Thu

02

Apr

2009

Sirens And The City
Written by Pat Fortunato   
This open letter to Michael Bloomberg appeared in part in New York Woman. But even if you don’t live anywhere near Manhattan, you probably are being driven nuts by noise pollution, too.

Dear Mayor Mike:

First of all, I want you to know that I voted for you, and will again, and think that you’re doing a great job in this impossible city, which I happen to love.

mrsofteensirens.jpgThere is something, however, just one little thing, that I really need to discuss with you. It’s noise, Mayor Mike, as in: there is way too much of it in this town.

Why is this your problem? Because it hurts my quality of life, that’s why, and I know that’s important to you. During your tenure, the city even passed a noise reduction law, known to some of us as the "Mr Softee Law" because, among other things, it limits the amount of noise these lovable but loud trucks can emit. Although I, for one, can’t imagine who could resist the the sweet siren song of ice cream, which sounds like music to my ears. (Can ears have a sweet tooth? I guess not. It just seems that way.)

But even with the so-called noise reduction, such as it is, life in the Big Apple involves a constant hum, punctuated by honking horns, jolting jackhammers  —and, especially, screeching sirens  A person could develop a headache. Not to mention a severe case of crankiness. Even me! I, and millions like me, need your help . . .

Okay, you can’t do anything about most of the noise, like the jackhammers outside my window this very minute. Or the children who live in the apartment above us who were last seen (and very definitely heard) wearing combat boots, so that when they stomp from room to room (and hop, skip, and stomp they will), there will be no doubt of their existence. (I stomp, therefore I am?) Hey, even when I lived in the country there was noise: lawnmowers and dogs and I won’t even get into the new construction your neighbors were always doing. Did they really need another extension? Isn't this a recession? Weren’t they close to us enough as it was? But I digress.

Here in the city, which I now call my one and only home, you could take care of the worst offender in the Noise Olympics. Yes, that would be the sirens. Not the ones who lure you to your doom, the kind you (not you, personally, of course) slap on the top of cop cars and other vehicles to fill the air with noise, impossible to ignore noise. They are loud, they are ubiquitous, and sometimes, they aren’t even necessary.

How do I know? My apartment faces Second Avenue, so the never-ending, deafening blasts are a fact of life. But it’s the unnecessary part that’s driving me batshit. I’m not the only person around here who’s seen a police car pull up to the precinct around the corner, alarms blaring, to watch a couple of officers get out, in no apparent hurry, drinking coffee and chatting. Where’s the fire? So to speak.

The word out with the cabbies after 9/11 was that everyone and his uncle got one of those sirens and used them whenever they want to plow through traffic. You can’t blame them in a way — traffic is exasperating, but sometimes I feel that the people sounding these alarms don’t realize that Manhattan isn’t just for work, or going to dinner and a play, and that some of us, like, you know, live here.

Working late one night in midtown some years ago, a woman from Brooklyn (where I was born into slightly less noisy circumstances) looked out at the lighted windows of the city, amazed that so many other people were working late that night too! It had to be pointed out to her that some people in those lighted (and unlighted) windows weren’t at work, they were at home. In Manhattan. In apartments.

This seems to be a hard concept to grasp for people who have always lived in houses. Strange but true: some of us are sleeping or watching television or reading a book (remember books?) or checking out YouTube in the brownstones or high-rise apartment buildings they pass by. They may be going to work, or to fancy restaurant (those of us who live here tend to go to neighborhood diners. Yes! We have neighborhoods! Yes! We have Diners!). Or they may be on their way home, or even, yes, if they’re cops or firemen, they may be going to actual emergencies and must use those screeching sirens.

But I think it’s safe to assume that most of the people who press the siren button don’t live in Manhattan. Are they angry at us because we do? Well, that’s a pretty neurotic thought, which I have been known to have, although it could be true. More likely, they just don’t think about it. Manhattan is a place you come to, do your thing, then go home. You see it in passing — a sort of metropolitan drive-by. Sure it's noisy, but that's not your problem.

But let’s face it, Mr. Mayor, in these nerve-racking times, the natives are restless, and anything can make us jumpy. Even though we're should be used to them by now, sirens can be frightening. Is this just your standard ambulance going to a hospital, you wonder — or Did Something Happen? It used to be that you worried that your building was on fire. Now it’s more global, literally. All those sirens must scare the hell out of the tourists, and we don’t want to scare the tourists, do we?  The horses, on the other hand, do seem particularly unfazed, I must say. At least the ones in Central Park.

But for us pitiful humans, the incessant sirens add to a general sense of alarm, pun intended, that you are doing such a good job to help dissipate with your calm and reassuring demeanor. I like a mayor who doesn’t make too much noise (no offense, Ed Koch, but the strong and silent type is what’s called for here). So about those sirens: Could you, would you, please Mayor Mike, tell whoever is doing this to CUT IT OUT!

We know you could do it, because in spite of your mild-mannered exterior, you didn’t become a billionaire, much less the Mayor of New York City, by being a Mr Softee!

If you can work with me on this, your honor, sir, I promise that not only will I vote for you in the next election, but I'll tell everyone I know to do the same. November will be here before we know it. Just saying. And remember, even in these noisy times, the pen is still more powerful than the siren. Although, of course, none of us actually write with a pen anymore, few of us write at all, and most people don’t even read — but maybe that's because we can’t hear ourselves think. What with all the sirens and all.
 
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Have you seen The Artist? Seeing it mentioned at
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  Just as I posted I WAS THE GIRL PHANTOM, I found a website called The Ghost Who Blogs about The Phantom comics:

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Writing Comics. . .
Was a small but wonderful part of my checkered career, and doing a post about it  brought back a lot of great memories. If you know any other women in NYC who wrote — or are writing — comics, tell me how to get in touch with them. 

I'm on a watching-old-movies kick these days.
Great way to lose yourself.
If you're lucky, you'll never be found. 

REVIEWS TO PERUSE

I'm All Right, Jack:
"Jack" is not just all right, it's totally delightful and fresh as a daisy after all these years (made in 1959), with Sellers, although not technically the lead, giving the brilliant performance that launched him as an international star. He plays an all-too-zealous union leader and father of a blonde bombshell who falls for Stanley, the British Upper Class Twit played, also to perfection, by Ian Carmichael, who you might remember from the Lord Peter Wimsey series. The makeout scenes between the the Twit and the Bombshell are priceless. But what is Stanley doing in this working class atmosphere anyway? Working. And too well at that. Forced by financial circumstances too dreary to discuss, he gets a job in his uncle's factory and messes things up for the other workers by, well, working, and thus making his fellow employees look bad. The film takes a big shot at unions — but also at management: they are manipulating white-collar thieves who'll do anything for a buck. Or a pound. Except for the ones, like Major Hitchcock, played by Terry Thomas, who are just plain lazy and inept. Needless to say, Stanley foils everybody's plans, labor and management alike, to my great joy and delight. Oh, and on top of everything else, Margaret Rutherford plays dotty dowager Aunt Dolly. Delicious!

 The Big Lebowski:
What can you say that hasn't been said before: brilliant, inspired, with some of the most memorable lines ever to come out of a movie, the most quoted being "The Dude abides." Oh yes. For anyone who hasn't yet seen the film, and it's now out in a special Blu-Ray edition if that floats your bowling ball. The Dude in question,  played to perfection by Jeff Bridges, is an out-of-work pothead who is roughed up and has his rug destroyed by some thugs mistaking him for another, bigger, Lebowski. The Dude is really upset about this because, man, "that rug really tied the room together," which The Dude says with all seriousness and not a trace of irony, a great comic touch considering the condition his condition is in.  Oh, and besides "Just Dropped In," all the music is perfect for the film. The plot, according to Wikipedia, which has been known to be wrong, is "loosely based on Raymond chandler's novel, The Big Sleep." Could be. But who cares. It involves a bowling competition, "the occasional acid flashback," a trophy wife, a group of German nihilists, a kidnapping gone awry, a mad millionaire and his lackey, in another great performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Actually, they're all great performances. Never a fan of John Goodman before or since, he is brilliant in this film. And so are John Turturro, overacting his little heart out, Steve Buscemi in a nerdy, needy role that makes you marvel at his star turn in Boardwalk Empire, and even the actors in the smaller parts, especially Julianne Moore and Sam Elliott. Elliott plays The Stranger (God? Everyman? The part of us that roots for the bad boy?) who elicits from Bridges the immortal words, "The Dude abides." Which prompts The Stranger to comment to the audience: "Don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh. I sure hope he makes the finals." We'll never know about the bowling trophy because there's never been a sequel to this 1998 film by the great Coen Brothers, and I hope there never will be. It just abides, as all great films do.

Prince of the City:
Okay, the criticisms of this movie are not totally unfounded: it's too long, and Treat Williams may have overacted a bit, although I found him so deliciously charming I couldn't care less, and there's one part concerning the Jerry Orbach character I just didn't understand. But get over it, The New Yorker, this is one powerful movie. And yes, Dog Day Afternoon it isn't, but what it? The DVD has a great special feature with Williams (I so want to call him Treat) and Sidney (what the hell: I once made a meatloaf sandwich for the man) that explains a lot about filmmaking in general and this movie in particular. Also, Sidney's views on good and evil, and how things are not so black and white as you think. I loved it.

Bad Day At Black Rock:
Recommended on TCM by Robert Osbourne as a film he originally had no interest in seeing, then loved it, and by Alex Baldwin, who pointed out the great actors in the cast, including Lee Marvin, Ernest Brognine and Dean Jagger. Well, after all that, I had to like it, right?  I did. A lot. It was a Good Day On My Couch.
Behind the Scenes Stuff: Spencer Tracey was off drinking and wouldn't commit to the film until the producers (who wanted him desperately) told him that they had Alan Ladd, at which point Tracey grabbed it.  He was perfect for the part, wearing a dark suit and tie the entire time in a western setting,  pulling it off perfectly. Other than that "fashion statement," the film makes a strong case against racism: the hatred of the Japanese during WW2. See it.

Song of The Thin Man:
I usually like these frothy, silly, suave, utter unrealistic films from the 30s and 40s, with William Powell and Myrna Loy as the couple we'd all like to be — if only we had the looks, brains, money, a huge capacity for drinking and a dog like Asta. But this one was a stinker, rather than a stinger, or maybe a sinker, because  it turned out to be the last, not to mention the least, in the series. Watch any of the others four sequels, but not this one: Even the pooch jumped the shark.

The Children's Hour:
It had its moments, and just looking at Audrey Hepburn makes life worth living, but mostly I kept thinking that the play, by Lillian Hellman, was so much better. It's about two young women runing a school for girls, who are accused by a hateful little brat of being (GASP!) lesbians. And although the closest we get in this 1961 production to using that actual term is the word "unnatural," it's enough to ruin their lives.  A young Shirley McClaine is worth seeing in this, and James Garner, and Audrey Hepburn is, well, Audrey Hepburn. The rumor of the love that dare not speak its name is totally untrue — or is it? And I'll say no more, because you should see the movie for yourself, imperfect as it may be, as is Life Itself.

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