More bad analogies

I'm standing up at Riverside Drive and 110th/Cathedral Parkway. The sun is filtering through the leafy trees, dappling the sidewalk. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, as someone might say. Granted, it's not my neighborhood. But it might as well be. Bank Street School of (for?) Education sits around the corner. I walk to meet my friend there and a woman holding her child's hand stops another on the street. The single woman, bright shock of orange hair, stops, smiles and begins talking with the child who at first asks a question and now darts his head hither and yon looking at an imaginary moth flittering about. On the street corner, Kerry supporters are lobbying residents to work to beat Bush. I politely decline to help, not for lack of enthusiasm for the task, but for a set of previous commitments which have endeavored to envelop the rest of my time.

Darting up Sixth Avenue, chasing taxis and sprinting the length of Central Park on my bike, I am continually in awe of the city that I now call home. I understand how people can fall for a city, or an idea -- traipsing into love, I suppose. The sidewalk cafes, the preponderance of people, sheer masses that seem to somehow avoid being hit by my bicycle as effortlessly as I am able to navigate through the clumps of them. Even the drivers who seem oblivious to the bike paths, or the pedestrians who wander out in a death defying stumbling path -- I feel a warmth for them, too. This is the lifeblood of this city, the heart that pumps out the populace and the city streets like capillaries carrying each plasma-like person. Oh, but the analogy goes so far astray here. Regardless, it is easy to fall in love with a place, when it is golden lit by sun glinting skies and the grimy, gritty air still feels like a pumice cleanse.

Tejas

I just returned from College Station, TX, and was surprised by a number of things.

1. There was a protest (granted a handful of people with signs) about the war in Iraq. They weren't arrested or even treated to a barrage of tear gas and billy clubs.
2. It is exceedingly green (the color of foliage, anyway) there. I had the mistaken impression that Texas was mostly arid desert and rolling tumbleweeds and dried up oil fields. Nope. Acres of lush green trees and ivy and rolling meadows. This is southeastern Texas, anyway.
3. It rains all of the time in College Station. And you get to sleep with the crickets in your room if you stay at the Howard Johnson's. My recommendation: don't stay there.
4. Texas A&M has the largest (area wise) campus in the country.

There were, undoubtedly other things, too, but I'm just glad to be back in NYC.

A Poem Before Leaving To The Arid Texan Plain

Mosquitoes.
marauding my room
nocturnal savage thirst
they have
my arm to thank
for happy times
insomniacal inebriation
dizzy with the lovely taste
of my body, my blood
and all that I know
is the dull itch
left behind

inhabitable

Things to notice, on this, a Tuesday:

1. 2 out of 3 NYC parks employees may indeed slumber in the back and passenger side of a park truck, resting at an obscure, non-parkish intersection in Prospect Heights.

2. If one were to play a game of "punch buggy" but instead of using antiquated Volkswagens were to use baby strollers, one would get into a knock down drag out brawl if they were to stand at the corner of Carroll and Court. I think I counted 5 at once.

3. Rain drops do come in varying sizes.

And onto the question that I brought up with a friend last night -- do you think that this planet will be inhabitable in 10 years? 20? 50? These are all legitimately years that could possibly fall within my lifetime. I am seeing more and more realistically the possibility that this planet will not be inhabitable to humans within that range. I think this is reversible. But I don't think it will be if we don't actually take real and forceful action as nations in the service of that in the next 5 years. I'm sure I'm not the only person to think this.

Neurologically Damaged

I've noticed that more and more people are walking around the city with one arm crooked at an angle with their hand at their ear. This is, of course, from the incessant talking on cell phones (and yes, I am occasionally guilty of this phenomena, sadly) and I imagine that in several years, if we don't learn about the radiation damage done by this, we will see a radical increase in the number of chiropractic treatments required for people who will be labelled as having "cell phone elbow." I wonder if the trend is already starting. Cell Phone Elbow (CPE) I'm sure will be less detrimental than the upcoming Cell Phone Ear disorder...

paean to ny

New York is like a cesspool. Now, before I get barraged with a various assortment of appropriately scented hate mail, please let me explain. I've continually made comment about the quality of various greenways and other sorts of contrivances that line this rough hewn metropolis, but it is clear to me that it's not a particularly habitable locale. Not in the sense that a place like San Francisco might be considered -- temperate climate, topography that shows off a view from nearly every street corner, natural physical beauty around each and every corner. New York doesn't have any of that physical nature. It probably was a terrific bog of flat land at one point in time. But, it has what San Francisco may never have, and something that only a city raised by Dutch settlers might manage -- a sculpted character. It seems to me that only the legacy of the mental attitude of the Dutch, a country that legitimately staves itself off from certain doom strictly through engineering ingenuity and a fair amount of willpower, could bear the fruit that has made the cesspool that is New York City so unbelievably amazing.

I biked up through Brooklyn to Queens and took a tour of the Socrates Sculpture garden. Today, a free tai chi class was busy building up their...umm..chi or chi-chi or whatever it is tai chi does. And it was a bit like watching fast moving butoh (or slow moving ballet class). Mixed among the various dog walkers (or yellers) and strollers, were a number of intriguing sculptures. All of this on a hunk of land that juts out slightly toward the east river and seems littered with the refuse of the industrial age. From there, it was on to the Triborough Bridge, which links up to Randall's Island/Ward's Island (though I'm unsure of the distinction between one or the other), a place that I'd be willing to wager most New Yorker's never see (unless they play soccer or baseball or belong in a mental institution...or rather, are in a mental institution). Cirque du Soleil is apparently cordoned off here, as well (very close to the mental institution), which I hadn't realized. But, good to know. A pedestrian bridge links Ward's Island with the upper east side (presumably to allow for a quick transfer of potential patients?).

In any case, it struck me that a less vigorous and determined population would've just not bothered. But New York and those that have shaped the city into what it is today, do. They bother. They ask questions, they think, they act. Yeah, there's a lot of talk here, but there's also an awful lot of action. The greenways and bike paths are a good example (as I have taken fine advantage of them over the past few weeks). They are carved out of bits of sidewalk and pedestrian pathways and chunky parts of concrete, but somehow they manage to connect up enough disparate pieces of the metropolis to link it all together in some kind of warped fishing net. And in every corner of it, it seems to have something going on, if not going right. The corner near Vernon & Jackson, where dilapidated buildings mingle with hip looking coffee joints that seem to have drifted like flotsam from Williamsburg. Hollowed out factories near wide open parks. Parts of Queens seem like they're small mill towns that have only a handful of residents, but you can turn the corner and get an unobstructed view of the UN building. You can bike alongside one of the busier thoroughfares without another soul nearby. And if you're feeling peckish, it seems as if there isn't a food option that hasn't been explored somewhere. Today: The Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory received its fair share of my wallet.

Which is to say, that somehow, through the genius of it all, somehow a group of people took a bunch of unformed land and turned it into one of the most varied and entertaining places I've ever been. And I think that the people who choose to find themselves here reflect that character, too.

bike rack sighting!

Thanks to a highly informed reader, I can now add a set of bike racks at 50th between 6th and 7th Avenues to my list of possible locking locations! Very exciting news, indeed.

And it's hotter than toad fricasse out there today, folks. I made sure to indulge in a bit of excessive ice cream consumption. I still haven't made it to the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, but I have seen it. And it looks like it would be quite the destination today (or tonight, open 'til 10pm).

Enjoy the summer solstice!

justice?

Nothing would make me happier than for there to be some justice in this world for once.

This slight sign of possible justice might be a nice thing. I don't expect the UN to be able to carry it out, but it wouldn't surprise me if in 30 years we look back on this time period and define most members of the Bush administration with the moniker "war criminal" in front of any of their names. Is incompetence in the service of evil a war crime? It should be.

Of course, the most glorious scenario I have is that Bush isn't elected for the first time (nor re-instated by his daddy's supreme court), the UN finds further evidence of war crimes in the former administration, and the current administration fairly and justly allows the UN to dole out prosecution and punishment.

A boy can dream, can't he? Some days, that's all I've got.

Speaking of Coming Attractions...

I don't know how much blogger likes multimedia metadata, but I thought I'd give it a shot. It might be a fun little addition to the whole blog-a-riffic experience.

Anyway...this is an eensy-weensy trailer gasp of a thing I've been working on and we're trying very, very, very hard to get into festivals and onto tv sets everywhere. Hopefully, some of this pushing, prodding, and etcetera-ing will pay off.

Enjoy!

To Go to movie...

That time of the year

Biking is fast becoming an addiction, but I think I may have found the cure. Biking in Prospect Park at around dusk. Something happens then that hasn't happened in awhile to me.

Bugs.

Now, I'll admit that this shouldn't come as much of a shock. I did grow up in a similar climate, and bugs (the little gnat-like ones, or the mosquitoes) were de rigeur. But, I'd been in San Francisco...and the weird thing is, they don't have bugs there. At least not in the places that I biked (and aside from occasional mysterious ant infestations, SF is remarkably bug-free). And in Propsect Park, I was nearly picking them out of my teeth. Nearly, except that I kept my mouth closed. I think one flew up my nose. And two definitely ran kamikaze missions into my left eye. Which, when you're biking in a fairly crowded piece can be kind of hazardous. I guess I'll have to splurge and buy a nice pair of clear glasses for protection against the scourge of the skies.

In other less important news, the movie "Mean Girls" is actually a really well-done semi-darkish comdey. I laughed consistently throughout (if not constantly).

In coming attractions: a trip to College Station, Texas! And Cooperstown, NY! It's summer, I guess, and it's time to hit the road again.

Argh.

Okay, I need to stop referring to unpleasant current events in this blog, otherwise the ads on the top will be mocking me for the rest of the time. I will commence to only discuss happy things, like butterflies and puppies and rubber cement dripping through homemade valentines. Yes, hopefully that will wash the nasty aftertaste of the google generated advertising schemes off my blog.

I saw the movie Word Wars last night, and though it was billed as a Spellbound-esque program, I had to admit that it fell rather short on that triple-letter score. The big difference: the filmmaker's ability to get into the characters and really convey who we were watching. The plot was simple enough; as simple as Spellbound's and structured similarly in some ways. Though, it fell well short of the characters that appeared in Spellbound -- the kids were far more compelling characters. Not that the adult stars of Word Wars didn't have their moments, but they were clearly not as open to revealing enough of themselves...or, more likely, because they had become so obsessed with their hobby/habit, they didn't have much depth to relay to a viewer. The overall effect was one of a kind of isolating, claustrophobic, disconnection. I suppose that's something, but I got the sense that wasn't really the goal of the program. The kids of Spellbound seemed to rise above their own particular obsession, handling loss and win with equal grace and true feeling, whereas the word warriors all seemed to have become completely subsumed by the scrabble addiction.

An Open Letter, for Election Day

I was kind of irritated today. So, I wrote this. I'm going to post it, but I don't think it's as eloquent as my heart wants to be. Maybe some day.



Dear Mr. Would-be President,

Have you been out here? I don't mean cyberspace, because clearly you've staked your claim, poked poles in the ground and thrown up the celebratory and appropriate tents. I mean here. Out here. On this street. This street I'm walking right this minute in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, for instance. It's a lot like a lot of other streets in this country. And people out here are crying. Now, you may not be able to hear them, I think, because I think you have to have your heart attuned properly to really get the finer nuances of it. But they are definitely crying. I hear it while I watch the young mother holding her son's hand as she walks through what you might call a ghetto neighborhood. I don't consider it that, really. It's a neighborhood. There are some people hanging out on stoops, maybe they're making rude and insolent comments toward her. Maybe she's not really in the mood for it, mostly because every day she has to walk this block and keep her son's hand close to hers, keep her son's heart close to hers and fence a cage of fierce loyal love around him, keeping him safe. And in ten years, if she's lucky, maybe he won't be the one on the stoop making comments at women walking by. Maybe you've been out to this street, but I haven't heard much of it. I've heard talk about Iraq this and jobs that and yes, all of these things are important. But they aren't as important as the people here. The one's that pay you to think on the difficult matters and more importantly than that, lead.

Yes, lead. This country hasn't had a leader in years. You can rhapsodize all you might about whomever you feel has most represented your particular ideology most recently, Reagan, Clinton, Kennedy, Nixon, whomever. But there is a difference between being a politician and being a leader. And frankly, what we need right about now is a leader. This is the kind of person whose words would carry the gravitas of truth and compassion and empathy. And with those rare bubbly pieces of the cauldron, it would also encompass ideas and plans and goals and dreams. Yes, have a dream. There is nothing more important than that. Dr. King was, clearly, onto something.

I have heard of studies that show that the larger the influence of mass produced televised media, the greater difficulty children have of imagining things. I think this is the most important thing. I don't care what your viewpoint is (wild neo-conservative-I'm-going-to-get-rich-and-stay-safe-and-white-and-christian-if-it-kills-the-entire-world or something more akin to vague-platitudes-and-decrying-the-former-viewpoint), what this country needs is imagination. A reversal of the past 20 years, I think, would be a good place to start. An imagining of what this world might look like if a woman could walk through even a bad part of town and not feel that she has to react violently every step of the way in order to defend her soul, her livelihood, and her own children. This is the world that we have wrought and I don't think it is the world that any of us imagined. This is the world where we de-fund education, over-test our children, expect them to fail, and then create the economic and social conditions where they can live down to those standards. And then use that lack of success as justification for some other machiavellian re-arrangement of priorities. What kind of a world would we live in if we actually DID care about the children -- and not just the unborn, white, christian ones? Even the ones that are forced into a situation that is untenable. It's not an unimaginable place. Sure, it may seem like a utopia to some. A kind of far away paradise that you get postcards about, but have never had the pleasure of visiting.

A leader maybe has a collection of those postcards. Maybe even a roadmap. Not a series of useless backwards, Orwellian platitudes. A leader has seen this street. Has even walked on it a few times. Maybe even rented an apartment and heard the screams at night, the squealing tires in the middle of the day. Seen the young mother and her beautiful, adorable child struggling to make it home at night. Carrying her tiny load of groceries. A leader would walk beside her and insist that he know more. That he help more. Because there is so much more help to do and so much more knowledge to have. And the people on this street, the people on every street in this country are crying out for that leader.

I know people will toss the platitude, "lead and the leaders will follow." But I would counter and say that is exactly what I am saying. If you say you are a leader, prove it. Go out there and feel this world. And then feel that there is nothing more important than leading that vision of a better world. If you actually search this deep inside yourself and outside, as well, you may begin to understand what it takes to be a real humanitarian, a real leader -- and not just another politician.

Don't try this at home

Hard to believe that this is located in New York City. But, it is. Along the scenic and seemingly under-utilized Shore Parkway Greenway. Granted if you turn your head 180 degrees, you'll be able to see the traffic jam that runs on the Belt Parkway out to JFK. But, when you're biking you don't have to turn your head that direction at all and you can pretend you're out in some kind of beachy keen seaside town. Of course, that illusion is broken severely by the fact that the NYC greenway system is somewhat flawed. For instance, breezing out past Pennsylvania Avenue and 278, you'll find yourself on a chunky, nearly unpaved little bike path...that surprisingly leads you directly onto the freeway. I stood at the shoulder of the Belt Parkway and wondered what happened to my bike path. A trip in through town, circling through Howard Beach, Lindenwood, and other demure water bordering communities will take you a fair amount of time to circumnavigate. Though, the bike path into Broad Channel is almost worth it. Imagine a town that hangs American flags on every single house. It's like I died and ended up in some kind of weird Pleasantville inspired psychotic 'burb. Truly a burbling little community, which on the day of my ride was busily raising money for the volunteer fire department. If I weren't choking on the saccharine aftertaste, I'd almost think it was quaint. Across the bridge is the sleepy beach community of something. I'm not sure. I think it's called Cross Channel or Beach Channel or something like that. Jacob Riis Park is somewhere on this strip of land. And again, the NYC greenway fails the test (and the NYC bike map, as well), as it seems to recommend taking a road that is not terribly wide and features some crazy, fairly fast paced cars. Not for the fainthearted at all. Then, when it does connect with the "greenway," you get treated to a barely paved (does gravel and sand count? -- That's the featured surface covering at several junctures) road that does finally lead up to the Marine Parkway Bridge.

The bridge (which features a sign -- universally ignored -- that tells you to walk your bike across the bridge) is one of those lovely metal grate surfaced ones (thankfully, not where the bicyclists and pedestrians are. Expect to hear strange whirring sounds and watch the guardrail bars shake back and forth with some kind of resonant frequency motion. Fun!

All told, quite the ride. Flatbush Avenue, which jacknifes straight from the Marine Parkway greenway is not terribly bikeable until you get closer to Avenue Q (oh, excuse me "Quentin Avenue"), at which point it resembles biking on any large 3 lane thoroughfare that you might experience in the middle of the northside of Chicago, which is to say, also not for the faint of heart or not so fleet of feet. Expect bus exhaust and erratic SUV driving. Flatbush hits Bedford Avenue, which has a decent bike lane, though might be the slower, more hilly route (it climbs up through Crown Heights a bit on its way to Bergen Street bike lane).

What's Hot!

Biking in New York City is, at best, a speed trial and at worst an exercise in life or death obstacle racing. Today, I got to change hats and pretend to be a bike messenger (more or less) as I delivered some tapes to a midtown client. This involved biking the Brooklyn Bridge (still, a B- bike path as far as I'm concerned. It baffles me as to why there aren't more crushed pedestrians in between the wooden planks considering how haphazardly and blindly they wander out into the bike lane). I was passed by a cyclist wearing the U.S. Postal Service outfit.

#1 Hot thing: U.S. Postal Service cycling outfits. Hey, for all I know, he probably was on the U.S. Postal Service cycling team. They did have the day off, after all. 'Bout the only good thing Reagan ever did was give government employees today off. It's always seemed strange the post office has a cycling team, though. I mean, if they had a really committed one, wouldn't my mail actually get where it's going faster?

Biking from the Brooklyn Bridge up into midtown can happen in a variety of ways. I was feeling frisky today, so I took the route directly through town. That follows Centre Street up through to Union Square (it turns into some other street...Broadway, maybe?) on its way there. This isn't a terrible route, though at the Chinatown juncture, you pretty much feel like your arms are going to fall off from the pothole absorption and you're going to get crushed by buses and taxis converging upon you.

Around Union Square, I made the choice to turn up and take 6th Avenue as best as I could. Turns out 6th isn't as bad a street as one might think. Sure, it's filled with a million people (probably literally) and taxis left and right and erratic stop and go traffic and...okay, so it's not a great route. And it only develops a minor bike lane around Times Square and only lasts for a few blocks to Bryant Park. Still, it didn't seem as over-trafficked as I would've expected it to be.

#2 Hot thing: Hairnets. Oh my! It's the sexy look for the new year. Mark my words, when the fall fashions come out, it's going to be nothing but hairnets.

I will now comment on the sorely lacking bike parking facilities in NY. In fact, in comparison to a hick burg like, oh say, San Francisco, NY blows. There aren't a plethora of parking meters (which I'd settle for). There are almost no actual bike locking posts (save for a set in front of B&H Photo). And strapping your bike to those flimsy punctured holed out metal posts seems like you're asking for trouble. My advice: if you've gotta bike and park in NYC have at least 2 good locks (a u shaped and a chain for maximum versatility).

#3 Hot thing: Throwing your hand up and standing in the bike lane while you try to hail a cab. If you can decapitate a bike messenger (or me), you get an extra $10 off at Prada. SuperMegaGalactic Hot!

Coming back down from midtown, I utilized 7th Avenue. At Times Square...fuhgeddaboutit. It's enough to make you feel like you're in LA traffic. Thankfully, this clears pretty dramatically around 28th St. and you can jet almost all the way down to Spring St. (where I crossed over to get into the City Hall Park area) without too much difficulty. And traffic gets very thin at the Village, so you'll feel like you're all alone on 5 lanes of traffic. Nice. I will say that having a rear view (or the ability to turn your head back and forth repeatedly while you ride) is absolutely helpful.

#4 Hot thing: Shoes that are so ungainly and clunky that they make you trip over even pavement. Sooooo hot. The only thing hotter than that? Taking yourself so seriously that you can't even laugh (or even crack a smile!) about how silly it is when you do trip. This is like lava hot, I'm tellin' you.

An American Treasure says farewell

While everyone is in the business of canonizing the newly departed Ronald Reagan (did anyone else live through the 80s? Or was it just me?), a real American treasure has also left the building -- Ray Charles. His lasting accomplishments and legacy are far richer and more uplifting than anything the gipper may try to lay claim to.

Now, if we're going to put a recently deceased American icon on a piece of currency, I can't think of anyone more deserving and emblematic than Ray Charles. I say we mint a $25 bill in his honor. Who's with me? And Reagan can have the $2. And we won't print anymore of those, because $2 isn't worth a damn, like most of the so-called accomplishments that Reagan might claim.

As we all know these deaths generally line up in threes, I'd be interested to know what tomorrow's toll might yield. I think I'm safe, though; this particular trinity is looking to be fairly high profile.

This must be some kind of a cultural thing

I'll admit it -- I've not been in NY very long, so maybe this is just how free movies work here (they work differently in other cities I've lived in when they've actually shown free movies, at least). Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that In-Style magazine was one of the bigger sponsors...but, I went to the fabulous Rockefeller "drive-in" movie thing at around 8:40 last night. Show starts at dusk. And they had fenced off the entire square where the theater screen was located. Okay, fine, good crowd control technique. Each gate was covered by a Rock-center-a-cop. Fine, too. But, in the middle, where all of the chairs were located...there were empty seats. And the rock-cops weren't letting anyone into them. A full 45 minutes before the show would even start. I asked one of the guards when you needed to arrive to get seated. He said, "About 8." For a show that starts at 9:15ish. Sure, it's free...but maybe the saying "time is money" hasn't made it to these here parts. Sitting around for 1:15 to see a free movie. Well, I guess you get what you pay for. I was a little discouraged, though, if I'd planned to make an evening of it, I could've graced the lower deck restaurant with my presence. But, as the security guard noted, "Then you'd be paying for the movie." Tomorrow night is Danny Deckchair which I really, really, really tried to convince myself that it would be a fun movie to see (if it were free). But, I'm afraid the trailer and the premise is forcing my opinion in completely the opposite direction. I'm sure it's going to be wonderful, really (okay, no, actually it looks pretty dreadfully dull. And like a rip-off of a Bloom County cartoon from 20 years ago). If you don't mind devoting your entire evening to watching it. Good luck!

Images from the Museum Mile

Summer's here...

I spotted my first lightning bug of the year. To me, growing up in a place where there were nothing but swarms of lightning bugs as the hot summer nights paraded through town, this is a sure indication that summer has officially arrived. I don't know if lightning bugs (or fireflies) only come out when summer finally arrives.

The Museum Mile Festival was greeted with lovely summer skies, as well. And, damn, there are a lot of people at that thing. Lines around the block for the Guggenheim and the Neue something or other. Even the Cooper-Hewitt Design museum. I went there and to the Met before high-tailing it back to Brooklyn via bicycle.

And also, via Lexington Avenue. Let me say, if you're an urban cyclist, Lexington is as close to skydiving as I think I'd like to get. From 90th to 50th, you fight cabs all the way up the block, but if you go about 30 or so, you hit almost every light 10 blocks at a time. And you beat the cabs downtown, even. After 50th, Lexington gets very rutted and it's best to get away from there. The other thing I've noticed about biking in Manhattan (also in Brooklyn) is the grime factor. I stopped at one point to wipe some sweat from my brow to discover a thick layer of grit that had been kicked up and deposited on my forehead. I guess that's why they call it the gritty city. Or do they call it that?

It's been brought to my attention by the lovely comment board that Matt Nathanson is playing this Thursday. I first saw Matt about 2 years ago when he opened for one of my favorite performers, Dar Williams. Matt puts on a fantastic show with a lot of energy. And even though I wasn't familiar with his material the last time I saw him (January at the Bowery Ballroom), he once again delivered a fantastic show. Part of the highlights of any Nathanson show are the giddy in-between song stories that he shares and his inclination to start covering any song that comes to mind. Usually, he ends with a rousing sing-a-long to Bon Jovi. It's like karaoke with a few hundred of your closest friends. Highly recommended. Sadly, I slept on this particular ticket, so I will have to catch him another year. He's co-headlining with a band that I'm not all that interested in seeing, so maybe I'll hold out for a smaller venue and a single headlining situation.

Pictures from the festival coming soon...

Closing Time

I don't, as a rule, spend much time in bars. In fact, you might even say that I almost never spend any time in a bar. Last night, though, I was in a bar when it closed for the first time in my life. And I got to witness a virtuoso performance by a barfly as she regaled the limited audience (3 of us) about anything and everything from her sordid and storied life. Stories included the time she hit 4 cars in a parking garage, closed out an open mike at a rap record release party, when she got divorced from her german ex-husband, made $200 from an infidelitious spouse. My, it was almost as good as the best fiction. Better, perhaps, as most books don't talk with a southern lilt, unless they're written by Tennessee Williams.

Plus, the bar itself was a very lovely space and the bartender was a nice fellow. Maybe I'll got to more bars this year, if only to plumb the depths for the next good story. It's really all about good stories.

incredible!

I think it will be a truly spectacular possible evening on Tuesday, if for this reason alone.

Tastes like pudding

I had never had rice pudding before...and today, that all changed. And, I must admit...it tastes kinda like pudding. Like, normal pudding, really. Except, occasionally you find tiny chunks of rice in there which is nice and tapioca-like, but it's nothing mindbending at all. The flavors though are quite lovely and the concept behind the whole store -- a place that serves nothing but rice pudding seems weird enough that it just might work. While I was there business was brisk but not terribly crowded. Though for $5/bowl, they can afford to not cram them in like an ice cream parlor, probably. The decor is nicely star trek and the employees wear little revolutionary black hats (if they were berets and talked with snooty French accents, it might be perfect). Overall, a lovely experience. And, I guess I preferred that dessert to the cake that I had later, so chalk one up for the pudding people.

I had never had rice pudding before...and today, that all changed. And, I must admit...it tastes kinda like pudding. Like, normal pudding, really. Except, occasionally you find tiny chunks of rice in there which is nice and tapioca-like, but it's nothing mindbending at all. The flavors though are quite lovely and the concept behind the whole store -- a place that serves nothing but rice pudding seems weird enough that it just might work. While I was there business was brisk but not terribly crowded. Though for $5/bowl, they can afford to not cram them in like an ice cream parlor, probably. The decor is nicely star trek and the employees wear little revolutionary black hats (if they were berets and talked with snooty French accents, it might be perfect). Overall, a lovely experience. And, I guess I preferred that dessert to the cake that I had later, so chalk one up for the pudding people.

Vodka=bad for brit singers

At least, that's what Beth Orton told the crowd that had crammed sardine style in to Pianos on the lower east side tonight. I'd never been to Pianos, which is a long-ish bar with a small-ish back room. I don't know how many people had squeezed in there, but it felt like nearly 100 in a space not a whole lot bigger than my living room/kitchen area. Beth performed only songs from an as-yet-unreleased album, which from my perspective have the makings of being a pretty good release. No one had ever heard any of the songs and a number of them were pretty catchy and she has one of the more gorgeous voices on the planet. Though, I think she's a bit self-conscious of the whole thing, as she over-reverbs as a rule. I'd definitely put her and Chan Marshall (Cat Power) on a similar level, vocal-wise. She complained during the performance of having drunk too much vodka the night before because she was so nervous. A number of the songs started and stopped, with Beth having to re-tune or fix the tuning that she had tried. One song she stopped as her voice gave out (again, due to the vodka, or so she said). All the time, she maintained a graciousness and self-deprecatory humor. A lovely show. Too bad I don't have any pictures of the exceptionally large people who sashayed in front of me to park themselves and block all available view from the shorter folks that were standing behind them.

on the train

On the subway, I was sitting in front of a woman who was singing to herself. Another passenger made a comment regarding this and the woman launched into her defense. "I'm singing, sometimes I just need to sing. I need to keep myself in the right frame of mind, a happy frame of mind, to be happy all the time. I see you're studying, I got myself an education, it's the best thing I've got, thank the lord for that. Sometimes, I just have to sing. It's this song in my head, Mary J. Blige, you know her?"

Does anyone know how to guess the weather?

I don't believe in umbrellas -- not that they don't exist. I'm quite sure they do exist, but I just can never feel like carrying it around just in case seems like a good use of my available digits. It must be my experience in cities like Pittsburgh and Chicago, where if it rains, the wind usually kicks up with such ferocity as to render an umbrella inside out. And after destroying enough umbrellas in my youth, it seemed like just wearing a nice somewhat waterproof jacket was just as good. And realizing that the semi-permeable membrane of my epidermis still managed to keep out most of the water. So, I'm mostly interested in trying to figure out when I'll get caught in a torrential downpour in New York. Just for my edification, I guess. I suppose I could look at the weather forecasts, but that always seems to be like cheating.

image I don't have

When I went biking last weekend, I saw in the corner of a second floor building window a child. Maybe a toddler. Pacifier in her mouth. And she was sitting in the window ledge area that was fenced in by bars that are normally placed on window fittings to keep people from breaking in. The bars jut out just far enough to protect for an air conditioner installation. In the glimpse I had, it looked like a window seat playpen for the child. The window was closed, and the toddler seemed to look out over the street scene without an expression, trapped by the bars of the apartment window. This was in Williamsburg on Myrtle Avenue.

Is it just me?

I noticed an ad plastered all over the G-train this afternoon (so, it might be just me) for Verizon's yellow pages. And I have to say...it is insanely creepy! There's this little evil cartoon yellow pages making all kinds of rude suggestions about how he can "get all up in my business" as they might say. I think one of the ads said, "If it were any more crowded in here, I'd be in your pants." Excuse me? If your anthropomorphic yellow page a** was in my pants, you, me and Verizon would be getting into a nice little lawsuit chat. Beyond the nature of the "we're trying so hard to be hip and failing oh so tremendously" lingo, the caricature of the phone book looks kind of like a leering peeping tom. And that might be giving leering peeping toms a bad name.

Well, maybe the ad will disappear before anyone else gets a chance to be revolted by it. And to swear off using Verizon for anything (if possible...I need to get to work on that).

Muffin recipe #1

I did promise this at some point. And just to keep those who probably have been salivating at the mere thought of a good muffin recipe from um...drooling too much, here it is:

1 stick of butter
3/4 c sugar
2 bananas
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 3/4c flour
1/2 c vanilla yogurt
2 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp orange zest
1 tbsp lemon juice

These measurements are very rough. I usually just eyeball the consistency. Which might say more about how many times in my life I've made muffins more than anything else.

Anyhow: melt the butter, cream the sugar, crush the bananas as much as possible and combine it all in a bowl. Mix well. Add the vanilla, yogurt, baking soda. Mix. Add the flour. Mix some more. Add the zest. Keep on mixing. Add the juice. Use the yogurt to thin the batter if it seems to thick, or add more flour if it seems too runny. It should be like a porridge consistency.

Dollop equally into a greased muffin tin. Bake for almost 30 minutes at 350 until the tops brown a bit and a knife comes out clean. Voila!

Yep, no eggs in this recipe. The muffins will mostly taste lemony, with a hint of banana. The bananas act as a binder instead of the eggs. The best thing I've learned about these muffins is that they remain good the following day...in fact, you can even freeze them and then thaw them out gradually as you want them and they remain pretty good. But maybe that's just for me. They are best served warm out of the oven, of course.