Monday, January 7, 2019
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
My brother corrected my memory of the secret I confessed to last week about the New York State Regents College Scholarship Test that I thought that I held tight for 60 years. He said that I told him and my parents about my odd choice of an essay subject long ago, but probably after the awards were announced. Further, he claimed that my mother admired the creativity of my seemingly risky choice, an expression of liberality and tolerance that I never expected from her and that I never heard directly.
. . .
. . .
Henry Sondheimer, who lives in the second most famous residence in Washington, DC suggests that the decline in bar examination results also discussed last week may still be a shakeout from the economic turmoil of the late 2000s. What is known is that law school enrollments have not recovered from that near financial meltdown. They peaked in 2010 at 52,404 new students and now sit at 38,392. The difference makes for a lot of Uber drivers.
https://data.
https://data.
Is it reasonable to assume that those who turned away from law school in the last decade, because of inflated enrollment, inadequate job prospects, and high tuition, were the better students, leaving the chaff to struggle eventually with the bar examinations?
. . .
The average national apartment rent closed the year at $1,419, rising 3.1% over 2017. That's just over 1/3 of the $4,200 average Manhattan apartment rent.
https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/
. . .
The average national apartment rent closed the year at $1,419, rising 3.1% over 2017. That's just over 1/3 of the $4,200 average Manhattan apartment rent.
https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/
There is some bad news/bad news in this report. Odessa, Texas saw the greatest annual rent increase, 21.8%, and you'd be in Odessa, Texas. One result that's bound to change dramatically this year is the "stagnation" of rents in the borough (county) of Queens, NY. While next-door Brooklyn had a 1.7% increase, Queens rents declined 0.2%. And then came Amazon. As a recent headline in the Wall Street Journal put it, "Amazon’s Move to Long Island City Sparks Condo Frenzy."
Before I write off Odessa, Texas, it still is a relative bargain at $1,363 monthly. That may offer comfort for a full-time writer, whose median pay was $20,300 in 2017.
https://www.authorsguild.org/
Before I write off Odessa, Texas, it still is a relative bargain at $1,363 monthly. That may offer comfort for a full-time writer, whose median pay was $20,300 in 2017.
https://www.authorsguild.org/
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
I was amazed that The New York Times was able to construct a sentence mentioning only Yale and the University of Alabama. Its report on yesterday's college football championship game said that "Alabama was the first team since Yale in 1900 to beat every team by at least 20 points during the regular season."
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
I know that prison reform is proving popular with segments of the left and the right these days. I am hesitating getting on board until after Mary Boone, prominent Manhattan art dealer, is locked up. She is awaiting sentencing on two counts of tax fraud, each carrying a potential sentence of three years. Her lawyers are asking for "home confinement and probation with up to 1,000 hours of community service." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/
I know that prison reform is proving popular with segments of the left and the right these days. I am hesitating getting on board until after Mary Boone, prominent Manhattan art dealer, is locked up. She is awaiting sentencing on two counts of tax fraud, each carrying a potential sentence of three years. Her lawyers are asking for "home confinement and probation with up to 1,000 hours of community service." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/
It seems that "the poverty of her early life had left her fearful that, despite her success, she would end up destitute and dependent upon others." To compensate, literally and figuratively, her 2012 tax forms reported a false business loss for the previous year of about $52,000 although her gallery actually made a profit in 2011 of about $3.7 million. So Mary was able to live without fear for a few years until she opened the envelope from the IRS.
. . .
While Mary Boone's travels might be constrained for the next year or two as she applies her artistic flair to license plate design, you're free to wander hither and yon. To aid you, The New York Times has come up with a 2019 list of 52 places to visit. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/travel/places-to-visit.html [NB -- I am having some troubles with this link. I hope it's only me.]
Given the number of years that I have been around, my batting average isn't too bad. But, rather than offer a simple tally, I want to cite one destination where the Upper West Side's Power Couple visited 5-1/2 years ago -- Plovdiv, Bulgaria, the second largest city in the country, #48. The New York Times offers a winning description of "this European gem [that] is ready to shine." However, we don't recall anything they mention. Maybe it was the Slivovitz.
Thursday, January 10, 2019
One year ago, at this time, I was engaged in an activity that did not seem to meet the working definition of binge-watching -- "watching between 2-6 episodes of the same TV show in one sitting."
Rather, over a period of two months, I watched all 86 episodes of "The Sopranos" in order, one or two episodes per day. However labelled, it was a wonderful escape from the closing days of the first year of the American Dark Ages. It was like trading in your black-and-white TV for a color set. Instead of Jared Kushner, I had Christopher Moltisanti; instead of Kellyanne Conway, I had Livia Soprano; instead of Mike Pence, I had Big Pussy Bonpensiero; instead of Ivanka, I had Adriana La Cerva; instead of Steven Mnuchin, I had Hesh Rabkin. There was less contrast between the president and Junior Soprano, aging mob bosses falling into senility.
The 20th anniversary of "The Sopranos" is being celebrated now. I just had a one year head start. Join the party here. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/09/arts/television/the-sopranos-seasons.html
. . .
So what does "Shtisel," a series about an ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) family in Jerusalem, have in common with "The Sopranos" other than my affection? Both deal with how ordinary people are often denied choices by the system that encompasses them. The rules preceded them and will survive them. The most striking similarity was the inability of family members to tell each other the truth.
"Shtisel" is on Netflix, in Hebrew and Yiddish, with good subtitles. Like that old advertisement for Levy's rye bread, you don't have to be Jewish. It's like me watching "Downton Abbey." https://www.netflix.com/title/81004164
Friday, January 11, 2019
I never much envied the trappings of status and wealth displayed in "Downton Abbey" or its real-life counterparts. However, I do recollect fondly a few minutes in early 1969, when I felt above and apart from the crowd. My boss asked me to move his car from in front of our Midtown office. Where and why are long forgotten, but not the car. British racing green, E-Type Jaguar, coupe. He knew that I could drive stick, because I once ferried him to an airport in my VW Beetle.
I drove down Lexington Avenue (or maybe up Madison Avenue), arriving safely wherever I was going, no mean feat, because one set of brake pads was defective, causing an inadvertent lane change when applying the brakes. King of the Road.
An article today reminded me of this brief exposure to elegance. Jaguar is planning to offer classic E-Types converted to electrical power for under half a million dollars.
Under these circumstances, history is not likely to repeat itself.
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