February 2008 Archives

I’m a total cast-iron skillet convert. Yes, me, the one who thought he’d use it once then leave it to pasture as one would a rinky-dink kitchen gadget. Me, the one who about a year ago wrote:

...cooks are always going on about the miracle of their cast iron, as if it was a particularly dim and stocky yet hard-working child of theirs.

and

For a utensil this rugged, seemingly smithed from a block of iron the size and sturdiness of Chuck Norris, then forged in the fires of hell or South Pittsburg, Tennessee, I expected chuckwagon simplistic care and handling. But its instructions read like a babysitter’s list of dos and don’ts. Don’t use soap. Dry it thoroughly always. Apply a light coat of oil before and after. Store in a cool, arid place. And for the love of all that is holy, do not violate all of the preceding rules at once by sticking it in your dishwasher. In other words, you never want to actually clean it, just gussy it up from time to time, like superficial Stradlater in Catcher in the Rye, spic and span outside, crumby inside.

But I’m now a cult member who anoints his skillet lovingly and on a regular basis with canola oil. I’m using it for everything: pancakes, cornbread, bacon and eggs. I feel I need to do an infomercial and establish an appropriate celebrity endorsement, except that Walter Matthau is dead.

I was extremely close to trying to make apple crisp in my skillet the other night, but it was the same dinner for which I had mac-and-cheese on the menu, and thinking of how they serve it at S’Mac, I tried it in the cast-iron and it worked beautifully. Bubbly, nicely browned edges.

Tonight, I picked up an extra thick shell steak on the way home and some fresh, whole mushrooms. I sautéed the mushrooms in butter in the skillet then threw in the meat, cooked it up a few minutes on each side, added some cheap merlot here and there while it was cooking. Holy cats that was a tasty dinner. You may have noticed I don’t eat meat a lot, which is true. But when I do, I want it done right, and absent a grill, a cast-iron skillet is a handy way to get steak done perfectly.

It’s simple enough: upon the death of his grandmother, who would have never approved of such an enterprise, author Jonathan Safran Foer flies to the Ukraine to research his grandfather’s life. Upon his return he writes a novel (unread by me) based on the trip. Then actor Liev Schreiber adapts the book and directs the film of the same name, which I watched tonight.

It’s like two movies. It starts out as a wacky road trip—Elijah “Frodo” Wood, resplendent in slicked Eisenhower-era hair and huge plastic-framed spectacles, is a fastidious collector of his family’s ephemera--a wall in his house bristles with artifacts, photos, knickknacks, his grandmother’s false teeth, each carefully dated and labeled in a Ziploc bag. “Why do you do this?” he’s asked. “I guess sometimes I’m afraid I’ll forget,” he says.

Freshly off the plane in Europe, his translator, Alex (Ukrainian actor and bandleader Eugene Hütz), serves as a translator and guide, breaking Foer into a world that doesn’t understand or accept his Jewishness, vegetarianism, fear of dogs, humor and clumsy attempts to offer helpful locals boxes of Marlboro Reds as tips. (“I read you can’t get these here,” he explains.)

Alex’s grandfather Boris Leskin), his partner in their scheme to help “rich Jews” from America find their families, is vocal, cranky and blind—or only thinks he’s blind—which makes him the second-scariest non-English-speaking person to be in a car with, after only Roberto Benigni in Night on Earth. Every so many mistranslated misunderstandings. My favorite travel narratives are written by Bill Bryson and Illuminated is filled with these sorts of fish-out-of-water characters.

Then the second half slows the movie’s pace; its flip tone dissolves and leaves in its wake a surreal and reflective voyage of self-discovery for all three men (and a batshit-crazy dog) crammed into that ridiculously small Eastern European car. It was something different for certain, and unexpected, which is often all I ask for in a movie.

Millions of families are watching! Including Andie and I. Time to liveblog American Idol.

8:00 p.m. Apparently calling the contestants “girls” is O.K. (I mean, I don’t have a problem with it.)

8:01 p.m. Also: “guys.”

8:01 p.m. Ryan just said “ladies,” referring to the girls.

8:02 p.m. Randy wears a size 13 1/2 shoe, according to Ryan.

8:02 p.m. “Pretty fantastic,” says Paula.

8:03 p.m. I think Simon bleaches his teeth.

8:03 p.m. All the songs tonight will be ‘70s classics!

8:03 p.m. Carly is up first. She works at an Irish bar, where everyone is Irish. Like her. She’s “a homey person” who loves to clean and cook. She’s got a crazy accent. It’s Irish. Like her.

8:04 p.m. “Crazy on You!” By Heart! Andie recognizes it immediately.

8:05 p.m. Where does Carly’s accent go when she sings? That’s weird.

8:06 p.m. That was good, says Andie.

8:06 p.m. She overhit some notes, says Randy.

8:07 p.m. “Crazy on You” is Carly’s favorite song ever. And she’s “amazing,” says Paula.

8:07 p.m. Much better than last week, says Simon. “You’re panting,” he adds. But it’s not the “right song” for her despite being an “incredible singer.”

8:08 p.m. Andie is taking notes.

8:10 p.m. Correction: Andie was writing down phone numbers, not taking notes. “Don’t make me sound any nerdier than I already am,” she adds.

8:11 p.m. First commercial break: It’s not mystery fish. It’s cod, dammit.

8:13 p.m. Syesha has done a lot of commercials: “Dewayne! Find me a big beautiful shell.” Her imitation of a baby cry is terrifying.

8:14 p.m. “Me and Mr. Jones.” They got a thing goin’ on. Dear lord.

8:15 p.m. Andie is writing down Syesha’s number, too.

8:15 p.m. Liveblogging makes a young man sweat.

8:16 p.m. Randy loves Syesha’s baby cry. He hates her song choice.

8:16 p.m. Paula says that on the softer notes, Syesha tends to go off pitch. But she liked the interpretation.

8:16 p.m. “A bit indulgent,” says Simon. Also: that song wasn’t written for a girl. First boos of the night for Simon. He was put off as soon as she started, he says.

8:18 p.m. Brooke went to beauty school. Brooke annoys Andie. Exhibit A: “I see people walking around and I think, ‘What can I do with their hair?’“ Also: “I guess you could call me a beauty school dropout. But not a high school dropout. I did finish high school.”

8:19 p.m. She’s playing acoustic guitar. Carly Simon. “You’re so Vain.”

8:20 p.m. “Really good,” says Andie. Simon liked the way Carly—I mean Brooke—was looking at him when she sang the song. Pointed commentary or vote whoring?

8:21 p.m. The song suits her, says Paula. “Everyone was diggin’ it.”

8:21 p.m. Simon: I absolutely loved it. Absolute perfect song for her. Sang well. Didn’t sound old-fashioned.

8:22 p.m. Simon admits (twice) he actually did think the song was about him.

8:23 p.m. “She’s the one who needs to eat a brownie,” says Andie of Brooke. “She’s near anorexic.”

8:27 p.m. Welcome back to Idol.

8:28 p.m. There’s a Coca-Cola logo on the screen for some reason.

8:28 p.m. Ramiele! She used to Polynesian dance when she was in first grade or something. She can move her hips in a circle without moving her shoulders.

8:29 p.m. “She’s cute,” says Andie.

8:29 p.m. I don’t know this song. (I was a music-unaware larva in the ‘70s.)

8:30 p.m. I’m thirsty for a Coca-Cola.

8:31 p.m. “I like her,” says Andie. “She’s been my favorite.”

8:31 p.m. Randy says it was just “O.K.,” vocally. Crowd goes “Eww.” “Keepin’ it real!” counters Randy.

8:31 p.m. Paula feels the same way. Ramiele didn’t get to perform her magic.

8:32 p.m. Simon agrees with Paula, “astonishingly.”

8:32 p.m. But Ramiele’s one of the top-three singers in the competition, adds Simon.

8:33 p.m. Ramiele says she changed her song selection, “like, four times.”

8:33 p.m. “I’m gonna vote for her because I definitely want to keep her in the competition,” reveals Andie.

8:34 p.m. It’s that Ford commercial backed by “The Funeral,” which is a Band of Horses song. Eric hates it, says Andie. I like it because it was filmed in NYC. Plus: Band of Horses song.

8:37 p.m. JCPenney commercial: I didn’t know JCPenney still existed. Really.

8:38 p.m. Welcome back!

8:38 p.m. Kristy. America would be surprised to learn she’s a tomboy. “No, we know you’re a horse person,” shouts Andie, who is pretty much “America” in this case. She still can’t walk in heels. (Kristy, that is. Andie can walk in heels. I think.) But Kristy is definitely a tomboy at heart, as evidenced by the baseball cap she’s wearing during her clip.

8:39 p.m. Linda Ronstadt’s “You’re no Good” is the song. Kristy wears too much eye makeup.

8:41 p.m. Randy: “I liked it.”

8:41 p.m. Paula: “You’re back!” And good song choice.

8:41 p.m. Simon: “This week...it was a huge improvement.” I don’t know how to label you, he adds. (“Tomboy,” obviously.) She has real potential.

8:42 p.m. She’s trying to make it better every time, Kristy says. And she’s “a total country singer.”

8:43 p.m. “I don’t know if I like her,” muses Andie. “She likes the outdoors. I like that about her.”

8:47 p.m. Welcome back!

8:47 p.m. Brace yourselves, America. For Amanda. Who rides a Harley. And is a nurse. And likes reading biographies of rock icons.

8:48 p.m. And wears kerchiefs.

8:48 p.m. “Wayward Son” by Kansas, with Bon Jovi guitars.

8:48 p.m. “She’s got bad hair tonight,” says Andie. I think she’s always had bad hair, at least for the two episodes in which I’ve seen it, tonight’s included.

8:50 p.m. Randy: Wrong song! (Yes.)

8:51 p.m. Paula spins it positive: Amanda can dance. Also: she’s special and a brilliant artist. And the song sucked.

8:51 p.m. Simon: Everything felt contrived. “Terrible hair.” None of it felt natural or real. An ugly song. “I really, really didn’t get that.”

8:52 p.m. Andie had to leave the room for Amanda’s performance. “I like her too much to watch her in that state.”

8:53 p.m. If Andie had to sing a ‘70s song for American Idol, it’d be “Have You Never Been Mellow” by Olivia Newton-John. If she had Samantha’s voice, she adds. “Which I don’t and because I don’t I’d do a Carole King song. I’d probably do, ‘I Feel the Earth Move.’“ Jesus. I’d probably do a Neil Young song. But I’ve been drinking, so don’t listen to me.

8:55 p.m. Arty new Reese’s commercial.

8:56 p.m. That cell-phone commercial in which girls/ladies are playing ACRONYMS in Scrabble. You can’t play ACRONYMS in Scrabble.

8:57p.m. Here we go again.

8:57 p.m. Alaina. Age 17. From Tulsa. She doesn’t like the food on her plate to touch each other. She’s gap-toothed. And spends her ENTIRE segment talking about her food-touching problem.

8:58 p.m. “Hopelessly Devoted” is Alaina’s song.

8:59 p.m. Meh, says Andie.

9:00 p.m. Randy loves Olivia Newton-John. But it’s not the right song for Alaina.

9:00 p.m. Paula thinks Alaina did “a real good job.”

9:00 p.m. Simon likes Alaina. BUT: Alaina’s grandmother must have told her to wear that blue dress. Simon gets her to admit she’s only 17, just like the Winger song. “You’re one of the dark horses in the competition,” he says, telling her she’s gotta sort herself out and “become relevant.”

9:01 p.m. Do you think Simon bones the female contestants? If not, he’s at least jerking off to their B-roll.

9:05 p.m. Remember that music video where Paula danced with a cartoon dog? That was awesome. (Or was that a wolf?)

9:07 p.m. Back! Again!

9:07 p.m. Alexandrea: poster child for a fire department. Sang patriotic songs. Sang at Ground Zero a few months after 9/11. She has a nasally speaking voice.

9:07 p.m. “If You Leave Me Now.” Fucking AWESOME: one of my favorite Chicago songs. “I love this song,” sighs Andie, clasping her hands girlishly to her bosom.

9:09 p.m. Is Alexandrea wearing culottes? (No, says Andie.)

9:09 p.m. Randy asks her what Alexandrea thought of her performance, then says, “Here’s the problem...” Safe choice! Boring choice!

9:10 p.m. Never heard a female take on that song, says Paula. Relevant. Important. &tc.

9:10 p.m. Simon was a big fan in the early stages but thinks she’s struggling now. The song “is stuck in its time period,” and not in a good way. Boring song. (Crowd boos.)

9:11 p.m. Did you feel unsure, asks Ryan. No, says Alexandrea. Trying to stay consistent. She feels like she’s the underdog. “Aww...” says crowd, then claps.

9:12 p.m. “I like her,” says Andie, who confirms she will vote for her. Andie’s putting a star next to her name.

9:12 p.m. Kady: does her Britney Spears imitation. It’s accurate/funny.

9:12 p.m. “I love to sing opera in the bathroom.” [Clip of her singing opera in the bathroom.] Then she does a Simon imitation.

9:13 p.m. Heart. Again. “Magic Man.” Off key.

9:15 p.m. Randy: “Umm...” He loves Heart. But: “never quite found the notes.” In other words: OFF KEY.

9:16 p.m. “I think you sing opera very well,” says Paula, adding that Kady has “many hidden talents.”

9:16 p.m. “I’m very, very frustrated,” says Simon. He likes the imitations. He likes the opera. He doesn’t like “Magic Man.” No love.

9:17 p.m. “You’ve just got to find the right song,” adds Simon.

9:17 p.m. Andie’s not sure she wants to vote for Kady.

9:20 p.m. Andie is conflicted. She needs to review the recap.

9:21 p.m. Back!

9:22 p.m. Final performance: Asia’h. She was a cheerleader through middle school and high school. Went to something called “cheer camp.” “You gotta put your all into it.”

9:22 p.m. “Those are serious earrings,” says Andie. I agree.

9:23 p.m. “When I was young, I never needed anyone.” Ahh! It’s “All by Myself.”

9:25 p.m. “Highest degree of difficulty,” but “really good job with it,” says Randy.

9:25 p.m. Ending “brought it home,” say Paula and Randy.

9:25 p.m. “Diva song,” says Simon. Not that great a singer; shouldn’t have tried that song. “A silly decision.”

9:26 p.m. “You’ve gotta know your limitations, Ryan,” snipes Simon.

9:26 p.m. Recap montage!

9:29 p.m. “The ladies! It’s up to you America! The lines are open!” says Ryan.

9:30 p.m. Andie is voting for Carly, Ramiela, Alexandrea and Asia’h. But the only person she was really blown away by was Carly.

9:32 p.m. Apparently Kelsey Grammer is still off the blow and doing sitcoms. With Fred Willard. I really need to buy a T.V. Or not.

Goodnight, ladies!

Is it just me or is every Michael Bay movie like the throbbing boner of a 15-year-old boy?

Via kottke.org, I read Jeffrey Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere article, “Addressing the didn’t-see-’em factor,” about how movies, particularly those mighty specimens nominated for Academy Award Best Picture, are meant to be transcendent:

...movies are not supposed to be pills that you take to feel better. They’re not traveling carnivals with elephants and jugglers. They’re supposed to be aesthetic journeys and emotional hikes that get us in touch with things that too many of us tend to push away (or anesthetize ourselves from) in our day to day. They’re supposed to be compressions and condensations that create indelible moments, insights and excavations into our collective soul.

Wow, that’s arty. On days when I’m feeling like an elitist twat, I may agree. But it’s wishful thinking because I don’t see anything wrong with movies as pills that make me feel better.

I have several action-adventure flicks, stupid comedies and horror movies in my DVD collection, precisely for when I want a quick emotional lift—genre classics like Die Hard, Ghostbusters and The Evil Dead. Let’s read a much more eloquent version of my point by Pauline Kael, from her essay “Trash, Art, and the Movies,” published in the February 1969 issue of Harper’s:

A good movie can take you out of a dull funk and the hopelessness that so often goes with slipping into a theatre; a good movie can make you feel alive again, in contact, not just lost in another city. Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again.

Sounds downright pharmaceutical to me. A sentence later, Kael qualities that when she writes of “a good movie,” she truly means something that’s maybe a five on a 10-point scale:

The movie doesn’t have to be great; it can be stupid and empty and you can still have the joy of a good performance, or the joy in just a good line. An actor’s scowl, a small subversive gesture, a dirty remark that someone tosses off with a mock-innocent face, and the world makes a little bit of sense.

As an irritation aside, I’m also not big on Wells lambasting “regular people” who “are living such insulated and cut-off lives that they can’t be bothered to go to some of these [non-Hollywood] films.”

But what about people other than those who live in or near major cities, such as myself, Wells and most professional film critics? It’s tough to see good movies in this country’s smaller places, period, and I can’t blame folks there for not willing to take chances on riskier, independent fare. I was talking to my Mom last night and she mentioned that she and my sister had taken the roughly 30-mile, 45-minute drive from the southwestern suburbs to the east side of Cleveland for the nearest—likely only—theater in the area showing Persepolis. They loved the movie but it’s not a commute they’re making regularly. My brother and his wife have it worse: they live in Wyoming and have to drive an hour to reach the nearest civilization, in Colorado, to see non-blockbuster films. Not quite as easy as hopping on the A/C/E train after work to see an art-house flick at the Film Forum within 15 minutes.

In sum: eat it, Wells. Moviegoers, enjoy the highbrow, enjoy the lowbrow, when you want, if you can.

Looking for kai-lan for that pad see ew recipe, I bumbled around Chinatown this afternoon until I found a store across the street from New Green Bo (which, incidentally, has the city’s best soup dumplings). In addition to fresh, leafy produce, this grocer, 59 Bayard Market, also sold fresh animal life. At the base of the cooler holding the vegetables sat three large, white, water-filled plastic tubs without lids, the contents of each more stomach turning than the one before.

The first tub had a few turtles paddling around in it. O.K., that’s cute. I can ignore the fact that they’re there for eatin’ because the turtle lies in the acceptable range of the Western pet spectrum.

The next tub contained frogs. Not a few happy terrarium-style frogs but a dense, forest-green mass of writhing amphibia, three deep. Entirely uncalled for.

And in the third tub: eel. All the nastiest characteristics of a fish and a snake in one monstrosity! I’m not a fan. They floated darkly in the bottom of the tub; one occasionally twisted his slick, featureless body to poke his head above the surface. “Come closer,” he seemed to be saying, “that I may bite you.” If there isn’t a male version of the vagina dentata, I nominate the eel. I grabbed my broccoli and got out of there.

The recipe turned out O.K., but I had sauce and noodle issues. I don’t think I used enough of the sweet soy sauce. And I used dry rice noodles (instead of fresh, which I definitely want to try next time). They stiffened and clumped after I’d revived them with lukewarm water. It’s possible I didn’t leave them in there long enough, but I didn’t want them to get too soft before tossing them in the wok. Then because they clumped together and stayed that way in the wok, they cooked in masses and got too crispy. So they were too wet; or I should have tossed them with oil before adding them to the wok; or just used fresh noodles. I don’t know but it’s something to iron out next time.

Other than the chewy noodles, the pad see ew was delish. Wok-cooking was new for me and I confirmed that it was wise of me to have to have everything prepared and measured in advance because everything happens so quickly and I’m not the fastest cook on the block. I even had my bottles of sauces, oil and vinegar lined up in correct order to add at a moment’s notice.

I don’t condone torture, unless it’s enacted against people I just can’t stand, but I’m intrigued by this “Torture Playlist,” published online by Mother Jones yesterday. It’s comprised of songs reportedly used by U.S. military prison guards and interrogators to shock detainees into submission.

Where to start?

First, I love that the list appears to have been assembled by white, 19-year-old males from backwater towns like Orrick, Missouri, using songs that they personally find annoying or have on their iPods as “inspiration” to get them fired up in the morning. That’s great.

I approve of “America,” one of my favorite Neil songs. Need I mention that he sang it during the televised unveiling of the new-and-improved Statue of Liberty? You can’t get served a much more patriotic slice of American cheese than that.

But Prince? If you’re going for white-hot torture, I’d turn to the Purple One’s Batman soundtrack, specifically “Batdance,” a six-minute-plus annoyance larded with drum machines and samples from the movie.

And so much missing. Where’s “Believe” by Cher? No matter breaking the spirit of a terror suspect; her Auto-Tuned warble in that song could blast holes in Formica.

Where’s “Shine” by Collective Soul, reportedly a favorite of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho?

Where’s any classical music, least of which Night on Bald Mountain? It ain’t highfalutin; haven’t these kids seen Fantasia?

And most importantly, where’s the Tuvan throat singing? As Katie will confirm, we used to play this music at closing time over the store-wide sound system at Booksellers, the independent bookstore at which we worked in Cleveland. It effectively drove out straggling customers but had no apparent effect on the homeless guy who would shamble in to wash his hair in the bookstore’s restroom toilet. No music could deter Mr. Ty-D-Dreads.

Related: Read this brief history of annoying songs played by the military that includes a playlist from the army’s boomboxing of Manuel Noriega in 1989, the first instance I remember reading about regarding music as psych-ops.

How many Japanese people does it take to change a light bulb?

Two.

Three if you count the guy who appeared to be supervising.

At least that’s how many it took tonight at Megan’s birthday party at Karaoke Duet. To be fair, it was a large bulb in a custom housing and meant solely for beaming on the disco ball in our private karaoke room, so two people was appropriate for the task. We needed that hot disco-ball action to accompany our songs. All of the hits from yesterday and today: Madonna! Bon Jovi! Peter Cetera! Kelis—certainly Megan’s milkshake brings all the boys to the yard! Good times.

I love this illustration of an apparently cross, ancient frog standing off against his much more minute, modern-day counterpart, not the least of which because the big guy is characterized “as big as a bowling ball.” (Now that that phrase has reached popular status, I’ve got to stop referring to certain objects “as big as a ladies bowling ball,” as I often will.)

No, I mainly like the illustration because of the scale-establishing pencil thrown in there half-heartedly. I want to see the little guy grab it and use it as a weapon against the big guy; stab him in the air sac or something.

The offender: a musty hardcover copy of Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme from 1981, purchased on the cheap from a third-party seller on Amazon.com. I imagined that unlike, say, the way professionals remove sticker residue from a book’s dustcover¹, there would be a dozen suggestions for defunktifying a book. Hey, presto; I was right. I Googled a batch and rewrote them concisely for the table below. Any suggestions as to what works and what doesn’t, whether or not it’s listed here?

¹ Lighter fluid. [back]

² Unscented or the book will smell like dryer-sheet perfume and nothing deodorizes that. [back]

³ Do not let the book touch the kitty litter; it can stain the book. [back]

Foodies and barhounds alike chastised me. I hadn’t been to Veselka yet? Jesus! I’ve lived in New York how long? Jesus!

The foodies championed the hearty portions of authentic Ukrainian fare. The barhounds championed the prime East Village location for 24/7 pre- and/or post-drunken splendor. And when I arrived in the chill after work tonight, a paper sign on the door alleged that the godmother of punk herself, Patti Smith, would choose to eat her last meal here.

Jesus.

My love and hate of Veselka lies where these lines of reasoning intersect. I cannot deny: I was here once before, in mid-December. After I’d seated myself, not one member of the not-too-busy waitstaff acknowledged my presence. Twenty-five minutes later, during which I absorbed more than my usual fill of sprawling New Yorker bullshit, I left. I’d already been cranky, felt worse then, and didn’t feel like a confrontation. Apparently Veselka’s notorious for its service but this had been foretold by the barhounds: the place is a 50-year-old diner in a grubby part of town with the spotty service that crustiness may imply.

The foodies insisted I give it another try. “The raspberry blintzes alone are worth the ineptitude,” they said. I’m stubborn, so it took some time but, O.K., I’m back and John R., my waiter, is prompt and attentive. He recommends a 300-year-old Ukrainian brand of beer, Lvivske, and yes, that’s good. He recommends I don’t order a side of the horseradish-beet salad because my entrée will arrive with a dab of it and that’s all most people need, and he’s correct there, too. But later he recommends two blintzes, each brown-edged, eggy crêpe rolled fat with farmers’ cheese and served with raspberries on the side, when clearly only someone of Orson Welles’ corpulence could eat two.

So some of John’s advice was right, as was some of the meal. The borscht, made with thick beet slices and butter beans, was topped with fresh dill—a perfect winter garnish—although the broth was almost too sweet. An accompanying slice of potato bread arrived sad and stale on a ceramic plate decorated with an amusing illustration of an interplanetary meatball hurtling towards Earth, perhaps where Patti is scarfing down a veal goulash. My other side dish, a potato pancake, resembled a puck of stone-cold spackle. But my entrée of stuffed cabbage in tomato sauce was great, the ground beef and pork filling flecked with white rice recalling my Mom’s own secret recipe for meatballs. So although the meal was hit or miss, I will give the edge to the foodies. Those blintzes were good, or at least the 1.25 of them I ate. Jesus.

Veselka

• 144 2nd Ave. (at East 9th Street)
• (212) 228-9682
• Meal 11 of 52: a bottle of beer ($5.50), stuffed cabbage entrée with two sides ($11.25), two raspberry blintzes ($11.25) and a coffee ($1.50).

Inspired by a recent conversation:

Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse. Like the credulous widow who wakes up one day to find the charming young man and all her savings gone, so the consenting subject of a piece of nonfiction writing learns—when the article or book appears—his hard lesson. Journalists justify their treachery in various ways according to their temperaments. The more pompous talk about freedom of speech and “the public’s right to know”; the least talented talk about Art; the seemliest murmur about earning a living.

first paragraph of The Journalist and the Murderer (1990) by Janet Malcolm

Strange and beautiful, this puppet show I saw tonight named Fabrik. Although there are moments of levity, the holocaust is obviously a serious subject for cloth characters. But this troupe of puppeteers, clad in black fedoras and black tailored suits as camouflage on the black-painted set as they operated the small cast, did a fine job conjuring characters that aren’t quite typical puppet-show caricatures. In the years before the German invasion of 1940, Moritz Rabinowitz founds, operates and expands a burgeoning suit-making business in Norway. The story structures itself around his numbered rules for success in business (and parts of his various screeds on European politics and the rights of man), which he relates to the audience, intertwined with the realization that as a Polish Jew in Norway, the world is pressing in on him, his wife Johanna and their daughter Edith. There are few Broadway-style song-and-dance numbers, a poignant scene of Rabinowitz’s daughter practicing ballet and surreal dreams of flight that transition the years and scenes. The effects were minimal but creative. For instance, in one scene, a pair of the puppets realistically “swim underwater” merely by means of motions from the puppeteers and undulating colored lighting. Hard to explain, amazing to watch and like many novellas or short stories I’ve read, the enterprise ends just as I’m getting invested in the story, which in Fabrik’s case is based on a true one.

Not only is Lovely Day the name of one of my favorite Bill Withers singles (so shiny/happy that I forgive the repetition in the chorus), it’s now one of my favorite Thai restaurants. It’s cheap, it’s so intimate that Katie and I almost trampled a patron at the table nearest the door, and it’s in Nolita, convenient to some of my favorite places to shop. The walls are covered in flower-print paper, the tabletops and the booths are a deep shade of red and everything on the menu without peanuts sounded equally vivid, so I based my order on the names I found the most amusing. That’s how I came to have an order of steaming “hobo noodles” (sautéed wide rice noodles, red chili, red bell peppers, onions and Thai basil in a spicy red sauce) and a Dark & Lovely, which was not an ethnic hair care product but an alcoholic drink that contained dark rum and a bunch of other ingredients I forget; it tasted exactly like Haribo Happy-Cola gummies.

Lovely Day

• 196 Elizabeth St. (between Spring and Prince Streets)
• (212) 925-3310
• Meal 10 of 52: hobo noodles ($7.50) and two Dark & Lovelies ($9 each).

After I bought a large ceramic mixing bowl at Fishs Eddy, I asked a clerk where I could still get breakfast food, being 2 p.m. on a Sunday. Around noon downtown, I’d had an intense hangover-recovery need for sodium and grease and really, really just wanted a breakfast sandwich of the sort many delis and bodegas in New York sell: plain egg and meat and/or cheese on a bagel or a roll. But none of them were still serving breakfast and I was feeling I’d have to go to an actual restaurant. The clerk at Fishs recommended Big Daddy’s, and since I only had to walk down 19th to Park, I tried it. Can’t miss it: there’s a giant script sign above the door, spelled in carnival lights.

It’s sort of like if the Hard Rock Cafe decided to open a diner. Or, better still, if aliens were to have recreated a diner based on a description of its contents. Cheesy ’80s pop burbles from the sound system. Little ceramic holders of vintage Trivial Pursuit cards are set on the counter here and there. The menu cover and an entire length of a wall at the restaurant are plastered with pop culture logos. Shelves of eBay purchases line the wall behind the counter: rusted steel soda cans from the ’60s, vintage lunchboxes and boxes of breakfast cereal. A peeling bumper sticker for Richard Nixon hovered on the painted brick wall near my head. The place is packed with likely tourist-types. Waiting for my order to arrive as I listened to Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” I started to make a list of all of the logos I could see from my seat, but I got exhausted; this is about one quarter of them:

• Atari
• Coleco
• Corey Feldman
• Franco-American
• Hong Kong Phooey
• Hostess
• Indiana Jones
• M*A*S*H
• MTV
• Pan Am
• Rolling Stone
• School House Rock!
• Sesame Street
• Spider-Man
• The Brady Bunch
• The Godfather
• The Monkees
• The Price is Right
• The Rolling Stones
• Tony the Tiger
• Trix
• Tron
• Twisted Sister
• Twister
• Wrangler
• Yogi Bear
• Yugo

The food, like the decor, approximates a diner experience. Yes, it looks nice in the photo, doesn’t it? But the bacon was cold, not frying-pan fresh. The Challah French toast was groggy with liquid egg. And the prices were decidedly not diner-like, as you can see below. I almost would have rather had Denny’s.

Big Daddy’s

• 239 Park Avenue South (at West 19th Street)
• (212) 477-1500
• Meal 9 of 52: French toast and a side of scrambled eggs ($11.94), side of bacon ($3.96), orange juice ($3.26) and coffee ($2.53).

On a quiet side street of Park Slope lies Palo Santo, a small, low-key Caribbean-inspired restaurant with murals and points of turquoise on the brick walls, tables and chairs crafted from salvaged wood, and glass-topped tables like specimen drawers, containing assemblages of antique bric-a-brac that recall Joseph Cornell’s picture boxes.

The food’s eclectic, too, with a focus on seasonal, locally sourced, organic ingredients. Whole baked plantain, served in its skin, were delicious. Rabbit tacos featured moist masa tortillas the shape of drink coasters. And fillets of mackerel arrived atop black olives, whole string beans, blue potatoes and wafer-thin slices of pickled watermelon radish. A bottle of malbec complemented it all nicely after a server supplied a sample to ensure it was a keeper.

Palo Santo

• 652 Union St. (between Fourth and Fifth Avenues), Brooklyn
• (718) 636-6311
• Meal 8 of 52: plantain, tacos, fish and wine.

Happy Valentine’s Day! This Candy Heart Generator is big fun. (Although my candy background urges me to tell you that these chalky treats are rightfully called “conversation hearts,” a phrase I wrongfully assumed the New England Confectionery Company had trademarked.)

I enjoyed the challenge of the six-character limit for each heart’s two lines of text. My most successful coinage so far, as determined by the amount of laughter it elicited from O., is this:

ANAL
PIR8

Subway platform monitors, photographed last night at the 86th Street station of the 1 train.

One of the monkeys in the production department agreed with me that a morning show on cable-access TV during which we would discuss our favorite childhood beverages would be a blockbuster. Although we would speak often of “fruit drinks” and use slang like “bevs” for beverages, we agreed the name of the show will be Juice Talk. We would sit on an orange couch and sip the bevs about which we’d riff. Sample promo voiceovers for our show would include “Wake Up to Juice Talk!” or “The Juice is Loose!”

We developed a preliminary list of childhood beverages, each of which could comprise an episode of Juice Talk.

• Capri Sun (Careful! That straw is sharp!)
• Hawaiian Punch (“Go Hawaiian!”)
• Hershey’s syrup in milk
• Hi-C (Ecto Cooler! Flavor mixing! The pre-sweetened vs. non-sweetened debate!)
• Juicy Juice (The rich-kid juicebox of choice!)
• Kool-Aid (Hey, Kool-Aid Man!)
• McDonald’s orange drink, dispensed from those orange and yellow plastic coolers
• Nestlé strawberry-milk powdered mix
• Nik-L-Nip (What was that fluid?!)
• no-name sodas, like Faygo
• Slush Puppies (they always beat out Slurpees; also, at my local childhood swimming pool, I could request “a suicide,” which was code for the Puppie vendor to mix all of the flavors together into a bruise-colored fantasia that was like a party in my mouth to which everyone was invited.
• Sunny Delight (Wrong on both counts!)
• Tang
• those 25-cent multicolored drinks in squat, translucent plastic barrels topped with a foil seal
• those steel cans of pineapple juice with peel-off tabs
• Yoo-hoo

Did you ever do that thing where you stand in a doorway and push out hard against the frame with the backs of your hands, then step out of the doorway with your body at rest, and your arms raise themselves? It’s to demonstrate muscle contraction triggered by calcium ions—you know, for kids.

Anyway, that’s how my arms feel now—rubbery and hyper—after indoor rock climbing tonight. I’ve never done that before. I should have read up on the subject beforehand because mechanical systems confuse me, especially regarding levers and pulleys, and when I’m concentrating on not killing my partner, the climber, while I’m belaying. So I eventually learned the lingo, as you can see, and the levers and pulleys, and I didn’t kill Beth, not that there was danger in that, as she’s scaled ragged mountain faces in Wyoming and is as lithe and surefooted as Tom Cruise’s stunt double in the opening scene of Mission: Impossible.

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation runs 15 indoor rec centers in Manhattan and Iggy works at the only one with a climbing wall, on W. 59th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues. It’s a compact, maze-like building, smelling of sweat, chlorine and old wood, its exercise facilities reminiscent of an elderly but clean high school’s. There’s a basketball court, a pool in the basement, and men’s and women’s locker rooms with showers. A full-sized air-hockey table sits outside the climbing room, which is run by the City Climbers Club, a non-profit organization comprised of a bunch of crazy-folk with excellent muscle definition. They started out rappelling in Central Park and because there wasn’t any place to climb indoors at the time, built the 59th Street climbing wall from scratch on a disused racquetball court. The room’s festooned with signs warning everything from “This is not the lifeguard training room” to “Climbing is Inherently Dangerous.” Synthetic-rock handholds and footholds, marked with colored tape blazes indicating paths of varying difficulty, have been bolted into plywood masking the room’s original walls. Some of the climbing walls angle outward or are pitched upside-down for a more challenging climb.

Iggy is a climbing supervisor for the Climbers Club and runs its private parties, after-school programs and kids’ events, which is fortunate, because he was patient in teaching me the basics and repeating instructions, like, five times. Only at the bar afterwards did I learn he wanted to punch me in the neck because I was exasperating him.

I had a fun but tense time and learned I need to visualize my path in advance so I’m not wasting time and energy clinging to the wall, jerking my head around to locate the nearest tiny piece of white tape. I must also more efficiently utilize my long legs to push myself ceiling-bound instead of pulling myself upward with my comparatively weaker arms. On my final climb of the night, my upper limbs were too weak to grasp the uppermost hold. Muscles I never before realized I even had, like abs and triceps, ache now, but in a good way.

Although I thought it was a good idea to see the Chinese Lunar New Year parade this afternoon in Chinatown, it turned out to be like thinking Times Square on New Year’s Eve is a good idea. Crowds obscured the floats and undulating dragons. Swept up in the mass of brightly colored confetti and people wearing Mickey Mouse Club-style rat ears, Beth and I nixed the soup-dumpling lunch plan, broke free of the throngs by Little Italy and walked up to McNally Robinson for a lunch recommendation from Katie. She not only sold Beth a book, she sold us on the diner around the corner, the American, where a sales-rep recently bought her a tasty lunch and a hazelnut milkshake. Decked out like a traditional diner, the place attracts an incongruous crowd smacking of Eurotrash rockstar, which affords views of scruffy and skeletal physiques in tight black clothing, if that’s your passion. Feeling a vitamin deficiency from my convenience-food dominated diet of the past week, I ordered the veggie tacos, made with soft corn tortillas, onion, cilantro, a medley of vegetables including mushrooms, hot sauce and a side of homemade chunky guacamole. It hit the spot. A hungry Beth got a burger and proclaimed it awesome; it was the archetype of a burger, a giant, toasted bun, fresh lettuce and tomato, like what you’d get if you were a photographer and ordered a prop burger.

After lunch, we wandered uptown to play darts at the Bleecker Street Bar with Iggy and his climbing buddies. “Is that Lafayette over there?” I wondered aloud, squinting through the snow flurries. “Yes,” said a helpful but grumpy passerby, reason #88 why I love this city. I find that if I’ve been drinking, I excel at darts, up until a point.

The American

• 235 Mulberry St. (between Prince and Spring Streets)
• (212) 966-6616
• Meal 7 of 52: veggie tacos ($8) and a pint of Guinness ($5).

Here are the top-three new songs in my karaoke repertoire, animal-tested tonight during a Japas 55 outing with Katie, Sam, Iggy, Megan and Vincent.

1. “Is She Really Going Out with Him?” by Joe Jackson, although I kept laughing at the call-and-response line:

   Jason

   Look over there!

   Everyone Else

   Where?

   Jason

   [laughing] Here comes Jeannie with her new boyfriend.

   Also, this was a good one to save until later in the evening, when my voice was rougher, so as to elicit the emotion-scuffed, tremulous vocal stylings of Mr. Jackson.
2. “Hello” by Lionel Richie. I laughed during this one, too, because Katie reminded me about the blind girl in the song’s video who sculpts Lionel’s giant head out of what appears to be deli sandwich spread. Also, per Wikipedia:
   

   Grown Iraqi men get misty-eyed by the mere mention of his name. ‘I love Lionel Richie,’ they say. Iraqis who do not understand a word of English can sing an entire Lionel Richie song.

   So you see, I had to sing this song; it was my duty as an American and a patriot, for if we let the Iraqis seize our Lionel Richie karaoke, the terrorists have already won.
3. “Mrs. Robinson” by Simon & Garfunkel. Because it’s in my range and who doesn’t like S&G (or “Mrs. Robinson”)? Koo-koo-ka-choo.

Runners-up:

1. “Two of Us” by the Beatles. It’s from Let It Be; my requisite non-single Beatles track. Plus it’s a superb song if you pair-off with someone who can sing the harmony, as Iggy can.
2. “1234” by Feist. Joyous! We were surprised Japas 55 had this song; their song directories are not known for their freshness of selections.
3. “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” by Kylie Minogue. When one has been drinking, certain songs seem like an excellent choice, but they are not. This is one of those songs.

Afterwards, Iggy, Sam, Katie and I tromped over to Columbus Circle, where you can order food by the pound at the Whole Foods Market and eat it right there, cafeteria-style, in the basement of the Time Warner Center. I was so hungry, I pilled a literal pound of food into my plastic bowl before I realized every selection hailed from the cold-food bar. My delicious-looking dumplings and soba noodles were not warm as I’d thought. Meh. I was hungry and it was delicious regardless. As we stuffed ourselves, we talked loudly about something I don’t recall but which must have been offensive because the old couple sitting to the table next to us rose silently and moved themselves and their food to a table far away from ours.

Whole Foods Market

• Time Warner Center (10 Columbus Circle, downstairs)
• (212) 823-9600
• Meal 6 of 52: 1.04 pounds of random cold food at $7.99/pound ($8.31) and a bottled water (59 cents).

A coworker mentioned a stack of fabulous brandied-cherry pancakes she ate during a recent restaurant brunch. They sounded great and I imagined it’d be easy to substitute a cup of brandied cherries for the cup of blueberries in my mom’s time-tested blueberry pancake recipe. And it worked. Sweet, sweet brandied-cherry pancakes!

After pitting the cherries, I cut each into eighths and soaked a cup of them (about 20 cherries) in brandy. Then I strained them and pressed them so they didn’t retain too much liquid. With a pat of butter, I cooked each pancake in my trusty Lodge cast-iron frying pan and found I could cook two simultaneously, each made with 1/4 cup of batter, which yielded eight hearty pancakes. I also learned I’ve got to rid myself of my grilled-cheese habit of smashing down the pancakes with the spatula; they’re much better when they’re roughly 1/4-inch thick because the fruit stays juicier.

Polaroid phased-out its professional and consumer-model instant cameras over the past two years and announced today that it’s discontinuing Polaroid film, making only enough to last through next year. After that, the Polaroid is gone forever, unless another company keen on losing money decides to purchase a license for the technology.

I’ve been happy with digital cameras for the past six years, but I’ll miss the Polaroid: the chunky plastic bulk of most camera models from the ’80s and ’90s. The loud plastic click of the shutter button, often paired with a gear-grinding sound when the photo was ejected: it was near impossible to take a surreptitious Polaroid. The chemical smell, the gradual reveal of the subject and the contrast of the colors. The strange social custom of arguing over who got to keep a treasured shot, for there’d only ever be one. The weird tic-like actions used ostensibly to speed or even the development of professional-grade Polaroid film: rubbing, shaking, warming the development process under a coat in the cold. Making Polaroid transfers.

My favorite Polaroid anecdote of my own dates from 2000 or so, when I needed a passport right away for an unexpected international business trip. I needed my two identical photos pronto—like, faster than film could be developed, faster than me driving to a drugstore or a photobooth—so I walked next door to the professional photography studio that shared office space with our company and one of the guys there, Wayne, took about 20 black-and-white Polaroid headshots of me, rapid-fire. (Photos for new passports now must be color; in 2000, they could be either black-and-white or color.) We then spread the shots on a table, chose the two that were most alike and trimmed them to the required two-inches square. I saved some of the outtakes. I blinked a lot.

While Kelly’s frolicking in Cancún for her birthday, I’m catsitting Paddington. I appreciated these Post-it notes she affixed to two of the bottles atop her refrigerator. If you can’t make out Kelly’s handwriting from my photo, the one on the right is affixed to an amaretto bottle and reads:

This is not amaretto
It’s whiskey
.... Long Story

The one on the left is affixed to a whiskey bottle and reads:

This is not
whiskey. It’s Bacardi.
God

That Kelly felt the need(?) to label her liquor made me laugh, but also because, yes, there probably is a good story behind these shenanigans.

I ate rabbit nachos today for a lunch appetizer today at Rae, a restaurant attached by causeway to Philadelphia’s famous rail hub, 30th Street Station. As I told my luncheon companions, I don’t think I’ve ever used or heard the words “rabbit” and “nachos” in the same sentence. The nachos were O.K.; a bit smoky. Rae also serves $2 martinis for lunch, which must get more questions than any other menu item, rabbit nachos included. “What’s the deal?” we asked our server. “Are they served in a shot glass?” No, she told us, they’re regular, full-sized and -strength gin or vodka martinis. We ordered a round for our table. I would have had another but that would have been déclassé.

Today I was in the elevator of a major office tenant-rep firm in Philadelphia and three out of the four passengers were named Jason. (The fourth was my boss.) That’s weird.

Jason

[following a lengthy discussion about men’s clothing] Maybe I need to strap on a barrel.

S.

I hear the barrel look is making a comeback for Spring 2009. You’d be well ahead of the fashion curve.

Jason

I’ve heard that, too. According to Italian Vogue, there are two schools of thought on what cut of barrels we should expect: the flared hoops championed by traditional East Coast coopers or the tapered European staves favored by Diane von Fürstenberg and everyone who was at her Hamptons dinner party last weekend.

S.

Everyone who’s anyone knows that DvF favors the wrap barrel. Like, duh.

Katie had a concise one-sentence review for Michael Clayton that I don’t remember the exact wording for but which is essence is: watching this movie is a consistently tense experience. Directed by Tony Gilroy, who wrote the Bourne trilogy, it’s got the same sort of real-world weariness, without the stunts, the frenetic jump cuts and techno soundtrack. We kind of sat there the whole film, mesmerized by the weaseliness of the film’s lawyers and the business world in particular—watching “fixer” Clayton (a weary, smirk-free George Clooney) go though the motions of helping save rich people who aren’t worth saving from legal prosecution, while dealing with his debt from a failed restaurant, his gambling problems and his divorce. The big case in which he’s involved concerns corporation try to cover up the fact that one of its products is killing people, the firm’s icy, perfectionist lead council (Tilda Swinton) and the possibly certifiable “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” renegade from the defending law firm (Tom Wilkinson) who makes the most humane motions in the film. I liked it. And most of the exteriors are shot in New York City, always welcome by me.

Megan, Vincent and I were going to try the Clinton Street Baking Company on the Lower East Side for brunch but the wait for the hipster spot was two hours so we gave the Remedy Diner on Houston a try and it was just fine. They even put cinnamon and wafer-thin slices of orange on their French toast, which is made with a hearty, challah-like bread. Also, the servers wear tuxedo T-shirts and the place is decked out with tables, chairs and decor from a vaguely 1970’s European kitchen.

Later I got dinner with Beth at Song in Park Slope, which I’ve ordered-in from before, and we caught a show nearby at Union Hall, which is decorated like a rich old white-man’s mansion, all dark, rich woods, floor to ceiling bookshelves, oil portraits, roaring hearths, and two incongruous full-length bocce ball courts in the back. The concert was downstairs, with Andrew Kenny and the folksy, string-sectioned Ghosts I’ve Met opening for Ola Podrida, strummed acoustic guitars and the soft, tremulous voice of singer David Wingo (reminiscent of Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam) with a country tinge, recalling lonely middles-of-nowhere. Their live act is louder and faster and makes them sound like a wholly different band than on their only album, which I only previously knew via the Interpol cover art “scandal”. But it’s great music (I just ordered the CD) and there’s no bad publicity.

Remedy Diner

• 245 E. Houston
• (212) 677-5110
• Meal 5 of 52: French toast, a coffee and an orange juice.

That’s quite a feat.