Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Odds and Ends


It is a nuisance to me that prices are not displayed in shop windows.

I have visited 13 out of the 39 bridges in Central Park.  If I run out of bridges, I may start on statues

Several days ago I was watching cars going in and out of a parking garage . The garage had a second doorway that the attendants sometimes used to get cars in and out from. When closed it had a sign saying ‘No Parking’ Fair enough. Underneath it said ‘This is an active driveway’.  I know what they mean, but sounds funny to me.  We would say ‘in use frequently’  or something. Then yesterday I saw one better. I passed in the bus an ‘active’ cemetery.    Again – people visiting frequently – but I had visions of corpses having zumba classes  in the middle of the night.

 Some info on Central Park from the brochure:
First major landscaped public urban park in the US
Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux  who won a competition to design it in 1858.
Constructed in 1858 to 1873.
843 acre.
800m   by 4 km

 A few days ago in a café at lunch time an old guy sat next to me and ordered a martini. He specified the brand of gin, how many twists of lemon, in a wine glass not a martini glass ( I donot blame him, martini glasses are hard to hold) , ice in a separate glass with a spoon.  He sounded exactly like Woody Allan.

Apparently, when Nelson Mandela  was in prison in the 1970’s , no books except a few bibles were allowed. One inmate convinced  a guard that his copy of the Complete works of William Shakespeare was a ‘Bible by William Shakespeare’. This book was passed around the inmates for years. They signed their favourite passages with initials and a date. The passage that Mandela signed and dated  16 dec 1977 was from Julius Caesar : “ “Cowards die many times before their deaths
The  valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end.
Will come when it come.”

The Gatsby era costumes I saw in Brookes Bros were the actual ones from the film ‘Gatsby’ to be released soon here.

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