Street Roots • March 31-April 6, 2017
TALESE, from page 12
either because they have their own shame,
and their own secrets, and their own
willingness or their own eagerness to be
divorced from others.”
“They are in the shadows of our vision,”
Talese added. “And because they don’t offer
us any reward for caring, they don’t increase
our sales, they don’t increase our ratings or
give us hits... they represent nothing that’s
desirable. And so, they go from generation to
generation, generally, unrecognized in any
meaningful way.”
Talese believes homelessness should be a
bipartisan issue.
“I don’t care whether it’s an Obama world,
or a Trump world, or George Bush, or
whoever the president is,” he said. “There’s
no excuse for how little regard and humanity
is shown to people who have lost their way.”
Especially in a city as wealthy as New
York.
“I have seen how sad the city is in the
shadows of some of its churches and some of
its stores along main avenues in the
afterhours from 6, or 7, or 8 o’clock at night
— especially in the warmer months,” Talese
said.
“The city of New York, with all of its
money, shouldn’t have those sights. They’re
the result of our own greedy capitalism and
our lack of heart as a democracy.”
As for the person he wrote about in “The
Homeless Woman with Two Homes”, Talese
called several salon owners he knew and
News
hoped to get her a job, but he never heard
from her again.
“She said she’d call me, I gave her my
phone number, and I then called these
people before she was supposed to call me
back, and they said yes, they’d be glad to see
her [and] offer her a job if she was as
qualified as I thought she probably was,’“
Talese said. “She never called me back.”
Homelessness has skyrocketed in New
York City in the years since Talese wrote
about the homeless woman. Over the past
two decades, the homeless population living
in the city’s shelter system has increased
115 percent, from 23,868 in 1994 to 60,000
in 2016, according to the New York City
Department of Homeless Services shelter
system census.
For most New Yorkers, Talese said,
homeless people “are considered an
inconvenience.” It’s an observation he made
nearly 30 years ago, after he took the time to
get to know a homeless woman at Lexington
Avenue and 59th Street.
“These mysterious people live among us
each day, sleep at our door, walk shoulder-to-
shoulder with us on the street,” Talese wrote
in “The Homeless Woman with Two Homes.”
“Yet, regrettably, we do not know them, and
too many New Yorkers, with the donation of
a few quarters daily, are able to buy their
way out of whatever momentary concern or
discomfort is caused by the presence of the
homeless.”
Courtesy of Street Sense / INSP.ngo
LAUGHINGPLANET.COM
Page 13
Hank Aaron’s Pen
by Avendor
I rummage through thoughts
Like a raccoon through garbage
I quietly dream
Like a slow moving snail
I don old clothes
Like a tree wears moss
These bones clink and clatter
In the wintertime gales
I see a beautiful girl
Six ways from Sunday
I believe a showdown
Is surely coming soon
I believe Spring’s returning
It hasn’t failed me yet
I need room to grow
And my own safe room
I’ve been on vision quests
Like indigenous shamans
I loved Magic Johnson
When I was a kid
I never grew out of
My love for Greek Mythology
I’ve tried to make sense
Of this crazy Id
So I’m going to make my heart
Pure as white chocolate
And I’ll seek to make my mind
A fountain for the Gods
This mouth of mine I will continuously varnish
And this pen will bud, like Aaron’s rod.