Itinerantdaughter's Blog

That the address for the Apple Corporation is: 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA 95014.

My student loan collection agency just sent me a happy birthday email.  LIKE YOU CARE, NELNET.

“Federal agents and police detectives on Monday ended their lengthy search of a SoHo basement for evidence in the 1979 disappearance of Etan Patz, with the New York Police Department’s chief spokesman saying “no obvious human remains” had been recovered.

“The building is along the route that Etan, 6, took on the day he disappeared. At the time, the basement housed the workshop of Othniel Miller, who has recently come under scrutiny in the case. A team of evidence recovery specialists from the F.B.I. and crime scene investigators with the Police Department began on Thursday to search along the walls of the basement and under its concrete floor, which was poured shortly after Etan’s disappearance.”

“The investigators have sent parts of a cinder block with what appeared to be a bloodstain to the F.B.I.’s laboratory in Quantico, Va., for further testing, but initial field tests on the cinder block came back negative for blood, said a law enforcement official who had been briefed on the investigation. It was unclear if that was the only material sent to the bureau’s lab.”

Now that the block is open to traffic (foot and car) again, of course you can see right down the stairs to the black door of 127B, and boy, is it creepy.

So… turns out that I did kinda sorta maybe break the story about the cops renewing the search for the body of Etan Patz, who disappeared while walking to his bus stop 33 years ago in SoHo, New York.

Of course, the first information I heard wasn’t entirely correct –– as far as we know, no one has confessed to the crime per se, but the latest is that cadaver dogs have responded in a way that make the police think that there may be remains in the basement of what used to be a gay/lesbian art gallery (?!)  The scene right now is mobbed –– tourists clutching “Un Grand Week-End!” books, local ACE staff members, the chefs at the Calexico truck, the news crews for almost every major news station in New York, and little me, dashing out every so often to stand in the sun and try to get a glimpse of the action (this stance incites in me both great excitement and deep self-loathing.)  Updates are coming in by the hour.  It has been very difficult, in case you’re wondering, for anyone around my office to concentrate.

It’s important to note the language used by the FBI’s talking heads on Times website.  In two separate statements, they stress that time is not a factor here, meaning they will continue to work however long until they get some definitive answers.  I’m beginning to wonder what the scene will look like tomorrow, and the day after, and the days following.  Will lay people continue to stand vigil at the barricades, or will they succumb to boredom?  If nothing is found, it will resort to being an innocuous SoHo warehouse that now is home to one outpost of Lucky Jeans.  (Not so lucky anymore?)  If something is found, will it become the locus of grief?  In less than a day’s time, a simple basement, to which likely no one gave thought before, has started to morphically resonate, to quote Laing.

My assistant returned from getting a bagel to excitedly tell me to drop everything.

“This is totally your jam.”

Apparently the FBI is at the Lucky Jeans down the street because –– as he learned from gossip in the bakery –– someone just confessed to murdering a child in 1968 and burying his/her body in the basement.

I’m on my way to investigate…

If this person has the money to pay someone to look for jobs for them, why don’t they just… not get a job?

Looking for job search personal assistant (Park Slope, Brooklyn)

Date: 2012-04-16, 3:14PM EDT

Reply to: g9hsq-2961687742@gigs.craigslist.org

Looking for a person to help sort through job postings, and help in filling out job applications. Must have references. Should be someone young and highly motivated. The pay is $8 per hour, but the gig could last 50 hours or more over the next two weeks.

Please reply with name, phone, web address if any, and business writing sample (you will be writing cover letters, etc.)