The link is old and the execution is grating, but I like the idea of “reverse karaoke”: participants supplying musical backing to a prerecorded audio track (in this case sung by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon).
According to Kyle Scribner today, “More than 92% of 141 books published in the U.S. between 1972 and 2005 that were deemed ‘environmentally skeptical’—those that deny the authenticity of environmental problems—are linked to conservative think tanks.”
That is all.
Do you know how many dimples are on a Top Flite XL 3000 golf ball? 402.
A coworker of mine counted, dotting each one with a red Sharpie. He initially missed one partially obscured by the letter “O” in the word “Top” until I told him it was unlikely a golf ball would have an odd number of dimples. This is what happens when you work late.
I also convinced our associate art director to bring in a spare putter from her garage so we can property Putt-Putt around the office after hours with something other than the club we handmade from rolled-up scrap Tyvek, cardboard and packing tape.
Think of mixtapes as a relatively recent innovation? Jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong not only made ’em (and compilations of his own songs), he decorated the reel-to-reel boxes with collage. A jazz-fan work colleague adds:
I read a bio recently that reported on his avid taping. Mostly for diary purposes as I understand. Also, yes a big daily user of laxatives—believed them to be medicinal—along with his daily lifelong obsession with marijuana.
When I read today that Sears signed an agreement with LL Cool J to introduce a line of streetwear this fall, the first thing I thought of was a song chart for “Around the Way Girl.”
I spotted this bicycle chained-up across the street from Madison Square Garden on West 35th Street. It was plastered with MetroCards.
Here’s a closeup:
I enjoyed Cookshop and when I saw the owners were opening a new spot in the Village, Hundred Acres, I decided to give it a try: the whole front opens onto Macdougal on nice days like today; wooden chairs inlaid with dark brown leather; huge onion-shaped white paper lamps. Each marble tabletop is initially set with a candle and a tiny wooden bowl of salt. All ingredients are locally sourced and most entrees purposely hover in the $20 range. I had the Tamworth pork and wild nettles sausage (juicy!) on a bed of fava and cannellini bean rarou (bland!). I don’t remember what our cocktails were, but they were tequila-something-or-other refreshing. Soundtrack included “Go it Alone”" by Beck, “D’Yer Mak’er” by Led Zeppelin, “Breakdown” by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and “Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve. The place hasn’t even been open a week so it seems they’re still ironing-out some details: you have to walk through the servers’ station (and a clot of chatting servers) to get to the stairway leading to the restrooms downstairs where the taps are labeled in French but the restrooms themselves are labeled with handwritten cards taped to the doors. I’d return.
Dana and I stopped by the Roebling Tea Room on a lark for brunch. I liked this place. High ceilings, large arched windows, filled with light, main room has a long bar. The wainscoted walls in the large front room are papered in an old pattern of an English foxhunt. An intermediary area in the back has couches for sitting around with tea or a cocktail. In the back is a smaller room when we sat, open to a fenced-in patio area with a few picnic tables, and divided by windows with flowers and ivy in planters. It’s tight seating but relaxing.
The small menu, which changes daily, is typewritten—items and descriptions from the black ribbon, prices from the red—with quirky spacing and exciting spelling mistakes (“raisen,” “brussel sprout leaves”).
Dana had the baked pancake (cleverly billed as “A Big Baked Pancake,”) which spanned her plate and was easily enough for two. Although billed as featuring stewed rhubarb, it was made mostly with stewed pears, which was disappointing but still tasty. My baked cheddar eggs were simple and satisfying, and had two whole hard-boiled eggs buried in a ramekin of baked cheddar cheese. Another ramekin of grits arrived on the side, accompanied by thick slices of raisin-fennel toast and apple butter.
I drank a refreshing Pimm’s (made with the gin-based Pimm’s No. 1 Cup, cucumber and lemon-ginger tea). Dana had a Supercoffee, a mug of amped-up Irish coffee with whiskey, Irish cream and Grand Marnier.
Elettaria was pricey but only okay and not knock-my-socks-off awesome like I thought it’d be. The duck, which got the nod in the New Yorker review, was served atop an Indian-spiced curry, which on the whole was bland. I was most looking forward to the cocktails; the “mixologists” at Elettaria built on their craft at Freemans and Death & Co. My Zombie Punch, based on a recipe from 1934, contained a sock-knocking combination of rum (Appleton VX, Brugal Gold and 151 El Dorado Demerara), lime, Velvet Falernum liqueur and absinthe, in a tall, ceramic, ’60s-green tiki-mug. I appreciated the eGullet poster who noted:
Zombie Punch: This tasted like jungle juice with cinnamon.
More talk of mixtapes. Here’s a newer one for the Love Is A Mix Tape set (and from the guy who started Found magazine) called Cassette From My Ex. And although they’re not set up for casual browsing, I also like Mixwit (design your own custom cassette-tape graphic!) and Muxtape (mysterious, easy-to-use interface!).
I never remember fiddling much with mixtapes, either giving or receiving. I got one in college from a girl with nothing but Smiths songs on side A and nothing buy Morrissey solo-carreer songs on side B which was personally responsible for “The Last of the Famous International Playboys” being my favorite Moz song. I made one in college that I’m pretty sure had a Toad the Wet Sprocket song on it; better that one stay lost. In fact, rooting through my boxes of junk, I was only able to find one. The song selections prove its 1997 vintage. I got this one from my friend/then-coworker who was also named Jason and who at the time worked part-time in the neighborhood used record store. He used a found "passport" from the ’30s as the booklet art and hand-typed the tracklist. I’m unfortunately missing the cassette itself but regardless no longer have anything to play it on. Oh, technology.
Amid the past few drizzly days here in New York, my lowly but strong Totes umbrella, which I’ve somehow owned and used actively since college, finally broke. There existed, however, a valiant attempt to have various manly officemates attempt to unjam the “eject umbrella” button, much as Arthur unjammed Excalibur. I dropped off my umbrella to said men, then reiterated my request for help via Nigerian-format spam, which seemed to make sense at the time. I was kind of broken up over the umbrella, you understand.
The request:
Dear Sirs,
SOLICITING FOR A BUSINESS VENTURE AND PARTNERSHIP
Before I proceed, I am grateful to introduce myself. My name is Dr. JP Young, an Ohioan. I was formerly a personal aide to PRESIDENT MILLARD FILLMORE. Due to my position and closeness with the President, I absconded with his umbrella, which was meant for his campaigns in the rainy Northwestern region of this country. Presently I have been unable to open the umbrella.
MY REQUEST: I am looking for a trustworthy individual or firm to advise me in the right investment for a new umbrella or to provide ways and means to open my present umbrella.
COMMISSION AND REMUNERATION: In regards to your commission and remuneration, I have decided to offer you a coupon for $1 off any large “Toasty” submarine-style sandwich from Quiznos to cover your expenses (telephone bills, travel expenses, hotel bills and other expenses incurred).
NOTE: I strongly believe that associating with you to embark on this and other business ventures will derive a huge success hereafter and will result in a long-lasting business partnership. Also, please return my umbrella.
YOURS TRULY,
Dr. JP Young
The response:
Our advice to you, Dr. JP Young, is to retire said umbrella (never forgetting the good times had with said umbrella,) and invest in a new type of rain deterrent that will otherwise be taking the world by storm very shortly.
I have since purchased a new umbrella. It really sucks.
My Dad’s an electrical engineer with FirstEnergy so I felt him qualified to comment on this article about a cat and mouse that got electrocuted and caused a widespread power outage in Albania.
This fellow was perched atop a FDNY firebox on Broadway at West 192nd Street, just outside Los Hermanos supermarket, where I buy my Brooklyn Lager for a buck-and-a-half a bottle. He’s made almost entirely of discarded produce—a literal melon-head with ears of halved oranges and a flower on the peak of his cap.
I often favor my satires broad, deadpan and British so Evelyn Waugh’s novel Scoop fit the bill. It’s a look at sensational war reportage, which despite predating television, manages to squeeze a recurring joke out of the telegraph, even.
In a case of mistaken identity, William Boot, a writer who of the sort who starts one of his nature columns with the infamous sentence, “Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole” is sent to a region in Africa where civil war is expected to break out. He brings with him 500 pounds of luggage including a collapsible canoe, a canned Thanksgiving dinner, and for reasons unclear, a bunch of “cleft sticks.” He holes up with a crew of journalists in the state’s only hotel, which is guarded by a goat. The reporters wile away the uneventful rainy days drinking and otherwise abusing their unlimited expense accounts, milking lame “man on the street” commentary from the locals, and “insulting and betraying one another in circumstances of unredeemed squalor,” including filing inaccurate stories based wholly on gossip among themselves. Because of his ineptitude, Boot bumbles into reporting on the scoop of the war’s start. He’s granted the publishing world’s top distinction but refuses the award and get his contract at the paper extended—to continue writing his nature column.
You’ll be pleased to see that your own computer area at home is not as depressing as you may have suspected.
I found this Polaroid today in the street near the intersection of Seventh Avenue and West 17th Street.
Oh, you can order your usual mixed drink at Milk & Honey. But why would you? It’d be like having Superman stop by to winterize your living room windows. He’d do it because he’s a nice guy from the Midwest. He wouldn’t even need to use a hair dryer on the heat-shrink plastic film; he’d just exhale a gale of hot air. But this is a guy who can fly. He can lift a city bus. He can turn back time by reversing the Earth’s rotation. He can outfox Gene Hackman, you fool, and here you have him, in your living room, weatherproofing.
All of New York’s contemporary swanky bars, with their varying degrees of exclusivity and at least one from the same father (Sasha Petraske, who also owns Little Branch), are descendants of Milk & Honey. It’s one of the originals if not the original cocktail speakeasy. It has an unlisted number for reservations that’s rumored to change often. It’s passed down selectively by the city’s bon vivants.
Out front on a grubby Lower East Side side-street lies a heavy steel security door marked with those adhesive metal characters one uses to label a mailbox, spelling “M & H.” There’s no secret knock or password but you have to hit the buzzer, get observed by the security camera and, in our case at least, stand in the rain for a few pregnant minutes before you’re let in. Just inside, through the curtain, there’s a tiny bar with four seats; in the back are three booths for four. The place is smaller than my apartment and lit only by candles on sconces that throw dim light on the tin ceilings and walls. House rules forbid hats, loudness and egregious attempts at pick-ups. A sign in the women’s room lists more no-no’s, including “starfucking.” The credo in the men’s room, above the stack of individually folded linen hand towels, notes that a true gentleman remains so even when drinking.
To order, there are no menus. The server, dressed in nouveau flapper garb, asks what you like. Which kinds of liquor warm you with fondness and which disagree with you? What tastes do you favor? Pepperiness, sweetness, boldness, creaminess, spiciness, saltiness, bitterness? Have a favorite fruit? Say it. (Although apricot stumped ’em.)
What you get is ultimately the bartender’s choice. The four of us ordered three cocktails each without any repeats. We progressed through a wild array of styles and glasses. I started with a festive nutmeg-topped nog made with an egg and rye (or was that rum?). Next was a strawberry Collins, too fruity and carbonated for my taste, a dentist’s-mirror-like steel stirrer-spoon leaning inside the tall glass. Last was a blended Greenpoint, stiff yet smooth with rye, yellow chartreuse, orange bitters and a lemon twist. Other craziness at the table included a drink festooned with more fruit than Carmen Miranda’s hat, a blackberry cobbler, a bramble, a Harvard, and a “breakfast cocktail” made with gin, lemon juice and orange marmalade, which was offered as a substitute for the apricot deficiency.
An ATM receipt, strangely lacking, from a bodega on Prince Street near Mulberry.
I dunno, Death & Co.: I expected Old West saloon-style double doors. Maybe Daniel Day-Lewis shouting, “I. Drink. Your. Cocktail!” Instead, the imposing wood and steel facade, which has no windows, was blocked by a large but friendly man with opaque sunglasses who asked, “You flyin’ solo tonight?”
“Uh, just me,” I said.
“Hold on. Lemme see if they’re ready.”
He had me wait outside while he disappeared through the front door. He emerged a minute later and waved me in. I’m telling you, if you want a seat at Death & Co.—and I’ve tried to get in three times before, only to be given the option of being placed on an extremely long waiting list by the guy outside—go right when they open at 6:00 p.m. I was the only person in there and when I’d left by 6:45 or so, there were only six people.
Surrounded in the low-lit, sumptuous setting (lots of dark wood, thick marble-topped bar, comfy stools), I had a Double Fill Up (rye, muddled mint, lemon juice and pomegranate syrup), which was served to me by head bartender Philip Ward. And I didn’t even think until now to ask him whether the drink’s name is a pun on his own. With my dinner, I wanted something spicy, so I ordered a Fresa Brava (muddled strawberries and lemon with jalapeño infused tequila). It paired well with my mac and cheese (of course) which was served as a surrealist might: on eight silver spoons, arranged on a flat square plate in a circle like pedals on a flower. I didn’t understand it but it tasted good.
Overheard gossip: the Death & Co. owner’s next big venture is going to be a tequila bar. “The owner’s got a big mouth,” said Philip the bartender with a certain degree of annoyance.
I write in ‘splurts.’ Like hitting a ketchup bottle, eventually something will come out—splat.
Actor-Musician Minnie Driver, in an article posted to People.com today
Most anything will make me think of a pop song. Sometimes I’ll have a song in my head and realize it got there not because I overheard it, but because of something I saw or something someone said. (When I lived with Andie, we’d often break out into the same bit of a song simultaneously just after a verbal cue—a word or two that would remind us of a lyric. Unfortunately, I cannot recall one example of this magnificent and curious condition; perhaps she can.)
But, say, when I’m walking to work, maybe I see a bus and hum the refrain from the Who’s “Magic Bus.” A Staples truck passes and I make the office-supply connection with “The Rubberband Man” by the Spinners (although the song was used in an OfficeMax commercial).
On Broadway, I find myself whistling the Drifters’ “On Broadway”. On the tiny TV screen in an elevator of my office building, a PSA for lupus makes me remix Suzanne Vega’s “Luka” (“my name is lupus/I induce a facial rash”). And at my desk, when a woman named Rita calls, I think immediately of “Lovely Rita” from Sgt. Pepper’s.
This isn’t as chronic as I imply—I’m not debilitated or even distracted by the phantom strains of thousands of pop hits from yesterday and today. But do free-associations like these happen to you, too?
Details are sketchy but robots are mixing cocktails. At first, I thought “Great!” because, you know, robots. Upon consideration, I prefer the human touch in matters of mixology, where creative spark and lack of exactitude result in appealing creations.
Also, I recall the brief scene in The Fifth Element in which a bartender from the future serves Ian Holm’s character a drink:
Let those clinking, clattering cacophonies of caliginous cogs and camshafts stick to what they do best: welding and destroying Skynet.
Before the Takka Takka/Ohbijou show tonight 1, Beth and I stood at a table upstairs at Union Hall, rain-dampened but enjoying a Triple Threat (three Sliders with a bit of sharp cheddar and one measly B&B pickle slice apiece, with thick, heavily seasoned fries on the side) when this speedy/shifty dark-eyed fanboy sidleed up to our table and asked if we were going to see Takka Takka downstairs because they were starting in 10 minutes.
Yeah, we’ll make our way down there, we told him. He replied that he was a big fan of Takka Takka. And they’re starting shortly. Downstairs. In 10 minutes. The guy was lingering and I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I said cheerily, “Are you in the band?” That quieted him down. He smiled, muttered something about being a fan and shuffled off to bother another table.
When we arrived downstairs, the fanboy was already down there. “Hey!” we said, as if we were long-time friends. As we got the backs of our hands stamped, he seemed to be having trouble getting in and I hoped he wouldn’t ask us for help. He was pestering the hand-stamper about his Takka Takka love until the guy snapped, “Why don’t you go away?” It didn’t appear the superfan even had a ticket. We slipped past him and stood up front waiting for the show to start.
And here’s the punch line: the fanboy was the bass player for Takka Takka. His name is Grady, which seems about right. We weren’t sure what to make of all of this other than it was pretty awesome. We couldn’t even make eye contact with Grady after that because he played most of the set with his back to the audience.
Ohbijou was good, too: happy songs by happy people. I suspect it’s because of the Canadian connection but they reminded me of Arcade Fire—the whole strings, guitars, banjo, keys and pep thing—if Arcade Fire were happier, apolitical, not flush with cash and fronted by a short woman who rarely made eye contact with the audience. She didn’t have much to shy from; the crowd bolted after Takka Takka and there appeared to be more photographers (three) than there were people there listening to the music. (The crowd included more than three people but they talked loudly among themselves as if the band they’d theoretically paid to hear was a distraction.) I enjoyed especially their last song, which I think was called “The Wood Song,” for which five of the seven band members produced drumsticks and provided a beat by striking random wooden objects nearby, including an amp housing, a pillar and the wall behind the tiny stage.
Far, far away from the big city’s tall buildings, grit and ugly people, Carroll Gardens is a magical fantasy land of tree-lined streets, beautifully refurbished brownstones and young, attractive parents with their young, attractive kids in tow. Lucali, the neighborhood pizza joint I ate at tonight, was chock full of these people and I felt like an interloper amid their friendly neighborhood conversations when my companion was a lively but essentially inanimate farce by Evelyn Waugh. I’m terrible guessing people’s ages, especially children’s, so I can report only that they ranged from that age where you can barely stand and spend most of your time walking into stationary objects, and that age where you’re distracted and breakdance around on the floor because you suspect it annoys your young, attractive parents.
The space for Lucali used to be a candy store and the present owner bought it because he didn’t want a bank or fast-food chain moving in and dumbing down his ’hood, which is admirable. A giant, unadorned window frames the restaurant’s front, under a large awning where the families waiting for their table gather to sit and chat. A pressed tin ceiling and walls of plaster and brick frame surround worn wood floors and tables. On the tables are candles, dim lights overhead, but the interior must be one of the darkest non-fancy restaurants I’ve been in.
The simplest menu ever is chalked on a slate on the wall: pizzas are $20, large calzones (which I suspect are folded-over pizzas) are $19 and small calzones are $10. That’s it. You can also get a can of soda but why bother when there’s a bodega a few doors down for BYOB service. Young dudes brought sixes of beer and larger tables had multiple bottles of fine wine. The food satisfied though my allegedly small calzone approached the dimensions of Neil Armstrong’s lunar bootprint. Made with ricotta and other cheese, plus fresh mushrooms and a plate of sauce on the side, t’was tasty.
Walking back to the F train afterwards, someone on President Street had fanned a few dated computer programming manuals and an Emile Zola paperback on a stoop for anyone to take. More young families with strollers passed, then a dude on a skateboard letting his leashed, jogging dog pull him down the street.
Another Japanese-chain import slash Asian-themed “fast food” joint arrives on the East Side, but unlike Momofuku Ssäm Bar or Ramen Setagaya, I like the atmosphere of Ippudo. It retains traditional ramen-counter sensibilities—traditional, simple recipes; overheard Japanese—but the place is comfortable and inviting, not just an after-work stop-and-go for the hassled salaryman (or hipster). After all, “Ramen is Japan’s Soul Food,” at least according to the Flash splash screen of Ippudo’s website, in soul-sucking Brush Script.
An entire front window has been boarded over by long rectangular blocks of wood, fit snugly into place like a completed Jenga puzzle. A wall over the bar in the antechamber is decorated with dozens of ceramic ramen bowls. Down a short hall, the small dining room in the back features lots of thick woods and darkness punctuated by thin halogen beams.
I sat at the counter, which has seven tall, sturdy-backed chairs upholstered in white leather or a reasonable facsimile. The counter’s smooth, handsomely varnished wood that’s deeper than most, about three feet, so there’s plenty of room for your menu, condiments, place setting, drink and elbows, without encroaching on the space of the flanking bar-customers. I recommend a seat because you can watch the chefs cook and prepare stuff. I was hypnotized to relaxation watching them bustle around sautéing stuff, preparing elaborate salads, cooking meat, chopping vegetables and tofu, generally doing five things at once.
The tall, skinny young Japanese guys who comprised the main chef staff had the non-uniform uniform of a do-rag, vaguely skateboarder pants and a slim long-sleeved T-shirt illustrated with a vibrant, busy print (one guy’s was dark blue with koi arcing all over it). Everyone—the chefs, the servers, other random people—seemed to be talking loudly all the time, always in Japanese, except for the laughably token white guy. He was serving the couple sitting to my right and when I overheard him say, “You guys want some water?” I actually groaned to myself. The customer sitting to my left attempted to compliment a chef on the pork belly; there was a brief but awkward pause of translation difficulties, then the chef smiled, gave a slight bow and said, “Hai!”
In fact, the two most popular words shouted at Ippudo, intermingled with short Japanese phrases that begin musically high then trill down a brief scale, are the abrupt but friendly “Hai!” (“Yes!”) followed closely by “Hey!” (“Hey!”), the latter of which served as an all purpose interjection. I heard it used for “Your attention, please,” “Welcome back,” “One Sapporo, comin’ up,” and the tight-kitchen comment of “Coming through!/Watch your back!”
I had the minimalist but delicious “Shiromaru NY” ramen, a traditional tonkotsu variety made with housemade al dente noodles, a few slices of stewed pork, trimmed white leaves of crisp cabbage and thin-sliced scallions. I’ve read the broth is made by boiling pork bones and fat for 18 hours, after which the stock is reduced thrice to gain the correct consistency and flavor. Steaming while I ate it, the soup was fragrant with the scents soy, pork and mushrooms, and the color of coffee with a bit of cream. Not too much salt, either, which is a challenge to excellent ramen: this was seasoned perfectly so as not to overpower the flavor. (And you get your own pepper grinder if you want an extra kick.)
Next time I’ll consider an artful salad and perhaps the green tea crème brûlée. Ippudo also features a comprehensive sake menu.
If I’ve learned anything from the films of Godard, it’s to what degree structure and convention bind other films. I most recently saw his Alphaville but that took place in a future Paris overruled by an omniscient, evil computer and therefore had an excuse to be wacky. Two or Three Things I Know About Her is even more unconventional because it contains the same non-sequitur philosophizing of language/meaning, thought/reality and change/stasis as Alphaville but takes place in present-day Paris (1966), all ennui and contemporary fashions in Kool-Aid colors. Characters address the camera directly, talking off-handedly about what they’re doing, what they’ve done and what they’re going to do. The narrator whispers every time he speaks. A child asks his mother what language is and she replies, “Language is the house man lives in.” You know: the sort of stuff that gets French films slapped as snotty and ponderous.
I liked it anyway, although the frequent cuts to cranes, dump trucks and the construction of skyscrapers confused me. There’s a token American in the film played by a Frenchman who speaks loud, stilted English and introduces himself as John Bogus, a Vietnam War profiteer from Arkansas. He’s wearing a white T-shirt with an American flag on it and even the flame from his cigarette lighter seems blatantly outsized and particularly American. Which is fair enough considering Americans’ takes on stock French characters. (See: Inspector Clouseau and any maître d’ character ever.)
The soundtrack dips in and out and at times disappears. Conversations are overlaid with occasional orchestral snippets but mostly diegetic sounds: traffic, a toy gun, people talking, a pinball machine. The plot has something to do with a woman (Maria Vlady) wandering Paris as a sort-of weekly, half-hearted prostitute to amuse herself while her husband’s off at work. There’s a scene in the film of one guy reading random sentences from a giant stack of paperbacks as another guy transcribes everything, and I wondered if it wasn’t commentary on the abstract dialogue of Two or Three Things itself. “If you can’t afford LSD, try color TV,” whispers the narrator as part of a litany reminiscent of Renton’s “Choose Life” soliloquy from Trainspotting. And if you have neither mind-bending drugs nor television, just watch Two or Three Things I Know About Her.
Pascal Dangin, the premier retoucher of fashion photographs, casually admits he’s “complicit in perpetuating unrealistic images of the human body,” particularly those of women, so it pleases me to see he’s a fat French guy who I can imagine jerking off to jpegs of Alyson Hannigan in his rec room. In fact, like Dangin, “I look at life as retouching,” so I’m going to retouch that as fact:
Pascal Dangin is a fat French guy who jerks off to jpegs of Alyson Hannigan in his rec room.
That is intriguing, but left unanswered by the profile of Dangin in this week’s New Yorker is how he realizes his ideas of physical perfection when no such thing exists (although I read somewhere that this process might be intertwined with his masturbatory tendencies), the ridiculousness inherent in everyone knowing fashion photos are heavily retouched but the practice continuing, and why Dangin activated his 25-pixel Obfuscate Brush in Photoshop to recast onetime girl-next-door Drew Barrymore as a melty wax figurine for the March cover of Vogue. (The Jezebel article doesn’t mention it but the New Yorker article confirms the cover is Dangin’s uncredited work.)
Allison and Jovito staged a mini dinner get-together at their apartment tonight, the centerpiece of which was lamb burgers made with fresh mint, cooked and served “Slider-style.” They were amazing, especially topped with the co-op bacon Angela and Chris supplied. Chips and homemade salsas complemented the meal: a black bean variety from Laura and a garlicky mango-guacamole from Angela. For dessert, Chris supplied his patented Rice Krispies Treats made with Fruity Pebbles. How were they? I tasted a rainbow of fruit flavors. “It’s like there’s a party in my mouth,” I said, and Chris completed, “and everybody’s invited.” The rooftop deck of Allison and Jovito’s apartment building affords kick-ass views of the city and environs. If I had a deck like that, I’d be up there all the time, hypnotized by the lazy parade of incoming flights.
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a fan-made video of a dude dressed up like a Catholic priest, wearing shades and a giant grin, dancing and shimmying down the sidewalks of the West Village. Oh, also he’s wearing a pink tutu. It was so good, we demanded to watch it twice.
This was part of an inaugural “Gen-X Singalong series” at Pianos Lounge, which involved creative types making one music video each for every song off the Smiths’ 1986 album The Queen Is Dead. Each video had subtitles and the crowd was encouraged to sing along. The dancing priest accompanied the song “Vicar in a Tutu.” Kelly tackled “Frankly Mr. Shankly” with a creative camera mount (her bicycle) and character (a Mr. Blonde action figure), making it appear as if Mr. Shankly is superspeed-walking through Manhattan.
I had a lot to drink and then walked into a low table and knocked a quarter-sized chunk of flesh off my left shin that I didn’t discover until the next day. Later we had a late dinner gathering at the “Always Open” greasy spoon, Sidewalk. I had a fruit-covered waffle, I think. When the receipt for our group arrived, it indicated we’d “been served by Jason #14.”
Bonus video: Kelly’s version of “Frankly Mr. Shankly”
My brother’s been playing Grand Theft Auto IV, which I asked him about because the vidogame takes place in a thinly veiled version of New York City and I was curious what the experience was like. Here is his emailed report from yesterday, which amused me greatly. For the record, I’m unaware of any mini-golf courses in New York City; then again, it’s a big city.
My GTA IV apartment is terrible and I’m under some sort of rail tracks. Plus I went out on a date with this chick and I accidentally sank her car into a mini-golf course lake while trying to take a late night shortcut to the bowling alley. Needless to say our date didn’t end well. You can totally spend a shit-ton of time just looking at stuff, not to mention shopping for pants! The craziest part is that you can watch TV in your apartment in the video game, which is almost a little TOO meta for my liking.
I hardly ever know where I am in this game. Jess makes fun of me because my sense of direction and lack of driving savvy really carry over into the video game world. Without the built in GPS, I would probably always be lost (a real problem I had in earlier GTA games). [. . .] Obviously, I really need to study the map that came with the game, because I’m as confused as I would be in the real NYC. Another awesome tidbit: you can hail cabs and actually look out the window and make small talk as you ride. There’s even an option to yell at the cabbie to “hurry” if you need to be somewhere fast. The details in this game are mind blowing. At one point, somebody ran into me with their car and I lost my $8 Russian hat.
Last night, I had a light dinner at the Belgian restaurant Resto. The place filled up quickly and got loud but I’d brought The Onion to read, so no big deal. I had a salad made with crispy pigs’ ears because, hey, pigs’s ears. It also featured chicory, tarbais beans and a soft egg laid on top in such a fashion that I initially thought it was a large dollop of mayonnaise. Salty and the warm pork and cool greens contrasted nicely. My frittes arrived in a custom ceramic cozy with an attached mayonnaise dipping receptacle. It was all pretty good. I hadn’t realized how addicted I am to the sweetness of ketchup because my meal, especially the mayo-dipped fries, tasted not-sweet-enough. I like the cozy atmosphere at Resto and that the men’s restroom is wallpapered with a pattern of old-timey black-and-white illustrations of ladies’ legs in girdles and stockings. I was tempted to peek into the unoccupied women’s room to see if it was patterned with illustrations of vintage codpieces or something.