Neither more nor less

P.S. 25 October , 2007 ...The image above was posted yesterday without text .

Today we noticed that Jeremiah at http://www.vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/ was moved after viewing the moon-lit scene above to write ...."ah , romance hasn't died in the East Village." . We expand on this theme .

If one for a moment can imagine in a more extensive manner that this moon-lit view of the monstrous archetectural bastard of a machine-for-turning-a-profit under construction is rather a moon-lit view of a portion of the East Village , not just under construction , but also in the process of being replaced , with many of its buildings raised and many of its inhabitants being and having been displaced and replaced ... an East Village , in part at least , certainly ruined and gone , then perhaps we do have here a romance . A very sad romance . A romance represented above in a manner not un-like a number of popular 19th century romantic paintings , most famously perhaps as a painting of an ancient ruined moon-lit abbey and indeed here , just outside the frame below , there remains the bell tower of a ruined St Ann's ... a romance though in this case not with some distant , mysterious dead and ruined past as the subject but a romance with our daily lives and the well-remembered recent past at the fore .

For a considerable number , if not most residents of the East Village , contrary to the claims of Mayor Mike on the John Gambling Show , this "construction boom" , of which this incomplete structure illuminated by an intense but tortured little disc of moon in a cloud-veiled , glowing , blue night sky is a significant and representative example , is not desireable .

Likely most in the community do not want this monster building and they certainly do not want more monster buildings ... nor do they want more NYU students : of course Mayor Mike and his friends do .

With what we hear daily in the street in mind and with the darker spirit of Halloween and Dia de los Muertos upon us we are inspired to surmize that many in this community would happily see Mayor Mike and his entire Daemonium of Lords and Ladies of Mammon appropriately dispatched to dance the fires of hell and roast .

So ... yes Jeremiah , perhaps romance is alive here , but if so , it is a sad and for many here a hopeless , rather sinister and frightening little romance , peopled with numerous self-obsessed , predatory , petty and greedy little monsters , that daily we must live .

Jay ( far left ) just recently returned to avenue A from a nearly 3 year long stay in some free desert lodgings in New Mexico . Sid was trying to find a place to stay ; he is homless right now . Chas was just out for a drink .