Ask a Transportation Officer

Next up in Metropolitan’s Q. and A. series is Pamela Elsey, 59, who as assistant chief transportation officer for New York City Transit plans whether and when your subway line will be repaired or improved.

Joshua Bright for The New York Times Pamela Elsey

Masterminding the maintenance of a system that never sleeps is a juggling act, requiring 926 people who work under her, spreadsheets and a forecasting process to distribute resources across capital projects, emergency fixes and routine upkeep.

Wondering why the R train tunnel is going offline for 15 months? What those yellow work trains really do? What’s in store for your subway line or station?

Please share your questions in the comments section below.

We will pass on the best to Ms. Elsey, with some of our own, and publish the answers next week.

Unexpected Décor

Dave Taft

The ebony spleenwort (Asplenium platyneuron) is a fern with a strange name and a preference for growing where few other plants will. In New York City’s five boroughs, it is most frequently found squeezing its roots into the mortar of abandoned forts, railroad trestles, bridges and the foundations of old buildings.

Though this adaptation may seem odd, it is only natural for a plant that prefers alkaline soils. The decomposing mortar contains calcium, and is the closest thing to the fern’s natural habitat of rocky ridges and limey, dry soils. Like the famous Ailanthus trees that grow in Brooklyn, spleenwort grows best before much soil develops between the cracks in a wall. This inhibits competition and keeps the fern in full sun.

For those of us who associate ferns with the banks of cool, shady brooks lined by thick, loamy soil, the graceful little spleenwort comes as a surprise, growing on a hot, dry wall where finding a cactus might seem more likely.

Spleenwort is uniquely suited to colonizing these sites. Like all ferns, it does not flower but reproduces by means of spores, which form on the backs of its leaflets (or pinnae). The spores are dustlike and can easily be carried aloft by gusts of wind to begin new colonies, sometimes miles away.

The fern also reproduces vegetatively, growing small plantlets at the base of the mother plant. The spleenwort requires no insect pollinators, an effective if primitive reproductive technique.

Spleenwort might also be your neighbor. I have come to expect it in places like the old train trestle at Myrtle and Central Avenues in Glendale, Queens. It festoons some of the city’s oldest forts on Staten Island, busy bridge abutments in Manhattan and buried historic home foundations in the Bronx. It sprouts enthusiastically from between concrete slabs.

Ebony spleenwort is a small fern and grows two types of fronds. The “sterile” fronds do not produce spores and grow flush with the ferns’ chosen site. These fronds radiate from a central crown along with far longer “fertile” fronds that arch gracefully upward in the summer, sometimes reaching 10 to 12 inches in length. At the center of each frond is a shiny, dark brown stem (or rachis), which lends the “ebony” to the ebony spleenwort’s name.

Examining the undersides of these longer fronds, you’ll find dark brown, fuzzy dots called sori, which contain sporangia, the reproductive organs of the plant. These dots account for the other half of ebony spleenwort’s unusual common name, as early herbalists thought its shape resembled the human spleen.

Seeing the shape of a human organ in any plant was a key feature of the doctrine of signatures, a theory popularized by medieval herbalists that held a plant’s use could be divined by careful study of the shape of its leaves or roots, or of the conditions in which it grew (spleenwort leaves were used to purify the blood).

This belief accounts for many of our most colorful plant names. Some, like “liverwort,” “bloodroot,” “rattlesnake plantain” or even “nipplewort,” leave little to the imagination.

Week in Pictures for June 14

See the slide show

Here is a slide show of photographs from the past week in New York City and the region. Subjects include a building implosion on Governors Island, pedestrians in the rain in Manhattan and an invasion of cicadas on Staten Island.

This weekend on “The New York Times Close Up,” an inside look at the most compelling articles in Sunday’s Times, Sam Roberts will speak with The Times’s Anthony Tommasini, Margalit Fox and David W. Chen. Also, Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway. Tune in at 10 p.m. Saturday or 10 a.m. Sunday on NY1 News to watch.

A sampling from the City Room blog is featured daily in the main print news section of The Times. You may also read current New York headlines, like New York Metro | The New York Times on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

A K-9 Graduation

The Metropolitan Transit Authority Police Department’s Canine Unit held its graduation ceremony on Friday at Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall on Friday. Eight dogs were added to the active duty force.

No Pritzker Prize for Denise Scott Brown

Ryan Collerd for The New York Times Denise Scott Brown

The Pritzker Prize jury has decided not to revisit its decision to exclude the architect Denise Scott Brown from the 1991 Pritzker Prize that was given to her design partner and husband, Robert Venturi, with whom she had worked side by side.

Two students at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design had started an online petition calling for the panel that administers architecture’s highest prize reconsider that decision. The case has brought to the fore the status and recognition given to women in the field.

“Insofar as you have in mind a retroactive award of the prize to Ms. Scott Brown, the present jury cannot do so,” said Lord Peter Palumbo, the Pritzker’s chairman, in a letter to the two students. “Pritzker juries, over time, are made up of different individuals, each of whom does his or her best to find the most highly qualified candidate. A later jury cannot re-open, or second guess the work of an earlier jury, and none has ever done so.”

Ms. Scott Brown could not be reached for comment. It was her remarks that prompted the students, Arielle Assouline-Lichten and Caroline James, to start the petition in the first place. “They owe me not a Pritzker Prize but a Pritzker inclusion ceremony,” Ms. Scott Brown said previously. “Let’s salute the notion of joint creativity.”

Lord Palumbo said in his letter that “Ms. Scott Brown remains eligible for the Pritzker award” and commended the students on raising awareness about women in architecture.

“We should like to thank you for calling directly to our attention a more general problem, namely that of assuring women a fair and equal place within the profession,” he wrote. “To provide that assurance is, of course, an obligation embraced by every part of the profession, from the schools that might first encourage students to enter the profession to the architectural firms that must facilitate the ability of women to fulfill their potential as architects.”

No Pritzker Prize for Denise Scott Brown

Ryan Collerd for The New York Times Denise Scott Brown

The Pritzker Prize jury has decided not to revisit its decision to exclude the architect Denise Scott Brown from the 1991 Pritzker Prize that was given to her design partner and husband, Robert Venturi, with whom she had worked side by side.

Two students at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design had started an online petition calling for the panel that administers architecture’s highest prize reconsider that decision. The case has brought to the fore the status and recognition given to women in the field.

“Insofar as you have in mind a retroactive award of the prize to Ms. Scott Brown, the present jury cannot do so,” said Lord Peter Palumbo, the Pritzker’s chairman, in a letter to the two students. “Pritzker juries, over time, are made up of different individuals, each of whom does his or her best to find the most highly qualified candidate. A later jury cannot re-open, or second guess the work of an earlier jury, and none has ever done so.”

Ms. Scott Brown could not be reached for comment. It was her remarks that prompted the students, Arielle Assouline-Lichten and Caroline James, to start the petition in the first place. “They owe me not a Pritzker Prize but a Pritzker inclusion ceremony,” Ms. Scott Brown said previously. “Let’s salute the notion of joint creativity.”

Lord Palumbo said in his letter that “Ms. Scott Brown remains eligible for the Pritzker award” and commended the students on raising awareness about women in architecture.

“We should like to thank you for calling directly to our attention a more general problem, namely that of assuring women a fair and equal place within the profession,” he wrote. “To provide that assurance is, of course, an obligation embraced by every part of the profession, from the schools that might first encourage students to enter the profession to the architectural firms that must facilitate the ability of women to fulfill their potential as architects.”

Graphic Books Best Sellers: A New Spin on the Hulk

There’s plenty of activity on the graphic books hardcover best-seller list this week. Alan Moore appears twice, with an old classic (yet another collected edition of Watchmen, which was illustrated by Dave Gibbons, at No. 2) and something newer (the super-powered police procedural Top 10, with Gene Ha handling the art, at No. 3).

Also on the list, at No. 9, is volume one of “Indestructible Hulk,” written by Mark Waid and illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu. The story puts a new spin on Bruce Banner and the Hulk, who has gone through many changes: hunted monster, gray-hued, ruler of an alien world and more. These days, Banner is putting his brain to use for the betterment of the world (being slightly jealous of Tony Stark/Iron Man is part of the impetus) and forcing his menacing alter ego to do good. Banner has enlisted with S.H.I.E.L.D., Marvel’s law enforcement and espionage unit, and offered up the Hulk as a weapon of mass destruction. Mr. Waid makes good use of the rich tapestry of the Marvel universe to come up with threats that are worthy of the Hulk, and Mr. Yu handles those big moments like something out of a summer action-movie blockbuster. I enjoyed the quieter moments with Banner, his new home â€" an abandoned atomic testing facility â€" and the team of scientists he has assembled to help win him a Nobel Prize.

As always, the complete best-seller lists can be found here, along with an explanation of how they were assembled.

Graphic Books Best Sellers: A New Spin on the Hulk

There’s plenty of activity on the graphic books hardcover best-seller list this week. Alan Moore appears twice, with an old classic (yet another collected edition of Watchmen, which was illustrated by Dave Gibbons, at No. 2) and something newer (the super-powered police procedural Top 10, with Gene Ha handling the art, at No. 3).

Also on the list, at No. 9, is volume one of “Indestructible Hulk,” written by Mark Waid and illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu. The story puts a new spin on Bruce Banner and the Hulk, who has gone through many changes: hunted monster, gray-hued, ruler of an alien world and more. These days, Banner is putting his brain to use for the betterment of the world (being slightly jealous of Tony Stark/Iron Man is part of the impetus) and forcing his menacing alter ego to do good. Banner has enlisted with S.H.I.E.L.D., Marvel’s law enforcement and espionage unit, and offered up the Hulk as a weapon of mass destruction. Mr. Waid makes good use of the rich tapestry of the Marvel universe to come up with threats that are worthy of the Hulk, and Mr. Yu handles those big moments like something out of a summer action-movie blockbuster. I enjoyed the quieter moments with Banner, his new home â€" an abandoned atomic testing facility â€" and the team of scientists he has assembled to help win him a Nobel Prize.

As always, the complete best-seller lists can be found here, along with an explanation of how they were assembled.

New Jersey Declares Clarence Clemons Day

Christof Stache/Associated Press Clarence Clemons and Bruce Springsteen performing in 2009.

Here’s further proof that in New Jersey the members of Bruce Springsteen’s band are folk heroes akin to knights of the Round Table: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has signed a resolution declaring Jan. 11 to be Clarence Clemons Day, wire services reported. That day was Mr. Clemon’s birthday.

Known as the Big Man, Mr. Clemons was an original member of Mr. Springsteen’s E Street Band and perhaps its most charismatic member besides “the Boss” himself. He was a big-boned a rock’n'roll saxophonist with riveting state presence and a tone that seemed to rip through the audiences.

Mr. Clemons died in 2011 from complications of a stroke at age 69.

Though his politics are often to the right of Mr. Springsteen’s, Gov. Christie, a Republican, has attended more than 140 Springsteen concerts. The resolution was proposed by Senator Jennifer Beck, a Republican representing Monmouth County in the state senate.

Big Ticket | Madonna’s Apartment for $16 Million

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Harperley Hall on the Upper West Side once served as home and playground for the pop star Madonna, who combined two units into a duplex.

The Harperley Hall duplex created by Madonna Ciccone way back in a former century, when she and Sean Penn were a hot item and she was very much a Material Girl on the rise in the matter of shrewd real estate acquisitions, sold for $16 million in the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records.

The 6,000-square-foot combined space, No. 5/6A, at 41 Central Park West and 1 West 64th Street â€" the side entrance has the special Madonna-approved guardhouse â€" was first listed for $23.5 million. But it did not attract a cash-flush suitor until a recent reduction to $19.95 million. Monthly maintenance is $11,774.

Back when it was first listed, Madonna and her current entourage were already comfortably ensconced in an enormous (12,000 square feet) Upper East Side town house â€" with a Garbo-esque private garage, as opposed to Harperley Hall’s semiprivate one â€" for which she paid $32.5 million in 2009.

Harperley Hall, an Arts and Crafts-style building on the northwest corner of 64th Street and Central Park West, was designed by Henry W. Wilkinson and completed in 1911; Juliet balconies festoon its windows, and French doors are among its many decorative quirks. The Madonna duplex, which was created after a skirmish with the co-op board, has 10-foot ceilings and 110 feet of park frontage, along with six bedrooms in four bedroom wings, eight bathrooms and five wood-burning fireplaces. The eat-in kitchen has marble slab counters, and the master bathroom, where the mode is vintage, has twin pedestal sinks, a claw-foot soaking tub and a marble shower.

After the combination of the fifth- and sixth-floor units was approved (a lawsuit figured into the negotiation), Madonna commissioned her younger brother, Christopher G. Ciccone, to impart a peaceful but elegant karma to the décor before the apartment was featured in Architectural Digest. But the duplex was apparently not peaceful enough for some of the neighbors, who complained about overly loud parties with music and dancing, not to mention the paparazzi perpetually attached to the Madonna bandwagon.

The new owners of the duplex, the hedge fund wizard Deepak Narula and his wife, Anju Murari-Narula, are guaranteed to be less obstreperous. Mr. Narula, the founder of the $1.4 billion Metacapital Management fund, was anointed a “Hedge Fund God” last fall in a Business Insider posting after Bloomberg News reported that his market machinations had yielded the company a 34 percent increase in assets; he is doubtless too busy making money to make waves on the home front. But Harperley Hall shareholders should be aware that Madonna still has a toehold in the building: the separate seventh-floor unit she snapped up in 2008 for $7.35 million was not included in this transaction.

Adam Modlin of the Modlin Group and Arabella Greene Buckworth of Brown Harris Stevens shared the exclusive listing and also represented the buyer.

Big Ticket includes closed sales from the previous week, ending Wednesday.

New George Benjamin Opera Is Commissioned

The Royal Opera, in London, has commissioned the composer George Benjamin to write his third opera, which will have its premiere at Covent Garden in spring 2018. The as-yet-untitled work will have a libretto by the prolific playwright Martin Crimp.

Mr. Crimp also wrote the librettos for Mr. Benjamin’s first two operas, “Into the Little Hill,” which had its premiere at the Festival d’Automne, in Paris, in 2006, and “Written on Skin,” which the Royal Opera co-commissioned with the Aix-en-Provence Festival and several other companies.  “Written on Skin” had its premiere at Aix-en-Provence in 2012; and has been performed at the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam; at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, France; and at the Royal Opera. It has a run this month at the Theater an der Wien, in Vienna; and will turn up in concert form at Tanglewood in August.

“As a part of our focus on new commissions on all scales over the next years,” said Kasper Holten, the Royal Opera’s director of opera, “this will obviously be a key project.” Mr. Holten said that he expected that other companies would become partners in the commission, as was the case with “Written on Skin.”

Book Review Podcast: The Science of Female Desire

Malika Favre

This week in The New York Times Book Review, Elaine Blair reviews Daniel Bergner’s “What Do Women Want?” Ms. Blair writes:

Squeezed into these 200 pages are interviews with psychologists, psychiatrists and primatologists who have been “puzzling out the ways of eros in women”; a capsule history of ideas about female sexuality from biblical times to the present; the story of the so-far elusive hunt for a Viagra-type aphrodisiac for women; a discussion of the different types of female orgasm; and the personal accounts of a dozen or so ordinary women who talk about their sex lives and fantasies. The experiments and data Bergner writes about vary widely and don’t all point in the same direction, but he sets this tour of contemporary sex research against one particular shibboleth: the notion that women are naturally less libidinous than men, “hard-wired” to want babies and emotional connection but not necessarily sex itself.

On this week’s podcast, Mr. Bergner talks about the science of female desire; Philipp Meyer discusses his second novel, “The Son”; Margalit Fox on her new book, “The Riddle of the Labyrinth”; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Pamela Paul is the host.

The Sweet Spot Video: The Books of Summer

In this week’s video, A. O. Scott, David Carr and others discuss what they will be reading this summer. Have you heard about that book on cheese?

Michigan Attorney General Says Detroit Museum Could Not Sell Art

In a detailed formal opinion, the Michigan attorney general said the art collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts is held in charitable trust for the people of Michigan and could not be sold by the city to help settle some of its billions of dollars in debts.

The attorney general, Bill Schuette, said in a statement released by his office on Thursday that he recognized the serious financial hardships that the city faces.

But, he said, “The art collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts is held by the city of Detroit in charitable trust for the people of Michigan, and no piece in the collection can thus be sold, conveyed or transferred to satisfy City debts or obligations.”

The statement was quoted in several Detroit media outlets and linked to by the mlive.com Website.

The Detroit Free Press said the opinion did not settle the legal question of whether the art would ever be sold.
But his action could provide important protection for the museum’s extensive collection if any decision were ever to go to court.

Detroit’s emergency manager Kevyn Orr is exploring ways to restructure the city’s $15 billion - $17 billion in debt. Mr. Orr has said he has no plans to sell the art, but nevertheless has a responsibility to work out what the city owns, including the museum’s masterpieces. On Friday, Mr. Orr laid out his plan for tackling Detroit’s staggering debt, asking some of the city’s creditors to accept pennies on the dollar as he opened discussions that could determine whether the city is headed to bankruptcy court or not.

The Detroit Institute of Arts, founded in 1885, has a collection of more than 60,000 works, including a Van Gogh 1887 self-portrait; “The Wedding Dance” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder; and “Madonna and Child” by Giovanni Bellini.

“In Michigan, we not only appreciate our cultural treasures, we guard them zealously in charitable trust for all state residents, present and future,” Mr. Schuette said in the statement.

Starz Adds New Drama Series ‘Power,’ Produced by 50 Cent

Judging solely from 50 Cent’s hit song “In da Club,” one might think that nightclubs are places of pure frivolity, where shorties can always be found partying and sipping Bacardi like it was their birthdays. But, as a new television series that this rapper and actor will be producing for the Starz cable channel makes clear, clubs can have their dark sides too.

Starz said on Friday that it was picking up a new drama series called “Power,” which is set in the shadowy world of New York City night life and whose executive producers include 50 Cent (who is also known by his civilian name, Curtis Jackson).

“Power” is created by Courtney Kemp Agboh, a producer of “The Good Wife,” and chronicles a fictional nightclub owner named James St. Patrick, known as Ghost. But while he dreams of success, Ghost is living a double life: “When he is not in the club,” says a Starz news release, “he is the kingpin of the most lucrative drug network in New York for a very high-level clientele. His marriage, family and business all become unknowingly threatened as he is tempted to leave his criminal life behind and become the rags-to-riches businessman he wants to be most of all.”

Starz has continued to revamp its lineup of original programming as it has seen popular shows like “Spartacus” come to an end and canceled others like “Boss.” Among the series that it plans to introduce in the months ahead are “The White Queen,” a period drama based on the Philippa Gregory novel, and the pirate adventure “Black Sails.” Starz said that production on “Power” would begin later this year and that its first eight-episode season would be shown next year.

‘True Blood’ Star Will Play Stanley in ‘Streetcar’

Joe Manganiello, whose buff physique has been amply displayed as a werewolf on HBO’s “True Blood” and as a stripper in the film “Magic Mike,” will wear (and take off?) the most famous T-shirt in American theater when he plays Stanley Kowalski in Yale Repertory Theater’s production of “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

Portraying Blanche DuBois will be René Augesen, who has appeared at the Public and Lincoln Center Theaters. Mark Rucker is directing the production, which opens Yale Rep’s season on Sept. 20 and is scheduled to run through Oct. 12.

The season, which had already been announced, also includes “These Paper Bullets,” an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” with music by Billie Joe Armstrong of the band Green Day and plays by Caryl Churchill, Dario Fo, Marcus Gardley and Meg Miroshnik.

Kim Deal Leaves the Pixies

Kim Deal, the longtime bassist and singer for the Pixies, has left the band. The other three members â€" Black Francis, Joey Santiago and David Lovering â€" released a statement on Friday confirming her decision and wishing her well. “Despite her decision to move on, we will always consider her a member of the Pixies, and her place will always be here for her,” the statement posted on the band’s Facebook site said.

In recent years, Ms. Deal has been spending more time on the Breeders, a band she formed with her sister Kelley after the Pixies first split up in the early 1990s.

The Pixies have become a nostalgia act; they last toured in 2011 and have not released new songs since “Bam Thwok,” in 2004, a download only single

Formed in Boston in 1986, the Pixies released their first full-length album “Surfer Rosa” two years later, going on to do three more influential albums â€" “Doolittle,” “Bossanova” and “Trompe le Monde” â€" before breaking up in 1993. They reunited in 2004, and have toured several times since then.

Popcast: Kanye West and the Doctrine of Awesomeness

Taylor Hill/WireImage, via Getty Images. Kanye West performing at Governors Ball last weekend. His new album, “Yeezus,” comes out on Tuesday.

This week: The return of Kanye West.

Recently Jon Caramanica flew out to Malibu for several sessions of interviews with Kanye West at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studios, where Mr. West was putting the finishing touches on his forthcoming album, “Yeezus,” days before it was to be mastered and sent to the pressing plant.

Mr. West hadn’t sat for a long interview in several years. In conversations about his past, present and future, Mr. West was proud, defiant and philosophical as he discussed ambition, love, inspiration (from Kim Kardashian and a Le Corbusier lamp) and the doctrine of awesomeness.

Mr. Caramanica talks to Popcast host Ben Ratliff about the stark, throbbing feel of “Yeezus,” Mr. West’s current state of mind and the Shangri-La vibe.

Listen above, download the MP3 or subscribe in iTunes.

RELATED

“Behind Kanye’s Mask,” Jon Caramanica’s interview with Kanye West.

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST

Tracks by artists discussed this week. (Spotify users can also find it.)

Salzburg Festival, Losing Artistic Director to La Scala, Cuts Short His Term

When Alexander Pereira was appointed last week as general manager of Teatro alla Scala, starting in 2015, the presumption was that he would remain in his current post, artistic director of the Salzburg Festival, until his contract ended in 2016. But the notion of a one-year overlap did not sit well with the festival’s board, which has decided to let him go at the end of September 2014.

Now instead of an overlapping year Mr. Pereira will have a year to prepare the way for his new job, which will involve finding new sponsors for the celebrated Italian opera house. The festival announced Mr. Pereira’s early departure by posting on its Twitter feed (@SbgFestival): “Contract of Artistic Director Alexander Pereira ends with September 30, 2014.”

Sven-Eric Bechtolf, the actor and director who has been in charge of the festival’s theater program, will become the interim artistic director. So far, a long-term favorite as a successor to Mr. Pereira is the pianist Markus Hinterhäuser, a former of the Salzburg Festival’s concert series, and a candidate at the time Mr. Pereira was appointed. Mr. Hinterhäuser was recently appointed artistic director of the Vienna Festival, a position he is expected to hold through 2017.

As it turns out, Mr. Bechtolf may have a relatively easy job. He will have to take up Mr. Pereira’s fund-raising responsibilities, and will be under pressure to keep within the festival’s budget of about $80 milllion - which Mr. Pereira overspent by about $6.5 million this year, another cause of friction with the board. But it turns out that Mr. Pereira had already done much of the planning for the rest of his term.

Mr. Bechtolf said in an interview with the Austrian newspaper Der Standard that he would honor Mr. Pereira’s plans, which include the premiere of an opera by Gyorgy Kurtag in 2015.

Bonnaroo 2013: Mumford & Sons Cancels Its Saturday Concert

MANCHESTER, TENN.-Organizers at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival here were Informed on Thursday that Mumford & Sons, the festival’s Saturday headliner, had to cancel â€" not surprising, as the band’s bassist Ted Dwane was recently hospitalized for a blood clot in the brain, and the band had canceled other performances this week. (The band also canceled its performances next week at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado and at the Cricket Wireless Amphitheater in Bonner Springs, Kan., and on a positive note, announced on Friday morning that Mr. Dwane has been released from hospital.)

On Friday morning the festival named the band’s replacement: the singer-songwriter Jack Johnson. In a press release, Mr. Johnson related that he was already en route to the festival to sit in on a Thursday set with the band ALO when he got the call to replace Mumford. “I heard the news about Ted Dwane and was happy to know that he was on his way to recovery,” Mr. Johnson wrote. “I called my band and asked if they were up for it. Long story short - they are headed this way. I’ve got a lot of lyrics and chords to relearn by Saturday night.”

Another 11th-hour Bonnaroo cancellation was the rapper Earl Sweatshirt, who has pneumonia, according to his Twitter feed. His replacement on Friday will be the Brooklyn band DIIV.

Struggles Behind Him, a Poet of El Barrio Embraces Life

David Gonzalez/The New York Times

Inside a cluttered living room six stories above East 111th Street in El Barrio, the sounds of construction crews and laughing children gave way to the strains of “Nessun Dorma,” the Unknown Prince’s aria from Puccini’s “Turandot.” Jesus Melendez sat at his computer, transfixed, his folded hands touching his lips.

“Vanish, o night!” a tenor sang in Italian on a YouTube video. “Set, stars! Set, stars!

“At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!”

The recording ended.

“‘None Shall Sleep,’ that is the best damn aria,” he said, shaking his head. “If you want to cry, play that. You’ll cry even if you don’t know the words. But I do.”

He has lived them. Earlier this year, he could not sleep because of a financial crisis that left him three months behind on his rent and facing the possibility of losing the same apartment where he had lived as a child. Though famed as Papoleto, a founder of the Nuyorican poetry movement, he might as well have been as unknown as Puccini’s prince, since teaching jobs and paid recitals were scarce.

Days after a story on his plight was published, Papoleto’s life changed. A famed photographer paid his back rent. A New Jersey poet raised $3,255 from fellow poets and writers. He was invited to speak at colleges, and Pregones Theater in the Bronx announced a collaboration. An admirer even set up a poetry hot line: 630-4ARHYME.

Best of all, he landed two jobs doing poetry workshops.

Instead of hiding in his apartment, he embraces life on the streets of El Barrio. In the last week alone, he went from finishing an anthology of his students’ poems and attending the wake of Ibrahim Gonzalez, a gifted musician and dear friend, to marching in the Puerto Rican Day Parade. (And befitting poetic royalty, he was ferried in a pedicab.)

He watches, he listens. He does what poets must - feed his mind and soul in the hope that he can write words that touch your heart.

“I don’t mind struggle,” said Papoleto, who just turned 63.  “I don’t believe in easy-breezy. Your blood has to boil sometimes. But when you get older, you want security.”

He is especially grateful to Carmen Bardeguez-Brown, the principal of the School for Excellence in the Bronx, located inside the landmark building that was originally Morris High School. Because of her, he got an eight-week residency that will continue in the fall.

“The kids love him; we love him,” said Ms. Bardeguez-Brown. “He changes the culture of the school. He brings so much history and passion as an icon of Latino culture. You can’t quantify that. He’s just amazing.”

He is a little amazed too - he attended the old Morris. It’s where he came of age, became a poet and published his first book - in the school’s basement print shop. He speaks excitedly about his workshop and how he guided students through the process of figuring out their thoughts, writing them as narratives and then fashioning them into poems. He teaches them craft, an alien discipline in the era of spoken-word celebrity.

“Kids have trouble just sitting down and writing,” he said. “Some people say when they go to prison and have solitude, they can learn to write. People don’t need to go to prison to learn to write! They need to go to college.”

With the afternoon sun warm and bright, he needed to get out. He walked south along Second Avenue, peering into store windows, pointing out new buildings and old hangouts.  He dropped in on a bookstore and headed for the poetry section. They had Neruda, but not his recent anthology, “Hey Yo! Yo Soy!” He left, grumbling.

“I walk in,” he muttered, “and they look at me like I had on a ski mask.”

He headed north, past new high-rises and chic pubs that have attracted newcomers to the old - and vanishing - Barrio.

“We have cultural interlopers here,” he said. “Capitalists who benefit from the cultural identity of a community whose leadership they never knew. They come here to exploit and logo-ize ‘El Barrio This’ and ‘El Barrio That.’ But they’ve built their whole thing on a poltergeist, on the backs and graves of a diaspora.  And with a poltergeist, you know what’s going to happen!”

His mood eased as he encountered some friends. By dinnertime, he was settled into a spot by the window of Camaradas, where he jotted down thoughts and chatted with strangers. Not a bad day for a poet. As he walked home, he stopped under a tree and listened to a bright, chirping aria.

“The birds are coming home,” he said. “That’s their conversation about the day. They’re reporting to God.”

He smiled and kept walking. The sun was setting, but his mood would not. It was dusk, and he had won.

A Dog Walker to Make You Feel Almost Like You Are There

Swifto 6:54 p.m.: Barnaby certainly needs a walk.

At 7:03 p.m. on May 25, my dog went to the bathroom in front of the Chinese massage place up the block from my house in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

I was not there, but I know this is true because a “poop alert” popped up on my laptop, 22 miles away at a friend’s house. A poop alert is a little white-on-brown icon of a squatting dog with, yes, a small pile beneath its tail, superimposed on a map of the walk fed by GPS data from the walker’s phone and updated every few seconds.

In addition, I received a text message on my phone. “Barnaby has just pooped.”

I cannot say that I was relieved, exactly - certainly not the way Barnaby was - but the people behind the high-tech dog-walking company Swifto, progenitors of the poop alert, say that many of their customers take great comfort in exactly this sort of information.

“A very common problem that a lot of dog owners have is that they don’t know that their dog walker has actually walked their dog,” said Mohammed Ullah, Swifto’s 23-year-old chief executive. The alert, he said, “lets the owner know exactly where, for instance, the dog has actually used the bathroom.” I pictured the middle-age woman from the massage place who sometimes smokes out in front of the building, averting her gaze as Barnaby completed his business.

Screen grab When the brown “poop alert” pops up, you know your dog has been productive.

File it under Things It Never Occurred to You to Worry About if you like. But in a 2003 New York magazine article about misbehaving dog walkers, a stockbroker named Joanne told how, made suspicious by her cocker spaniel’s desperate need for relief when Joanne arrived home from work, she draped the dog’s leash just so on the banister before leaving for work to see if it got moved. It didn’t. (Her neighbors who used the same walker, she said, set up a nanny cam and caught him entering the apartment, grabbing his money, and walking out without touching their dog.)

For the helicopter dog parent, Swifto offers any number of assurances.

Do you worry that your dog runner is not actually running your husky? Swifto’s mapping system lets you calculate the dog’s average speed down to fractions of a mile an hour.

Does your walker walk several dogs at the same time? Sure, dogs are pack animals, but pack walkers sometimes leave their charges tied in front of a building while they go in to make a pickup, leaving the dogs vulnerable to theft or injury. Swifto’s walkers give your dog undivided attention.

Swifto 7:18 p.m.: Barnaby meets an old friend.

And should you seek pretty much unfakeable proof that your dog is being walked, Swifto walkers send photos of your dog out on the street - though there are other dog walkers who do that.

Swifto’s walkers do not send pictures of the actual evidence of your dog’s effort, though Meredith, the pleasant young woman who walked Barnaby, offered: “When a dog has been sick, I have sent pictures of vomit. The owner found it very helpful.”

Swifto’s prices, while steep for a one-off walk ($35) are in line with the market if you sign up for regular service â€" $20 per half-hour walk. (My employer paid for Barnaby’s one-time test drive with Swifto.)

Swifto’s goal since its start last year, Mr. Ullah said, is to dominate an industry that has been almost exclusively the province of small operators.

“Most dog walkers in New York City can’t go past about 50 clients,” he said. “It overwhelms their scheduling.” Swifto’s technology, he said, “allows us to automate the entire process of pairing up dogs with walkers.” The company, with offices in Midtown, provides dog-walking in all of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

After moving his bowels, Barnaby (accompanied by Meredith) hung a right at the next corner, another right three blocks down, another right, a left and a right.

Then, according to the map, he went home.

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A Diet Program for Dads

Dear Diary:

1. Give wife morning off and take 2-year-old son to the park. Watch him tangle with a 5-year-old on the jungle gym.

2. Get up off bench and separate kids.

3. Listen to other dad tell his son: don’t play with that kid (your son) because that kid’s a wimp.

4. Feel indignant. Wonder if son overheard exchange and if he’s old enough to know what wimp means.

5. Mumble vaguely threatening words to other dad and watch in horror as he heads toward you. Hold your ground as the dad gets in your face, motions to your stomach and utters, “Nice paunch.”

6. Look down at your paunch. Feel blindsided.

7. Go home and call everyone from your father to your tennis partner to complain about other dad.

8. Agree with college friend who tells you it’s insane that you’re now on a diet because of some cretin at the park.

9. Stay on diet.

10. Feel good about your new body. Go to park with your son. Sit on bench. Worry about your thinning hair.

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