December 2007 Archives

Good times with great friends as always at Andie’s annual New Year’s Party. Lo, the wine flowed, the music played. My photos turned out like ass so feel free to view Kelly’s photos of our clique.

I made this coffee cake for breakfast yesterday for my sister and I. The recipe’s from the Amy Sedaris cookbook Jimi got me for Christmas and which I’ve unexpectedly become enamored with. The recipe’s easy and looked especially handsome when I turned it out of the new cast-aluminum Wilton brand “Perfect Performance Plus” fluted tube pan I purchased recently from Bowery Kitchen Supply at the winding, peddler’s alley of Chelsea Market within the old National Biscuit Company. I’d walked by that complex numerous times and always thought it housed an expensive restaurant until someone pointed out I was an idiot. The coffee cake is rich and sweet with nutty-vanilla goodness, and it goes good with, uh, coffee.

My sister Dana and I hung out in Williamsburg, Brooklyn today for sightseeing and vintage-clothing shopping. (The above photo of her and the happy hearts was taken on N. 10th Street between Bedford and Driggs.) At Buffalo Exchange she found and bought a crazy Stussy sweatshirt from the ’80s, pink with blue stars on it. She was impressed by the storied local clothing exchange store, Beacon’s Closet, and its organized-by-color convention but it was very busy and difficult to shop with a clear head.

For a late brunch, we took a long walk over to hit Diner. Despite the odd time of 3 p.m., the place was already/still packed, so we ate at the bar. I liked the typewritten menus and the snug diner-design of the place, and the guy behind the bar who was visibly confused by the extra-long-intro version of Steely Dan’s “Do it Again” played over the sound system. (He wondered aloud if it was an instrumental karaoke version.) In the mood for drinking a unfamiliar drink, I had a Van Vleet, followed quickly by a second. I’d not have guessed lemon juice, maple syrup and rum would conspire for sweet-tart tastiness. Dana got the Gruyere cheese breakfast sandwich and I had the ricotta cheese/fresh herb omelet both of which were fantastic, fresh and appreciated. I will have to return someday for dinner when the menu is more dynamic than the more standard brunch fare. Walking back under the Williamsburg Bridge on our way back to the L train, we noticed this vibrantly graffitied truck, which I photographed for the benefit of my friends named Joe.

Diner

• 85 Broadway (at Berry Street), Brooklyn
• (718) 486-3077
• Meal 55 of 52: two van Vleets ($8 each) and a omelet with roast potatoes ($10).

Dana and I checked out the Robert Capa exhibit at the International Center of Photography. Most moving for me are his famous D-Day landing photos. I didn’t know this before the exhibit but the blur and high grain of these snapshots were caused by a darkroom error at Life magazine, not from shaky hands on Capa’s part. The look of the photos with these artifacts, though, gives them a sense of motion and confusion they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Later my sister and I had vintage drinks at the Flatiron Lounge. Our dapper, mustachioed, tucked-tie barman broke character when I heard him quote Superbad to a coworker. I felt like clapping my hands for attention and shouting with a lisp, “1920s, people! Stick with it!”

Dana and I loaded our rented Chrysler Town & Country with the milk-crates of books and miscellaneous supplies that have been in storage in my parents’ house for years and drove off for New York City. It was overcast during the 7.5-hour drive with only spots of drizzle.

Midway through Pennsylvania, we encountered a drunk, stoned or distracted driver in a tan safari-like vehicle that frequently crept over the white lines. He’d also do confusing things like leave his left-hand blinker as he drove in the passing lane. We gave him a wide berth and then lost him when we stopped for lunch. Hours later, as we approached the George Washington Bridge just outside New York City, a massive backup of cars clogged the upper-deck tollbooths. Because it was around 5 p.m., we chalked it up to rush hour. But as the line of traffic moved a few hundred feet onto the bridge, we spotted the wayward driver in the tan safari-car who had gotten into an (apparently minor) accident and was blocking the left two of the four lanes at a rakish angle. Sweet, sweet just desserts.

Reaching my apartment building at last, we learned the elevator that had been out of commission for the two weeks before Christmas was still inoperable. We had to make about 10 trips up and down four flights of stairs with all my stuff. When it was over, we were out of breath and ached like old people, and still had a stressful drive ahead of us to return the car to LaGuardia before it turned back into a pumpkin.

In search of whiskey in my grandmother’s kitchen cabinets, I came across these liquor bottles which appear to date from at least the 1960’s. I especially like the “hula girl” on the Trader Vic’s pomegranate grenadine syrup.

Christmas at Grandma’s! It was the usual drill: I ate way too much and had fun hanging out with the family. Here’s Grandma, looking regal as she tears into a gift.

Another recipe! This one’s a “classic suburban Mom” fruit salad made from a sweet blend of fruit and convenience foods that makes frequent appearances during the summer at barbeques and picnics involving my family. I believe it’s originally from the 1971 edition of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, which indicates that this salad should be served in “lettuce cups.” I recommend actual bowls.

Instead of making genuine holiday fruitcakes every December that recipients will only pretend to like, my family has been making these Christmas nut loaves most years since 1987. They’re more nuts than cake although retain many classic fruitcake elements, like the candied fruit. The recipe is simple albeit expensive (especially those two pounds of pecans) and requires arms of steel to stir. These loaves don’t photograph romantically but I assure you they are tasty.

I can’t believe I remember this but when I was in grade school, my friends and I had a salty, bearded lumberjack of a bus driver named Mr. Massey who chain smoked every second he wasn’t in the bus. The dude reeked like the Marlboro Man’s ashtray. As a sort-of gift one Christmas season, we developed clever new lyrics to “Frosty the Snowman” and sang the song during our commute. It was an elaborate production and I’m certain Mr. Massey appreciated our efforts. The only verses I can recall are:

Mr. Massey the bus driver
Was a very jolly soul
Smoked two packs a day
And got fricasseed
Now he’s just a lump of coal

There must have been some magic
In those old two packs he smoked
For when he placed them in his mouth
He gasped and wheezed and choked.

On my flight home to Cleveland for the holidays, I read in today’s New York Times an article “Guess Who’s Minding the Store” by Kate Hammer) revealing that owners of delis and bodegas in New York City are not supposed to own in-store cats. At least two of them do in my neighborhood (the kids love ’em!) and I guess it makes sense that both the city’s health code and state law forbid animals in places where food or beverages are sold for human consumption.

But as the article notes, bodegas are also not supposed to have rats. Realizing that the $300 fine from a health inspector for the first offense of having a cat is the same as the fee for the same inspector finding rodent feces, many bodega owners have decided to gamble with keeping their cats on staff. But although the city recognizes that even the smell of cats in an enclosed area will keep mice away, it figures the risk of consumables contaminated by a cat is greater, hence the law.

Related: Working Class Cats, a blog about kitties working in big cities.

I took an A train down to the Village this morning to purchase a pound of cheese for the Amy Sedaris Cheeseball I plan to sculpt when my sister’s in town next week and realized that Murray’s has the best cheese descriptions ever. Here’s an example from the cheese I bought today, Taylor Farm Smoked Gouda; it’s from their website, which features longer descriptions than at the shop on Bleecker, where they’re not as consistently funny by nature of their brevity. This one’s good enough that I can almost overlook the mangled punctuation (and that fifth sentence, which is a run-on). What sells it for me are the hinted-mockery of typical cheese-shops and descriptions, the lovely phrase “a wedge of wet autumn,” and especially referring to a cheese as a “husky lad.”

A few years ago we would’ve sneered, Smoked gouda? Try the supermarket. And then Jon Wright of Londonderry came along with this husky lad. All good cheese deserves a chance, and this is the best smoked gouda we’ve ever tasted. Vermonters are a hearty bunch, ice fishing, sugaring, running around in the snow, they need a hearty cheese. This is one you can sink your teeth into, heady with real smoke (not some Liqui-junk in a bottle), like a wedge of wet autumn. For cheese guys, there’s always the need for the perfect nosh on Superbowl Sunday, poker night, or while waiting for dinner. As comfy with Newcastle as a drunk guy in a jersey.

Everyone carries a room about inside him. This fact can even be proved by means of the sense of hearing. If someone walks fast and one pricks up one’s ears and listens, say in the night, when everything round about is quiet, one hears, for instance, the rattling of a mirror not quite firmly fastened to the wall.

Franz Kafka, from The Blue Octavo Notebooks (1917-1919)

Jason

This is the creepiest American Apparel ad yet.

S.

Does that skeevey owner bang the senior citizens, too, or just the prepubescent-looking ones?

Jason

I think he does both. He’s an equal opportunity, vertically integrated skeeve. Although the first thing I thought of was the jolly incest cartoon from R. Crumb’s Joe Blow entitled, “The Family that LAYS Together STAYS Together!” And that’s all I’m saying about that.

S.

You are a sick, sick individual. Sick. But funny.

The first rule of office holiday parties is you do not talk about work. The second rule of office holiday parties is you do not talk about work. Here is what you can and will talk about, while moving frequently to avoid the Office Bore:

Is it a coincidence that the big boss’ assistant is perceived as the hottest girl in the company? Conversely, does our company have a low hot-boy quotient when the hottest one at the party “looks kind of like Gary Sinise,” according to a coworker? (“Gary Sinise is kinda hot,” she added, not very convincingly.) Interestingly, the guy who kind of looked like Gary was hitting on the big boss’ assistant, which I guess is Natural Selection in action.

At the office holiday party, you may also discuss: Who will get hammered and make an ass of himself/herself? And: How late are you guys staying? (Yeah, we’re not staying very late, either.)

It wasn’t too bad, I guess. It was at a swanky, two-story suite on the 43rd floor of the Marriott Marquis on Times Square. The hors d’œuvres included soup dumplings, California rolls and miniature key-lime pies. The barmen had available Knob Creek bourbon and weren’t afraid to knock it into my glass. There was a billiard table, on the rails of which we were not allowed to rest said glasses. Afterwards we had dinner at John’s Pizzeria, which uses too much garlic in its pastas and appears to be located in a deconsecrated church.

What’s really gross is when someone at the office gives you a Christmas card and it’s clear they just sealed it because when you open the envelope, the flap is still wet with spit. I always give my cards a full day to cure, just in case.

We kicked off the evening with a surprise birthday celebration for Katie at the XR Bar on West Houston involving good friends and many tasty drinks, then scooted over to Karaoke Duet 35 for the moving-to-San-Francisco going-away party for my camping buddies, Toisha and Susan. You know what’s great about karaoke if you’ve been drinking enough? It doesn’t matter if you don’t know a song’s lyrics or even its melody; if you are loud enough and passionate enough, it can be your song, such as “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” as popularized by Gene Pitney, as well as Vincent and I. Vincent and Megan memorably dueted on “Punk Rock Girl” by the Dead Milkmen which, sadly, I don’t think a lot of people recognized. We closed it off with a bittersweet take on “Auld Lang Syne.” Later we wandered around in the sleet for more drinks and fried chicken. We ended up hitting the sack at the same time most farmers are waking up.

I am slowly plotting a mini jungle of houseplants for my apartment. I’ve already been given a spider plant named Inigo to keep Phil, my philodendron, company. I’ve unequivocally been promised to receive, sometime after Christmas, a potted spear of aloe vera that I’m told will soon overtake my life and my kitchen with skin-soothing, ugly spike-leaved goodness.

On my subway commute this morning, the conductor, who had a voice like warm maple syrup, consistently replaced the word “train” with “experience,” making announcements such as, “Good morning. This is a downtown A experience” and “This is a Brooklyn-bound A experience to Lefferts Boulevard.”

It improved my mood drastically for some reason.

I’m late to the wide world of Chuck Klosterman yet amused to read this sentence from the intro to an article in his book A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas. It sums up blogs well (including this one):

This article is a combination of two forms of quasi-journalism: it’s 50 percent a “Look at All These Misplaced Weirdos” story, and it’s 50 percent an “Enjoy My Self-Reflexively Peculiar Personal Experiencere” story.

Andie, various coworkers, Megan, Vincent and I met at Karaoke One 7 for song and drink. The small place was unexpectedly crowded, with a large group of cute, arty types at the bar (one of them had a hair-pin illustrated with an Olde English 800 label). I realized after a time that most of them were, like, 22 and I’m not the Dov Charney type, so I concentrated instead on staying on-key for “Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now),” got angry when I couldn’t stay on key and gave it up.

Otherwise our group brought it, big-time. Andie was nervous about “Love Is a Battlefield” but did Pat proud. And I’m convinced now that one of the best karaoke songs ever is “A Little Respect” by Erasure. We got the rest of the bar to join in. Another good one (especially for cute couples like Megan and Vincent) is “Don’t You Want Me” by Human League. They also did a great rendition of “Birdhouse in Your Soul” by They Might Be Giants. A random guy, wavering and slurry from drink (and the one who sang “I Am...I Said” and sounded just like Neil, sandpapered voice and all), wandered over to personally thank us for our excellent selections.

I’m better I think at the “private-room karaoke” because I get shy in groups and go through the stereotypical motions: claim I haven’t drank enough to sing, spend a solid half-hour with my head buried in the song directory like it’s the new Stephen King novel, then later claim I’ve drank too much to sing.

In advance of her impending birthday, I invited Katie to dinner at an isolated little tapas place in the East Village, Grape and Grain. We drank a lot of wine, split a pizza with Portobello mushrooms, roasted red peppers and garlic comfit, split a sandwich featuring roasted chicken breast, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese/black olive spread, and an artisanal cheese plate featuring Murray’s finest, including a “smoky blue” from Rogue Creamery that’s a new favorite. Instead of going to see a movie as we’d planned originally, we had even more wire. Our server, who kept giving us free refills because we were so charming, was knowledgeable about a great many things: which wine would go best with which dessert, cheese in general, the best hipster songs to play in a candlelit restaurant (we presumed the soundtrack-playlist was emanating from her iPod) and that it was a bad idea to be checking out the cool-looking apartment on the third-floor of the building across the street because its owner has a habit of parading around naked.

Grape and Grain

• 620 E. 6th St. (between Avenues B and C)
• (212) 420-0002
• Meal 54 of 52: three-selection cheese plate ($15), pizza ($12), chicken sandwich ($10), an apple tart for dessert and like a gallon of wine.

Today I bought from Home Depot and installed the final pair of window treatments for my apartment. It would seem more people than I’d have guessed conduct their Christmas shopping at Home Depot. (“A belt sander? Honey, you shouldn’t have.”)

Atop the garbage can in the office kitchen lay an empty gold-papered Godiva Chocolates box. I retrieved it and refilled the chocolate-shaped divots in the plastic liner with single-serve containers of Land O’Lakes Mini Moo’s Half & Half creamers. I closed the lid and put the box on the counter, the classic free-food location.

One minute later, from my cubicle, I heard M. in the kitchen shriek, “That’s cruel!”

Comfortably uptown from the meatball-baited guido trap of Little Italy is Luzzo’s, a really nice trattoria at which to get classic Napoletana coal-oven pizza as well as friendly service from a large staff of Italian-speaking folks.

“You been here before?” asked Pasquale, my waiter. “We were rated best pizza in New York, two months ago,” he said proudly, genuinely proudly enough that I didn’t have the heart to tell him that a.) I don’t give credence to such accolades; and b.) Their rating is a good thing because I’ve been rated Most Important Man in New York City for three years running.¹)

But he was a super nice guy. He let me take a sturdy, lacquered four-top booth instead of an inevitably wobbly table-for-two.

After I attempted to sneakily photograph my meal, I misjudged the position of my bag on the seat of my booth and the camera fell to the unfinished wood floor. My server rushed over and fished around under the table to retrieve it for me. Then he brought me a big stack of paper napkins, perhaps assuming dexterity eating equaled that of my camera sheathing.

Made by a man named Michele with fresh bufala mozzarella, my 12" pizza was a little greasier than expected but thin and delicious, topped with fresh basil. I ate the entire thing while drinking two glasses of nero d’avola (a popular Sicilian red wine) and watching the Italian equivalent of VH1 on the large TV over the bar at the far end of the restaurant. If I would have showed up on Tuesday, according to a flyer at the door, I could have heard “the fabulous Alessandra” sing Neapolitan classics as well as Italian, American, Portuguese and Spanish standards.

¹ As rated by my mom. [back]

Luzzo’s

• 211-13 First Ave. (between 12th and 13th Streets)
• (212) 473-7447
• Meal 53 of 52: mozzarella di bufala pizza ($15) and two glasses of nero d’avola wine ($9 each).

Our office held its annual health fair today in the conference room. It’s an excuse for physicians and other shysters in our health plan to drum up more business, like the chiropractor who insisted I needed an appointment so he could address my possibly poor posture. I found out later that coworkers who agreed to an appointment received a free shoulder massage; I received only a photocopied diagram of the spine entitled “Your Nervous System Controls Everything.” Another practitioner was offering complementary, full back/shoulder/neck massages, although the therapist kneading my muscles and inadvertently tickling me noted the presence of “serious knots” in the region of my trapezius muscles. I also got my blood pressure taken (110/70) and my body fat measured (11.1%, but only if I really do weigh 150 pounds, as I guessed).

Welcome to a new, possibly monthly music feature of Jason’s Journal, “B-Side Appreciation,” in which I comb my music collection for non-album tracks I like that appear on singles. I aim to favor songs that haven’t been anthologized or otherwise collected and popularized.

In February 1984, Bananarama released “Robert De Niro’s Waiting,” a single that hit #3 on the UK charts and, as legend has it, inspired the actor to contact the girl-group in appreciation of their weenie tribute. In it, they sing that their only escape from dashed hopes and stalker boyfriends is “watching a film or a face on the wall.” History doesn’t reveal whether De Niro contacted PJ Harvey when she issued her “50ft Queenie” single, a B-side for which, “Reeling,” flat out commands, five seconds in, “Robert De Niro, sit on my face.”

Idolator has already adulated the demo version of “Reeling” found on 4-Track Demos but I prefer the studio version found on the now out-of-print “50ft Queenie” single, released in the spring of 1993. It’s the only commercially available song from the December 1992 recording sessions for Rid of Me, overseen by producer Steve “Don’t Call Me A Producer” Albini, that doesn’t appear on the album.

Albini ranks Rid of Me in the top-10 of the hundreds of albums the’s recorded, but has otherwise remained tight-lipped about the sessions, choosing instead to dish out tidbits such as that PJ “ate nothing but potatoes, with occasional sauces, during the entire recording” of the album. Certainly its pinched and abrasive sound was influential; Albini reveals (in the liner notes for the Nirvana box set, With the Lights Out) that he shared with Kurt Cobain a prerelease copy of his recordings with PJ and that Kurt agreed that if its next album (In Utero) sounded like hers, he’d be happy. And it did, and he was, at least until he got a big WTF from the suits at Geffen. Way to go, PJ, the fury-muse in the high heels and leopard-print coat.

What’s immediate just listening to Rid of Me is that it’s PJ’s most violent and sexual, her most direct, and her last album before a lingering passion for synthesizers and the warm-wash production of Flood.

Cocksure larger-than-life men swagger and stomp around the album—Abraham, Tarzan, Mars, Casanova, Yuri Gagarin. In “Reeling” alone, De Niro, Romeo and possibly John Wayne make appearances among the genocide, the bragged comparisons to Aphrodite, goddess of love, lust and beauty, and reclining-odalisque allusions to Cleopatra bathing in milk. It’s an exhaustive, smoking-rubble, dick-swinging song, a fast-clip punk slingshot with punishing drums and sawtooth guitars smothering PJ’s vocal (is she singing thorough a Mr. Microphone?). Someone screams the song title throughout in a hoarse falsetto that recurs on many of the album’s tracks. (Allmusic suggests it’s Harvey herself; other sources say it’s drummer Rob Ellis, which would be my guess.) At the song’s end, PJ repeats the phrase “take me/fly me to the moon,” perhaps in reference to the Sinatra-popularized song of the same name and tying into lunar imagery repeated in the album.

Why was the song relegated to B-side status? Could it have been too fast and noisy for an album already stuffed with sonic overload? I don’t know, but it kicks ass.

Bonus mp3: “Reeling” by PJ Harvey (1993)

We were strongly encouraged, via a series of increasingly aggravated emails from HR, to attend our company holiday party, so that we might mingle with our coworkers and exhibit appropriate amounts of corporate-approved cheer. It was at a too-small Upper East Side nightclub, The Grand. The drink pours were very generous, the food was lousy and the DJ was familiar only with booty-shaking hits from the early ’90s, which was a mixed blessing.

It’s something that comes to mind often during outings for the 52 Meals Project: the whole capital-lettered thing of the Dining Experience. Some places, maybe they’re not all that special but the diner imbues them with his own magic: the combination of a certain time and certain company with a certain frame of mind.

That birthday dinner with Iggy comes to mind. Or that West Village bar, the one I went to with Katie, Andie and Jimi in the blustery winter many moons ago, that one with the white Christmas lights and the worn wood booths and the Russian boxing matches on the TV over the bar. Where was that place? (No, really: Where the fuck was it? I want to go back and confirm whether it’s as great as I remember.)

Other establishments actively strive to create magic, to buttress your own or to do the heavy lifting, should your imagination be in a weakened or absent state. But careful: too much magic-mongering on the business end and, hey presto, you’ve got a theme restaurant. (e.g. any dining establishment within a block radius of Times Square.)

It’s a difficult balance, a confluence of factors, as they say.

Friend of a Farmer excels at this balancing act, though. And we almost didn’t go. The diner across the street had perfectly serviceable brunch, the menfolk grumbled. (They’d been up late, watching a documentary on ants.) But Megan convinced Vincent and I to slog through the first snow of the season to Gramercy Park.

We ate upstairs, up the wood staircase, banister entwined with strands of pine and white Christmas lights; an antique cabinet on the landing held gourds, tin soldiers and Mason jars of dry beans. The second floor was a cozy, clapboard-clad cocoon. Santas and ceramic roosters perched on the mantelshelf above a crackling fire. Yellowed wallpaper of wildflowers enveloped the room. Large, condensation-fogged windows overlooked the flurries on Irving Place, where I kept expecting to see a hansom cab ramble by. A giant Christmas tree huddled in our corner, heavy with lights and ornaments, while lantern style lamps hung from the bare-raftered ceiling.

Practically like my own Grandma’s farmhouse in the wilds of Ohio, or a slightly more idyllic version of it, although Grandma would start at the prices here, and if memory serves, she never hung a hand-calligraphed paper sign on her Christmas tree that read, “Please Do Not Touch Tree.”¹

What sealed the deal was this possibly Grandma-aged lady wearing the ultimate Grandma-type sweater. She sat across from us at a table where she silently read part of the Sunday Times while her husband read another chunk; after a time, they wordlessly swapped sections.

Yes, those are squirrels. I was so excited to document this wardrobe splendor that I almost knocked over my orange juice. Which reminds me: the food fit flush with the experience. My omelet, bulging with cheddar and mushrooms, was served in a frying pan, nestled up to some nicely spiced potatoes. Tracy, our waitress, had on one of those knit caps that cool yet down-to-earth girls always seem to be wearing, and said things in earnest like “You got it!”, “Holler if you need me!” and “Thanks a bunch!” Also, I think I may have heard her address a diner as “Darlin’.” Almost too much.

You know, I run on at times. Megan, on the other hand, summed the Dining Experience in one well-turned sentence: “I feel like I’m being hugged by this entire restaurant.”

Good call, Megs.

P.S. How about that? I’ve now eaten a meal at 52 different establishments in New York City this year and I have nearly a month left. It’s strangely anticlimactic for me, especially recalling the unfulfilled struggles of the 52 Meals Project’s first two years. I’m going to keep counting and reviewing past 52 for any additional new meals I eat in 2007.

¹ Although she did hide a pickle ornament in it. [back]

Friend of a Farmer

• 77 Irving Place (between East 18th and 19th Streets)
• (212) 477-2188
• Meal 52 of 52: country omelet ($12.95), large orange juice ($4) and a mug of coffee ($2.25; free refills).

I had dinner with Megan and Vincent at the Chinatown standby, Big Wong King. Most patrons appear to be Chinese, which is a good sign that the food’s the real deal. Super-speedy service and great prices. We had several beers with our roasted meats and good times.

Big Wong King

• 67 Mott St. (near Bayard Street)
• (212) 964-0540
• Meal 51 of 52: roast pork ($5.50), sliced beef soup with noodles ($4) and a few bottled beers.

The New Museum, which opened yesterday, injects architectural excitement into a parcel of the Bowery near Prince Street that remains dingy despite near daily pop-ups of condo buildings. It’s noble the curators steered clear of uptown hotspots like Museum Mile and have attempted to introduce art in an otherwise cultural wasteland. Avant-garde architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have designed a building that looks from afar like a stack of blocks balanced awkwardly by a child. Up close, the facing that appears solid gray from a distance is revealed to be metal mesh cladding the building’s surface. Floor-to-ceiling glass on the ground floor, home to a shallow lobby, lends levity and odd street-level views down Prince.

Inside, the excitement wanes. The galleries feature stark white walls, florescent tube lighting and already-cracked poured-cement floors. And regarding the art itself, I’ll let this graffito from a seventh-floor stairwell speak for me.

I’m not entirely sure this wasn’t an actual artwork because the New Museum is one of those contemporary art museums where it’s unclear whether that fire extinguisher you’re attempting to fathom on an artistic level is part of the exhibit or simply a device that one uses to extinguish fires. Either that or the art resembles, as Kelly put it, stuff you’d find in the back yard of a guy who just got arrested on Cops: a bottle-cap studded mattress, a tube light driven through an old couch, a sort-of artful arc of worn wooden chairs, a homeless-man-style clump of cardboard boxes, paint-slopped sculptures featuring plastic army guys, Transformers and, as Tritia noted, a strangely robust amount of Ikea furniture.

The museum’s biggest captive audience by far clustered around a teepee-like structure of long unfinished wooden boards to which were affixed a web of what appeared to be Salvation Army T-shirts. Its spindly legs had given out and the art had collapsed like an exhausted spider. Museum personnel, including a flushed man who gave urgent updates into his walkie-talkie, attempted to re-erect the thing, at one point resembling the marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima, until it became clear none of them knew how the art had been positioned initially. They ended up solemnly carting the bundle off into the elevator, probably to reassemble it someplace less shameful.

We completed our visit to the museum with a hike to the top floor, a glass-walled penthouse-lounge that had been completely overtaken by sponsor Target, plastered with logos and a bank of cabinets inexplicably filled with corporate-colored junk food: mini candy canes, cinnamon Mike and Ike, red and white Jelly Belly jelly beans, Atomic Fireballs and yogurt-covered pretzels. On the narrow terrace skirting the building outside were beautiful views of the sun setting over the city and blinding spotlights splashing the Target logo-colors all over the place. I can’t begrudge Target too much, however, because they were responsible for everyone getting into the museum for free yesterday and today. Otherwise, I can’t recommend the $12 general admission.

You know, I like photography, and I like women. I also like meat, but I’d never considered that the combination of all three elements could be interesting. There’s this free exhibit, Maria, at the Rivington Arms, of Pinar Yolacan’s large-format color studio portraits of mostly emotionless Afro-Brazilian women clothed or draped in garments made from cow organs. Some of these articles are immediately obvious as offal, glistening with fresh-butchered wetness, while others require a second look; what appears to be a dainty brooch pinned to the collar of an elderly woman is actually a cow eye. Other than the artist making the connection in her statement between the placenta (an organ that appears in several of the photos) and the femininity of her subjects, I’m not sure what to make of all of this, or what, if any, sort of commentary is being made, but I think I like it.

Kelly has revealed a cunning guessing game she calls Trophy Dots that I suspect has existed for some time under similarly stupid names. It goes like this: one person in a group of people begins by telling the others what Trophy Dots like and what Trophy Dots don’t like. “Trophy Dots like pork but not beef,” for example, followed by, “Trophy Dots like margarine but not butter.” It is the rest of the group’s task to understand the commonalities hidden in these statements to determine what it is precisely that Trophy Dots dislike. Once someone has picked up on the solution, he or she can chime in with the leader, adding, for instance, “Trophy Dots like celery but not carrots.” In this case, what it is that Trophy Dots don’t like is “words with double letters.” Got it? It’s fun.