POOP COMPOSITIONS
One Cat's Sanctuary in the Bustle of Manhattan
by Noah Burger

UPPER EAST SIDE, Manhattan - Entering the apartment of Robin "Cat-Glads" Loxley, one's breathing immediately begins to slow. Here is a place isolated from the circus of the street, from the honking horns and the bustle of the bar next door. The details are exciting and effortless - a worn cotton rope draped over a couch, an electric blue "shiny ball" settled on the blond wood floor, litter crumbs peppering the occassional surface and fur tufts wafting through the air. Even these delights, however, are drawfed as one climbs into Loxley's tour-de-force of Zen design: his one foot square litter box.

Litter Gardens, commonly referred to as "Poop" Gardens, first began as the dabblings of itinerant cat monks, who used fecal compositions as trail posts for other members of their clans. The art flowered with the ballooning of the silk trade in the early 1600's, as a growing merchant class took to domesticating cats in increasing numbers - no longer nomadic, cat monks could craft elaborate arrangements, overtaking yards and sometimes entire houses with dazzling mazes of
excrement. During China's Cultural Revolution, however, many of the greatest Gardens were obliterated, simply thrown out in the trash like so much unwanted poop. However, Wei "Willy" Tso, one of the great modern Litter practitioners, escaped to America with his owner, bringing his art with him. Litter Gardens have become an obsession of American cats ever since.

Loxley's Box, as his friends call it, makes ample reference to Tso's style - there are tumbling, asymmetric urine cascades, thoughtful canyons where the litter has been scratched down to bare plastic, the occassional congealed fleck of baking soda. Urine and feces are placed with such exquisite care as to be almost indistinguishable, a feat last accomplished in the 18th Century gardens of cat-monk Chow-Hsiu Lo. But the departures from the classical tradition are startling, drawing on modern sculpture and even a sense of the absurd. In one corner, dried fecal matter nestles agaist freshly laid stool, emphasizing not only the transience of the Nine Lives but also the sublime ridiculousness of the very act of shitting. It is this willingness to break new ground that has felines coming daily to admire Loxley's compositions, to bask in the sights and smells of an authentically Zen experience.

While this latest installation has been a great success, Loxley is not content to rest on his laurels. When asked about future projects, he responded, "Meew meow mrow...meep...meep, meep!" In this columnist's opinion, it is a shame that so many Litter Gardens have remained in private residences, away from public eyes and noses. As Loxley so eloquently puts it, more exposure for these beautiful works of art would allow us all a moment to stop and smell the feces.

Bad Chinese Food:

This is a review I wrote of a restaurant near my place of business. I interviewed all the people quoted and everything.

Bad Chinese Food Curdles City Souls
by Noah Burger

As 8th avenue snakes its way though the chaos of midtown, this normally placid boulevard transforms into something of a war zone. Delis, snack shops, and restaurants battle for attention, flashing neon signs and folded menus in a daily, desperate grab for customers. Competition is fierce, and Darwinian logic rules. Eateries that cannot supply the most immediate needs of their customers quickly wither away, only to be replaced within seconds by the next Gyro grill or pizza parlor. Needless to say, maintaining a food business on 8th Avenue is difficult. It comes as a surprise, then, that See-Yao Takeout, a modest Chinese dive between 48th and 49th, has managed not only to stay afloat, but to thrive. A surprise because their food, by all accounts, is consistently and unapologetically bad.

"The food is terrible," says Wanda Abrams, who works as a senior administrator in the office building next door, "I mean, how hard is it to screw up Kung Pao Chicken? But these guys butcher it every time." Melissa Ahlman, a co-worker of Ms. Abrams, concurrs. "I don't eat Chinese food," says Ahlman, "but if I did, I certainly wouldn't order from See-Yao. Or maybe I would. I don't know." Noel Burger, a courier in connection with Ms. Ahlman's office, agreed. "When I order steak and onions, I like it to be, y'know...good," he said. "These guys cook their onions stiff, and their steak soggy. I mean come on!"

The outcome of such a situation would seem obvious: See-Yao, which cannot meet even the most basic needs of its customers, should fold up like a paper krane. However, in an enigma that defies all laws of supply-and-demand economics, the restaurant not only remains open, but popular, at least according to statistics: See-Yao prepares over 500 meals a day, most of them for return customers.

"Sure it sucks," says Caity Vichon, an administrative assistant who works with Mr. Burger, "But it's right next door! If I want better Chinese, I have to walk all the way to 9th avenue. Not in these heels, mister!" Jack Monteverdi, Ms. Vichon's co-worker, feels similarly. "I get nauseous every time I eat there," he moans, "But for some reason I keep going back. Why is that?"

Why indeed. While many scientists have studied the phenomenon of mass hypnosis and popular delusion, no official study has been conducted of the effect some epicuriologists have recently labeled "General Tso's Suggestion," the paradoxical power of bad Chinese restaurants to encourage, rather than discourage, the patronage of local customers. Tso's Suggestion, it has been postulated, mostly effects office workers, although locals living in apartments above bad Chinese restaurants may also be at risk.

"We have yet to study Tso's Suggestion in detail," says Dr. Martin Schultzer, a leading epicuriologist at Columbia University, "but if I were to put forward a hypothesis, I'd say it boils down to convenience. People just don't want to have to walk very far to eat, even if it means eating food that sucks. They know it sucks. They can taste it. They're just plain lazy."

Most patrons find the experience of ordering at See-Yao soul killing. "I get depressed every time I go in there," says Isheh Beht, a professional assistant who freelances for Dr. Schultzer on Wednesdays, "It smells funny, there are flies all over the place, and the counter is always greasy. Plus they've got ferrets living under their cash-register, and that can't be sanitary." Despite her feelings on the decor, however, Ms. Beht grudgingly admits she still orders from See-Yao every week. "Force of habit, I guess," she says.

Still, it cannot be said that everyone is depressed by See-Yao's poor fare. Patrick Sims, a local subway performer and Ms. Ahlman's assistant, had this to say, "I think their being bad is actually an asset. If I'm gonna be perfectly honest here, I gotta say that I like bad Chinese food. Bad Chinese is something you can count on. Nothing is certain in New York - this city is a battleground! Since moving here from California, I've lost my hearing, my sight in one eye, six teeth, and had my appendix removed illegally. See-Yao might be bad, but it's DEPENDABLY bad. I know what I'm getting when I walk in there."

Last night's adventure wasn't really an adverture where I went out and did stuff. It was an adventure had in the comfort and safety of my darkened kitchen. I say darkened because not one, but two floodlight lightbulbs had blown, leaving nearly half of the cozy studio in a sort of grey, poorly lit dusk. The first bulb had blown last week, and leisurely procrastination had kept me getting up and doing anything about it. The second, however, shorted out with a little pinging sound the night before last, and I grew determined to replace them both in one fell swoop.

The first step in accomplishing this task was to go buy the bulbs. Easy enough. Instead of riding the 6 to my usual 77th street stop on my way home from work, I hopped off at 68th street, so that I could walk past the rows of convenience stores on 2nd avenue, and so pick up some bulbs. One thing I forgot to mention - I had scoped out the blown bulbs from the kitchen floor, and it looked like they said 40W, 120V. In hindsight, this not only makes no sense (who buys a 40W, 120V bulb?), but could also have been more accurately achieved by standing on the kitchen counter. At the time, however, I didn't think much of it - a crucial mistake, one that came to haunt me as I stood in the kitchen just a day later.

I stopped in at the Eckert on 68th street and 2nd avenue. I could have gone to the Genovese or That Other Store, both of which are closer to the apartment. But I figured, I'm here, I might as well get the bulbs now. So I got the bulbs - three 45W, 120V floodlights (one spare). Perfect, I thought. Now all I gotta do is install them.

Flash forward 20 minutes later. I'm perilously balanced on the kitchen counter, wobbling up on my toes like an untrained ballerina. I extend my hand to grab hold of the middle bulb, the one over the stove, when I make another crucial mistake: I look at the bulb up close. Ignorance of the bulb's true wattage would have resulted in adequately-lit bliss, but bliss was not to be my fate. If only I didn't know how to read, didn't have eyes to see the horror dangling in front of me. If only all the bulbs in the apartment had blown, so as not to light the numerals and digits spelling out the true wattage of my despair. The bulbs were 120W, 120V. On the stovetop, I sank from my toes to my heels and cursed.

This would require a trip back to Eckert. But while I'm already up here, I thought to myself, I might as well unscrew the dead bulbs. Easier said than done. Each bulb was filmed with a pattina of dust, which, as I grabbed it, congealed into a gray slime on my now sweaty fingers. My forearm worked, my calves strained, but to no avail. From the vain, grasping gestures of my hand, it was as if I was trying to lay hold of a soapy breast - digits extended, their tips slowly converging on a rounded target, only to slip off and crash together like jammed typewriter armatures. I was panting. This required assistance.

I got down from the counter, and grabbed a rubber glove from under the bathroom sink. Surely, this would enhance my grip, and I could easily twist the bulbs to my will. But only partly. Using the glove, I did unscrew the bulbs. But goddamn, it was hard work. The glove improved my grip only marginally, and by some curse of rust or residue the middle bulb refused to come undone. Unable to turn it by simple left-right means, I had to rock it back and forth, up and down, all while turning it with one hand, grasping the cabinet next to me for dear life with the other, and trying not to lose my footing on the
slippery stove-top surface. Finally, the bulb came unscrewed. I wept with relief.

Then, of course, came the task of exchanging the wrong bulbs for the right bulbs at Eckert. After my battle with the light fixtures, I was very weak, but I decided to make the 7 block journey just the same. Who wants to spend the night in an ill-lit kitchen? Customer service at Eckert proved surprisingly helpful, even finding me a third 120W, 120V bulb when I could only locate two (I wanted an extra). I paid the $3.79 difference, and began my odyssey back to the apartment.

The saga of installing the new bulbs was a trial, a passion play, a battle of wills. Man vs. Machine encapsulated in my efforts to screw in that middle bulb. The other bulb? Went in fine, no muss no fuss. I flicked the switch, and bang, let there be light, I am God. But that middle socket...that middle socket did not wish to be mastered. Thrusting the ridged end of my new 120W, 120V floodlight into it's rusted cavity, I could feel it squirm with discomfort, close it's legs to the incoming phallus of my freshly purchased fixture. It whined and cursed as I twisted the bulb this way and that, trying desperately to lock it in so that the illusive mistresss, illumination, could once again be mine. The screw took hold, and I jumped down from the counter. "Submit!" I shouted as I hammered the light switch. Nothing. Cold where there should have been heat, darkness where there should have been light. The other two kitchen bulbs burned with the brilliance of a thousand suns, but the middle light sat dormant, gray and lifeless like a bloated corpse.

I leapt up onto the counter. I would not be defeated by this recalcitrant socket! It would bend to my strength, open itself to my rent-paying authority! I grasped the bulb in my rubber-gloved hand, twisted and pushed, panted, sweat, grunted, howled. But with every return jump down to the light switch, the bulb did not fire. Like Job, I rent my clothes and tore my hair.

Then I had an idea. I grabbed the spare bulb. Without much trouble, I unscrewed the current middle bulb. It remained dark in my hand, and I set it aside. I quickly said a prayer, and then drove the spare bulb home. It spun in perfectly, and I dove for the light switch, flicking it in triumph as the middle bulb sprang to life, the socket singing with joy as its teeth wrapped around it's new mate! The kitchen became a paradise, every appliance and surface sparkling with the divine radiance of my new floodlight bulbs! I danced in celebration, picked up Robin and tossed him in the air, shouted with joy!

It was right around that time that one of the living room bulbs blew, this one without a counter beheath it to stand on. I'm going to need a ladder for this one...

Whoever's reading this, I hope y'all are having fun, wherever you are.