On public spectacles and marketing genocides

David Blaine takes the cake for weird sight of the day along my walk up the west side from Tribeca yesterday (Sunday). I'm not really sure why I'm adding to his PR with this picture. He's already enough of a public spectacle with his spot in the middle of Lincoln Center (for the week) in addition to getting the front page of Sunday's NYT. Symbolically though, I think his week of waterlogged semi-nudity for all to see makes it feel like summer has arrived.

The honor for weird sight of the week goes not to him, but to the tallest woman I've ever seen... who I happened to be walking a few feet behind on Wednesday. I wish I'd had my camera with me then. I was on my lunch break from jury duty in Downtown Brooklyn when I saw her. She must have been 7 feet tall. She was just walking down Court Street talking with her friend -- who she totally dwarfed. She made Minute Bol look short. And I'd just seen him the weekend before. He was one of the speakers at the Darfur rally in DC. Obama was there too. Neat speakers, but I was a bit surprised that the people in attendance were almost all Jews. Yes it must be easier to market a genocide cause to Jews, but that's such a lame explanation.