Posts filed under ‘Buildings’
April 15, 2012
Saddle Hunt
PETERSBURG, KY, April 14 – John Michaels and I took a detour to the Creation Museum. I’d read about this place, over the last five years, and was intrigued by their hyper-literalist take on the Book of Genesis. Now that I’m an adult and no longer pretend I’m smarter than anyone else, it’s nice being able to go to places like this with an open mind. Who am I to say the Creation museum is wrong? I’m no geologist. Maybe the world was made 6,000 years ago. Perhaps we’re all wispy Thetans trapped in meat bodies. Maybe the Moonies got it right. That’s the beauty of agnosticism. We parked among SUVs and monster pickups and set out for the infamous T-Rex wearing a rodeo saddle.
Despite the prominently armed security guards, the exhibitions seemed fairly benign. A few videos showed teens struggling with pot and on-demand abortion, but there was no blatant, Jack-Chick level venom or darkly coded anti-Semitism. Instead, the museum presented itself as a haven for the besieged faithful. Other videos present creationism as a reasonable alternative to evolution, outlining the fundamentals for both sides. One display prominently featured the doubts of lapsed evangelical Charles Templeton. I’ll probably check out his writings based on their inadvertent recommendation.
My strong hunch is that most Kentuckians are bummed about the museum. Go to any roadside stop in the state, and you’ll find a wide selection of hillbilly magnets and collectable mini-moonshine jugs. A museum showing velociraptors in Eden probably doesn’t help Kentucky’s already battered self-image.
On the subject of dinosaurs, the museum showed a strange timidity. Huge lizard beasts, both inanimate and animatronic, lurked everywhere. Several dioramas showed docile dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark. Apparently, a “behemoth” in the Book of Job “could have been a sauropod.” Signs pointed to dragon sightings in the Middle Ages as evidence of dinosaurs’ coexistence with humanity until “relatively recently”. Of their sudden disappearance, the museum cited predators, climate change, and human hunters—all the (non-asteroid) reasons any species has ever gone extinct.
And yet the museum lacked the balls to show dinos side by side with any Biblical figures besides Adam and Eve. If behemoths made it well into New Testament days, why not show them in the New Testament? Where was the friendly brontosaurus peeking his lumpy head into the Nativity scene? Where was the pterodactyl swooping over Paul on the road to Damascus? Where was the Jurassic Park mayhem at Golgotha?
At a certain point, we reached saturation. Passing group after group of murmuring evangelicals, sated on Chili Cheese Creation Burgers and happy in their safe space, I felt that sort of overload one gets from doing too much Christmas shopping. On our way to the exit, I passed a tiny triceratops and finally saw the saddle. It was a prop on which one could photograph their child. As with everything else in the place, it was hard to see what all the fuss had been about.
April 3, 2012
Veselka Incidents
NEW YORK, April 2 – I had a good reading at St. Marks Books. Exploded View Quarterly’s Jesse Pearson introduced me with several amusingly embarrassing vignettes from my past, including the sad tale of how I completely blew him off in 2005. I met a lot of interesting people. Many of my old New Jersey friends came out. Fader Magazine did a pleasant press thing. No skinheads beat me up.
Afterwards, me and a dozen other people from my past mutually decided we were hungry, so we all walked one block to Veselka, the Ukrainian diner that has stood on 2nd Ave for longer than 2nd Ave has existed. The restaurant’s Bloomberg-era renovations—better lighting, large Easter Egg wall decorations, the removal of a grubby back dining area—reflect not just NYC’s economic triumph, but also Veselka’s triumph over its nearby rival diners, Kiev and Odessa. Have Kiev and Odessa also remodeled? Doesn’t matter. No one I know eats there anymore.
As we all sat there celebrating my beating-free reading, I was struck by how many meals I’d eaten in this restaurant over the years. I compiled a list of notable incidents:
- In 1992, I left my table to use the men’s room, and when I returned the friend I was sitting with told me he’d leafed through my notebook of “terrible, embarrassing” lyrics. Later, I paid for his meal.
- Also in 1992, me and Neil Burke narrowly avoided a fistfight with a mustachioed New Jersey man. Neither of us can now remember what the fight had almost been about.
- In spring 1993, I was eating with a friend near the front door when a gang member we both knew—and we’d thought was imprisoned for life on a fairly airtight murder charge—walked through the door and sat down at the next table. We hurriedly finished our dinner and scurried out. Someday, when I am very old and living in a well-guarded space colony, I will perhaps write about this gang.
– In spring 2001, post concert, I ended up sitting at a table next to Drive Like Jehu / Hot Snakes / Obits frontman Rick Froberg and badgered him with compliments through my not-so-comically blown out frog voice. It was awkward.
- In early 2009, after an uneventful Veselka meal, I found myself crouched on the stoop next door, sobbing through a panic attack. Later, I gathered myself together enough to meet friends at a different restaurant, where my retelling of the panic attack failed to generate any chuckles. That was awkward too.
- In 2011, I ate a particularly nightmarish meal that resulted in a near catastrophe a few blocks and hours away. Later, I made some money writing about this incident.
- Also, Neil tells me of a Veselka’s meal where we watched a pre-teen steal his bicycle seat through the large window. Neil ran out, unchained his bike, and, seatless, chased the perp down and got his seat back. The rest of the meal apparently continued incident-free. I have no recollection of this.
