A description of the locals at Brighton Beach…
And who are these worthy patrons? It is such a bewildering place. There are people ordering $95 servings of caviar and bottles of champagne, yet they dress like they shopped at PoundStretchers circa 1987. Walking the streets of Brighton Beach you see some outlandish sites. There are shops that sell both CD walkmans and fur coats, the only thing these two items have in common, as far as I can see, is their obsolescence. There are testosterone-addled men driving SUVs, windows wound down, blasting ballad music as if it was hip-hop. There are fifty-year-old woman with shock orange hair, faces sewn tight, sitting on park benches, polluting everyone’s airspace with boom boxes. Young Russian wide boys drag their dolly birds by the hand whilst talking shipments and quantities into their cell-phones. Pretty scary stuff.
I can walk around Chinatown at midnight and not feel the slightest bit out of place, but I feel like I am on an alien world at Brighton Beach at noon.
(From Simon’s Brain)
It sounds a lot like two Russian towns I lived in, Novgorod and Kazan. Maybe that’s why I love Brighton Beach so much. And why Simon’s Brain hates it…
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This is why I love NY. There are so many irrational people, places, situations…
I saw one huge chubby russian guy on the beach feeding birds with bread. I was watching his anime looking body, his slip suit, his face staring at the birds, sky, whatever, and taking his pictures while he was throwing lil pieces of bread. At some point he started eating the bread…
Yes baby! that’s what I’m talkin about.
CK
I’ve lived here my entire life and i still can’t speak russian. I’ve lived here all my life and i’m still amazed when I see a woman pull up in a mercedes and pay for groceries with food stamps.