From Myrtle Avenue and Willoughby I walked Myrtle all the way to the MetroTech, that dated technology hub of yore with the realistic looking dog that always makes me think it is real. This time the bird poop on its back gave away the lie, the fabrication, the artistic falsehood that this was no dog for the ambulatory, no dog for the blind. Just a stationary beast by an artist whose name escapes me but I documented it will enough on other platforms.
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I walked. I don’t know the mileage because the mapping app I though I’d activated did not turn on. But Myrtle and Willoughby to the MetroTech should be easy to calculate for historians and fascinators who eat each step I take for breakfast, then wash down excess steps with the liquid of my mumbled words.
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I discovered the tower at Fort Greene Park, a monument to a prison ship, I think. I thought of making a crass joke about the tower, saying that these LinkNYC 5G towers just get bigger and bigger… (There were a couple of those 32-foot monsters in the area, but not in the park).
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But to make a joke like that using what is basically a tombstone for fodder would not woke well, not with me at least.
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I don’t know what I was looking for in Brooklyn yesterday. I mostly stuck to Myrtle but did a detour around one of the NYCHA projects and walked on Park Avenue for a stretch that is under a highway. Much of the NYCHA complex was surrounded by scaffolding and temporary fencing. I thought there might be an old payphone lurking about but I didn’t see anything. In big scenes like this those little phones can become virtual toothpicks.
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I walked well and slept well because of it. I woke at1:30am with a powerful hardon, which seemed never to recede as I returned to consciousness several times. I was up and about promptly at 6am, with less time needed for morning ablutions thanks to a haircut that reduced the shampoo regimen. I’ve also brought something new to the morning shower by pointing the showerhead at the length of the bathtub floor for a few minutes before stepping in. This warms up the previously cold-as-ass floor, which of course is colder than before since there is no heat in the bathroom and it was 29 degrees this AM. So I no longer suffer the third world indignity of sitting down on a cold, cold bathtub floor. I endured said suffering with dignity and aplomb, but now the fix is in and I can save my endurance of suffering for other tiny atrocities.
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The journey from Myrtle and Willoughby started after a claustrophobic, uncomfortable, and surprisingly lengthy shuttle bus cruise along closed-for-the-weekend portion of the G train. Shuttle buses are usually free, and I sometimes imagine it possible to travel completely across town solely on free MTA shuttle buses or other shuttles. The buses between hospitals, for one, or the free shuttles to certain boats or shopping destinations Now the Q70 to LaGuardia is free. All the buses would be free if current discussion in Albany comes to fruition. I’d enjoy that but am proud to represent the seemingly small percentage of New Yorkers who actually pays their fare.
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A surprising highlight of the day was getting a haircut. It was quick, competent, and quite a bit more expensive than I expected but whatever, it’s only money. I took a pass on the woman I’d been hiring because her hours are unpredictable and she just takes so freakin’ long. I also was going to her because she said business was so patheticaly slow since pandemic, so I wanted to help her out.
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I woke up at 2am the day I made my walk. A piece by Guy Stagg was being read. I don’t recall the name right now but I ordered a hard-cover copy. It was about walking, a pilgrimage made on religious pretenses by a man who is not religious. It made me want to do something like that, but do we do those pilgrimages in America? Would I have to go to Europe for something like that? Would I even want to do something that hundreds and thousands of others are already doing? I would gravitate toward my own pilgrimage, my own directionslessness with some ultimate destination. Or no destination. No end, no beginning, only journey, only movement. Only waste.
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I read once that the modern day flaneur is not the stereotype of yore. Formerly it was the preserve of the wealthy but it’s been taken up by the younger generation as a kind of soul-searching. Wandering into oblivion with no purpose or destination, window watching and pushing your body to some kind of physical limit.
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I also made it to Jay Street to check on the TTY there
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