My second NYC apartment sat on the edge of a then-obscure Manhattan neighborhood known as the Meatpacking District Pressure to move kicked in a day after those heroic firefighters pulled me out of the flaming building. I needed to find a new home in NYC ASAP. My third-floor room was, more or less, as habitableContinue reading “So Far West It’s Nearly In New Jersey”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Career Opportunities
My professional life began with a surprise lie-detector test, and a belated start date that went down in history — as the day Ronald Reagan was shot Incipient panic inspired me to answer a catchall help-wanted ad — Calling All College Grads — during my initial job search in New York City. The role wasContinue reading “Career Opportunities”
“I used to get by on $5 a day but New York City has gotten so expensive”
So said my first mentor in Manhattan — without irony — in 1981 Moving into 78 Washington Place in mid-March 1981 didn’t take long. All I brought: two suitcases stuffed with clothes, briefcase, clock radio, electric typewriter. Luckily Apartment 3C came furnished. More or less. Fitted with a painfully thin mattress and itchy blanket, theContinue reading ““I used to get by on $5 a day but New York City has gotten so expensive””
Entry Level NYC 1981
Retracing my first steps and recalling a few stumbles Upon arriving in Manhattan, I checked in at The Chemists Club in Midtown. Basically a hostel for businessmen and scientists, The Chemists Club’s members included my father. When I left Cincinnati for New York in February 1981, with a headful of writerly dreams, he generously frontedContinue reading “Entry Level NYC 1981”
Onboarding NYC: 1981
A New Introduction To An Old Story Returning from work on a humid July evening in 1981, my first season in New York City, I wandered through the palpitating heart of Greenwich Village and paused on Carmine Street. I was in no hurry to return home to my humble-ain’t-the-word abode. After browsing esoteric disco recordsContinue reading “Onboarding NYC: 1981”
Book Review: Paging Dr. Mueller
Walking through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black: Collected Stories by Cookie Mueller “Firstly, you’re right about my mind being open, in fact it’s so open at times I feel the wind whistling through it.” — Cookie Mueller, “Ask Doctor Mueller” column, East Village Eye circa 1983 During her attentuated forty years on earth, the inimitableContinue reading “Book Review: Paging Dr. Mueller”
Dionysian Rave: “Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy” by Barbara Ehrenreich
Originally published in The Los Angeles Times Book Review January 7 2007 BY MARK COLEMAN IN the 21st century, most people have experienced at least a watered-down version of what author Barbara Ehrenreich calls collective joy. Many are susceptible to flashes of communal ecstasy in stadiums or auditoriums, nightclubs or public parks, at concerts andContinue reading “Dionysian Rave: “Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy” by Barbara Ehrenreich”
Andy & Me: Living Vicariously Through The Andy Warhol Diaries
Andy Warhol paved the way for so much current pop culture it’s impossible to measure his impact. He smudged the line between commercial and fine art with his silkscreen paintings from the early Sixties: the Elvises, Marilyns and Jackies that first made him famous (for longer than fifteen minutes). He envisioned the reality TV conceptContinue reading “Andy & Me: Living Vicariously Through The Andy Warhol Diaries”
There He Goes Again
“The Presidential election is just too stupid to watch…you see Ronald Reagan in these neighborhoods with poor people and you can just hear him saying ‘Oh my God what am I doing here?’ But his hair looks really good.” — The Andy Warhol Diaries on August 21, 1980 My mom, a moderate-to-liberal Rockefeller Republican, intuitedContinue reading “There He Goes Again”
Mark Coleman 