It’s a perfect summer day for a parade in the West Village.
Death to Squirrels
by Iris Vander Pluym
With the exception of Gay Pride, summer weekends in the West Village are very quiet. Especially the mornings. I took a stroll to the Saturday Greenmarket at Abingdon Square to acquire some provisions for the week, and along the way I took a bunch of pictures with my iPhone like a goddamn tourist. I was thinking you might enjoy them.
[CONTENT NOTE: Orlando mass shooting and related issues; rape; mental health. No violent images or graphic descriptions.]
I was quite literally rendered speechless upon learning of the tragedy in Orlando Sunday morning. I cannot say I was surprised, though; mass public shootings in the US have been increasing, and it’s no secret that conservatives have been cranking up the hate against the LGBTQ community (just as they have against women, immigrants, religious minorities, the poor, the disabled, etc., and of course none of this is a coincidence). But I did (and do) feel traumatized—as in anxious, dissociating, difficulty concentrating, overwhelming sadness and anger, waking through the night with my heart pounding, super fun stuff like that. For an artist and writer who uses art and writing to process life and the world around her, such a state is nothing short of devastating. (<-See? Dissociating. I just referred to myself in the third person for no fucking reason FFS.)
I don’t write a lot about my personal life online, for many reasons I won’t go into here. But in this case some of that is relevant, and I think perhaps worth sharing.
Union Square Park today
with obligatory statue of a d00d (it’s always a goddamn d00d) left.
Ahh, friends. There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, as glorious as a city park on a spectacular day.
The Greenmarket was in full swing on the west side. And on the east: lush greens, quiet benches, hushed tones.
WAIT A MINUTE.
Oh no.
: |
NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE
#deathtosquirrels
__________
UPDATE:
One of the things I love most about this city is that it is constantly recycling itself. If you’re a fan of urban hiking, you can walk the same streets day after day and almost always discover something new. Sometimes you notice something old that somehow escaped your attention. And sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you get yelled at by the police for taking pictures with your iPhone in a public fucking building.
Anyway.
On Friday I had some business at the New York County court house at 60 Centre Street. The subways on the West side don’t get you very close, so when you come up from the station on Chambers Street you have to zig and zag your way North and East for several blocks. I guess I had never taken this particular path before, or at least not for a long time, because I stumbled on something striking: the African Burial Ground National Monument.