September 11th FDNY Lieutenant Remembers Ten Year Later

Ex-FDNY Lieutenant

Interviewed: September 10, 2011

Irene Lee: This was actually an assignment. We had to find somebody who witnessed September 11^th and interview them.

C P: I didn’t witness the planes. I got down there after the second building collapsed, but we saw number 7 collapse. But I wasn’t there when the planes hit and I wasn’t there when they fell either.

IL: Okay

CP: We lost a lot of guys from our firehouse and I spent about a month down there. I was actually supposed to work that day. The guy who was my mutual partner wanted to switch it and I couldn’t do it because I was going to visit my mom that weekend. Then my mom called afterwards and said, ‘it’s not a good weekend.’ So I called this guy up and said, ‘you can switch if you want to switch, I can work Sunday night and Monday and you can work Monday night and Tuesday’ and he said, ‘great!’ So I actually went in Sunday and worked Sunday night Monday day, and then Monday night I went home and all these guys came in to relieve us- those were the guys that went the next morning. We had 16 guys in the house because we had an extra engine at the time and like 14 of those guys died.

IL: Out of 16!

CP: Not the guy that was working for me, he was one of the guys that got out, which is amazing.

IL: That is amazing.

CP: So I think my mom saved my life, actually. (laughs) I’m a pretty big guardian angel advocate. She was mine that day.

IL: I think you’re a great person to interview because you were so involved in it. You were working right there, so close to the people.

CP: How could I not be involved? Not even a week before, I think it was five days before, I worked in the firehouse in the shadows of the Trade Center. I was a lieutenant. My area was Times Square down to like the Trade Center, or, Battery Park. That’s the first division and that was where I was assigned. I worked in Ladder 10, which is right across from the Trade Center. So I knew a lot of the guys that died.

IL: So, you were there that day? You came down after you heard about it and then you went down to help out?

CP: There wasn’t very much to do. There were just a lot of fires, a lot of silence and chaos. There really wasn’t much in the way of survivors; it was all very quiet. They assigned me to St. Vincent’s Hospital for a little while, to see if I could locate some guys that were missing. Because some guys, if they got hurt, they’d just jump onto a bus or whatever, and guys weren’t really accounted for. So I went there and there weren’t many survivors coming in. They were all geared up for all these survivors to come in and there weren’t really any. There was so much dust and there weren’t many full bodies, a lot of body parts and a lot of pieces of bodies. There was just so much debris too, there was like 4 stories of debris. It wasn’t like it was wide open, there were two towers lying on the ground. It was just this big mountain. I couldn’t believe that those were actually the buildings. I didn’t know where they all went, compared to the size of those towers when they were standing up, there wasn’t that much to look at when they were lying on the ground. For such tall buildings, it was just very surreal.

IL: I bet. How long had you been working as a lieutenant before?

CP: Well, I was a fireman first in Queens and then I got promoted in June of 1999. I was in Manhattan for 3 years before 9/11, working all over the area.

IL: What did you do after September 11^th, I know that a lot of the firefighters had health problems afterwards, was that, or is that a problem for you?

CP: Well, I continued to work, and they were doing all these screenings on the guys, this was after like 3 years. I had noticed; everybody was having problems breathing. So we all had to go down for these medical exams. I had an issue with my lungs. I wasn’t breathing the way they wanted me to. They give you this chemical that you have to breath in, that judges your lung capacity and how much it decreases. Mine had a significant decrease after I breathed in the chemical. They put me out on disability. I wasn’t really ready for that. I was going to be a captain. I was on the list. A lot of guys had retired with lung issues after that, and many of them continued to get sick. We actually buried a guy that we worked with just last week, came down with a real funky cancer a few years ago, and he just passed away. Guys are having a lot of trouble with this. My condition seems to be stable; I seem to be doing alright.

IL: I hope that continues. That’s a huge, life changing experience. How did you cope after it? It seems almost like a war zone experience, surreal, intense. How did you master it?

CP: I spent a lot of time with the guys at the firehouse; everyone was working 24-hour shifts. So we just leaned on each other. I was in an area where there was a lot of outside support from all over the country and the world. Every day there was different choir groups, people making crafts, cards and posters, benefits. They were sending us on trips. It came to a point that we couldn’t open our doors. It was just like ‘leave us alone for a little while.’ It never stopped. I worked in a really touristy area. Meanwhile, a lot of the areas and ghettos that had lost a lot of guys, they didn’t get the same attention. It was very tough. We were doing 3 to4 funerals a day. Sometimes there were 8 to10, but you could just go to the ones that you could get to, because we were stretched so thin. Usually if one of our guys dies today you get like 10,000 men in uniform. We didn’t have enough guys to give a proper burial. Honestly, it was like a big blur. Everybody was walking around in a fog and disbelief thinking, ‘how could this happen?’

IL: How did you do you think American reacted to this, then and now?

CP: I think people are forgetting. We’re being choked by political correctness, we can’t profile anybody and God forbid that we defend anybody in this country. I’m not trying to point the finger but when you’re trying to find people that are trying to blow us up it’s usually the Muslims that are doing it. I’m sure there are many good Muslims, but when you’re looking for someone who’s racketeering and doing organized crime you look towards the Italian guy. If you’re looking for someone who’s driving drunk you look for the Irish guy. There are these stereotypes and unfortunately they’re kind of accurate. Everybody’s afraid of offending everybody.

IL: Especially after that. Everything got so tense about the racial profiling.

CP: I think that now people forget and I don’t think we’ll be reminded any time soon, but we had a horrible attack on our country. Unfortunately, much of our enemy is right here among us and they’re American citizens, living in our country. It’s not like we’re wearing one uniform and they’re wearing the other one, and you can tell who the bad guy is. The guy that tried to blow up the car in Times Square was an American citizen. He was married and had had kids, it was unbelievable, it isn’t so much the Muslims, as the Muslim radicals.

IL: What do you think about the new building they’re putting up? I heard there’s not enough money going into it.

CP: There’s been a lot of stalling, 10 years later and they don’t have something. There’s so much red tape, and everyone’s so political and politically charged. They changed the name of it too. It’s not the freedom tower, people were thinking that you might as well put a big bulls eye on it. So they changed it to the Trade Center, they can’t get people to move in and I don’t blame them for that. We just passed a roadblock to check all the trucks, but they can’t check everybody. It doesn’t even need to be a truck. You can’t pull over every car and check every truck, and even if you open a truck and it’s full of lettuce so that you can’t see past it, it could be packed with explosives behind, you just can’t tell. It’s a very tough war to fight. We have to be right 100% of the time. They only have to be right once.

IL: So you think this war on terror is still going on?

CP: Absolutely, I don’t think it will ever end. It’s sad because I think if you took religion out of the equation, that’s what they’re fighting for. They don’t like our lifestyle but it’s all based on religion.

IL: Which is so bizarre, religion is supposed to be peaceful. What are you doing for September 11^th?

CP: Honestly, I have mixed emotions about what I should do. They have a piece of steel that they got from 9/11 in my town and they’re dedicating the memorial tomorrow. So I may be the FDNY representative for that ceremony, I’ve been invited. Tomorrow morning all this stuff starts at 8am because they want to have it at the time the plane hit, and then what time the buildings fell. So, I’m not going to be in the city tomorrow. And I feel like- I’m not a coward, but I am a little wary of what could be down there. I want to see the memorial, but I don’t want to be there for 9/11. A couple of times I’ve come close to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I missed it by the grace of God and my mom. I don’t keep in touch with a lot of the older guys. The firehouses now are all younger guys. Some of the older guys come around, but many of them haven’t been there since they retired. I think I’m just going to keep them in mind, say my prayers, go to the memorial tomorrow. It’s all very emotional. Yesterday I was riding my bike and started to think of it and began to cry my eyes out, I was like ‘where did that come from?’ That used to happen a lot after 9/11, it hasn’t happened in a while.

October 5th, Working Groups in Zuccotti Park

October 5- Zuccotti Park is a maze, first entering, it is difficult to tell where to go first, TV cameras are everywhere. People are discussing, wearing signs or meditating. But the protestors have made sure that it is not as disorganized as it may seem. In Zuccotti Park, where protestors are occupying Wall Street, signs hover overhead notifying visitors on where to find information or help. The signs advertise ‘legal,’ ‘media’ and ‘general information’ among others. Beneath each sign is a group of a few people manning desks. A person with a red cross on their arm will every once in a while wind through the crowds. Towering above will come voices that say ‘mic check!’ a call for the people surrounding to repeat their announcement. Occupy Wall Street JournalNewspapers are being handed out.

Each station or person with a red cross refers to a different working group. Working Groups are a phenomenon of the protest in an attempt to organize the event and meet the needs of the protestors. At 7pm every night The General Assembly, a gathering led by a chosen group of people called 'facilitators,' meets and those who feel the need for an organized program in the confines of the park can bring it up and have it be accepted as a Working Group or rejected.

“We have between 10 and 20 Working Groups, but it’s hard to know exactly.” Said Cara Hartley a Brooklyn resident working with the Community Outreach group. According to the General Assembly website there are 20 groups, but the numbers are predicted to grow “everyday, we are getting constant submissions for working groups.” Hartley said. Some are more utilitarian than others including the food, health and media groups. Others include arts and culture and the Info Desk Working Group. There is a subset called Thematic Groups which deal with discussion of a topic.

Anyone can join a Working Group and many have difficulties keeping up with those who are more experienced. Alex Nathanson, a photographer and protestor on Wall Street is working for the Internet Working Group. “I know some coding.” He said, “but I think they’re all really good hackers or something, I learned so much from them.” He added. Some working groups get more aid than others. Workers from the Nurse’s Union comes to train the medical team on EMT and how to be safe from the cold. The General Assembly website shows posts of professionals who offer to help in the training or the working groups including medics and social workers. “There is so much skill sharing in the working groups.” Said Nathanson.

The working groups act as structure. There is one for each of the basic needs of the people. The goal is to create horizontal government where each individual can do any job, according to Evan Wagner, a Brooklyn resident. “We’re trying not to create a hierarchy but it's beginning to happen.” Said Wagner. “An example of this hierarchy,” he added “is that one side of the park gets Internet access while the other side doesn’t. The technology group is working on that now." This means that there is not an equal access to information.

Though this form of social organization cannot be taken so easily out of the park, and it is difficult to imagine it in an outside setting. “I just hope that this reaffirms the importance of the Unions.” Said Nathanson, “Because it’s about the workers.” Wagner referred to the park as a laboratory, “It’s a space where we can practice these ideas.” He said.

A Walk in Riverside Park

http://www.flickr.com//photos/69361301@N06/sets/72157628035820790/show/

Upended Elephant in Union Square Raises Confusion

There is a huge bronze elephant doing a trunk stand on the east side of Union Square, across from Beth Israel and the Au Bon Pain. It was set up in September of 2011 and will “act as a bridge from uptown to downtown” the Union Square Partnership site insists. The elephant is one of 54 temporary art pieces set up throughout the 5 boroughs of New York City. The instillations vary on size and form, some cost very little money to build and other's much more to put into fruition.

Art in the Parks is a government program that decides what art is put up when, and for how long. Temporary art pieces range from about 3 to 6 months. The Program was organized in 1967 in an attempt to "set [art] under the light of day where they intrude upon our daily walks and errands" according to the Art in the Parks website. Many places in the city have temporary instillations. The city gives no funding for the projects so the artists must come up with money to set up and take down the works. Though various grants and awards can be arranged for the artists. Manual labor is not provided by the New York City government.

Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, Adrien Benepe or a representative looks over the proposals that are sent in continuously. He decides how sustainable, durable and safe the art will be on the street. Community boards are called in to accept the proposal, “it’s just part of the procedure,” says Jennifer Lantzas, the Public Art Coordinator for the Parks and Recreation Program

Lantzas is trying to build the art out and immerse it into less lucrative boroughs. "Everyone wants Central Park" she says, "but we try to work with the artists to find a different location. Too much art in Central Park would not have been Olmstead’s vision," she adds. Lantzas hopes that locations will change with the help of the Clare Weiss Emerging Artists Award, introduced this year in honor of the late Clare Weiss who was the Public Art Coordinator until her death in 2010.

The elephant, entitled, 'Gran Elefandret' was constructed in 2008. It stands at 26 feet and weighs about 1/2 ton. This will be the second world class public art instillation in Union Square, a huge change from the regular exhibits in both Central Park and along the Park Avenue Mall.

The Spanish artist, Miquel Baro, was born in 1957 and separates his time between Barcelona, Paris and... The sculpture has travelled from Avignon, France and will be teetering in its position until late May. However, there are many complaints already, on the art site, 'Designer Boom,' several people have commented that the sculpture is a copy of another sculpture by the artist Daniel Firman whose piece Wursa at 18,00km from Earth resembles Baro's piece. “This is a Will Ferman piece” one of the comments below says, “how can they allow it??” Another comment simply says “horrendous.”

Lantzas encourages controversy, “that’s the fantastic thing about the project.” She says. “There are people who like them and there are people who don’t.”

Unveiling of New Temporary Art Bring Tears to their Eyes

glacial UN building, Jonathan, of the New York City's Art in the Parks Program stood in front of a crowd of almost 30 people to unveil a new temporary work of art by Rachel O entitled, Inveterate Composition for Clare. The event took place in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at 1st Avenue and 47th Street. The atmosphere was a bittersweet one, for the 'Clare' referred to in the sculpture's name is the late Clare Weiss, who worked as the curator of temporary art for the Art in the Parks Program until her death in 2010 after struggling with breast cancer.

The fruition of this piece marks one of the last Ms. Weiss curated.

"The last thing I did with Clare was pretty much interview Rachel and-I don't believe in karma- but I think it was good." Jonathan said through tears as he ended his opening speech.

Inveterate Composition for Clare will stand in the center of the park until May 2012. It is a statue built from one Hummer SUV. The pieces have been remodeled and painted white to take the shape of an iceberg. Within, Ms. Owens placed the first underwater recording of a humpback whale made in 1971. The sound echoes from the great structure belly like from the belly of a hungry beast. The piece is in response to issues on global warming and consumerism to which Ms. O insisted,

"Though this piece does not propagandize, it sits in solidarity with freedom of speech and battles against oppression."

Although Inveterate was created originally for the location, O hopes that it will move on to other places at the end of its term.

Ms. O, born in Atlanta, Georgia is currently living and working in Brooklyn. With the exception of an exhibit in Miami, Owens has shown only locally to New York City. Many of her sculptures comment on global warming and the environment. She often uses found materials to create situations surrounding animals and their relationship to waste and consumerism.

As this is one of Ms. Weiss' last acheivments as curator, the Parks Department, like the scultpture has chosen not to forget her. A new award, entitled The Clare Weiss Emerging Artist Award will be put into action next year, the deadline being January 2012. The award recognizes upcoming artists as well as locations around the city, underserved with public art, the current outstanding location for the project is Joyce Kilmer Park in the Bronx.

The New School Looks To Find Home For Their Occupiers

Monday November 28^th, students and faculty attended a University wide Town Meeting at 2 West 13^th Street, aimed address a case of vandalism that had occurred in that specific room on Saturday by a select few of a group of occupiers who had moved from their original location at the Student Study Center on 90 5^th Avenue. The Student Senate who aimed to have, what Co-chair Melissa referred to as, “an informal town hall” monitored the meeting. Melissa added, “the meeting aims to look at how we are going to move forward, not only in terms of this space, but in terms of this community,” the meeting would decide if the students would be allowed to occupy the space, or any space in the school.

The meeting revolved around a queue of speakers from the audience. Many feared that the occupation was out of control. “They are writing demands that don’t make any sense,” student and worker, Adam Rod said of the graffiti. Of the atmosphere within the occupation, one speaker referred the aggressive atmosphere within the occupation as being a “psychological pepper spray.” However, many agreed that The New School hosting an occupation was in accordance with The New School’s relationship to political activism. Occupier and Masters student, Ted, called the occupation a “revitalization of politics.”

Through a jungle of complaints and comments, a theme arose to support the occupation, though not in the Kellen Gallery. The Kellen Gallery is a semi-public ‘state-of-the-art gallery’ used for school events and art exhibits. The occupation would force the curator and people in charge of the space to reorganize their events.

The end of the two-hour meeting did not find a decision and the room had emptied to a group that could not represent a majority. A couple of forms of voting were proposed, one to create a class where voters would sign up, another was in email form. The Student Senate promised to email the student body an update as to where the occupation would go and how the final decision would be carried out.

Response to Enron movie

in 2005, four years after Enron Executives were facing trials and thousands of jobs were lost, Alex Gibney's documentary, Enron: The Smartest People in the Room was released. The film is not that of the fall of a colossal company, but a complex mixture of America's psychology. Each executive of Enron has their own role in this film of American drama involving greed, money, gambling, adrenaline and the unobstructed need for the fulfillment of their dreams. Like other American dreams, these idealistic notions were those that skewed and destroyed them in the end. Around an interesting mix of music that ranged from saucy blues to metal, Gibney centers the film around the two key players in the scandal, president Ken Lay and CEO Jeffrey Skilling.

The film makes several analogies to the idealism of the company being a kind of wonderland, with "cheshire cat smile[s]," as one of the interviewees described Andrew Fastow. The film, through aesthetics and subjects accentuated an upside down face to the company whose high expectations with gambling on the economy, and failure to admit their own downfall became lethal. The upside down shots and faces in the movie comment on the alternative motive to every face. The documentary does not preach the apocalypse, but harps upon the power and evil within humans that, if applied, can not only destroy societies, people and the government, but can destroy the self. On a larger level Gibley encourages the audience to look at themselves and their actions for what they are, things can be too good.

Abramovic

In a movie lit square stage a woman sits in a bright red dress that falls around her feet and in a cushion way at her bottom. The dress reveals the artist's hands and a slight raindrop shape on the artists back where the long dress is fastened at the neck. The artist sits alone in the space with one other person, across a light brown wooden table. Marina Abromavic is at MoMA until May 31st in a exhibit called "The Artist is Present."

My first reaction of the title was that it evoked a kind of comfort- the artist is here- just here. And when I walked into MoMA's large exhibit space there she was- just there. Video cameras were the first things I saw at the ceiling, and tons of people taking pictures. People take turns reenacting a similar performance that Abromavic and her former lover Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen) did called Night Sea Crossing. But instead of Ulay across from her, it is a random group of whoever is willing to wait in line for pretty much the entire day.

The space has a comfortable feeling regardless of the fact that Abromavic is probably aching in more places than one and the tally of days like markings on a prison wall. People sit and wait to look at her for hours and it isn't hard to stay there. To be free to watch her.

The first time I was exposed to Marina Abramavic (though completely subconcsioucly) was with my aunt Pat who lives in Minnesota. When I was 13, she thought it a very important time in my life to watch seasons 4 and 5 of Sex and the City. It was episode 86, in which Carrie goes to a gallery in Chelsea and meets a very attractive Russian man who turns out to be kind of sketchy in the end. In the gallery was a reenactment of Abramavic's The House with an Ocean View in which Abramavic did not eat for 12 days and lived in front of people in an elevated and open 3 rooms. There is a kind of martyrdom in her shows, Abramavic sits in front of countless New Yorkers and tourists, invisibly immersed in pain. In a sick kind of spectacle that comforts the viewer Abramavic seems to say- "its ok, thing hurt but we get through them, because we- as people- are strong." Abramaciv has used her body as her art using it to question physical and mental limitations.

6 Reasons to Love Glee- but not too much

Glee. What are we so happy about? And this is not the kind of peaceful blissful happiness. On the Princeton wordnetweb.edu site the definition of "glee" is "malicious happiness." The television show itself is so good, so utterly, for lack of a better a term, happy, that there must be something wrong.

6 Reasons to Love Glee in a Really Screwed Up Way:

1) Political correctness- You have an asian girl dating a white boy in a wheelchair and a black girl and a gay boy dressing up the sadistic and compulsive coach of the "cheerio" cheerleading squad. These "minorities" in question (the black girl and the gay boy) are being ignored in the glee club and decide to makeover the coach for her favor. They want their peers to really see them.

2) You wish everyone in your high school was that hot- First Lea Michele was in the Broadway show Spring Awakening and now she is in Glee as the leading hotty as well(intimately involved, I might add, with Jonathan Groff). In both a troubled adolescent who deals with sex and song at the same time. Would if high school was filled with such physically developed girls and boys? Wow.

3) Its just a bunch of music videos- Where the hell did music videos go anyway (MTV)?? We need to fill our need of sing along songs and sequenced dance numbers.

4) You wish your high school was that friggin' awesome- No class and when there is class its singing class= awesome

5) You wish you could think of those catch phrases- among many, we have the "Hey William, though I smelled cookies wafting from the ovens of the little elves who live in your hair."

A scripted life would suck but not if you could have phrases like this whenever you wanted them.

6) Why can't we just sing about EVERYTHING?- When everything we think is just as dramatic as a broadway musical, why do we have to hide it? Why can't we just let it out in impeceble harmony?

In short. Glee is good, but too much and you will come away with your world a little grayer in comparison and slight nausea.

Spas: The Harem of the Aughts

A spa carries a certain exotic charm. Spas pride themselves on their strangest looking flowers, the amount of little waterfalls in their lobbies and the array of foreign teas in their selection. The feeling of a spa must have an exclusive eroticism while being inclusive to anyone willing or worthy of a treatment that will better them mentally and physically. Spas were originally the baths of the Romans or the saunas of the Finnish, among other cultures that sought spas as a medical treatment, there is an interesting juxtaposition where spas are not only places to become physically well, but becoming instantly more beautiful. In a time when people only acknowledge instant results, spas seem to have become more repair places than places of healing.

On my way to The Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salon on 5th Ave in midtown Manhattan an orchid petal lay on the crosshatching of the subway stairs. The Red Door Spa has recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. I was beginning to wonder if the flower would be a symbol of the skewed sense of beauty I was about to see. The secretary, with a beautiful maquillaged face was animate about the amount of celebrities whom they service. The place had a pristine red and white color scheme. The colors emulated a kind of feminine eroticism and purity all at once. Ironically, the only women there were over 60 and botoxed. "We do a lot of sessions outside of our spa." The Secretary added, "for- privacy reasons." She emphasized the word privacy and smiled. The place was pretentiously both welcoming to me- a young lady who obviously did not have the money to spend there and utterly secretive. Most of the doors were closed. Though they were happy to welcome me around their four floor establishment there was little room for exploration. I left with the place still a mystery to me, the hallways of rooms, caverns of mysterious goings on. The way to beauty, it seemed to say, is a magically exotic secret.

Why do women feel as though they need to spa? Spas are different from salons in that they offer a wider selection of services. People are expected to stay longer in spa, which offer entire days their clients to whom they may offer champagne or food. It is important to regard the different between a day spa and a salon because they have different intentions, while a day spa offers an apparently more “medical” day, the salon just offers beauty treatments. A spa day is a "me" day, it is a day to nurture the self, to come in a mess and leave cleansed. With the naked women lounging in the California spa that my mother took me to when I was 13, I could not help but remember the paintings of the harem women of Delacroix and Ingres. The spa was a place to me that was exclusive to women, and women who wanted to become beautiful. The services within spas have changed over centuries, where the first spas were mineral baths, they have expanded to doing services like botox and anal bleaching. Returning to my memory of the spa in California, I cannot help but think that spas have developed from the Orientalist art of the 17th century. Within the spa, like within the harem, things go on that are forbidden, private and mysterious. A woman can come into a spa one person and, rather than leaving in a cleansed spiritual state, they are leaving in a physically altered state, a physically "perfected" state. In the same way the women of the harem were owned by the men, these women coming to spas, to "treat themselves" are coming to change their bodies to become more aesthetically pleasing to men. The treatments that spas offer now cater to our need for instantaneous gratification. The treatment within the spas have the same mystique, the same decor, even: erotic and secretive. And though women are "doing it for themselves" they come out more reformed to a male gaze Spas will never leave existence, and, what spas where and what they offer is for the most part healthy and important to society. People must be healed through massage and baths. A spa is not something that should offer the instant gratification of transforming oneself physically. If there is confusion between turning a person physically into something that they are not and making them feel as though they are being healed through that process, then we have a problem. Beauty is health, beauty is not the beauty of what the male eye sees peaking through the keyhole of the harem. And spas are right in the sense that beauty must be found within, and the insides of people are very magical and cavernous places.

The Heat Wave from 1929

New Yorkers swarm the streets in large happy groups. Legs are borne once more and little dresses are being worn with no jackets, and even a little sheen of sweat that has risen from the sun's ridiculously pounding heat. No, this is not August, not even close, it's hardly spring. April 7th and it is 90 degrees with a touch of breeze. But barely. What is one to do if the entire spring season is skipped and they have to get out all their summer clothes? It did not seem difficult to let go of tights until the fall, but as fate and weatherchannel.com would have it, the rain will return with a chill 50 something degrees. Sandals can't be worn because manis and pedis haven't been done yet, it's a time of confusion.

So instead people will do well to suck it up and pretend that it is the summer time, with iced coffees and shirts that are so thin that they don't really exist. The last time it was this hot was in 1929. Coincidence? Perhaps. It's either the wretched economy or the loose fitting fashion and stick thin models. It could also be prohibition, similar to the way so many are fighting to legalize weed (and, at least in cali, it looks like their winning.) If the weather is a good indicator of history, this is the beginning of a very complicated time.

This disgusting weather will pass, and in its wake we wait for the real spring to pop its head up, so that we will be able to wear the little sweaters and jackets that we have been waiting to wear again. Everyone will have time to get the manis and pedis they need and ease into summer the way the year should be. But this was an important and rather prophetic time, if you will, and, if you want, take this unusual time as a little echo from the past.

Jessica Simpson: Another Supermodel out to Change the World

Jessica Simpson gained weight in in 2009. On covers of People and US all over there were screams to high heaven about the blasphome, until she turned around and made a TV show based on the negative media attention she received. That made them shut up on a whole different level. "There's a lot of pressure to feel beautiful" she said in the video introducing her new show The Price of Beauty that began airing in March. In her new show she travels around the world "to see what makes a woman in different cultures feel beautiful," she added. For the May issue of Marie Claire magazine that was released Tuesday April 6th she is the cover shot and Marie Claire "au naturel" meaning no makeup or photoshop. Jessica Simpson has gone from being the ditsy blonde in the show Newlyweds, to the blonde bombshell who cared for the world. I am beginning to see a little of Brigitte Bardot's saving the seals deal. After the complete apocalyptic shots of Jessica Simpson as being fat and depressed and all the things the media loves, she decided to do the cover of Marie Claire. Though many of the comments on the pictures complain that it is a lie, that photoshop and mascara can be traced in the photographs.

Stars are in the unfortunate place for having their individuality manufactured for them. Jessica Simpson seemed to have woken up from this world that she had been in with a TV show and a husband and a long career (in pop singing years) in being a female vocalist sex symbol.

Being a celebrity can be used in so many different ways now. And it is this celebrity that has allowed her to accomplish her new goals. Jessica Simpson, without the celebrity she had before would not have been able to do the things she is doing now. Indeed, she may not have even been aware of them because it was the abuse of the media that caused her to look for that deeper, unmanufactured part of her. In a different way from Brigitte Bardot, Jessica Simpson is not leaving the world she had behind, but constantly comparing it to the world she is exploring now. In a video on ABC she describes the show and the transition.

And she will not save the world, the way Bardot will not save the seals. Possibly her fans will not take her seriously, no one is expected to believe a Marie Claire magazine cover. But this doesn't seem to matter when the journey is not really for the audience anymore.

A New Face For Men

In the mess of the 5th Avenue H&M the Thursday before Easter weekend there were countless languages flung around like the clothes hanging off the racks, or on the floor. I noticed a man speaking Spanish and whipping his shirt on and off to try different polos on in the men's section. Though I understand his refusal to wait on the mile long line to the dressing room, I noticed that his perfectly bare chest, all tan, did not in fact, match the color of his face, which was powdered beige. I have seen makeup on men many times before, but never a man who looked like this. He did not look gay, he did not have a punk rock look, he was utterly "normal" looking with khaki pants and a boring brown shirt. Beneath the powder I saw no blemishes or disfigurations, he was straight and wearing a thick layer of beige foundation. Why would he want to wear makeup and when would a boy think it appropriate to wear makeup?

Foundation is a funny thing that is more difficult to put on than it looks. Foundation must be as close to one's skin color as possible and it absolutely must not be binged on. A foundation binged face looks clownish and completely contradictory to its purpose.

The first men that come to mind when discussing men's makeup is the eyeliner of pop/punk rockers like Pete Wentz or the Marilyn Manson. News anchormen and stars wear makeup. It is important for when a person who is going to be on screen or having pictures taken of them, or, if they just want to be noticed. But foundation is a different phenomenon, and when worn with no plan to be on screen is another interesting situation.

Men wearing makeup is a similar type of pampering to the way a woman would wear

makeup, it is not for a show, rather than how one looks at themselves in the mirror, or admires

a short glance in the upcoming window. Men use makeup to feel good about how they look.

The way one would go to get a massage or their nails done, but makeup is an interesting form

of pampering that is solely visual and not necessarily "healthy" or reenergizing.

It has been a popular belief, however, that a man wearing makeup is either gay or ridiculously out

of touch to the way they are portraying themselves. However, we Americans seem to be the

ones out of the loop. It has been more acceptable in Europe for a man to wear makeup than in the United States. The trend for men wearing makeup is becoming more and more popular, and concealer, no less. Forbes Magazine wrote an article about men's wearing makeup and how the importance of grooming has become more and more important for men and women. Makeup is now taking a crucial role in this cleaning routine. Websites and companies have been created just for men's makeup such as kenmen.net and MYEGO Cosmetics among many others.

Makeup for men was once a form of standing out, a statement that was both radical and controversial. However, the scenes are shifting. In a society where there are screens everywhere, where one is judged so harshly, makeup has a different role. Everyone is looked at through the images in the media, there is a much higher standard of what is beautiful, it seems only natural that a man would be as concerned about his image as a woman. As long as society has become so nitpicky with looks, let the men's concealer sales rise.

It was a silly thought for me to judge this man who was wearing makeup and taking his shirt off. His pampering himself was much more appropriate than I had suspected, in my old American ways of gender definitions. The man looked just as normal as any other man, but with a little bit extra that, for him, was probably sharp and sexy, and that seems to be the new future.

A Prom Beauty and the Beast Style

A Colorado boy goes to Las Vegas and shoots a movie of himself dancing for Maxim model and one of two "Octagon Girls," Arianny Celeste. In front of the Paris Hotel's Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe the 18-year-old boy asks Ms. Celeste to the prom with him. To the probably floored classmates of his, Conner Cordova arrived to his senior prom in a stretch green SUV with Ms. Celeste at his arm.

I am reminded of a film that I have seen when I was younger, or maybe a mix of films. One about a guy who gets an uber hottie to date him, "She's Out of My League." Or the song Ballad of Chasey Lain by The Bloodhound Gang. This Beauty and the Beast thing is all over the media. And I begin to wonder if it's all true. Do men not try as hard to look nice because women are less shallow? And are women attracted to less attractive men because they are "nice" or "funny?" However, what happened on prom night for Conner Corodova is much different than a Beauty and the Beast fad. There is something beautiful about how Arianny Celeste agreed to go to prom with Conner Corodova. Their meeting on Lopez Tonight is an anxious exchange of phrases that is touching in a completely honest way. Both the model and the boy laugh as if they are 14. "I'm an Internet geek too" she says. Sure. But, regardless, Conner's honest naivete is nothing less than cute.

There is nothing more lame than a senior prom unless you make it what it actually should be, a fabulous night in the clouds with a beautiful person who came to you from the ether of the Internet. Apparently, this is what would happen for Conner Corodova. For Arianny Celeste, as well. While going to prom they were raising money for Haiti and Arianny Celeste was able to spread her fan base.

With this fascination with unattainable beauty ideal, I've got the feeling that when things like this happen for real there is a much greater surprise. The video of the prom on the MMA Religion website is a kind of insane video with a lot of posing for paparazzi. Arianny represents this kind of story that we always here about the ugly guys and beautiful girls, and Conner just looks bewildered with everything. Maybe this whole thing is not as good as it looks, maybe going to the prom with a couple of friends, or, worse, someone who didn't have a date can be enough. But I doubt we'll ever see this kind of beauty in our own beastly lives without seeing the awkwardness of having chaperones for the prom- no alcohol, no crazy grinding. And isn't that what prom is all about?

In the end I begin to worry about Conner, what is he expecting in the end? What girls will he date? And how will ever get over the fact that, after those 15 minute (as they say) it may never happen again?

A Sad Beauty Queen: Is it her Parent's Fault?

Recently television has been crazy for pretty wealthy girls who seem to have nothing more to do but party and date. One particularly blonde, tiara toting beauty queen, Alicia Guastoferro, has decided to sue ABC and Disney for villinizing her on the show "Wife Swap." Alicia was 15 when the show came out, and now, as an 18 year old she has considered herself victimized by the companies and suing them for 100 million dollars. A video of her on youtube is called: the "most spoiled brat in the world" as she gets a new car and has Christmas everyday.

I tend to think that this idea of bratty children has nothing to do with their nature, but the way their parents coddle them. Reality TV shows like Laguna Beach, Bravo's NYC Prep or My Super Sweet 16 have created examples of teens as bratty, irresponsible, utterly gorgeous young people who have never had less than everything they want. The teens are placed in a world without parents, without school and without responsibility.
The danger of these reality shows is not the people who they portray, or even the fact that these are "fictitious circumstances," (obviously) but the implication that it is normal to be like this. People watch these shows to laugh at teens making complete idiots out of themselves. However, there is something much more sentimental to experience the vulnerability of these kids and that is our romanticizing of youth. Unlike the Real Housewives shows, where the women are older, these kids are everything anyone could ever want to be: beautiful, rich and careless. I think this is something that our beautiful Alicia may not understand. Underneath the ridiculous videos is a fascination, like watching a giraffe eating in Africa, it is an othering that makes her so fragile. What would one try to achieve after they have signed their life away already to a television network? But who asked this girl to be like this? Television creates the people that we want to see, at the expense of those people, taking away all kinds of dimensions that life involves. It is simply easier to exploit teens than the wealthy men whose companies have created these shows.

"It's because they love me." Alicia, with her flattened blonde hair and her dimpled cheeks says, to her swapped mother. The issue does not seem to be with the children but with their parents, the parents choose what the child does. Alicia is suing because of the amount of harassment she has received after the show. There is an interesting link on the wgrz site that has a copy of the lawsuit. True, she may be completely out of touch and feel bad for ugly people and all of us hate her for it, but, honestly, give her parents a talking to as well!

A Tampon Is So Much More Than A Tampon-.2

I usually ignore the Business section of the New York Times.  After the sections on New York City, The Arts and Health, I see no interest in reading about how Google is buying the world.  However, recently, the business section has been calling to me in a way that it never had before.  Because everything seems to funnel back into business including news, health and art all have to do with it in some way.  Business that concerns women has always been a touchy and somewhat forbidden subject, after the women's feminist movement, it seems that businesses stay away from any kind of "feminist" subjects so as to not enrage any radical activist.  In Tuesday's New York Times I read the business section, along with every other section on a two and a half hour trip from West Palm Beach back to New York City's LaGuardia Airport. 

         What caught my eye was an article in the business section discussing the new Kotex label: U by Kotex.  The executives at Tampax are rethinking ways to market to women by using a more upfront tone in their advertising as opposed to the euphemisms of the past tampon and pad advertisements.  The box is black with an assortment of many pastel colored tampon wrappers inside. In a grocery store, aisles are filled with little messages and pictures that whine longingly for groups, genders, religions, ages, endlessly.  However, these messages are constantly changing.

        Of all the women's products on the market feminine hygiene products have been a constant aspect for society to deal with.  Tampons and pads are an interesting group of products nestled between the shaving cream and tooth brushes.  In the 1930’s women were embarrassed to buy tampons and there was a little box that allowed them to buy them discreetly.  Though that is not the case anymore, there are always ways to hide the reality of periods, whether it be with scented tampons or symbolic ads that use symbols.  At 12 I bought what I thought were pads, they were in a pink package next to the o.b. tampons and had a little flower growing at the side.  To my shock and horror, when I got home I realized by the blue scented areas and the vast and thickness of them that they were not pads at all.  In fact these monstrous things were for older women who could not hold their bladder through the night.  It is true that this tidbit of misinformation was partially on my account because I did not yet know the right period lingo, I did not yet know the brand names.  But why was there so much confusion, why did a product that was meant for a woman in menopause bought by a girl who had just gotten her period?  This seems to be the history of tampons and pads, a constant flow of mis or vague information.

        I was then lead through an interesting journey through the internet with ridiculous tampon commercials and the history of periods.  Menstruation has always been really awkwardly handled.  After the Industrial Revolution, when everyday objects would be discarded of easily.  Feminine menstruation products were officially put on the market.  A 1966 Glamour magazine had a tampon ad with a suspiciously beautiful nurse saying that “it's recommended by doctors!” as if it was a medication for an illness.  More recently, in 1979 an ad came out for o.b. tampons, the only tampon that is not inserted with an applicator.  Some women are uncomfortable with this because it requires a more intensive relationship with ones nether region, it is the most discreet and boasted being recommended by a woman gynecologist.  Into the 1990's many of the tampon and pad ads have become vague euphemisms of a period, whether it be Tampax's red present given by an older woman to a young beautiful woman, or a young girl out in the rain with an umbrella.  What are we?  Five?  All of these seem to add up to the fact that menstruating women need to be taken care of.

         This Kotex by U is an interesting new look at how women a viewed.  My friend said it looked like a cigarette box, and, indeed, compared to the way tampons were marketed before, these have a much harder look to them.  I got to the website and it began to describe in (relatively) shocking detail, the importance of our "vaginas."  A word that has long been avoided by companies that make products for women.  If companies feel safe getting that experimental with the discussion- and by discussion I mean the simple word of female genitalia it is apparent that young girls are being exposed to a female body in a much more open-or perhaps, explicit- way than they had before.

         But other tampon companies are right about one thing when they wrap themselves in all these euphemisms like rain and greenery and red boxes.  Tampons are so much more than tampons.  Women's need for tampons represents the difference between men and women.  In a time when differences are to be stifled there is no way to avoid a woman's menstruation.  With the amount of significance on one small and funny looking product euphemisms seem inevitable.  But U by Kotex is a new kind of advertising that completely avoids the rain showers and red boxes of the past.  This bluntness appears to be addressing the amount of exposure a young girl is getting about women’s bodies and the language used to describe them.  It’s a wonderful thing when a girl can buy a box of pads and know it’s a box of pads because the people around her give her enough information to know the difference between two flowered boxes.

Since When Were Housewives Ever "Real?"

I believe in marriage like Cheney believes in world peace.  Married couples smell from a mile away, and not only a mile, but streaming into your living space while your watching T.V.  No, I don't have a T.V, but if I did, Lord help me, but I would end up watching Real Housewives of New York City, the third episode in the series, religiously.  

Love is a beautiful thing.  Love and commitment is something that we need so much more of. But marriage, or all the marriages that I have experienced, all of the marriages that I've seen have not been examples of love and commitment.

The role of the housewife does not exist anymore.  Nor am I certain that it ever existed.  In any case, why do so many women fantasize about it when it is so artificial and so demeaning?  The Real Housewives of New York are a bunch of crazy middle aged women who have enough money to completely exclude themselves from the real world.  It has become an ironic display of a woman's sexuality, women who are married: Have their "man" can turn against each other.  

I agree with Jean Paul Gautier in terms of marriage.  It has become an ironic display of a woman's sexuality.  

why would we want to get married anyway?  For people to be annoyed by us, or, even worse, be entertained by us?  Here are a couple of people trying to keep this state of union together when anyone can see that this lifestyle does not apply anymore.  I will gladly watch people who have given up all else after they walked down that shimmering isle to give their soul away for money, but I will never understand it.

Going to the Movies, May It Always Be the Same

One of my favorite things to do- like-ever- is go to the movies.  This must involve raisinettes, dressing up and a good seat, not so close to the screen as to be nausouse, but a good three rows in, where the movie can take up my entire vision.  Movie theaters now have screens as big as mountains like the IMAX screens.  I didn’t grow up with movies on huge screens like my hometown’s Crandell, but I have come accustomed to it, and it feels unnatural  for me to go to a movie that does not have a huge screen and those seats that look like they should be on a spaceship. 

There was a time when people said that movies would not survive, they said this in response to the internet and in response to videos.  And, though videos may have lost their popularity, movies have not.  Movies now continue to be a luxury.  Movies are more than just watching a screen, movies are the entire experience, including the people, including the raisinettes.  Movies are a public space in which people can enjoy each other and the movie.  People like to experience real things, and looking at a screen at home isn't going to cut it. There is love without love, there is hate without consequence.  A movie is a game, and, like a ride, we can let us swoop us up without worrying about our outside world.  This is why we need movies right now. The economy is a wasteland but, despite everything, there are still movies. Not only do we love going to the movies but movies love us.  Filmmakers have the technology now to send the viewer into an entirely different world.  Like Avatar, like The Dark Night, two of the highest ranking movies in the past two years. 

With the Oscars coming up my mind is going back to movies.  The simplicity of watching them, the intense relationship with movies, I have a tender place in my heart for film.  When I look back on Oscars passed I remember being with my father and curling up, first to watch the fabulous dresses of the red carpet, and then to watch the Oscars themselves.  I had seen almost every single movie (except for the shorts because they never came to my local theaters).  And I was determined to stay up until all hours of the night to watch it even though it was a school night.  Though I hardly did, or, I took a nap in between.

What comes to mind is when Titanic won, I was in love with Leo, when Lord of the Rings won EVERYTHING.  And, of course, the most recent, Slumdog Millionaire, now, everyone thought, we all love indie movies!  This years Oscars are proving to be different from past years.  The film industry is not selling enough overall tickets.  Actors are being paid a fraction of what they had been making in recent years.  It's so important to remember the movies.  The movies have such a beautiful way of tying together so many pieces of popular culture, from music to fashion to books, and our stars that we love so much.  It's important to remember the films that we love.  It's important to remember how sacred movie going can be.

So before we see the Oscars, I think about what movies I have seen that have made a serious impact in my life, and, for the most part, these are movies that I have seen in theaters, these are movies that I have experienced with other people in packed theaters.  The internet can give to our impatient sides, but a movie in a theater can give to our communal side.  

When I saw Transformers I went to a theater in Albany New York.  The theater had a relatively small screen and those old uncomfortable seats with the worn down cushions that itch and are too low on the back and make for a sleeping bum by halfway through the film.  I remember a baby a few rows back- just screaming.  The theater was packed.  And there on the screen was a shot that scaled the massive Transformer, all frozen in ice and evil to the metal-car core.  From behind a young man's voice spoke the words that we were all thinking, in awe, even the baby, quiet and in agreement, of one mind.  "That's Megatron."