The Glory of Brooklyn

Brooklyn was in its fullest glory yesterday, a rare shiny day after a bravely slogged-through winter. While Gary finished drawing the invite I ventured out, new IPod (now dubbed “Habibi”) freshly loaded with music from South Asia and the Middle East, to get the bus to Brooklyn Chinatown.

The B16 bus, which stops a block from our apartment, traverses most of 13th Avenue, the main drag of Boro Park. Boro Park is one of Brooklyn’s “throwback neighborhoods ” — there, I feel as if I have been thrown back several decades in history. It is populated mostly by orthodox Jews, and the shops (whose names all seem to be terrible puns) sell judaica, stockings with seams, wigs, and kosher comestibles.

This Sunday was special, because not only was the weather friendly and luminous, but it was Purim as well! Purim is, roughly speaking, the Jewish Hallow’een. Children and adults get dressed up in silly costumes (which to me is especially interesting given that orthodox Jews have to wear what is to me an odd costume every day — in fact I often fantasize about wearing a (male) Labuvitcher ((sp?)) outfit on Hallow’een, complete with beard and circular mink hat).

Some of the costumes I saw from the bus window yesterday:

an adult man dressed in a NY Yankees uniform, with the Yankees logo painted on his bearded face

Hello Kitty

a jester

a smiley face

a tiny little (scary) Bozo-the-clown

a super-fat person

a kid in a red fez

a teenage girl wearing something shocking pink and a shocking pink pillbox hat

lots of kids dressed up as old people

and of course all the characters from the Purim story — lots of little Queen Esthers, King Ahaseuruses (sp?), and nasty nasty Hamans with big moustaches.

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I’m certain that if I were a real Jew Purim would be my favorite holiday.

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The bus took me to Chinatown, where I ate fish and rice and string beans for three dollars, then went on a little shopping spree, all the while listening to Geeta Dutt and Nagat and Egyptian dance remixes.

With a fabulous pair of black Mary Janes with six inch platform heels, an embroidered skirt, some chicken legs, spinach, and long purple eggplants, I returned home in a kind of bliss of overstimuli and multi-culti-inundation.

Brooklyn ZINDABAR!