New York Shutterbug II: Museumification

Thursday
MoMA


Thing theory
[Marcel Duchamp, In Advance of the Broken Arm, 1964 {1915}; Network of Stoppages, 1914; Bicycle Wheel, 1951 {1913}]


Across the street is Terry Gilliam's Brazil


Uplift
[Martin Puryear, Ladder for Booker T. Washington, 1996; Desire, 1981; Ad Astra, 2007]


S/M cool
[Claes Oldenburg, Giant Soft Fan, 1966-67]


Beauty mark
[Andy Warhol, Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962]

Friday
TGIF


A feather by the urinal in the National Museum of the American Indian

New York Shutterbug

What do you do when you're in New York City for a week and have to be out of the house by 8am and back after 8pm each day? You become a tourist. I became a New York City tourist for the first time when I visited my friend Lissu in October. My trip coincided with a busy work week at the UN, which meant that I was left to fend for myself on the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan for 14 to 16 hours, Monday through Friday.

I've traveled to New York regularly since 1996, when I spent a month in a pre-college program at Barnard and felt like Manhattan was a teeming urban playground for a high school "rebel." I remember smoking cigarettes out on the dorm patio, sneaking into bars with my city friends, watching salacious videos at my friend Blake's apartment, and going to see Trainspotting in theaters three times. Then there was the sampling of goods at Washington Square Park, which saw our group of three giggle uncontrollably either because we were high or because we thought that's what we should be doing. I even tried my hand at DJing for Barnard's college radio station. It was a pretty awesome summer; by the end of it, I flew back to Hawaii with a suitcase overflowing with books from the Strand and CDs from shops in the Village.

In the decade since my first trip to New York, I've been back countless times to visit friends and their families. With the exception of an eighteenth-century studies conference at CUNY in my second year of graduate school, I went to the city to hang out with people who effectively grew up in and around New York. Whenever I hung out with these people, we tended to avoid the obvious "touristy" activities.

Not so this time around. What follows is a glimpse into the world of "sights" and "attractions" I discovered on my recent trip to New York. I walked the city streets alone, laptop on my back, hopped up on coffee (from the essential Think Cafe -- thanks, Bettina!), and with iPod nestled in my pocket. I did not make it to Washington Square.

Monday
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you; / Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current...


The view from Brooklyn's Esplanade, facing Manhattan


I sat here for a good two hours, watching the sun set


And the sun did set on Whitman's Brooklyn Bridge

Tuesday
Birth of a Nation?


Allegoresis: dark skies over the Statue of Liberty


Photo-synthesis: suits with a view


Isle of Ellis: way station for immigrants


Catachresis: a piece of the World Trade Center finds its way to Battery Park

Wednesday
Harlem U.S.A.


The black press


It's showtime


Adam Clayton Powell stands watch


Gutted...


...and reborn as a movie set


Sylvia's taste of the South: ribs, mac 'n cheese, candied yams, cornbread


Crossings

I too lived--Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine;
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it;
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me.

Welcome Aboard

My US summer started off promisingly with a trip to the beach. My friend Kristin invited me to join her roommate Jess, Jess's partner Sean, and a bunch of their ecology friends for a week-long stay at a beach house on the North Carolina coast. This was at the beginning of June. As I had just moved back into my apartment on June 1, I thought I'd go to the beach for a couple of days instead of the whole week, reserving some time to get unpacked, reacquaint myself with my cat, and so on. Fortunately, two other beachgoers, the lovely Spaniards Ester and Lisa, happened to want to go for just a couple of nights as well.

The three of us left Durham on a sunny Wednesday afternoon in Ester's car. Our trip to Oak Island was largely uneventful up to the point where we arrived in Wilmington, the major city on North Carolina's coast. Now Ester had printed out MapQuest directions to the address of the beach house -- something to the effect of 1010 Main St. But when we arrived on the island and drove along the coast on Main St., we couldn't for the life of us find the beach house. We drove to the end of the island, into a gated neighborhood whose gate was up and whose attendant was missing. We asked some folks if they knew where our house was -- they could only guess that it lay back at the entrance to the island.

After half an hour of fruitless searching, Lisa finally got a hold of Sean on her cell phone. It quickly became apparent that we were in fact on the wrong island. MapQuest had taken us to Holden Island, not Oak Island -- though, to be fair, both islands' primary roads sport the name "Main St." We were about an hour's south of Oak Island, so Ester, Lisa, and I shared a laugh over the confusion and joyfully made our way to the correct Main St.

That early snafu was the only snafu any of us encountered during our stay at the beach house, named "Welcome Aboard." The weekend experience was, in a word, bliss. Upon finally arriving at Oak Island, our group enjoyed a hearty seafood stew for dinner and, drunk on red wine and laughter, retired to the living room to watch the shark episode of the BBC's amazing Blue Planet series (ah, ecologists!). Kristin, Ester, and I stayed up late into the night drinking and sharing stories about recent turns in our life.

The next day I stumbled out of bed and onto the beach -- literally. Welcome Aboard was situated right on the shore, and it only took a jaunt down some stairs to feel the sand beneath one's toes. Our group spent the day alternating between chatting, sunbathing, and swimming in the pleasantly chilly Atlantic currents. This is a great shoreline photo of Ester, Lisa, and Jess (looking pensive, as always) in the background:



There was something so natural to our leisurely activity as a beach group. Some would go in the water while others stayed on shore. Some would retire to the house for a siesta while others took their naps under the shade of the umbrellas. Some kissed in the water and others walked along the shore. We were friends, old and new, and our movements and conversations were relaxed and sincere.

When the final bunch of beachgoers arrived Thursday afternoon, we took to the sand-pitch and played a lively game of soccer. It was the Red Team versus... er, the Red Team. Hey, at least I got to wear my brand new Liverpool #14 Xabi Alonso jersey, which I got in Lima. Yeah, yeah, it was hot, but at what other time could I imitate my favorite soccer player's moves?


Faint though my figure may be, I'm making a trademark Alonso pass to Ben Best here. Note that he doesn't even need to break his stride to receive the feed. Fernando and Ted are positioned in ultra-safe, Chelsea-type defense, but I'll grant that, especially in this next photo, they look good in their red trunks.


Toward the end of the day, when everyone was cleaning up and preparing for dinner, I brought out my camera and took some photos of our house...



...and of the beautiful sunset-shadowed shoreline.


We again ate well that night: everyone pitched in and contributed to a meal that included grilled tuna, cooked vegetables, and delicious hogfish filets that just melted in your mouth. Here's a photo of Fernando and me playing sous chefs to the master himself, Sean McMahon:



We spent the next day, Friday, in much the same fashion as we spent Thursday. This time, instead of soccer, we played surf basketball, whereby Kristin held a floating basket steady while two teams tried to stuff a squishy ball into it. Andre's team benefited from his height, but the waves themselves were the great equalizers, often leveling a player who had thought he was standing on steady ground. For our intense waterlogged workout, our group was rewarded with another memorable seafood dinner, this time featuring Spanish-style shrimp prepared by Lisa and me.

By the time Saturday rolled around, those of us who had arrived late in the week rued not having more time to spend at Welcome Aboard. We were all at peace with ourselves, and in tune with each other, even after only having spent a few days together. The one positive twist to our leaving was the fact that we didn't need to clean the house from top to bottom -- a basic maid service was included in the rental fee.

On my way out of Welcome Aboard, with bags and boxes of leftovers and appliances in tow, I glanced at the rental information sheet that was affixed to the refrigerator by magnet. The sheet listed phone contacts and instructions for how to properly close the refrigerator door. But in naming the actual house in which we were staying, the sheet (accidentally) read "Welcome Abroad" rather than "Welcome Aboard." The typo was fitting, I thought, given that my experience there made me feel as though I had, for one weekend, escaped from reality and retreated to a paradise of communal living on the beach.

I'll Show You My Exchange Rate If You Show Me Yours

Here's a fine article from Slate.com on the economic implications of a weak U.S. dollar. Its author, Daniel Gross, points out that a weak U.S. dollar has meant an increase in tourists who visit the States to take advantage of comparatively cheap (with regard to other developed countries) goods, services, and investments (including real estate). Gross writes, "The money tourists spend helps put a dent in our chronic trade deficit. So do exports, which, thanks in part to the weak dollar, soared 11 percent between May 2006 and May 2007. For the first five months of 2007, the trade deficit actually fell 7 percent from 2006."

Gross also reminds us the weak dollar has benefited those U.S. corporations that rely heavily on foreign sales:

If you—or your mutual fund—own shares in large American corporations, you're a winner in the weak-dollar sweepstakes. Based on data culled from 238 constituents of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, S&P analyst Howard Silverblatt concludes that the typical member of the index garnered 44.2 percent of its sales outside [emphasis mine] the United States in 2006. Translating cash received from those sales into weaker dollars puts some fizz into earnings. Last week Coca-Cola's stock bubbled to a five-year high after it reported a fantastic quarter. Foreign sales accounted for 65 percent of Coke's beverage business. Other ur-American companies profiting from this trend include McDonald's (65 percent of sales overseas) and IBM (56 percent).

So if U.S. corporations are able to produce goods that sell comparatively higher in Europe than they do in the States (again, owing to the weak dollar), then Coke and its internationally friendly ilk are not terribly troubled by the current state of the U.S. dollar.

I wonder what the implications of such overseas profitability are for domestic jobs. It's true that U.S. corporations are profiting from high sales in Europe and Canada, but I'm not sure if that necessarily translates into more jobs or better employment conditions (e.g., wages) for employees of those corporations.

One thing is for sure: there's no better time (or excuse) for all my European and South American friends to come and visit me in Durham, North Carolina -- especially Durham, where you can buy a pack of Camel Lights for under $3.50; you can buy a decent used car for under $3,000 (as I did recently); and you can order, until 3am, 7 days a week, a meal "tray" consisting of a burger, two sides, and a drink for $3.99 at our local drive-thru, Cook-Out.

Or: you can meet in Hawaii when I visit my family in December.

The American Creed

While living and traveling in Peru and meeting people from different cultures and backgrounds, I was led to reflect on what might be described as the "character" of the American people. I wasn't forced by my friends and acquaintances to "defend" what it means to be an American; rather, conversations about European politics (Finnish parliamentary elections, the French presidential election, etc.) and Peruvian development inspired me to compare American attitudes toward government, education, and civil society to those of other nationalities. It was an open debate.

My Finnish friends in particular provided me with an interesting set of ideas about government, education, and civil society that stood in contrast to what I think is the predominant "American" view of such things. Finnish students and professionals alike remarked that while their country's very high taxes are at times a personal nuisance and too often mismanaged, the common, public good that those taxes ultimately serve is worth 1) the nuisance, and 2) the effort to reform government to become more fiscally efficient.

The socialist-style Finnish system applies a graduated income tax to its citizens so that the wealthy are responsible for paying more taxes (relative to their income) than the poor and working classes. And to be sure, there's the usual discontent among the middle and rich classes about social welfare -- the perception that many poor and working-class Finns don't do their part in finding gainful employment or in trying not to live off the state. Despite these very real social and economic problems, however, my Finnish friends told me that most well-off Finns continue to believe that it's ultimately a good thing to buttress the country's infrastructure and social networks with their taxes.

Hearing this made me ashamed to be an American. I knew instinctively that such a view of the common, public good was/is utterly foreign to the vast majority of Americans. Perhaps it wasn't always so. Or maybe this has always been the case in a country that prides itself on its individualist ethos and cult of self-determination. What I do know is that the American creed of every man (or: nuclear family unit) for himself was perfected during the Reagan Revolution, the late-'70s to mid-'90s social and political movement that, among other things, valorized private enterprise and unfettered capitalism at the expense of public institutions, social welfare, and, specifically, the very idea that the country's tax burden would be shared by all citizens.

One truly sad result of this long period of dismantling the bonds of our civil society is that many well-off Americans actually feel victimized by the government when it tries to raise their income tax (which of course is modest compared to those paid by citizens in other "First World" countries). Even worse is how well-off Americans tend to feel victimized by the poorest sectors of society -- those who don't earn a living wage, who need to work three jobs to make ends meet, and need I mention "illegal immigrants"? The poor: whom the well-off characterize as morally and culturally deficient leeches, in so many words. The poor: whose socioeconomic poverty is somehow their fault, and theirs only.

It's this cult of victimization that's uniquely American, it seems to me. The well-off Finns have their complaints, sure. But at least many of them are able to distinguish a problem of social inequality (the poor needing help and the state mismanaging the system that distributes "help" to the poor) from a basically personal feeling of resentment, which, as Nietzsche reminds us, is the other face of self-righteousness (the poor are themselves deficient and so offend "me" by taking "my" money).

But why take my word for it? Durham's weekly news magazine The Independent cites this quotation from a recent article in the daily newspaper The News & Observer:

"The last thing I want to do is put more money into education, because I don't want to pay for something I never use."
--Bob Williamson, 46, a childless real estate executive from Wake Forest, quoted in an N&O story about how a majority of Wake County residents who don't have children oppose new taxes to help the schools keep up with growth.

So goes the American creed.

[For: Katri, Maria, Tiia, Lissu, Laura]

Call on Me: London--Lima--Chapel Hill

London, summer 2005: DJ Eric Prydz's "Call on Me" takes Europe by storm and is the dance hit of the summer. Sampling Steve Winwood's 1987 song "Valerie," the song is a foot-thumping blend of catchy beats and memorable lyrical crescendos: "Call on meeeee... Call on me! Call on meeeee... Call on me! Call on meeeee... I'm the same boy I used to be."

The music video for "Call on Me" is equally memorable: an aerobics class workout becomes the site for a hot-and-heavy flirtation between the instructor and the lone male in the room. Curiously, while the girls around him get sweaty and toss their hair, the male remains sweat-free and smiles in a sort of goofy, dazed way. At any rate, the video is probably best known for the pelvic-thrust dance move that the class performs in unison after the first crescendo. The move goes a little something like this: spread your legs apart, keeping them parallel to each other; bend your knees and place your hands on your thighs; and now in this semi-sumo-squatting position, THRUST your hips to the beat of the song. It's that simple!



Though the unremixed version of "Call on Me" runs a little less than three minutes, it becomes an immediate dance sensation throughout Europe and the pelvic thrust becomes a rather popular form of bodily expression in discos for the entire summer of 2005.

Lima, summer (or the northern hemisphere's spring) 2007: At the popular club La Cede in Miraflores, the lone gay-friendly discoteca in Lima (the "gay club" in Miraflores, Downtown, was recently shut down by the district's conservative, evangelical mayor), I grow accustomed to watching music videos of songs the DJ plays during his set. While I'm sure this fusion of song and video has become the norm in dance clubs the world over, I really only experience it for the first time at La Cede. (It's been five years since I was last in Europe.)

Now although La Cede is mind-bogglingly crowded every time I go in there, I generally enjoy its atmosphere, its diverse crowd, and the music/videos the DJ plays -- a sometimes jarring but always fun blend of salsa, reggaeton, and '80s pop. As far as I can tell, the two constants in the DJ's playlist are: "Gasolina" and Erasure's "A Little Respect." And the best part is that the mostly Peruvian crowd knows all the lyrics to both songs. "Oh baby pleeeeease / give a little respect / to-hoo-ooo meeeee!"

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, summer 2007: It's my first sojourn to Chapel Hill, a neighbor city to Durham, since my return to the States. In fact, it's probably my first trip to the Chapel Hill bar scene in over a year. Five of us pack into my friend Bea's two-door, and having to ride on the "hump" in the back seat reminds me a bit of "making do" with transportation in Lima.

Chapel Hill is pretty dead this Thursday night -- perhaps it's post-Memorial Day fatigue. After a quiet spell at the bar Jack Sprat, we go to the dance club The Library, an old favorite of mine from three years ago. Bea, Ignacio, and Darian don't like the scene there and leave within fifteen minutes. Alvaro and I, though, are digging the fact that at least some people are dancing here and so stick around a while longer for a drink.

After a forgettable song by Eminem, the DJ puts on "Call on Me" and those funky aerobics girls appear on the huge TV screen above the dance floor. The students on the dance floor scream in unison -- the song has become a huge dance hit on the college circuit. (Perhaps there's a musical progression/regression to be examined here: from European discos to the U.S. college party scene.)

Without any prompting, girls in their short skirts and boys in their khaki shorts and polo shirts "assume the position": it's the preppy version of the dance. After that first deliciously frenetic crescendo, twenty college kids thrust their pelvises in an orgy of glittery make-up and popped collars.

Alvaro and I are watching the dance floor, and the music video, from a booth ten feet away. At first I make a vague attempt to laugh off the scene in front of us. But then I feel a weird sensation. My feet start tapping the bar stool I'm sitting on. My hand begins to rap the countertop in sync with the song's beat. A smile crosses my face. I love this song!!

But... but then I feel paralyzed. I'm bumping along in my seat, yet I can't muster up the courage to just go to the dance floor and move, let my body go. To be fair, I don't a friend to dance with, and the dance floor is pretty empty overall. Still, I can't help but feel that if this had been Lima, I would have wasted no time in getting my pelvic thrust on.

I mention something to Alvaro about the difference in social relations in bars and clubs between Latin America and the States. We agree that things are less socially awkward and uptight in Latin America, where making eyes at a girl can in fact be a seductive thing and dancing with a guy doesn't mean you're "his" or "with him." Here in Chapel Hill you could sense something almost completely different: friends surely had a great time with each other, but there was very little opportunity for strangers to meet, to dance, to blush, to sing.

The song ends with my not having moved an inch from my seat.

I remember the several nights of dancing I enjoyed at La Cede. I remember joining the tourists, locals, expats, and guides who were dancing the night away at a discoteca in Arequipa.

I finish my beer and wonder how long it will be before I dance like that again.

Welcome Back

I left Lima with a heavy heart Monday night. Anyone there can tell you I wasn't ready to leave -- I thought of traveling more with my friend Emily, spending more time with my Peruvian friends, eating more amazingly good and cheap chifa lunches... In the end, though, there were too many things that demanded my immediate attention in the States, not least removing personal possessions (and rare research materials) from my carrel before Duke's library closes down on June 1 for major renovations. And so I didn't end up extending my stay in Lima; I left my apartment and the city with tears in my eyes.

The flight from Lima to Houston went without a hitch. I sat next to a girl who turned out to be a Las Vegas socialite who had gone on a week-long vacation to Peru with her boyfriend's mother. It was the closest I had come to having a conversation with a Paris Hilton-type scenester. Contrary to stereotype, though, I was glad to hear she had had a wonderful time in Cusco, leaving her cell phone and e-mail behind, meeting interesting people from around the world, and only wearing her jeans and sneakers out to the local discotecas. I don't know whether she'd seek out another travel opportunity like this one in the future (she clearly enjoyed showing me pictures of her and her friends partying in Vegas), but it was nice to know she at least had this experience and will probably never forget it, wherever life may take her.

I touched down in Houston the next morning around 6. After going through immigration, re-checking my luggage, and making my way to another terminal, I was anxious to board the plane to Atlanta for the middle-leg of my trip. From there I still had to take a flight to Raleigh-Durham (RDU) in the late morning. But bad weather in Houston -- what seemed to be a severe thunderstorm, though I couldn't tell if what I was seeing was lightning or the fluorescent lighting at the gate flashing on and off -- delayed my flight by two hours, which meant that I was going to miss my connecting flight in Atlanta. Fortunately (I thought), I was rebooked on a direct flight from Houston to RDU, which was supposed to leave just an hour and a half later. Not only would I only have to take one flight, but I was supposed to get into RDU even a bit earlier than expected.

Well, one delay was followed by another, and I didn't end up leaving Houston until 3 in the afternoon. The only saving grace of that trip was that I had the whole row to myself. There I sat in the middle seat and finished reading Steve Martin's Shopgirl while listening to The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" on my iPod.

My friend and Literature colleague Justin Izzo welcomed me back to Durham at the airport. I'm staying at his place until I can move back into my apartment on June 1. I couldn't be luckier, really, as Justin is not only a fellow world-traveler who appreciates good backpacking stories but also a rabid football fan like myself. We caught up over a nice Italian dinner at Cinelli's and, later, discoursed on the recently completed English Premiership season as we worked our way through an 18-pack of Bud Light on the balcony of his apartment.

The next day Justin earned bragging rights when his team, AC Milan, beat England's Liverpool 2-1 in the Champions League final in Athens. He got to wear his Milan jersey in public while my newly purchased Liverpool jersey had to remain in the suitcase. After the match, we decided to go to the grocery store to pick up some things for dinner.

The path from Justin's apartment to the Whole Foods supermarket in Durham is direct: simply go down Broad St. for two miles or so and you're there. We jumped into Justin's car and set off for our grocery run. Everything was fine until we reached the intersection where we were supposed to turn right to get to Whole Foods. Near the traffic light, which was green, we saw a red minivan veer over the yellow dividing line. Thinking the driver was reckless, Justin slowed down and brought his car almost to a complete stop. The red minivan kept advancing. In a split second, where everything around me seemed frozen in time, I heard Justin shout, "WHOA!!," I braced myself in the passanger seat, and the red minivan crossed the dividing line completely and hit our car head-on.

Fortunately, the minivan was not going terribly fast and Justin and I escaped injury. I was able to open my passenger door and walk over to the minivan as Justin turned off the engine and collected his things. The first thing I saw was a little girl, no more than eight years old, get out of the driver's seat and run back toward the supermarket. There was a younger girl, likely her sister, who remained in one of the van's front seats. Both girls were sobbing and screaming for their mother. It was then that I realized that THE MINIVAN HAD BEEN DRIVEN INTO US BY THE EIGHT-YEAR-OLD GIRL.

Justin and I were dumbfounded. Bystanders made sure we were OK, and one lady took the girls in her care, removing them from the scene of the accident. Soon a woman, presumably the girls' mother, ran to the minivan and half-bawled, half-wailed, "Why did you do this? Why did you do this? You hit a BMW! I don't have money for this!" We then learned that there was another child in the van, probably a baby who was hidden from view in the back seat. Bystanders calmed her down and made sure that her children were safe and free from injury. When everyone was accounted for, Justin and the woman moved their vehicles off to the side and we all awaited a policeman to assess the situation and write a report.

What we determined from eyewitness accounts and our own piecing together of events was that the woman had left her vehicle running and likely double-parked in the Whole Foods lot while she ran in to buy groceries. She had left three girls in the minivan while another one accompanied her into the store. Though she claimed to have gone in to buy only greens, a friend of the woman's later brought a shopping cart half-full with plastic grocery bags to her minivan.

The two older girls were curious and somehow managed to put the car into drive. What happened next was amazing. Realizing that the minivan was accelerating (even without their pressing on the gas pedal), the girls panicked and the oldest one started to maneuver the wheel in order to avoid hitting anyone. She managed to drive the van down an entire lane of parked vehicles, run over a concrete parking block, jump the curb leading to Broad St., steer the vehicle to the left (to avoid hitting a wall across the way), and finally, surely exhausted and frightened beyond belief, ended up just colliding with us as we approached from the opposite direction.

Knowing this story was little consolation for Justin and me, as we were flabbergasted that this woman had left her children in such dangerous circumstances to begin with. It was an accident that could've been avoided with some patience and a little common sense. The main thing, of course, was that no one had gotten hurt and that insurance would cover the cost of repairing Justin's car. It could've been so much worse for the girls had they not run into us, I suppose.

One day after the accident, Justin and I are still shellshocked from the experience. His car will be out of service for the foreseeable future, though the good news is that I bought a new used car this afternoon to replace my 1993 Mercury Topaz that died on me just two days before I left for Peru. Though it's not a model from the 2000s, my Nissan Sentra is comfortable and gas-efficient, and it has the added luxury (which I've never had in a car) of a CD player.

But all these car issues, which I've had to deal with so quickly upon my return, make me long for life back in Lima, where having a car wasn't an option and taking combis was the norm. I got on just fine, and I saved a lot of money on transportation to boot.

Some tourists like to complain that Lima's combis are uncomfortable, their schedules are erratic, their drivers are reckless, and you're not always guaranteed a seat. I've never been in an accident while on a combi, and I got used to paying only 1 nuevo sol, or roughly $.33, for a trip to almost anywhere in Lima.

On my first full day back in Durham, I got into a car accident with an eight-year-old girl driving a minivan down Broad St. My Nissan Sentra, which Justin now relies on for transportation, is a nice ride and was affordably priced; but the gas tank reads Almost Empty, and I admit to kind of forgetting how to refill a tank.