9 to 5

Searching for a job that not only pays the bills but also the mind and the soul, is beginning to wear me down. I’ve had interviews for development/fundraising positions with Teach for America and New Yorkers for Parks. On Monday, I interviewed at UNICEF (for a temporary position) as an admin. I've signed up with a staffing agency that specifically serves nonprofits. And after two months of being here, bupkis.

Now wait a minute, you might be thinking, isn't he forgetting why he came to New York? Shouldn't he be worried about feeding his soul with preparing for auditions, reading plays, and going to see the world-class theatre on offer? Yes, yes and yes. But after five years of putting heart and soul into my previous job, I'm finding it's not so easy to get a mindless job and try to focus elsewhere.

The Martellis

I had a wonderful experience this past weekend: meeting my grandmother's cousins, Tom and Emma (and their delightful spouses and children) and her uncle (Uncle Tony of family lore), a 94-year-old first-generation Italian immigrant as sharp now as ever. He remembers a staggering amount of information about our family and it's trials and tribulations. My great-grandfather Patrick (Pasquale) Martelli and his brother Alex scrimped and saved during the war years and after to send for Uncle Tony and his family. In 1955, and I think somewhat reluctantly, Uncle Tony and his family (his wife, daughters Dorothy and Emma, and son Tom) arrived by boat through New York. From there, they took what Tom described as a 4-day journey by train to the terminus of the Northern Pacific Line (Tacoma, WA). It was rough going for a time, especially to arrive in Tacoma knowing very little English an where few if any spoke Italian. Eventually, Uncle Tony's family migrated eastward (except for Dorothy who married and stayed in Tacoma) to Long Island, New York, where they still reside today. They live in Flushing, an old Italian neighborhood that more recently has become a haven for new immigrants from even further East, mainly Chinese and Thai.

So Saturday night was my first home-cooked meal since arriving in New York (I, of course, have been cooking, but cooking for one sucks). Antipasti (sharp provolone, hard salami, and another cured meat); rigatoni with a delightful tomato sauce; sauteed green beans with olive oil and vinegar; amazing grilled zucchini, eggplant and peppers dripping with olive oil; a light and fresh cucumber and tomato salad; grilled steak, lamb, sausage, and chicken; dessert of fruit with delightful cookies and pastries; and finally capped off with espresso and choice of sambuca or anisette. I was stuffed, and Tom's wife Connie (the masterful cook behind most of what made it to the table) made sure I went home with a goody bag. And all I had brought was a bottle of Washington wine! And even that was quickly forgotten when I learned that Emma's husband, Frank, makes his own wine and he'd of course brought a large bottle. His wine was definitely young, much different from commercial wine, very very strong, and I think an acquired taste. I really liked it, but I'm not sure most people would.

As lively as the food was the conversation, nearly 50% of which it seemed was in Italian. I caught a few words here and there, and Tom was so good about keeping me involved. He even told me at one point that Emma and Connie's mother, Maria, were speaking in a dialect that isn't even used or taught anymore! This was fascinating and definitely a different experience for me. Tom filled me in on much of what happened in the intervening years. Emma had gone back to Italy at some point and married Frank there. She returned to the US and found herself in New York, which she liked (there were many more Italians there than in Tacoma!) and decided to stay. Frank soon joined her, and not too much later, Tom moved out to go to Queen's College. Not long after that, Tony and his wife moved out to New York. Each of them lived with Emma and Frank in their small home in Corona (a neighborhood of Queens) for some time, with Tom sleeping on a cot in the dining room. There was even an amusing storing of Frank getting caught in the cot one night (it was one that folded up in the middle).

Tom also was able to tell me exactly where Cantalupo (the home-town of of the Martellis) is located. It is in the region of Italy called Molise and in the province of Isernia (the other provice of Molise is Campobasso). Today, Cantalupo is a country getaway spot for the urban dwellers of nearby Naples, some 150 km to the southwest. Cantalupo (the supposed origin the sweet melon "cantaloupe") means "wolf song" or "song of the wolf" in Italian. The full name of the town is Cantalupo nel Sannio and you'll see here that the population today is just 736 people. Check out this page for more information . And check out this page for the 10 most common surnames of the town--Di Re and Crivellone appear on the list (two prominent names in our family). If you search for "Martelli" at the bottom of that page, it turns up a result of 4.98, which means that 5 people in town probably have the surname Martelli. Perhaps the Martelli family does still have a few hearty souls there!

Needless to say, I was fascinated by the visit, and so grateful for a chance to glimpse our family roots. There were so many questions I wished that I'd asked my great-grandparents when they were alive, and this visit brought me closer to some answers. To Tom and Connie, Emma and Frank, and of course, the last surviving Martelli of his generation, Uncle Tony I offer grazie mille!

What's that smell?

It’s difficult to describe the smells of New York City. The sweet bread smell of a bakery often mixes with the smell of fresh (or aging?) garbage on the sidewalk, or the mysterious steam that wafts up from grates in the sidewalk. And what do you call the resulting mix of smells? Sweet sewage? Delicious decay?


And when you’re packed on the subway like sardines, and everyone around you has to lift their arm to grab a bar and prevent themselves from being slammed into the wall by the lurching train operator, and all these people have just come from the subway station that is a good 10 degrees hotter than the 90-degree-100-percent-humidty of the street level, and you’re trying to keep your hands in a place that is not touching other people and wondering what that thing is that feels like a hand rubbing against your butt and you can’t turn and look because you can’t move, and the train stops in the middle of a tunnel, and the train operator crackles over the intercom and says something completely unintelligible, and you’re hoping you won’t be stuck here for long, and you’re breathing through your mouth and thinking that if you’re here for more than 5 minutes you will claw your way to the doors, pry them open with your bare hands, and brave the unknown of the subway tunnel rather than spend one millisecond more breathing in the body odor of the guy next to you, with his arm up exposing to everyone in the car (and, you think, perhaps the cars in front and behind you, it’s so bad) the glaring fact that this dude needs a shower. Stat. Ol-factory indeed. I never thought I would regret having a sense of smell. Welcome to New York.

For fun, check out Gawker’s New York City Subway Smell Map. Readers of the Gawker blog write in with what smells they’ve experienced recently at all the major subway stops. At the stop I normally use, Borough Hall in Brooklyn, the smells recorded recently were body odor, chemicals, and urine. All in a day’s commute.

Gin Rummy

I'm not inherently a political person, but who can avoid it in the hyper-information age? This should be required reading for every citizen of the United States: Seymour Hersh's latest New Yorker article detailing yet one more instance of how this administration has abdicated responsibility for anything and everything that went wrong and systematically undermined anyone who had the courage to stand up to them. To ostracize and cut short the career of a decorated and devoted Army General for doing his job and telling the truth is appalling. Far more appalling that we most likely continue to treat our fellow human beings in the most inhumane of ways.

PC Load Letter

I'll be starting a new job on Monday at Pace University in the Education Department as an Administrative Assistant. It's a temporary position, but could last as long as six months (we'll see if they want to keep me around and vice versa!).

My sister Anna kindly sent me some Office Space paraphernalia, so the Jump to Conclusions Mat and Innotech mug are definitely coming with me. And I'm putting the little red stapler on a neck lanyard. That's right, Lumberg, you're going to have to kill me to get it.

What as super impression this will make on my new employer! I see a raise coming before I've even started...

Talk Radio

I saw Talk Radio on Broadway last week, with Liev Schreiber in the role of Barry Champlain, a fictional talk radio pioneer in the late 80s. The show was good, especially Schreiber, who deteriorates throughout the play, self-medicating with drugs and alcohol as he contemplates the sheer banality of his life's work and destroying every tenuous relationship he as with real human beings (as opposed to disembodied voices, with whom he seems to deal much easier). Talk radio is an ego-driven enterprise. Here, that ego is having a hell of a time justifying itself. Eric Bogosian's 1987 scrip is a bit dated, but you don't notice that at all once Schreiber sits down in that chair. It's fascinating to watch Schreiber take us on his trip through hell in one two-hour radio show.

I could honestly say / things can only get better...

Alright, out of context, but you can find a quote for every stage of life in the canon of Elton John (thanks especially to my lovely Paige, who is Sir Elton's biggest fan).

I've been having a great time exploring my neighborhood and Manhattan, especially the parks and public spaces. I haven't gotten to Queens or the Bronx yet, but I can't ignore them for too much longer.

Brooklyn is a fascinating area, reminiscent of Seattle in ways (though it's bigger and has rapid transit). The neighborhoods each have a certain character and there are small parks and community gardens in those rare open spaces. I think Prospect Park especially reminds me of the Northwest, with a huge sprawling lawn that extends down the middle of the park, and trails on which you can (almost) forget you're in the city. The parks in New York are in densely populated urban areas, which I think is a major difference. You look at the big parks in the Northwest, with the notable exception of Portland's Washington Park, and they are invariably in the less dense neighborhoods that require driving to them. Here they are within walking distance or a short train ride away. Central Park sprawls out for a staggering 52 city blocks, making it within walking distance for a huge swath of Manhattanites.

Of course, New York does not seem to have, or perhaps has disguised through development, the stunning natural beauty that seems to be around every corner in the Northwest. The iconic sights here are the Empire State Building and Times Square rather than Mt. Rainier, the Cascades and the Olympics. Oh how I miss them all already...