Switching up my usual city rat beat (here & here) to bring you a pigeon situation that has hit very close to home. Karan was the first to realize all the twigs and bird poop on our stairs were coming from a pigeon that had started to build a nest in the alcove above our front door. The next night, I came home to what seemed like a badly injured bird, sitting with a bum leg on our stoop. Eventually, it made its way into our defunct mailbox and our very active group chat started debating how to manage our new pet.
The Wild Bird Fund (“NYC's only wildlife rehabilitation and education center, caring for injured, sick and orphaned birds and small mammals 7 days a week”) suggested we wrangle the pigeon into a shoebox with air holes poked in the lid, strap it into the backseat of an $80 Uber and shoot it up to the Upper West Side. The last text they sent to Julia ominously read, “In all likelihood, you are his best hope.” We were all ready to go for it (Julia with the box, Catherine with the rubber gloves, Mike and I with the moral support) but then thought better of it.
Its mate kept flying back and forth above us, keeping a protective eye on its partner while still industriously building out the nest. Pigeons mate for life and once they pick a partner to raise their chicks with, they stay together year after year. We decided to let the bird be in our mailbox, where it hung out for most of the day. Eventually it found its own way out, no human assistance required. A good reminder to do less. The nest however is still very much a hub of activity, so stay tuned…
It’s been making me think about the Duke Riley show Noah and I went to see back in 2016, a whole era ago. The artist had trained 2,000 pigeons to soar above the Navy Yard, with tiny LED lights strapped to their legs where they once wore bands that carried messages. The flock would light up the sky like constellations or fireworks as the light faded over the East River. The performance was called Fly By Night, and I’ve never since anything like it before or since.
Tribeca Festival (they dropped the Film in between) has been underway and my two favorites so far have both been documentaries about Black female artists… but that’s where the similarities end. Cypher, a music documentary about the phenomenon that is rapper Tierra Whack, is actually part of the U.S. Narrative Competition (where it won Best Film yesterday!) Its fictional horror movie twist ends up being a clever meditation on eyeballs and visibility - best to go into it not knowing anything else beyond that.
The day afterwards, I read the article on MrBeast, who has amassed one of the biggest followings on YouTube for absurdly altruistic videos like “1,000 Blind People See for the First Time.” In an 8min supercut, he pays for 1,000 cataract surgeries through his subscribers, as each view ups his channel’s profits. The piece talks about “a media-studies concept called the “audience commodity,” the idea that media consumption is essentially a form of labor, because people spend time creating a valuable commodity — an audience — that is then sold to advertisers.”
The other documentary that rocked me to my core is Invisible Beauty, and not just because friend and neighbor Paul (coincidentally the first person to introduce me to Tierra Whack’s music) produced the hell out of it. Frédéric Tcheng co-directed it with Bethann Hardison, the subject of the film. It’s about her life as a model, turned agent, turned activist, turned writer, always advocating for diversity on the runway and beyond.
The film is bookended by phone calls with her co-director as they talk about how the movie should open, and later on what the ending should be, given just how full her life is. She’s remarkably clear-eyed and honest to a fault, whether it’s about calling out racism, struggling to repair her relationship with her estranged son or dreaming about the production that will be her future funeral. She’s alive and well right now, and very much ready to receive her flowers. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room as she got a standing ovation and a deeply loving Q&A.
Manu left me a voice note counting down the days till our beloved public pools reopen (13!). In the meantime I am feasting my eyes on this Instagram account - “in a world where pools outnumber ppl ⚡️pools not cops.” Take my breath away.
Two big New York wins: delivery workers got a raise and mandatory composting is coming! The labor group Los Deliveristas Unidos has been working tirelessly for years now on behalf of the 60,000 app-based delivery workers in New York to raise their minimum wage. Starting next month, they’ll get $17.96 an hour (plus tips), up from their current average of $7. That said, Comptroller Brad Lander, who sponsored the 2021 legislation in the council, tweeted: “But let's be clear: This ruling comes six months late and $3 short after City Hall gave in to the lobbying of billion dollar delivery app companies.”
I was first introduced to city composting when I met Mike eleven years ago and he would haul his frozen bag of compost on the subway from his Brooklyn apartment to the Union Square Greenmarket, back then the only drop-off site. Since moving in together, we’ve gone through a range of better options, from a compost tumbler in our backyard, to dropping it off at our local farmer’s market since the program expansion, to currently putting it in our building’s designated brown bin as part of curbside composting. The "zero waste" bills also aim to divert all recyclables and organic waste away from landfills by 2030, which would be huge given that about half of all the residential waste in New York is organic material (and therefore compostable).
If you press play on any video in this letter, let it be this one. Jared shared this live duet and holy smokes, it is one of the more life-affirming things you can set your eyeballs on.
Till next time,
ASK