely absurdity of his predicament. Charlie is able to survive on the train indefinitely because every afternoon, his wife hands Charlie a sandwich through the open window as the train comes rumbling through! I guess if she wanted him back, she could slip a nickel into the sandwich... like a cake with a file in it. He is also sadly unable to find five fellow passengers willing to give him a penny each, or to sell anything he may have with him for a nickel, or... You get the picture.)

So now, in an unexpected fit of honesty, the Boston MTA has switched to its own MetroCard system, which it calls the "Charlie Ticket" (presumably in honor of all of its anticipated fare increases).

But I have to admit that the name, appearance and concept of the Charlie Ticket beat the MetroCard hollow. Chalk one up for the Bostonians.




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FN* I have been unable to think up a legitimate reason for the expiration date. If you put, say, $22 dollars on a pay-per-ride card, and misplace the card for an extended period of time, you cannot then take the rides you have already paid for -- even though the transit system has ALREADY taken your money and incurs NO extra cost from allowing you to hop on the train a few years later. (After all, the trains are running anyway!)

And even if there has been a fare increase in the interim, the MTA is not injured by letting you use the card. Suppose you buy a MetroCard with a $18 value at a time when each ride is $2 -- so the MTA puts your $18 in the bank, and you expect to get 9 rides. Then you go off to Tierra del Fuego for a decade, and when you come back, the fare is $18 per ride. If there were no expiration date on your MetroCard, you could at least get your money's worth -- the $18 would only be worth 1 ride now, but at least you could take the ride you've paid for (the MTA has not stolen your $18).

Within a month or so of the expiration date, you can go to the ticket window (if there is one in your station) and request that the dollars be reinstated on your card. It's an annoying extra step, and one that a lot of subway users may not be aware of. But after that little grace period, the MTA makes it even harder -- you have to mail your card in to a central office and REQUEST that they deign to credit you for the money you've already paid them. I am about to try this with two of my old cards from 2004 and 2005 (containing roughly $30).

Ugh.

On the subway, I'm seeing ads for a new TV series about a serial killer. It looks like it's supposed to be a comedy (presumably a dark comedy). I can hardly begin to explain how utterly depressing this is. I can see several potential downsides to this show, and no up-side.

Even if the potential downsides never materialize, it's a pity that our culture is apparently so permissive that the rebellious artists in our midst (if that's what the purveyors of this show are) need to resort to ever-greater extremes to be outlandish.

And the potential downsides -- further undermining respect for life among the weak-minded and those who are already marginally criminally inclined, and possibly inspiring copycats -- will not be prevented even if this show is canceled after the first season. In the electronic era, every video, movie or TV show is immortal. It will always be available somewhere to be revived, distributed on the internet, shown in eternal re-runs, etc.

Totally depressing. And it makes me wonder how we can survive as a society, when we are so saturated with entertainment that people are actually paid to think up and implement totally anti-social ideas to try to satisfy the demand for novelty. What next?

As I think about it though, I have to admit I'm less disturbed by one-shot deals, e.g., movies that try to crush or undermine everything that makes life worth living, or that try to break every taboo, etc. Such movies have a similar "persistence" problem for their anti-social effects, but I find the TV series more troubling. Perhaps because it means the creative team has likely already generated 16+ hours of video for this single theme and character, a character who is intended to draw people in (the advertisements make it clear that this anti-hero is intended to be "handsome" and "charming").

Sigh. Thank goodness I don't have to watch the show -- the macabre subway ads are plenty ghoulish enough for me.

Reminder: Wear Sunscreen!

The parasol method is more unwieldy, as our model demonstrates here:

Rose Hips

A Public Service Announcement

One Year (Roughly)

Wow - just realized, it's been just over one year since I started blogging. (Many happy returns, everyone!) And just think, I owe it all to Z., who freed up my time for this in his own inimitable way.

Whitewater Rafting!

This is probably the fifth time I've gone whitewater rafting. Went twice out west (once when we were returning to the U.S. after three years in Belgium & once when my parents lived in Colorado), once in Maine (the weekend following 9/11/2001, with friends from Boston), and once in West Virginia (with friends from D.C., during the sniper attacks).

But this was my first rafting trip in New York. As always, rafters are a photogenic bunch, a stunning cross between the Michelin Man and Evel Knievel (photo taken by fellow-rafter Laurie):


You will notice that the guides never get caught wearing these ridiculous outfits. Thus the rafters get crushes on the guides, but never vice versa. (Although our guide, Mike, told us that he once guided a raft of models. I imagine that the bulk of the life jackets helped them pass for a normal weight. So they may have remained attractive in the rafting garb - if so, they would be the big exception.)

But I digress. The fact is, on a rainy Saturday morning - during a torrential downpour - 8 of us from the greater New York metropolitan area packed up whatever camping gear we could find and trundled off by subway (NYC folk) and car (NJ folk) to a central meeting point (Manhattan). Despite a crummy forecast (rain, rain, and more rain, the whole weekend), we all got into a caravan of NJ drivers and drove 4 hours north to a camp site near Lake George. By the time we got there, fortunately, the rain had let up, and it was merely menacingly overcast (not to mention damp). In those surprisingly auspicious conditions, we set up two rented tents.

Yes, as city slickers, we naturally had to rent tents from EMS (one of the trip planners had to rent a sleeping bag as well!), and didn't necessarily have a lot of experience in putting them up. But we muddled through OK - the modern technology really makes it very easy to put together a tent that will stay dry during the rain.

Once we figured out how to put together a behemoth six-person tent, it was a piece of cake to put together a two-person pup tent:


We did a good job with the tents, if I do say so myself. It drizzled overnight (around the time that some of our camping neighbors got into a heated argument and decided to impress each other with pyrotechnics and unimaginative swear words), but we stayed perfectly dry.

On Sunday morning, we woke up shortly before the alarm went off, due to the loud cawing of a murder of crows. You may be wondering why a group of crows is a "murder" (rather than a "flock" or "herd" etc.) -- it is because once two or three are gathered together, they start with their CAW, CAW, CAW, and it is loud, obnoxious, and unending at ungodly hours of the morning. This makes you want to murder them. Oh, come on, you don't want the "real" etymology, do you??

Re-packing the tent bags at the end proved more difficult than putting up the tents. Luckily we were able to put more than one person on the job:

When we finally got out on the water, the weather actually got sunny (picture taken by fellow-rafter Laurie):
It was a lovely day on the river, complete with small rapids, big waves, lazy flat stretches, and a great big rock for all of us to climb up and jump into the water. Wheeeeeeee - brrrrrr!!!

Superman Returns (2006)

It's funny how doing exactly what you most desire (which also means declining inadequate substitutes) can lift your spirits.

That's how I ended up - immaculately coiffed, fresh from the hair salon - watching Superman Returns, IMAX & 3-D. I loved it. Let me count the ways....

First, the special effects were good, both with and without the 3-D glasses. (They only had about 20 minutes of 3-D footage total, provided in 4 separate segments. To deal with this, they tell you when to put on the glasses, and when to remove them. I found the concept totally hilarious, but I have to admit it was also a smart move. After all, the evidence suggests that it's a zero-sum game -- i.e., when resources are devoted to the 3-D technology, they are diverted away from character, script-writing, cinematography, direction, plot, etc. So you dramatically improve the quality of your film by reducing the percentage of screen time dedicated to 3-D sequences.)

Second, right toward the beginning of the movie, they show a Scrabble board. I will probably end up watching the DVD to see all the words on it. The only ones I caught on this first viewing, however, by an amazing coincidence, tie nicely in to yesterday's post: in the lower left corner of the board are the words "FOOT" and "FEET". Very cool.

Third, there is a delicious storyline involving a pampered pet dog. It becomes clear, in passing, that the dog has become a cannibal. This is a fun fact, because it goes by quickly, and the film-makers don't dwell on it -- even though the dog is around throughout the entire movie. But then toward the end of the movie, Lex Luthor threatens to eat the dog. Which also works.

Fourth, Superman himself is saved twice in this movie. It's good to see Lois and her family come to the rescue of the superhero.

There are also plenty of things that don't work in the movie, from a logical point of view (particularly Lois Lane's child), but even those sort of have their illogical emotional pull. In fact, if you can overlook the nonsensical elements (as I could), the points being made are rather sweet.

No, my only real complaint is that Lois Lane looks way too young for the role. It's the shape of her face - it's somehow too soft, almost like baby fat, and the nose is way too small, about the size of a child's nose. To me, her appearance undermines her credibility both as a journalist and as a mom.

Tomorrow, I'm off for some camping and whitewater rafting. Unfortunately, it is scheduled to be cold and rainy. Ugh!

Future Foot Fetishist?

So I'm on the way home from the subway this afternoon. I'm walking down the street, minding my own business, and staying to the right on the sidewalk as an ordinary courtesy to pedestrians who are going the opposite way.

A very small child with a pacifier comes along, toddling in front of his mom, and there's plenty of room for them. Then all of a sudden, I realize the child has veered sharply left and is lurching toward me. Stepping quickly in my elegant high heels, I get out of his way -- and he adjusts his course to continue heading for me.

Surprisingly, the toddler is intently staring and pointing at my feet (or possibly my shoes) as he draws closer. He seems mesmerized.

His mom apologizes and brings him back to their side of the sidewalk and they resume their journey, but I'm left wondering: are foot fetishists born or made? (The old nature vs. nurture debate.)

Why I Don't Own a Television

"Don't you wish there were a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's one marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work."

-- attributed to Leo Anthony Gallagher