nonetheless

Some men like to undress a woman with a single gaze;

Denis Benitez indulged in a far more presumptuous pastime. He could wrench the hidden truth from every woman who passed him in the street.

Since in their eyes he no longer existed,

since he was no longer a physical presence in their world,

he had discovered that he had a talent for invisibility

which allowed him to brush by women like a ghost,

to spy on them

and steal their secrets.

~ from the The Thursday Night Men, by Tonino Benacquista

Most of my tumblr posts here have been self-plagiarized from my previous tumblr posts, fabricated, made-up, and altered. And the quotes in my posts either do not exist, are unintentional misquotations, or represent improper combinations of previously existing quotes.

At 25, [Redacted] was the most sought-after young reporter…, producing knockout articles for magazines… . Trouble was, he made things up—sources, quotes, whole stories—in a breathtaking web of deception that emerged as the most sustained fraud in modern journalism.

Guess who? Jonah Lehrer? Jayson Blair? Baron Münchhausen? …

Related:

Streets of London or New York City?

First one should be easy

(see New York Press for the answers)

London Street Photography — “images by over 70 photographers who have recorded fleeting moments in London, capturing the faces and lives of ordinary people who populate this complicated and ever-changing metropolis” — and City Scenes: Highlights of New York Street Photography — “30 key works by New York photographers will provide a counterpart illustrating the rich tradition of street photography in New York City” —at the Museum of the City of New York.

Now thru Dec. 2.

And MCNY is now on tumblr

Mothers of America

                                     let your kids go to the movies!

get them out of the house so they won’t know what you’re up to   

it’s true that fresh air is good for the body

                                                                             but what about the soul   

that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images

and when you grow old as grow old you must

                                                                            they won’t hate you   

they won’t criticize you they won’t know

                                                                            they’ll be in some glamorous country   

they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or playing hookey

they may even be grateful to you

                                                            for their first sexual experience   

which only cost you a quarter

                                                       and didn’t upset the peaceful home   

they will know where candy bars come from

                                                                                 and gratuitous bags of popcorn   

as gratuitous as leaving the movie before it’s over

with a pleasant stranger whose apartment is in the Heaven on Earth Bldg   

near the Williamsburg Bridge

                                                       oh mothers you will have made the little tykes

so happy because if nobody does pick them up in the movies   

they won’t know the difference

                                                         and if somebody does it’ll be sheer gravy   

and they’ll have been truly entertained either way

instead of hanging around the yard

                                                                 or up in their room

                                                                                                     hating you

prematurely since you won’t have done anything horribly mean yet   

except keeping them from the darker joys

                                                                             it’s unforgivable the latter   

so don’t blame me if you won’t take this advice

                                                                                      and the family breaks up   

and your children grow old and blind in front of a TV set

                                                                                                        seeing   

movies you wouldn’t let them see when they were young

Ave Maria by Frank O’Hara

(From “Lunch Poems”, the title refers to both O’Hara’s capacity write the poems while sitting in Times Square during his lunch hour, as well as the ease in which a reader could take the pocket-sized volume along and read it during his own lunch hour.)