The Purple Mango Post

Photographs, dispatches and writing by freelance journalist Corinne Purtill

It's All You Need

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Love has been on my mind quite a bit lately, for a number of happy reasons. A few weeks ago I officially partnered up with my best friend, an occasion marked by a ridiculously joyful party attended by our favorite people. And just this weekend, two of those favorite people became engaged to each other. I'm pretty sure everyone who knows them actually blacked out for a second from pure excitement upon hearing the news. 

Thanks to Valentines Day, reality dating shows and Jim and Pam on The Office, I think we've been numbed by a saccharine-sweet version of love. The version of love dished out in popular culture is like a perfectly good peach that someone has poured that nasty Dole canned syrup all over. The real thing is a lot more complicated. It's imperfect. But it's better. 

I'll admit that I used to be among the most cynical of cynics. Now that I view things differently, I can't help but notice the revitalizing effect that a truly honest, supportive partnership has on the people in it. To avoid embarrassing anyone I know personally (or myself), I'll point instead to some of the people I write about at Shmoop. Sophia Hawthorne used to write blushingly about how great her and Nathaniel's sex life was. Leonard and Virginia Woolf were each other's best editors, fans and critics. And few people were as adorably, heartbreakingly devoted to their spouse as Mark Twain was to his beloved Olivia Clemens. After spying her photograph in her brother's ship cabin, the whiskey-swilling, blue-streak cursing, proudly iconoclastic Twain became determined to win over this soft-spoken, church-going beauty. He finally succeeded, and their partnership was by all accounts a beautiful thing to behold. 

We're not going to talk about Zelda and Scott.

So in honor of the Real Thing, I'd like to share one of my favorite Mark Twain passages. It's a letter he wrote to Olivia Langdon, shortly before she became Olivia Clemens. It's not as zingy as some of his better known works, but it's just as true and I'd guess he considered it one of the most important things he ever wrote. I hope it proves as true for Kate and Sachin as it did for Mr. and Mrs. Clemens.

This 4th of February will be the mightiest day in the history of our lives, the holiest, & the most generous toward us both -- for it makes of two fractional lives a whole; it gives to two purposeless lives a work, & doubles the strength of each whereby to perform it; it gives to two questioning natures a reason for living, & something to live for; it will give a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, a new mystery to life; & Livy it will give a new revelation to love, a new depth to sorrow, a new impulse to worship. In that day the scales will fall from our eyes & we shall look upon a new world. Speed it!
- letter to Olivia Langdon, 8 September 1869

 

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Reuse, Reduce, Re... Oh, That Is Not Where Dog Waste Goes!

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My building recycles. In the basement is a large plastic Dumpster intended for papers; next to it are three large trash cans for metal, glass and plastic. I was dutifully dragging my empty cereal boxes and weekend Times to the bins the other day and was horrified to realize that the following sign had become necessary:

"Please do not place pet waste in the recycling bin."

Pet waste! In the recycling bin! That's disgusting! And illogical! What kind of product could possibly be constructed from pet waste?! (Note to commenters: I am actually not interested in hearing ideas about the kinds of products that can be constructed from pet waste.)

It probably says something about me that I did not feel inspired to blog about my horror following the time I entered a subway car covered in human feces, nor when a woman leapt from the window next to my office. But I have really strong feelings about recycling. At our last building, when I heard from the super that items were being improperly recycled, I volunteered - volunteered - to create and post signs cheerfully pointing out NYC guidelines. When a dear friend confessed in his 25 Facebook Things that he collects recyclables that earnest guests set aside at his parties and pitches them into the trash, I was truly (briefly) horrified. (Because he is hilarious, I decided not to cut off communication.) 

I don't know why I am so uptight about this. Maybe it's because I know that I am powerless to do anything the construction of coal-fired power plants in China, or the bajillions of watts of power a single Vegas casino in burns through each night, and so I really, really want to make sure that that Dr. Pepper can makes it another life cycle. Clearly I have not decided to live off the grid. Maybe recycling is just a self-indulgent way of assuaging my guilt for not making more substantial life changes.  

Or it could be because of this story. As the environmental reporter at the Arizona Republic, I wrote frequently about trash and recycling. To stand at the edge of a landfill and watch thousands of tons of junk pour into the ground each hour is to be convinced that eventually the earth will rupture and we will all drown in a sea of used Kleenex and Pop Tart wrappers. 

To stave this off, the city of Phoenix has an excellent recycling program. Every resident is provided with a complimentary blue barrel for recyclable items. At the processing center, elaborate machinery separates the paper from the cans, the metal from the plastic. But before it goes into the machine, it all goes down a conveyor belt while human workers pluck out the unrecyclable items that have been tossed in the bins. Diapers. Lawn trimmings. Once, a human head. And yes - pet waste. 

This costs the city $1 million each year. The morning the story ran, I came into my office to find a voice mail box full of more angry calls than I have ever received on a single story. Why must I recycle? angry libertarians ranted. Why should I waste my time noting the color of my trash can? Why are these people being so choosy about my garbage? "Are we supposed to put a bow on it?" shouted one man, before slamming the phone down. I had thought the story made the simple point "Please don't try to recycle poop," but apparently some felt differently. 

So it is. People in my building will still deposit their maltipoo's waste in the recycle bin. I will keep dutifully washing out my wine bottles and separating the #7 plastic from good old #2. And the diapers will continue to roll down the conveyor belt, as somewhere a single tear rolls down Al Gore's cheek. 
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The Coolest Place to Work

Since October 2008, I have been a proud member of Paragraph, New York City's hippest writer's space. (I've also been their part-time employee, maintaining their website, monthly newsletter and other communications.) I joined Paragraph as a newly-hatched freelancer, desperate to leave the confines of an apartment that seemed to shrink with every hour I spent over my laptop. I wanted to put on real pants and go to work with the other grownups. And at the end of the day, I wanted to leave work and feel like I was coming home.

Enter Paragraph. For a very small monthly fee, writers get a cubicle in a pleasant, airy space, with Internet, free coffee and dozens of other like-minded creative office mates. It has saved my career, my relationship and my sanity. And it's one of the world's coolest working spaces! Can't argue with that.

The Brazilian newsmagazine Vitrine just did a feature on Paragraph. The back of my head is briefly visible in one of the cubicle shots (fortunately, they caught me working, not Facebooking) but it's a fun look at a day in the life of Paragraph. In Portugese, of course.

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Win Cool Stuff (oh, and support the International Center)

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One of my favorite places in the city is the International Center in New York, a cheerful office on West 23rd Street that has been welcoming immigrants to NYC since 1961. You've heard about them on this site as the host of my photography exhibit in June. Like all nonprofits these days, the center is struggling financially. Recently the center had to let go of several much-loved (and much-needed) employees in order to keep providing programs to the immigrants, students and refugees it serves. 

Their annual raffle is one of the biggest fundraisers of the year. Unlike the raffles you may remember from elementary school (gee, a carwash coupon... um, thanks?) it also has the distinction of offering prizes that people might actually want. Like the sound of an iPod touch or two plane tickets to anywhere in North America? This could be your $10 chance. 

So, should you find yourself wandering past 50 W. 23rd Street anytime soon, swing up to the 7th floor and pick up a raffle ticket ($10 for 1 ticket, or $50 for a book of 6). If you're not going to be in the area anytime soon, contact me and I'll help you get one. Go ICNY!

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