Last night, I figured I’d spend the time before the gym pre-emptively negating it, and headed to Chickpea for a shawafel (the result of cross-breeding a turkey shawarma and falafel; Chickpea’s version is cheap and green-tinged with herbs).
On the blocks there, it was the usual mix of east-villagers; leggings and bubble skirts, Vans, bangs, gold jewelry, bulldogs, and the scary blonde man (who I’m not entirely sure isn’t Sebastian Bach) who always stares at me from the “New and Improved” Punjab on First Avenue, which isn’t new, and couldn’t possibly be improved, and smells like meat even though they don’t seem to sell any.
After the shawafel, I walked with my head low, gripping a half-full Diet Coke, cursing the gym and Mondays in general, as the wind whipped hard. Coming up on Fifth Street, I caught a glimpse of a girl in a black trench, with bare legs and a sour expression. As we passed each other, she tossed her hair and stared into me with two blue, hang-dog eyes, and I suddenly realized it was none other than Chloe Sevigny (for the record, she looked great, but was shorter than I had imagined).
Then, not ten feet afterwards, I saw a procession of blinking lights, fire engines, and cop cars, which had all assembled dangerously close to my apartment in the twenty minutes since I had left.
The road was blocked by trucks, sprayed with glass, and littered with rubberneckers. Then, the jaws of life emerged from the back of a van. At this point I had already chalked up an interesting night, given what I took to be a very cool celebrity sighting and quite different than my usual “oh, there goes Julia Stiles” or “doesn’t that baby kind of look like Abe Vigoda?” encounter. But my morbid curiosity took over and I still had a few minutes to kill, so I crossed the street to align my view beyond the crowd and past the sirens to see what had happened.
Twisted against the corner light pole was a crippled black car, windows smashed, hood contorted, the whole frame in a grotesque shape. That itself would have been enough to contain a crowd’s attention. But what everyone was fixated on something else, the culprit of this accident. That cause? A standard blue and white police van with its front bumper entrenched so deeply in the side of the black car, I momentarily questioned if the jaws of life were summoned to extricate it.
And you could tell, without even knowing who had the right of way, where the stop sign was, or what the traffic light had been, just whose fault it was. No wonder there were so many officers already on the scene. Luckily, it looked like no one was in need in medical attention. Just a few city cops in need of a P.R. polish. Pedestrians bustled, snapping pictures and calling friends.
“New York’s finest!” A beard with a telescopic lens shouted.
After that, I figured I couldn’t have more of an unexpectedly exciting evening, so hightailed it to the gym, musing that though it was only Monday night, it was already turning out to be a pretty good week.
On the blocks there, it was the usual mix of east-villagers; leggings and bubble skirts, Vans, bangs, gold jewelry, bulldogs, and the scary blonde man (who I’m not entirely sure isn’t Sebastian Bach) who always stares at me from the “New and Improved” Punjab on First Avenue, which isn’t new, and couldn’t possibly be improved, and smells like meat even though they don’t seem to sell any.
After the shawafel, I walked with my head low, gripping a half-full Diet Coke, cursing the gym and Mondays in general, as the wind whipped hard. Coming up on Fifth Street, I caught a glimpse of a girl in a black trench, with bare legs and a sour expression. As we passed each other, she tossed her hair and stared into me with two blue, hang-dog eyes, and I suddenly realized it was none other than Chloe Sevigny (for the record, she looked great, but was shorter than I had imagined).
Then, not ten feet afterwards, I saw a procession of blinking lights, fire engines, and cop cars, which had all assembled dangerously close to my apartment in the twenty minutes since I had left.
The road was blocked by trucks, sprayed with glass, and littered with rubberneckers. Then, the jaws of life emerged from the back of a van. At this point I had already chalked up an interesting night, given what I took to be a very cool celebrity sighting and quite different than my usual “oh, there goes Julia Stiles” or “doesn’t that baby kind of look like Abe Vigoda?” encounter. But my morbid curiosity took over and I still had a few minutes to kill, so I crossed the street to align my view beyond the crowd and past the sirens to see what had happened.
Twisted against the corner light pole was a crippled black car, windows smashed, hood contorted, the whole frame in a grotesque shape. That itself would have been enough to contain a crowd’s attention. But what everyone was fixated on something else, the culprit of this accident. That cause? A standard blue and white police van with its front bumper entrenched so deeply in the side of the black car, I momentarily questioned if the jaws of life were summoned to extricate it.
And you could tell, without even knowing who had the right of way, where the stop sign was, or what the traffic light had been, just whose fault it was. No wonder there were so many officers already on the scene. Luckily, it looked like no one was in need in medical attention. Just a few city cops in need of a P.R. polish. Pedestrians bustled, snapping pictures and calling friends.
“New York’s finest!” A beard with a telescopic lens shouted.
After that, I figured I couldn’t have more of an unexpectedly exciting evening, so hightailed it to the gym, musing that though it was only Monday night, it was already turning out to be a pretty good week.
11 comments:
Wow. That is quite the eventful evening! And Chloe Sevigny is so fabulous.
Ah, the magic that is "Oops, even cops have accidents".
Wild story.
I have seen Chloe Sevigny in celebrity mags, but who is she really? What does she do? Actress? Model?
About Barbaro- your idea makes sense. I'm also thinking that such a major surgery might leave him vulterable to blood clots that could dislodge and end up in the heart/brain/etc. At least, that's how it is with humans! Sometimes I think I'd like to be a vet... these animals are so endearing. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Barbaro!
Have you seen this!?
http://www.gawker.com/news/blogorrhea/blogorrhea-nyc-hipsters-celebs-and-celebrity-hipsters-175813.php
What a great way for more & more people to see your amazing writing :)
Sarah, Chloë is a model/major indie film actress, who is currently on the HBO show, Big Love. She played Hilary Swank's lover in Boys Dont Cry and Edie Falco's lesbian real estate assitant on Will and Grace. She's really funny and really beautiful...so it's surprising K saw her with a sour look on her face...maybe she saw the accident and it made her sad. I mean, it was an unexpected event in K's life, so maybe it was unexpected for Chloë too.
Really really loved the writing in this. Especially the Bach and Punjab bits.
i work down the street and heard that the people in the car died - has anyone else heard anything else like this?
Oh my gosh--really? That is horrible. At the time, the crowd told me that it was nothing like that, but if so, that is incredibly heartbreaking. I surely hope everyone survived.
This is what I moved here for; action. Sometimes it's a little too much.
Hey blogging buddy, you've been gawked again!! What is this? The second time in two months. It's a great thing, because you should be a part of everyone's morning blog reads.
Anyways, I need to hang out in Manhattan more. I rarely have celeb sightings in NYC. And if I do, it's a has been. Hey, I have an idea, I'll start hanging out with you and maybe some of your luck will rub off on me.
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