The RNC is coming to town, and area sex workers are ready to accommodate the demand:

The on-again-off-again prostitute with streaked pixieish hair looks less like a hooker than a bartender at Galapagos—which made her ideal for one politically charged client last year. He’d asked her to show up at his apartment wearing a black hoodie with patches and no perfume or deodorant. "I said, ‘Do you want me to dress like a protester?,’ and he said, ‘Yeah.’ He tied me down, spanked me, and wanted to yell at me a lot. He said, ‘You bad girl! You smashed the Starbucks!’ He was a very conservative Wall Street banker, and he basically wanted to fuck the movement."

Who waits in line at the Clinton book signing in midtown Manhattan? Salon answers the question. (Free day pass, blah blah blah.) By far, the best person profiled is the precocious 10-year-old who came all the way from Westport, Conn.:

And then there was Matt Lloyd-Thomas, who said he was 13, though he was really 10, because the lady at the door had said that the age limit for kids to get signatures was 12. His younger sister, Sophia, who was really 7 and a half, was posing as 12.

"We've just been passing the time, reading," said Lloyd-Thomas, whose skin was brown with suntan and a couple of freckles. "My sister's been bugging me the past few hours. Once the rain started there wasn't much we could do because it was really quite wet and you couldn't sit down." They'd had to wake up at 4, which Matt admitted was hard. But the whole trip had been his idea. "I was listening to NPR one afternoon and they said that President Clinton would be signing books in midtown Manhattan, so I said that's pretty close, why don't we go in?" So Matt, Sophia and their mother, Beth -- all from Westport, Conn. -- came to New York last night and stayed at an uncle's place. "I think it's pretty cool to have a book signed by a former president," said Matt of his reason for marshaling his family into action. But then, Matt is also a kid who a year ago persuaded his whole third-grade class -- some of them Republicans -- to send letters to President Bush asking him not to send troops into Iraq. His mother said that lately he's taken to giving PowerPoint presentations on the benefits of voting for Kerry over Bush. "You know, his father and I are both Democrats but not that involved," she said, shaking her head slightly. "Matt is very much his own thinker." What did he think of the president he was about to meet -- a man who was first elected before he was even born? "Well," began Matt thoughtfully, "not in his personal decisions but politically, I think Clinton was a very good president, especially since he was interested in what was going on in this country more than in foreign affairs." But what about those pesky personal decisions? "Well, I was only 6 at the time, and I didn't really enjoy politics," he said. "But I think that lying about a personal affair is one thing. Lying about weapons of mass destruction or lying about connections between Iraq and al-Qaida -- which affects a lot more people -- is a lot worse." "My sister thinks I'm a news junkie," confided Matt, who said he skims the Times but mostly relies on NPR's "Morning Edition" for his news. Sophia, in a Nantucket lifeguarding sweatshirt and looking very, very, very bored, nodded silently. "We're going to the American Girl Cafe after this," said their mother. "So that they both get something they like out of this trip."

The following links (from today’s NYT) are dangerously unstable and might EXPIRE AT ANY MINUTE! Read them NOW!!!

• The 15,000 square-foot garden of swanky One Sutton Place has actually been owned by the City of New York for the last thirteen years. The residents had a secret non-disclosure pact so the City wouldn't find out.
• Taki al-Moosawi was imprisoned in a dungeon for several months by Saddam's regime, and his nephew Mehdi was executed with hand grenades. Still, Dr. Moosawi says, "it is freedom the Americans have given us, but it is not good freedom."
• Yeah, of course Pete Rose gambled on baseball, and of course he bet on the Reds. The real thing is: did he ever bet against the Reds?

originally posted by daiichi

Is Santa gay?

originally posted by xowie

Most folks were good natured, but hot. The breeze over the water seemed to disappear with the electricity. Merchants were selling water at gallons a minute, and at normal prices, too. More than a few people looked like heat stroke candidates: puffy red faces, clothing entirely sweat-soaked, a staggering, erratic walk. I bought two bottles of water, but I looked like I'd been fished out of the East River: covered in sweat, wet clothes, and the marks of pollution from where I'd climbed over barricades and up on bridge partitions to beat the crowds and take pictures.

Despite there being more than a mile of sand, two scavengers worked Section 7 at the same time. As they passed each other, one rolled his eyes at the other with a critique of his sweeping style. Part of me hoped for a territorial brawl. Maybe they’d start beating the hell out of each other, using their metal detectors as clubs, their scoopers as shields. But they passed each other, over and over, back and forth, without incident.

originally posted by xowie

Atlantic interview: Adrian Nicole LeBlanc.

originally posted by xowie

Forgotten NY: I get the news I need on the weather report. This site documents a continuing search for New York Cities past, cities which take shape before your eyes as you begin to notice ads on old brick walls, visit unused subway stations, struggle to decipher tags and wonder at murals. For further study take a radical walking tour, explore the underground (or just read about it,) investigate the world famous new york subway system.