Sometimes A Quirky Job Is Just That

Stories that sound like they’re going to be a lot more interesting than they actually are include the dude who vacuums the stuffed animals at the Museum of Natural History:

The hydraulic lift lurched up, bringing the back of an African elephant into full view. To Mike Peter Smith, who was cleaning the elephant yesterday, its spine took the form of a gently sloping mountain range with peaks behind the head and near the rear legs.

The elephant remained motionless as Mr. Smith surveyed the dust that had collected on its broad back.

“It is basically just vacuuming the elephant like a carpet,” he said of his job. “But it’s really delicate at the same time.”

That stuffed elephant and seven others at the American Museum of Natural History were getting their annual cleaning, a ritual that is repeated at least once a year for every bird, dinosaur, mammal and fish that is not behind glass in the museum’s collection. Of the 30 million specimens belonging to the museum, about 300,000 are displayed at one time. Standing on his perch about eight feet off the floor, Mr. Smith started behind the left ear. With one hand, he whisked a soft round brush across the deeply grooved wrinkles, leaving no space untouched. Blue lint balled up and cascaded down, before disappearing into the humming vacuum, which he guided through the air with the other hand. “I have to be really careful,” he said. To avoid tearing the fragile hide, he pushed the dust toward the vacuum’s extension with the brush, rather than sliding the wand directly against the skin.

On the flat of the back, below the front left shoulder, there was so much dust that his strokes left the leathery hide visibly darker.

After meticulous brushing, it appeared as if Mr. Smith were painting the elephant with varnish.

“I wonder if they do not look too clean when I am done, too polished,” he said. “In a couple of weeks, when the dust settles, it will look more natural.”

Location Scout: Akeley Hall of African Mammals.

Even Though “Ocean’s Thirteen” Is Total Coke Money It Doesn’t Mean You’re Excused From Completely Ignoring The Salient Moral Messages Of “Traffic”

The rise in cocaine use, as evidenced by many furtive Craig’s List Casual Encounters postings and now exposed for the first time in detail by the crack reporting team at the Sunday Styles section, is directly attributable to the Mayor’s efforts to stigmatize smoking:

But in interviews over the last five months with people in the night-life, entertainment, media and finance industries, all said that cocaine is a prominent part of a night out. Teron Beal, 34, a songwriter and aspiring actor, said he encountered cocaine regularly and does it occasionally — and not only in clubs and bars. “When you’re in meetings and you’re in the studio, it’s offered like coffee,” he said. “If you say yeah, they’re cool with it and if you say no, they’re like O.K., and they just go and do it in front of you.”

“Coke is the new weed,” he continued. “Everybody says that.”

Tom Sykes, a former night-life reporter for The New York Post who chronicled his alcohol- and drug-fueled life in the memoir “What Did I Do Last Night?” said that cocaine is more socially acceptable than smoking. “You could go into a swanky party in New York and do a line and nobody would notice,” said Mr. Sykes, who is now sober. “Pull out a cigarette and people would think you’d pulled out a gun.”

And never mind “Traffic” — these douchebags haven’t even ever seen “Wall Street”:

With Wall Street surging and a 24-hour global economy, young professionals have the money and the incentive to stay constantly wired.

“I do it every day,” said Kristoff, a European transplant to New York who works in finance and would not give his last name. He said he pays $150 for two grams of cocaine. “If I have to work at 6 in the morning and I have to be on top of the game, I’ll do it. I’ll take a gram of coke and make half a million dollars.”

Earlier (I don’t want to point out the obvious and say “much earlier,” but, you know, kind of earlier): Tonight We’re Gonna Party Like It’s 1985, This Just In: Cocaine Sales Remain Strong Through The First Quarter Of 2006.

Mayor Pimps Congestion Pricing At Memorial Day Parade; Flack Jacket Fits!

Apparently Hizzoner really isn’t running for president:

U.S. troops will be fighting in vain if New Yorkers aren’t healthy enough to enjoy the freedoms they are defending, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday — making a tenuous Memorial Day link between the war and his congestion pricing plan.

After marching in the Laurelton Memorial Day Parade, Bloomberg made a push for his plan, calling it a “win, win, win, for everybody.”

“Our soldiers are fighting so that we have our freedoms. Unless you have good health, you’re not going to be around to enjoy them,” Bloomberg said.

“The pollution that’s going into the air today is causing our kids in a lot of neighborhoods in New York City to have four times the national asthma rate.”

The mayor enlisted a group of environmental activists to buttress his case and emphasized that the city’s air is simply not good enough.

“It is not healthy for you; it’s not healthy for our children yet to be born, or our children who are here today.

“We have to do something to reduce the pollution in the air and the only solution really is mass transit and the only place money is going to come for mass transit is from something like congestion pricing,” Bloomberg said.

If It’s Tuesday It Must Be The Food Pantry Photo-Op

And one more thing — oranges aren’t even in season:

The food stamp diet left City Councilman Eric Gioia so hungry he wolfed down his week’s rations in only five days — and was forced to go to a Queens food pantry.

The Queens Democrat lined up at the Queensbridge center for emergency supplies yesterday after being left with only a few English muffins.

“The food stamps have run out, the cupboards are bare, but the hunger pangs don’t go away,” he said outside the Center of Hope International.

“People on food stamps in that position have no other option but to go to the food pantry.”

Yesterday’s visit — at which he paid a $100 donation — topped up the sparse diet Gioia has been living on since Thursday. In an effort to bring attention to the plight of thousands of New Yorkers trying to survive on food stamps, he pledged to try it for a week. Shopping with $28 — the average food-stamp allotment for a single recipient — he bought cheap staples.

Celebrating Mother’s Day was particularly hard, Gioia said. “I went and celebrated it,” he said. “But I didn’t have dinner. I went for dessert, and brought an orange with me.”

Previously: FreshDirect Doesn’t Take Food Stamps?, Eric, You’re Not Helping!

The First Stop On Abigail Breslin’s Journey From Oscar Nominee To Trivia Answer

Of course you’re excused for thinking this sounds like the worst kind of hell:

Hundreds of giggly girls skipped school yesterday to stand in a line that snaked around six Midtown blocks — all for a shot at stardom in an “American Girl” movie.

The film will feature pint-sized Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin of “Little Miss Sunshine” — but she needs sidekicks.

. . .

Genevieve Maiorana, a part- time city elementary teacher, said her 10-year-old sister’s Westchester school knew her sibling wouldn’t be showing up for classes yesterday.

“They’re all right with it,” said Maiorana of The Bronx. “This is what it’s all about. [These girls are] following their dreams.”

Producers have already held open calls in Los Angeles and Chicago for the flick, “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl Mystery.” They’re looking to cast four supporting roles.

Kimberley McCabe, 9, of Englishtown, N.J., was one of many girls looking forward to being seen by a casting director yesterday.

“I enjoy acting a lot. I look at TV and I say to myself, ‘That could be me one day,’ ” the third-grader said. “I’m like half tomboy, half girly-girl. She [Kit] is, too.”

Producer Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas addressed several groups of girls outside the American Girl Place, where auditions were held.

“We are casting four girls to be Kit’s friends. One of them is very wealthy; her father owns a bank. The other one, like Kit, loses her home. And the other one lives in the hobo village,” Goldsmith-Thomas explained.

. . .

At its longest, the line stretched from the American Girl Place shop, located on 49th Street near Fifth Avenue, down to Madison Avenue, around to 48th Street, across Fifth Avenue and extending onto part of 50th Street.