We've Moved!

Hey all -- so we made the move over to typepad. The new site is up and running, though we'll still be tinkering with some of the archived pages for the next few days. So please reset your bookmarks, subscribe to the new typepad feed, and tell all your friends. We're very excited about the move and the redesign, and hope you guys continue to join us on our snarky, irate, occasionally sincere, but mostly awkward ride.

>>>>>>>>>> probablyawkward.typepad.com

Probably Awkward Goes to Queens on Spring Break

I think the preceding set of photographs from the second annual QBQ BBQ (quality before quantity BBQ) says it all: we came, we ate, we drank overpriced mixed drinks and then free beer, we met Gothamist, and then we left. What I don't think the photographs fully convey, however, is how spring break-like the whole thing was. Probably Awkward, individually or collectively, was never a part of the Cancun or Daytona Beach-going college crowd; I can't speak for MD, but every March, I spent my collegiate spring break catching up on reading and/or learning how to drink whiskey like a man. I was at least 1,000 miles away from any sort of bikini-clad-ness and the frosted highlights of entitlement.

And then there we were, at the Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City, surrounded by shirtless, cargo shorts-wearing boys and their scantily-clad female counterparts. And everyone was playing beach volleyball. On a strip of sand adjacent to, but not actually touching, the water. Despite the fact that they were all probably out of college (and, we surmised, all currently junior i-bankers), the non QBQ BBQ beachgoers all looked like they were reliving their happiest moments from Cancun 2004.

The burger event itself got off to a slow start, but despite the kinks everything seemed to go pretty smoothly. The burger line was long but surprisingly orderly, and a laid-back spirit of shared red-meat-love camaraderie got folks to share tables, hold each other's plahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifces in line, and oooh and aaah every time a new burger creation was unveiled. Of the three burgers voted into the event: pimento, butter, and onion, I have to admit that I was freakishly surprised by how good the pimento was, how terrible the butter turned out to be, and how inoffensive the onion was (I normally can't stand onions -- I know, I know). Despite the foodie squeals of delight as we watched the guy behind the counter use an ice cream scooper to get dollops of butter from a vat of Plugra, the butter burger was just waaaay too much.

[update: We were the first in line for the onion burgers, which again, were tasty but not as spectacular as advertised. After seeing Jason Perlow's pics of the QBQ, it occurs to me that as the line wore on, the grill guys found their rhythm and got the onions properly smushed into the patties (whereas the onions in our burgers were decidedly more separate from their patties). I think I would've swooned over those burgers. Alas! The perils of being first in line!]

Sadly, for an event taking place at the Water Taxi Beach, MD and I were unable to arrive by the Water Taxi itself, no thanks to a un-updated website which failed to inform us that there was no longer weekend service from the Williamsburg dock. But no matter. We got to experience our first Spring Break of sorts, while surviving food coma and witnessing the sunset from an entirely new, slightly surreal location. I slept quite soundly, I have to say. (And yup, that's a plastic, xmas-lighted palm tree in the foreground. Welcome to Queens!)

ps: We've moved - come to our new site at probablyawkward.typepad.com ...

I Drink Alone So You Don't Have To: Marshall Stack

The other night, after a long evening of dealing with computer issues at home, I decided to head out on the late side over to Clandestino, to get out of the house and to clear my head of all technological thoughts/travails. Over a glass of Powers, some of the regulars and I got into a conversation about the neighborhood; the boys were shocked that while I would make the late-nite walk down to Canal to drink at Clando, I had never been to Marshall Stack, a bar only 3 blocks from my apartment. They told me I would love it. I asked if I would get hit on if I showed up alone. "Er... try it anyway!" they said. I promised I would. Two generous pours later, I made my way home and put "Marshall Stack" on my to-try list. The next day I went online to see what this place was all about. And I have to say -- would you go to this bar, based on this photograph (courtesy of the unfortunately-redesigned Citysearch)? Yeah, it looks pretty terrible, right? It just looks like a lot of people milling about, waiting for a drink. I could imagine a photograph of the interior of a bar, showing happy, drunk patrons and not a lot of the actual interiors. I might think: wow, those people look happy and drunk. That must be a good bar. But that photo of Marshall Stack just makes it look like the photographer was trying to take a picture of the lady in white, and at the last second she turned around. And everyone else just looks kind of ... unhappy. But I was determined to make good on my word. And so Wednesday night, I went to Marshall Stack, with hopes of, at the very least, not just ... milling around. A confession, because I'm a terrible liar: I didn't go to Marshall Stack alone. After a satisfying light meal of bratwurst and liverwurst at Loreley, KS and I traipsed over to Allen and Rivington to see what the Clandy fuss was about. Nice lighting, a very long bar, and a lot of small tables along the massive windows. A jukebox with inoffensive songs (so inoffensive that I can't actually remember any of them). And a ladies-night happy hour that included $4 glasses of a weirdly drinkable Sauvignon Blanc. Also weirdly: I didn't actually get a very good picture of the bar myself. But maybe a photograph of KS and one of our accumulating wine glasses might convince you of the bar's charms? The upshot: I would go to Marshall Stack alone, because having now been there, I can see what the nice Clandestino boys were getting at: it's a decent neighborhood spot that is, in fact, open earlier than my beloved c-bar -- and with happy hour specials. It was a Wednesday night, so it was hard to assess how insane the bar might get on the weekends, or around midnight, but we were there till nearly 10, and the noise and crowd levels were completely manageable. One downside: they've got a small food menu, featuring cheese plates and pressed sandwiches. All fine and good, except that the entire place smells of grilled cheese, no matter where you sit; it's one of those savory smells that I'm ok with, but to others it's overwhelming and pungent. Your call. Regardless, I'm pretty sure I could sit in there with a book and not get harassed -- unless it's by a random fellow explaining to me that he hasn't read a book since 1990, in which case it would be sort of charming and innocuous. That said, please leave me to my drinking. [For a more representative photograph of the space, and similar thoughts about the bar's quiet conversation potential, check out this Eater piece.]

Preparing Your Children For A Life of Back Pain and/or Tolstoy

The other day I sent a friend an interesting online article, co-written by an acquaintance, about the nature of religion and the potentially unnecessary role of [a] god in creating the fundament for that faith. [You can read that article here.] Aforementioned friend sent this reply: "thanks for sending over...I've printed it out, and will check it out after about 500 pages more of harry potter. (my own form of religion right now.)"* This exchange occurred a few days after MD and I attended a lovely wedding reception that featured a trivia game that each table could play together as a team, against all the other tables. The questions centered around the bride and groom -- their old jobs, claims to fame, those sorts of things. (And also, not exactly randomly: "What is a kleroterion?") Between me, MD, the groom's old college friends, and our friend the iPhone, Table 8 won soundly. Our prizes? We each got a copy of the new Harry Potter book. I've never read the Harry Potter books. Well, I take that back. I read about 20 pages of the first one, and then got bored, and then stopped. MJP (the bride) had once dragged me to see the first installment of the films, and that was all well and good except that it did nothing to make me want to see the second one. It's just not my thing. I sometimes feel like I'm missing out on the Cultural Phenomenon Of Our Time, but I feel like I already shot myself in the foot just by voluntarily opting out of a life in the city and moving upstate for seven years of doctoral insanity. In any event, the following thought occurred to me this morning: here I am, slowly but surely making my way through William T. Vollmann's Europe Central, a devastatingly wondrous novel about the second World War, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany. At nearly 800 pages it's become an ongoing project of sorts, but one that I absolutely love -- the storytelling is full of heartache, breathtaking elegy, humour, and ... telephones. It's amazing. But the thing is, it's taken me, what, six weeks to get through just under 300 pages. And on the subway this morning I saw a woman around my age opening up the new Harry Potter, at around the 2/3 mark -- out of 800-odd pages -- and continue to read. And that came out less than a week ago. I'll admit that there was a moment of defeat that passed before my eyes. I can't seem to get through a book that I clearly am enjoying more than anything else I've read this year. And there everyone else is, speeding along through the heaviest book I've seen in ages. But then I thought: huh. There's a good chance that as I write this, millions of children will be finishing up the book. All 800 pages of it. A testament to quick reading, sure (and it's summertime for them ... oh, how I miss summer vacation!), but when was the last time such a large book got this much attention and was actually read by a fairly sizable part of the population? It's kind of maybe sort of ... awesome, really. Merchandising tie-ins aside, the Harry Potter craze has gotten people to read again. Alone or together. It's created a culture of reading that I don't remember really seeing before. Last night, while waiting for KS at Loreley, I struck up a conversation with two fellows sitting next to me at the bar. One of them saw my open copy of Europe Central, and asked how it was. We started talking about books, and then he admitted that he hadn't read a book since ... 1990. "Loose Balls," he said. "It was about the short-lived ABA, the American Basketball Association. Great book. Haven't read anything since then." I joked to this guy -- married -- that it was a good thing he wasn't trying to pick me up, since the whole "I haven't read a book since 1990" wasn't exactly the sort of thing a girl reading Europe Central would want to hear. My point: it's nice that Harry Potter's getting people to read again. And it's a little sad that one gentleman in the Lower East Side hasn't read a book in over 16 years. And also: I've got a copy of the new Harry Potter book, if anyone wants it. My other point: it's a question, really -- Now that the last Harry Potter book has come out, I know we've got two more of the films to look forward to, but ... What's next? What book/film/idea is going to become entrenched in the collective (un)conscious? And am I going to jump on the bandwagon? (I figure by the time the next cultural phenomenon takes root, I'll be just about done with Europe Central.) And: what's with fantasy? Between the Lord of the Rings films and the Harry Potter multimedia extravaganza, I'm wondering if there's something always already pleasurable about fantasy -- or if we're in a particular Moment, socially, culturally, politically, and/or otherwise, that makes the fantastic so potent. Or is it simpler than that? Is it the celebration of imaginative storytelling, the hearkening back to bedtime stories? And if that's the case, am I just an unimaginative, unloving old fuddy-duddy who insists on living in the real? Man. What's wrong with me? * There was a winky emoticon after his religion quip, and I'm actively refusing to include it.

The Early Morning After

Dear Readers -- I can't guarantee that there won't be an imminent platform change over to Typepad, the land of the user-friendly customizable website, but until I lose my mind again, I (re-)give you the blog, mid-redesign. Please be kind as we go through our growing pains (read: learn the ways of the XML). They don't teach this sort of thing in political philosophy grad seminars!

Housekeeping: Mid-Summer Edition

Probably Awkward will be down this evening from about 9pm-on (EST), so that we can start tweaking with our redesign. With a bit of luck we might even have a new masthead. And possibly be a serif-free blog. A veritable revolution, my friends! Any comments/suggestions/etc are always welcome: probablyawkward [at] gmail [dot] com. (A couple more posts in the meanwhile...)

I Rant Because I Care: Oh Lindsay

Well, to be honest, I don't care that much. I just need a moment here to rant. Lindsay Lohan is neither probable nor awkward. She just sort of ... is. She wreaks havoc on my daily life, because feeds from my Google Reader seem to revel in reporting about the minutiae of her existence, which as far as I can tell involves wearing either unfortunate, loose-fitting tops or equally unfortunate but differently ill-fitting bikinis, and in both instances carrying everything she would put in a purse in her hand while also carrying said purse (which I have to assume is thus either empty or full of whatever it is she supposedly isn't snorting -- but man, have you seen those purses? You could fit small children in there, which maybe she's doing since she's carrying a redbull, blackberry, keys, and a wallet all in her hands, as if to prove what? That she's a hydrated, moneyed, cellularly-connected person who hasn't locked her keys in her car?). Inbetween my morning bagel and reworking any number of memos about [redacted], Lindsay Lohan finds her way into my pre-noon Google Readering, and now that she's up and gotten herself arrested (again), there's really no end in sight. Is her level of intoxication directly proportional to her overexposure? Unlike Britney Spears, who has become the trainwreck that we're all starting to watch with weird empathetic horror, hoping that somehow her ongoing derailment will magically put her back on the path to tight abs and common sense, Ms Lohan is somehow always-already an object lesson in crashing and burning. Paris Hilton will just keep chugging along until she just ends up looking like her mother, which I think will happen a great deal sooner than later -- but it doesn't matter, because as much as I despise her, I have to admit that Paris is one savvy lady. But Lindsay -- I mean, I'm having a hard time imagining her seeing 25. And she just turned 21, what, a week ago? Maybe she'll pull a Drew Barrymore and get her shit together (and hopefully not have to marry Tom Green, however briefly) and then eventually date (and dump) a Stroke, and then maybe be seen around town smooching Spike Jonze. Maybe. But I really think she just needs to buy a ranch in, say, Alberta, Canada, and just hide from the public eye for a good 10 years or so. I don't know what it says about me, or her, or the media, that I can imagine taking her more seriously as a cattle rancher than as a 21 year old bikini-clad, peace-signing rehabber with an alcohol-monitoring ankle bracelet (sigh. oh dear me). That's all. I feel much better now. Thanks, everyone.

MD & HT's Excellent Wedding Adventure: Mid-Atlantic Driving

Last weekend, HT and I embarked upon a trip to our friend MJP's wedding in rural Maryland. No combination of plane, train, and cab could get us to the event so we decided to rent a car, an easy proposition in theory but deceptively hard in practice. First, HT schemed that we could take a chinatown bus to Baltimore on Saturday, walk a mile along a highway and below a scary underpass dragging our suitcases behind us to arrive at the rental car location. We would then drive a half hour to the wedding and return the car the following day, drag our suitcases back to the bus depot and return home. Not the most convenient plan, but one that would work. However it turns out all car rental locations in Baltimore are closed on Sunday except at the airport. G-d said Sunday was the day of rest and Hertz was not about to interfere with his divine plan. Then HT proposes we go to Newark and get a car there. I share my experience of being quoted one price on Travelocity and then showing up at Newark airport with an NYC driver's license and being told the rate was significantly higher because of the dangers of city-driving... even though I was driving into pastoral upstate new york and not the wilds of Brooklyn. HT checks, this is true, and we contemplate our next move. When all seems lost HT comes up with a brilliant idea: Greyhound roundtrip ($20) to Philadelphia. An 8 block walk to Enterprise. A 2 and a half hour drive to Maryland. The trip to Philly is without incident despite the long line for the bus. We are separated for most of the trip but eventually my seatmate (a lovely older lady who enjoys mysteries) gets off and we are reunited. When we made the reservation, HT had said:

i had originally picked a compact car, as opposed to an economy one, because i think i have an apocalyptic/cognitive aversion to the notion of an econo car. it's the same price.

I say to her now, "You just know we're going to get upgraded to a PT Cruiser." This has happened to everyone I know. Did the rental car agencies buy all of these monstrosities after the trend ended and no one renewed their leases? We arrive at the Enterprise and after a long wait are told it's our lucky day. Our compact car is going to be upgraded FOR FREE to a lovely... PT Cruiser. Or for $10 more we can get a compact SUV or a Prius. HT and I look at each other and attempt to decide what kind of douche we really are: The sanctimonious, "environmentally-friendly brand" kind OR the soccer mom in training. "We'll take the Prius." The man behind the counter says "It's a really cool car. Very different. I'll have to teach you how to start it. So you're in town for the night -- where are you going to be going?" On the reservation it says we have unlimited mileage east of the Mississippi but I get nervous and blurt: "We're not really sure... depending on what happens we might stick around town or maybe head down to Maryland." He adds Maryland to the contract and takes us to the car. It takes him about five minutes to teach HT the process. The key fob IS the key and get shoved in a special slot. Then you hit the round power button. Then the rectangular park indicator. Then you slide the "shift lever" backward to put the car in drive and of course, forward to put it in reverse. Then the lever reverts to the neutral position. The car is absolutely silent throughout. I feel like I am in the future and half expect the car to begin levitating above the ground.We begin wooshing through the streets and onto the highway and three things quickly become apparent. 1.) We are driving through a Photoshopped image. The sky is too blue, the clouds too fluffy, and all the grass too green. The day is almost too perfect to be believed. 2.) We don't know how to work the car. It takes five minutes navigating the submenus of the control panel to get the AC on, and another five to get music playing. (See upcoming essay "Information Overload: The Prius Dashboard as Failure of 21st Century Warfare.") 3.) Mid-Atlantic Drivers suck. Or more accurately, Mid-Atlantic driving sucks. The lanes are poorly marked, making every toll plaza an exercise in frustration as drivers skip between rows trying to find the EZPASS lane. There are many exits on the left, so there is no clear lane for speeding. The left lane is as slow as the right and many drivers stick to the middle using cruise control, therefore becoming little roadblocks to the flow of traffic and sometimes two or three will end up abreast creating a temporary log jam. I began to feel like we were playing Frogger -- weaving in between hazards and finding the gaps that would get us to our goal. After passing by porn stores located across the street from Christian bookstores and huge sculptures of dragons, kings and castles, we arrived at the Forest Motel where we learned smoking rooms are not a thing of the past. To Be Continued...

Random: What's Wrong With This Photo?

One of the nicer/better/funnier parts of the trip was the fact that, slightly inexplicably, MD and I ended up with a Toyota Prius -- yup, the famed hybrid -- as our rental car. MD will wax poetic and weird about the drive, but I'll just mention here that on the drive back, we decided to listen to the radio; to our amusement, we appeared to have one of those satellite radio things that displayed the names of the songs as they played, as well as the type of radio station (rock, r&b, easy listening, info, miscellaneous, and i think classical). Now that you have some context, can anyone explain this to us?

This Week in Kerfuffle: The Faith Hill / Redbook Controversy

I'm still recovering from a weekend of dealing with The Drivers of the Mid-Atlantic Region, consuming questionably-named alcoholic beverages served in a weirdly-lit Korean karaoke bar and pool hall, scaring small children and the entirety of the bridal party by wrapping my legs around MD's torso during a particularly rousing dance/grind moment at the wedding, and did I already mention the Screwy Slut? So it's no surprise that I completely missed this brouhaha surrounding this month's Redbook cover photo of Faith Hill. Apparently the folks over at Jezebel obtained a pre-retouched copy of said cover photo of Little Miss Sunshine, and well ... yeah. You should check out the before/after thing they've got over at Jezebel, which shows in pretty plain detail how Photoshop -- our second favorite magician* -- appears to have shaved off 5 inches from her waist, thighs, and arms. Jezebel's got a handful of stellar moments of snark, with links available from this post here. The big kerfuffle happened today, when the Today show ran a segment on the whole matter, and even featured a roundtable discussion with their resident psychologist as well as the editor of Men's Health, where they all waxed annoying about how the media does this/that/the other in perpetuating problematic, idealized bodies as the norm to which we need to adhere (or for which we need to diet/starve/retch/etc). During the segment, Redbook editor Stacy Morrison stood her ground, saying that "In the end, they're not really photographs. They're images." One can go in so many different directions with this statement, and with the controversy in general. I feel like we all know the general critique of media/industry/etc. And if you watch the Today segment via Jezebel, you can maybe laugh at Men's Health editor David Zinczenko justifying what they do over there (basically, real men like cover models in t-shirts, and so that's all they do! Men in t-shirts! Who needs to photoshop when you have real-esque men wearing t-shirts! Christ. Whatever). No, I'm actually curious here about this notion of image. I don't think it necessarily has to do simply with new digital technologies. I mean, take a look at this photo: It's a photograph taken by famed photographer Matthew Brady during the American Civil War. While it does really show dead Confederate soldiers following a battle, it fails to acknowledge (well, how could it?) that the bodies have been moved so that they appear closer together, that the photograph has been staged. Does this constitute an image? Or is it still a photograph? Or how about these? The photograph on the left features Stalin with Soviet Commissar Nikolai Yezhov; the one on the right was retouched after Yezhov fell out of favor and was executed in 1940. Is the one on the left a photograph and the one on the right an image? Does a photograph carry some kind of inherent truth-value? Is an image always already manipulated -- or at least carry with it a skepticism about its location within 'reality'? In a previous post I discussed the collective cognitive weirdness engendered by the photoshop revolution. We have every reason to be skeptical of what we see. But this strange question of photograph or image has me a bit perplexed -- though I'm having some post-weekend-related problems really processing this fully. Is there some kind of grand theory to be generated here about the reproducibility of the photograph already carrying the seeds of its potential falsity? Or: can we say that a photograph, regardless of its Historical Moment, captures time, while an image captures what we'd like History to be? If the latter is the case (and I'm open to suggestions/criticisms/disappointed head-shaking), then what sort of History is that image of Faith Hill suggesting? Or what kind of History is Faith Hill being inscribed into? It's an image about image, sure, if we're talking about our manic obsession about bodies and appearance and our fear of aging and time as our ultimate enemy. But maybe this particular History is also about the falling away of -- for lack of a better word, and many apologies -- authenticity, or at least the desire for it. I mean, History has never necessarily been about the truth; but in a moment where one can argue that a photograph is not a photograph but an image, I wonder if we've lost our ability to construct even mildly plausible narratives about our trajectory. I mean, what sorts of visual documentation would/could we show for ourselves? Is a faux-skinny Faith Hill what we're going to leave behind as a part of our visual detritus? We've lost Commissar Yezhov, but we're keeping the peppy country singer? Great. * This man is, of course, our favorite magician. C'mon!

MD & HT's Excellent Wedding Adventure: Teaser Trailer

This: Led to this: And discussions about the following topics:

• Is a nice East Coaster the same as a West Coat douche?
• What's in a screwy slut?
• Why are people so wrong? Is it because they think they're so right?
• Don't get me wrong... I'd live on sweetbreads if it was an option, but why in G-d's name would anyone eat scrapple?
• What passes for a public intellectual in 21st century America?
• Don't you think giant robots would love to parkour along that overpass?

More to follow tonight and in the remainder of the week. If anyone has a photo of me and HT dirty dancing to Sexy Back, can you please forward it along? [ht adds: I'm not a vain person, but I'd like to point out that I'm infinitely more attractive than that 'zombie diner' photo suggests. Honest. I'm even drinking decaf in that photo!]

Meet Your Blogger: Mid-Atlantic Edition

md | the continental | philadelphia, 22 july 2007 Oh, but let's start at the beginning, shall we? Upcoming: our crazy weekend away from the city.
[md: I can assure you any activities between me and the plush frog were entirely consensual.]

My dog ate my blog entry OR what I did this week

Last week I tried to change us into a filter blog. This week, I move to a LiveJournal style I didn't post this week, despite having the best of intentions and a half-written entry about my beautiful d40x. These are the things that sabotaged me: Friday the 13th: The roofie bartender at Urge (my homolocal) got me really drunk before I met up with AH, resulting in a one-ended fight, at least until I passed out. Saturday the 14th: We made up. Numerous times. Then I went home to discover they were tearing the bricks off my building to create a "brownstone" and that we would be woken up early for construction for the next month. Later, I wrote about the amazing Benjamin Tiven while AH slept. Sunday the 15th Exhausted from the last two days, I went to bed early, but then woke up every hour due to construction stress and the fact that on ... ...Monday the 16th I had an early morning meeting scheduled to discover if I would still have a job after my project term ended at the end of August. The meeting is cancelled but I discover I MIGHT be moving into a senior position involving extensive travel and tripled responsibilities. Then I end up at a party for AH's roommate and don't get to sleep until 2. Tuesday the 17th I am not sure what happened this day. I was asleep but moving. Wednesday the 18th Manhattan explodes and I have 9/11 flashbacks as I am texted, IMed, and called with conflicting reports and care for my threatened well-being. Thursday the 19th I learn I DO have a job, salary and title TBD, and a lot more work. So I buy an iPhone to celebrate and vanish into its tiny beautiful screen. And then my roommate tells me he wants me out by September 1 so he can move his best friend in. Friday the 20th I wake up every hour on the hour worrying about housing. NOW I publicly apologize. Mea Culpa. Next week, I'll be prolific. I swear.

Thriller, or: I Don't Know What To File This Under

We're not a filter blog, but I feel a strong need to pass along this video to our readers. It features the inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines reenacting the video for Michael Jackson's Thriller. I want to write something really meaningful here about Foucault and the nature of surveillance and governmentality, and possibly something about the discourse of the body as it moves through confined spaces, and maybe also something about how I've recently been reading stuff about mass parades in the Stalin-era Soviet Union and present day North Korea, and how that seems to inform a particularly strange reading of the video at hand. But really, when it comes down to it, the intersection of amusement and horror in my nervous laughter as I watched the video pretty much sums it up. update: These guys do this sort of thing quite a bit. Hmmm. [thanks to Boing Boing for the link.]

That Which Does Not Kill Me: Deep Fried Mac n Cheese

Between recent forays into the pork-permeated Momofuku universe, a profoundly unhealthy interest in bone-dry southern Italian white wines, the lack of a gym membership, and the absence of any willpower when it comes to the mushroom pizza at Rosario's, there's a good chance I won't live to see 34. And when you get to that point in your life where you realize that you might as well just stop trying to be healthy, you also then come to the conclusion that there's no point in avoiding deep fried macaroni and cheese. Really. Just give into it. You'll feel a lot better. I mean, it's a thought I've had for a long time now: who in the carnivorous, lactose-tolerant (or, like me, lactose-intolerance-be-damned) universe wouldn't love to consume a ball of mac n cheese, breaded and then deep fried? Add to that a piece of smoked kielbasa in the center, and you've got yourself an updated version of the mac n cheese n franks one would often find in elementary school cafeterias. An updated version for the glutton in all of us. Made by yours truly. Sadly, yours truly has a kitchen the size of an armchair a folding chair, and I woefully lack a deep fryer. So KS proposed that until I was blessed with a dream kitchen and fryolator, we head out into the city to try other places' take on this concept. (Sadly, too, I am not the only one with this wondrous idea.) And so this past weekend, and for a wee bit of the other evening, we crafted almost entire meals around deep fried mac n cheese. And lived to tell the tale. First up: Supermac. A wee little place in the fashion district that specializes in macaroni and cheese (including a lobster thermidor version...!), Supermac was unfortunately out of their mac n cheese nuggets the day we visited. We consoled ourselves by ordering a couple versions of their regular mac n cheese: a traditional one with American and cheddar, and a 4-cheese one with cheddar, asiago, mozzarella, and parmesiano-reggiano. The four cheese one rocked -- nice texture, with really good tang from the cheese combination (it's the one further away in the photograph on the left). Up next: after downing a couple pint glasses of sangria, we headed over to Mo Pitkins, based on a tip from gridskipper, where there had been photographic evidence of a deep fried mac and cheese loaf. On the walk over there, I may have said something to the effect of "It seems to me that the loaf, qua loaf...." I actually don't remember how I finished that sentence because KS started cracking up. Qua. It's the only bit of latin I know how to use in a sentence. Anyhow: the loaf. Insane. I mean, look at the knife that accompanied it. And the crazy cheese sauce. It was spectacular. The sauce kept the whole thing from drying out, and the breading was crisp and light (as light as deep fried anything can be). The mac and cheese itself was pretty standard -- nothing very fancy, but in that sense quite good: nothing to distract you from the deep fried mac n cheese qua deep fried mac n cheese. Having hit the proverbial wall that evening, we waited a couple of days before trying out purveyor no.3: Bamn!, the automat place over on St. Marks near 2nd avenue. The whole automat thing was sort of fun, but I suspect I'd have to be considerably more intoxicated for the whole thing to be the kind of pleasure I think it's supposed to be. In any event, their mac n cheese krokets (their spelling) were a far cry from Mo Pitkins' cheese extravaganza, but seemed to work pretty well as an inbetween sort of thing. And not so bad, having emerged from the depths of an automat. The mac n cheese was bit more straightforwardly Kraft-esque, and there was something comforting about that. The outer coating could've use a little something extra -- pepper or a touch of cayenne, maybe? -- but again, for an automat, pretty solid fare. (I'd like to add, as an aside, that we followed this up with automat-generated chicken fingers, and then some Chicken Stroganoff at Cafe Anyway. One day my metabolism is going to catch up with my gluttony, and that's going to be a very sad day.) The verdict: good stuff, but not quite what I had envisioned. I sort of think that my version would blow these other guys out of the water. Now will someone please build me my dream kitchen so I can show this city what's what?

The Quirk: Late Night Edition

TK: Do you like Lavender Diamond? HT: Do you read my blog? TK: [laughs] Was there some sort of Miranda July / Becky Stark joint post? HT: Yeah! TK: You really ought to watch "Open Your Heart." Because it will. HT: [uncontrollable laughter] TK: [after we find the video on YouTube] Did that video affect you in any way? HT: Yeah. I definitely have to blog about this now.

Questionable: Pizza Hut in Japan

Apparently it's called the Double Roll Pizza. I can't even begin to parse out my feelings about this ... thing. [thanks to Slice for the link.]

The Quirk: Slowing Building A Media Empire

Yesterday while I was home sick, nursing a case of exhaustion and general malaise, I thought to myself: I haven't heard a peep from Miranda or Zooey. I wonder what they're up to. And then I got mired in rental car hell, and promptly forgot about the quirk incarnates. And later, after fulfilling my scenester quota for the year by attending what turned out to be a sold-out show for the Next Big Swedish Sensation*, I saw someone dip (yes, tobacco) for the first time (my first time seeing; definitely not his first time dipping). Pretty easy for the quirk to get obscured, what with general sensory overload and confusion. And it was only Tuesday, no less. Wednesday is a new day, and with it comes a whole new set of things to check out via my wonderful and time-sucking Google Reader. And it was through the wonders of said Reader that I came across news that there will be a six-hour miniseries this fall on the SciFi Channel, updating The Wizard of Oz. Entitled Tin Man, the show features Alan Cumming as the Scarecrow, Ricahrd Dreyfuss (?!) as the Wizard-esque "Mystic Man," and none other than our own Zooey Deschanel as Dorothy. Sigh. I mean, I guess if you've got a character who's sort of cute, innocent, wide-eyed, gently feisty, but speaks in simple sentences, and is just an all-around darling, you'd pick this person: [That's our Zooey, at the press conference thingy promoting the show. Isn't she adorable?!] And then embedded in the article about Tin Man was a link that led me to this slightly unnerving bit of news: There's some new movie coming out, The Go-Getter, starring our dear Zooey, with original songs by M.Ward. And -- AND -- there's a duet! Zooey and M.Ward! I can barely contain my ire! You can click on the link to the movie's myspace page to check out the song -- which I'll freely admit to not having heard yet, since the myspace player doesn't seem to want to work for me right now. Could somebody please tell us what it sounds like? [Update: You can also find it here. (Thanks, MD.) And .... yeah. That's all I'm going to say about it: yeaaaaaaaah.] To be sure, the song might be really wonderful. [update: it's not.] It's M.Ward, after all. He does nice things with sounds. [update: not here. sorry! only just now discovered that it's a cover of a Linda and Richard Thompson song. still, not good sounds coming out of the quirk/ward.] But between this miniseries and the song, I feel like there are fewer spaces I can retreat to, to escape the quirk. I used to be able to avoid its cultural ubiquity by staying in, not walking around the streets of New York, and just watching television. Now I'm going to start seeing commercials for this blasted Tin Man, and I bet that the trailers for The Go-Getter are going to feature that duet. I mean, it's like the phenomenon is actually taking over all media, slowly but surely. It's making every effort to never be obscured. And it's working. Having incurred the wide-eyed charmingly-inarticulatable wrath of the quirk, I expect to hear about some new Miranda July Old Tyme radio hour any day now. * To be discussed in our upcoming Music Week. Suffice it to say, it was a little terrifying.

I Rant Because I Care: Rental Car Companies

This weekend, MD and I will be attending the wedding of our friend MJP, who will be marrying DB, her fella of many years. Besides being a pretty great guy, DB also happens to have been one of my students the first time I was a graduate teaching assistant, and the only student I've ever failed. (Oh how we laugh about it now!) Anyhow, MD and I need a way to get down to western Howard County, Maryland. Both of us are loathe to drive in or out of New York City, and are looking to keep the transportation costs low. So we thought we'd take the bus down to Baltimore on Saturday, and from there rent a car and drive the 30 miles or so to the farm where the wedding will be held. Sounded easy enough. So today when I finally got around to telephoning rental car places to secure a vehicle, I hit a stumbling block of sorts. HT: I'd like to rent a car for Saturday. I need to return it Sunday. Rental Car Man (RCM): We're not open on Sundays. HT: I can't drop it off? RCM: Nope. You'll have to drop it off on Monday. HT: I sort of need to ... um ... i can't drop it off on Monday. I need to leave Baltimore on Sunday. Um... RCM: Well maybe we can help you. Do you have a major credit card and full auto insurance coverage? HT: Excuse me? RCM: Credit card and full auto insurance coverage? HT: I have a credit card. And ... uh ... if I had full auto insurance coverage, I'd probably also have a car, no? I don't understand. RCM: Well then we can't help you. First of all, I don't understand how you can be a rental car agency and close on Sundays. Apparently this is standard practice for rental car agencies (or their branches) that aren't located at airports. How the hell do you return a car if you need to leave on a Sunday? Is this some sort of national law? No car drop offs on the Lord's day? Secondly, .... yeah. I can't even rant properly. I can't believe Enterprise Rent-a- Car has rendered me speechless. Because it's insanely expensive to rent a car in the New York metro area (which includes Newark), MD and I are resorting to this cockamamie plan: we're taking the bus down to Philly, and renting a car from there. No joke. At least we'll be able to hit a Sonic on the way down now. Gotta get me some Frito Pie Burrito!

Which Of These Buildings Is Not Like the Others?

Down on Avenue B, Saturday afternoon.

Malaysian Blogger Nathaniel Tan Arrested

On Friday 13 July, Malaysian blogger Nathaniel Tan (jelas.info, suarakeadilan.com, bangkit.net) was arrested by authorities there. He is currently under remand while police conduct an investigation into his alleged violation of section 8 of the Official Secrets Act, which pertains to "wrongful communication, etc. of [an] official secret." Tan and another blogger had posted a digitally manipulated photo of the Deputy Prime Minister dining with a Mongolian murder victim. It is unclear at this point whether Tan has been granted access to legal counsel; according to those who have been able to speak with him when he appeared in court, he has not been given clean drinking water. Tan is widely considered to be a prominent online voice in Malaysia; one of his sites, bangkit.net, is a portal for Malaysian civil society groups. According to provisions within the Malaysian Multimedia Bill of Guarantees, the government is not allowed to censor the Internet; Tan's arrest reflects the government's increasing resistance to that freedom of speech. Supporters have been asked to post this image of Nathaniel Tan on their blogs. We here at probably awkward ask any and all of our blog-writing readers to pass this along on their own sites. more info about Tan's detainment here and here.

Monday Morning Rhapsodic: Veronica

This weekend's NY Times Sunday Styles' "A Night Out With" column featured a profile of the band Spoon, a band I'll readily admit to knowing next to nothing about, except that I'm supposed to like them a lot, and that a lot of people I know love them. I am, however, familiar with frontman Britt Daniel's winning good looks, and even though I've heard very little of their music, every picture of Daniels causes me to rethink that indie rock lacuna in my life. He is an attractive man, I'll give you that -- a welcome addition to the Army of the Weak-Chinned.* Reading the profile reminded me of Daniel's cameo on Veronica Mars in season two. In it, he does a very charming karaoke version of Elvis Costello's sort-of hit, Veronica, from his 1989 album Spike. [You can watch a clip of that cameo here.] And that got me thinking about the original song and its accompanying video, which I hadn't heard nor seen in quite some time. Thanks to iTunes and youtube, both the audio and video are back in my life, and for that I am eternally grateful: Veronica is a tremendous little song,** and the video is really something else. Co-written with Paul McCartney, the song is about Costello's ailing grandmother as she was slipping further into Alzheimer's disease. It's a sweet, poignant song about memory and time, and a little bit about love, and maybe also just a wee bit elegiac. It's also incredibly catchy, with great harmonies, which I think says a lot about Costello's genius*** -- you're singing along to a pretty bittersweet song about senility. The video adds another dimension to this: on the one hand, it's a fairly literal interpretation of the song itself, a straightforward glimpse into memory, and the effects of Alzheimer's on how we remember the past. But then you've got Costello sitting in an empty room, talking about his grandmother, and as the song plays you can hear his voice quietly singing along, over the tape playback. And there's something about the whole thing that ... I dunno. It's really touching without being schmaltzy. I'll confess to getting a little teary when I saw the video again. That's all I got for you. No funny, quippy ending. Just watch the video, I guess. It's good stuff. * Crack open a nice bottle of Greco di Tufo with me and I'll explain. ** Possibly even better is the demo version of the song, which is available on the deluxe edition of Spike. Stripped down to guitar, piano, and vocals, Veronica becomes that much more sparse and elegant, without losing any of its poppiness. I can't seem to locate any version readily available online, except ... erm ... here. (The visuals are a little distracting, no matter how cute you think Kristin Bell is.) *** There are lots of folks out there who think of themselves as true and proper Elvis Costello fans, and who insist that he's done nothing good since 1979's Armed Forces. To be sure, it's a spectacular album, but I'm a bit more generous about the Costello oeuvre, and think that his genius started to slip around the time that he and Diana Krall got together, when he started getting super-sentimental, and not in a nuanced, Veronica-esque way. I am not the only one who thinks this.

Photo Week: Where We Go To Stare

There are all sorts of places online that feed our ocularcentrism. Here are our favorites: [ht] * Tastespotting. A compilation of food porn, submitted by amateur photogs (with links back to their own blogs/sites). * Runs With Scissors' Looking Through and Back set on Flickr. Some great, oldskool pics of life in NYC. * nikolai_g's spacetime set on Flickr. Lovely pinhole photography that never fails to make me sigh. * The Lomographic World Archive site. Lomo cameras produce some of the most amazing photos I've ever seen. The color/light variations are otherworldly. (I gotta get me a Lomo!) [md] I am so predictable (ruins, ruins, ruins): * Dead Machinery * Urban Decay * Rural Ruin * My friend Matt's travel photography (links forthcoming) ["old columns" photo taken by Grant Edwards, from the Lomographic World Archive site (id no.70043994)]

Photo Week: Pretty Persuasion (aka the Photoshop Post)

Several years ago, I was a research assistant for a professor of American political economic history who was working on a manuscript about the 1896 Democratic National Convention. My job was to retouch a number of cartoons that appeared in newspapers at the time; scanned from microfilm, the images were dirty and inky, and so I had to clean them up by removing errant pixels -- and sometimes fill in the blanks. The scanning sometimes failed to pick up the outline of an important face; at other times, the professor wanted me to highlight parts of the cartoon that might otherwise have been obscured: that is, I sometimes had to exaggerate a face, or a building, or the presence of a bag of silver coins (it was an interesting moment in American monetary history, with myriad debates about whether gold, silver, or greenbacks should be the national currency. Fascinating stuff! Erm. Anyway....). Long story short: lots of photoshopping. The ethical questions of image manipulation in an ostensibly scholarly, historical text aside (that would require its own full week of rumination and blogging), working with photoshop for a year and a half made me a little pixel-crazy. I'd dream about using the photoshop eraser function on people. Seriously: everything started to feel like it could be reduced to -- and reconfigured by -- its constitutive pixels. I started to see everything as a possible jpeg file. It was weird. And then recently, these vacation photos entered into my life. [Click to enlarge] Reportedly taken on Whidbey Island (in Puget Sound, north of Seattle) and Bryce Canyon in Utah, I seriously thought that these photos were taken of perfectly reasonable, nice human beings standing in front of gigantic backdrops of those locations. Seriously. Look at them. I mean, I had received an email from my father shortly after he, my mother, and various aunts, uncles, and cousins had gone on this slightly oddball trip to Utah (if you know my family, you know that we do not travel well together, and not in a quirky Little Miss Sunshine sort of way); in his message, my father said something that set off various alarms, and which prompted the presumption of photo manipulation: We went on a hike. Er. Right. The mental image of my mother hiking is nearly as ludicrous as this "actual" image of her standing near the edge of the canyon that she reportedly hiked into. There's something about the way the flash is hitting her face, and the weird flatness of the canyons behind her, that scream Gift Shop to me. And as for AH, posing serenely somewhere on Whidbey Island -- the thing is, I know that he and MD actually went there. Or at least they say they did. There's a whole set of photos from the wedding they went to. And yet ... doesn't he look like he's about 100 miles away from whatever that lake/mountain scene is? Like maybe it's a bluescreen? [I am reminded, sort of stupidly, of Lost, specifically of that photograph of Desmond and Penny, where for an entire season we're led to believe that they were at some marina or harbor, when in fact the photo was taken in London, in front of a photographer's backdrop, and then we find out that it's taken moments before Desmond breaks up with Penny, and so the photo has poignancy beyond its locational fakery, and christ, anyway.....] There's also this photo on the right here, of our intrepid co-blogger, also presumably somewhere in the Puget Sound region. See what I mean? In this photo, it looks less like he's standing in front of a backdrop, but rather actually photoshopped into a real landscape. If not for the slight shadow to his left (indicating... just past noon?), I wouldn't have believed that our friend had actually left the comforting environs of his metropolis. I have no understanding of the technical explanations for why photos that aren't actually photoshopped end up looking like they were. [You can read here to learn how to check for actually photoshopped images.] But I am fascinated by this cultural moment in which, thanks to "advances in technology," we tend to assume that any photo we see has most likely been retouched one way or another. This has partly to do with our nearly hysterical interest in celebrity and its attendant proliferation of image as icon as image ad infinitum, but is related more to what I'm going to assume is a general malaise and/or beleaguered cynicism about what constitutes "the truth" these days. [It's not for nothing that Truthiness has so much currency.] We've become a society of doubters. The photos and images on probably awkward (both original and swiped) have occasionally been edited for cropping, lighting, and white balance. And the sometimes-necessary black bar over the eyes, to protect the innocent. But nothing else. I'd like to think that the intersection -- the dialectic, if you will* -- between text and image in probably awkward produces an effect whereby one medium illustrates the other, and that that interplay privileges neither text nor image. The images here are as important, as thought out, as the text, and in that sense we feel no compulsion to perform any funny/funky manipulation of the images; they should speak for themselves. We don't present photoshopped images without calling attention to their photoshoppedness. It's our job here to do the doubting (we've got skepticism in spades!) -- but in that doubting, we're also trying to get closer to something more honest, more aware. I don't know what it means then, when the devices we rely on to accurately capture our experiences begin to make those memories of real events appear constructed or false. I mean, it's good to question things; but sometimes it'd be nice to you know, not have to. My mother insists that she went on that hike, and that she got mild heat stroke from it. It's a sorry state of affairs that even with that photograph as evidence, I'll probably never believe her. Oh, Photoshop: ruining family relations one image at a time. *Tongue-in-cheek, folks.

Photo Week: Mystery!

I took this photo yesterday at the Sixth Street Community Garden, at 6th and Avenue B. I quite like it. I have no idea what kind of plant it is. Can anyone help me?

Photo Week Profile: Benjamin Tiven

I must preface this profile by saying I began writing this before reading HT's profile of Jason Oddy and decided I ought to read it before posting to ensure some sort of continuity of tone. I was struck by the similarity in subject matter but shocking difference in the reaction each evoked. When viewing the world through the lens of Benjamin Tiven, I see a world where chaos has resolved into symmetry, decay and motion has been halted, and absence no longer signifies loss. He chooses subjects (abandoned islands, forgotten fields and factories, ruins overlooking the sea) which once held life but now are still and empty. Despite this, there is not a sense of loss; the photos are at once elegiac and joyful. There is a sense that Tiven has not lost anything but has found an oasis of stillness. It is the world after Rapture -- Time has stopped, everyone has left, and Tiven has inherited the Earth. However, the photgrapher, meek, is also absent. When I view this images my mind knows that some agent shot these photos, stood in these structures, and strode on these fields. But the silence and stillness is so complete that these obvious, logical facts become unbelievable. The quiet is so absolute it seems impossible that it has been or ever will be disturbed. Tiven creates a Utopia for the agoraphobe and some hope that a world without us might not be such a bad world after all.

But more than any of this, I love these images because of how they make me feel. There is something about them that evokes a nostalgia for my rural youth, the art I tried to make in college, and inexplicably, math rock and hardcore. I see them and I hear "How Nothing Feels" and feel a longing to visit this world, if only for one frozen moment. But to invade this space would be to destroy it and in knowing that, I know loss. If anyone would like to start a "Buy MD the Governors Island series" fund, I certainly wouldn't stop you either. [check out Benjamin Tiven's work here.]

Photo Week: Meet Your Blogger (II)

ht, by md. clandestino | 12 july 2007.

Don't Act Like You Think You Can Dance

I sometimes watch So You Think You Can Dance with my roommate. It is always a mistake -- I can't get through an episode without railing against their perversion of my favorite performance art. But this post is not about how crass or banal the choreography is, or the disservice done to a generation of movement artists by enforcing narrativity on something purer and more primal. Their insistence that dance must "tell a story" betrays the ability of dance to show a feeling, underline a concept or deconstruct the discourse of bodies and space. But this is not about that or the linked insistence for all dance to be heterosexual duets, with an insistence on the gender norms and "chemistry." Their "dance" is really porn for tweens, a desexualized, defanged, societally-appropriate erotic moment. The underlying "story" here being one of adherence to classical forms of dance and relationship, resolving in marriage and waltzes. But I will also let that slide, like Shauna through the legs of Cedric in the Mambo.

This post is about Adam Shankman, Ayn Rand, and arrogance. Danny and Anya both do amazing physical performances to a "Contemporary" piece set to a not very good hiphop song about relationships ending. Danny jumps through the air with a freedom that suggest he was meant to fly, not walk. Anya shows precise control of her every motion. The flaw in the performance was its "story" -- the nature of the piece is separation, which eliminates any chance at the chemistry the judges fetishize and at the end Danny pushes Anya away and walks off, a crude, unsubtle ending to what was an otherwise impressive performance. Adam Shankman (a guest judge to pimp his remake of Hairspray) who has gushed about every other dancer so far says to Danny "Your performance was arrogant. You dance as if you've already won the competition." The other dancers pander. They make exaggerated comical expressions, give Bob Fosse spirit fingers and do everything but wink at the audience. Danny moves with grace and precision and has a look of pride. He knows what his body can do and is impressed with its strength and himself for realizing its potential. To quote Ayn Rand [I left my Fountainhead at home! Will add! Sorry!]. When I one day create the Broadway adaptation, he will be in the running for my Howard Roark. Danny's crime, like Icarus's, was to fly (literally) too close to the sun. Is this hubris or a call to all of us to realize our potential? Watch below and see if you think Danny deserves to value his achievements:

Photo Week: Meet Your Blogger

md, by ht. clandestino | 12 july 2007.

Why I Photograph Food: or, A Paean To Pork Belly

Readers of probably awkward might have noticed that we revel in food consumption. It doesn’t have to be Burger Night for MD and me to talk/IM/email about places we want to try out, places we need to go back to, or even just random links to bigger/better/weirder ways to consume pork products. I can’t speak for MD, but I’ll confess that I think about food constantly. Around 9am I think about where I might have lunch (if it’s a weekday, most likely somewhere terrible and chain-like; I work next to Port Authority); by 3pm on any given day I know what I’m doing for dinner. And it’s generally not about hunger. It’s about the pure pleasure of thinking about what sorts of food I’m going to put down my gullet. Accompanying this perhaps off-kilter obsession with food is an OCD-like need to photograph nearly everything I’m about to consume. To be sure, I don’t take pictures of my morning bagel, or my noontime sorry excuse for a salad, or anything I prepare in my tiny Manhattan kitchen (since it’s usually a bachelorette’s dinner of soy-protein-products, to balance out the ridiculous levels of meat and cholesterol I ingest when I’m dining out). But put a plate of hot food in front of me, and there’s a good chance I’ll whip out the Lumix and snap away. I’ve embarrassed dozens of friends and family members this way; since I never use flash, I figure that I’m not really interrupting any other table’s dining experience; I’ve never been asked to put my camera away. It’s become something along the lines of second nature to me at this point. Why do I do this? It’s partly out of a post-graduate-student nervous-tic sort of thing, to continue to document and archive my daily life. And it’s partly out of sheer technological ease: I probably wouldn’t do this with a regular film camera. But I do it mainly because I love food, and I want to remember all the good (and bad) things I’ve eaten. The visual component to food cannot be denied; plating and presentation at a reasonably decent restaurant are carefully-thought-out processes; at some places, it’s something of an art form. But even more fundamentally: food itself can be an art form. Even at places that just dole out the hot noodles with Taylorist efficiency, the interplay of textures and colors makes for something really quite lovely; the visual experience adds another dimension, another layer of depth and complexity, to an oftentimes already wonderful and sensual unfolding. And a photograph can capture that in a way that the other senses can only do ephemerally. Truth be told, my rather profound love of food – both eating and photographing it – is no doubt in part me overcompensating for what I (un)lovingly think of as the lost years: a combination of questionable dining hall fare in college, minimal meat consumption, and then, in my early grad school years, what I’ll euphemistically refer to as an aversion to ingesting fat. Or calories. The road back from my slightly antagonistic relationship to food took a while (and not made much easier by living in the middle of nowhere – sorry, Ithaca), but I’m pretty happy that I finally got to a place where I can’t stop thinking about when/where/how I’m going to eat pork belly again. In that regard, my taking pictures of food is something of a badge of honor – a daily reminder/reflection of finally being in a place, literally and mentally, where the pleasures of food can be experienced in so many – and such lasting – ways.

Forbidden Spice -- Beckham on Beckham

HT takes great pride that we're not a filter blog, but I think everyone needs to see the unhealthy and unholy effect Posh Spice/Victoria Beckham has had on David Beckham: At the beginning: Today: More Images Here [md: I just realized this post is about photos. I am pleased to be back on topic.] [ht adds: victoria beckham is an alien. an alien that makes me very, very uncomfortable. her push-up breasts scare the bejesus out of me.]

The State of the Summer Blockbuster: Transforming Live Free to Die Hard

In the last week, thanks to the heat, the holiday, or the rain, I have watched not one but TWO summer blockbusters tailormade to open on July 4th. Films designed to catch the box-office dollar of the long weekend and to capitalize on the surge of patriotism that pretending to blow up our own cities (i.e. fireworks) seems to inspire. Both films follow the same template in many ways, which made me wonder about the structure of the summer blockbuster in the terrorism-focused, post-Iraq-War world. In a simpler time, I remember watching Independence Day and cheering in the air-conditioned theatre without fearing the global warming outside or the propaganda unleashed on the screen. Now I worry as I step outside that summer will never end and that films like The Marine are just recruitment material dressed up as a video game dressed up as a teenage boy empowerment fantasy dressed up as a "movie." How do Live Free or Die Hard and Transfomers compare? Simply put: I'm not sure. The building blocks of this year's summer blockbusters seem to be:

1. Global Hacking of the Communication Infrastructure
2. Disruption of the Transportation Grid
3. Love For and Fear of the Mechanics of Government

(not-so)optional: Heterosexual Young Adult Love. [note: there are spoilers below, if a summer movie is actually capable of being spoiled.] In both films, the enemy (decepticons, an ill-defined french/asian/american coalition of hackers) undermines our communication network and uses that access to attack our heroes (autobots/charmingly dorky teen, bruce willis/charmingly dorky young adult) and deny them communication. In both cases our heroes use a lower tech solution (Morse code, "old military satellite network") to reestablish connections. Die Hard takes this scenario a little farther with the villains using the internet as their method of attack. In both cases we lose our ability to speak without being monitored and our ability to trust what we hear, which seems to reflect the state of communications under the Bush Administration and the Patriot Act. Secondly, both films have scenes involving the destruction of freeways by fighter pilots, as our heroes (both tractor trailers, oddly, although Optimus Prime *is* the tractor trailer while John McClane is merely driving one). Hacked lights and giant robot attacks create massive gridlock. We can no longer count on getting from one place to another as military jets destroy the homeland's infrastructure. It isn't much of a stretch to view this as a comment on how a protracted war abroad is destroying the basics of life here. However, both films have a strong yet conflicted element of patriotism that makes such a facile conclusion difficult. In Transformers, all of the evil Decepticons take the form of military and industrial vehicles and yet the only competent heroes are the marines in Qatar who discover the only way to kill the invading robots with our current technology. In Die Hard, I started to sympathize with the cyber-criminals who are trying to make a point about our nation's technological vulnerabilities and the corruption of our current regime. However, the mastermind is then revealed to actually just be after money, and begins to kill his underlings and innocents left and right. It's perfectly summed up in an exchange between Justin Long (Willis' computer-hacking sidekick) and Willis himself. Justin (paraphrased): I used to think a fire-sale [wholesale takedown of all infrastructure] would be an amazing way to take down the system. Willis: This isn't a system, it's a country, and we need to protect it. I believe the filmmakers were just as conflicted as I am. Maybe it's just the July 4th summer blockbusters talking, but I love this country. We have freedoms other countries ignore. We are a leader in technological development. We have integrated diverse people in a way few other nations have or will. But we also have a corrupt government, a military-industrial complex run amok, and a hegemonic media machine attempting to subvert the whole world to our selfish way of life. The situation is complicated and I believe these films attempted to show that as much as they could without sacrificing box office attendance or risking being called un-American. And if having integrity up until the point it would you hurt fiscally or politically isn't American, than I don't know what is. [MD: I also think there's a lot to say about the absence of other nations' involvement in both films, and the idea of the enemy within vis a vis immigration but those are essays for another time. And don't get me started on the inevitability of the hetero dyad.]

Tasty: Momofuku Ssäm Bar

There's absolutely nothing I could write about Momofuku Ssäm Bar that a bazillion foodies haven't already waxed rhapsodic about. Well, there's one unique thing I could tell you: I finally went there. (Thanks, RZS, for being such a gleeful dining companion.) And it was glorious. You gotta love a place that states very baldly on its menu that its food is not vegetarian friendly. RZS and I decided to go all out: absolutely awesome spicy squid and celery salad was followed by manila clams, grilled pickled baby corn, rice cakes, and chinese sausage and greens in a bacon dashi broth (yeah, you read that right: bacon dashi, my friends). Then a rapturous banh mi sandwich with a terrine of ham, veal headcheese, and chicken-liver paté. And finally, the restaurant's signature Ssäm: an Asian burrito of sorts with shredded Berkshire pork, kimchi, onions, and edamame. By that point I had hit the dreaded wall of food coma. But no matter: consuming pork fat in such innovative and myriad incarnations was totally worth it. I'd tell you that I'm going back for more, but I don't know how long I'll remain completely incapacitated. [Click on image above for exquisite detail. Oh: if there's any flaw to be noted, it's that the wines by the glass are a touch pricey. Stick with the beer options, methinks.]

Photo Week Profile: Jason Oddy

Other than a few nights in which I've found myself looking intently but defeatedly at the half-empty glass of whiskey in front of me, I've been staring almost exclusively at Jason Oddy's photographs for the past two weeks. GNF first introduced me to his work a couple of years ago, and I had a brief email exchange with him regarding a photograph that I wanted very much to have in my possession. The image was of a rundown Soviet-era sanatorium, taken from inside the window of another sanatorium building; part of an entire series of photographs featured in a 2001 issue of Metropolis documenting Soviet sanatoria now falling into ruin, the photograph grabbed me immediately and fully in its interweaving of textures, colors, content, and elegiac, (false) memory-filled faraway-ness. Although the price tag was way above my then-graduate-student means (even with a friend-of-friend-discount), I haven't stopped dreaming idly about the image, and about Oddy's oeuvre in general. Now that I've found his website, I can't help but continually scroll through the images and sigh pretty much nonstop. Oddy's work has taken him inside not only empty Soviet sanatoria, but also the UN headquarters in Geneva, Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon, even the cluttered, unraveled homes of the recently deceased . Looking through his photographs, one is immediately struck by the absence of people -- of faces, movement, exchange -- of what we might understand or register as life. At the same time, these aren't landscape photos, or even photographs of places. Rather, these images compel a direct viewing of these spaces as place, as space constructed by and for humans, for life. And as such, they speak to the ways that space comes together to create, reflect, and perpetuate 'culture' in all the ways we might know and/or experience it. In his site, Oddy writes that "In the photographs .... I have treated architectural space as a cultural artefact, one which not only reflects but which also seeks to create historical reality." Seen in this way, the photographs feel less cold or removed than they seem stripped down to the basic questions of how space (or rather, the overt, conspicuous configuration of that space) dictates how we interact in those realms. And, across different projects, we can see overlaps in design -- how ideologies, regardless of content, similarly seek to impose order on its subjects, most fundamentally through the ways that the spaces they occupy compel specific kinds of interactions and daily exchanges. How ideologies, essentially, prescribe social relations. I could write about how Oddy's photographs are elegantly minimalist in their composition and colors, or how it just might be the case that he finds those spaces as-is, and simply has an amazing eye for capturing power or order, or its seeming absence, in their starkest, most essential states (and I do believe it's the case that both are true with regard to Oddy's talent). But there's something else at work here, something that makes these photographs entirely Oddy's, but also entirely ours, too .... And I think it has to do with the familiarity of it all, how we can imagine the kinds of relations determined these spatial configurations. How these settings bring power to life -- literally, but also figuratively, in the sense that they call our attention to the potency of architecture itself, and how we need not be in hallowed halls of multinational authority in order to experience the potency of constructed , designed space. The photographs depict, at heart, narratives of power, and how power in turn narrates the past, present, and future, in sometimes overt ways and in other instances through much more subtle channels. How it doesn't have to feel like power in order for you to be caught within it, organized by it. How power doesn't have to be an insidious, evil, demon-like cephalopod, its tentacles reaching everywhere, to nonetheless be present. And how that presence is immediately felt through its architectural manifestations. To be sure, I'm no Foucauldian, lets-intervene-in-the-ways-that-power-becomes- institutionalized-and-ritualized-in-daily-life sort of acolyte or anything. I don't think Oddy photographed these realms with a mind to present them as an immediate, always-already sort of critique of space and power. What is intriguing about Oddy's work is that in spite of its minimal, stark colors and tonal contrasts, there's still this strange nuance, this quiet trace, that one can find in all of these spaces. Their familiarity might have something to do with this feeling that, however removed they are from our own experiences, we can nonetheless sense that lived-in-ness. People become who they are in, through, and by these spaces, for better or for worse. I was already deeply in love with Oddy's oeuvre before I read his artist's statement, and well, that's when I nearly lost my shit. Near the end of his statement, Oddy quotes my favorite line from Sebald, the thing* about how grand buildings already speak to their inevitable decay. (I love that line. My dissertation would be nothing without that line.) Oddy then remarks: "A number of the places I have photographed represent some of mankind's most far-reaching attempts to systematise the world. Yet here as nowhere else we see how all such attempts are inscribed with their own failure. Hubris makes us reach for Utopia. Reality, in the guise of time, sends us back ruins." Oddy's Waiting Rooms series documents not ruins in the conventional, Roman-Empire-esque sense of the word, but rather the unraveling of architecture over time, an unraveling experienced on an individual level, but a ruin all the same. These spaces are not the endpoint of architecture -- I don't think that Oddy is necessarily suggesting through these photographs that all space comes to the same end, or that it comes to an end at all, or that we should look upon them as the future of, say, the Palace of Nations or the Pentagon. I think, rather, the contrast is between the attempt to systematise and the reality of living, of what it means to inhabit a space: the ruin is not in the decay but rather in the attempt at order itself; the endpoint of Utopia is the return to daily life. In the case of the Waiting Rooms series, depicting the cluttered spaces of the recently-deceased, that daily life continues: notice the depressions in the sofa cushions from years of wear, or the knick-knacks on the mantle, no doubt the accumulation of presents, souvenirs, and mementos over a long period. These objects reflect and inform our everyday existence, and become an integral part of what defines, for each of us, 'place.' There is little difference, in that sense then, between the painting of the fighter jet in the Pentagon conference room and the framed collage of photographs perched on the mantle. What stories do we want our spaces to tell? What kinds of narratives influence, and are then perpetuated by, current architecture and design? Oddy's photographs have got me thinking. A lot. But even more fundamentally, they've got me sighing. And, truth be told, desiring. I mean, these are spectacular photographs. If anyone would like to start a "Get HT That Sanatorium Photograph" fund, I wouldn't stop you. Ahem. * "...for somehow we know by instinct that outsized buildings cast the shadow of their own destruction before them, and are designed from the first with an eye to their later existence as ruins." [check out Jason Oddy's work here. Seesaw magazine also did a piece, Seats of Power, compiling his photographs of chairs and sitting areas.]

Tasty: Super Taste

I had read in just about very credible major New York foodie site -- Sietsema, Ganda at eatdrinkonewoman, the Cheap Eats folks at New York Magazine , and the boys over at Twenty Bucks a Day -- that Eldredge Street noodle joint Super Taste was the place to be, even if one would look garish and pale under the fluorescent lights whilst trying the hand-pulled noodle bowls. It took me a year, however, to finally get someone to come with me to the Lanzhou/Silk Road-based hole in the wall. Probably for the best: my eventual dining companion, the inestimable IB, is almost always in the mood for weather-inappropriate fare. What's more, IB had been there numerous times already, and had nothing but raves and recommendations for the best bowls of slurpy goodness. So on a hot, steamy, very-hot-noodle-unfriendly night we traipsed over to get two bowls of their hot & spicy hand-pulled noodles with beef brisket. At $4.25 a pop. No, I'm not kidding. That cheap. And, as it turns out, that good. So good. The beef broth was potent -- earthy, beefy, and according to Ganda over at eatdrinkonewoman, laden with MSG (not a problem for me, but just a heads up if you're concerned), but not at all heavy. The noodles were heavenly -- doughy, but not too thick, and the brisket a wonderful mix of about 90% inexplicably tender meat and 10% fat, the latter adding to the depth of the broth. The noodles came out in plastic bowls, accompanied by disposable chopsticks and (this was new to me) plastic, disposable chinese soup spoons. Green-unfriendly-eating aside, I finished my bowl in 10 minutes flat -- and I never finish a bowl of noodles. (Seriously: when I'm home in Los Angeles, I give my pho/noodle leftovers to my kid brother, who will finish off just about anything with gusto and delight.) And for a couple of hours afterwards, I had a hankering for seconds. Instead of seconds, IB and I headed over to Clandestino, where I tried a Pimms Cups (one of their signature drinks) -- the best post-noodle concoction if I ever drank one. Cucumbery, Pimms-y, gingery ... the best way to beat a New York heatwave. But don't get me wrong: I'm going back to Super Taste the first chance I get (they've got an eel option!), weather appropriate or not. And, as always, you're always welcome to join me. At those prices, I'll even buy you dinner.

My Favorite Photos (or: Memory, Ruins, etc.)

For many years I took photos almost exclusively with an old Nikon FE that my father bequeathed to me once he had upgraded -- or rather, retro-graded -- to his original love, a Pentax K-1000, which had been a replacement for his first Pentax, stolen several years earlier. I still love my Nikon FE. Manufactured in the late 70's/early80s, it's a sturdy SLR, a camera's camera, with proper metal parts and a nice, but not unmanageable, heft. Some of my best photos were taken with that camera, including the one above, of Jimmy and Ian, cousins (to each other -- not me!) who live on the tiny island of Islay, off the western coast of Scotland and home to the best scotch on the planet. One rainy morning, while waiting for the bus in tiny Port Ellen to take me to the island's wee capital, Bowmore, Ian (the bespectacled one) and I struck up a conversation: Ian: What are you waiting for? Me: The bus to Bowmore. Ian. Ah. Me: What are you waiting for? Ian: Eleven o'clock. Me: What happens at eleven? Ian: [points down the street] Pub opens. The next thing I knew, Ian had convinced me to take the 12:30 bus and in the meanwhile join him and his cousin Jimmy at the local pub. There, at eleven in the morning, about a dozen men were already sitting at little tables drinking wee glasses of vodka+lemonade. Ian ordered me a whisky. I protested, pointing out that it was, well, before noon. Ian's response: Ah, it'll set you straight for the day! I haven't been the same person since. In late November 2005, I received a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX9 as a dissertation-completion gift from NM and AFN. The gift came as a wonderful surprise, as did its digital-ness -- I had been cautiously avoiding entering into the world of digital photography, partly out of "real film" loyalty, and partly because I honestly had no idea which camera to buy. But, presented with the lovely Lumix -- with a Leica lens, no less -- well, there I suddenly was: nearly technologically at pace with the rest of the world. Finally. I celebrated by sleeping with an ex who was visiting from out of town, and then accompanying him the next day to Fort Totten, an old, Civil War-era military installation near Bayside, Queens that's still occasionally used by the Army and Coast Guard for training drills. [There's a Fort Totten park that's open to the public, but the base itself is fenced off -- email me if you want info on how to get in.] 18 hours after receiving my first (and only) digital camera, and some 8 hours after rolling out of bed with an ex, I took this photograph: It's probably the best photo I've taken with my Lumix (click on image to enlarge). I'll leave it up to you to make some quip about exes and decay. It is perhaps no surprise that my favorite two photographs involve whisky and ruins. But in thinking about Photo Week, I realized that what I loved about taking those photos was not simply in the capturing, but also in the possibility of sharing them. I'm trying to avoid some hokey conclusion about photography and community, but I will say that as we seem to get inundated with more -- and faster -- means of collecting and processing information, it's nice to sometimes slow down and just kind of ... stare ... at the image you might have in front of you. The best photographs require you to take them in a bit -- so we here at probably awkward hope that you'll join us in slowing down, sitting back, and taking some time away (er... for the most part) from our usual pomp and snark. Back to our regularly-scheduled ironic vs. irate cagematch as soon as this heat wave is over.

This Week in Awkward: Photo Week

There are many things HT and I have in common: a love of red meat, an appreciation of a good ruin, and a hatred of... well, pretty much everything else. But one thing truly unites us: Both HT and I utterly lack depth perception. Pitching, hitting, catching, horseshoes -- these things are all lost on us. I believe this might be one reason for our love of photography. The world is already flat and out of focus for us, and a camera lets us find the third dimension with a low f-stop and narrow depth of field. Diopters make the world a little less fuzzy. Perhaps most importantly, cameras give us one more excuse to step outside the moment, pin it like a butterfly and analyze it later at our leisure. This week is devoted to our love of photography and the moving and still image: HT will discuss one of her favorite photographers from a critical theory perspective, and I'll be addressing another camera jockey from my more visceral perspective. Then HT and I will share our favorite image sources on the web and I'll be writing a love letter to my new camera. Oh, Nikon D40x I love you so. [ht adds: We've had a soft opening of sorts for a couple of weeks now, but with Photo Week, we'd like to officially introduce you to our Picasa slideshow (situated on the sidebar to the right). It's got photos of just about everything we've seen/eaten/smirked at since we started the blog. Enjoy!]

Consumer Folly: I'm With the Band

Threadless just announced that this t-shirt was going on sale. I'll admit to being smirkily charmed by the design at first, until it occurred to me that it would end up on all the wrong people. You know, people who actually believe it. [md: I saw this earlier and thought it said "I listen to brands that don't even exist yet." I totally almost bought it. Thank G-d I waited.] [update: KS just alerted me to the fact that it's the tagline for an actual website. Good lord.]

The Quirk: Shushing You Into Submission

I know a handful of librarians, and they're awesome. When they're not librarying, they make art and music, partake in the consumption of great food, and will occasionally deep-fry a turkey just for the hell of it. My librarian friends are also a pretty attractive lot. They do not, however, look like this (nor do they sit atop anything in that manner), and I feel the world is a better place for it. [NY Times: A Hipper Crowd of Shushers]

Early Sunday Morning Rhapsodic: Saturday at the Farm

On Saturday morning, RP and I went down with MH to his family's mostly-non-working farm situated some 30 minutes north of Princeton, NJ. Along the way, we stopped at a grocery store to get some seafood, and then purchased amazing Jersey sweetcorn from a pickup truck parked by the side of the road. At the farm, we lounged in inflatable floaty donut things inside the pool, played bocce and horseshoes (see above!), napped, chilled out with a lively 22-month-old wunderkind, grilled the seafood and corn, and just generally had a low-key, perfect Saturday afternoon, seemingly a gazillion miles away from the city. Somewhere in there I even very gamely tried my first egg salad sandwich (do not get me started on my long-standing fear of mayonnaise). Maybe it was because of the day in general, but man, that was tasty. The three of us had had something of a bender-y Friday, and so before we set off for Jersey, I steered us towards a nearby McDonalds. (I know, I know. I'm a terrible person.) There, McMuffin sandwiches were consumed with reckless abandon -- or at least as reckless and abandon-filled as three hungover people can muster at 10 on a Saturday morning in Chelsea. It gave us the necessary energy to start the trip, such that afterwards I felt compelled to proclaim, "I believe in hand-held sausage!" Oh yeah. Mild sunburn aside, I'm going to sleep very well tonight. Back to ironic, detached judgment tomorrow.

Clearly I'm Not Your Target Audience: The BMW x3

This is the new BMW x3. It is not an SUV. It is an SAV -- a Sports Activity Vehicle®. It is BMW's luxury crossover sports [whatever-ity] vehicle. It has a base price of $38,000. According to Edmunds, "If you're shopping for a premium, performance-oriented compact SUV -- and don't mind the stiff ride and even stiffer price of entry -- we recommend that you put the BMW X3 at the top of your short list of choices." I do not have such a short list, much less choices. It would be nice to be (independently) wealthy. Choices must be fun. If I were financially solvent and suddenly confettied with choices, I would not purchase the BMW x3, not simply because I think it's ridiculous to own (and presumably drive) an SUV SAV in the city, but now also because of this: or this: I will not deny that these are beautiful images. I almost applaud the agency responsible for these print ads, for reminding people that maybe they should take their SAV to slightly more terrain-appropriate parts of the world. I'm rather appalled, however, by the idea that one with an SAV (or any vehicle) would regard city streets as one's playground (a playground which apparently needs mixing up! Like a fun martini! Whee!). I'm also pretty sure that no one with a $40k SAV is going to be taking it to the desert ... or Peru? (I honestly can't tell where that's supposed to be, intermingled with London.) People with choices find much more clever (and local-economy-exploiting) ways to travel these days.

Reviewing the Previews: Scion's Little Deviants

I am often unable to truly enjoy movies because something offends me during the previews and I get distracted writing angry screeds in my head, and before I know it I've almost missed the opening credits (usually the best part of any film). So when HT and I decided to get to Live Free or Die Hard early so we can get a good seat, I know we're in for trouble. HT, meanwhile, is excited to catch "The Twenty." I don't have the heart to tell her that's only in Loews and we're in a Regal. [MD: Research has just proven me wrong, it is in fact only shown in Regals with digital projectors. Also, its proper name is "The 2wenty."] After watching a little animated Lego man run around Mars, we're treated to a commercial featuring animated grey "Sheeple" walking around a depressing urban landscape... suddenly, down from windows, up from the sewers, and out of the alleyways spill these tiny monstrous trolls, "the little deviants." At first, I assume it's an outgrowth of SanDisk's (largely unsuccessful) iSheep campaign, but I realize I'm wrong as a Scion pulls up and the Little Deviants start to tear the Sheeple limb from limb -- one wears a sheeperson as a skinsuit, and another throws a decapitated head on the bright-red Scion AS A HOOD ORNAMENT. Just watch below. I was so horrified and confused I was in a haze until the movie started which, all things considered, was probably for the best. To try your hand at killing Sheeple, please visit The Book of the Deviants from Scion. A car company who cares.

We Trash It Before We Try It: Summer 2007 Edition

This was supposed to be a team post about how we were deeply unenthusiastic about the new Transformers movie: based on the trailers, it looks visually messy (it's a Michael Bay film after all) and more importantly, for a film that's supposed to hearken back to this great animated series and those action figures from our childhood -- there's absolutely nothing iconic about these reimagined Transformers. Nothing. I can't even get excited about new It boy (and the film's 'human' lead) Shia LaBeouf, and he's supposed to be the friggin shiznit. But then we realized that there are so many things we enjoy dissing without even deigning to try the goods beforehand. And that seemed like an infinitely more entertaining post to write. So for you, now -- an ongoing list of that which we cannot be bothered to bother with. * Transformers 2007 * Leggings * Any of the films for which trailers were shown before the July 4th screening of Live Free or Die Hard, minus the one for the full-length Simpsons movie. Also, that Stardust movie (with DeNiro?!!) looks terrible. * the iPhone (md: i can't have it, therefore i refuse to believe it could be good) * Amy Winehouse (ht: you can't make me like her! md: she grows on you!) * The resurgence of 70s hair and 80s fashion (md: tie-dye? seriously, tie-dye?) * Fette Sau * Pinkberry (ht: I'm just bitching about the lines, really. I hate lines. And people. God, I bet Miranda July goes there. It's called Pinkberry.) * Anything going on at the McCarren Pool this summer (cf. Pinkberry. md: except the renegade craft fair, which we arguably did try. ht: and look how well that turned out.) * Men with handkerchiefs around their necks * Feist (md: you can't make me like her! ht: she and i have mutual friends! my loyalties are divided!) * Pirate Master (ht: huh?? people actually auditioned for this?) * artificial scarcity (ht, to md: wait. haven't you tried it? weren't you victim of it recently? md: oh. these are things we HAVEN'T tried. i forgot!) [image via transformers wiki page.]

Hearsay: Other People's Awkwardness

When we started this blog, our intention was not necessarily to document only instances of the awkward -- though we're certainly no strangers to it (we're like awkward magnets, really). But now that a good chunk of our readership includes our friends, it has become a bit difficult to tell a good awkward story without appearing to also make fun of said friends. Aliases only get you so far; our readers are pretty astute. So, dear readers, a lot of moments that were probably awkward are going to remain un-blogged, until we can find some way to ensure that the more awkward we get, the likelihood of losing friends and readers drops to zero. That said, I'm perfectly content with -- and ethically unfazed by -- the idea of talking about other people's encounters with the awkward. In this installment: a couple of mini-vignettes recounting the morning after. I encourage you, dear readers, to send in your own (or others'!) anecdotes. PC and I were talking about unfortunate mornings of waking up, hungover, and suddenly realizing/remembering that there's someone in bed with you. And immediately panicking. The beauty of the morning after story is that it doesn't really matter how you got there. You're just suddenly there. Without any clothes on. The handful of times this has happened to me, I usually hope that there's a glass of water nearby; more often than not, I am wont to believe that when all else fails, drinking a tall glass of water will make the awkward go away. Or at least make it more explicable. Never works. PC: "I woke up, and she was laying there, awake, smiling at me. And then, very loudly, she started talking about Sex and the City. And how the writing was really amazing. I mean, Sex and the Fucking City? Really? All I could think was: what have I done?" The way TL tells the story, the only things you need to know for set-up is: he was drunk. He met a girl. "...And you know that Salvador Dali print, the one that certain people have in their dorm rooms because they think it's really trippy and cool, the one with the melting clocks? Yeah. I woke up and saw that on the wall above her bed, and the only thought I had was: Oh. No."

Tuesday Evening Rhapsodic: Ratatouille

Over dinner the other night I mentioned my desire to see Ratatouille, the new animated film from Pixar and Brad Bird, the genius behind Iron Giant and The Incredibles. I pointed out that A.O Scott had nothing but raves, including the most-likely-oft-quoted "a nearly flawless piece of popular art." My dinner companions bristled at this, noting that: "The last time A.O. Scott waxed rhapsodic we ended up watching Miami Vice. We won't make the same mistake." I ended up seeing Ratatouille anyway, at the Ziegfeld no less!, and I have to say: OH MY WORD. It's a great film, full of hilarious physical comedy and foodie-ready good times. (After I saw the rat-protagonist make an omelet, I nearly fainted -- it was that realistic and gut-growl-inducing.) That's all I have to say. You all should go see it soon. Or invite me to see it with you. Whichever. You''ll love it.

Tuesday Morning Scolding: Internet Explorer? Really?

Our Sitemeter account allows us to see not only how many people have been checking out the blog, but also, somewhat creepily, what operating system they're on, their monitor resolution (no joke!), and what web browser they use. This is a pie chart detailing browser share: Before I proceed I'll quickly point out that MD (currently still away on the west coast) is the techie in this blogging pair; I have a sub-layman level of understanding of computers and things like RAM and XML. That said, I'm a little confused as to why 44% of our readers are still using some form of Internet Explorer. (And also: what's Konqueror?!) Unless you've got a Mac and use Safari, there's really no reason why you shouldn't be looking at this blog right now on Firefox. Seriously. So much better. Get on that, people. I expect to see a radically different pie chart by week's end.

You Can't Fight The Invisible Hand...

...Especially when it takes the form of a cephalopod hologram with creepy, lechy tentacles, playing a central role in the recent Diesel runway show in Florence. I give up.

Collective, Unconscious: Ruins, So Very Tragique

We -- and I speak here for what I can claim to understand, which broadly speaking is "western society" -- are a narcissistic, self-aggrandizing lot. We believe not only in progress, but also in our inherent ability to make it. Moreover, we approach and explain instances of decline with a scientific and analytic (im)precision that cannot help but contain slightly paternalistic moralizing: oh you crazy, pillaging, marauding barbarians, what were you thinking?! In stern, Stone Phillips-y voices laden with gravitas we scold ourselves when confronted with harbingers of future catastrophe, but in the same instance grandly proclaim We Can Change The Present Course of History Because Our Serious Tone Suggests Knowledge and Insight And Maybe Also Condescension Because Even Though We Caused This Mess We're Still Better Than Our Predecessors Because They Surely Must Have Pre-Caused This Mess And At Least We're Trying To Fix It And While We're Fixing It Let's Also Make Some Fun Blockbuster Movies About It So As To Transform Those Harbingers Into Easy Cash Cows. So when both 3 Quarks Daily and Gothamist made mention of a recent article in Scientific American entitled An Earth Without People, I couldn't help but be curious and also a little wary. The article is partly an interview with science writer and professor Alan Weisman, who recently published The World Without Us, a book that examines what sorts of things would happen to the planet if humans suddenly disappeared, alien abduction-like, from the face of the earth.* Without regular maintenance, streets and highways would buckle within a couple of months; houses and office buildings would collapse within several decades. And: "Certain common plastics might remain intact for hundreds of thousands of years; they would not break down until microbes evolved the ability to consume them." Crazy! As a bonus, for NYC-based readers, you might be interested in looking at the "Fall of New York City" timeline featured in the article; it's got some pretty fascinating facts and images of a suddenly-humanless Manhattan, including flooded subways (2 days), the collapse of the Brooklyn Bridge roadway (300 years from now), and my favorite, 5 billion years down the road: "The earth vaporizes as the dying sun expands and consumes all the inner planets." Whee! The article was an interesting read overall, and Weisman's intent with the book is, ultimately, pro-environmental in nature, as it attempts to lay out what sorts of toxins, pollutants, and radioactivity we are (and would be) leaving behind -- though he's got a funny way of getting us to think about any of this to begin with: "What I’m finding is that this way of looking at our planet—by theoretically just removing us—turns out to be so fascinating that it kind of disarms people’s fears or the terrible wave of depression that can engulf us when we read about the environmental problems that we have created and the possible disasters we may be facing in the future. Because frankly, whenever we read about those things, our concern is: Oh, my God, are we going to die? Is this going to be the end? My book eliminates that concern right at the beginning by saying the end has already taken place. For whatever reason, human beings are gone, and now we get to sit back and see what happens in our absence. It’s a delicious little way of reducing all the fear and anxiety. And looking at what would happen in our absence is another way of looking at, well, what goes on in our presence." It's an interesting premise: eliminate how we die to discuss what we leave behind. I probably wouldn't describe anything I do as a "delicious little way" of doing anything, but that's just me. I don't have any fundamental issues with Weisman or the article, though the topic of abandoned landscapes did remind me of something I had first seen in bldg blog: Gunkanjima Island. It's a tiny island off the western coast of Japan that had been just an overgrown reef, until folks found coal deposits in the early 19th century, and subsequently began to migrate to the island to start a small coal mining industry. "Befor [sic] long, the reef had grown into an artificial island of one kilometer (three quarters of a mile) in perimeter, with a population of 5300. Looming above the ocean, it appeared a concrete labyrinth of many-storied apartment houses and mining structures built closely together. Seen from the ocean, the silhouette of the island closely resembled a battleship -- so the island came to be called Gunkanjima, or Battleship Island." By the turn of the century, Mitsubishi had purchased the island, and established a long-term project to tap the coal resources from below the sea bottom. The coal mines eventually closed down in 1974 following a gradual shift from coal to petroleum as the central component of the country's energy policy, and by April of that year, all of the island's (human) inhabitants had departed, leaving behind "the empty shell of a city." A Japanese photographer documented the last days of the (inhabited) island, and then returned ten years later to see what had happened to the the buildings and surrounding mining structures. The photographs are visually stunning, and as documents of life, and then of absence, they offer a different way of thinking about ruins. That is, we might possibly read ruins not necessarily as sublime, romanticised relics of a time long gone and through (and for) which we now express nostalgic longings for the past, but rather the depiction of a more recent past -- in this case, the end of an island's sole industry and reason for human habitation -- as the catalyst of a process we would otherwise never see: the extent to which our absence from those spaces makes apparent just how much we rely on industry to govern when, where, and how we come together as a collective, and how quickly that collective can dissipate once market forces dictate otherwise. The complete departure of the island's inhabitants was precipitated by the decline of the mining industry on the island, but with the collapse of that market, the local economic infrastructure could no longer be sustained -- and with that, the end of the Gunkajima. To be sure, there are other instances and experiences of abandoned cities -- Chernobyl comes to mind here (Robert Polidori's photographs of the city and neighboring Pripyat are quite poignant, as are these from bldg blog) -- collectivities and local economies wiped out by larger forces, natural or otherwise. But, unlike the ruins of the Roman Empire, which we look upon with tragic awe and, more often than not, a moralistic stance against the decadence and power grabs that, if the narrative is to be believed, caused its downfall and its unfolding in the present as beautiful decay, the ruins of Gunkanjima speak to a more immediate unfolding of corporate bottom lines masquerading as national priorities -- decadence, sure, but the recent-pastness of it all makes the ruination more acutely felt, less able to be abstracted into an experience of the sublime. Somehow though, in the collective imagination, a ruin is a ruin is a ruin: at the end of the day, it's all decay. There's a great line in Sebald's Austerlitz: "...for somehow we know by instinct that outsized buildings cast the shadow of their own destruction before them, and are designed from the first with an eye to their later existence as ruins." This speaks in one sense quite directly to Albert Speer's plans for a re-imagined Berlin under a victorious Third Reich, such that all new buildings should be designed with an eye to their potential as aesthetically pleasing ruins a thousand years later -- his theory of 'ruin value' that I'm pretty sure hasn't been entirely abandoned today. But in another way, buildings need not be outsized or monumental for there to be the potential for ruination. All good things (and bad ones) must come to an end; the problem is that we like to fetishize what that end looks like, reify that moment into an image of a ruin, without wanting to really look at the unravelling that got us there. In other words, it seems that we're willing to look at ruins without really, truly looking at decline; in the same way that one tends to gloss over the fighting that leads to the end of a relationship and instead monumentalize (ruin-ize) that moment we call The Breakup, in privileging ruins we choose to see an aesthetically appealing moment in a narrative we would otherwise like to forget. The beauty of thinking about a world without humans -- and skipping over the part about our sudden disappearance -- is that we're ultimately also able then to gloss over what it might truly mean to be a civilization in decline. Don't get me wrong: I'm all for understanding, and assuming responsibility for, my role in, say, global warming and perpetuating general environmental mayhem; it's not like I want humanity to be in a state of decline. But at the same time, it seems that we need to think about decline in more rigorous ways, and not simply as a necessary binary to progress. It becomes a sort of mythical beast, a Decline Monster that must be vanquished if progress is to march forward -- and as such, the monster is never truly real, never really confronted. It's all just sort of make-believe -- like progress itself. The thing with images of actual ruin, then, is that we can either confront the decline and decay that they depict as image, as something with potential aesthetic value (I'm certainly not above thinking that the photographs in these post are, in fact, beautiful) -- or we can think about how the traces of a now-absent collective might (or should) speak to what sorts of structural change need to happen, in order for the paradigm to shift from mythologized progress/decline to real sustainability. We can't avoid ruins, now or in the future; but if we can confront what it might look like to be in a state of decline, I suspect we might also then be able to then find ways to not so much want, need, or produce more (-- and monuments speak to this problem), but rather to want, need, and produce better. [Photographs in this post are taken from Saiga's website about Gunkanjima Island. There is also a piece in a 2002 issue of Cabinet Magazine that details some of the history of the island, for those who might want to read further.] [*And yes, I know about, and am planning to see, that ridiculous-looking Will Smith film, I Am Legend, about the last man on Earth. I'm a sucker for the apocalypse.]

Better Than That Fancy Brunch You're About to Have

I cannot wax rhapsodic enough about the wonders of having one's first (and potentially only) meal of the day at the Red Hook ballfields. J.Slab over at Porkchop Express is much more thorough in his coverage (he's got individual reviews of each of the vendors, plus a handy map), so I'll just post a couple of photos from my sojourn yesterday with RZS -- click on any image to enlarge. We (along with his pals ECM and TF) skipped over the mammoth, coma-inducing huarache/quesadilla options, and stuck to smaller plates, sharing bites of each other's plates. A much better plan if one wants to 1. try a broader range of vendors' options, and 2. live to see the end of the day. We tried tacos from both the Martinez and Hernandez stands (bisteck and enchilada -- spiced pork -- tacos from each vendor), and finished them so quickly that I didn't get a chance to get a photo of the taco-sharing frenzy. (The Hernandez tacos won out in both bisteck and enchilada categories; their pork's got some nice texture and kick to it.) There was also a chicharones plate, which was something of a mistake -- fried pork rinds aren't exactly the best palate cleanser; that was followed by a lovely loroco flower & cheese pupusa, from the Lainez family stand (if you get that pupusa, ask nicely if they'll add jalapenos to it). The day's winner, however, was the Rojas Ecuadorian stand, which featured a spectacular mixed-seafood ceviche and a deeply satisfying meat empanada (and a fiery hot sauce -- you are forewarned!). The ceviche had a refreshing mix of lime, onion, and coconut milk, with loads of semi-raw seafood -- fish, calamari, octopus, and shrimp. An amazing way to start our Red Hook day. RZS decided to end the afternoon with one of their empanadas, which contained meat, hard boiled egg, and peppers -- so very, very good. What to do when you've had probably the best meal (and best two hours) of your day, and it's only 3 in the afternoon? Drinks at Brooklyn Inn and then hours of lazy Swedish lawn game-playing in Prospect Park, of course. Anyone who would like to partake in such a summer Saturday should contact me at their earliest convenience. I guarantee it'll be cheaper and more satisfying than those boring and overpriced eggs benedict you're about to consume.

No One Belongs Here More Than Me, and Certainly Not You

I jest. But yes, in case anyone was wondering, I have in fact seen and read the Sunday Times' Book Review piece on the new Miranda July collection of short stories. I can't properly comment on the review or the book, as I do not possess a copy of said work. If anyone would like to lend me their copy, please write to us here at probablyawkward [at] gmail [dot ] com. No, seriously: If you lend it to me, I'll totally read it. My ongoing grumble-grumble about the quirk does not preempt my fundamental belief that one ought to, you know, read the book before one can sigh deeply and take the naïf to task. [above: the image on the opening page of the website for the book. no, i'm not kidding.]

The Office Pool

About six or seven weeks ago, when it looked like maybe, just maybe, Alberto Gonzales would be forced to resign from his post as Attorney General, KPC started a little office pool: when would he be Gone-zales? So people placed bets by writing down dates, and then scotch-taping quarters and a lone dollar bill to a sheet of legal pad paper. The winner would get a grand total of $3.88 (we work at an underpaying non-profit). My guess: sadly, May 24th. (I was feeling particularly optimistic.) Predictions ranged from late May to Election Day 2008. An X marks a date guessed and passed, a moment of hope come and gone. What started as a fun convergence of office camaraderie and a seeming sure thing has now become a monument to an administration's amazing ability to ignore public sentiment and Reason altogether. (White) House always wins, I guess. [addendum: Also pinned to the wall -- the deeply entertaining Moustache of Understanding.]

Haste Makes Waste

[outside my window, friday morning.]

I Drink Alone So You Don't Have To: Clandestino

I'm currently on a self-imposed dating hiatus, an extended break that didn't start out quite so self-imposed, but which I'm now quite comfortably settling into. Other than the occasional half-assed attempts at expressing interest in members of the opposite sex, I'm rather enjoying just hanging out with friends, indulging in carafes of nice dry southern Italian white wines, and catching up on all the television I swore I wouldn't bother giving a second chance. (Top Chef, you inexplicably have my summer heart. It's been a slow build with The Wire, but I'm beginning to understand your genius. And Friday Night Lights, dear god, I can't wait to see your second season.) That said, I recognize the inescapable reality that, for all intents and purposes, I am a single woman in New York. And you know what? I hate that. I don't hate being unattached; I hate being associated with a particular stereotype of prowl and desire that I'm sure existed long before Sex and the City, but which that series turned into a laughable, pathetically narcissistic Thing In The World. It doesn't matter that I'm actually not looking to find anyone right now; my unattached status and my thirtysomethingness leaves me vulnerable to unpleasant snap judgments about what I may or may not be after the minute I, say, walk into a bar. Alone. I decided to combat this by, well, walking into bars alone -- and seeing what unfolds. Is it possible, as a woman, to sit at a bar alone, and have a good time -- and, most importantly, not feel compelled to look like one is after anything? Probably not. It might, in fact, just be sort of awkward. And so I present to you, dear readers, a new weekly series in which I document my adventures, so that you (especially the uncoupled among you) might feel alright stepping into a NYC drinking establishment, William T. Vollman's Europe Central in hand*, and not feel completely ridiculous. So: Clandestino. IB had introduced me to the place last fall; it's located on a lonely stretch of east Canal street, next to the perennially crowded and maybe-too-hip-for-me Les Enfants Terribles. And while I was at Clandestino with IB, I never had to pay for a drink; IB insisted on covering everything (the Welsh, so very genteel). So for a while I actually had no idea if Clandestino was an expensive bar or not, or if they did buybacks. But I was determined to find out. Alone. As it turns out, C-bar is a spectacularly great bar. I had already noticed that its interiors were very low-key -- brick walls, low-lights, quiet britpop from the late-90s -- but it was only after I spent a bit of time there on my own that its glories truly emerged. For one thing: pretty generous whisky pours. And another: the barkeeps will pretty consistently do buybacks on the third round. Consistently. When's the last time that's happened -- consistently? Beyond the structural pluses, you've got some great barkeeps and generally un-prowl-y locals, and a wee back patio to boot. And they do little plates of cheese and sausages (try the Cantal -- it's superb). There's something about the place that is decidedly un-Manhattan ... but also very un-Brooklyn; I can't pinpoint it, but it really does feel like a neighborhood bar in a vision of a livable, manageable New York City that I hold very dearly in my head as an ideal. I went there tonight on my own, finally, but on the first truly rainy night of the season. The place was empty at first. I was not only the only single woman at the bar -- I was the only person, period, at the bar. The whiskey pours were still amazing generous, and the barkeep affable and lovely. I cracked open Europe Central, pulled a tea light closer to me, and delved in. When the bar finally filled up (relatively speaking), the barkeep was still attentive and chatty, and I got no funny looks for my un-light reading (or for my reading, period). As I left, two very full glasses of whisky and a plate of brie and pain Poilâne later, a gentleman at the bar reached out his hand to introduce himself; turns out his wife, sitting next to him, was the owner of the bar. We all spoke for a minute and they insisted I return soon; with that, I ducked back out into the rain and headed home. It was kind of awesome. Maybe even perfect. Not at all awkward. To be sure, I've wandered in there very briefly on weekend nights, and the place fills up a bit more, presumably with some Les Enfants Terribles spillover. And on those sorts of nights, any bar can get a bit harried. But on any other night, I say go out. If you find yourself over on east Canal, near the East Broadway F stop, wander into the bar. I'll probably be there, indulging in the A/C and studiously making my way through Europe Central a nice big glass of turkey on the rocks. * It's a big book. 752 pages, not including footnotes (it's a work, nominally, of fiction). People tend to look at me funny when I'm reading it on the subway. Though, to be sure, the looks I get now are a bit less pained than when I was reading a Pol Pot biography last fall; people looked at me as if I were reading it for useful tips, as if it were an instruction manual.

A Hot, Humid Roundup: Photoshopped Edition

MD is away at a wedding in Washington State, and I am languishing in the heat. There are some good posts in the works, but in the very humid meanwhile, I offer you a quick roundup of links related to recent posts. Tasty. The Red Hook ballfield vendors have been granted an extension to their current permits, which allows them to serve food at the park until the end of soccer season, October 28 (the Parks Department had threatened to yank the permits on Sept 7). But don't dillydally -- get on down there ASAP! MD and I are headed to the middle of Maryland for a wedding at the end of July; we'll be renting a car once we get to Baltimore -- any suggestions for Baltimore-and-environs good eats? We're almost definitely hitting a Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries (yes, we know that there's one now open in the Bronx), and we might try to find a Sonic, so I can consume the potential likely travesty that is a Frito Pie Burrito. iPhone|Tech. Related to MD's musings on to-iPhone-or-not-to-iPhone, I recently stumbled upon two great pieces in the always wonderful Design Observer: What if Apple is Bad for Design?, and a link to a pre-iPhone-announcement blog posting about Treo-love. [update: and now, via Design Observer, this too: an 'interview' with Steve Jobs.] The quirk. Ever since I started this series of posts, friends have been emailing me about online goings-on that I should know about; one ex telephoned last Sunday, a bit out of the blue, to ask if I had read the Times' Styles section article on the craft fair (I had, and told him to read my mildly indignant post on having our trendspotting swiped by the Times). Most of the emailing has been related, however, to one Miranda July: had I read the NY Magazine piece from a few weeks ago (yes, and do not get me started and yes I also read this article too); did I see that Gawker has now joined the anti-July club (yes; thanks, RE); did I want to attend an after-party where she might be present (no; and I really don't think we'd magically get along, RZS). For someone who finds Ms. July emblematic of everything that is currently wrong with market forces, I find myself, via my posts, swept up in that very maelstrom of damaged+precious. The market needs my indignant thoughts in order for the quirk to get stronger (that which does not kill the quirk....), and so I'm wondering if I need to take a hiatus from public or private thoughts about how much I'd like to see this cultural phenomenon implode inside its own wide-eyed shell of flouncy tops and cute barrettes. Probably not. It's going to be a long, hot summer. I need something to motivate me, even if it requires looking at another picture of enough already Zooey Deschanel. Maybe I'll even cave in and hang out with Miranda. (ha!) Oh well; I guess The Market (aka Invisible Hand - man, that'd be a great wrestling name) wins this round.

That Which Does Not Kill Me: The Enormous Omelet Sandwich

I seriously don't know what came over me this morning. I woke up and the first thought that entered my head was I really ought to try that Burger King monstrosity. It's not like I've been depriving myself of quality proteins and fats. And it's not like I haven't been eating vast quantities of food, period. There's no reason for me to want to have 730 calories (410 of them from fat alone) in one sitting. And yet...it really seemed like not only a good idea, but more importantly, a necessity. And so, two hours later, that thought became a reality. I just ate The Enormous Omelet Sandwich. When Burger King announced this new item on their breakfast menu, there was a big kerfuffle about it: it was, after all, two eggs, a sausage patty, two slices of cheese, and three strips of bacon, all crammed into what Burger King refers to as a "specialty bun" -- essentially a long, sesame-seed bun used in BK's chicken sandwiches. Newscasters solemnly predicted that this sandwich would single-handedly bring down civilization. This sandwich exemplified The Problem With America. [A USA Today article about the sandwich interviewed a market analyst, who had quite possibly the best two-liner about it: "The critics will still label it food porn," says Sherri Daye Scott, editor at QSR, a fast-food industry trade magazine. "But the average male fast-food customer does not have a problem with this."] So the sandwich itself: weirdly...boring. I'm going to have to agree with the folks at mrbreakfast.com, who noted that despite having a gazillion forms of protein and fat crammed inbetween two pieces of bread, the sandwich didn't really taste like anything. The 1-2 salt punch of the cheese and bacon sort of overwhelmed the entire thing (I'm a big fan of discernible sausage in my breakfast sandwich experience), and it was just kind of ... smooshy. I think some hot sauce might have helped with the overall taste, which needed some added oomph. It just wasn't very interesting to eat. Just very big. I will confess that I did not finish the sandwich, not because of the taste but because of the general fear that I'm pretty sure any non-average, non-male fast-food customer has when faced with the daunting task of consuming 730 calories in one go. After six generous bites, I calmly rewrapped the sandwich and put it in the very fashionable all-black BK paper bag from whence it came. The bag still sits on my desk, taunting me. I suppose I could finish off the remaining 400 or so calories later this afternoon. But I guess if you're going to shell out $3.35 for a fast food breakfast sandwich, stick with the Egg McMuffin at McDonalds. It's got so much more texture, nuance, and taste (seriously). (And yes, I know I'm a terrible person.) You're all going to tell me to go to my local deli or bodega the next time I'm hankering for a fried egg sandwich, but where's the fun (or blog post) in that?

Free (From the) iPhone: Reviewing the Contents of My Heart

I think this is a question every young man faces at least once in his life: Should I skip my best friend's wedding in order to wait in line for an expensive piece of consumer electronics? I have answered variations on this question in the past (Do I skip my first sort-of-boyfriend's commitment ceremony to go to a free Death Cab show? Yes. Have I skipped holidays with close friends and family in an attempt to bone exes, friends with significant others, and douchebags who have been stringing me along? Every Thanksgiving since I moved to New York. Do I feel guilty about it? Sorta kinda.) and almost always done the wrong (i.e. socially unacceptable) thing. This is how I got here. Picture it: Monday June 11th 2007. All the neophiles, gadget freaks and mac obsessives are frothing at the mouth. It's the Apple World Wide Developers Conference and the question on everyone's mind -- when are we getting our iPhones? The keynote speech by Steve Jobs (the closest thing to an address from the pope for the mac faithful) is slow and uneventful. We get One More Thing. Apple's browser is now available for the PC. We snore. And then we get One Last Thing: The iPhone will be available June 29th at 6pm. The other iPhone news (lack of flash, lack of java, confirmation that 3rd generation wireless web will NOT be here) is disappointing and underwhelming but we have finally gotten the date this we will get this sexy little expected disappointment in our hot little hands. I sit and ponder this after having skipped lunch to watch live blog coverage of the event. As I am dutifully downloading Safari for my work computer, it occurs to me that I will be on an island off the coast of Seattle when it launches at my friend's rehearsal dinner. There isn't cell phone reception there, much less cell phone stores. I immediately IM HT with my predicament. What should I do? Should I arrive late, missing the dinner but securing the phone? Or should I finally stand up for a friend and deny my intense, burning technophile lust? HT points out that I have spent the last hour and a half complaining about how Apple has become more of marketing machine than a tech company, the way the Intel transition has made obvious how painfully slow their development is, and the many failings of the phone outlined above. I type "But HT, it's the iPHONE!!!" I proceed to IM FT who usually supports me in my desire to purchase the newest and shiniest electronics. He says "Could AH wait in line and buy one for you? Or is he coming to the wedding?" The thought has occurred to me, but I feel like it would be wrong to make my boyfriend take a ferry to the wedding late in order to be the first to have a toy I don't need and can't afford. As the last two weeks have passed more and more (mostly bad) details have appeared. Then we learned the battery life and screen were better than originally announced. Some reports surface that the onscreen keyboard sucks and you can't use songs as ringtones. Than we learn the plans are incredibly cheap. Somewhere in the middle of this, I realize I just don't care. My Treo is genius. I can write blog entries on it, check my email, and take phone calls. I've dropped it a thousand times and it keeps on ticking. And most of all, it doesn't make me feel guilty for being a bad friend. The second the wedding's over though, I'm skipping out on the reception and finding an internet connection, even if I have to swim to the mainland. How else will I read the first user reviews that are rolling in? [HT adds: There used to be a much shorter and more interesting iPhone video embedded above, but for whatever reason, it stopped streaming this morning. I've replaced it with a sadly dull tutorial on iPhone usage, until MD -- currently in Seattle -- returns and can replace it with something better. Apologies!]

Whiskey Night: Now With Audience Participation!

After gorging ourselves silly at New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe last night, RL and I retired to my new favorite not-quite-local, where we gloriously reinstated a once-longstanding Monday night tradition: Whiskey Night. Back in 1999, he and I and another fellow, RW, became fast friends when we all found ourselves in the same incomprehensible Tuesday morning graduate seminar on Gilles Deleuze. We decided to meet up on Mondays, the evening before class, to try to work through the readings together. These evenings quickly devolved into an excuse to drink (how else to get through a Deleuze text?), and Whiskey Night™ was born. Even after the seminar ended that semester, RL and I kept up Whiskey Night, as an excuse to catch up, and also to listen to (and eventually play) music. The nights ended only after he moved out of Ithaca several years later, but now that we're both back in the same town, we've been trying to bring back the Monday night tradition. One of the great things about Whiskey Night besides 1. its name; 2. its occurrence on Monday nights; and 3. the whiskey, is the conversation. For inexplicable reasons, we end up having ridiculous talks about just about everything imaginable. And the thing is -- it's not just the alcohol creating the mayhem; RL and I drink together, elsewhere, on other nights, and the conversation is never quite so completely inane and wonderful, all at once. We've discussed the gastronomic provenance of the Meximelt, how movies aren't about moving images (the images don't move! there are just a lot of images displayed in rapid succession!), and well... you get the idea. There's something -- dare I say -- magical about Whiskey Night. Last night was no different. The main topic of conversation, a two-parter: When did U2 go so horribly awry, and is it the case that everything the band (especially Bono) has touched since that moment has also gone awry? After quickly agreeing that 1991's Achtung, Baby was the band's last great album and also their point of no return, there emerged myriad answers to part two: Wim Wenders, the Pixies (who toured with the band during the Achtung Baby tour -- in fact, check out this link), Arcade Fire, Public Enemy, the Sugarcubes (to be sure, Bjork is doing just fine ... but the rest of the band...?), Rage Against the Machine, Al Gore, uh...Forbes, the iPod, Paul Wolfowitz (though he most likely was already on the path to oblivion before touring/touting Africa with Bono), Africa itself .... dear readers, are we missing anything? It's a veritable curse they've got on their hands! Three rounds of very generous pours of bourbon later, we called it a night. But the curse rages on. Watch out! Bono might be lurking around that corner up ahead.

Adventures in New Capitalism: The Red Hook Vendors

As our readers may or may not know, I am a borderline libertarian/objectivist... While I think universal health care would be rad I question government interference in the fiscal sphere. I believe that a "pure free market" might briefly be a nightmare but could blossom into a beautiful thing. I believe many of our land's current issues revolve around the coercive powers of government being used against its citizens at the behest of corporate interest. I believe in the corporation but not in the unholy amalgamation of lobbyist, laws, and commerce. I also believe all of this only works in a place where people behave rationally, which g-d only knows is not the place we live in. Having made this lengthy preamble, I have to say this: I don't want to lose the Red Hook Soccer Field Taquerias. For those who have somehow missed this, there are these astonishingly clean and pristine sporting fields at the very end of Red Hook where the local latin-american population enjoys picnics, futbol matches and baseball games. They are also home to small vendors serving some of the best latin-american food in the hemisphere... And for cheap.The fields are far from train and bus, and until recently, this preserved them as one of the city's best kept secrets. In recent years thanks to food blogs and the collective hipster unconscious, the soccer fields have become very popular among the brooklyn intelligentsia and culturati. However, the area has also become very popular among developers, resulting in the gigantic and labyrinthine Fairway and soon a huge Ikea adjacent to the fields. This has struck me as a red flag that it might be time to move. The coming of Ikea means more than increased traffic, pollution and the illusionary opportunity for "local economic growth." It also means that the vendors who have been there for years will now be engaged in a permit bidding war to supply food to the furniture tourists who will soon be flooding the area. Corporate vendors who will charge ten dollars for an unappetizing hot dog will be able to force out the amazing artisans of $5 quesadillas and $2 pupusas in order to make the city the maximum profit. WAIT: When I began this post, I thought I would be forced to compromise my ideals and say that this cultural and culinary treasure should be an exception to the free market, but as I write I realize this is once again this is an example of coercion... Why should a permit be required to use public land that ostensibly "belongs to the people?" Why don't we allow whoever wakes up earliest in the morning to get their booth and let whoever sells the best food they can at the best value they can win the day? I can guarantee a minimum-wage slave from Subway will not be able to compete against this juggernaut of cultural integrity and tasty deliciousness. mmmm... blood sausage.

Tasty: Aromatic Beef

It is doubtful that New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe is the best Shanghainese restaurant in town. I'm sure there are pretty serious contenders out in Flushing, but as I am vehicle-less and generally without a hungry herd, it's not very practical to head that far out to try potentially heart-stopping delights. New Yeah is, however, my old standby whenever I'm in Chinatown, thanks to its wonderfully brothy soup dumplings, excellent scallion pancakes, consistently good meat dishes, and very funny interiors (sort of cave-like, sort of ... not). And, as RL and I noted tonight when we ducked in for our generally-monthly check-ins, New Yeah seems to be getting better. You can't do better on this stretch of Mott and Bayard, people. This time around RL and I decided to check out their aromatic beef appetizer, a dish that RL had tried before and had waxed rhapsodic about periodically in our email exchanges. Not knowing what I was in for (RL, in his rhapsodic waxing, had failed to actually describe aromatic beef qua aromatic beef), I was surprised when a smallish plate appeared at our table, with a fist-sized cut of beef sliced thinly across the bias. There was also a red-chili-and-vinegar-like dipping sauce with scallions nearby. I had no idea what was going on. And so...it's like this: have you ever had a nice beef brisket, or just a nice meat roast, and then couldn't finish it, and so you stuck it in the fridge and didn't think about it as you passed out from meat coma? And then maybe the next morning, as you're fishing around for the orange juice you see this tupperware container full of brisket and all you can do is dive right for it? And even before it's heated up, you take a generous swipe from the container of sliced meat and it's glorious and all you want for breakfast is brisket? New Yeah's aromatic beef is like that. Only better. It's like next-day brisket, straight from the fridge, full of that extra flavor, with none of the pesky crowds standing around the bbq pit (or the attendant hangovers), but with a spicy-tangy dipping sauce that kind of takes the beef to new places. And about that beef: the meat's got some nice marbling, with maybe some gingery/peppery component, and a wee bit of fat still attached for extra oomph. Seriously, as an appetizer to soup dumplings, you've kind of got a 1-2 punch made in food heaven. To boot: an entire meal for two (aromatic beef, two orders of soup dumplings, scallion pancakes, and crispy noodles with subgum) for barely $25. I expect to see our entire NYC-based readership there this summer.

A Two-Minute Object Lesson in Weather-Appropriate Fashion

It's Saturday afternoon. You've decided to head down to the Red Hook ballfields to enjoy some of the tasty treats offered by Latin American food vendors that have set up shop. It's somewhere in the vicinity of 80-85 degrees outside. What do you wear? Quesadilla-buying stranger on the left knows the score. Quesadilla-buying stranger on the right: I don't know what's going to happen first -- you dribbling grilled meat juices down the front of your weather-inappropriate sweater vest, or you realizing that since you can't exactly wrap a sweater vest around your waist, when the weather hits 90 degrees, you're going to be stuck sweating in it. Unless you're going to a craft fair, or over to McCarren Park Pool to catch a show, there is absolutely no reason for your wool/acrylic-blend silliness. You're about to enjoy a wondrous meal for under $5. It's not a fashion show (or North Brooklyn), my friend.

My Finger, Not on the Pulse

I've long maintained to folks who somehow think that I go to a lot of shows that, in fact, with the exception of annual sojourns to Irving Plaza to see Built to Spill for 20-odd dollars, I pretty much make a point of seeing two bands exclusively. No, seriously. I really don't go to shows. I don't know a thing about music these days. If you don't believe me, you can take a look at my purchases on iTunes and see how much they've been played. (This might also tell you something about my relationship to music of late -- I love a proper music store, but I'm incredibly lazy and just end up downloading stuff from the comfort of my bed. I'm a terrible person.) One of the first things I purchased when I got this laptop 18 months ago was Bloc Party. My most recent download was "Freedom," the great Wham song from their first album, Make it Big; I was walking through Burbank Airport a few weeks ago, heard it on the soundsystem (no joke!) and had to buy it on the spot. I've listened to "Freedom" 17 times in the past two weeks. I still don't know what Bloc Party sound like. I'm not trying to claim some weird nostalgia-cred here, or to say that I'm some sort of post-scenester who's beyond all music trends or something. To be sure, part of it has to do with the fact that I'm more willing to devote more of my curiosity, time, and energy on food. I mean, I already have a lot of music -- but I'm always going to need more food. But I think most of it is sheer exhaustion: I seriously can't keep up with what the kids are listening to. I get most of my current-music-updates via late-night viewings of MTV2's Subterranean, and beyond being deeply baffled by the state of music videos, I spend much of that viewing hour with a furrowed brow, trying to keep all the names straight. What's more, half the time I can't seem to tell the bands apart, musically-speaking. I mean, they already look the same (4 or 5 scruffy-haired fellas, one or two usually bespectacled, all wearing ironic t-shirts with an occasional sweater vest), and then on top of that they all just converge as a sonic blur in my head. (Don't get me started on the ridiculousness/sameness of their names; it took me a couple of minutes during tonight's Subterranean viewing to remember that Cold War Kids was not the same as Fall Out Boy.) Even the bands I once quite enjoyed, and kept up with, are now popping up on Subterranean hawking their wares with such a strangely low level of actual creativity. (I'm talking to you, Modest Mouse. I don't care if Johnny Marr is playing in the band now. What happened to you?) I'm not producing any grand new theory of culture in suggesting that there seems to be such an emphasis on the next new thing that newness overshadows the thing that should matter: the music itself. I'm not naive enough to suggest that good bands are free of image or shtick; I understand that even only marginally 'popular' music requires a certain degree of packaging. But newness seems to amount to sameness, when it comes right down to it. And these days, what with these crazy internets and all, there seems to be such an emphasis on being the blog to first discover some new, unknown upstart band, in order to get bragging rights -- to the detriment of, well ... actually enjoying the music? I'm also not suggesting that there aren't some lovely bands out there, making interesting music that is, in fact, unique, challenging, and still accessible. But it feels like it's getting harder and harder to separate wheat from the chaff. This is probably why I'm comforted every Sunday afternoon, when I watch the DVRed episode of 120 Minutes that airs at some ungodly hour on VH1 Classics the night before. It's not like music from 20 years ago was any more or less original or shticky; but it's music with which I feel an actual connection. Part of it is nostalgia, sure. But part of it is also a very palpable sense of pleasure. Actual enjoyment. Have you listened recently to Alphaville's "Forever Young"? It's an amazing song, full of earnest keyboarded energy and heartfelt, emote-y vocals. (And hell, there are synthesized trumpets in the outro!) Lead singer Marian Gold (real name: Hartwig Schierbaum) sings it like he means it. My god, he really wants to be forever young. After listening to the song, I want to be forever young. Indie rock is so goddamn self-aware and self-referential these days that all of that smartness seems to have drained the music of a certain human quality. I'm not going to go so far as to suggest that it's lacking heart, but I will say that it might want to reconsider that layer of affect it puts on every morning. Such a move might do wonders for its creative output, and its ability to stand out in an otherwise pretty unremarkable, nondescript crowd; you know, wheat, chaff, that whole thing. Hell, maybe then I'd be able to keep up.

Collective, Unconscious: Sunday Stealers

DEAR GOD. From the NY Times Sunday Styles section, officially published tomorrow, an article about last weekend's Renegade Craft Fair: With the caption: Cephalopods are an up and coming motif. The article notes: "So while the sparrow and the owl — last year’s favored animal and the symbol of the fair — are out, the octopus, a burgeoning contender for creature of the moment, has been joined by other sea dwellers, like the squid." Ahem. I'm not an I told you so sort of person, but Come. On. I do believe we called this a week ago. [Thanks to FT for calling our attention to this uncited (mis)appropriation of our blog.]

Oh, You Silly Girl, You!

You have 24 hours to view this eBay auction, though I feel like the image speaks for itself. I could probably wax Benjaminian about what images can or cannot convey, but I think my brain has officially shut down for the day. Thanks a lot, MJ. (Thanks to NM for writing to me with the link and the quip, "if it weren't so expensive, i'd buy this just to give it to you so you could burn it.")

Burger Night: Shake Shack (Double Vision Edition)

...Where your hosts, HT and MD, blog together! What craziness will ensue, dear reader?! HT: I was due for a visit to Shake Shack; I hadn't been there in 9 months, and I had heard that they had made some changes -- most notably, a new french fry supplier. And hell, it was high time we made a concerted effort to not only eat outside our burger comfort zone, but to eat outside, period. It's summertime, people. Make use of your al fresco dining establishments. Pronto. That said, Shake Shack requires a wee bit of patience. Even with the live Shackcam to let those of us leaving the office know how long the line is, there's really no telling how bad it's going to be until you actually get to Madison Square Park. When MD and I got there, the line looked like it might use up 30-40 minutes of our early evening. We braved it anyway. I was mildly dying for some red meat. Some 45 minutes later, our food arrived: A double hamburger for me, a single shackburger for MD, two orders of fries, a bird dog (chicken and apple sausage), and a lemonade. And ... huh. Something had changed. I mean, the burgers were still pretty good, but something was missing. The oomph. The joie de vivre. And the fries -- overdone! They used to be something close to manna, and now they were just ... serviceable. The bird dog, however, was a thing of beauty: the dog itself had such snap! Such life! Probably the best thing we had all night. As disappointed as I was with the meal, my body was clearly happy. So happy, in fact, that when I got home around 10:30 that evening, I promptly passed out. For 11 hours. No joke. I apparently went into some sort of red meat/protein shock (you try to eat two burger patties and half a hotdog the day after consuming the largest porkchop on the planet and see what your body does). I hadn't slept that well in years. MD: I had actually planned to write about Shake Shack awhile back to kick off my "Overrated" series of posts. I never got around to it and discovered how much HT loved Shake Shack and decided to back off. So when HT suggested a trip to the Shack, I was thrilled -- we could finally exploit the full potential of team blogging. We could be Point and Counterpoint! It would be like Crossfire but no one would be wearing a bow-tie and annoying sh*t-eating grin. We arrive and the line seems to stretch for miles. Luckily HT and I have steeled ourselves for this with a couple drinks and some amazing onion rings at a bar that shall have to remain nameless. (It is a chain. It is in Midtown. We are not proud. The drinks were free.) We wait about a half hour and get our food. I bemoan the fact that today is "Salty Caramel" custard day and not "Strawberry Rhubarb." We sit and start to eat. The food was ok. I have not so much to say, honestly. The dog was amazing and the french fries were a crime against G-d. However, one thing was amazing and horribly distracting. At the table nearest to us were two men in matching outfits -- dark shirts, khaki shorts, leather footwear. Both were late thirties/early forties. Well-manicured, beefy, presumably gay and the tension between them was palpable. But the tenor of the tension was unclear. The man on the left sat back, coolly, but jutted his legs forward, but together into the other man's space. They shared a beer and their hands almost touched as they traded it back and forth. The other man was clearly more eager. He held the beer with his arm extended into the other man's personal space. His legs fell open with another hand upon his inner thigh. At this point HT asked a question I won't repeat about who played which sex role... but it was unclear if they had ever had sex. They were talking about mutual acquaintances but were they friends? Coworkers? In the end we decided they had "loved" physically and guy-on-the-right wanted a repeat, while guy-on-the-left was probably playing it cool (although I have no doubts he was going to give in that night unless something better came along). While it was fascinating and intriguing, their inchoate relationship upset my stomach much more than the poorly done burger ever could.

I Rant Because I Care: Swiping You Through

I'd like to think that I'm a decent human being; to be sure, I don't volunteer at food banks, give a whole lot of money to organizations I care about, or actively rally my fellow human beings around a cause. I'm not fundamentally lazy as I am fundamentally in a constant state of distraction. But I try, any given moment of any given day, to be nice to others. When I started my present job, in an office building located next to Port Authority, I found myself getting out with some regularity in the morning at the subway entrance/exit on the northwest corner of 42nd and 8th Avenue. These exits have those crazy/creepy cage-like turnstile things, not the old-school turnstiles but the ones that look like they could easily trap you late at night, when no one's around. (Here's a good piece on turnstile design, for the lazily curious.) This particular area is also bereft of an MTA clerk or any Metrocard machine; you're pretty much on your own here if you're trying to get into the subway. Because this entrance/exit is at 42nd and 8th avenue, right near Times Square, I tend to see a good number of folks trying -- and failing -- to swipe their way in. And many times, for whatever reason, they can't. Sometimes it's because they don't understand how to enter through the turnstile; they sometimes advance the turnstile half a turn, not realizing that this uses up their swipe -- and, if they have an unlimited card, they can't use the card again for a bit. Or sometimes it'll be a regular workaday person whose card is being fussy, leading to the aggravating Please Swipe Card Again at this Turnstile message. Or sometimes they're without a card, and just want in. And, if I'm not late for work, and (this is probably a more significant factor) if I'm not feeling antisocial and haven't started my day by glazing my eyes over humanity, as I walk through the turnstile, I'll usually help out one of these souls by swiping them in with my card; it's no skin off my back, since I won't be needing to use my card for another 8 or 9 hours anyway. I can't bear to see faulty MTA technology reduce people to tears, especially not at 9:30 in the morning. That's no way to start your day. My rant? Well, see, sometimes there are people who are clearly frustrated by the card's sudden unreadability. And those people will ask nicely if I might be able to help out. And generally, I will. I'll even sometimes help out folks who aren't asking for help, but who clearly look like they're on the verge of a turnstile-induced nervous breakdown. But then there are people who either don't have a card, or I don't know what, who will say, as I walk past, hey swipe me through! Then, when I do, they walk through the turnstile and -- this has happened more than once -- they not only fail to say thanks, but they give me a look. It's a very particular look I think, specific to this kind of exchange, that has entitlement written all over it. I'm not looking for a thank you, but at 9:30 in the morning, it seems like a much nicer thing to say to someone than, say, Bitch, that took you long enough. (This has actually happened to me.) Because you know what? That's just not nice. I might be going to hell for my myriad indiscretions, but you, my friend, are on the express track. How's that for swiping you through?

Dopplegangers? Not so much

So HT found that someone had found probablyawkward through a search for the string "So You Think You Can Dance" and "homophobic." (Like I said, we're spying on you. Especially you, Prince Edward Island.) Which led me to check Google, and lo and behold, we're on the top page of results. I look to see who else popped up, and found an article on the same topic on Theory My Culture. This site was started the same month ours was and deals with very similar issues: life, pop culture, theory (sadly, no food), but with such a different tact. [MD: Upon further research I see it's also a male/female blogging team.] I'm not saying "Go read them not us." You can read them after you read us if you want. I AM saying "It's amazing how different two things that are ostensibly the same can be." It does inspire me to actually reference Judith Butler when I post about how I almost had a meltdown about gender normativity during the previews before Knocked Up.

This is How You Prep For A Red Meat Meltdown

Wednesday night, MD and I headed over to Madison Square Park to indulge in some Shake Shack lovin'. (That insanity will be posted shortly.) In order to gear up for this, I made what I believed would be appropriate dietary step-up measures: since I don't eat red meat very often (pretty much exclusively on Burger Nights), I needed to get my body adequately prepared for the bovine blitz to come. So on Tuesday, I went over to Sullivan Street Bakery, which is not on Sullivan Street in Soho, but in fact on 47th street, between 10th and 11th avenues. The bakery produces what I think is the best bread in the city; they also make these amazing Roman-style pizzas: thin-crusted, with simple, mostly-cheeseless toppings (plain tomato, mushroom, a spectacular one with yukon gold potatoes sliced chip-thin, and zucchini), served room temp. These pizzas pretty much singlehandedly restore my faith in humanity, which needs restoring about every 8 days or so. (MD adds: every 8 minutes, you mean?) Yesterday, though, I went to the bakery in the hopes that they would have my favorite sandwich -- and lo and behold, there it was: roasted beets, goat cheese, and arugula. Quality fillings inbetween glorious bread. The slight sweetness from the beets goes perfectly with the tang of the goat cheese and the spiciness of the arugula. It's like harmony of a higher order. And, very key: minimal, but adequate amounts of protein, via the goat cheese. Later in the evening, I was in Williamsburg following a much-needed haircut, and decided to try out Silent H, the Vietnamese spot that opened up not too long ago in the former Oznot's Dish location. They've done a nice job with the interiors (and they've got a wee back patio with 3 or 4 two-tops) -- very airy and minimal, and no weird billyburg-meets-oriental kitsch, which one tends to assume will happen when the 'burg and ethnic collide. I ordered the cha gio (spring rolls -- passable), and decided on the thit kho (porkchop), which I've always experienced as a manageable chunk of sauteed pork over a bit of rice, with maybe a couple pieces of pickled vegetables to boot. And it seemed like a good way to ramp up to the next night's burger-ing. Dear god. I mean, seriously. This is what came out. It was ginormous. And, to add to the insanity, they added a hard-boiled egg to the mix. (Because I could really use that heart attack now.) What would probably feed an entire family back in the home country was supposed to be my dinner. It was kind of nuts. And pretty good. Did I finish it? No. Did it propel me towards an inevitable food coma the following night? Oh yeah.

Tuesday Evening Rhapsodic: The Clientele

This was supposed to be a weekly column, Friday Morning Rhapsodic, to demonstrate to our readers the depths of my otherwise-hidden sentimentality; I had planned to post just one ditty a week, on Fridays, so as to not overwhelm our dear readers with the sort of sap I normally reserve for my repeated viewings of The English Patient. (Yeah, I don't get me either.) But then last night I was having some wine with my old bartender friend IB (whom I lovingly refer to as my sixth favorite Welshman), and several glasses of wine into the evening, the conversation turned to music -- and how easily the right song can turn one's day around. And that got me thinking about the Clientele, whom I recently had the chance to see at the Bowery Ballroom, in a set that was just about as perfect as could be. I think I'm still riding a high from that show. And so now, dear readers, you get my sap a couple of days early. I remember the first time I heard the Clientele. I was living here in the city the summer after my first year in Ithaca, and over on Eldridge Street there used to be a little record store that I go to every now and then, Sound and Fury (alas, it no longer exists). One afternoon I wandered in there, and this absolutely lovely song was playing. Whispery vocals, shimmering guitars, and just a strangely comforting feeling of not-quite-thereness. Just a wonderful, hushed sense of longing. I bought their EP, A Fading Summer, on the spot. It's been love ever since. That I've since spent some time with Alasdair Maclean, the frontman for the band, only confirms what their music suggests: they're a bunch of really great individuals who love making some of the saddest, most elegiacally big-hearted music I've ever heard. "Saturday," the song I first heard at Sound and Fury, remains my favorite; despite its bittersweet convergence of memory, hope, and longing, there's still something wonderfully un-bitter and very sweet about it. And heck, it's a much more age- and culturally- appropriate vehicle on which to float my sentimentality than, say, Ralph Fiennes.

Housekeeping

I just added Digg, Reddit, and del.icio.us buttons thanks to the help of the Aetheist Jew. This process was remarkably more irritating than it should have been. We've also added a Sitemeter tracking slug to the bottom of the page. So, basically, we're watching you. (HT adds: It's probably more narcissistic than that: we're watching you watch us.) And finally, HT is learning how to embed video. Soon we'll be a real blog! And then the world will tremble at our feet. Especially you, Prince Edward Island, whoever you are...

The Bell Curve Theory of Hors D'oeuvres

This Saturday AH and I were at Fairway shopping for groceries. My ambitious plan was that I would make a big pot of something which I would bring for lunch the rest of the week. (My "white chicken chili" lasted three days and I am now eating turkey, beets and cream of spinach in my work cafeteria.) I said to AH "I am going to that rich guys birthday tonight with JB and it starts really early. Do you think I should eat before or do you think there will be food there?" AH says "Rich people are funny. There's equal chances the spread will be awful or amazing. Money doesn't necessarily bring taste or attention to detail." "I think you might be on to something. Remember at RL and JG's party last week? It was like something out of Food and Wine, but they're just barely middle class." And thus was the bell curve/hors d'oeuvres theory born. The quality of food, drinks, and entertainment tends to increase proportionately to wealth until the point at which maximum cultural capital is attained. After this point enjoyment, interest and taste slowly decreases. This theory explains Long Island, tacky dotcom billionaires, and Paris Hilton. * The food at this party was middling -- I was without a camera to record the workmanlike crudite platter (complete with ranch dip), the supermarket-deli cheese and crackers, and the packaged brownie cupcakes. The art on the walls was little better, although the host (a high-placed economist for a very successful real estate firm) told me, "These artists are all mid-career which is why they look familiar to you. My curator is here -- he buys one or two pieces a year from artists who have work in at least one museum... Like MOMA." I blame some combination of the lack of food and the lack of culture for how ridiculously drunk I became after my third drink. My third drink served in a tiny dixie cup from the "hot" bartenders hired for the event. That or the host slipped me a roofie after overhearing me call his flat-screen tv "shockingly entry level for such a snob."

*There exists an exception to this rule, that I would like to call the "Old Patrician Policy (OPP)" which states "For those whose families have had money for long enough, all bets are off." The beautiful opulence or decay of the old rich is truly something to behold.

Another Reason to Love Philadelphia

Maybe it's because I haven't eaten yet today, and it's nearing lunchtime. Maybe it's because I miss Philly, which I sometimes regard as my second or third hometown (depending on how generous I'm feeling towards Ithaca), since it's where I spent my formative years not understanding Walter Benjamin. Or maybe it's simply because I can't resist these sorts of things. But today, via Cho-Tabetai, I learned of the Philly Taco. And suffice it to say, I really, really want one. I mean, how can you go wrong with a cheesesteak wrapped inside a slice of pizza? I'm sure it helps considerably to be inebriated, but still .... I live across the street from the unfortunately named Cheesesteak Factory, and near one of the best places in the city to get a late-night slice. I'll report back to you this weekend.

I Rant Because I Care: On Academic Writing

Does this make any sense to you?

In this dissertation I argue for an expansion and transformation of post-structuralist and Frankfurt School critiques of history and progress through a rigorous integration of images and visual materials into the critical methods themselves. I suggest that etchings of a ruinous ancient Rome by 18th century Italian architect Giovanni-Battista Piranesi are emblematic of a critical and visual rethinking of emerging, Enlightenment-era-related conceptions of time – conceptions which continue to give order to our experiences today. Using these etchings as a visual framework for my project, I explore and critique the disciplinary parameters guiding the construction of historical narratives; from there I offer a reworked understanding of emerging notions of subjectivity and their relationship to a linear conception of historical time. This image-oriented critique of history as a continuous, seamless narrative culminates in a discussion of the dialectic between monuments and ruins, where I argue that in perpetuating a nostalgic longing for the past, romanticized writings on ruins also render invisible a productive reading of urban space as the necessarily discontinuous co-existence of past and present.

Yeah, didn't think so. Me neither. And I wrote it. No, I'm being completely serious. It's my dissertation abstract, featured prominently on the first page of my curriculum vitae. Academic writing is wordcraft writ very, very odd. I've come to believe that 10 years of graduate school didn't make me any smarter; they just made me much more skilled at constructing sentences that an increasingly smaller percentage of the population is able to parse. Don't get me wrong; I'm not suggesting that those ten years were all for naught -- I went into grad school because I had a couple of ideas that I wanted to see to fruition, and I accomplished that. I just managed to do it in a language that now, 18 months since filing my dissertation, I only kind of remember, much less understand. I'm not suggesting that academics ought to dumb down their language; that would imply that academic language is of a higher order or something. And it's not. Rather, it's just on a different plane, and that's kind of sad. You've got a country full of un- or mis-employed phDs who were never taught how to forge necessary bridges between ideas and real articulation. (C'mon -- we all know that a seminar paper is fundamentally the reconfiguration of the same 500-odd words into different sentence constructions. That's not articulation; that, again, is just wordcraft. Well, wordcraft and smoke and mirrors. I mean: render invisible a productive reading of urban space? Why couldn't I have just said make it hard for us to talk about cities?) I mean, this is partly why I took an extended hiatus from academia, and why I now blog: I needed to find a way back to language that felt more grounded in how I might actually speak. (Read my dissertation abstract out loud. It sounds ridiculous.) I don't deny that there's a place for formal academic language, but at the same time, I worry that that formality has just become a way to hide behind a fundamental inability to truly share one's ideas. And what's an idea if you don't know how to talk about it? addendum: NG just pointed out that the phrase 'increasingly smaller' is rather laughable. No, wait. Very laughable. [apologies -- don't know why the formatting is wonky with this post.]

Collective, Unconscious: Field Reports from the Quirk War

Sigh. It's like New York City itself has decided to pick a side in the Revenge of the Quirk. 1. For inexplicable reasons, the Landmark Sunshine Cinemas is showing both Eagle vs Shark and Amelie this week. Amelie. You could watch EvS and just stroll over to the neighboring screen and watch Audrey Tautou and her ridiculous gnomes and spoons and shit. Because that's exactly how I'd love to spend my Saturday afternoon. 2. Just weeks after the "A Night Out With" Becky Stark debacle in the NY Times Sunday Styles section, today's ANOW features members of the New Zealand quirk mafia: the director and stars of Eagle vs Shark. They drink at the Delancey! They date each other! "The first rule of Flight club is, you don’t pass up an opportunity to make a delicious fool of yourself." Okaaaay. 3. MD, AH, and I wandered through the Renegade Craft Fair today, and I've got one word for you: Cephalopod. Yes, my friends, it's true: owls are so late-2006. Right now, you're not showing your true quirk unless you're wearing your squid on your sleeve. Mark my words. Sigh.

Friday Morning Rhapsodic: My Other Local

If MD and I are out on the town, there's a pretty good chance that at some point in the evening we will have stopped by our regular spot. The barkeeps are great, the happy hour caters to people who don't get out of work at 5 sharp (a very generous 6-9pm 2-for-1 sort of thing -- don't get me started on those strange happy hours that run from 5-6pm and give you a $1 discount on your second drink), and even though it sometimes gets pretty packed on the weekends, I can almost always squeeze onto a seat at the bar. I also love my local because it's the site of many epic evenings. By epic here I don't necessarily mean crazydrunk or madhookup sort of epic. I mean...memorable. There was the night last spring when MS, NM, and I photo-documented our debauchery, complete with pics of other people hitting on each other at the bar. (The fellow in the picture on the right still remains something of a mystery from that evening; NM and I for the life of us can't remember his name, or his provenance. But he sat next to us, making very drunk conversation.) Or the lovely, new-standard-setting first date I had there last fall. Or the recent indie royalty free-for-all that saw members of Pipas, the Clientele, and the Ladybug Transistor drink and flirt the night away. That sort of epic. Really wonderful things have happened there, and though I'm sometimes hesitant to embrace my lushness, I'm never ashamed to admit that my local has given me some pretty amazing memories. No, seriously. Not every night is a local sort of night though, and more often than not, if I'm wanting to shell out some money and not be so sociable, I go to my private local, a spot I thank RZS for introducing me to. It's a little wine bar sort of place not terribly far from my apartment, and has the feel of a cafe more than a bar per se. This is, I think, one of its strengths: because most people are sitting down at the little two-tops or communal tables, or at the bar, one might feel awkward just standing near the bar with a drink. It's not that sort of place. Besides, there's only wine and bottled beers; you're not going to get a sidecar or a greyhound at this place. There's something very genteel about the whole thing. The folks behind the bar are young, goofy, much too attractive for their own good, but somehow still incredibly down to earth. It's a little disarming. The slightly edgy, hip civility about the whole thing makes it a pretty comfortable spot, which is why I'll meet up with folks there and split carafes of wine and just lounge for a few hours. But I think one of its silent merits is that it's not really set up for casual encounters -- not that such things couldn't happen there, but I don't think the space/ethos is really about that. Or, put differently: it's not a singles scene. And yet, by the same token, it encourages a kind of easy-going sociability that doesn't necessarily have that awkward undertone of flirtation. I could easily start a conversation with someone sitting next to me, but it wouldn't have that slightly unnerving potential-picking-up sort of vibe. I mean, it's hard being a single person in a city -- going to bars by oneself (especially being a woman) is tricky because one tends to feel like there's a big sign on one's back upon entering. I am a single woman. Please hit on me, or please talk to me if I start hitting on you. And at this place that quite frankly I'm not going to name, I sort of feel ... I don't know. The single/coupled dichotomy doesn't seem to take hold there, at least not for me. Nothing epic ever happens here, and it's not that that absence is refreshing so much as it is ... different. Time passes, very lazily, and usually to quiet conversation. I would almost say that it feels European, but I don't think that's quite it. It's not like there aren't single people in Europe. I guess this place exists somewhat strangely in some kind of bizarro universe where those sorts of identity markers don't matter at the get-go. When I'm there, I forget that those things are supposed to matter. It's nice. I almost wish I could take you all there. Almost.

Things That Are Homophobic: So You Think You Can Dance

Let's be real: A lot of male dancers are homos. Then this show comes on that pairs these guys up with women every week and then criticizes them for "not vibing" with them. A contestant was asked last week "What do you think about this girl next to you?" Fey bottle-blonde dude says unconvincingly, "She's hot." Once he's given the right answer he's allowed to nervously get off stage, trying to remember next time to pretend harder that he's hot for someone he's not attracted to. Nigel (the host, a blonde, cut-rate Simon Cowell knockoff) frequently criticizes male performers for being "effeminate" and girly, to the point of choreographed fights and belittlement. If So You Think You Can Dance is trying to push the choir boys back in the closet, they have a hard road ahead of them. I wish them the worst of luck.

Crimes Against G-d: Eagle Vs. Shark

I know someone who's been involved with advertising for this film, so I have had months and months and months to hate it. Check out the website if you think you can handle quirk that even churns my stomach. And if you're still standing, take the "team eagle vs. team shark" quiz. Just don't accidentally try to murder the creative team. I know a guy, and he doesn't deserve it. He hates the movie too. Quiz question example: (It's like Quirk madlibs) Item Most Likely to be Found in Your Possession A.) Guitar B.) Candle C.) Nunchucks D.) Hula Hoop Ummm E.) Projectile vomit and disgust

It's Like I'm Getting Taunted by the Quirk

I've recently discovered a whole set of breathing exercises to help me work through varying levels of, and reasons for, anxiety. My coping methods whilst writing the most recent post on quirkiness involved slowing my breathing down considerably, and to just start to feel my heartbeat decelerate accordingly. It was a very calming experience, being able to write about that which I dislike so much while not getting too worked up, physiologically, about it. Sadly, such experiences don't work when one is caught off-guard, as I just was. While getting ready to leave the office, I noticed a NY Times review of some new film entitled Eagle vs Shark. Curious, I clicked on the link to the review. And then the rapid-fire breathing and heartbeats returned like I had never learned a thing. The headline of the review: Quirky Boy Meets Quirky Girl: It's Animal Attraction. You can read the rest of the review yourself. The moment that killed me: "[t]he story ... is a small, intermittently charming, sometimes tiresome celebration of quirkiness, complete with cute animated sequences featuring apples and ants." Jesus. I look forward to all of this imploding very, very soon. My heart can't take this anymore.

The Theory of Cataclysmic Fights Revisited

I tend to run into people. A lot. I know it's a New York thing but I feel like it happens to me more than to other people. For instance, I ran into HT's bff Lupe this afternoon on the train after work. She's in town from Spain for the month and BOOM there she is. It's weird, but wonderful. It makes me feel well loved and well connected. However, there is a huge caveat. The people I have had traumatic fights with just seem to disappear. It's like we simply no longer exist for each other. For instance, one intense woman and I were becoming fast friends and hanging out all the time. Then one day we had an altercation about my fear of belaying for her at an overly-crowded climbing wall and hadn't seen each other for over 6 months despite sharing friends and working in the same building. Today she was going down the escalator as I was coming up. Weird, I thought, does this mean we're at a point where we should speak again? I quickly forgot it had ever happened and went on with my day. Hours later, I am leaving Heathers after having drinks with a friend I'd "taken a break from" for three months (and not seen despite our tendency to go to the watering holes) and walking to the F train. As I near the entrance, I see my ex, Andy the Animator, a man I used to run into regularly until last summer when I ran into him sweaty and he told me I smelled. I told him to go f-ck himsef. His emotionally unavailable, asexual self. I ran past him and down onto the train platform. What's pulling these people out of the woodwork? Should I search for reconciliation or should I hide? Maybe it's time to move.

Collective, Unconscious: The Rise of the Idiot Savant, pt.2

It was really quite gratifying to find this post about she's-so-adorable-I'm-going-to-tear-my-hair-out Zooey Deschanel in my Google Reader the other morning. Especially comforting and validating was the first quip in the comments section: i'm beginning to think she and Miranda July are the same person. I was beginning to think that maybe I was the only one with the perma-smirk about the whole cutesy quirky thing. To be sure, I know I'm in the minority about Miranda July. Just about everyone I know loves Me and You and Everyone We Know. And just about everyone I know warned me that I would probably hate it. And sure enough ... blech. MD and I don't talk about Miranda July because it would only make me angry, and I'm feeling that, at 33, I'm already turning into something of a curmudgeon. Not too long ago, ASD couldn't help but wax rhapsodic about seeing Ms. July perform at some event and blah blah blah had I seen her website blah blah blah, which prompted me to go to her website and dear god make it all go away. Oh Miranda July. You’re just so fun and quirky and smart and edgy! That movie of yours was so gosh darn precious and made so many of my friends believe in the complicated goofiness of relationships. We, too, could have ironic moustaches and sell shoes and fall in love! It’s not necessary to actually, you know, speak in complete sentences; we're all so emotionally damaged that it's ok to revert back to an infantile state of unknowing that is somehow simultaneously un-infantile, because we know that we're unknowing. Why? WHY is this happening? It’s insulting, really. Quirk stands in for actual emotional depth, wide-eyed naivete somehow means that one has transcended this earthly plane of complexity and entered into a state of post-maturity. Christ. Really? Don't get me wrong. I'm all for vulnerability. I just don't think we should be valorizing vulnerability as something cute. And, to be sure, I recognize that Miranda July isn't the first person to be hawking this pisspoor identity. Nope. We've got that ridiculous Amelie movie to blame for that.

My One Emotion

Apparently anger DOES make you smarter! Mars Needs Guitars and Yahoo News And here I thought it just made me lift more weight at the gym and write funny blog posts.

Writers, Rock Stars, and Bad Fashion Choices

The other night RE, alluding to the sex/hummus subtitle of the blog, asked if this was going to be a website devoted to dating. Goodness, no I replied; I mean, we've all seen Sex and the City, and god help me if I ever write the sort of drivel that Carrie did, and somehow got paid extravagantly for. I'm all for the occasional introspective post about the state of romance in the early 21st century, but I don't think there's enough material in my own life to drive this blog along. And even if there were, I'd probably be horribly embarrassed to give you much of a glimpse. What's more, let me just say that this blog's potential as a repository of dating anecdotes was seriously cut short last night when yours truly came to the sad, cliched realization that you most certainly cannot judge a book by its cover. (Or that maybe you most certainly should judge a book by its cover.) And that sometimes the cover looks a lot more like Bobby Flay than you initially realized. Seriously. Basically, this: about a month ago RL participated in a fiction reading that featured a number of youngish Brooklyn writer types. I came late, and through the window of the bookstore, I saw RL sitting next to some attractive young fellow, whom I later found out was another writer, DM. I very half-assedly emailed RL to ask for an introduction, should we all be in the same room together in the future. RL threw a party last night, and assured me that DM would be in attendance. And that DM was, in fact, single. Some brief g-searching confirmed that DM was a decently respected writer whose first novel apparently blew everyone away. DM was also in a band whose indie pop stylings were nicely up my alley. DM seemed like he might be a decent fellow. When I arrived at the party on the late side, RL said something to the effect of, "Oh, yeah, he's definitely coming. And he's bringing recreational drugs. And ... yeah, he's single. He's really single." The bit about the drugs made me a little cringe-y, but the really single bit -- that made me just plain scared. Like on-the-make single? I asked. RL nodded. I shuddered. I should note here that I, too, am single. Very half-assedly, half-heartedly single. I am not really single, in that I-need-to-get-laid-right-now sort of way. Shudder. So...yeah. DM shows up at the party, where he pretty much makes a beeline for a pair of attractive young ladies who very ditzily got all googly-eyed: oh wow, you're a writer? oooh! And either it was so dark outside, or googly-eyed is equivalent to blindness, but no one seemed to notice that DM was wearing not only an atrocious, oversized turquoise polo shirt, but also black shorts and profoundly unfetching Adidas flipflops. The man was a cross between frat boy and Bobby Flay (which might actually be sort of the same thing anyway). Was I disappointed? Sure. But mostly just confused. It was just a profound disconnect between what one does and what one looks like while doing it (or not doing it. And no, not that doing it). It's not like I think all writers of talent should look one way or another. I just don't expect them to look like ... that. Then again, it was already that sort of day: earlier, while watching 120 Minutes (oh yeah!), I got all excited when the video for the La's There She Goes came on. TK then pointed out: It's the alternate version. Just watch. And then the most horrific images came on the screen. I mean, it's a great, sweet-sounding song about heroin; I'm not suggesting that the video should show pretty English girls named Harriet and Polly riding their bikes through the English countryside. But I wasn't expecting lead singer Lee Powers to be playing his acoustic guitar while wearing track suit sans undershirt. Again, the man was wearing a track suit. Without an undershirt. Dear god. So I guess after that spectacle, seeing a probably very talented writer sporting myriad levels of ugliness -- well, all you can do is just shrug, right? It's not like all my dating stories are going to be about fashion, but I'm not going to get very far if the fellas are going to be stupid like that.

The Road to Hell: Sometimes I Forget!

After grabbing some dinner over at Pho Grand (which is not the best Vietnamese restaurant in the city, no matter what Robert Sietsema thinks), RE and I headed over to Bowery Ballroom on Friday night to see the Clientele, Beach House, and Pipas. I have to say: it was pretty friggin' wonderful. We missed most of the Beach House set, opting instead to have a relatively quiet conversation in the bar downstairs. But man oh man -- Pipas were pretty great, as were the Clientele. Afterwards the bands decamped to Heathers (I seriously had no input in this decision), where a lovely after-show party ensued. All in all it was a pretty spectacular evening. While waiting for Pipas to come on, RE and I stood near the back of the main floor, over by the bar. And as we looked around, we pretty much came to the same realization: there were a lot of Asian-woman-with-white-boy couples in the house. A lot. And, as RE noted, there was a great deal of variety in the matchups. You had your frumpy librarian-esque couple sitting on the floor over by the side of the bar. There was the Jersey-esque Asian girl/White boy duo, complete with odd hair and unfortunate polo shirt. There was no shortage of the hipster combo, as well as the twee sets. The more we looked, the more they seemed to come out of the woodwork. The last time I saw that many iterations of Eurasia, I was standing in line at the Landmark Sunshine Cinemas, waiting to see 2046. To be sure, a Wong Kar-Wai film is going to bring out a larger proportion of the bespectacled, liberal-arts-educated version of this, but it was still there: the slightly demure Asian woman with the know-it-all white boy. It drove me crazy. Back then, and last night at the show, I couldn't put my finger on what was so bothersome about that pairing. But I do know that in both instances, I started to feel a little aggravated. The coupling just seems so ... predictable. Cute, with a touch of the Other -- but only just a touch. The whole thing ... I dunno. Vanilla comes to mind. And then I remembered something: I'm an Asian woman. I've only dated white men. Shit. My romantic life is my own worst enemy. update: TK just informed me that this weekend is the 40th anniversary celebration of Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court case that legalized interracial marriage in the U.S. There's a big party tomorrow somewhere on the East River waterfront. "Maybe all the couples yesterday were here for the celebration," TK said dryly, "and decided to go see the Clientele show as part of their weekend festivities."

Heroes, Family, Faux Seattle

I have been having really sleepless nights for the last few week, either due to nicotine before bed, nicotine withdrawal, overdrinking, underdrinking, or the simple fact that my frequent bedmate has been vacationing in San Diego or Mexico or Texas for the last two weeks. I am no stranger to weird dreams. I have taken pride in my subconscious's ability to produce the psychic experience of Twin Peaks: Season 3, or oh-so-frequent events of not knowing if I'm the protagonist, on-looker, or anti-hero. But lately my dreams have become sort of disjoint mixes of multiple scenes occurring simultaneously, vague work anxieties, sexual panic, and an overwhelming desire to be somewhere besides New York. Last night I dreamed I was crossing a bridge from New York to Seattle and was attacked by a swarm of aggressive homeless people before making it across and then being distracted by a beautiful orange piece of machinery revolving in the snow like some kind of drill or watermill. And I didn't have my camera. And then I didn't have money. And then I had a fight with my family. And then I woke up. And sadly, that was the best sleep I've had in two full weeks.

A Cautionary Tale

In the past 2 days, I have been inside -- though not necessarily imbibing at -- 8 different drinking establishments. The upshot: last night, or early this morning, I had a dream in which my normally very stylish brother was wearing a kelly green and pink turtleneck and a grey, Cosby-esque cardigan. And in the dream, Dina Lohan (Lindsay's crazy, cokey mother) was scolding me for spending too much time on the computer. The moral of the story? Weirdly, I think my subconscious is telling me to stay home and watch more Law and Order reruns.

Random: I, Too, Bless the Rains Down in Africa

I had originally planned to write about how my Tuesday evening seemed to arc from the sublime* to the bittersweet to the surreal, but I’ll spare you the details and cut to the chase: After cutting short my sojourn to Williamsburg so that I could go home and recuperate from my week of travel and family, I ended up back in my neighborhood and received a text from JK: Barrio Chino, 10:30? Me, I don’t say no to these sorts of things. So JK and I traipsed down to Broome and Orchard, where Barrio Chino was decently, but not prohibitively, crowded, and took our seats at the bar. About 10 minutes into our mojito (JK) and wine (HT), I noticed that they were playing “Time After Time,” the 1985 Cyndi Lauper classic. A slightly odd choice for a place like Barrio Chino, but I wasn’t going to complain – I do love that song. I started humming along. And then conversation ensued, such that JK and I didn’t notice what the next song was until the song was already 1/3 of the way in. Africa. Yup, Africa. The Toto song. I’m not going to try to jog your memories because I know you know what song I’m talking about. And I know you know because everyone knows that song. JK and I found ourselves singing along. Loudly. And then we noticed that everyone else at the bar was singing along, too. Loudly. There was head-bobbing. There was faux-bongo-playing. It was amazing. In 2002, I celebrated my 28th birthday by throwing a 'Guilty Pleasures' party, whereby all guests were asked to bring a CD that they loved, but would normally never admit to enjoying. And we played parts of all the CDs that ended up in a stack by the stereo. It was a great time. Everyone found out about my love of Genesis' Invisible Touch album. I outed an ex's secret enjoyment of Counting Crows. (It's just that one song!, he kept insisting.) It was like that episode of Beverly Hills: 90210 where all the girls have a pajama party and share their deepest darkest secrets, and it's discovered that one girl is addicted to pills and another girl loves Brandon. Only at my party it was sans addiction or Jason Priestley -- just musical skeletons in the closet. It was great. My point? Toto would not have made an appearance at that party. There is no guilt with Toto. Only pleasure. I think we all proved that last night at Barrio Chino.
* BP, over at Soundbites, can wax (and photo) much more rhapsodic about this than I can.

Weird realization

I just realized HT had somehow psychically formatted awkward with almost the exact same colors as my defunct blog shatteredglass. weird. no one but me cares about this. HT adds: I was going for maximum readability so as to facilitate smoother ideological indoctrination.

Burger Night: Epstein's Bar

There's not much to say about Epstein's Bar, down in the Lower East Side, other than its slightly horrific pun, and the fact that it's got some good Sunday and Monday night deals. Sunday nights are 2-for-1 burgers ($7), and Monday nights involve $5 burgers, 25-cent wings, and $3-$4 drink specials involving liquor that I'd never consume, no matter how cheap. MD and I partook of the wings (decent), and ordered a couple of burgers. And ... they were fine. Could've been juicier. A bit on the overdone side. Fries were of the generic Sysco variety, but were nonetheless pretty good. All in all -- eh. But cheap! Completely overshadowing the meal was the conversation that ensued. A brief glimpse into what we're like when we're all burgered up (and beer cans aren't flying at us): MD: If everyone did things with a clear logical motivation the world would be a better place. HT: If everyone did that there would be no love. MD: Well there'd be something LIKE love.

That Which Does Not Kill Me: The Chili Cheese Fries Burrito

I've had a long-standing fascination with edible products that come together, in Voltron-esque fashion, to become mega-foods. During my extended stay in Ithaca, I had occasion to eat every so often at a place called Viva Taqueria, which fancied itself a California-style burrito place. The one thing that stood out in the otherwise unremarkable Viva menu was something called the Chicken Taco Salad Burrito. Yes. Not quite four food items melding into a single unit, but close enough: a taco salad with chicken, wrapped up in a tortilla. I ordered it often, mostly because I enjoyed saying it out loud. Chicken Taco Salad Burrito. Throw in some commas and it would still make sense, though you might end up with a different end product. And, while it wasn't all that good, it didn't kill me. And so while I was home in Southern California this past week, I read in the paper about how Wienerschnitzel, a local hotdog chain (correction: apparently the world's largest hotdog chain!) that I hadn't been to since the late 70s, had a 99-cent menu that featured something called the Chili Cheese Fries Burrito. And well, that was that. I was gonna have to try it. My father, who recently admitted to being on something of a hotdog kick, offered to accompany me to the local Wienerschnitzel on a bright and warm Sunday morning. (That's him in the picture. Hi dad!) I don't think either of us realized the extent of the terror that awaited us. Neither of us had been to the 'schnitzel in a while, but we had these vague, pleasant memories of it. (Oh well.) Dad got a stadium dog -- an extra long, all-beef dog -- with the works, and I ordered the aforementioned chili cheese fries burrito. I would've taken a picture of dad's hot dog, but he managed to wolf it down in about 90 seconds flat, which was a bad idea. I was much more deliberate in the handling of my burrito, which essentially was a slop of chili cheese fries encased in a tortilla. I mean, it's weird -- you're eating fries wrapped in a tortilla. Besides the general carb overload that was awaiting me, there was the (un)certain hell of chili and cheese. And I was to board an airplane in a couple of hours. Long story long, the burrito was predictably disgusting. The chili -- I'm still not sure if it had meat in it. I think it did? The fries were mediocre. The combination of flour-y tortilla + chili & cheese + subpar fries just made for a strange, starchy, fried, beefy (?) taste that lingered way too long. But I suppose you can only get so far with a place whose new catch phrase is "Pushing the Boundaries of Taste," right? I mean, I took four meaningful bites of it. I tried. And then I had to walk away. Voltron this most certainly was not.

Anger Management: Dogs and Babies

Saturday afternoon after watching (part of) a matinee at the lovely Cobble Hill Cinema, my friend PK and I wandered the neighborhood trying to figure out what to do. The film had unexpectedly broke down and let out early leaving us unsure of what to do with ourselves. It was 3:30 on a Saturday in New York: Too late for caffeine, and too early for drinking, and not the right time for a before dinner snack. Neither of us needed thriftstore/designer women's fashions nor precious, overpriced housewares. It was the quintessential NYC dilemma: what to do if you're not consuming? Befuddled and unable to answer this question, we decided it was, in fact, not too early to drink. So we go to Abilene, a lovely bar with a good soundtrack, small assortment of classic bar foods, and an al fresco front patio for summer. We get two Brooklyn Weisse and proceed to talk about the film, my rage at the absurd family in Flight 001, and PK's job in branding. It's about this time when the first baby arrived, followed by another, and another. The couches slowly fill up with the two separate groups of hipster parents and their children as we look on in horror realizing our mellow bar becomes a nursery school, or at best, the alcoholic version of Tea Lounge. PK and I begin to discuss the horror our non-native friends and relatives have experienced in baby bars such as Union Hall and how in other cities it's only alcoholics, single-mother/bartenders, and trash who bring their children to bars. Among the Brooklyn intelligentsia bringing a child to bars seems to represent a certain european je ne sais quoi. It's as if they're saying "i am exposing my children to adult discourse. I am teaching them that alcohol is not a drug to be abused but a healthy part of life in moderation. And also: I can't really be bothered to make changes to my life now that I have these little bundles of joy." A man walks in with a pug that starts barking at someone elses's lapdog and prompts three of the kids to start crying. I turn to PK and say "Babies are the new dogs." They're the new cute pet cum fashion accessory, the item the quality-obsessed and self-indulgent obtain when they've already bought every high-quality and self-indulgent item they can for themselves and need something or someone else to pamper and accesorize. The rage dies down and PK and I go back to talking about branding, the kid in his office who thinks shorts and knee-high white socks counts as business casual, and the retro 70s porn moment we're currently experiencing in fashion. This turns into a discussion about work, how conservative one needs to dress in the media, and how both of us feel lame but relieved that we'd never gotten tattoos. "Tattoos... THAT was a bad fashion trend." "And one you're stuck with forever. I feel bad for them. And a little embarrassed." At that moment one of the indie daddies leans out the open window to hand a plastic truck out to the parents who have moved out to the sidewalk so they can smoke (SMOKE?!?) and parent. His sock falls down a little and a tribal band is revealed above his ankle. I turn to PK: "Babies aren't the new dogs. Babies are the new tattoos: A sometimes impulsive choice that alters your body and your life forever. Even after the trend has passed, you can't get rid of when you're bored or realize it was a bad idea. " At least you can do the right thing and take a dog to the pound when you realize his need to be walked and fed is crimping your social life.

Collective, Unconscious: The Rise of the Idiot Savant.

I sometimes think that this blog could write itself if all MD and I did was just hold up the NY Times' Thursday or Sunday Styles section and say, "See?!" The Times' notion of trendspotting, or rather trend-reporting, isn't so much late or er, behind the times, as it is just kind of misguided. They're reporting trends which need to be stopped. Now. Case in point: I was all set today to wax annoyed at what I regard as the slow-building, but now surely at its apex, flowering of the trope of the wide-eyed, so-damaged-that-i-can-now-only-be-in-a-state-of-constant-naivete, prescient-but-inarticulate idiot savant. And then I wandered over to the Times' Sunday Styles section, to have a jolly laugh at whomever they've decided to have "A Night Out With," and discovered, to my (dis)pleasure, that it was Becky Stark, Ms. Lavender Diamond herself. Adding to the madness was the accompanying photograph, which featured Stark and none other than (the retreating back of) Miranda July; the two were part of a recent New York Public Library event, and in the article, July demonstrates to Stark how to rip off part of her slip and fashion it into a headband. I'm not kidding. I believe the article uses the word madcap to describe the general hilarity of it all. Madcap. And so you could stop reading right now, because anything else I would have to say -- well, the Times piece just unfolds (unravels?) it so much more adeptly, without even trying. Without even knowing. To be sure, upon my return to New York, I'm going to sit down and write my originally-planned post. But I'll just let you all sit with this one for a little while, to give you a little peak into the multi-part series that's going to unfold shortly. And also to give myself a little time to down that glass of airport chardonnay.

The Road to Hell: Waitress

Today PK and I went to Cobble Hill Cinemas to see The Waitress, actor/director Adrienne Shelley's last film before her untimely death at the hands of an irate construction worker. About an hour into the film the dialog is replaced with a repetetive clicking/thumping sound, almost like a heartbeat; as this scene takes place during a sonogra