Posts from — May 2008

Peter Pan buses carried reporters back to Max Yasgur’s Calving Barn, where Duke Devlin, the now-gray hippie who stayed for three days of peace and music in 1969 and never left, waxed pyschedelic about what it all means nearly 40 years after, as reported by Peter Applebome in the New York Times (5/29/08). “I don’t know if this can be recreated,” he said, “but something like it can happen again. We’re back in the ’50s man. The reason we’re all here is because we’re not all there.” Actually the reason he, and busloads of reporters, were there was that a the Museum at Bethel Woods, memorializing the famous festival, will open on Monday in Bethel, N.Y.

Richie Havens was there for the occasion, as was John Sebastian, who played a couple of period-appropriate tunes and reflected on what it all meant. “It evaporated so fast,” said John. “One minute we were there and the next minute we were in Reaganville.” Maybe it was because most of the music actually sucked. “No matter what we say after the fact, most of us disliked our performances at Woodstock,” John admitted. “I can find you a quick dozen people who would look back on that performance and say, ‘Oh, man, I bit the big one.’”

Perhaps that’s one reason the museum is less a tribute to the music itself as it is an icon of a “culminating moment, the capstone of the 1960s,” as Patrick Gallagher, whose firm designed the museum, said. Most of the displays do in fact capture events outside the festival, from war to assassinations to civil rights to the moon to the Beatles, and even Elvis. The 6,728-square-foot museum is “housed in a lovely laminated wood structure” built by the same company that constructed the silos on Max Yasgur’s farm. It is a big part of a local economic development plan that includes a $100 million arts center with a 15,000-seat outdoor performance area.” Yes, a 40th anniversary concert is planned for next year. ~ Tim Manners, editor

“There’s a word for it in Yiddish,” says Denise Matis as she looks around Howard Sportswear, a shop at 69 Orchard Street on New York’s Lower East Side, as reported by Tanzina Vega in the New York Times (5/20/08). “Haimish” is the word Denise has in mind and she says it means “character.” Unfortunately, the word in English for stores like Howard Sportswear is “endangered.” There was a time when the “most Jewish-owned shops” on Orchard and Grand Streets were “bustling on Sundays with shoppers stopping at egg-cream stands and going to Katz’s Delicatessen for corned beef sandwiches. Shops were filled with clerks who could tell a customer’s size in one glance.”

Howard G. Winterfield, who has worked at Imkar Company at 294 Grand Street for 30 years, remembers those days. “In this store, people used to line up outside the door just to come in, and there wasn’t room for everybody in the store. Today, we go hours without seeing a person.” The only reason Imkar is still in business is that its owner, Wolf Karfiol, owns the building and “refuses to sell.” He’s one of few holdouts though, as estimates are that there used to be ten times as many shops like his — underwear shops basically — in the neighborhood. Now there are only about a dozen left. “We’re a dying breed,” says Howard Markowitz of Howard Sportswear.

Perhaps ironically, the main reason Howard is still in business is because he also sells online. “That’s how you survive,” he says, adding, “I don’t do it for my pocketbook, I do it for my head.” However, one exception to this trend is Orchard Corset Center at 157 Orchard Street, where, according to owner Peggy Bergstein, business is great because she has a very special talent. “I can walk down the street, and I can look at a person and tell you exactly what their bra size is.” This sort of thing means a lot to Ayanna Hendricks, who says she’s been shopping on the Lower East Side “since she was a little girl in the 1980s,” and is impressed that Peggy remembers her purchase history. “You can’t get that kind of customer service at T.J. Maxx,” she says. ~ Tim Manners, editor

Ever since the Iran Hostage Crisis began in 1979, Lord & Taylor has opened each and every shopping day by playing the Star Spangled Banner, reports James Barron in the New York Times (5/26/08). The tradition began with then-chairman Joseph E. Brooks, who ordered the anthem played because, as he said at the time, “with all its problems, this is still the greatest country in the world.” Joseph’s idea outlasted his tenure at Lord & Taylor (he resigned when L&T was sold in 1986) and shows no signs of going away, even as the retailer undergoes “re-branding and re-imaging” to make “it relevant for today,” as spokesperson La Velle Olexa puts it.

Nancy F. Koehn, a retail historian at Harvard Business School, says that by keeping the anthem, Lord & Taylor is “keeping its core attributes.” She also says that the daily ritual is a reminder of a time when shopping at department stores was a day-long event. “To stand for the national anthem in a department store … is to step briefly back into a moment when things seemed simpler and more straightforward and more firmly rooted than they are now, in the sense that people say ‘I remember that’ and ‘I’m looking for that footing today.’”

So powerful is that concept for Lord & Taylor that it has outlasted another of its famous traditions — an employee in starched uniform serving free coffee in cups-and-saucers to early arrivals. “As we updated the store, we needed to update the coffee service,” says La Velle Olexa, the spokesperson. Apparently “updating” means “dropping.” Not so the national anthem, however, in full orchestral splendor. Some people stand, while others sit; some sing along while others do not. For at least one shopper, the message was clear. As the final note was played she stage-whispered, “‘Play ball’” and headed for the aisles. ~ Tim Manners, editor

“They’re like little gifts with purchase, and I love them,” says Nicole Bugna-Doyle, commenting on the brief messages writer Chuck Lorre posts following each episode of his hit sitcoms, reports Katherine Rosman in the Wall Street Journal (5/14/08). Chuck’s sitcoms are “Two and a Half Men” and “The Big Bang Theory,” and his messages are delivered in “what many in the industry call ‘vanity cards’ — an image flashed on the screen at the end of a TV show.” Vanity cards typically “just identify a show’s creator or production company.” But Chuck uses his card to publish personal essays of up to 200 words, which you can catch on CBS, Monday nights at 8:29 p.m. and 9:29 p.m., Eastern.

Sometimes Chuck vents about network executives, as in: “I received a phone call from a mid-level CBS exec who began the conversation by saying he wanted to give me a head’s up. Having been in this business a while I knew ‘head’s up’ is code for ‘we’ve decided to s—— you.’” Then there was the vanity card he wrote hours before marrying his second wife: “I’m riddled with fear to the point of mind-numbing disassociation.” In other cases, Chuck simply comments on society in general: “Don’t hug men while shaking their hand … The shake/hug (shug?) is probably something Roman guys did when their empire was in decline.”

Chuck has been posting these messages since 1997, starting with “Dharma & Greg,” with his early offerings mainly featuring “existential wonderings and explanations of his personal beliefs.” He has since “written more than 200 cards,” (archives here) a total of four of which have been censored (including this reference to bad behavior by a Catholic priest). Most of the messages are too long to be read in the two-seconds afforded to vanity cards, but Chuck’s fans simply record them and hit the pause button (naturally there’s a Facebook group here dedicated to this). Says Chuck: “These vanity cards have tracked couple of nervous breakdowns, a divorce … You can watch my psyche collapse, rebuild itself and collapse again.” ~ Tim Manners, editor

“The Colorado River is not filled with Dasani,” says Scott Peters, making the case for recycling wastewater for drinking water to help address mounting water shortages, as reported by AnJali Athavaley in the Wall Street Journal (5/15/08). Scott, who is San Diego’s city council president makes a good point. In fact, the Colorado River, from which San Diego gets most of its drinking water “gets 400 million gallons of treated wastewater discharged into it each day.” So, it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for people to get used to the idea that water that once filled someone’s toilet could be cleaned up and re-purposed through their kitchen faucets. But of course that is a stretch.

I would never touch it, nor would I give it to my dog to drink,” says Carina Sampson, a hairstylist, commenting on a plan in Orange County, Calif., to recycle wastewater as tap water. The reaction may be understandable, but experts say it is unfounded, explaining that the recycled water is actually cleaner than what’s typically found in groundwater supplies. This is because the water goes through an elaborate, and very expensive, purification process. First, the sewer water “goes through a microfilter to remove solids and bacteria.” Next up is “a reverse-osmosis treatment “that removes viruses, salts, pharmaceuticals and other materials.

Then it is treated with ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide to get rid of contaminants that are left.” At this point, the water is “pumped into a groundwater basin where it mixes with other water and filters through materials like sand, gravel and clay.” And then “it takes about a year for the water to travel to a drinking-water well.” Orange County’s water officials say that the recycled water tastes like chicken. No, seriously, they say it’s comparable to distilled water. “It’s just about as pure as it possibly can be,” says Michael Duvall, an Orange County lawmaker. This of course is not satisfactory to Carina and her pet Chihuahua, both of whom drink bottled water: “I just find it repulsive regardless of what it goes through,” she says. ~ Tim Manners, editor