Robot Claw – Page 28 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Seen In NYC Too

March 18, 2025

Egg & Bacon on toast. The rare example of me eating eggs 🙂

It was parade day, which means these guys selling green stuff were everywhere. I’ve never been to a city with as many street vendors as NYC, and their absence was very noticeable during Covid.

We only glimpsed a bit of the parade since crowds were massive. Even the (ultimately unrealized) threat of rain didn’t keep people away. We spent the day shopping!

We didn’t buy that.

Or that.

The view from the roof of our hotel. The bar up there was closed so we had to peep out the door to the outdoor seating, but the view of the Empire State Building was great! The hotel is Japanese by the way, and has a tatami room. Maybe we’ll stay there one day.

Seen In NYC

March 16, 2025

We’re in NYC doing the usual. Here’s some random photos of a few things we saw today.

This truck was driving around evangelizing via obnoxiously loud speakers. I wonder how many people were swayed but it’s less-than-convincing message?

‘Our’ old hotel is too expensive now so we chose a new one, and when we arrived we upgraded into a better room which is large and very comfy. I think this is ‘our’ new NYC hotel from now on 🙂

A dog in a cart. Do you think he likes wearing the rubber booties?

KLS eating a veggie burger.

NYC is always full of social commentary and activism, both organized and underground. We saw two groups protesting today but I couldn’t work out either cause (members of each were holding unfamiliar flags). And there’s a lot of material like the above posted all around as well. Last time we were here we saw a lot of Teslas, including cybertrucks . We saw none today.

Tomorrow is the St Patrick’s Day parade. Will we go and watch? That depends on the rain…

From The Past

March 13, 2025

We spent a few hours at the antique postcard shop last weekend and amongst a haul of ~200 cards I bought this one:

It’s a lovely bird card, probably 40+ years old, and it would have gone into my ‘generic animal’ stash for future Postcrossing use. While I make a concerted effort to not buy used cards, this time I missed this one. Here’s what is written on the back:

A message from Elfriede to Ruth, written July 27 1989. It’s typed and not stamped, and this with the lack of address shows it must have been mailed in an envelope. It’s a nice message, if a little terse, but reading between the lines we see these women were very familiar.

I love the last line, an evocative glimpse of life in Berlin in those days: In Berlin is all the same with the wall and I think so long I live it will not be other.

Only 105 days later, The Wall was torn down. I wonder what Elfriede thought on that day, and whether she wrote a followup to Ruth?

And as for the postscript on the side, a Grünfinken is a greenfinch. Not exactly a canary, but not dissimilar, which explains her choice of card 🙂