On the other hand, there are signs of economic trouble. Last year, a sausage on a bun at street vendors averaged about $2.75, this year it is down to $1.50. Last year a hotdog averaged $1.50; this year down as low as 79 cents. The number of vacant storefronts and other retail space available has increased dramatically in just one year. Sidewalk vendors’ prices are down: souvenir T-shirts 5 for $10; new DVDs for $1 to $2. And I was surprised to find a table full of used Rogers Video products for sale at 49 cents each. How did they get down here from Toronto?
This is about my 50th trip to New York and the worst so far in terms of the travel. I arrived over 4 hours later than scheduled. It began with me forgetting that this week is March Break/Spring Break/Reading Week throughout North America, and that there would be crowds. I arrived at the Bay Street terminal about 40 minutes ahead of departure time, usually good for a good seat on the first bus. But due to the Break madness, this year I was lined up for 95 minutes before getting on the fifth bus! (They put on seven buses.) They were putting some iffy buses on the road to try covering the demand, and bus-the-fifth turned out to be one of them. We had a long delay at the Rainbow Bridge border crossing, parked where we could see into the examination room where the passengers from the bus ahead of us were being cleared. This included about 15 passengers wearing Muslim garments; these were being grilled endlessly (yes, they profile people at the border). When it was finally our turn, I cleared through in less than 30 seconds, and since there were no suspicious types on our bus, the whole busload was through in 15 minutes. The only passenger who took over a minute to clear was a Parsi-speaking second generation Turk-Canadian with a nine year old very clever daughter with whom I’d become acquainted earlier in the 95-minute line-up. The delay for him was only for examination of documents verifying he had his wife’s permission to take the daughter out of the country. So we get done, and wait for our bus to move up to the re-loading area – and watch it break down, lol (not). Three other buses waiting in line behind it in the only bus lane. Immigration guys hassle the bus driver to hurry up the tow truck; come on, what can he do? Heavy-duty tow truck takes 40 minutes to get there; replacement bus takes 70 minutes to get there, and 20 minutes to back up the wrong way through two bends in the one-way laneway. Immigration won’t process the other buses till we’re out of there. One of the immigration guys acknowledges everybody’s frustration, and permits the smokers to smoke in a no-smoking posted area. Thank God for small mercies. So we get going finally; fitful sleep in the bus until arrival in NYC. My NYC visits are usually a stop-over on my way to an actual destination further south (this year, Greensboro, NC to visit my Dad) and I deliberately take the overnight bus to sleep on the bus, spend the day in NYC, then sleep on the overnight bus to the final destination. Saves two nights of hotel expenditure. [I can sleep anywhere.]
I stowed my luggage in the Port Authority baggage section ($8, same as last year), and started my stroll, basically south back and forth across Broadway to the Wall Street area, then west to Ground Zero and north back and forth across Greenwich to about 10 blocks north of Canal, then diagonally back to the starting point, stopping here and there at points of interest to me. Random general observations: great cleanliness, better than Toronto, and even more noticeable this year than last. Amazed at the absence of cigarette butts. Cobblestone streets are disappearing at about the same rate as in Toronto; the more comfortable modern pavement outweighs the nostalgia. Troubling is the visible police presence about every 200 yards throughout Lower Manhattan. How much crime is it preventing? Strolling along Canal, I was asked four times if I wanted to purchase marijuana, two of those vendors brazenly merchandising within 20 yards of a uniformed officer. Later, when I returned to the Port Authority, I ran into a Nigerian tourist who’d been in the aforesaid 95 minute line-up. He had stowed his passport, wallet, and tickets in an outside pocket of his back-pack, and had been pick-pocketed within 5 minutes of arrival in NYC. Major crisis for him.
My first linger on the stroll was the Timmy’s mentioned in my first sentence, then a look at the 1963 electric car on display across the street outside Ripley’s museum. There were electric autos as early as 1869, but once petroleum sellers became involved in the auto industry in 1878, electric technology was repeatedly suppressed. The Broadway area was packed with March Break teenagers and college students, frequently walking five abreast, all five texting on their cells. The nice weather had brought out several street entertainers, and various people promoting their products or isms. I met Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster, and accepted the chocolate chip cookie he proffered. A co-ed group of attractive secular humanist activists was giving out hugs; I accepted a baker’s dozen and went on my way smiling, but tearfully, remembering Eileen [my late sister-in-law, whose tombstone reads: consider yourself hugged].
My first extended stop was at Union Square. If I’d been at home, I’d have spent about $100 on perishable goodies offered at the farmer’s market. It awakened my thirst and appetite, so I sat on a park bench to drink some water and eat some junk food out of my backpack, and to browse some Gerard Manley Hopkins. I read The Alchemist in the City, an appropriate text for the moment, evidenced by the lines:
The making and the melting crowds:
The whole world passes; I stand by…and
I see the city pigeons veer,
I mark the tower swallows run…I had noticed swallows and pigeons in the park; these pigeons had throats which were green and purple simultaneously but not at the same time, and I wanted a closer look, so I crumbled some potato chips around my feet, and immediately gained bird attention. One of the swallows was very brave, perching on my right knee; I asked him how far he was prepared to go. I crumpled a small chip into the palm of my hand, and he balanced on my index finger, pecking into my palm. About half-a-dozen girls recorded the moment on their cell phone cameras; if it goes viral, send me a copy. But the pigeons were the point which led to my poem of the day:
CHRIST THE ALCHEMIST
(at Union Square, Manhattan, March 10, 2012)
Which the authentic inscape of the pigeon throat:Chlorophyll filled green greening shimmer
Nor feathered royal rank pure purple coat;
Chameleon chimera counterpoints; which dimmer?
Furious and fiery filled full, formed, fulfilled
Babylon is sweetscape manscape manbuild
Happy heat feathered alchemy to the common green
Bitters unformed foul fetal fatal cold coal,
Prediluvian primal primed to her purple sheen;
But her instress sold; the gold soul goal
For the royal robe robbed.
Christ is alchemist,
Word, green begot purple; our instress he’s bought
For us to keep, Babylon’s inscape unmissed,
Authentic inscape bought begot re-wrought.
I remembered, as I passed Grace Church, that I had been told once that the church had (amongst others) a stained glass window depicting The Transfiguration. There are several theological questions which interest me in connection with The Transfiguration, and I wanted to see if the artist had shed light (pun intended) on these questions. The door to the church was open, as it should be [the never-enforced Common Law of Sanctuary forbids locks on church doors. The only modern religion which still commonly obeys that law is the Sikh religion. I am currently posting a 14-part series on Common Law elsewhere on this blog; this will include comment on the Law of Sanctuary. The two posts to date are under the heading "For Wendy"], so I entered. There were four people in the church. Two people were at prayer in the sanctuary; a homeless person was sleeping on her plastic bags in a pew [this was the only homeless person I saw in Manhattan, other than perhaps in a short line-up at the food bank at Holy Cross church on 42nd across from the Port Authority terminal]; and there was a lady in the lobby who directed me to a brochure about the stained glass windows. To sum up the theological issues, briefly: Christ’s disciples consisted of a group of 70. Within that group there were 12 who lived and travelled with him day-to-day, and within that group there was a group of 4 who were the only ones who received his complete teaching. Those four, in order of precedence, were Andrew bar Jonah, Simon bar Jonah (nickname: ‘Pebble’, or Peter), James bar Zebedee, and John bar Zebedee. All of those four ought to have been present at The Transfiguration, but the synoptic gospels all omit Andrew, the #1 disciple. Many of the rejected gospels do include him. Before the Council of Nicaea, there were about 140 books accepted as Holy Scripture by most early Christians. When Constantine made Christianity the Official Religion of Rome, it had to be defined in legal terminology so it could be enforced by civil servants. These were existing civil servants who had been enforcing the existing Official Religion (The Church of Jupiter) and it included all of the Jovian priests. None of these could be fired; they had to be re-trained as Christian priests – but early Christianity didn’t have priests; every Christian was his/her own sovereign priest! There was a six year transition period, and then in 327ad the death penalty began to be enforced against those who refused to convert. Nicaea could not agree on which books should be Officially Holy, so assigned the task to the Bishop of Alexandria, who announced his verdict 40 years later in the Festal Letter of 367ad. The Christianity which was created at and subsequent to Nicaea was a brand-new religion, an evil twin version of the previous Christianity, with very little in common with the actual teachings of Jesus. The second theological issue of interest to me is that, under the Common Law of Witness [to be included in the 14-part series op. cit.], nothing was established unless two witnesses confirmed it. In heavenly matters, the witnesses had to be heavenly. Moses had failed his perfection test and gone to hell (hence the devil had claim on his body, see Book of Jude); therefore Moses is not eligible to be one of the two heavenly witnesses at The Transfiguration. Many of the Nicaea-rejected gospels substitute Jeremiah or others for Moses. So I wanted to see if the stained glass artists (Clayton and Bell) had included or excluded Andrew and Moses. The brochure informed me that Grace Church had 26 major and 18 minor windows, and I began to examine them in the southwest corner of the church and thence counter-clockwise. The first window, entitled Four Fishermen, is the newest, placed in 1966 [39 of the windows were placed in the 1880s]. It gives the four executive disciples in their proper order of precedence and with appropriate scriptural quotations, but garments them in historically inaccurate medieval clothing. The next five windows were unremarkable, not arousing my interest, and one of them I thought was artistically and theologically inferior (Service, by Henry Holiday, placed 1921). When I got to the sixth window, I discovered that two-thirds of the church was roped off, leaving only 12 of the 44 windows available for close-up inspection. I inspected the remaining six accessible windows with only the one depicting Moses failing his perfection test arousing my interest (by Burlison and Grylis, placed 1890). So I couldn’t see the one I most wanted to see [The Transfiguration, by Clayton and Bell, placed 1883, and located in the roped-off altar area of the church]. I guess I can browse the web for a picture, it must be posted somewhere?
A decade ago, five Canadian banks had a street-level presence on Wall Street. That’s now down to one. With the economic Empire of America now in sharp decline, the erstwhile colonies are moving their allegiance elsewhere; in Canada’s case, from America to China. Six Canadian banks have a presence in China’s financial centre. Of course America wants to keep its Empire, but the means has shifted from economic (activity by consent) to military (activity by force). There are American troops in every time zone on the planet; occupation troops currently in 57 countries; active combat troops currently in 16 countries; over 400 military interventions by Americans during the past century, the American Imperial Century. Americans are afraid of freedom elsewhere, and will put a stop to it as efficiently as possible. Increasingly, this includes shutting down dissent on home turf.
This brings my stroll to Ground Zero, a pillar of the deception the Empire foists upon its populace. It is highly improbable that that tide can now be turned; just as unlikely as ever being able to shut down Zionaziism. This is the stone heart of Babylon, the whore that sits on many waters, and with whom all the powerful of earth have fornicated; her merchants have been the great men of the earth; by her have all nations been deceived; she has hampered and rejected and breached contract with, tormented, sorrowed, diseased, and starved all those who had been born to be free. New York City, Capital of the American Heresy.
On which sour note, I think I’ll end this post, although I’ve only covered 5 hours of a 10 hour stroll.
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