Don't sit next to me
The politics in our personal real estate.
If a personalized hell exists then mine might take the form of someone interminably searching for something in a plastic bag while sitting behind me in a movie theater.
It happens about once a week now, so maybe I’m already there?
The act of playing hooky from work to go to the movies is something my wife calls “Don Drapering,” and it’s one of my favorite private indiscretions (I’m not sure it can be considered full hooky status since I make my own schedule, but we shape our private rebellious actions where we can as adults).
Midday moviegoers are a certain type. There are, I imagine, other permalancers. A few come to discretely day-drink. Others sneak in tangerines from the lower level Trader Joe’s, then go searching for it in their bag all in an effort to drive me very crazy.
But overall the theater is relatively empty. There aren’t a lot of people and I like that.
Recently, however, I’ve noticed people choosing seats next to me in these giant, sparsely populated movie theaters. The privilege of daytime moviegoing is that you can reserve your seat anywhere! Dude, there are five people in this 100 seat theater — why do you have to sit next to me?
For example, I am probably gonna see the Godzilla x Kong next week. Currently this is the seat map:
And THIS is what will happen:
Eso no se hace, yet the travesty still follows me from theater to theater.
Everyone who lives in this town — shoot, anyone who knows anything about New York City — understands that space is limited and while our circles of privacy are finite, when found, they offer quite the short-term luxury.
This observation goes into the bucket of the continuous conversation topic that comes up with everyone who lives here — how much longer do you think you’ll stay in New York City?
My wife and I have been having the chat as we casually look at what’s available to buy in our oasis of Brooklyn. The search is a Sisyphean march of diminishing returns where we get closer to living in a tree.
Realtor: “This unit we call the ‘bird’s nest’. Meant for two but, like the last tenant, you can fit a family of five ‘comfortably’ inside. Instead of your typical exercise studio, they’ve got this great amenity called ‘Swat Away Birds Bikram’ — it’s fabulous and trendy. It all sits right in Prospect Park with views to die for.
But seriously, you will die if you don’t carefully climb down.
Starting price — YOUR SOUL 👹”
The “should I stay or should I go” question is often a prompt to quickly complain, but ultimately a runway to champion the reasons why we live and compete in this small section of land in a very, very big country. Ultimately, I, like many, love my New York City for its history, language, food, diversity, vibe, and fueling for my Culture Vulture tendencies.1 But, I wouldn’t live in New York City if my community wasn’t here. Quietly though, a major part of my reason for staying is daily sociological research. The place helps me understand/condone humanity, and, myself.
This week was our Democratic primary. As much as I’d prefer to plant my head in the sand until after November (and probably past that, to be honest), I had to be reminded of this political moment, especially, in the midst of multiple wars and a frightening global march to the far right. I sit and wonder about the dark steps of my fellow folk and what I choose to ignore about my own connections to our historical tendency towards passive dehumanization.
Where does fascism exist in our everyday thoughts and actions?
We can point some of the current leanings towards isolationism to American individualism (Anne Helen has a great piece on the links between this concept and the modern “friendship dip”) but the problems of genocide, prejudice, and xenophobia are global. The problem is not just individualism but manufactured real estate.
NYC offers my microcosm to this theory — it’s an immediate distillation of the ways humans lean towards belonging and othering while competing for space.
For example, there’s a section of the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway) that’s always f*cked with traffic.
That section is called the BQE.
But at night there’s a “special” portion that makes me wanna go into my Falling Down moment. There’s always congestion around a two mile plus bend in Northern Brooklyn that funnels multi-lane and incoming Manhattan on-ramp traffic into two lanes. It stinks but it’s not too unbearable — it usually picks up after five to ten minutes. Next to the two lanes is a shoulder lane, designated, as usual, for stalled cars and emergency vehicles. Every day, there are tons of boneheads, often in tinted windows and vroom vroom acceleration who use it as their own personal lane to zip ahead. Here’s an illustration of said route and bonehead action:
As I sit like a good citizen, getting livid because they’re not “following the rules”, I ultimately say to myself “that’s what’s wrong with this country” or versions of “they should do something about these people”. I then imagine they’re all going to Staten Island, a land where I think all dudes drive like dodos.
Now, I’m not trying to say Staten Island men are a disadvantaged group (although I would like to see what the talking points of that meetup group would be), the thing that stands out to me is the quick bucketing my brain moves toward — the “THEY do this” of it all.
The same thing happens on the subway.
I spent many years away from the train due to the pandemic and a really gnarly appearance of late adulthood claustrophobia. I’m back with pre-pandemic frequency and I’m mostly re-enjoying it. While pundits who don’t live here will go on and on about the dangers on the trains, the statistics point to a more sanguine picture and I’d rather point out something else that’s a bigger issue — seat hoggers and noise anarchists.
Depending on the model of train, New Yorkers know which seat is best and they know what to do to “be a good citizen” or “do their own damn selfish thing” — be it the folks that use the seats next to them for their bags or the most common culprit: manspreaders. Look, would I like my testicles to have more space? Always? But they’ve withstood adolescent Chuck Norris kicks and, currently, my 70 pound dog’s daily lap leaps onto them — I think they can manage to have my legs pressed up against them so someone can have more space as I make my way to see Godzilla x Kong2 (men, if you really want to see what our genitals can withstand, I implore you to watch what Chris Pontius does to his in Jackass Four — you got nothing to complain about!) .
But, it’s the noise anarchists as of late that really boil my blood: incessant ring tone sampling, tinny YouTube clips on repeat, dudes playing machine gun games through their phone speaker WHILE WEARING AIRPODS, the Facetime calls, that guy on the train that had a legit 12 inch woofer blasting GOOOOOAALLLLLL from alguno partido de fútbol. Noise is the real invasion on personal real estate — hey, there’s a reason the United Stated used Van Halen as a psychological torture technique to force Manuel Noriega into surrender.3
In the midst of all these “rule breakers” my brain goes to a small place of wanting authority to force them to be quiet.
Then there are my daytime moviegoers — the ones who choose to “invade my space” when I just want to be alone. What’s wrong with “those people”?
Many of these occurrences are ones you may find relatable, whether you’re a New Yorker or not, and maybe you shrug, thinking, “yeah people can be annoying”. What sticks with me is the immediate antagonism and how quickly it moves to “how can I have more of the space that I want”. Like the way I sometimes fantasize about one less house sitting next to ours. What if that line of cars was just gone so I could use the space as I please? The “why are these people always so loud” thoughts that have gone through my head. That quick flash of “get off my lawn/hey that’s mine” thinking when I see people going through my recycling looking for resalable aluminum and plastic.
It’s not that I shouldn’t plant my head in the sand during an election year — it’s more that my head needs to be out of the sand in my daily life; confronting the limitations with my own projected progressive self. Our worldview can become so expansive, our surroundings can be filled with all the shades of diversity, but our tolerance always finds its limitations. As a teacher used to say, “If we didn’t have Native Americans, we’d invent them. If we didn’t have Black people, we’d invent them. If we didn’t have Latinos, we’d invent them. If we didn’t have queer people, we’d invent them…”
And on, and on, and on.
There’s a deeper investigation we should inspect in the ways we choose to close off the world, equating emptier spaces and less distractions people with deeper relaxation; “feeling more in touch with one’s self”.
During my midday forays to see everything I can with my monthly Alamo Pass, I caught Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar-winning Zone of Interest. During interviews related to the film’s release, and his powerful Academy Award speech, Glazer uses this “next door to atrocity” Auschwitz tale to point us to the complacency every generation faces in quietly adopting notions of inhumanity towards others.
In my post-screening thoughts, along with my recent interrogation of my own wants of “personal real estate”, I thought of a Franz Kafka quote I first came across in David Simon and Ed Burns’ The Corner (which they later re-attributed for The Wire):
“You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.”
My daily obstacles are minimal. My hearing and eyesight aren’t impaired. My mobility is functioning like aces. My body is seen as male, presumably white, middle class. I am welcomed into most spaces. The funny thing is with all the grumbling I can manage about how much smaller my space is with all these “intrusions”, I actually have access to ALL the spaces I want, be it because of gender, age, class, race, nationality, sexuality, education. How quickly I forget what it would be like to change any one of those conditions. Why I may need to talk on a speaker in the subway because it’s the one time of day I’m not working and have access to WiFi, or using it as the brief period I can actually contact with family in another country. The way I can’t wear earbuds while out at night because of fears of sexual harassment or assault. The way I need to turn my ringer volume up loud because I really can’t hear very well. Or, simply the fact that I’m so damn lonely living away from my home country with no local support that a speaker phone version of Daddy Yankee is the balm I need for five minutes.
As much as this little petri dish of a city offers glimpses of our isolationist tendencies, it equally responds with daily doses of human openness: the way neighbors acknowledge space in subways and grocery stores, watching young people hold patience for slower elders, finding strangers holding the subway doors when they glance someone running to catch a departing train, regardless of how packed the train is.
And yes, I even see it with my neighbors at the movies.
I found myself annoyed, as usual, to recently arrive at my 3pm screening of Wim Wender’s Perfect Day to find someone sitting next to me in a nearly empty theater, with their right arm already occupying the arm rest designated for MY left arm. During the film’s running time, filled with many little graceful moments, I heard my neighbor sigh and vocally “ohhh” during the scenes that resonated with me; I found myself smiling.
I admit this quietly with you here — while I loved the film, turns out, my neighbor’s presence was my favorite part.
🏅 this week’s staff picks 🏅
🚻 Stay mad.
💃🏽🕺🏽 Early spring and it’s time for me to walk the dog, Airpods atop, strutting oh-so akimbo, glancing at all the blooming with George Benson on repeat.
🎧 Christine Blasey Ford talks to Terry Gross.
👔👗 🔥 Jeff Bridges in 1981’s Cutter’s Way 🔥
🎥 The much maligned American Beauty — teen masterpiece?
(Pssst, want more film recommendations? Follow me on Letterboxd)
Tix to spring 2024 Hubba Hubba are live!
We’re back with our spring 2024 edition of Hubba Hubba, the screening series where we dive into what’s been lauded as sex appeal: what’s lingered, what have we moved past, and what helped or hurt moviegoers in claiming our identities and desires. Next month, it’s the long-awaited follow-up to the 1987 “crazy for Swayze” sleeper, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights starring Diego Luna — screening on 35mm for its 20th anniversary!
A box office failure upon release, the film found fans on home video — many Latin American viewers among them — championing the film’s individual merits including Luna’s short reign as Swayze’s Latinx predecessor.
🎟 TIX HERE 🎟
Adios, ciao ciao, byeeeeeeeee,
Mark ✌🏼
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Realtor: Did you say ‘vulture’? Boy, do we have a place in mind for you.
I bet you the person sitting next to me on the train will be the same person sitting next to me in the theater.
The 1989 operation was called Nifty Package.
I got my Havana Nights ticket...no one better buy the seat next to me!