The Atlantic Avenue subway station is the kind of place that always gives me a jolt due to the extreme humanity of the place because man, it is always hopping. It is certainly not one of those ghost town stations, although those can be awesome, too. I have stood on the Smith St. F platform at night with a mist in the air, and it is the closest I think I will ever come to being Barbra Stanwyck as she plots her husband's death.
But back to Atlantic Avenue. I go through there at least five days a week on my way to pick up B at school. I have to take the 2/3 to the R train which involves going down stairs, across a wide hall, up stairs, through a walkway and then down another set of stairs. My favorite part comes at the intersection of two great moments: 1) my arrival at the top of the stairs; and 2) my arrival at the row of ads that line the walkway. I love arriving at the top of the stairs because it means that the majority of the physical work of the transfer is done and because it is one of those things that feels ridiculous. "I just came up! After I went down! Crazy, man."
But it's the ads that really make this moment shine. These are subway ads, so they are large. And it is a full-coverage campaign, so everywhere you go in the station, there they are. At the top of the stairs is the longest row of them. There is something about their omnipresence that makes them more than the sum of their parts. The ads have changed about once a month. Some of the campaigns have been nearly negligible other than the fact that they can't be ignored (Coney Island; meh). Others have inspired me to intense feminism (every liquor ad that has been up). My favorite, without a doubt, was the campaign for the show "Single Ladies" from VH1. Every piece of it was so thoroughly ridiculous that I wanted to laugh every day I went through. The best piece was horizontal with extreme close-ups of the faces of the four leads. I can imagine that the art director said to them, "Okay, sweetie. Give me a face that says, 'I've got a dirty little secret!' That's it! Oh yeah! Dirtier...dirtier...beautiful!" I saw several people stop and talk about the ads while they were up and I wanted to stop and ask them their thoughts on them, but I didn't have the time or guts.
B isn't going to the same school in the Fall. I won't have to go through Atlantic Avenue station every day. This is a cause for rejoicing, believe you me, but I will definitely miss the extreme humanity. And the ads.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Big time fun
The year 2010 was big for the O'Neills. In January, Steve and I celebrated the ten year anniversary of the day we met (along with our first, second and third dates). Also in January, I squeezed out a little baby. In February, Steve turned 40 and in March, I turned 35. Hot dog, those are some great looking numbers.
The thing is, though, that there are great looking numbers everywhere, every year. S is going to be 1 in just a few weeks; B is going to be 5 in July. In another 3.5 years, Steve and I will have been married for ten years. (There are 1.5 bars of chocolate in my cabinet.) So - great looking numbers everywhere.
Here's another good one - this March I will turn 36 and my mother will turn 63 (golly gee, I hope she doesn't mind that I'm writing that here). When I was 14 someone realized that my mother was 41. They said I should be nicer to her because that may never happen. This was nonsensical because I should have been nice to her anyway, but to do it for as asinine a reason as that our ages were mirrors of each other is lame-o. Anyway, that night I lied in bed and thought about it and realized that actually, every eleven years my mother and I have mirror ages. If anyone else's mother was 27 years old when you were born, you too have this tasty little tidbit. It happened when she was 30 and I was 03; she was 41 and I was 14; she was 52 and I was 25; now this year. I hope it continues for at least a few more turns of the dial.
That's it. I need to suit up to get the big boy at school. Let's emulsify!
The thing is, though, that there are great looking numbers everywhere, every year. S is going to be 1 in just a few weeks; B is going to be 5 in July. In another 3.5 years, Steve and I will have been married for ten years. (There are 1.5 bars of chocolate in my cabinet.) So - great looking numbers everywhere.
Here's another good one - this March I will turn 36 and my mother will turn 63 (golly gee, I hope she doesn't mind that I'm writing that here). When I was 14 someone realized that my mother was 41. They said I should be nicer to her because that may never happen. This was nonsensical because I should have been nice to her anyway, but to do it for as asinine a reason as that our ages were mirrors of each other is lame-o. Anyway, that night I lied in bed and thought about it and realized that actually, every eleven years my mother and I have mirror ages. If anyone else's mother was 27 years old when you were born, you too have this tasty little tidbit. It happened when she was 30 and I was 03; she was 41 and I was 14; she was 52 and I was 25; now this year. I hope it continues for at least a few more turns of the dial.
That's it. I need to suit up to get the big boy at school. Let's emulsify!
Friday, January 7, 2011
Hey! How 'bout it!
I have succumbed to the inevitable - I have started a blog. I will try to be intelligible, interesting and grammatically correct. Let's go.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)