The Wilds of Queens Boulevard
Jun. 4th, 2002 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksHiho, hiho, it's off to work I... don't quite go. Interview, though, if only with a temp agency, who of course did the whole 'we can't promise you a job, we can't promise you a good salary, and please fill out the following fifty forms in triplicate so we can get on with not doing it' thing. I slander them; I do think they will get me a job, eventually, as I did very well on all their standardized tests and they seemed a busy and efficient place. They were pleasant to me and did not treat me like office pool scum. It's just I hate taking that type of standardized test. Yes, I can type. Yes, I know simple arithmetic. Yes, I can fill out alphanumeric data entry forms. Do the tests for all these things have to be ten frickin' minutes? Couldn't it just be five? Also, the place is in Queens. I live in Brooklyn Heights. For those of you unfamiliar with New York, here is the equation: Brooklyn Heights--> Queens = 2 hour subway ride + 4 transfers. That's one way.
At least I have now been in four out of five boroughs, and am starting to feel like if dumped in New York without explanation of where I was I could get back to the apartment without winding up in Jersey. I have never been to the Bronx. It's further away then Queens. But Queens was OK. It was interesting to get off the subway and be faced by the largest random classical-type marble sculpture I have seen by a street for no apparent reason in North America. It should have been called The Excruciation of Heracles: big big brawny guy tied in itty bitty knots. Or possibly a study of a study of a copy of Michelangelo's Prisoners. With a fountain stuck in his ear, I kid you not. I had not been expecting this thing, and I had been reading Juvenal in the subway, which just made it weirder, as Juvenal is just full of statues that shouldn't have existed. I bought the copy of Juvenal's Satires, together with an omnibus edition of Plautus' best-known plays, off a street vendor for seventy-five cents apiece. Both books are new and, I find upon examination, still have the little security strips in them, leaving me with some concern that they may have, shall we say, fallen off the back of a truck. Still, even if they are stolen, at that price the thief is making no profit, and it happens to be the correct market price for Plautus; as well, I wouldn't know what to do about the possible provenance of the books if I tried. It seems appropriate to have a slightly shady copy of Juvenal. He would so disapprove. I probably wouldn't have bought them if I'd noticed those strips, though... does it strike anyone else that New York is possibly the only city in which one can buy illicit copies of the classics on a streetcorner? I mean, this is a city where a vendor set up on somebody's front stoop sold me obscure Latin authors. There are some things I like about New York.
Angst-O-Meter: Not sure. Tired and annoyed about alphanumerics.
At least I have now been in four out of five boroughs, and am starting to feel like if dumped in New York without explanation of where I was I could get back to the apartment without winding up in Jersey. I have never been to the Bronx. It's further away then Queens. But Queens was OK. It was interesting to get off the subway and be faced by the largest random classical-type marble sculpture I have seen by a street for no apparent reason in North America. It should have been called The Excruciation of Heracles: big big brawny guy tied in itty bitty knots. Or possibly a study of a study of a copy of Michelangelo's Prisoners. With a fountain stuck in his ear, I kid you not. I had not been expecting this thing, and I had been reading Juvenal in the subway, which just made it weirder, as Juvenal is just full of statues that shouldn't have existed. I bought the copy of Juvenal's Satires, together with an omnibus edition of Plautus' best-known plays, off a street vendor for seventy-five cents apiece. Both books are new and, I find upon examination, still have the little security strips in them, leaving me with some concern that they may have, shall we say, fallen off the back of a truck. Still, even if they are stolen, at that price the thief is making no profit, and it happens to be the correct market price for Plautus; as well, I wouldn't know what to do about the possible provenance of the books if I tried. It seems appropriate to have a slightly shady copy of Juvenal. He would so disapprove. I probably wouldn't have bought them if I'd noticed those strips, though... does it strike anyone else that New York is possibly the only city in which one can buy illicit copies of the classics on a streetcorner? I mean, this is a city where a vendor set up on somebody's front stoop sold me obscure Latin authors. There are some things I like about New York.
Angst-O-Meter: Not sure. Tired and annoyed about alphanumerics.
