The art of not saying ‘I do’

MARRIAGES are made in heaven but Americans are so down-to-earth that married couples have become almost a minority as shown in findings released by the US Census Bureau.

Five years ago, married couples made up at least 52% of US households. Last year, the numbers dipped to 49.7%.

Alarm bells tolled when a report titled “It’s official: To be married means to be outnumbered” appeared in the New York Times recently.

“My phone rang non-stop when the figures came out as people called, concerned about how we can save marriage,” said Stephanie Coontz of the Council on Contemporary Families, a non-profit organisation.

Coontz, who has visited Malaysia with her husband, is more optimistic.

“Unlike many women in Japan and Singapore who forgo marriage, Americans ARE getting married and the birth rate is high. The husbands and the US government, like the French, are more supportive of the working women; and there is more time spent on childcare,” she said.

But people delay marriage as they get more educated, said Coontz, whose book on Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage” was picked by The Washington Post as one of the best books of 2005.

As for the birth rate, nearly four in 10 babies were born last year to unwed mothers mostly in their 20s. They were not teenage births as often assumed. This, they say, was proof that more couples are postponing marriage or opting for cohabitation.

“Most people will eventually marry. The Census Bureau estimates that about 90% of people will marry at some point in their life. People still believe in marriage but they just don’t want to rush into it,” said Thomas F. Coleman, the executive director of Unmarried America, a California-based information service which focuses on the nation’s estimated 89 million singles.

As he pointed out, marriage is popular with same-sex couples.

“Many gays and lesbians are fighting for the right to marry. There is a high level of interest in marriage among them,” he said in an e-mail interview.

“However, among heterosexuals, there is a reluctance for people to marry early. They want to have fun. They want to go to college and establish a career.”

Besides, the well-trodden path of divorce so common among the generation of their parents and grandparents is unappealing. About half of the marriages will end in divorce.

“The rate of divorce peaked in the 1980s and has been slowly declining since then,” Coleman said. “I don’t think that the divorce rate is alarming. It’s just a fact of life.”

(Coontz attributed the drop to education, affluence and maturity.)

Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate at 5.7 divorces per 1,000 married people in 2003.

Marcella Simmons, an office manager in Manhattan, observed that most of the single people she knew were divorced.

At 30, Simmons’ own two-year marriage ended in May when her husband had an affair.

She recently earned a degree in business management, saying that she wanted to better herself.

The dating scene, she said, was difficult because it wasn’t easy finding someone who was compatible and shared similar personality and goals.

Most of her friends were single, too. “One of my friends has four kids but she has never been married. I guess she prefers it that way.”

People now were more cautious about who they dealt with, said Simmons, a vivacious woman who previously spent five of her seven years in the military as an auto mechanic.

“You may be dating for three months and you realise that he’s a slob. For me, I am picky. If you don’t have the credentials, I move on.”

She has quite a long list of her choice of the most preferred male.

“He must be passionate, sympathetic, energetic and a traveller. He must also want to have kids because I want to have kids later.”

An AP report last year called Manhattan the loneliest place in the United States for having the most number of single-person households.

Then again, loneliness is perhaps just a New York state of mind.

A Clinton in demand

THE line was long but the crowd at the book-signing event was disciplined. No screaming, no shoving.

After all, they were not waiting to meet a movie star but a 59-year-old woman who just might be the next US president, at least according to recent polls which put her ahead of her Republican foes.

Hillary Clinton was at an Upper West Side bookstore on Monday to hawk the 10th anniversary edition of her book on child-rearing titled It Takes a Village.

Hours earlier, the New York senator was the guest at an NBC morning show when she was asked the question that has been on everybody’s mind: Does she want to run the village?

Her reply was direct from Politician-Speak 101. “I’m working hard to make a decision. It’s very flattering and overwhelming. I’m trying to approach this with a big dose of humility. I’m honoured people are urging me to run (for the 2008 presidency).”

When she appeared for the Monday book-signing, two TV screens at the in-house Starbucks transmitted the event although no one inside the cafe paid particular attention to it.

However, press cameras flashed in a manner befitting that of a potential contender to the White House.

“I love her,” gushed Richard Darden, 65. He had no qualms about a woman presiding his country, saying that women had been powerful from time immemorial. Look at Gaia the Mother Earth, he said, referring to the Greek goddess.

A carpenter from Anchorage, Alaska, Darden was visiting a friend in Manhattan when he decided to come to the bookstore upon finding out that Clinton was also in town to promote her book.

“Her husband was one of the greatest presidents we ever had. He was more tolerant and more liberal,” he said, citing his efforts at helping the impoverished native Americans living in Indian reservations.

“The Bush administration, on the other hand, merely helped the rich to get richer while the middle class disappeared.”

Clinton may have her devotees like Darden and the woman who handed her a rose during the book-signing, but she has formidable competition for the Democratic presidential nomination.

For one, there is a young sensation from the Democrat Party who seems to have a magic wand in charming the crowds who have met him.

Barack Obama, the Illinois senator, has been on the mind and lips of the American media especially.

Born to a Kenyan father and a white Kansas mother, the African-American Obama has been described as exciting, charismatic and charming with a smile that helped him own any room he walked into.

His book The Audacity of Hope, which is a memoir of sorts, is currently at the top spot of The New York Times’ non-fiction bestsellers list.

When talkshow host Jay Leno pressed him recently on whether he was making a 2008 bid, he deadpanned: “You know, I have made a commitment to the Food Network that I would announce there.”

(The Food Network is a cable TV network which airs cookery shows.)

“Obama is to politics what Tiger Woods is to golf; they simply transcend the issue,” a reader wrote in The New York Times.

But a lot of people feel that it is all just hype and that Obama’s biggest setback is his inexperience in the rough-and-tumble of politics. The 45-year-old Harvard-trained lawyer has been a senator for less than two years.

“Obama’s problem may be less that he’s black than that he’s green,” said Newsweek in its latest cover story.

Of course, it is not all about Clinton and Obama. Over at the Republican side, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s possible candidacy has generated buzz as well.

It’s a topic that gets everybody talking, except that potential contenders remain tight-lipped.

But here in the Empire State (a.k.a New York) where the colour is blue, the Democrat Party spells fervour and the flavour now is all about Clinton versus Obama.

Making a monkey of the English language

EGG Foo Gun. Whacky Kazakhy Attacky. Show-’Toon Shrek.

These were headlines from the New York Post, the fifth largest newspaper in the United States, besides being the leading tabloid in New York.

When a robbery suspect was hospitalised in Brooklyn for a lung ailment, the policeman assigned to guard him was so sloppy in his job that the detainee’s buddies managed to smuggle in a gun for him.

The weapon was concealed inside a Chinese take-out meal and the New York Post probably had egg foo yong on its mind when it published the story last month.

As for now, Borat is big in America.

The mockumentary “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” has pulled in US$120mil (RM432mil) in less than two months.

But Kazakhstan was not happy with the satirical film which poked fun at the country as an undeveloped and racist nation with weird practices like drinking horse urine.

New York Post reported the story, calling it “Whacky Kazakhy Attacky”.

Another movie that made the news three weeks ago was Shrek. The adorable green ogre is reportedly making its Broadway debut in 2008, hence “Show-’Toon Shrek”.

The tabloid’s arch-rival Daily News loves to economise on words and spelling as well.

“2 BRs, river vu & peace of mind for Sliwa” was the headline of a story about a radio host, Curtis Sliwa, buying a two-bedroom apartment with good security and a great river view.

Such a manner of using the English language is tearing out the hair of language purists.

“The fondness for abbreviations and a casual way of writing is causing distress to English teachers. For me, I love the written word and the old grammar is still beautiful to me,” said university professor S. Schroeder.

She observed, however, that young people couldn't care less about it.

“I respect the fact that it is impossible to expect them to accept what I hold dear. Abbreviations are here to stay,” she said.

This was especially so with more and more people going online these days. “On the blogs, you can see that people use all kinds of English,” she said.

Another practice which most Americans frown upon is the excessive use of the word “like” by the youngsters.

This was nicely exemplified by a reader’s account relayed to a columnist in New York Post two months ago.

The reader, Joe La Zizza, was walking around the city when he heard a bunch of schoolgirls peppering their conversation with that word in almost every sentence.

He got exasperated and turned to them, saying: “Like, can you, like, tell me, like, where the Actors, like, Playhouse, like, is?”

One of the girls got upset and retorted: “You, like, making fun of us?”

Hot young celebrity Lindsay Lohan is a bad speller, according to the gossip pages which leaked out an e-mail from her that she sent to her friends. Lohan’s e-mail showed that she wrote “adequate” as “adequite”.

The next day, the newspaper ridiculed her with the heading “Maybee I Shud Go Bak Too Skul”.

Tabloids being tabloids love to give a twist to names of VIPs. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is “Bloomy” or “hizzoner” (his honour) and former president Bill Clinton is sometimes referred to by the rather unflattering “bubba”

“No freedom or fries in Bloomy’s Lean City,” the bold headline in New York Post declared when the mayor was delighted with a plan by a fast-food joint to stop the use of trans-fat oils on its menu.

The city authorities may have meant well as they forged ahead with plans for healthy food in restaurants but some New Yorkers are upset that Big Brother is telling them what not to eat.

When the Iraq Study Group recommended for a pullback of US combat troops by 2008, the New York Post (again!) depicted co-chairs James Baker and Lee Hamilton in monkey suits.

Blaring “Surrender Monkeys” with the sub-heading “Iraq panel urges US to give up”, the page one cover got the goat of its readers.

Disgusting. Shameful. Absurd. They called the tabloid all sorts of names, fuming that the paper was immature in its reporting.

Sensationalism? Outrageous?

Guilty as charged, probably. Still, the tabloid and its long-time competitor Daily News are way ahead of many other dailies, even the respectable Washington Post, in the list of newspapers with the highest circulation in the United States.

Sprucing up the Bronx

THE Bronx, blessed with music but cursed by its notorious past, has seen decades of neglect and decay.

As a young girl growing up in south Bronx during the 70s, Marta Rodriguez saw a man being shot right before her eyes in her tough neighbourhood where drugs and prostitution were as constant as day and night.

She was a mere 12-year-old then. “I was so frightened,” she said. Four years later, she witnessed a similar shooting.

“My dad used to send me back to Puerto Rico every summer to shield me from the dangers here,” said Rodriguez, a 32-year-old mother of two children.

As the birthplace of hip hop and which counts Jennifer Lopez, Billy Joel and rapper Fat Joe as its famous natives, the south Bronx of today has a much repaired image but remains what Rodriguez described as an urban ghetto.

“There are no jobs here despite the many factories and markets. The environment is bad. It is the location of 15 transfer stations,” she said, referring to sites where garbage are brought to and sorted out before being sent elsewhere.

Diesel fume from the 12,000 trucks that pass through the industrial area every day has been a health concern, too.

South Bronx, according to Rodriguez, is among the areas in New York state that have the highest asthma and obesity rates.

“Despite having the largest produce market in the United States, the people’s choice for healthy food is limited,” she said, explaining that obesity in the poor neighbourhoods was mostly caused by the consumption of fast food, a much cheaper alternative for these people.

The Bronx, which is one of the five boroughs in New York city, is also poorer compared to its Manhattan cousin. According to 2003 statistics, the median household income in the Bronx was US$27,550. Those in Manhattan registered US$47,415.

The numbers, however, are much lower in grim neighbourhoods in south Bronx where about 40% survive on income below the federal poverty line.

Last year, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visited south Bronx and he was later quoted as saying: “I have met the soul of the American people.”

South Bronx paints a totally humble picture that’s so unlike the glitz of midtown Manhattan, which is just 30 minutes away by subway.

Its shops are nondescript and the demographics are quite different. The Bronx has a 1.3 million population of which at least 51% are Hispanics.

Bodegas and eateries with names like Tormenta Restaurant and Bella Vista Burger line Hunts Point Avenue in south Bronx.

“People have moved away to a better place. But I feel differently. Why can’t we stay on and find a way to make it better?” asked Rodriguez, who has opted to work for a better Bronx.

She is a community outreach coordinator at Sustainable South Bronx, a five-year-old organisation involved with the environmental and economic rebirth of the place.

“We are working hard towards creating more open spaces in south Bronx,” said Rodriguez at her office located inside an almost derelict building in Hunts Point, which is reportedly the poorest congressional district in the US.

It looks like better days are ahead, though.

Four projects costing US$30mil (RM108mil) under a south Bronx Greenway plan were announced by New York city two weeks ago.

They will include the construction, which will begin next year, of a waterfront park, gardens and a bike and pedestrian lane.

Where crime is concerned, Rodriguez acknowledged that south Bronx was a lot better now compared to 10 years ago.

She has no qualms leaving the house after dark. “I know the people, I’ve lived here all my life so I feel safe.”

Wonderful world of autumn auctions

THE numbers shot up in split seconds: 10.6; 10.7; 10.8. They kept on spiralling but less than 10 minutes later the gavel came down. “Sold!” And Francis Bacon's Version No 2 of Lying Figure With Hypodermic Syringe went to an anonymous buyer for US$15mil (RM53.82mil).

Autumn auctions began last month in New York, a shrine of sorts for wheeling and dealing in the art world.

Christie's and Sotheby's, the Goliaths of auction houses, frequently announce their events in the newspapers.

The room at Sotheby's in Manhattan was packed during a recent evening auction of contemporary art when Bacon's 1968 oil on canvas was sold.

“There may be almost 1,000 people here,” said an employee.

To help the auctioneer see a bidder in such a large, crowded room, sales clerks often stand around the place. So, cries of “bidding!” boomed throughout the room whenever they saw an interested buyer raising his paddle.

Almost two dozen employees, meanwhile, were manning the telephones to take bids from buyers who wanted even more discretion.

Auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's often welcome visitors to observe the bidding process.

There is no obligation to bid, and no one will give you funny looks for just being there.

For the uninitiated (like yours truly), it was quite an experience to know the staggering amount of money out there.

As the New York Times noted, one unidentified telephone bidder spent at least US$25mil (RM89.70mil) within an hour during that contemporary art auction as he bought the Bacon masterpiece and another painting for US$10.6mil (RM38mil).

Two weeks earlier, an auction of 19th century European Art was held in a smaller room at Sotheby's.

There was a small revolving stage to exhibit the painting that came up for bidding. Prospective buyers perused their bulky catalogue of the works that were about to be auctioned off.

A row of telephones was placed in front and at the back of the room.

The auctioneer began by explaining briefly the terms and conditions of the auction.

Just before he accepts the final bid on any lot, he would announce “fair warning” or “last chance” and scan the room to see whether any more bids were coming before he brought down the hammer.

A group of college girls were there to observe the bidding process as well.

At one point, there was frenzied bidding for a large painting measuring 324cm by 166cm titled Property of a Gentleman by Rene Rousseau-Decelle.

“It is like a phone war,” commented one of the college students, referring to the unrelenting bids coming through the telephones. Two interested buyers tried to outbid one another by raising the amount.

The employees who manned the lines often worked quietly, usually just nodding or raising their hand slightly to indicate to the auctioneer that the buyer on the line wanted to up his bid.

If an item failed to be sold off, the auctioneer would declare “passed.”

At Christie’s, it is an almost similar setting.

There is an electronic board flashing the bid amount in euro, Swiss francs, Hong Kong dollars and yen.

I heard one successful bidder whispering to his partner: “Do we need to pay taxes?”

“Yes,” came the reply.

The winning bid (which is also known as hammer price) does not include a sales tax and a percentage of that purchase price the buyer must pay to the auction house.

Of course, it is not just the paintings that come under the hammer. There could be other precious items such as furniture, sculptures, manuscripts and watches.

Tomorrow, Christie's will hold an auction of rock and pop memorabilia while “finest and rarest wines” will be sold on Dec 8 and 9. Sotheby’s is offering magnificent jewels on Dec 6.

Some of Christie's auctions are available live online, too.

(Sunday December 3, 2006)