A tribute to the cat, Henry

I am no cat

"So you saw the man go into the door?” I was asked. 

"Yes," I replied. "He was at least 6 feet tall. He had a bag strapped to his shoulder.”

The door was the first descent on the 3 line in upper west side of New York City.  I was an innocent bystander, some say wrong place wrong time, yet many others say quite the opposite, right place right time.  I imagine you will have to be your own judge which camp you place me. 

My thoughts rumbled, reminding me of a question I had asked my father one day as a teenager, while we drove through the city. 

“Dad, are most people good at heart, or are most people bad people?"

In his young forties age wisdom he glanced over while stopped at a traffic light, 

"Andrew, your going to have to answer that yourself.”

I am still trying to address that question. Just like you now, may be judging me, at this specific time and spot, that I was wrong or was right.

The Authorities continued to ask a series of pointed interrogations.  

'Why was I standing there, where I stood on the platform?';  

'Did I notice others?';

‘When was it I was there?’; 

'How long was I present in the station?’;

Given the circumstance I was asking myself all the same questions.  It really was just a stopping point on my walk as I took time to unpack a cigarette, light it and smoke it. Innocent enough, right in January 1966?  

It is the bystander part that has peeked your curiosity, yes?

All three of us, you, and I and love want the same ... answers.  If I may be honest, and I will be, I was not scared.  I was conscious of the moment and what I witnessed, yet perhaps more fearful of the repercussions of my vivid recollections of unplanned observations.  

New York City had in the mayor's office a very recent replacement to the office, Mayor Lindsay, the Big Apple’s 103rd Mayor.  First running in the Republican persuasion and then converting to a Democrat in his second term, but that is way ahead of this tale. In the newbie world his activities were of the tall kind.  The tallest was the strike of the transit workers. The president of the union would not see the end of the 12 day walkout, the foremost negotiator, Mike Quinn. His life ended on a hospital bed before the strike’s end.

Turns out, someone has to see something and then most crucially has to say something. That someone was me. 

I generally walked the sidewalks but this particular hour I headed for the IRT 3 train on the 7th Avenue Express. Often I would duck in the subway on a cold winter’s day, ride through for a few stations and resume my walk.  This day my mood was reversed. I chose to ride the IRT 3 train to 86th street, pop up out of the stairway and continue on to 91st Street.  Just like any graffiti artist who frequented the now abandon 91st station, I knew the means to access the platform area of the 91st.  

Away from the wind and people above ground I meandered my way to the stairs. Arriving at the platform I took a quick look about. Enough light filtered various points so I could see if others were about. Often the place was also abandoned of people.  Everyone seems to had forgotten the station in a few short half dozen or so years since its closure. 

True too, no ads were posted above ground suggesting a quiet sanctuary existed below.  Quiet much of the time, the trains still passed through here many times a day, but the passengers rarely if ever noticed the station. Only the passing trains brought wind through the tunnel while subway cars passed to and fro. 

For me, this vaulted space was one large monastic cell, and for a time mostly mine. 

Alone, warm, secluded, most of the city noise abated, seemingly secure, I entered to smoke a cigarette peaceably without interference from mother nature or my own species.  This was not an everyday occurrence but an occasional respite from the normalcy of the day to day wheel of life. 

Life in which that same normalcy demanded concession, sometimes resistance, once in a while, even revolt. Not being an anarchist or a revolutionary, I settled for sheltered puffs of cigarette smoke in a concealed municipal organ placed on some sort of urban morphine drip.

1966 was a pre “911” era by a year or two. I speak here about the national emergency call system.  The fact remains, phone or no phone, this platform had no active line of communication to the metropolis above me, as much as at one specific moment presented itself, to me, did. 

As I lit up three matches struck on the matchbox I carried, a magnified reflection bounced across the tracks from the south bound platform off the glazed tiles, illuminating a shadowy human figure, in a large trench coat, stooped over something or other.  Just what the coat  hid had been put out of my sight lines, and I could not say.  Although startled, I was not afraid for I did not jump or scream or really move at all.  

The person across the way did not jump out of their skin either, but I sensed assuredly the mortal was surprised, to the point of exiting the platform, for certainly my sudden appearance did not put the man to ease.  The only perceived difference from when I had seen the same man earlier from the sidewalk above, was the bag that had been strapped to his shoulder was then left behind, in a small alcove along the platform wall. 

I could not attribute any physical marks of the exiting six foot male, for dimness, distance and time did not allow a closer inspection of the hand or facial features.  The mysterious character removed himself abruptly from the lower portion of the station.

My thought reminisced strangely in that moment on the proverbial ‘care will kill a cat’.  I said to myself,

“I am no cat”.

In the event this human, me, was killed, I added the mental retort, ‘but satisfaction brought it back’, then freely and without any second guessing I headed to the stair crossing the four tracks to the other side.

I carried a flashlight when I knew my destination may be dark.  On arrival to the other side, at the bag placed on the floor, I turned on the beam of white light and directed its stream to the bulky bag. The content did not reveal itself, nor, did it give any sign it would do so of its own accord. I gently kicked the pouch. A sound emanated from within.  

I listened.

With the precision of a metronome the interior contraption produced an audible tick, with a constant interval that led me to think of a few possibilities, and one unspeakable thought was the worse. This enclosure might contain a timed detonation device. I may not have believed I was a cat, but I surely acted as if curiosity had overtaken my behavior.  I kneeled on both knees, turning the right ear toward the sound.  I confirmed the tick tock was indeed coming from inside.

Now would have been the time to say a quick prayer and leave with Godspeed.

For better or worse I unloosed a leather strap, then a second. Slowly lifting the flap with straps, up, pulling back the flap far enough to gaze into what was making the sound, I careened.  An alarm clock with wires emerging from the rear were present. So too were four tube like, black taped cylinders.  Buried a little further in the bag was another fitment, connected it seemed to the wires of the clock, and small lights blinked alternately red, and yellow, and green.  

Blink, tick, blink, tock, blink, blink tick, blink, tock, blink continued the sequence. Then some internal warning in my mind sprang with urgency, launching me to an upright orientation with bearings signaling a prompt exit.

Upward and out, I ran.

With pause, once seeing the sky, I considered my next action.  All the experiences of the past minutes made mental acuity necessary.  Flashing simultaneously through the opinion patterns were the newspaper stories regarding the mass transit workers strike and strife.  

Had I stumbled on disruption? 

Was this a message waiting to be sent, via a pending explosion?

Why 91st Street?

The only recourse that seemed appropriate was to contact some symbol of authority and share my experience. I did act. Questions from the Authorities ensued.

Was I in the wrong place at the wrong time, or conversely, was I in the right place at the right time?  What say ye?

The transit strike ended a few days later.  I never heard any details from the Authorities of the investigation regarding the bag, contents, or the 91st Street station platform.

I have always imagined this unexpected find in a shuttered subway station, had in some way brought resolution to a strike that may have continued much longer and violently than it did for those 12 days in January of 1966.  It ended, peace prevailed, violence was avoided. Had that bag exploded, if indeed it was designed to do so, no good would have come from it. Perhaps by an act of observation, evil was stilted that day, or not.  

People and time come and go, good and evil have a character trait of omnipresence.

The End

© 2017

This story was submitted in March of 2017 for the WNYC historical fiction challenge.  

This is a quick fun interactive weekend read. 

What do you think happened in January 1966?

Can humanity save itself from humanity?

Today is the day after blasts occurred in Seaside Park, New Jersey and the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York.  The authorities are at work looking for the minds of criminal intent, and agents are pondering the thinking of the acts, planning of the deeds, and the executing of the cruelty on humans.  The criminals hours, free of captivity are suredly numbered. Cameras, witnesses, perpetrator(s) boasting, makes capture of disruptive brainpower imminent.   

The Chelsea blast last evening occurring about 8:30 PM EDT, happened while I sat in the apartment, affectionately known as 'The Palace', in the neighboring borough of Brooklyn, with my sleeping grandson, and aided by an audible in tune baby monitor, his crib a few steps away. His parents were attending a theatrical event close enough to the blast zone to have to alter their planned path home. Yes, be it as it may, today the sights of both boroughs were active with busy streets and September Sunday hubbub. I think though it was not as so much normal as yesterday's normality.  Walking the streets of both Manhattan and Brooklyn earlier, I sensed the souls occupying the bustling bodies, subconsciously or otherwise, had 'what's next' on their minds.

How is it after all my years, and millennia of a race cultivating powers of peaceful thought, we as a species cannot persuade some people on the powers of calm comprehension amongst brother and brothers, sister and sisters, drenching each with the knowing of the dignity and tranquility of mixed sexes, of colored hair, of skin color, keen to a fact multitudes of shape and size can coexist freely? Are we all not spirits delivered from our mother's love vessel? Are the distractions of worldliness so occupying we dispel our truistical quests? Can not the sages of antiquity, the sacred scriptures of religions, the peering intellects of youth, the mothers of the world, persuade ourselves the urgency of peace?

My questions to myself add to my own uneasiness of venturing into Manhattan in the morning rush hour, having now an apprehensiveness to say the least, walking to an office building between 6th and 7th Avenues, slightly north of 23rd and 27th streets, the same avenues where blast and explosives detonated and were found.  Pondering ... so many evils beset the world presently inhabited by us, the humans.  My teenage inquisitive spouting to my father, "Dad, are most people good or are they bad?", sadly some days suggests to the later, sprinkled without complete lost hope, I may be misconceiving conditions. I dare not suggest any of this musing to our grandchildren, for to do so would so would be a grave muse. 

Contrary, I need inspiration of clarity of purpose and direct action to counter the #onemoreevilman syndrome people find themselves the world over.  I carry in this inner soul and spirit, beautiful, strong and joyful thoughts of zoetic space, a means to continually create a peaceful society, free from the corrupted forces constantly hurting us.

As I have done many times in the not so distant past, I peer westerly, out my upper floor window, to the left "Lady Liberty", to the right "The One World, Trade Center and Lower Manhattan" and ask myself, "which symbol is your heart's desire to emulate?". The answer for me is always the same. 

The symbol described as "Liberty Enlightening the World" isn't as easy to imitate going about life's work, play and study as it may appear with torched hand a blazed.  A bay away, from the 'Freedom Tower' one hears sad and crude notes clanging from the super tall spy tower fraught with a kind-less commerce below, unsuitable for the mass of seven plus billion, and a crying climate.  A symbol foreign to the deepest emotions, thought consciousness, and sacred signals, I maintain the tower is not a desired choice.  

I choose life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and unto my dying breath, more for you than for me.  In the world's attempts to silence life, the universe has trumpeted a joyous unending confirmation, that assures me, the blast of one more evil man will ultimately be squelched. We will walk with our grandchildren's children with confidence, and say to them, the menace of mad men have been transformed by persuasion to live with an enlightened stature. We can save ourselves from ourselves.

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“Whaddya want—an egg in your beer?"

"Engage a ★ beta tester?" you ask. Why yes, you are right.

ArchiCAD is the beer, and, the ★ beta tester is the egg. 
When it comes to ArchiCAD, that exactly is an advantage. 

Much of the commercially upgraded software in the world, runs through periodic alpha testing and then a subsequent beta testing. Beta testing will be performed often by the end user of a particular software to 'get the kinks out'.

The code written for software, which consist of commands, routines, and subroutines, in a specific computer language, (or shall we say a language the computer can interpret to its own language of zeros and ones) generally need editing, not unlike an architect's design.  The computer code may have errors, be flawed, cause crashes.

Meanwhile, you are confident the Firm needs an upgrade from the current CADD system, but how is the software alone going to provide more profit, such that the Firm reaches an advantage above the relentless AEC industry competition ?

That is where a consultant can assist you. One by creating multi-story and single story floor ArchiCAD template files. Two, using a series of in-house customized and defined tool favorites. "Favorites" that can be collected and comprised from the specific standards the Firm already uses, and has in the current electronic files. Beta-tested.

The ★ beta tester, in the case of ArchiCAD, examines a myriad of  issues, from hardware related bugs that are within hot-links, exported files, hardware configurations, to the appearance and functional bugs, to the ultimate profit stopper, "freezes and crashes". 

A ★ beta tester's prized assistance can allow the user to create and document, her/his design more efficiently, resulting in potential prosperity for the Firm. With the benediction of the beta testers' embedded value, across time zones if need be, you may gain perks, formerly unrealized, until receiving this help.

 

Orientation Matters.  Potential prosperity for the Firm ? 

For instance, your Firm may be developing interior oriented, typical, metal or wood frame wall details. Imagine if the strategy is to fully develop these details not only in plan, but also in section and three dimensions (3D). 

Utilizing ArchiCAD Basic, Composite, and Complex Profile wall structures, residing in client’s Standard Wall Details named Files with put the users into an interstate speed zone. 

Graphisoft sought to test features in ArchiCAD 19 like the Tab Bar and Mac User interface.  As a long time Mac user, this interface feature really held this author's interest, and has become a MacBook Pro blessing.

Dimensions and Labels will definitely assist the end user providing countless assets, by way of help of you turning to an egg in your beer, the ★ beta-tester.

One thinks that the 'Surface Painter' AC 19 feature may become the most widely used incorporated routine, because of how good it is, just like gravy on the grits.  

The there are other Surface Area and Scheduling bonuses for you to use as well. IFC Enhancements for Firm wide welfare, positive, forward thinking changes.

The ★ beta tester informs how these processes can be incorporated.  

Keeping up with the competition "point clouds" are to be a hallmark in the 30 year old ArchiCAD software and will allow users the ability to compete and to create complete buildings from the imported vertical surveys.

Let this ★ beta tester know the worth of the Door/Window Settings User interfaces and improvements to Guide Lines by giving to him your account. 

Your testimonial may be the one he uses in his next blog piece. One long time ArchiCAD user who is fond of decrying the use of 'guidelines', may reverse his stand, after a few minutes of this drafting and design aid.

Worth the weight in Fort Knox gold is the Firms standardized Master Objects Library developed, then sometimes attached to the Master Template File via interactive legends, with creation ArchiCAD “objects" tools.

Comprehensive use of ArchiCAD zone tool can be useful to design for any facility, site or zoning condition.

Let the cream come to the top, while incorporating commonly used furniture pieces, imported from AutoCAD 3D files, to reside as ArchiCAD objects in a Master Furniture Library for your the client flavor of the day. 

A ★ Beta Tester does not fix a software defect, but is more than qualified to address work-flow to produce a project from concept test fits, to bid ready documents, for a complete ArchiCAD building information model database.

A ★ Beta Tester can demonstrate the advantage and necessary extras of ArchiCAD BIMx Hyper-models created and posted for client use on Graphisoft BIMx transfer site. 

Example BIMX Hyper-model shown here Use a hand held device to retrieve and review 2D plans.

A ★ beta tester deploys direction for use with ArchiCAD Cine-Renderer images which can be shown to be a godsend,  created for clients. 

S/he may use ArchiCAD Renovation Status, and, Trace and Reference Tools, extensively. You can too.

Some ★ beta testers help harness the boon to a firm to use ArchiCAD MEP Modeler assisting in creating a “Construct-ability” model, to correct clashes and conflicts like the computer programmer fixes crashes and defects.

This ★ beta tester created Near Net-0 Evaluation of prototypical super insulated enclosure structure,  knowing the ends and outs pressing into service  ArchiCAD's Eco-Designer.   Note the video file below,  contains sampling of a basic fly-around using onboard ArchiCAD commands.

The best ★ beta tester will have produced a Firm wide, adapt-able BIM ArchiCAD protocol form. Avail yourself to the form. Have the protocol form delivered directly to your email account, upon your request, from ★ Michael Scarmack, AIA ★.  (Click on name for email address.)

Scarmack has been listed by GRAPHISOFT as one of the top 20 of beta testers, world-wide, for ArchiCAD 19 Beta Testing, in June 2015.

Read & React, Know and Act, Think & Do

From Pope Francis recent Encyclical LAUDATO IS ' (Praised be 'me' Lord) :

" 13. The urgent challenge of protecting our common home understands the concern to unite the whole human family in the search for sustainable development and integral, for we know that things can change. "

And....

from Naomi Klein's recent commencement address at the College of the Atlantic, 'Climate Change Is a Crisis We Can Only Solve Together':

"We can only meet this tremendous challenge together. As part of a massive and organized global movement."

It is in "our union with God" (prayer) that the message of this movie 'In the Hills and Hollows' and the movie itself finds it presentation in every congregation about the world, be that Catholic or Protestant, Secular or Nonreligious, Jewish or Scientologist, Shitte or Sunni,  Agnostic or Atheist, Hindi or primal-indigenous, Buddhist or Chinese, African or Diasporic, Sikh or Tenrikyo, Juche or Spiritism, Baha'i or Jainism, Shinto or Cao Dai, Zoroastrianism or Rastafarianism, Pagan or Unitarian that all collective communities arise and refuse ecological exploitation on all earthlings evermore.

#Ban #Fracking #Globally #Now

The buildings are faceless, contrary to their corporate standing, lawless grey and black acts emerging from their corporate voices, leading #earth to tortuous days and nights of heat and hell.