brighton beach

brooklyn, ny

melting pot is an obvious analogy for this great city, but it is wrong. this city is a hastily thrown together salad. in the melting pot, the salt is broken down and integrated into the cumin into the chicken broth into each and every other ingredient until what remains is one uniform liquid in which every molecule bears the same consistency and content. we may be blended in the big apple, but it's running at a very slow speed. instead, in the salad bowl, the ingredients may be chopped and rinsed and sprinkled throughout, perhaps even tossed a few times, but that does not mean that all bites bear the same taste. we may all be soaked in the vinaigrette of pollution, congestion, of ambition, but we have not all entirely blended.

in this great salad, brighton beach is the beet. to step off the q or b train is to step into a fairly large pocket of mother russia. the cyrillic alphabet is not only the primary one in practice, in many stretches of street and in nearly all the stores it is the sole occupant on signage. the women have that untouchable beauty that feels as if they are protected by an all-encompassing sneeze guard. the men come in all shapes and sizes save for the same steely look in their eyes.

with russian roommate (r.r.) as my guide, i went down on my new found entire day off (job #2 has finally wound down) to explore this small pocket of wonder. he explained to me how most of the residents were russian jews and many came from a background of engineering, as that was favored by the soviet union (make nation strong!). through avenues and pursuits in various shades of illegality, the neighborhood and its property slowly came under russian control (if you get in even a fender bender in this zip code, your insurance company will investigate your claim). with the collapse of the soviet union, the neighborhood served as a beachhead for those fleeing the chaos behind.

to stroll down the brighton beach boardwalk or nearby ocean avenue is to almost take a space and time machine to what sociologist's term the "pre-ace of base" era. freshly released from the manacles of communism, unbridled consumerism became de rigueur. r.r. pointed out the gawdy shops and fancy clothes and even the home decorating show playing on the television at one cafe. he explained that non-russians were labeled foreigners, even americans (in our country; this would surely anger our tea-drinking pitchforkers). when i went to buy the cherry pastries at one supermarket, r.r. told me that the baker had said something to the effect, 'these foreigners never know what they want'. i didn't mind. those pastries were delicious.

what is there to do in brighton beach? i'm sure a lot, but time and a thunderous rain impeded further exploration. i will say that you couldn't go wrong with my selected itinerary of a stroll down the avenue and a trip to a 'soviet' supermarket. when you're tired of walking, i couldn't think of a more pleasant afternoon than a beer, a bowl of borscht, and a hearty sampling of people watching on the boardwalk.


felicitaciones
i begin each session of the citizenship course with some basic english. i choose a topic, introduce some verbs and words, then have the students write and present to the whole class. the other day i decided that the topic should be to recall one of the happiest moments in their lives, be it their wedding day, birth of a child, or just a special moment, etc. i was disappointed that m. answered her cell phone during someone else's presentation, but she quickly stepped out of the room to take the call. when she came back some minutes later, she informed us all that she had just become a grandmother to a healthy, beautiful girl back in buenos aires.


existential realization
as exceptional as i may think myself, i recently realized that i have a beard, a blog, a mac, ride a bike, do not own a television, drink copious amounts of coffee, carry my own shopping bags, and am way overqualified for all of my jobs. i am an exact stereotype of brooklyn man.