Author Archive

Leaving College at a Bad Time

Written by Spencer Ackerman on April 23, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

The howling begins close to midnight, which in my old age is when I’m reading in bed. Dude, dude, dude. Nah. Nah. Okay, bro. Screaming and whooping, they slump along my bucolic street and they break things. It usually lasts until 3, an hour after bars here close. Girls giggle and hector. Yo, Tony. One
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Yankees: Spring Panic

Written by Spencer Ackerman on April 2, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

I wasn’t feeling as charitable in November, but over the last month I’ve truly come to sympathize with Byung-Hyun Kim. By his star-crossed audacity to involve himself in the New York-rebirth narrative of last fall’s World Series–in fairness, I suppose we should blame Bob Brenly–the 23-year-old Korean Diamondback reliever became baseball’s greatest crybaby. Watching the
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Heeb Kisses the Fringes

Written by Spencer Ackerman on February 19, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Once again we were stranded on the frigid Lower East Side seeking refuge last Tuesday while a hostile world sharpened its knives for both our expulsion and our return. Patiently seeking our turn on an Essex St. line, we shifted our weight from foot to foot, breathing warmth onto our dirty fingertips. From the unforgiving
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Sherman’s March to Afghanistan: A Rutgers Prof Links History & Current Events

Written by Spencer Ackerman on January 22, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Academic attention to the Sept. 11 landscape reconfiguration came to me in the form of a November lecture on the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan for my History of the Cold War course. The stammering graduate student pawing at his nose and ramming his thumbs into the crevices between his belt and his waistband attempted
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Bracing for Impact: Fight or Flight in an Israel with “Intifada Fatigue”

Written by Spencer Ackerman on January 22, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Beneath the auspices of elaborately angled terraces and curlicue guard rails, the Rimon restaurant and cafe serves its renowned grilled meats to a Friday afternoon crowd of nearly no one. Walk a few feet from one of the formerly outdoor tables under Rimon’s red awning and the usually congested shops of the fashionable Ben Yehuda
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It’s the 5th Avenue Committee vs. the NIMBYs in Park Slope

Written by Spencer Ackerman on November 6, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

"It isn’t that we’re saying NIMBY," explains Pacific St. resident James Vogel, "we’re saying not in my backyard again." What Vogel doesn’t want in his Brooklyn backyard is the 5th Avenue Committee’s acquisition of a boarded-up, city-owned building at 572 Pacific St., which the nonprofit promoters of "social and economic justice" are trying to convert
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George Spitz, the Fifth Democrat, Tries His Best

Written by Spencer Ackerman on September 11, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Prowling through the WPIX studios in a pre-debate warm-up ritual, George Spitz, 78, in the tradition of Chief Joseph, unexpectedly issues a magnanimous and solemn declaration. "I’m not going to attack any of them," he promises WNYC’s Brian Lehrer, a questioner at last Tuesday’s Democratic primary debate, who just informed the Studebaker Insurgent that he
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Restless Burial Grounds in Lower Manhattan

Written by Spencer Ackerman on August 28, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

The city’s most pronounced crime scene possesses the virtue of rendering itself inconspicuous, unheralded and undistinguished by the stark fact of its presence–an undeveloped green abscess blocking City Hall’s congested arteries. Mostly green, at least, because there’s a dusty, tilled patch at the scene’s elbow, Duane and Elk Sts., across from 26 Federal Plaza. That
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Nobel Aspirations: Bronx Science’s First Woman Principal Prepares to Lead

Written by Spencer Ackerman on August 21, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Leon N. Cooper, Melvin Schwartz, Sheldon L. Glashow, Steven Weinberg and Russell A. Hulse all won Nobel Prizes. Like E.L. Doctorow, Joseph Lelyveld, Kwame Ture, Robert A. Moog (the inventor of the Moog), William Safire, Jon Favreau from Swingers and myself, all five of them graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. n They’ve
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Flickerstick Fells Malevolent Rock Behemoth SoulCracker on VH1′s Bands on the Run

Written by Spencer Ackerman on July 31, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

If not for the Spartan integrity of Florida election judges last December, telegenic Dallas rock phenomenon Flickerstick might never have had a sweaty throng of squealing women convulsing with recklessness at the Wetlands two weeks ago. Girls shifted weight from foot to foot with the rest of their bodies taking a second to follow along
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