“But you don’t look American.” “Where are you really from?” “Where were your parents born?” I’ve heard this overseas, both in Europe and in places like Afghanistan and India, and I’ve heard it here in New York, but only from visitors. My black hair, dark brown eyes and olive skin reflect my Jewish ancestry, but Read More
For the past several years, my mother and her friends have invited me to the annual Frederick Law Olmsted Awards Luncheon held by the Central Park Conservancy, where the crème de la crème of New York society turns out in full bloom to match that of the glorious park gardens. Usually I borrow a hat Read More
It has come round again: the day of the year I most cherish and dread. I am not drawn to the commerce of the occasion- the forced buys of somehow-not-as-fragrant-as-in-the-past lilacs (Where have the true aromatic lilacs gone? To botanical heaven, every one?) Certainly I’m avoiding the pink, blushing cards with cloying images of “MOM.” Read More
Earlier this week, I read that the Ali G movie is back in production after a brief hiatus. Director Todd Philips had pulled out of the film; according to rumor, he and the crew started to receive death threats not long after “Borat,” Ali G’s alter ego, sang an offensive version of the national anthem Read More
I was ambling across St. Marks Place, thinking about the old days, when I was forced to an abrupt stop. I had run into a stroller jam-more specifically, a gridlock composed of $700 Bugaboos bearing infants in $200 frocks. On St. Marks Place! Just across the street from where I bought my first set of Read More
Having excused myself from getting involved in all things humanly romantic for the last few years, I have woken up recently missing even its worst aspects. Without the benefit of a ready-made pool of possibilities, however (we aren’t in graduate school anymore, I tell myself, and those art-colony romances seem to fall to pieces once Read More
Author: Ken Krimstein Page: 5
PQ: ‘But one thing: What are records?’
I wanted an afternoon of bonding with my 11-year-old son, but I also wanted an afternoon-so, in a fit of inspiration, I figured that he and one of his friends were finally old enough to cruise the Lower East Side with me Read More
A friend of mine died a couple of weeks ago, unexpectedly, alone in his apartment at the age of 30. We hadn’t talked in a couple of years, hadn’t hung out in probably three or four. Until I read his obituary, I didn’t know he’d moved out to Brooklyn, or how exceptionally well he was Read More
It wasn’t a great week to try and place a news obituary in The New York Times. First Terri Schiavo died. Then there was the Pope, whose passing received the sort of coverage you’d assume would be reserved for an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, or the day we make contact with intelligent Read More
On the cold, wet second day of spring this year, I sought refuge from the lashing sleet with a group of New York transplants who, like myself, hail from warmer climes. For two hours, an impossibly well-decorated studio near 71st and Park was, as the location for March’s meeting of the Southern Supper Club, for Read More
