I went to Becca and Lina's wedding at 8:30 this morning at the Brooklyn Municipal Building. It's amazing how quickly your life can change. One minute he or she is merely a passerby in the eyes of the state, and the next, you are permanently connected. This was the first of 3 weddings I'll be attending in the next few weeks—more than I've been to in 10 years, I think. But what's with the pregnant Orthodox couples getting married?
I also want to note the passing of Adam Purple, 84, a noted Lower East Side character who built his Garden of Eden on Forsyth Street over the course of years, until it was destroyed by the city in the '80s. I don't mean to be dismissive by calling him a character—I'm thinking of his long white beard & the fact that he dressed exclusively in purple. Or so I think: I'm not sure I'd have recognized him if he changed up his outfits. Mr. Purple (as the Times called him in a nice obit: http://nyti.ms/1UTVxZp) lived his principles of environmentalism by traveling only by bicycle & continuing to live in his building even after it was abandoned, carrying home jugs of water from hydrants and using a wood-burning stove. If he rode past you & you weren't wearing leather, he would stop & give you a little present. I no longer remember what it was: some sort of mimeo manifesto, maybe, that I might well still have in a pile somewhere. Maggie says it was a sheet of phone codes so you could call long distance on the Republican National Committee's dime. For a while he had a girlfriend named Eve Purple, who also rode around on a bike, also dressed in purple, but she didn't last long.
I also want to note the passing of Adam Purple, 84, a noted Lower East Side character who built his Garden of Eden on Forsyth Street over the course of years, until it was destroyed by the city in the '80s. I don't mean to be dismissive by calling him a character—I'm thinking of his long white beard & the fact that he dressed exclusively in purple. Or so I think: I'm not sure I'd have recognized him if he changed up his outfits. Mr. Purple (as the Times called him in a nice obit: http://nyti.ms/1UTVxZp) lived his principles of environmentalism by traveling only by bicycle & continuing to live in his building even after it was abandoned, carrying home jugs of water from hydrants and using a wood-burning stove. If he rode past you & you weren't wearing leather, he would stop & give you a little present. I no longer remember what it was: some sort of mimeo manifesto, maybe, that I might well still have in a pile somewhere. Maggie says it was a sheet of phone codes so you could call long distance on the Republican National Committee's dime. For a while he had a girlfriend named Eve Purple, who also rode around on a bike, also dressed in purple, but she didn't last long.