Crazy Stable

We didn't make it to the Mermaid Parade on Saturday, but met these tired and happy mermaids on the train that evening; they insisted the eternal rain had not dampened spirits one bit. Last Friday, the rain spared Coney Island for the opening game of the Cyclones (below--they even won, despite our presence, which usually acts as a powerful jinx). We love going to the Cyclones, despite our rudimentary ability to follow a baseball game; there are Nathan's hot dogs, beach breezes and sunsets, the mighty eponymous coaster itself looming in the distance, and lots of silly stunts between innings. It feels like a Brooklyn family gathering, and nobody on the field looks like they're using steroids or being paid like junk-bond kings.

Brooklyn, as Mark Helprin has observed, is infinite; so, apparently, is Coney Island, if you explore beyond the hotly contested nexus of the rides and boardwalk.  A few days ago, I discovered another strange outland when I drove Daughter to a track meet in Kaiser Park, described by the Parks Department as "the perfect combination of beach fun and beauty combined with the functionality of a landlocked park." On this afternoon, with storm clouds again lowering, it was more like a strange dreamscape, one that began with a trip down Neptune Avenue, a stretch of car-repair joints so desolate that it brought Willets Point to mind.

The park has a gorgeous track thanks to an ongoing multi-million dollar restoration, but on this day, it was nearly deserted except for a handful of basketball players. From this shrugged shoulder of Coney Island, one actually looks out north to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Above, some guys had pitched a little tent on the shore, where they were relaxing. One had arrived by tricycle and another brought his dog, all sharing a peaceful, post-apocalyptic vibe.

The inlet between Coney and the mainland is studded with a few rotting docks and barges, and the beach is an inaccessible swath of boulders studded with strange cast-offs. A guy in dreadlocks fished off the concrete pier; blues and stripers are caught there, he said, although not, that day, by him. Further along the shoreline, abandoned shopping carts and garbage cans stood like sculptures.

Nature emerged at the fringes, too. I don't know if this grass is an ornamental or an invasive weed, but its pattern is fantastic. On the rocks, the milkweed bent over in the wind, ready to burst open and welcome the monarch butterflies.

Daughter had gamely signed up for track, and we did the "thunderstorm-coming" sprint back to the car to return to our own planet of Flatbush through the orbit of Neptune.

I've been grappling lately with the structural and fiscal reality that the CrazyStable will never be completely "done" (as in "renovated"). This brings me smack up against all the competing value systems one could apply to one's home. Was it a good investment? Does it impress our friends and neighbors? Does it make our family safe and happy?

And then there's another metric: Is it a good Totoro house?

For those unfamiliar with the classic film My Neighbor Totoro by Japanese animation genius Hayao Miyazaki, it's the story of two little girls who move into a rambling, mysterious country house, populated by scrabbling little sootballs and shy, delightful creatures called totoros. These chubby, protective sprites can only be seen by children, and the director presents the ramshackle home matter-of-factly as a dream come true for curious kids. The girls' house reminds me, not just of the CrazyStable, but of the house I grew up in, where I explored the weedy wild places and my imagination ran wild; daughter loves the Totoro house, and ours, with the same unreasoning passion.

The movie's magical setting was recreated for a recent World's Fair in Japan, and if I'd had the money I'd have gone just for that. Maybe someday we will visit the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, a shrine to the animator's best-loved creations. Until then, I'll take Miyazaki's mission statement for it (with the word "house" substituted for "museum") for our own:

This is the Kind of House I Want to Make!

A house that is interesting and relaxes the soul

A house where much can be discovered

A house based on a clear and consistent philosophy

A house where those seeking enjoyment can enjoy, those seeking to ponder can ponder, and those seeking to feel can feel

A house that makes you feel more enriched when you leave than when you entered!

To make such a house, the building must be...

Put together as if it were a film

Not arrogant, magnificent, flamboyant, or suffocating

Quality space where people can feel at home, especially when it's not crowded

A building that has a warm feel and touch

A building where the breeze and sunlight can freely flow through

The house must be run in such a way so that...

Small children are treated as if they were grown-ups

The handicapped are accommodated as much as possible

The staff can be confident and proud of their work

Visitors are not controlled with predetermined courses and fixed directions

The house's relation to the park is...

Not just about caring for the plants and surrounding greenery but also planning for how things can improve ten years into the future

This is what I expect the house to be, and therefore I will find a way to do it

This is the kind of house I don't want to make!

A pretentious house

An arrogant house

A house that treats its contents as if they were more important than people

Adapted from Hiyao Miyazaki, (c) Museo d'Arte Ghibli

Big old Victorian houses in Brooklyn get visited a lot by TV and film location scouts, and the CrazyStable is no exception; as a scruffy background for ex-cons and mad bombers, we've been used twice by "Law & Order" and are known to be "film-friendly." So we welcomed an outreach from something called "Boy Wonder Productions," vaguely described by another scout as some sort of indie flick. They came, took pictures inside and out, and were eager to return for a closer look, so I looked up the project and discovered: We were being scouted for a renovation reality show!

No, not with Ty and the gang, alas. This looked like a shoestring outfit with just two obscure renovation shows in production, and I suspect they wanted us for an upcoming entry on the DIY Network, touchingly titled "I Hate Your House." Here, verbatim (God knows I don't write copy like this) is the description of the show on their website:

"We all know of that house. The one where you walk into a your friend's home and you are scared to sit on the couch or use the bathroom because you do not know which amenities are functional. They are nice people who have just let their house go a little too far and your too nice to tell them ---until now. The DIY Network tackles the problem homes with a little bit of attitude in the new show, I Hate Your House. Based around an intervention, our brother-sister duo, Jonathan and Nicole, will give homeowners the wake-up call that is been past due with the support of friends and family. Not only will they point out the sights that horrify friends, but they will show the homeowner how to make it look fantastic, teach them skills so they can attack the other problems in their home, and have a great time doing it. Using new and innovated products, the home will transform before the homeowner's eyes into a beautiful space that friends and family can appreciate."

"Wake-up call"? What, were they going to flush out our "horrified" friends to ambush us about those third-floor kitty-litter pans, or the part of the porch ceiling that's hanging down? And who are Jonathan and Nicole—stylish, sneering siblings from Hell who will turn the CrazyStable into a sleek McMansion? I called Boy Wonder, where a nice young lady didn't specify which show we were unwittingly auditioning for, but did allow that we would be on camera and would get "a couple of rooms renovated for free." Certain that this was our worst chance for fame since a film crew begged us to vacate on Thanksgiving Day for a Metallica music video, I said a cordial but decisive "no." (The blogging possibilities were tempting, however.)

Funny as it was, the whole affair did play perfectly into the renovator's paranoia of anyone with more old house than they can fix at any one time. We're far from sipping lemonade on the gingerbread porch while people admire our woodwork on the house tour, folks. So what do the friends and neighbors say about us when, year after year, we still can't afford to paint the place? Are we really bad enough to need an intervention from the ghastly Jonathan and Nicole?

Curiously, my paranoia morphed quickly into a fierce protectiveness. A flashback montage played in my head of all the Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas mornings, summer afternoons of 20 years; of the dear friend who made this her last home, and said, with labored breath, "Oh, it's a wonderful house." Of the many kids who have remarked in awe upon its coolness. The Caribbean neighbors who assured us, "It takes time." I thought of the life journeys of my mother and daughter and how they briefly overlapped here at one's end and the other's beginning. Thought, too, about the century of Brooklyn history that has flowed around this house, which is now piped for both gaslight and broadband. 

And that's why I'm giving a big "googie" (as Harpo called that face, above) to "I Hate Your House" and all it stands for. We'll be making strawberry shortcake inside this old house this weekend, Jonathan and Nicole, and you won't be joining us. However, my fellow renovator and hospitality guru Mr. Fawlty sends his regards...with a "little bit of attitude."

Sorry for springing this kind of thermonuclear cuteness on you with no warning. Although, frankly, nothing could prepare one for the Cute Overload of an anime-eyed sugar glider.

You can actually see these guys in person at the American Museum of Natural History's new show, Extreme Mammals, the only live exhibit among a crowd of wacky warm-blooded critters (biggest, smallest, zaniest, most unlikely appendages, etc.) Humans are extreme mammals, too, according to the curators--not because we perform absurd stunts for the Guinness Book of World Records, or get strange body piercings, or become Scientologists, but because we have large brains, sparse hair, and walk upright on two legs without hopping, as kangaroos do. (Well, okay, I've known small-brained, hirsute humans who hopped, but that was back at NYU in the Seventies.)

Want more glider? We got you covered. This little dude is much more appealing than our resident extreme CrazyStable mammal, Bagel the Squirrel, although like Bagel, he makes a metallic "crabbing" sound when irritated. Spouse reports that the museum's gliders, behind the scenes, are gregarious, clever, mischievous, and keen for the opposite sex.

My one encounter with gliders, in a scruffy Nassau County pet store that specialized in "exotics," was less sanguine. I was toying with the idea of buying some for Daughter and smuggling them back to Brooklyn (where extreme mammals are illegal unless they've got a band in Williamsburg). A slackerish cage-cleaner reached in for one, explaining, "I call 'em da Creachuhs from Hell, but dis one don't usually bite--OW!" This was followed by the death-ray chorus of four angry gliders crabbing in unison. Frankly, I couldn't blame them. (After that, we auditioned a hedgehog, which snapped into a psychotic ball when the same hireling lifted it out of its cage with a putty knife and an oven mitt. At this point, BestFriend, collapsing in mirth, pointed out that white mice were pretty darn cute and cost only a few bucks apiece--although, as I explained, We Already Had Those.)

For more--trust me, way more--than you ever wanted to know about sugar gliders, check out SugarGlider.com and their "Gliderpedia." Best are the site's home videos and message boards. Most posts are of the "my adorable sugee-babies simply love their new snackie-poos!" variety (along with tributes to sugee-babies that crossed the "rainbow bridge"), but one is basically a tough guy stuck with his ex-girlfriend's two gliders saying reluctantly to the tiny terrors, "I love you, man." The bachelor reports, "They chill with me when I'm up too late (like now) and usually beg for noodles or yogurt." Aww! Date movie script alert!

He didn't go all soft, though; he named them Chuck Norris and Bruce Willis.

All photos except Hugh mashup: American Museum of Natural History

I've always thought I'd be a wonderful chatelaine for a great, brooding manor house, just like the unnamed mistress of "Manderley" in Rebecca. In this, one of my favorite books and movies, the heroine dreams of returning to the haunted ruins of the gorgeous estate where she first arrived as a young bride.

I would have done a far better job endearing myself to the servants. (When I first fell in love with the story in high school, I swear, I had no idea that we would buy an actual ruin, with no servants, or that my mother would fulfill the role of Mrs. Danvers.)

Well, anyway, we got a taste of the real thing on a day trip to Long Island's Gold Coast last Saturday, where we poked around the Sands Point Preserve. This is Hempstead House, a Gothic pile built (rather ludicrously) in 1912 for Howard Gould, son of "robber baron" Jay Gould. After a breezy picnic, we rambled the grounds making comparisons to both Manderley and the CrazyStable.

Hempstead House has admittedly better views; a private cove on the Sound beats even our sliver of Prospect Park.

Near the cove, they've got a fine ruin (prompting me to plead to Daughter in a Cornish accent, "Please, Miss, don't send me to the asylum!" Hey, you either know the movie or you don't.) But we've got the garage, artificially aged to a decrepit cottage by the scenery crew of NBC's Law & Order!

The house has cooler lighting fixtures than ours. Bigger, too. But the Gould scion's marriage collapsed a few short years after building this pile for his "lucky" wife, whereas Spouse and I are still together, sporadically renovating.

Garage-wise, even with our NBC connection, Gould has us beat: He stabled his horses in "Castlegould," built in 1902. What, did the guy ride out in shining armor, with pennants flying?

Finally, we found something that the magnates and we had in common: rotting wood! In particular, door paneling lifting off in birch-like sheets. This is exactly what our (interior-grade) back door is doing.

It's nice to know that a crappy composite door from a cheap contractor can have something in common with Old World craftsmanship bought by millionaires, if enough neglect is applied to either one. Makes you want to go out and grab some wood putty and spar varnish doesn't it?

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge-keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited…”

Daphne DuMaurier, Rebecca (c) 1938