In September 1974 David arrived in New York City intent upon becoming an actor. His older brother Peter met him at the airport and together they took a bus to Grand Central station. Standing on the pavement outside in the fading afternoon light, David felt overwhelmed and vulnerable suddenly aware that he really had left home. He wasn’t in England any more.
The two brothers were headed downtown towards the Village Plaza Hotel on the north side of Washington Square. They stood on the side of the road; younger five inches taller than older and an enormous man approached them. He offered to help get them a cab, saying he would put them in a cab in a strong voice that forced them to accept his offer. A cab was found and their bags were loaded then the money was demanded with great hostility. It was a rough initiation to New York
They arrived at the hotel- a dilapidated brownstone inhabited by cockroaches and prostitutes. Peter had arrived at the hotel the day before and he led David to the room they would be sharing. They headed up to the second floor, endured the surly and unpleasant presence of the elevator man then entered the small room with two beds, peeling blue paint and a grimy linoleum floor. David cautiously sat on the end of one bed; then he burst into tears.
He got his first job cleaning apartments through the Village Voice. It lasted just a few weeks, then he quite. He had never liked doing housework in his own home and cleaning up other people’s hair and bathtub rings made him miserable.
David’s next job was as a taxi driver. Because he was only nineteen he was not legally permitted to drive a Manhattan cab and instead he took the subway each afternoon to Long Island city, Queens. It had been ridiculously easy getting a taxi license, all he’d had to do was answer 20 questions, where was Grand Central Station? Where was… the test could be taken in five languages and cheating was such a frequent occurrence that it was practically condoned. He began driving the day shift, his first day he drove out he jerked and bumped his way forward, awkwardly unaccustomed to driving an automatic car.
Very soon after he started, he switched to the night shift. Isolated and foreign he sat waiting for his cab in the big holding area, surrounded by much older men, Poles, Russians and Ukrainians who smoked cigars and played cards while David sat alone, reading T.S. Eliot.

Of Bibles and Beck.

“Have you seen their posters outside? Apparently I’m the head of the Tea Party,”

Glenn Beck attempted to humanize himself with his audience by joking and making small talk before the cameras sta

rting rolling. He was referring to the large anti-Fox News protest in the front of the building where his studio was located. The cameras in the studio were preparing for a taping of his political talk show. For a television studio, this one was fairly small. The audience only numbered to 25 people. The ages of these studio audience members however mostly ranged from 35 to 65. There were blonde women in long fur coats, middle aged men in business suits, and the occasional tee shirt and jeans clad man holding up a Glenn Beck book in hopes of having it signed by the author himself.

Beck was wearing a purple sweater with a purple plaid button-down shirt stuffed inside. His outfit gave a more casual and relaxed feel in contrast to the serious topic.

He grabbed a Ziploc bag filled with nuts and dried fruits from the center table in the studio. “I’m a vegan now. If you don’t know what that means, it means that I don’t eat any animal products now. No milk, no dairy, no meat. Nothing.” There were several groans and gasps heard around the room. The blonde women in fur coats made snarky jokes about how Beck was joining the dark side.

“I like calling it the “sticks” diet. My diet mainly consists of dirt and sand now. And sometimes a few rocks,” he said sarcastically.

The episode focused on talking about current issues through a religious prism and how to make sense of it all among religious communities. It was going to air that Friday on Fox News. There was a table set up in the front with four chairs. Four guests arrived: David Barton, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Rev. James Robinson, and Dave Roever, all politically conservative religious figures.

During the taping, the guests compared the divorce and abortion rates between Christians and Atheists in the United States, citing that the divorce rates were lower for atheists. Most of the audience gasped, followed by a discussion of how Christians need to step it up and act practice their faith better. If Atheists, unbound by morals according to this audience, were acting “more Christian” than actual Christians, there was definitely evil lurking about in society.

The pious audience clapped resoundingly, full of passion and support for those comments. There was one audience member however who did not clap with everyone else. The short brunette in the back corner did not agree with statements. She didn’t agree with most of the statements of the evening in fact. She was there to simply observe. Ashley, a self-proclaimed Democrat, decided to go to a taping of the controversial show out of curiosity. She always made fun of right-wing talking heads and even went to the Rally to Restore Sanity hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The taping somewhat changed her perceptions towards the host. She saw him in a more humanized light, although she disagreed with most of his passionate statements regarding the presence of religion in the government.

She did enjoy seeing his chalkboard in person however.

Rainy Day (Talese)

Joe was an angry, impatient man who believed that he would one day succeed in the business world and make the six figure salery he did four years ago. He was twenty-six years old when he was laid off from his job in Michigan and had to move back in with his parents in Flushing, New York.

The temporary situation eventually lasted a year, then two, then four. It was 2010 when he finally heard back from a potential employer who first suggested they meet at a job fair. After passing the initial interview Joe was invited to the company headquarters the following Monday where he'd he questioned again. He was prepared with a freshly printed resume in an aqua folder he borrowed from his girlfriend after sleeping over the night before. The black Duane Reade umbrella he held up with his left hand was his own and while the rain drops were few at first, they began to multiply at an alarming rate as the time inched closer to 8am. The bottom of his black suit jacket with thin gray stripes flapped against his sides as he tucked the folder under his left arm and stuck his right hand out from under the umbrella.

Yellow cabs drove by, thier windshield wipers furiously waving from side to side. Joe kept his arm extended above his shoulder despite how none of the numbers above the cabs were lit. Dark circles ranging from dime to near quarter sizes appeared on his suit and while the damp bottoms of his pants clung on to his leather shoes he imagined using the weather as an excuse for being late. Finally, a cab pulled over and stopped. And while he wondered why the car didn't park closer, a woman wearing a beige trench coat walked out from between two parked cars and pulled the cab door open.

Joe clenched his jaw and tightened his grip on the umbrella handle but before he could say anything the woman turned around, "Want to share a cab?"

Talese Inspired Post

David clenched his left ear as another snowball whizzed past his head. “I’m concussed!” he yelled as Thomas packed another snowball from the fresh snow that had fallen the night before. Their flight to Norfolk, Virginia wasn’t leaving for another three hours, and instead of waiting in a small dimly lit airport terminal with over priced sandwiches and tacky merchandise for sale, they spent their last few hours of freedom roaming the desolate streets of Brooklyn on this Sunday night in February.

David scraped snow off the windshield of a rusted red minivan and hurled the densely compacted snowball at Thomas. Thomas ducked and the snowball broke into tiny parts as it passed through a chain link fence of the neighborhood park. Thomas had fast reflexes, quicker than David’s. He was a good aim too. When he was in high school in Seattle, he had been expelled for shooting an air soft gun on school grounds. A stray pellet found its target—an unassuming 9 ^th grade boy with thick-rimmed glasses he remembered.

David was an easy target coming up at 6’3. He was large, robust, and towered over the much shorter Thomas easily. However, despite his height, he had an agility that belonged to a much smaller petite man. David pulled out from his pocket a headband his brother had knitted for him and pulled it snug over his ears.

Both were contemplating the flight back to Virginia and the countless hours they would soon be logging running miles at the crack of dawn. Thomas longed for home and his mother’s experimental cooking—a southern inspired recipe of mac and cheese one week, and a kale salad with cannellini beans and Parmesan cheese the next—while David eagerly awaited the next challenge before him. He would begin his training as a rescue swimmer in the following weeks, a task that inspired and excited him. However, after Virginia neither friend knew when they would see each other again.

A Pole Vaulting Champion

Dean Hefnawy was often times told that he was exceptionally tall for his age. Standing at 6’4” he towered over his classmates, let alone his family members. Like a horse, he was built lean and muscular, and he had the agility and speed to boot. His sister, Ashley, had instilled in his mind from a young age that he would make an excellent trackie, because of his long legs and lanky build. Having never really proven himself particularly talented in any other sport, the idea of track and field appealed to him as a freshman in high school. Little did he know on his first day of track, joking around with his friends, not taking anything seriously and avoiding the haze of the upperclassmen, that he would eventually become a statewide track star.

Dean sits on the cushiony field house floor of Hillhouse High School for the Connecticut Track and Field State Opens. The date is February 19^th, 2011, and this is the second and final State track meet, for only the best of the best. Last week, at the first state meet, he ranked number one in the state. On this day, the college size field house holds just under its maximum capacity of fans and sport-watchers, and the sounds of cheering, shouting and coaching ring all around Dean, though his mind blocks it out. For him, nothing but silence rings in his ears as he screws in spikes for his track shoes. His shoes, red with black and silver lines on the sides and front, have undergone far too much usage, and now hug his feet in hopes that this will be the last time he uses them for a while. They need a break, and so does he. As he finishes winding the spikes into his shoes, he raises himself up to find his vaulting pole, which stands at about 14 feet, and weighs 160 pounds. It has served as a pleasant companion for the past couple of months, for he never stays with the same pole for more than an entire track season.

His mind, normally restless and full of mysterious thought unknown to even those closest to him, remains completely clear with only one goal in mind today: jump 13 feet. It is not an unreasonable goal, seeing as to how he jumped 12’6” the previous week, but to jump 13’ is something that takes much focus and skill. It takes Dean a long time to explain to others how difficult it is to pole vault, for it doesn’t only require physicality and accuracy, but mental strength. To vault oneself ten plus feet into the air is a miraculous act in that of itself, and the thought of that alone gives average people night terrors. For Dean, however, it is merely a question of how far he can push himself to go even higher.

As he completes the preparation of his shoes, he takes off his warm-up FCIAC t-shirt, (Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference) and sweatpants, to unveil his uniform. The block letter, “S” for Staples High School, stands out against the dark blue of his jersey. Those who watch him have come to know that when his shirt comes off, he is ready to pole vault. The pole goes into the firm grasp of his hands and he begins to go through the motions of stretching with the pole. He takes a few lunges backwards, holding the pole out in front of him, ready to stab the ground on which he will run. On the fourth and final backward lunge, he dashes off in a full on sprint towards the destination of where the pole will eventually meet the ground, until it does. Once the pole is planted into the ground, Dean bends it and uses the bend to spring him over the marker, which stands at 12’6”. His form stays perfect the entire time, for one single flaw will cost him. Once his head and arms are over the mark, his legs are sure to follow in sequence. After he has cleared the mark, he falls to the safety of the mat, diving feet first into the blue of the cushion, and a look of relief washes over his face.

In the Style of Talese; Growing Up Woodstock

Born in Oregon in 1959, Jeanne spent the first few years of her life traveling around the United States with her family. Her father worked for the then-budding IBM computer company, which accounted for their nomadic lifestyle. Eventually, when Jeanne was about four, the family settled in Woodstock, New York, a rural town that would later become famous for the 1969 hippie music festival that took place there. Jeanne, being but ten years old, wasn’t old enough to attend the festival. But in the years that followed she would become a child of the hippie movement, experimenting freely with drugs and sex, and rebelling against her conservative parents in ways that shocked and angered them.
Her mother and father were both from the same small town in Vermont. They were, by birth, country folk. Speaking with slight redneck accents, they raised their children harshly; Richard would often bring out his belt when the kids misbehaved, while Caroline was a silent alcoholic. The four children, of which Jeanne was the second-born, were hardened by their parents child-rearing methods. They turned against one another—it was each child for himself.
Woodstock, meanwhile, was bursting with the youthful hippie movement. It was a town full of long-haired youths, listening to rock and roll, taking psychedelic drugs, and professing a love for freedom and individuality that contrasted sharply with their parents’ generation. Jeanne often clashed with her elders; she was banned from a girlfriend’s house after she lashed out at the father for being a racist, and she tested her own father’s racism when she tried to go to the prom with a young black man from school.
Jeanne hated growing up in “the sticks,” full of close-minded rednecks as it was, and as she spent high school being unmercifully punished by her wrathful father for her rebellious behavior, she knew she would eventually have to get out of that town.

The 90th Birthday Party

Evelyn was already a stresscase. She was caught up in party-planning, even though it wasn’t really her job. A veritable Mrs. Dalloway, she seemed concerned about being concerned with details of such frivolity—except, this party was not an insignificant event. It was perhaps the most momentous celebration of her boss’s life—and she had forgotten to order a birthday cake.

Harold Burson was turning 90 years old, and Evelyn, his very devoted and competent assistant, had been put in charge of organizing the first of two celebrations for her boss, the founder of the largest public relations company in the world. This first party, closer to his actual birthday, was to be a “small” lunch (for 60 guests) in the private room at the uptown New York restaurant Park Avenue Winter. To attend was his immediate family, longtime colleagues from Burson-Marsteller, and closest friends (The “big” party, with which Evelyn was not burdened, was to take place one month later, and that would be a cocktail soiree for 500).

At 5:30 the night before the lunch, Mr. Burson’s grandson sent an email to Evelyn that may have made her skin crawl. “There better be a birthday cake tomorrow…” it read, and she panicked. Well, there was not, as Evelyn had been gathering up the impromptu guest list the days before the party trying to extract RSVPs from the octogenarian and nonagenarian invitees, confirming the private room at the restaurant, and orchestrating car rides for the Burson family to be transported from Mr. Burson’s Scarsdale residence to the restaurant, then to his Lincoln Center apartment, and then to JFK.

Mr. Burson’s grandson remained calm. He figured that Grandpa really didn’t care about birthday candles and those sorts of things, and that it would most likely be a great lunch. The restaurant probably had a fancy dessert lined up.

As the grandson walked in to Park Avenue Winter on the morning of February 13, he froze. Not as in temperature (he kept warm in a fabulous Prada mohair vest), but he realized that while he remembered to bring the birthday card for Grandpa and the Parker fountain pen he brought for a gift, he forgot his camera, and there was no photographer planned for the first party. It turned out, so did every family member who walked in the door—no camera, just BlackBerries.

The grandson felt horrible for about 20 minutes. He was relieved when Evelyn walked in (late, naturally) with her husband behind her, carrying a huge digital camera, fancy lens, and big smile.