Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 312

"These are my Ebola gloves. I ride the subway so I’m not...

"These are my Ebola gloves. I ride the subway so I’m not taking any chances."

Him: “We were reading Aesop’s Fables the other...

Him: “We were reading Aesop’s Fables the other night, and she surprised me by knowing the definition of a fable.”
Her: “A fable is a story that teaches a lesson!”
Me: “So what’s your favorite fable?”
Her: “Once there was a fox that wanted some grapes and he really wanted the grapes so he tried to jump up and get them but he messed it up and so he tried again but he messed it up again but then he walked away because he decided the grapes were sour and that teaches you not to be greedy and want too much pizza.”
Him: “…. I think we may have combined a few there.”

"I tend to be much calmer than him. It takes a lot to unnerve...

"I tend to be much calmer than him. It takes a lot to unnerve me, but if he knocks over his cup of coffee in the morning, it’s going to change his whole day."

"We’re totally nerdy. It seems like all our jokes have...

"We’re totally nerdy. It seems like all our jokes have some sort of calculus or advanced math references."
"What’s an example?"
"Hmmm…. we’ll here’s one. It’s a little lurid, but back back when she was a graduate student in mechanical engineering, she had this device that was used to test the hardness of a material…"
"Don’t tell him that."

"I’d have been a great mother, but we met too late for...

"I’d have been a great mother, but we met too late for that. I didn’t meet him until I was 42. It was the first time either of us had been married."
"How’d you meet?"
"I was with some friends in the park one day. I’d recently stopped dating a sociopathic nut ball, and I’d just gotten out of therapy, so I was feeling pretty adventurous. He rode by on a bike, and stopped for a moment to listen to a band that was playing. My friend bet me $5 that I wouldn’t go talk to him. He was wearing a blood donor shirt that said: ‘Are you my type?’ So I walked straight up to him and said: ‘Yes I am.’"

“When I say stand up, he stands up. When he says stand up, I...

“When I say stand up, he stands up. When he says stand up, I stand up. When I say sit down, he sits down. When he says sit down, I sit down.”

"People call themselves animal lovers, then let their dogs chase...

"People call themselves animal lovers, then let their dogs chase the squirrels. You’re scaring the shit out of the squirrels, you schmuck!"

"Before medical school I was really into music. I’d work...

"Before medical school I was really into music. I’d work really hard on some songs, and post them on YouTube, and sometimes they’d get a few thousand views. There was a girl I used to collaborate with. We did a few covers together. But I went to medical school, and she skipped college and focused on music full time. Anyway, she’s doing great now. All her songs get hundreds of thousands of views, and she just got back from a tour in Asia, and is talking with some major record labels. The funny thing is, she stopped in New York awhile back, and we met up and recorded a cover together, just for old times sake. We just threw it together really quickly, but because of who she is now, that song got more views than the combined total of everything else I ever worked on. It’s funny how things work out."

The song: http://bit.ly/1vcds0j

“Your brain is growing at a rapid rate during adolescence....

“Your brain is growing at a rapid rate during adolescence. There’s a lot of emotion, confusion, thrill seeking. It’s a time when you try a lot of things and make a lot of mistakes. We all went through it. But in this neighborhood, there’s not a lot of maneuverability. There’s not a lot of room for teens to make mistakes, and the mistakes have higher consequences. To make things worse, adolescence seems to be prolonged here. Many young people in the community view adolescence as a pinnacle, and not a stage. Girls become mothers at a young age. Fathers are absent, so young boys are forced to act like men. So what you have are adolescents who become authority figures, and spread the adolescent mindset through the community. Instead of thinking through a conflict, young men feel a social pressure to immediately react, so they don’t appear ‘soft’ or ‘weak.’ That’s one of the reasons I feel that mentorship programs are so important. They give adolescents a space to remain adolescents.”

"I’m a recovering knucklehead from the South Bronx. Now I run a...

"I’m a recovering knucklehead from the South Bronx. Now I run a mentorship program for teens. A lot of the teens we work with are angry, but I used to be angry a lot too. I can’t even say exactly where the anger comes from: the trash, the potholes, the sirens, the cursing, the yelling, the seeing people getting frisked. I can’t say exactly what causes the anger, but it’s hard to grow up around all that and be OK.”