CarrollBlog 10.31

Here’s a really spooky Halloween story for you from the American TV personality Dick Cavett:

CarrollBlog 10.30

Almost every day for years I've passed the blind woman on her way to work. In her right hand she holds a long white cane that she taps in front of her to sort the familiar geography of the sidewalk she must know so well after having walked it a thousand thousand times. I always give her a wide berth because she taps the stick in a continuous sweeping 180 degree semi-circle in front of her-- left/middle/right/middle/left... This morning walking along, lost in thought, I heard a loud clunk. Looking up, I saw that she had walked straight into a large metal pillar that stands in front of a department store. Grinning, she stepped back, readjusted, and went on her way. I stood there sort of shocked. I was thinking how could that be? She's covered this route so often that she must know every half-inch of it. She must also be ten times more careful walking anywhere than a sighted person. Then it dawned on me that perhaps she was daydreaming too. Thinking about something far more interesting than just walking down the street, she went straight into that pillar. I did the same thing a few months back-- broad daylight, daydreaming about something compelling, BONG-- straight into a street sign. No difference at all.

CarrollBlog 10.29

She Dreamed of Cows
by Norah Pollard

CarrollBlog 10.28

An unusual Croatian exhibition is traveling around Europe. 'The Museum of Broken Relationships' is the name of the exhibition that has already visited Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovakia and Germany. The museum was a hit in 2007. Anyone can visit the exhibition and bring any things relevant to ex-relationships and ex-partners. It doesn't matter if it was a long-term marriage that ended in a painful divorce or just a short hot affair. The main point of the exhibit is to get rid of these painful reminders in a public way. Therapists say that the idea is also good from a psychological point of view. They explain that giving away things that remind us of our ex-partners is the first step towards ridding the heart of its pain and a way of doing something creative with it. One of the objects on exhibit is an ax. We can read that it was left by a deserted lover, who had used it to destroy furniture that belonged to her ex-girlfriend. "The more broken wood was in the room the better I felt" - explained the girl. Everything in the museum has a short explanation of its history and meaning. Another odd thing in the museum is a prosthesis left by an invalid after the end of a relationship with a physiotherapist. There is a scooter on which some couple wanted to tour Italy. They argued and broke up just before leaving. You can also find there underwear, pens, Cd's, clothes, love letters, etc. My favorite is a wedding dress. The note under it was a question: "Can I take it back when I'm going to need it again?"

CarrollBlog 10.27

We were talking about a couple that recently announced their engagement. They've been together a while and are very much in love. Although the woman is four or five years older than the man, they attended the same school. Something about this made me smile. Imagine back to when they were both students-- he in the 7th grade, she in the 12th. She's very good looking and always been the kind of woman who makes men stare. Imagine way back in their school days if you were to go up to that 13 year old boy and taking him aside, pointing to the beautiful girl in the senior class who owns every male heart in the place. You say to him one day you will marry her. One day not so long from now that goddess will love you so much that she'll shout yes when you ask if she'd like to spend the rest of her life with you.

CarrollBlog 10.26

“In the Western Pacific, there is the concept of the *kula*, which refers to the way in which objects accumulate value entirely on the basis of who owned them. The objects themselves tend to be collections of shells that have little or no intrinsic worth, until they are passed from tribal leader to tribal leader, when they take on the luster of provenance.”

CarrollBlog 10.25

Once on a book tour of Poland, I was told some big shot politician wanted to meet because he liked my books. I had never heard of the man but said sure, why not? At the end of the tour a party was given at a lovely restaurant in Warsaw. Almost all of the lighting in the room was via hundreds of small candles placed everywhere. It made things very intimate and romantic, if a little dark. The politician and I were introduced. Both of us were sort of stiff and kept smiles on our faces too long. He had brought his wife and daughter along so there was quite a bunch of us squeezed into a large booth in one corner of the restaurant. On the shelf behind the booth were a long row of flickering candles. As we talked, I unconsciously leaned back and stretched my arm across the top of the booth. The politician's teenage daughter was next to me and we chatted. Suddenly her eyes widened in real alarm, seeing something behind me. Turning, I saw that my arm was on fire. I had put it too close to the candles back there and guess what? Half the length of my arm was on fire. Flames, smoke, the whole thing. The politician was sitting on my other side. When he saw (or smelled) what was happening, without a moment's hesitation he took both his and my water glasses and threw them on my jacket, dowsing the flames, soaking me. Silently, he helped me take off the jacket which by then was still smoking and smelly. I looked at it in my lap, then at him and said "I'd vote for you."

CarrollBlog 10.24

“There are different species of laziness: Eastern and Western. The Eastern style is like the one practiced in India. It consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking cups of tea, listening to Hindi film music blaring on the radio, and gossiping with friends. Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so there is no time at all to confront the real issues. This form of laziness lies in our failure to choose worthwhile applications for our energy.”

CarrollBlog 10.23

The middle aged woman giving out flyers on the sidewalk has bad Parkinson’s Disease. As she tries to get passersby to take the black and white advertisement for a new Sushi restaurant, her offering hand trembles badly. I look at her face: a mixture of disappointment and frustration—please take this paper/why won’t you take it? She has a large stack of them in her other hand. She’s not been very successful at spreading the new sushi word today. Passing by, I slow to take one but her quaking hand has difficulty passing it to me. There is an uncomfortable fragile moment where I don’t know whether to go more toward her to make it easier, or keep my hand right where it is and let her work it out. Her eyes give me no indication of what to do.

CarrollBlog 10.22

Where do ah-ha! moments come from? Those critical but rare, out of nowhere heaven’s gift- synapses in our brains that bang together like freight cars coupling: Ka-Chunk! Suddenly we frown, look up at the ceiling or down at our feet, our mouth drops open stupidly or close tight because after that synapse sizzles the mental weld together, we instantly finally clearly see how it works, or understand how it happened, the right way to do it, or what was there in front of us all along but we were just too blind or dense to grasp it.

CarrollBlog 10.21

Women are always complaining about men’s fascination with breasts. But what if men were absolutely indifferent to breasts? What would women do then with these things that serve a single function once or twice in a lifetime, and the rest of the time are just in the way?

CarrollBlog 10.20

"Near the end of his life, living in Berlin with his lover, Franz Kafka went for a walk in the park and saw a little girl crying. He asked her what the matter was, and she told him that she had lost her doll. Without missing a beat, Kafka assured the little girl that the doll wasn't lost, only traveling; Kafka knew this for a fact, he said, because the doll had written him a letter describing her journeys, which he promised to bring the girl the next day. Every day for three weeks, he brought the girl a new letter that he had spent much of the previous night composing, until she could no longer remember why she had been sad in the first place."

CarrollBlog 10.19

"Kaspar suddenly thought of Sivan Ehrenpreis. One of the sexiest women he’d ever known, they’d had an affair a decade ago but on realizing they had little else in common besides a mutual panting for each other’s bodies, they split. Afterwords he heard about her from different people—she’d gotten married, had children, gotten divorced, remarried.
"The only other time he’d ever seen her again was years later standing in front of a toy store window at Christmas time in Brooklyn holding the hand of a little girl. Sivan looked sensational in a black winter coat and long periwinkle blue scarf. Kaspar couldn’t resist going over and saying hello to his old flame.
Later he wished he hadn’t. She had just gotten out of the hospital after having had a kidney removed. She described in graphic detail how sick she’d been and the medical procedures she’d undergone. When he first saw her that day even at a distance he was struck again by her powerful sensuality. Before going over he thought with longing about the time they’d been together. But now as she spoke about the necrotic parts of her body that were cut out, what a laparoscopy entailed, and what ‘friable kidney fragments’ meant, she turned into… a hamburger. Literally—in his mind while listening to her speak, Kaspar could only see this exquisite woman as a series of specific cuts of meat, like those diagrams mounted behind butchers’ counters showing customers exactly where the meat they were buying came from on the cow’s body. By the time she was finished talking (Sivan had always been a gabber), Kaspar didn’t even want to kiss her cheek goodbye because all he could think about at that moment was his mother’s favorite recipe-- braised beef cheeks."

CarrollBlog 10.18

First Grade
by Ron Koertge

CarrollBlog 10.17

“Here's something you must know and don't forget it- animals never lie. They don't lie, they don't put on disguises, and they are always true to what they are. That's why you can trust them."
“Excuse me, but I do not trust lions. or bears or snakes--"
"That’s because you want them to be the creatures you imagined as a child. Lions should be the strong but sweet beasts in a Disney cartoon. But they aren't, so when they start acting like lions you're angry at them for not being the fantasy animals you imagined. Real bears don't wear top hats and ride unicycles. Nor do they sleep in bed next to Goldilocks. Human beings force them to do those stupid things in circuses and films or children's books. Sure, some might be more docile or more ferocious than others, but in the end they will always, always be bears. You know you should never should turn your back on a bear. You should never even get near them; it's that simple. They're not being dishonest-- *you* are in your perception of them."

CarrollBlog 10.16

At the end of their relationship she asked if they could still remain friends. His face was expressionless when he said, “No. Because we put friends in boxes, like we do with everything else in life for convenience sake. Most friends you see only occasionally, and even the ones you see a lot still all have their boxes, their specific place in your life and no more. That’s one of the best things about being someone’s love– you don’t have one box in their life because you’re in all of them. You’re their friend, lover, trusted confidante– all those things at the same time. I do not want to be put in one of your boxes now. I also don’t want to whittle you down to fit into just one of mine. That would completely demean what we had. I don’t want to end up air-kissing you on each cheek when we meet now and then and say things like ‘How ARE you? You look so *great*!’”

CarrollBlog 10.15

"Loving someone is easy: It's your car and all you have to do is start the engine, give it a little gas and point the machine wherever you want to go. But *being* loved is like going for a ride in someone else's car. Even if you think they'll be a good driver, you also have a lurking fear that they might end up doing something disastrous and in an instant you'll both be flying through the windshield towards pain and later on, your heart billing you big time for this ride. Being loved can be the most frightening thing of all. Because real love in any form means goodbye to control; so what happens if halfway or three-quarters of the way through a trip with someone, you decide you want to go back or in a different direction, but you're only the passenger?"

CarrollBlog 10.14

Three women are standing in a doorway. All three have those long white canes that indicate they are blind. In their other hands they hold cigarettes. As they chat they puff merrily away. Real hardcore smokers, by the look of things. As a one- time devotee of the delights of tobacco, I watch them thinking what's the pleasure of smoking when you can’t see it? I remember in the old days I’d have a cigarette in the dark occasionally but always found it very unsatisfying if I couldn’t see the stuff coming out of my mouth. To me, smoking was taste *and* sight. But watching these women obviously enjoying their cigs reminds me once again of how many different worlds surround us. Although we may all walk down the same street together, the street of the blind is very different from that of the sighted, the deaf, the child, the old person, the handicapped, the short, the tall… Whoever or whatever you are, your pains, pleasures and perceptions are rarely shared by those right next to you. Passing these women, I wonder if smoking to a blind person is ten times more satisfying and sensual than to those who can actually see the flaring match, the smoke, the orange ember, the curving ash… for reasons I will never ever know or understand.

CarrollBlog 10.13

"In Highland, New Guinea, now Papua, New Guinea a British district officer named James Taylor contacted a mountain village above three thousand feet, whose tribe had never seen any trace of the outside world. It was the 1930's. He described the courage of one villager. One day, on the airstrip hacked from the mountains near his village, this man cut vines and tied himself with them to the body of Taylor's airplane shortly before it took off. He explained calmly to his loved ones that, no matter what happened to him, he had to see where it came from."

CarrollBlog 10.12

I heard this story a long time ago from someone who lied too much, but it's such a good one that lie or not, it's worth retelling. He knew a man who was the most conflicted human being he had ever known. The man was very gay, very ugly, very Latin looking (he was from Brazil), a cross dresser, and now and then a male prostitute. He had two hobbies that he was devoted to-- photography and Claudia Schiffer. He always carried a cheap camera with him and incessantly took pictures of chic looking women. He taped these pictures to his mirror at home and tried to recreate the different looks whenever he dressed as a woman. Most often he tried to make himself look like his idol, Claudia Schiffer. This attempt was pretty impossible though because he was short, dark, ugly, a man, etcetera. And as we know, Claudia is very tall, very blond, very pretty, etcetera. But that didn't stop him from trying.
One day he and my friend met up for coffee. The man was so depressed about life and the way things were going for him in general that he was only wearing jeans, a stained t-shirt and sneakers. Very un-fabulous and very unlike him. Over coffee, my friend tried to perk him up but to no avail. He was seriously down and no amount of encouragement could bring him up again. When it was time to go, the two walked out of the cafe in the center of Vienna's ritzy first district. Suddenly a long black limousine pulled up nearby. Men jumped out, obviously bodyguards, and rushed to open the back doors. First to climb out was the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld who, with his long white hair tied back in a ponytail and huge black sunglasses, was hard to mistake. Then out of the other side of the limo emerged-- Claudia Schiffer! She looked ten feet tall and far more beautiful in real life than any photo they had ever seen.
The man who would be Claudia literally screeched and began digging frantically in his bag for a camera to capture probably the greatest, most unexpected moment of his life. There she was, his queen-- just a few feet away and a goddess in every way imaginable. He dug more and more frantically but no luck—in his depression, he had forgotten to bring a camera today. Lagerfeld and Ms. Schiffer were swept into a building and disappeared. Their black limo whooshed away.
The two men waited a long time outside that building but no dice-- they never saw her again.

CarrollBlog 10.11

She didn’t want to think about him now but that was almost impossible. Joy, real joy, comes so rarely in life that we mourn the death of it a long time. In the beginning of their relationship she said to him, “Where have you been? Where have you been all this time? It feels like I’ve been holding my breath for years, but now I can finally let it out.”
They were lying naked on the couch when she said this. To her great surprise and consternation, Ben got right up, walked into the kitchen, and started making her cassoulet for the first time. When she entered the room a few minutes later, bewildered by his having disappeared from her arms just like that, he started describing the small town of Castelnaudary in France and the time he had eaten this dish there. His back was to her while he spoke. When he turned, she saw that his eyes were filled with tears but he was smiling. “This is the greatest meal in the world, German. I have to make it for you right now. It’s the best way I know how to show how I feel about you.”

CarrollBlog 10.10

Someone once said something about new love that has often come back to me over the years because of the rightness of her observation: The best part of a new romance is the waiting. Waiting for the phone to ring, the letter (or email) to arrive, for that moment when they finally say those words you have wanted to hear. What is better than waiting for them to meet you for one of those very first dates. Arriving at the rendezvous spot early, your heart is beating fast, you're breathing shallowly, your eyes look everywhere. They're due to arrive any moment and you don't want to miss that. Your hands are nervous or too still, you're smiling and couldn't stop now even if you tried. No matter how the evening ahead of you goes, nothing will surpass the magic of these electric moments waiting for them to arrive. Either the French or the Dutch have a saying that the best part of sex is climbing the stairs. That is what this waiting is all about. Waiting, anticipating, your imagination crammed full of glorious maybes . The waiting.

CarrollBlog 10.9

I bought your new book yesterday when I was downtown and had the perfect place in mind to begin reading it. At the Museum Quarter a few minutes from my apartment, there is a vast open piazza-like space between the two museums. A favorite gathering place of the Viennese in nice weather, it's so big that there are several outdoor cafes and restaurants, a pool where kids and dogs wade when it gets really hot, and lots of benches scattered everywhere so there's always a place to sit even when it's crowded. I went there, took your book out of the bag and read the beginning. After finishing that bit I put the book down in my lap. I looked up to think about it and get some sun on my face. But suddenly I saw something and I've got to tell you that it made me stop thinking about your book, the surroundings, everything. A little boy was riding a bike with training wheels on the back. His mother walked in front of him holding what looked like a very long dog leash attached to the handlebars of the bicycle. I looked at the child's face and saw he was blind. His eyes were recessed so deeply into his head that for a moment I didn't think there were eyes at all-- just dark dark spaces. The boy was smiling and talking animatedly to his mother. She laughed and walked just far and fast enough in front of him so that he had to pedal the bicycle and I guess steer towards the sound of her voice. I realized that they’d come here because there was nothing to endanger him and he was free to ride wherever he wanted. I was sure that’s why the mother had brought him to this giant plaza. She had the long leash attached to the handlebars just in case, but he was doing the steering. She wanted him to be the master of his own ship for at least a little while in his day and this was the perfect spot for that. I started thinking about what it must be like to ride a bike blind. Then about all sorts of things having to do with blindness. But watching these two, I kept coming back to the mother and what a terrific gesture it was to bring her boy here so he could have all the space and freedom he needed to just be a kid.

CarrollBlog 10.8

A man I know had been having a very good and satisfying affair with a woman for some time. As a sign of appreciation, he decided to invite her over for dinner at his apartment-- something he hadn't done before. He liked her very much and decided to do the whole thing right: candlelight, linen tablecloth and napkins, nice plates and glasses, etcetera. And of course cook something great. She arrived and they chatted while he put the finishing touches on the meal. But as they ate and time wore on, she became increasingly more withdrawn and cold. Finally it got so bad that he asked if anything was wrong.
She hesitated but finally pointed to one of the plates.
"Why did use plates? Why not just plastic or something?"
Taken aback, he answered, "I wanted to make a nice meal for you. I thought I'd use my nice plates, a tablecloth, you know-- the good stuff."
"But that's all? That's the only reason?" She narrowed her eyes, as if not trusting what he'd said.
Thoroughly confused now, he said "Yes, that's all."
"You're not in love with me?"
He hesitated because he didn't want to hurt her feelings, but the whole evening was becoming so weird and mysterious that he thought he should just tell the truth."No, I like you very much but I'm not in love."
Her face lit up and she smiled broadly. "Oh, thank God! As soon as I walked in here and saw these nice plates I thought Oh no, he's in love with me. Because you never use plates in a situation like this unless you're in love. I was so afraid I was going to have to say that I don't love you. But now everything's okay. Do you want to go to bed?"

CarrollBlog 10.7

I used to walk the dog very early in the park across the street. Punks had set up camp in one corner of it (right near the 'Amnesty International Torture Museum,' ironically enough) and there were always a bunch of them sleeping in an amorphous pile. Their staked out corner was right near a park entrance. That morning a bunch of prostitutes were standing nearby, chatting loudly. Really dressed to the nines-- waist high white boots, Dolly Parton hairdos, purple or orange micro-minskirts, the works. If they weren't prostitutes I'd like to know who their employer was. Anyway, they were loud and laughing and having a good time chatting. I was standing about thirty feet away while the dog grazed on the grass. Suddenly one of the punks poked his head up from beneath his blanket and screamed at the whores to shut up. Normally people are afraid of them because they're ferocious looking and dramatically loud about everything. Most passersby give them a wide berth. But not these women. In even louder screams, they told the punks to fuck off. That did it. Suddenly there was a furious shouting match between punks who'd had their beauty sleep interrupted and whores who were just finishing for the night. Eventually one of the punks must have said something really offensive, a big no-no, because as one, the women came charging into the park and leapt onto the pile of sleepers in full howling banshee fury. It looked like one of those fights in a cartoon where dogs and cats are fighting so hard and furiously that they lose all shape and size and you just see one big whizzing scrum. The funniest thing of all was most of the punks tried to hide in their sleeping bags while their flashy attackers kicked and howled at them. A few fought back, but these usual masters of their small universe, so used to scaring people, were suddenly confronted by real toughies who were neither impressed nor afraid of their black leather/spiked hair bluster.

CarrollBlog 10.6

When I was in Italy a couple of weeks ago, a magazine interviewer asked a question I thought was intriguing: A UFO lands in your backyard and the aliens knock on the door. They ask you to suggest one book they can read that best describes Mankind and the Human Condition. Which one would I suggest that gives creatures from another planet a good idea of who we really are? I mentioned the first thing that came to mind and to this day I stick with the suggestion-- the children's book “Goodnight Moon” by Margaret Wise Brown. For those who don't know it, a little girl gets into bed at night. As she drifts off to sleep, she says goodnight to all of the things she cherishes and that make up her small world. It is a book about observation, love, and gratitude. When I am feeling optimistic, I think those are the qualities that make us special and will hopefully save us in the end.

CarrollBlog 10.5

"Once again she smelled more than three decades of her fear, failures, lies, and self-deceptions. Those things *do* have an odor: It is common, metallic, and not unlike the smell of fresh blood. It is fresh but it is also old, ancient even. Everyone knows the aroma but does not admit it because we have smelled it on ourselves too many times. It is foul and deeply embarrassing. New love, the best intentions, hope and wonder reborn… This time it will be different! We are so convinced it will work this time. We promise ourselves to do everything in our power to make it succeed. Because we have *finally* found the ideal person, or the right situation, the moment we have been waiting for our whole life. But we are wrong, again, because the bitter truth is most of the time we are simply not up to the task of being bigger than we are. And as our cowardice, selfishness, dishonesty or other shortcomings leak in to infect and eventually ruin those new wonderful situations too, the odor begins once more."

CarrollBlog 10.4

Wouldn't it be great if at difficult times in our lives we were able to turn to younger versions of ourselves and ask them for help? For example, you're frightened of something now because you've learned from past experience that there are good reasons to be scared. So you turn inward and ask 27 year old you to take over now. Because at 27, you were afraid of little in life (for better or worse). 27 year old you had a sureness and confidence that for many reasons you lost along the way to today. Or you meet someone wonderful, but in the past you’ve been hurt so many times that you're wary and cynical of love and becoming involved again. But 19 year old you wasn't; they believed fully in the magic and infinite possibilities of new love in a way you haven't for years. If you’ve lived a long enough time, you have been many people, both strong and weak. Somewhere in our being those people must still exist. Many of them were optimistic, bulletproof, trusting, or stone-cold sure of what they were doing. They sincerely believed life's possibilities were limitless and user-friendly. Scared, confused, depressed, cynical, apathetic—whatever negative frame of mind you might be in now, there *were* times in life when you were just the opposite. How great it would be if we could turn to those other versions of our self and say you can handle this situation better than me. Please take the wheel now and drive this rough part of life’s road.

CarrollBlog 10.3

The severely hunchbacked man walks into the restaurant and chooses a table nearby. Carefully lowering himself into a chair, with his singular body you know it must be done just right or he will be uncomfortable. He is dressed in a suit and carries a briefcase. The waiter knows him and gives a cordial greeting when bringing the menu. "The usual?" he asks and the hunchback nods without looking up from the menu. A few minutes later the waiter returns with a large mug of beer, a shot of schnapps, a cola and a mineral water. Still studying the menu, the customer drinks the schnaps and then a giant slug of the beer. I cannot hear what he orders but when the food is brought out, there is enough to feed three people. Wiener schnitzel, goulash with spaetzle, a plate of onion rings as high as a birthday cake, more. Plates of food literally cover the entire table. Bent over he eats quickly, taking big portions on his fork and shoving them into his mouth. At one point he looks up and one of his eyes is squinted almost shut. It is like watching something medieval, or a fairy tale ogre feasting before turning his attention to Jack who he caught climbing the beanstalk.

CarrollBlog 10.2

After watching a lot of MTV recently, I realized that almost all of their reality shows are now based on humiliation of one sort or another. How much money will it take to make you eat worms/take off your clothes/do something really stupid in public, etc? How will you respond when you're rejected for a date because the other girl is sexier? What will you say as you and two others watch a stranger of the opposite sex go through your bedroom drawer by drawer, looking for intimate or embarrassing things? The most famous of these shows, JACKASS, is only about wild and crazy guys doing insane stunts (like having someone throw a baseball full speed at your crotch) which invariably end up with them writhing round in some kind of physical agony. The audience is supposed to enjoy the madness of these Dada doings, but isn't the real fun of the show seeing what kind of pain and mortification these guys suffer as a result?

CarrollBlog 10.1

Those small stores, the side street shops, Mom and Pop markets with one aisle, two heads of wilted browning lettuce, a single sixty watt light bulb overhead inside for illumination. Or the "vintage" record shops with two men (never more than three) poring through the stacks looking for that one special "Zombies" 45 or the rare Charles Lloyd quartet album on the Blue Note label. How many of these shadowy, empty stores have these collectors visited over the years, always looking for undiscovered treasure that they rarely find? The stationery shops that have had the same three cheap-o Parker fountain pens and curling once-red notebooks in the window display for years. The little narrow stores squeezed in between two big modern ones, the ones that have all but given up the ghost, unpainted, unloved. The dirty window stores that sell plumbing fixtures and toilet seats, or brown-green work clothes and uniforms that look 60 years old. Asian or African specialty markets displaying only canned goods with colorful, sometimes psychedelic-looking labels stacked to the ceiling. Toy stores so small and sad that never in a million years would you bring a child in there, even just for a look. Shoe shops that never change their window and cater specifically to old people who wear shoes as big and thick as hydrofoils. Or how about those tiny, grim looking restaurants with battlefields of dead flies in the cases outside displaying their faded-almost- to- invisible menu. When was the last time someone went in there to actually eat a meal?
How do any of these places make money? How do these people survive?