Rena Lea Gross

Web Producer/Writer living in Brooklyn, along with 50,000 others (guestimated)

[renaleagross-blog]

Return to Normality, Not Normalcy, and the Nukular Option

Things that drive me nuts: "Normalcy" is not the right word to use when you are describing a situation where things are normal. The word you are looking for is "NORMALITY." People think that "normalcy" is a legitimate word thanks to incompetent dead president Warren G. Harding, the George W Bush of the 1920s. He made a big speech about "a return to normalcy", and people at the time scoffed at his use of the malapropism "normalcy". There was evidence of people saying "normality" as far back as the 1850s, but "normality" was the generally accepted use at the time. 

Perfectly intelligent people now say “normalcy” all the time, perpetuating an awful president’s grammatical snafu into acceptability. The majority of my friends would have probably hated President Warren G. Harding if we had lived back then. But they all say “normalcy” and not “normality,” thanks to Warren G. Harding’s normalization of “normalcy.” If you’re unaware of why Warren G. Harding is commonly rated among our worst presidents, please see The Lone Cornmeal Machine’s excellent summary of the Teapot Dome Scandal: https://vimeo.com/26783932

I think of Warren G. Harding and “normalcy” every time I hear a someone pronounce “nuclear” as “newk-you-lahr”. It’s “newk-lee-ehr”, nuclear. Say it. “NEWK-LEE-EHR.” It should be obvious. I remember the pounding that George W. Bush ignored as he continued mispronouncing nuclear, “newk-you-lahr”.. Neither version is harder to say, but one is right, and one is wrong. It got into people’s heads to say “newk-you-lahr”, and now all my educated, book-loving liberal friends regularly use the Bush mispronunciation of “nuclear.”

Nucular is the normalcy of our time. Will dictionaries forget, and start giving the Bush pronunciation? I used to correct people all the time, telling them, “You’re saying it like Bush!” About six years ago I gave up. I can only control myself. I say “normality” and “nuclear,” but I can’t fix other people’s probably unconscious imitations of terrible presidents’ speech errors.

“Nukular” and “normalcy” honestly bother me worse than LOLspeak, uptalk, or peppering sentences with “like” when you are not indicating approbation or making a comparision, “you know” when your conversational partner may not know, and “I mean” when you don’t necessarily mean anything. 

Also, this post is thirteen years late. I meant to put it on Friendster, and never got around to it.

[renaleagross-blog]

How I Discovered the Horizon Line on Columbus Day

Rejected by: TheRumpus.net

The subject matter wasn't timely, I know. Go forth and live, untimely story.

It was Columbus Day of 1985, in an era when the New Jersey school systems shamelessly celebrated Columbus Day. My first grade class was drawing pictures of the Pinta, the Nina, and the Santa Maria at sea. Or that’s how I remember it. Something must be off with my memory. If it was Columbus Day in an era when New Jersey’s schools shamelessly celebrated Columbus Day, then why were we in school on Columbus Day?

Perhaps it wasn’t Columbus Day. Perhaps the art project was part of the lead-up to a long weekend, or perhaps there was no long weekend. At any rate, Columbus was still a heroic visionary, and oh yes, we suppose there were Indians. Here’s what I can recall perfectly: all of us first-graders had made light blue lines of varying breadths at the tops of our pictures, and darker blue lines of varying breadths at the bottoms. The top lines were our skies, the bottom lines our Atlantics. That made sense to six-year-olds—the sky and the water do not touch in the real world, so why should they meet in pictures?

It was thus in all of the pictures but one. The special picture was the handiwork of a boy named Eusaf.

I became aware of this when heard a little girl near me shriek,

“Eusaf, that’s so dumb!! The sky doesn’t touch the ocean!”

I looked at Eusaf’s drawing. His sky met his sea with no space in between. Mental click. Eusaf was on to something—when I went to the beach in the summer and looked at the ocean, there was no space between sky and sea even though I knew that they did not touch in reality. Eusaf had drawn the marine world as it truly looked. I glanced around the table at the other drawings. Our Pintas, Ninas, and Santa Marias aimed for a vast white oblivion between imperfectly parallel blue planes, a white oblivion like the nothingness that the dum-dum fifteenth century Europeans in our history lessons said that Columbus would fall into when he inevitably sailed off the edge of the flat Earth.

The little girl chortled, “If the sky hit the water, then Columbus would sail into the sky and it would kill him!”

I don’t know whether Eusaf said anything to try to defend his picture’s accuracy. I only know that the little girl was a Philistine with no sense of perspective.

With a childishly poor sense of scansion, she belted,

Christopher Columbus sailed the seas

And went down into Eusaf’s pi-i-cture

And he was so sad that he never got to see the I-indies

Because…he…was…dead.

I wonder, why am I so irritated at this little girl almost three decades later? I do not remember her name, and I doubt I could pick her out from my first grade class photo. But almost thirty years later, her annoying improvisational ditty still gets stuck in my head sometimes. I think back to that day in first grade, and resent her for afflicting my brain with an irksome chant that time has failed to erase.

I do not recall whether the teacher responded to the commotion at the table by wising us up regarding the horizon line. I also cannot recall with one hundred percent certainty whether we drew pictures of the Pinta, the Nina, and the Santa Maria at sea, or whether we glued brown construction paper boats to drawings of the sky and ocean, or whether the pictures were in fact pure collages. My mother must have it in a scrapbook somewhere. Nor do I recall whether we children were depicting Columbus leaving Spain, Columbus arriving in America, or whether Columbus and his three boats had been at sea for a very long time with no land in sight. The main thing I remember was that I learned a major artistic lesson on Columbus Day, 1985. It was the day I learned about the horizon line. Also, children are stupid.

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The Sins of Santa: A Story that almost made it, 2006

Note: I wrote this story for a writing class that I took at NYU in the fall of 2006. The professor worked for CBS, and it almost got published on the CBS news website. Unfortunately, this happened the day before the Christmas holiday. I worked for another media company at the time. Being a good girl, I knew that I had to get permission from my company's HR department to publish with another company. But HR was moving super slow that last working day before Christmas. The whole day dragged by while I waited for their permission. By the time that it had been procured, CBS told me that the timeliness of the story had passed.

Go forth and live, little Santacon story.

It was 10:30 on a Saturday morning, and it was already a struggle to move through crowds of Santas at the bar. Hundreds had congregated at the Delancey, and their number would grow as the day went by.

Drunk Santas. Santas pounding Red Bull. Santas getting down to Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines", spun by DJ Santas. Here and there, the odd (sober) baby Santa were carried on their parental Santa's backs. There were pink Santas, fishnet-stockinged Santas with whips, escaped jailbird Santas, a Hanukkah Harry, and a red-nosed reindeer carrying a sign that read, "I don't want to join in your stupid games anyway." Stoner Santa was there too.  He was hard to spot, but you could smell him. Over on a raised platform by the entry to the Williamsburg Bridge, two shirtless female Santas kissed enthusiastically while a ten-foot puppet Santa reached out to paw them.

"What's going on? Is this some kind of a parade?", asked a middle-aged women with two preteen daughters. 

"It's Santacon 2006," said Dora, 29, of Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

"What's that?

 "About 500 of us dress up as Santa and wander all over the city on an

18-hour drinking binge." (However, according to Santacon's organizers, the crowd estimated roughly a thousand by the end of the day.)

 "Where are you going next?"

"We don't know yet. Care to join us?"

"No thanks, we're going to go home and bake gingerbread cookies."

Everybody addressed each other as Santa. New acquaintances were immediately on familiar terms:

"Santa!"

"Santa!"

"Nice suit, Santa!"

"You too, Santa!"

"Santa, have you seen my roommate, Santa?

"Sorry, Santa, but if I see her I'll tell her that you were looking for her."

 Santacon does not have a permit. Organizers only announce the meeting point the night before. Despite loitering, public intoxication, and holding up traffic, Santacon has never had any trouble with the law. Some of the police even smiled at the parade. "The only police activity I heard of all day was when cops were encouraging the Santas to move on--and not to jump in the fountain," said Genevieve, 29, of Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn,referring to a later stop at Lincoln Center. The Santas maintain good will by adhering to a policy of not messing with the kids. According to Genevieve, "We respect the four fucks--the only principle of Santacon. Don't fuck with kids, don't fuck with the police, don't fuck with security, don't fuck with Santa. They also make a point of wishing all curious observers a merry Christmas, and sometimes hand out candy and small toys.

After an hour of hanging around the Delancey, the Santas finally departed when someone in the crowd yelled "Santa takes the subway!" Chants of "Santas on the move!" and "Santa takes the subway" and "42nd street" were repeated as the crowd marched towards the Delancey street F train stop. The Santas filled two F trains. It was warm for December, and the crammed Santas had already begun to sweat inside their cheap suits. They passed the time on the subway by singing spirited rounds of "Police Navidad" and other fractured carols. Passengers with small children soon hurried out of the car. If they thought that there would be quiet, space, and sanity in the next car, they were wrong, for ever car was filled with Santas. Later, perhaps, the parents would have to explain why there were so many Santas on the train.  Wasn't there only supposed to be one Santa Claus?

After a jaunt through Times Square, Santacon reconvened at The Irish Rogue on 44th and 9th, where the Santas continued to drink until about 2:30. Dora, by now so intoxicated that she was spinning like a drunken Dreidel, was taken away in a taxi by an irate friend. New

Santas, alerted by friends and text messages, would arrive throughout the day, as the route took them to Lincoln Center, the Central Park merry-go-round, Union Square, a strip club on 17th (which many agreed was an awkward location), and, finally, a drum circle for two hundred in a Financial District Alleyway. They paid their respects to a vast tree on Wall Street and stumbled on--some to the afterparties, others homeward.

 The next morning would still find a few walk-of-shame Santas fumbling home.

[renaleagross-blog]

Seeking the Perfect Writing Café

The following piece was rejected by McSweeney's and another publication that I will not name out of mortification at my own hubris. If any family members or co-workers come across it they should note that the speaker in the piece is not me. Go forth, little blog.

Aspiring writer seeks ideal coffee shop to write in.

Must be within ten minutes walking distance from my apartment, located near the Smith and 9th street stop on the F and G lines. Carroll Gardens. Ok, maybe it’s Red Hook. Must stay open until midnight—my paid job keeps me busy from ten to seven. Must never have live music, especially not on weekends or evenings.

Must allow the use of laptops. The absence of wifi is acceptable. Actually, it would be a relief if there were no wifi, as this would make the distracting Internet go away. Must be willing to let me sit around for two or three hours for the admissions price of a cup of tea with free hot water refills, and possibly a sandwich. I might buy the sandwich so that we can say I’m helping with the rent.  Now, I know that there’s a place called “My Apartment”. But writing instead of web browsing from my apartment would require too much free will. It takes about all the free will I can muster to do anything besides sit around drinking.

I’m aware that there’s also a place called “The Library” where I would be allowed to spend several hours typing and ignoring people. The problem is that I have to go do an actual job during the day. If the library stayed open until 12:30 am and offered tea, wine, and comfy chairs, you know I’d be hitting that scene. If libraries would only realize their potential as semi-profit coffee lounges, they wouldn’t be in so much trouble.

Must have lovely food. Must not be a Starbucks. I only patronize local, non-franchise businesses. The other patrons must leave me alone, unless a brilliant, attractive, literary-minded member of the opposite sex wishes to hit upon me in a charming and original manner, culminating in a romance for the ages.

Must serve coffee and tea.

[renaleagross-blog]

Things I Miss About Friendster

The following list was rejected by McSweeney's. For the record, I guess they dislike nostalgia pieces. Go forth anyway, little list.

Having only thirty or forty friends did not imply loserdom. People only friended folks they actually hung out with, as opposed to people they were fairly sure they’d been introduced to some time in the past two decades. Nowadays, it’s sad to have fewer than three hundred friends.

That “Web of Friends” app. Since people mostly friended their friends, being a friend of a friend of Murray Hill actually meant something.

You could get a few dishes washed while waiting for the page to load.

There’s no profile like your first profile. The thrill is gone once you’ve liked or re-listed or re-favorited your favorite bands for the third time in eight years, or whatever they’re calling it these days.

Clinging to my dying profile until right before Facebook helped reduce time looking at the head-ache inducing black clutter of 2006-era MySpace.

Friending three versions of fake John Kerry.

Sometimes it worked.

The “Who’s viewed my profile” feature had a sense of justice: if people browsed anonymously, they couldn’t see that you’d viewed them.

Checking out friends of friends who you hoped to friend after hanging out another few times so that you could boost your numbers.

Laughing at people who still linked to Angelfire and Geocities sites.

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Stupid things I’ve cried over, part 1

Queen Elizabeth II looks exactly like my maternal grandmother, who died the day before I turned sixteen. My grandparents all had this bad habit of dying right before my birthday. While watching the royal wedding, I kept focusing on Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. Whenever I see the queen, I think “Grandmom!” and then I realize, “Oh. That’s not my Grandmom. That’s William and Harry’s Grandmom.”

I was jealous of William that he got to have a complete pair of grandparents at his wedding, while I will have none at mine if I ever marry. Then I remembered that I have a mom, and William doesn’t, and I teared up. This train of thought repeated every ninety seconds throughout the royal wedding. My eyes would fill with tears every time it reached its conclusion, and I would have to stop myself because it was a stupid thing to cry over.

Even if all of my grandparents were still here, they would not have $34 million to spend on my hypothetical wedding. And ever if I had $34 million, I would not waste it on a wedding. Instead, I would put it into a range of high-interest bearing mutual funds with good Morningstar ratings. Then I’d spend the rest of my life sitting around reading.  And I’d travel. I’d spend the rest of my life sitting around foreign cities, reading.

And my grandparents would all be way too old to be happy if they were still here. I’m sure that none of them would have died in proximity to my birthday if they could have helped it.

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How to punish Phil Spector in the Afterlife (with apologies to Sartre)

Upon arriving in hell, Phil Spector is escorted to a small room, where he is forced to spend eternity recording an Amy Winehouse comeback album in collaboration with Brian Wilson, using Fisher-Price children’s recording equipment from the 1980s. Axel Rose will be singing backup. Michael Jackson will drop by for a duet or two.

Of course, this is completely unfair to poor Brian Wilson, who mostly does bad things to himself.

You’d probably have a pretty great album after about ten thousand years. But you could also probably get a pretty great album if you locked any five random individuals and some musical instruments in a room in hell for ten thousand years.

[renaleagross-blog]

Craigslist Posting: $600, Brooklyn Heights

Note: this received actual responses when I posted it on craigslist once.

Female seeks female roommate for spacious (15 x 16), sunny room, with walk-in closet, in a two-bedroom apartment inside a historic brownstone. The apartment has hardwood floors, high ceilings, central air conditioning, and new electrical wiring. No smoking, drinking, drugs, incense, scented candles, overnight guests, music, entertaining, or use of kitchen. Please restrict use of bathroom to 11 am to 11:30 am. Please, no talking of any kind between the hours of 6pm and 10 am.

Come share my beautiful Brooklyn Heights apartment with me and my five diabetic cats. Must love cats. Three of my cats are somewhat incontinent, and require extra special care, which I expect my roommate to help out with. There is no room for any more pets, unless I choose to adopt more cats, so please do not have any pets, including cats, dogs of any size, hamsters, rabbits, fish, guinea pigs, Vietnamese potbellied pigs, parakeets, sea monkeys, helper monkeys, frogs or snails of any kind, Komodo dragons, and Falabella miniature horses.

Please provide proof of income (your last 52 pay stubs) and 5 references, including ones from your pastor and a second member of your church attesting that you are a god-fearing, celibate Republican pro-life Methodist. Please also provide proof that you have paid dues at your church for at least five years. Please provide federal documentation proving that you have voted Republican in at least the last four national elections.

Please note that I practice my vocal scales between 6pm and 9 pm every day. It is imperative that I not be interrupted during those hours. It is necessary that you not enter or exit the apartment while I am practicing, or open or close any doors if you are already in the apartment.

It would be especially nice if you could speak Sanskrit or Wolof.

Serious inquiries only, please.

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Me at the Getty last December