1/26/2021

 Tuesday January the 19^th-22^nd I took five bike trips to Teaneck, NJ, chasing the Townsend’s Warbler. On that Friday at about 3:15pm I found the warbler in the vine scramble on the creek bank. Nice feeling. On Saturday I walked Inwood Hill Park in the morning after dropping off compost and picking up coffee at Buunni Café. Danny and I walked through the Clove and then bumped into each other on the ridge. He said, “You still want that Merlin?” I laughed. “Are you joking me?” He showed me the Merlin he spotted on the north ridge just earlier on his way up. Later on the south end Danny introduced me to an old Asian man dressed in a red track suit. His name is Yuki or something and is an out of work jazz and Latin music drummer. I went home, showered and walked up to Marble Hill MTA station. I stepped in poop on “shit street” and saw a Peregrine swooping from the Broadway Bridge. Pete and I walked out to the point at Croton Point Park and then we went to Grandmas. We had coffee and Panatone. Pete changed out a set of Venetian blinds in Grandma’s bedroom. That night me, Anna and Pete went to the Gramercy. Pete and I had two beers each. I had mushroom ravioli. Anna had prime rib. Pete had lobster ravioli. Then we went to Michael and Craig’s and drank French Martinis while watching Moving Art on Netflix. Michael rolled me a joint. He double papered it. Then we watched SNL. It was a repeat episode from around the holidays. Michael and Craig talked about their Safari experiences. I fell asleep around 2am maybe and woke up around 7am. Anna and I went to have coffee at Grandma’s. Tony and Pete showed up later. Pete dropped me off at Croton Point Park. I walked the landfill for a while and ended up getting a few pictures of America Tree Sparrows and a Short-Eared Owl. 

Number 2 Pedophile Detective

 Lunch was delicious today. Three bean vegetarian chili, Spanish rice and grilled broccoli. I submitted a $691 expense report. I overheard one of the older crew members appeal to a manager for an ergonomic chair for a different crew member who recently had knee surgery. These two crew members don’t particularly see eye-to-eye on things, I’ve learned. But what do I know they have a long history there together. My driver on the way home had very fat hands. When I opened the car door, he asked, “What’s the name on the account?” I let him know I was going to Manhattan. He joked, “I don’t go above 96th Street.” Then he said he had a friend on 86th and Broadway who was a leading pedophile detective, number two in the country. I suggested after he dropped me off he could get some coffee with his friend. He asked what my favorite subject was in high school. I didn’t have a real answer. He said he was a Social Studies teacher for 10 years. He was a bad student like me who somehow managed to score a 98 on his regents exam. Could I imagine teaching history in high school with everything that has gone on in this country over the last four years? It’s sick world we live in. I changed and left for the park as soon as I got home. The Cooper’s Hawk was active on Dyckman Street near the pier. I saw it take down a pigeon but the pigeon escaped somehow. A lot of Waxwings flew over, a House Finch foraged in the grass mixed in with the House Sparrows. A Bald Eagle flew over. I walked around the North Point and up over the ridge to the Overlook Meadow. A couple of Chickadees were still buzzing around. I dispersed the heart-shaped branch arrangement near the Straus Pines and pulled some flagging off a side trail. Some old white lady in a long coat stopped and told me she saw a winter wren and that last night there was a big owl in The Clove. I didn’t like her. I walked towards The Clove and heard the Great Horned Owl hooting. When I made it to the Clove trail I saw the owl fly south. I thought I saw someone with a flashlight in the Clove. This upset me too. I followed the owl south and found it perched above the Inwood stairs, southeast of Whale Back Rock. It swooped down to a few more perches and I followed by taking the stairs down towards Dyckman. It perched above the Payson Avenue nature building and swooped across Dyckman to one of the Riverside Drive buildings, where it perched again before nabbing a pigeon and flying back into Inwood Hill Park. 

11/24/2020

 Saw James at the Dyckman pier this morning, he had a Cooper's. Then I saw Joe and Danny at the point. There was an adult Bald Eagle perched in the Riverdale forest above the train tracks. Didn't talk to driver on the way to Englewood. Got my covid test right behind Scott. Christina took my sample. She didn't have her long lashes on today. Relieved Mac at flashcam. He called Geoff for an issue witht eh telos. Geoff was at the hospital with his ill father. He said Rich had a baby and last week he called Rich with an issue when Rich was at home on paternity leave. Diaz asked me to go into PCR2 and put black online. It was only the second time I've been in PCR2. Kyle relieved me at 11 as Greg was getting involved with the telos troubleshoot. Mike has to come in 4am on Friday. I called the dental office in midtown. The paperwork was good and I wasn't able to reschedule. Left the building and walked to Witte Field. A male and female house finch flushed from behind a sedan in the parking lot and perched in a bare tree. Only Juncos and White-throated sparrows in the fields. Ate beyond meat chili with rice and corn for lunch. Rahel was at flash2 for the 1 o'clock and Mike flash1. Brian showed up around 1:40p to relieve me. I stayed for the promo and left the building in unison with Tom. Brushed teeth quickly in the big west end bathroom. Uber driver played reggeatone to midtown. He almost hit a coupled being cute in a time square crosswalk. i was early so i went into bookoff. there were a lot of people changing in stuff for cash. every few minutes they would make an announcement for customers to come and claim the value of their sales. A girl organizing the dvds was very cute, i walked passed her unnecessarily twice. the assistant x-rayed my teeth. dentists said i need a root canal. i might not need a root canal. he's going to see what he can do. might use porcelain or something. his wife is also a dentist in the same office. she started a water leak while he was cleaning my teeth. then she took a picture of me and the dentist and sent it to my mom. the dentist gave me a baggy of teeth cleaning supplies. i went back to bookoff and bought an italian language copy of the decamaron, $14.50. whipped out the binoculars in throwback fountain park. counted about a dozen white-throated sparrows and walked down to Bryant Park. a couple catbirds and a bunch more white-throated sparrows. saw one overnbird strutting around a person's dirty sneaker feet. I was on the platform waiting for an A by 4:55p. had to buy a single ride metro car pass. a younger man approached a man wearing veterans branded stuff and started talking about being in the service. the younger man said he made a huge mistake smoking pot during training camp and being kicked out of the army. somehow that decision was influenced by his parents, so it was his parents' fault he wasn't still in the army and now a veteran and able to retire at an early age. the actual veteran, who was a small dark skinned man who looked pretty tired, seemed unsympathetic, reserved. did laundry, called anna, called chris, bought some hummus and guaco and fine and fare. some man was in really bad shape in the store. he paid for an open can of coke while accusing someone of stealing his cigarettes. no one made an effort to move him out of the store. he was filthy and not wearing his mask. watched some jeopardy, wheel, mandalorian and part of salem's lot. david dinkens died today. they found some shiny monolith in utah and biden introduced his cabinet members. the dow hit 30k. two decent sized bugs in kitchen earlier. killed one with my travel tumbler. 

Dream with premonition

The easiest bathroom stall to change in is the handicapped one at the end of the row. After the first week or two I frequently found the handicapped stall to be occupied by a pair of black pumas with the white stripes that wrap over the toe. A few times in the afternoon I’d go to the stall and find them there too, when I wanted to change back. Sometimes you’d hear tv coming from in there or snoring. Dave said I might as well use a different bathroom altogether because that guy is always in there and a while back he went in that stall once and found three or four paper cups balanced on the bar bolted to the wall, full of water, just sitting there. The guy is the custodian. I thought he might be a contractor. He’s not always in there anymore and now whenever I ride in I can rely on that stall being available. I even had a dream where I was in that bathroom and the custodian emerged wearing top-of-the-line hiking gear, carrying a modern lightweight hiking pole, prepared to set out on a long hike. I went from being annoyed and skeptical of the black pumas wearer to impressed and respecting of them. Even the way he occupies space in the cafeteria has earned my respect. He sits at the single round table pushed up against the chrome cased support with his earbuds in and meal spread out on the table in from of him with the pumas extended out at the same angle they would be inside the handicapped stall. One time another custodian passed him and greeted him as if they hadn’t seen each other in months. They sat at the table together and caught up in Spanish. Sometimes I bike to work, sometimes I take a shuttle service the company contracts out and a few times I’ve used Uber at my own expense. One evening I received a call from the HR department informing me I had ridden with a van driver who had tested positive for COVID-19. It was determined I was not exposed to an immediate medical risk and the entire shuttle operation was suspended immediately. I was given permission by my manager to use a car service to commute in on the following day. For my commute home I ordered an Uber since it’s less expensive and because the car service driver in the morning had only partially practiced safety precautions, while expressing a conspiracy based opinion. I marked the pickup location in the Uber app for outside the security gate and began walking to the location. On the application map I could see the driver originate from the large parking lot at the rear of the building, inside the security perimeter. When I got in the car I recognized the driver as the custodian who wears the black pumas with the white strips that wrap over the toes. 

10/24/2020

 What happened on Friday? I might have biked up to Alpine. It was a warm and foggy day. At Gray Crag I saw a big brown bird perched below in a tree on the river bank. The nape of its neck was white. Between Ruckman Point and Bombay Hook I saw and heard two Pileated Woodpeckers in the trees below. The Ravens were there again but less numbers than the previous day. The previous day I got good pictures of a Black Vulture. The reason I came back on Friday was to try and read the wing tag on the Black Vulture. No Black Vulture on Friday though. I saw the pre-adult Eagle flying low over the river for about sixty seconds before it disappeared in the trees. There was a flock of small birds murmurating, rapidly changing direction and landing in the treetops below and above the cliff edge. I'm thinking Juncos or Siskins? A man stopped to talk to me. He had a weird way of speaking that included a lot of long pauses. He spoke well though. His wife was into the birding scene. When I told him I biked there from the city, he mentioned the new bike lane on the George Washington Bridge. I didn't know they were building one. I was back at my bike by 5:40 pm and it was dark by the time I was in Manhattan. I lost my front light somewhere on Thursday. I drank two beers at home and went back out for a walk around 10:05 pm. I walked north on Broadway passed this bar, Tubby Hook. There two men sitting outside who looked sad and a small group of people inside. I walked down to Ft Tryon Public House. They wouldn't seat me outside and last call was 11:30 pm. I saw at a table near pushed up against the bar and ordered a Flower Power and the green bowl. Two people at the corner of the bar were on a first date. The man was an employee of Columbia Hospital. The restaurant had about 30 people in it. Standard pop-music jams were playing loudly. The TV most easily viewable from my seat was showing Smackdown. A tag team appeared on the entrance stage as red Solo cups rained down on them. The bar was decorated for Halloween. There was a two-foot tall scarecrow on the bar behind me and a pumpkin on the high table across the room where a group of people were singing along to the music and drinking White Claw. A group of three older women entered the restaurant and complained the music was too loud. The hostess checked their temperatures and signed in anyway. I drank a second beer and left. I woke up pretty hungover the next day and met my cousin in the park around 1pm. We walked from the pedestrian bridge to Dyckman Fields up to Muscota Marsh and then to Buuni Cafe. After she left I got a few shots of a Blackpoll Warbler and a Pine Siskin. I talked to Bill, the guy who I always see with the 500mm lens. The way he says warbles make me think he's from Boston or somewhere else than NYC. On my way home I had a beer and pad thai with scallops at Yummy Thai. A young couple sat near me in the dining space setup on the sidewalk.  I watched some college football when I got home and drank another beer. I started watching Dead Zone with Christopher Walken and realized I had seen it before. I forget what I watched after that. The temperature dropped into the 40s overnight and stayed cold and crisp on Sunday. I left at 7:05 am on bike for EC and arrived around 7:43 am. There was no one checking temperatures on the west side of the building so I had to walk around the south wing to the east (main entrance). We turned on all the monitors and put on our headsets. I drank some coffee and ate a chocolate croissant from the buffet set up in the western hallway. Andy asked us not to touch the telestrator. We wanted to interact with the touchscreen function to familiarize ourselves. Jim broke us around 11 am. My rear tire needed air when I got to the bike rack. I used the pump bolted to the cement outside the rack enclosure. The tire held air for the ride home. I got my camera and went back to the marsh and fields. The Marsh Wren, a rarely sighted bird, made a brief appearance as I was looking for sparrows. My pictures came out just okay. When I was napping on the couch later that afternoon Anna called me. She wanted to see if I needed my stock certificates for AT&T shares Florence gifted me back in the 90s. Pete applied a substance on the floors in the background and said he needed to be institutionalized. I ate a small cold burrito and a single ramen pack and watched Unsolved Mysteries before bed. 

Inwood Hill Park (9/24/2020)

 Used the entrance up on Payson. Someone was standing on the long stairs rolling a tobacco leaf. Turned left at the first junction on the east ridge and headed south on the narrow path towards the big Horse Chestnut. Two Black-Throated Greens came low down in the young cherry branches. At Whale Back had a Black-and-White, a magnolia and a scraggly looking Wood-Thrush. Three young people took a seat on Whale Back, off the path, and talked politics. I headed for the Overlook. Sat on outcropping above the northbound HH traffic lanes. Hazy and cool with southerly winds. Only gulls, distant Ospreys and low flying Cormorants. Might have seen a Kestrel. Kinglets, maybe (ruby crowned, if so) arrived in Straus Site Pines. Hard to ID kinglets visually. Pretty certain on their whistle calls. Tried to ID warbler high in pines. No luck. Eastern Wood Pee-Wees (4 or 5) in dead tree on west ridge. Around 6:30pm on red trail near Dyckman had a Magnolia come down low along the trail. Looked for Flying Squirrel. Saturating orange color from sunset. 

If He Hollers Let Him Go

By Chester Himes  

Obvious connections to Native Son, which is referenced in this work twice I think. More “voice” in narrative than Native Son. My comprehension intuitively drifts against the flow of the sentences. A lot of the sentences feel like they run-on. Compared to Native Son the main character has more perceived innocence, more autonomy. Robert "Bob" Jones. Imagery inside the shipyard is good. Bob is chastised for not appreciating the opportunity he was giving to be an advanced African American. He resents white power. His dreams are fearful and violent. I tried to find the film adaptation and I couldn’t. I still want to watch it. Interest in read Himes’s Harlem Detective novels. 

Their Eyes Were Watching God

By Zora Neale Hurston, 1937

This book took me the longest to read of any of the books I’ve read so far this year, despite it being one of the shortest books I’ve read this year. The main reason for this was the amount of vernacular in the text. I read aloud to myself for concentration and comprehension purposes. My new habit. Interestingly, pronouncing the words as Hurston spells them vernacularly seemed to involuntarily influence my own accent on the words in the dialogue written “properly.” This made me feel silly. Aside from slowing down the reading process, reading aloud to myself forced me to engage with the overall voice in the narrative. Reading about the book, I learned an aspect that seems to be widely appreciated about the work is the use of the vernacular and poetic narration. As a white person I think reading this book helped me understand better the intimate relationship Black people have with the natural world, as Hurston shows in poetic vision of life in Janie’s mind. The images of the lake in the hurricane and the architecture of the folklore Hurston builds her story around overcame the my own awkward comprehension of the language used in the book. There’s a Hollywood film adaptation of this story. The trailer for the movie has that song I’m Like a Bird by Nelly Furtado in it. 

Three Protests

Harlem 125th Street and 5th Avenue, June 6th, 2020
I found this one on that JusticeforGeorgeNYC IG account. After locking my bike in Marcus Garvey Park I walked up to 125th street. While I cautiously submerged myself in the crowd I overheard a Lieutenant say to a uniformed officer, “We are not kneeling today.” Sweating, tightly packed people faced inwardly around a megaphone projected young man, elevated above surrounding heads by an unseen support. The crowd steadily accumulated bodies and drew the faces of people stopping along the opposite sidewalk. With some nudging from people in neon vests only one lane of 5th avenue’s two barely allowed vehicles, a few city buses and sanitation trucks to squeeze southward. Two arms extended from and unseen body below the man speaking and supported him with two hands on his broad muscular back. The body of people jammed between them and the building appeared intent and restless. He spoke forcefully, oscillating his upper torso at the intent and restless faces encircling him, packed between him and the gothic facade of the National Black Theatre building. His speech culminated in a call and response. A skinnier man in a neon vest took his place and explained the marching route through the megaphone: east on 125th street, north on Lenox Avenue. Police escorted the march. I observed the people watching us as we passed what busy storefronts were open on 125th. Flower shops and small grocers hosted the somewhat stunned faces of people witnessing the protests which began over a week ago arriving on their street. Those cheering from balconies, passively held their phone cameras at imperfect angles. People on stoops and gathered around corner stores watched with fascination. Vehicle passengers traveling in opposite lanes of traffic, or halted at intersections by the protest itself eagerly participated in the chants. At the intersection of 135th and Malcom X the march condensed in front of the Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture. Across Malcom X, northeast adjacent, John Rhoden’s commissioned bronze, United (family) stood above the heads and signs filling the street. People on balconies high up in the Clayton Apartments looked down at the crowd. A small drunk person with hardly any teeth stumbled through the crowd, slurring, extending a crumpled hand. The descendant of natives who built this country struggled to pronounce the name of a tribe and put forth a desperate unrelenting non-specific plea. Tears perpetually welled in their eyes, refusing to run down their cheeks. About ten yards away a person sermoned into the megaphone with a sharper, sober voice alternately muting and echoing the begging protest of the weary soul. The voice going into the megaphone came from a young man with a sweaty, shaven head and bushy beard. To the crowd, spanning the entire intersection he asked, “Who here believes that there is power in the name of Jesus?” They responded with unanimous applause. Next a young woman in an athletic outfit beautifully sang a single repeated chorus which contained the word hallelujah. I thought the march might be over, but it continued east on 135th and then north on Adam Clayton Blvd. Approaching 143rd Street the march of people slowed and turned east quickly condensing around a core group with the megaphone again in the middle. The tree shade between the Drew Hamilton Community center and P.S. 194’s paved playground area calmed the overheated bodies. Some not close enough to hear the megaphone listened to a voice on their cell phones, an IG live broadcast delayed by five seconds, an up close account of the current speaker. As I slowly moved closer I could see with my own eyes the woman who people were watching on their phone screens. A verbal argument over personal space caused the speaker to pause. Other voices began to urge a woman to be peaceful and deescalate. She was referred to as sister. As the woman with the megaphone started speaking again, listing names of black people unjustly killed by police, I heard some chatter on a police radio asking, “who is that woman, who is she?” The voice had a pretend casualness and seemed over-interested in the person referred to as “sister.” The woman‘s voice in the megaphone, as she prompted the crowd into saying Breonna Taylor’s name, followed with, “who would have celebrated her 27th birthday yesterday.“ She emotionally described the no-knock entry which lead to Breonna’s death and finished with, “And this is just the short list,” in a cracking, exhausted rasp that trailed off abruptly. Woos and applause came from the crowd. A young white man took the megaphone next and began speaking passionately. I stood on the base of a lamppost and framed in my phone screen the depth of the crowd stretching east down 143rd until it merged into the overhanging greenness of ginkgo and London planetree leaves. On the west end of the block, in front of the Engine 69 station house, the sidewalk and street was empty, a disorienting amount of unoccupied space. I walked west, leaving the protest behind and then south on Frederick Douglas Blvd, until a torrential rain fell from the sky. I stopped and bought a margarita and a bag of chips. By the time I reached 125th Street the sun was shining again. No relief followed the downpour. A lot of people crowded the sidewalkS around subway entrances on 125th, spilling across the intersections in the way of usual urban foot traffic. Tables were out with things for sale. A destitute person laid with their back barely pressed against the side of a bank. Their jeans and bursting ruined basketball sneakers observed the full power of the earth’s sun. People participated in the pre-summer day by carrying water guns, wearing swim trunks and indulging in frozen treats, with only an urban park and a closed public pool available to them. One man begged for change. I thought about offering my chips to someone. The idea of burdening someone with extremely oily and salty chips in that atmosphere seemed cruel. I had Black Lives Matter written in sharpie on the front and back of my loose fitting t-shirt.

Marble Hill Houses, Bronx New York, June 2nd, 2020
I found this one on twitter, just by searching the word Inwood, my local neighborhood. At approximately 1pm, I walked onto the lawn of the Marble Hill Houses where protest organizers, identify by green clothe tied around their arms, stood in a circle reviewing their safety strategy. This protest was being organized by State Assembly Person Robert Jackson, with a specific purpose to call for the repeal of 50-a. Mr Jackson wore a bright orange high tech looking athletic t-shirt. The planned walk was 5 miles long. He stood on a green painted park bench under the shadow of palmate leafed locust trees and spoke at first without a megaphone. With his blue medical mask pulled from his face, one loop still around one ear, in a loud and clear voice he said, “First we want everyone to be safe,” and then, “most importantly, we want to be able to express ourselves about repealing 50-a. Does everyone one know what 50-a is?” “Yes,” someone in the slowly growing crowd of approximately 100 people responded. “I make no assumptions,” he said and proceeded to explain 50-a in his own, plain way. A person of authority for the Marble Hill houses was the thanked. Other people were thanked. Mr Jackson identified some of his staff. He now had the megaphone which was working. Drums and signs were offered to people, as were packs of food, water bottles and other essential supplies. Bathroom locations along the route were identified and also a time table was laid out. They planned to arrive at Riverbank State Park, rendezvous with another state politician and rally for an hour. Senator Jackson picked up a drum and cautiously, playfully, to a few awkward laughs attempted a marching beat. Police escorted the march as it left the housing complex and stuck to the sidewalk south on the east side of Broadway. When we reached 10th avenue both lanes of were filled by the foot traffic of chanting protestors, marching under the elevated 1 train tracks. In the beginning there were a few lulls between chants. One person’s sign said “No other profession had a song written about them called Fuck the Police,” or something like that. Vehicle traffic passenger and drivers, including city bus drivers, honked and had phone cameras pointed at the march, with raised arms, echoing chants. “Say his name.” “George Floyd!“ “Say her name.” “Breonna Taylor.” Also there was a “How do you spell racist? N-Y-P-D,” chant. The march paused at Dyckman briefly before turning east, taking up one lane of traffic. It paused again at the Broadway, Dyckman, Riverside Drive intersection, holding up traffic, before turning south, taking away the north and south bound lanes of Dyckman from vehicle traffic. I left the march at a Nagle Avenue, 195th street equivalent. A few clusters of what looked like grapes were hanging from a plant over a stonewall in Fort Tryon Park. A group of young people’s attention drifted away from the march and they inspected the grapes.

Prayerful March, Bronx, NY, June 10th 2020
I learned about this one from a link Willis shared on Twitter. Around 5:45pm, I biked east down 207th Street and crossed the Harlem River on the University Heights Bridge pedaling on the sidewalk.  It’s a hot humid evening. Pumping up W Fordham Road, a young man without a shirt came bobbing down the road in the opposite direction on one rear tile, while the front fork of his frame stuck out in front of him, wheelless. A half block later, a white convertible Bentley with read leather interior pulled up next to me. The young man driving had two French braids on each side of his head and a large stock of money in hand. He was dancing and singing for a DSLR camera held on a gimbal in the passenger seat. Two men were in the back seats, one had his phone out, recording video of the man in the driver seat. The driver seat person was not wearing a seatbelt and stood up in the car before the light changed. He quickly sat down and accelerated through the intersection. I turned onto a paved section of the Croton aqueduct trail and pedaled north on a pedestrian path cutting between adjacent rear building lots. The trail only lasted one block and I biked north for three more blocks on a narrow street until I reached Kingsbridge Avenue. The protest as assembling below the two towering turrets of the giant red brick armory building, which is visible from the Bronx Lookout in Inwood Hill Park. Police officers, Lieutenants and patrol cars and a van or two held a soft perimeter on the protest, a few hundred in number. The man talking through the megaphone was talking about not resisting arrest, the right to disagree with someone’s sign and ask them to remove their sign and that there were only three chants and they each involved prayer. People were passing around snacks in the crowd. A woman in a pin-striped apron, dirty from kitchen work, reluctantly investigated the crowd. When riding by on a lime green painted moped, she felt compelled to stop and leave the vehicle temporarily unattended behind where I stood. The paint was wearing away on the dented and scraped body of the vehicle that gave it the intentionally worn look of a movie set prop. Her arms revealed by the rolled up sleeves of her white shirt, looked swollen and tanned with kitchen dirt. Her face was wrinkled in a pleasant way and her confused expression seemed suspiciously innocent. She clumsily worked her way between young people in matching black shirts holding their arms and signs up in prayer. I worried she might bump someone. Her mind appeared concerned with something more serious than a racial protest. As she turned back her bewildered and lost look had not been satisfied by her inspection. She stood face to face with a young man holding a large sign. Neither of them budged for a few seconds. When she made it back to her moped a digital alarm spilled out of the vehicle. In a seeming response, the crowds voice rose with an amen. A white woman in front of me had a two or three year old child strapped to her back. The child’s blue eyes were pleasantly engaged in the sky, building edges and unfamiliar faces beside his mother’s exposed shoulders. One man arrived with a rainbow flag tied into one of his neatly hanging dreadlocks. He was the only other person I saw with a bike at their side beside me. A woman wearing a sleeveless black shirt with a priest collar approached him as if they had been searching for each other. Continuously while I observed these crowd members a woman preached a passionate, musical sermon. All in the crowd raised up both hands, in prayer. Then I noticed a woman with her hair in a pepper gray ponytail and reflective aviator sunglasses hurriedly cross Reservoir Avenue and reveal her folded laminated sign over her head. It said “Black Trans Lives Matter” on one side and in multi-colored font on the other side, “Silence = Violence.“ An officer standing close to me took a phone call from a friend or family member. They talked causally about immediate plans for dinner or socializing. Then they said, “Alright this protest is about to start marching, I have to go.” Protest organizers in with megaphones tried to explain for everyone to line up behind a banner. There was no banner in my sight. Eventually the march swept into the east bound lanes of Kingsbridge Avenue. A woman in front of me thanked a female officer who was standing in the intersection. A chant involving the word prayer emanated rather weakly from somewhere in the front of the march. As I carefully rolled my bike along with the crowd I notice a beautiful red-tailed hawk joined a flock of pigeons which had been circling in the sky. Among the urban birds two red brick towers with conical roofs rose above the long edifice of the armory. The structure built in the 1910s to house the New York National Guard burned in the light of the low and unobstructed sun of the western sky.

To Adirondack Peeks editors,

I felt disappointed when I read the poem Deprivation by David Crews in your Spring 2020 edition. To read a poem titled Deprivation, comprised of complaints of minor discomforts and an image of animal slaughter, in a hiking magazine as a global pandemic cause mass death and exposes systemic racism in our country, felt strange. The insensitive treatment of suffering exposes PEEKS’ seeming desire to celebrate the journey in New York’s 46 highest peaks to self-inflicted challenges. His opening lines, "[…] not having / shelter from rain, from nature’s elements,” I must assume occurs when the author has intentionally exposed himself to a calculated risk. He mentions Seymour mountain. I’d argue that most people, especially those marginalized by race and poverty, are denied the health, economic and cultural benefits that come with access to a place like Seymour Mountain. Yet if they were to find a copy of PEEKS and read David’s poem they will perhaps recognize some of their own voices in his lines. Is this the best way for us to communicate our vastly different experiences in New York? I have debated with myself over my reaction to his poem. However, each time I read it everything the poem fails to say screams in my face. Not everything has to be topical. More simply, the poem does not even attempt to explore its own title. Still, true deprivation left by the pandemic will reach the Adirondack Park. Systemic racism, which has recently drawn people across the world out in massive protest, risking further spread of a deadly disease, must currently exists in the Adirondack Park. In a place of unparalleled peace and beauty, diversity remains absent. That is a deprivation. As long as that is the case, the park will also lack understanding. I understand Crews may not have set out to address such issues. I do think the poems placement in PEEKS does show a mentionable lack awareness. David’s inability to “turn off humidity,” as his legs, “always climbing,” carrying out the irksome peak-bagger trope, instead offering a form of solidarity with those who have no choice but suffer humidity and fruitless labor, highlights our lack of engagement with humanity as lovers of the environment. He worries he might “scrape his arm up”. Reportedly 8.5% of our population has no health insurance. Since it is Mr Crew’s birthday I wish for him that out of “a thousand oppressive thoughts” one key realization “coronates” him. His complaining about mosquitoes on Seymour severely understates the power our public places hold. As the redemptive value of wilderness goes untraced for multitudes of disenfranchised citizens, David can simply satisfies his deprivation with a purgation shower, a relish of tangy beer and a carnivorous oral engagement with tender steer flesh. The latter image says a lot about David’s presence of mind in our mountains. As he leans in to a kiss a steer, Crews is attempting another calculated risk, presenting an image of anticipated violence and fetishistic satisfaction. Animals have no feelings and David pays very little attention to what actually happens inside a slaughterhouse. The artist’s true deprivation, or sense of it, seems to be a complete lack of compassion. I’m not fooled that there are any romantic moments. Workers in slaughterhouses across the country experience some of the worst working conditions our society has to offer. Crews’ description of pain, unpleasant smells and mud are just a blatant heist of emotion. I hope everyone’s journey through the High Peaks is less challenged by the natural community which David seems to claim. The High Peaks Wilderness, a place exemplified on a global stage for preservation and conservation methods, provides an easier path to celebrate inclusivity and freedom from the deprived inequalities our civilized minds create. Maybe David intended to lead us somewhere else. Those of us who have bagged all the peaks might feel a duty to protect the environment around them. We can also allow that environment a chance to enrich the society which surrounds and supports it. Sharing our discomforts after a challenging hike can inspire us. The names listed on the 46er roster may continue to challenge themselves again and again each new season until they grow old and wise along with the character of wild places. That’s the beginning of the journey. Contextualizing these wilderness experiences threads each of our journeys into the societal fabrics where pandemics and racism extoll true deprivation. Am I self-righteously posturing or providing unsolicited workshop advice, virtue signaling? Probably. As I read PEEKS and feel cautious about visiting a park that I’ve visited every summer of my entire life, I am more compelled to plan ahead and prepare for the burdens our societal issues present.

Respectfully,
Miles Ross
#8377

Dear Adirondack Peeks Editors,

I was disappointed when I read David Crews’s poem Deprivation in the PEEKS Spring 2020 edition. I feel the poem exposes PEEKS’ desire to celebrate the journey to New York’s 46 High Peaks, to challenges of insensitivity. Current events pertaining to the pandemic and systemic racism in our country do and will affect the Adirondack Park. The poems descriptions of the sport of hiking and indulgences in the rewarding comforts afterwards, appear harmless on the whole. I’ve debated with myself over sharing my reaction to the poem. Each time I read Deprivation I am left feeling more uneasy and confused. Maybe because the ideas in the poem hardly explore it’s own title and the dislocation seems unintentional. Deprivation, or loss, seems to me to come by very little fault of one’s own. For example: personal loss or hardship, extreme poverty, mass incarceration or experiences of those directly affected by COVID-19 or systemic racism. All the while I know that the author of deliberately chose for himself to be exposed to those conditions on Seymour that day. David may not have set out to address such societal issues by writing the poem. I sense that in his phrasing however, he is certainly aware… “There’s something about it – not having / shelter form rain…” I agree, there is. I wonder if our homeless and migrant worker populations also agree. Mr. Crews lets us know he finds the bugs to be bad, the humidity inescapable, his legs tired, and the potential of scraping his arm unsettling. What else can we learn about deprivation from him? All the while, for over 100 years environmentalists and activists have fought to protect our wilderness from development and pollution, so that the citizens of our state, country and neighboring countries can benefit from the economic, health and cultural value of a natural ecosystem. In a technology driven economy, access and diversity in the Adirondack Park remains far behind. Poor and marginalized people are proportionately oblivious to the High Peaks. They suffer everyday in their daily lives much worse than us peak-baggers. David goes home, takes a “purgation shower,” drinks tangy beer and fetishizes slaughtering animals. Sharing the discomfort of an adventure can be inspiring. Understanding the context of these challenges is what makes it a journey. We owe aspiring 46ers the journey aspect as is so eloquently put in the President’s Report. I’m proud to find myself on the roster (not far ahead of David Crews, who I’m sure is a fine person) but I’m more proud to know and understand firsthand the value of natural space on Seymour, in the High Peaks, and all around New York as a resource that can benefit everyone, and not only deprive some.

Sincerely,
Miles Ross
#8733
only deprive some.