Today is Black Friday, but it is also Buy Nothing Day, an initiative against any shopping whatsoever. In years past, I didn't really spend any money on Black Friday, and I felt sort of proud of that, even if I wasn't intentionally aligning myself with the more proactive supporters of the shopping moratorium.
This year, however, Guitar Center, that (un)friendly neighborhood behemoth of a musical instrument retail store, did me in. Those calculating fiends! They sent me a 20%-off-any-one-item coupon in the mail, as if knowing that I'd been eying that new Electro Harmonix stompbox. Plus, they made the coupon valid for two hours only, between 8:00 and 10:00 this very morning.
So I woke at 9:00, rushed out to Guitar Center on 14th Street, and bought. I bought! For the first time in years, I bought something on Black Friday. And you know what? I can now make my guitar sound like an organ. Some things are worth getting up at nine on a holiday.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
So long, and thanks for all the turkey
Today is Thanksgiving, a uniquely American holiday that, to the outsider, appears to celebrate the deliciousness of turkey. In reality, it celebrates gluttony, the four-day weekend, and pre-Christmas shopping. Or something like that.
In keeping with recent tradition, we hightailed it to central New Jersey to have a Thanksgiving meal with Sarah's family. This year, due to my new interest in football, I actually enjoyed watching the Thanksgiving Day football game on Fox, in which the Green Bay Packers beat the Detroit Lions. Brett Favre was not the first football player I'd heard of while growing up in Malaysia (a gentler land where "football" means soccer and American football is about as popular as getting punched in the face). But Brett Favre and the Packers won the Superbowl the year I came to the United States, so his name is, to me, synonymous with Americana. Favre is 38 years old now. He's still the starting quarterback for the Packers. It's actually sort of amazing.
Here's the other thing about Thanksgiving: it's the day before Black Friday, ostensibly the biggest shopping day of the year. Today, apart from the areas surrounding the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Manhattan was a ghost town, the calm before the storm. Tomorrow, I expect pandemonium.
In keeping with recent tradition, we hightailed it to central New Jersey to have a Thanksgiving meal with Sarah's family. This year, due to my new interest in football, I actually enjoyed watching the Thanksgiving Day football game on Fox, in which the Green Bay Packers beat the Detroit Lions. Brett Favre was not the first football player I'd heard of while growing up in Malaysia (a gentler land where "football" means soccer and American football is about as popular as getting punched in the face). But Brett Favre and the Packers won the Superbowl the year I came to the United States, so his name is, to me, synonymous with Americana. Favre is 38 years old now. He's still the starting quarterback for the Packers. It's actually sort of amazing.
Here's the other thing about Thanksgiving: it's the day before Black Friday, ostensibly the biggest shopping day of the year. Today, apart from the areas surrounding the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Manhattan was a ghost town, the calm before the storm. Tomorrow, I expect pandemonium.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Goals, or lack thereof
Today I played my first football (soccer) game in a long time. In fact, today was the first time I did any sort of significant exercise in a long time. I know I wrote a few days ago that I was going to begin running, but in reality, my first run was immediately prior to the soccer game -- I would have been late to the game, so I ran nine blocks through Chinatown to get to the park.
The game was a blowout, and not in our favor. I was reduced to a stumbling, panting mess, which sort of meant that my team (comprised of my co-workers) was playing one man down. Granted, our opponents were large and skilled. Okay, they weren't that large, but they were swift and adroit with the ball. Still, a part of me is refusing to make that an excuse. The fact is that I'm dreadfully out of shape, and I need to do something about it.
So, my first goal is to be able to jog twenty minutes straight without having that, you know, dying feeling. I realize twenty minutes is hardly worth cheering, but I'm taking small steps here. Besides, having run frequently in high school, I realize that the leap from twenty minutes to, say, forty minutes is exponential. That was true when I was 16, at least.
And my second goal is to avoid being an embarrassment to my co-workers on the field. This, I suspect, will be harder to accomplish.
The game was a blowout, and not in our favor. I was reduced to a stumbling, panting mess, which sort of meant that my team (comprised of my co-workers) was playing one man down. Granted, our opponents were large and skilled. Okay, they weren't that large, but they were swift and adroit with the ball. Still, a part of me is refusing to make that an excuse. The fact is that I'm dreadfully out of shape, and I need to do something about it.
So, my first goal is to be able to jog twenty minutes straight without having that, you know, dying feeling. I realize twenty minutes is hardly worth cheering, but I'm taking small steps here. Besides, having run frequently in high school, I realize that the leap from twenty minutes to, say, forty minutes is exponential. That was true when I was 16, at least.
And my second goal is to avoid being an embarrassment to my co-workers on the field. This, I suspect, will be harder to accomplish.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The running man
For the first time since high school, I'm seriously and soberly attempting to engage in some form of consistent exercise. You have to be motivated to find proper places to exercise in the middle of Manhattan, and joining a gym is an extravagance for me at this point. So I've done two things: I bought a proper pair of running shoes and will begin running outdoors, and I joined my office's league soccer team.
I've been living in sloth for the last few years; my only exercise used to consist of walking to and from work, and walking up and down the four flights of stairs in my apartment building. I don't have any serious health problems, but I did have to see a doctor earlier this year for a condition at least partially caused by lack of mobility and circulation.
So what's it like to run in NYC? Um, I'll write about it when I actually get around to it, but I will say this: New York is a runner's city (Runner's World magazine apparently rated it the third best American city for running, according to this site). This year's New York City Marathon was run merely eleven days ago, and yet I still see runners tearing up the sidewalk at all times of the day, and in all kinds of weather. The fools. The healthy fools.
I've been living in sloth for the last few years; my only exercise used to consist of walking to and from work, and walking up and down the four flights of stairs in my apartment building. I don't have any serious health problems, but I did have to see a doctor earlier this year for a condition at least partially caused by lack of mobility and circulation.
So what's it like to run in NYC? Um, I'll write about it when I actually get around to it, but I will say this: New York is a runner's city (Runner's World magazine apparently rated it the third best American city for running, according to this site). This year's New York City Marathon was run merely eleven days ago, and yet I still see runners tearing up the sidewalk at all times of the day, and in all kinds of weather. The fools. The healthy fools.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Smell thy neighbor
I lived in an apartment building for the first three years of my life (back in Malaysia, where apartments are better known as flats). Then my parents bought a house, and suddenly we had a front yard where my brother and I could play with the garden hose on a hot afternoon, and a backyard where we grew mangoes and limes and four-angled beans. I lived in that house until I went to college.
Now, I live in an apartment again -- one about 12,000 miles away from where I grew up. And I wish I could remember what it was like to live in an apartment in Malaysia. Here's what it's like living in an apartment building in New York:
I never speak to my neighbors. In fact, I barely ever see my neighbors. New Yorkers are intensely private people, especially the twenty-something single ones, and getting to know your neighbor is pointless and inconvenient for the most part. There are some exceptions; I hear stories of summer cookouts on the roof of some apartments, and the whole building is invited. But for the most part, apartment living in NYC is characterized by isolation, punctuated by polite nods and hasty hello's as neighbors pass each other on the stairs.
The funny thing about living in an apartment is this: there are some things you just can't hide from people. My neighbors can conceal their faces, but they can't hide their odors. Since I live on the top floor of an elevator-less building, I have to walk past every door of every apartment. I made mental notes on my way up from work today. This is what each floor smells like:
1st Floor - hint of bleach, but very slight
2nd Floor - rotten cabbage
3rd Floor - something medicinal, like Chinese herbal tea
4th Floor - cooked carrots
5th Floor (my floor) - almost odorless
I could make this an ongoing series and report these odors daily, but the truth is the fourth floor always smells like cooked carrots.
Now, I live in an apartment again -- one about 12,000 miles away from where I grew up. And I wish I could remember what it was like to live in an apartment in Malaysia. Here's what it's like living in an apartment building in New York:
I never speak to my neighbors. In fact, I barely ever see my neighbors. New Yorkers are intensely private people, especially the twenty-something single ones, and getting to know your neighbor is pointless and inconvenient for the most part. There are some exceptions; I hear stories of summer cookouts on the roof of some apartments, and the whole building is invited. But for the most part, apartment living in NYC is characterized by isolation, punctuated by polite nods and hasty hello's as neighbors pass each other on the stairs.
The funny thing about living in an apartment is this: there are some things you just can't hide from people. My neighbors can conceal their faces, but they can't hide their odors. Since I live on the top floor of an elevator-less building, I have to walk past every door of every apartment. I made mental notes on my way up from work today. This is what each floor smells like:
1st Floor - hint of bleach, but very slight
2nd Floor - rotten cabbage
3rd Floor - something medicinal, like Chinese herbal tea
4th Floor - cooked carrots
5th Floor (my floor) - almost odorless
I could make this an ongoing series and report these odors daily, but the truth is the fourth floor always smells like cooked carrots.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Playing catch-up
Whaddaya know -- it's been three months since I started this blog, so I'm already a quarter of the way through my final year in New York City. Since I haven't written in a while (due to a confluence of factors as varied as cold weather, professional sports, and long work hours), here's a rundown of what's been happening in the last two weeks, starting with the most recent.
Friday, November 2: It's amazing how you can ignore certain things that are right under your nose. There's a restaurant just down the street from our apartment called The Kitchen Club, a cozy-looking corner joint that always looked a little too old and stuffy for our liking. But Sarah (who I'll begin to referring to as Sarah the Wife, unless she tells me not to) went there a couple of weeks ago and loved it! So we went back this Friday and everything was delicious, especially the duck-and-ginger dumpling appetizer. Unlike virtually every restaurant I've been to, the food at the Kitchen Club is under-seasoned, which delighted me to no end. One of my pet peeves is over-salted food, which I complained about in my entry on Babbo.
Tuesday and Wednesday, October 30-31: Halloween in New York is wild. For example, on my way to work on Wednesday, I walked by a woman dressed as a squid, talking nonchalantly to her friend, who was dressed in plainclothes. By then, I'd sort of had enough with Halloween, because the night before, the company had our annual Halloween Party, which, among other things, is an excuse to get drunk on a weeknight and then partake in what is simultaneously the best and the worst cultural activity in modern society: karaoke. But before things devolved so, I and four co-workers had to judge the group costume contest. Let's just say that the winning team beat out all others by sheer audacity and humor, in an NC-17 kind of way.
Thursday, October 25: I attended Black Ball 2007, a fundraising event held annually to honor people who've done significant work to battle AIDS and its effects in Africa. The only reason I got to go was because Anomaly does pro bono design and promotional work for Keep A Child Alive, the organizer of the event. I was not, unfortunately, one of the select few offered a seat at the $10,000-a-plate table, eating Korean spare-ribs just a few feet away from the likes of Bono, Gwen Stefani and Jay-Z. Most of us from the company were banished to the upstairs cocktail area, where we watched Alicia Keys duet with Sheryl Crow on stage, and reduced the open bar to their last bottle of vodka. But the real thrill was listening to Bono's speech, during which he imagined a world where a person's survival isn't dependent on where he is born. After five minutes listening to the guy, I understood his ability to sway rulers and rockers, policy-makers and proletariat: there is no discernible pretense in him.
Postscript: On the same night I was serenaded by Alicia Keys, Sarah the Wife bumped into celebrity chef Bobby Flay at a book signing, which explains why I now have a signed copy of Mesa Grill Cookbook. This was one ridiculous night.
Thursday, October 25: I had a long conversation with a cab driver. For the duration of my trip, which was between Madison Square Garden and my apartment at the corner of Mott and Houston, his meter refused to work, a consequence of those newfangled GPS systems that cabbies are now required to install. The broken meter was of no concern to me -- I'm well familiar with the route and his estimation of the fare was exactly what I'd had in mind. We chatted about the cabbie strike, and then about where he was from (El Salvador) and whether or not it was still lucrative to drive a cab in New York (it is decidedly not, due to higher maintenance and gas prices and stagnant ridership). He was the second cabbie I'd spoken to in two weeks who was seriously thinking about leaving New York and returning to his native country, which made me sort of sad. I tipped him extra.
Friday, November 2: It's amazing how you can ignore certain things that are right under your nose. There's a restaurant just down the street from our apartment called The Kitchen Club, a cozy-looking corner joint that always looked a little too old and stuffy for our liking. But Sarah (who I'll begin to referring to as Sarah the Wife, unless she tells me not to) went there a couple of weeks ago and loved it! So we went back this Friday and everything was delicious, especially the duck-and-ginger dumpling appetizer. Unlike virtually every restaurant I've been to, the food at the Kitchen Club is under-seasoned, which delighted me to no end. One of my pet peeves is over-salted food, which I complained about in my entry on Babbo.
Tuesday and Wednesday, October 30-31: Halloween in New York is wild. For example, on my way to work on Wednesday, I walked by a woman dressed as a squid, talking nonchalantly to her friend, who was dressed in plainclothes. By then, I'd sort of had enough with Halloween, because the night before, the company had our annual Halloween Party, which, among other things, is an excuse to get drunk on a weeknight and then partake in what is simultaneously the best and the worst cultural activity in modern society: karaoke. But before things devolved so, I and four co-workers had to judge the group costume contest. Let's just say that the winning team beat out all others by sheer audacity and humor, in an NC-17 kind of way.
Thursday, October 25: I attended Black Ball 2007, a fundraising event held annually to honor people who've done significant work to battle AIDS and its effects in Africa. The only reason I got to go was because Anomaly does pro bono design and promotional work for Keep A Child Alive, the organizer of the event. I was not, unfortunately, one of the select few offered a seat at the $10,000-a-plate table, eating Korean spare-ribs just a few feet away from the likes of Bono, Gwen Stefani and Jay-Z. Most of us from the company were banished to the upstairs cocktail area, where we watched Alicia Keys duet with Sheryl Crow on stage, and reduced the open bar to their last bottle of vodka. But the real thrill was listening to Bono's speech, during which he imagined a world where a person's survival isn't dependent on where he is born. After five minutes listening to the guy, I understood his ability to sway rulers and rockers, policy-makers and proletariat: there is no discernible pretense in him.
Postscript: On the same night I was serenaded by Alicia Keys, Sarah the Wife bumped into celebrity chef Bobby Flay at a book signing, which explains why I now have a signed copy of Mesa Grill Cookbook. This was one ridiculous night.
Thursday, October 25: I had a long conversation with a cab driver. For the duration of my trip, which was between Madison Square Garden and my apartment at the corner of Mott and Houston, his meter refused to work, a consequence of those newfangled GPS systems that cabbies are now required to install. The broken meter was of no concern to me -- I'm well familiar with the route and his estimation of the fare was exactly what I'd had in mind. We chatted about the cabbie strike, and then about where he was from (El Salvador) and whether or not it was still lucrative to drive a cab in New York (it is decidedly not, due to higher maintenance and gas prices and stagnant ridership). He was the second cabbie I'd spoken to in two weeks who was seriously thinking about leaving New York and returning to his native country, which made me sort of sad. I tipped him extra.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Power Hauer
Tonight, I saw one of the best movies I've ever seen in a theater. And it's a 25-year-old film. Sure, the film's artistic merits (great direction, bristling performances by stars Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer, a genre-bending screenplay) had much to do with how joyful the experience of watching Blade Runner: The Final Cut was for me. But that sparkling new print! That remastered soundtrack! Those new shots and effects! It also helped that the film was shown at the Ziegfeld, a gracefully aging movie palace in midtown Manhattan with a fantastic digital projector.
This was also the first time in years I've seen a movie in a theater all by my lonesome. Perhaps this was for the best -- more time to myself, to savor every stunning frame, and to realize that Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty is one of the great screen villains of all time. I've seen multiple versions of the film, on both VHS and DVD, and only ever on a TV screen, but this was like watching it for the first time.
This was also the first time in years I've seen a movie in a theater all by my lonesome. Perhaps this was for the best -- more time to myself, to savor every stunning frame, and to realize that Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty is one of the great screen villains of all time. I've seen multiple versions of the film, on both VHS and DVD, and only ever on a TV screen, but this was like watching it for the first time.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Following Britney Spears
How do you know you're in Hollywood? When you're looking for a parking space outside an apartment building at 2:00 in the morning on Friday, and you have to gently swerve to avoid giggly blond girls spilling out of their cars (and their dresses). Wait a minute, you say. How is that different from New York? Well, in New York, all the cars are cabs, and no one drives except cabbies.As with New York, I arrived in Los Angeles with a list of things to do, places to go, and food to eat, all of which we will get to in the next few posts. The morning after we arrived, for example, I checked "drive on Mulholland Drive" off my to-do list. Also, I checked "drive past the the parking lot on Ventura Boulevard where Britney Spears drove into a car and left the scene on August 6 2007" off my other list. This other list is called "Things I did unintentionally." Obviously, there is a major sub-section of this list that involves celebrities, because no matter how hard you try, you cannot escape the stifling awareness of celebrity in Los Angeles.
I use the word "celebrity" in the loosest terms, of course.
Coming up... the blondest state.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Leaving on a jet plane
Today I'm kicking off a short series of blog entries about my trip to the great state of California. Yes, I know this is a New York City blog, which is why I'm calling this series "Finding New York in California."The thing you have to understand about leaving NYC on an airplane is that New York's most prominent airport, John F. Kennedy International, is one of the worst international airports in the world. The reasons are numerous: misleading signage, unreliable and expensive methods of transport to and from the airport, dilapidated facilities at certain terminals, and unattractive architecture. On top of that, the unpredictable weather patterns over the region frequently cause flight delays, as it did on the evening we boarded our Virgin America flight bound for Los Angeles. We were supposed to take off at 7:35 PM -- it was closer to 10:30 PM by the time our Airbus A320 finally left the ground.
The only consolation was that Virgin America has live TV channels at every seat. However, this convenience taught me an important lesson: When flying on an airline that does not provide free meals, do not watch the Food Network. Not even for a moment.
Coming up... how to tell you've arrived in Hollywood.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Things I saw in 20 minutes
I went to Freemans Sporting Club, the barber shop I wrote about in this post, to get a haircut this morning, but they don't open until 12:00 noon. So I came back home. It was an interesting trip nonetheless. Here were some things I saw in the 20 minutes it took for me to go there and back.
"Snowman Seeks Skibunny" -- graffiti on wall, Rivington Street
"Angry Fembot Army" -- graffiti on door frame of private home, Freeman Alley
"Fascism Sucks" -- slogan on t-shirt worn by a middle-aged man sitting outside the Salvation Army building
As I walked by a construction site at the corner of Elizabeth and Prince Streets, just two blocks from home, a construction worker sweeping the sidewalk flagged me down and asked if this area was called SoHo. He wore an orange hardhat and had no front teeth. I told him that it was closer to Little Italy than SoHo, and that SoHo was on the other side of Broadway.
"So if I was to tell people where I work, what would I say?"
"Well," I said, "you could say NoLIta. It stands for North of Little Italy."
He didn't like the word "NoLIta" (probably because he didn't know the name and neither might anyone else he'd care to tell) and instead asked if he was anywhere near the Lower East Side. I told him that, in fact, the Lower East Side was a merely one block away, on the other side of Bowery.
"Ah, okay," he said. "Cos I'm like, where the hell am I?!"
We laughed at the absurdity of his predicament. I imagine he's going to go home tonight, and his wife will ask, "So, honey, where did the company assign you today?" And he's going to say, "Well, it wasn't Little Italy, and it wasn't SoHo, and it wasn't the Lower East Side, and some dude told me it was a 'hood called Noriega or Normandy or somethin' like it." And then his wife's eyes will narrow, and she will say, "You weren't at work today at all, were you? You were out drinkin' with your cousin Leroy! Remember what happened the last time you drank before 5:00 PM? Remember how you lost them front teeth?"
"Snowman Seeks Skibunny" -- graffiti on wall, Rivington Street
"Angry Fembot Army" -- graffiti on door frame of private home, Freeman Alley
"Fascism Sucks" -- slogan on t-shirt worn by a middle-aged man sitting outside the Salvation Army building
As I walked by a construction site at the corner of Elizabeth and Prince Streets, just two blocks from home, a construction worker sweeping the sidewalk flagged me down and asked if this area was called SoHo. He wore an orange hardhat and had no front teeth. I told him that it was closer to Little Italy than SoHo, and that SoHo was on the other side of Broadway.
"So if I was to tell people where I work, what would I say?"
"Well," I said, "you could say NoLIta. It stands for North of Little Italy."
He didn't like the word "NoLIta" (probably because he didn't know the name and neither might anyone else he'd care to tell) and instead asked if he was anywhere near the Lower East Side. I told him that, in fact, the Lower East Side was a merely one block away, on the other side of Bowery.
"Ah, okay," he said. "Cos I'm like, where the hell am I?!"
We laughed at the absurdity of his predicament. I imagine he's going to go home tonight, and his wife will ask, "So, honey, where did the company assign you today?" And he's going to say, "Well, it wasn't Little Italy, and it wasn't SoHo, and it wasn't the Lower East Side, and some dude told me it was a 'hood called Noriega or Normandy or somethin' like it." And then his wife's eyes will narrow, and she will say, "You weren't at work today at all, were you? You were out drinkin' with your cousin Leroy! Remember what happened the last time you drank before 5:00 PM? Remember how you lost them front teeth?"
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Short notes
I've been a little negligent with the blog over the last few days, though not for lack of things to write about. I'm not feeling particularly healthy -- when I get sick, it's usually a combination of exhaustion, lack of sleep, irregular eating, and not keeping warm at night. Currently, my symptoms are very mild: a heaviness in my head, an itch in my throat, a barely discernible fever. It's been enough, however, to lower my spirits and put me off blogging temporarily. But here I am again.
---
Last weekend, I ate at the Red Hook Ball Fields. According to the New York Times, "there is no better street-food scene in all of New York," a statement I am unfit to confirm since I don't eat a lot of street food. But it sure beats the San Gennaro festival. I'll post pictures and more about the food later.
---
Sarah and I will be heading out to sunny Los Angeles, California, in a few days. The last vacation I took was 14 months ago, so I'm overdue. We'll be attending a wedding (at which Sarah is a bridesmaid and I will be playing guitar with the groom during the ceremony), after which I'll be staying another whole week while Sarah jets over to Milan, Italy, for work. It'll be a good opportunity for me to rest and relax, but an overwhelming urge to go on a food tour of the Los Angeles area has gripped me of late, so this perennially skinny boy may return to the east coast with some excess baggage, if you know what I mean.
I love L.A. One thing I'd like to do is blog about the differences between Los Angeles and New York, two iconic American cities on opposite coasts. Last summer, when drivers rolled their windows down and turned up their speakers on the streets of Manhattan, they played Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," a fitting anthem for the neurotic New Yorker. In Los Angeles, drivers blasted... Coldplay. That's right, Coldplay -- the band whose songs "wallowed happily in their unhappiness," to quote Jon Pareles of the New York Times (he also called them "the most insufferable band of the decade.") That's how persistently nice the weather in the Golden State is: you have to play depressing music to offset the sunshine.
---
At the end of this week, I'll be roughly one-sixth of the way through my final year as a New York resident. Highlights have been the free Battles gig at the Seaport Music Festival, attending the NYC premiere of Rocket Science, walking through Richard Serra's immense steel sculptures at MoMA, and our anniversary dinner at Babbo.
---
Last weekend, I ate at the Red Hook Ball Fields. According to the New York Times, "there is no better street-food scene in all of New York," a statement I am unfit to confirm since I don't eat a lot of street food. But it sure beats the San Gennaro festival. I'll post pictures and more about the food later.
---
Sarah and I will be heading out to sunny Los Angeles, California, in a few days. The last vacation I took was 14 months ago, so I'm overdue. We'll be attending a wedding (at which Sarah is a bridesmaid and I will be playing guitar with the groom during the ceremony), after which I'll be staying another whole week while Sarah jets over to Milan, Italy, for work. It'll be a good opportunity for me to rest and relax, but an overwhelming urge to go on a food tour of the Los Angeles area has gripped me of late, so this perennially skinny boy may return to the east coast with some excess baggage, if you know what I mean.
I love L.A. One thing I'd like to do is blog about the differences between Los Angeles and New York, two iconic American cities on opposite coasts. Last summer, when drivers rolled their windows down and turned up their speakers on the streets of Manhattan, they played Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," a fitting anthem for the neurotic New Yorker. In Los Angeles, drivers blasted... Coldplay. That's right, Coldplay -- the band whose songs "wallowed happily in their unhappiness," to quote Jon Pareles of the New York Times (he also called them "the most insufferable band of the decade.") That's how persistently nice the weather in the Golden State is: you have to play depressing music to offset the sunshine.
---
At the end of this week, I'll be roughly one-sixth of the way through my final year as a New York resident. Highlights have been the free Battles gig at the Seaport Music Festival, attending the NYC premiere of Rocket Science, walking through Richard Serra's immense steel sculptures at MoMA, and our anniversary dinner at Babbo.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
My favorite New York website
To get a feel of what it's like to live in New York, I'd say the best thing to do short of actually moving here would be to read Gothamist, the best New York City blog out there. Never crass, jaded or sensationalistic (characteristics that too often define other NYC blogs) Gothamist is fun and informative enough to read multiple times a day, since it covers events, weather, sports, business, and politics. Yet somehow, it's got this small-town newspaper feel to it, too. For example, recent posts have included a recipe for cherry almond chocolate chip cookies, and a news story about a cow on the loose in the streets of Queens. Hey, if Bessie's tearing up the sidewalk on my street, I'd want to know.
Click here to read Gothamist.
Click here to read Gothamist.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Molto buono: a dinner at Babbo
On September 18th, 2004, Sarah and I were married. To celebrate our third anniversary tonight -- and fulfill a long-time culinary goal -- we dined at Babbo, Mario Batali's first New York restaurant and one of Gourmet Magazine's 50 Best Restaurants in America. I know I insisted in this post two weeks ago that we don't often eat at places run by celebrity chefs, yet there we were tonight, feasting on Batali's outrageously delicious Italian dishes: a three-minute egg broken over warm lamb's tongue; marinated sardines with caramelized fennel and lobster oil; gnocchi in a veritable stew of oxtail and tomatoes; lamb chops and mint leaves nestled on a summery lemon yogurt sauce.
We can't keep this up for much longer, for both the expanding waistline of doom and the incredible shrinking bank account will soon stretch us to uncomfortable limits. But it's impossible to think of eventualities when, in the immediacy of celebration and the breaking of bread that accompanies it, you partake in all the riches of God's creation artfully arranged on a ceramic dish. I'm not saying we had a religious experience at Babbo -- a few things detracted from the otherwise excellent meal, including slow service and some over-seasoning. But, man, oh man, food like that makes you believe you can do anything. Like eat lamb's tongue.
We can't keep this up for much longer, for both the expanding waistline of doom and the incredible shrinking bank account will soon stretch us to uncomfortable limits. But it's impossible to think of eventualities when, in the immediacy of celebration and the breaking of bread that accompanies it, you partake in all the riches of God's creation artfully arranged on a ceramic dish. I'm not saying we had a religious experience at Babbo -- a few things detracted from the otherwise excellent meal, including slow service and some over-seasoning. But, man, oh man, food like that makes you believe you can do anything. Like eat lamb's tongue.
Michigan rising
Finally, I see New Yorkers wearing University of Michigan apparel again. When Michigan, a perennial championship contender, went 0-2 to begin the college football season, including a stultifying loss to Division I-AA school Appalachian State, there was nary a maize-and-blue t-shirt in sight. Then, last Saturday, the Wolverines shut out Notre Dame for the season's first win. On Sunday, I saw a guy on the subway wearing a Michigan sweatshirt. And today, on my way to work, I rode the elevator with a gentleman wearing a button-down shirt, necktie, and a Michigan cap on his head.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Shopaholics wanted
I found this sign taped to the front door of our building this evening:
Attention Residents:
Disney Pictures and Bruckheimer Productions are going to be filming a new movie this fall entitled, "Confessions of a Shopaholic". As research for this film, we are looking for apartments belonging to women between the ages of 21 and 28. We would like to take pictures of the apartment for our art department so that they can get a sense of how to design the main character's apartment. This is NOT for filming. If you fall into this category and are interested, please contact Malaika Johnson at 347.528.6709.
Malaika Johnson
Locations Department
We get signs like this one all the time. And film crews set up lighting and filming equipment on our street, on average, about once every two months. Since Sarah is outside the specified age range, we certainly won't be calling Ms. Johnson. But Sarah is likely to be in the target audience for this movie, which, I'm guessing, is likely based on Sophie Kinsella's book of the same title. It may end up being a fluffy chick flick, but at least you'll know the main character's apartment will be based on a real home in one of the best shopping districts in the city.
Attention Residents:
Disney Pictures and Bruckheimer Productions are going to be filming a new movie this fall entitled, "Confessions of a Shopaholic". As research for this film, we are looking for apartments belonging to women between the ages of 21 and 28. We would like to take pictures of the apartment for our art department so that they can get a sense of how to design the main character's apartment. This is NOT for filming. If you fall into this category and are interested, please contact Malaika Johnson at 347.528.6709.
Malaika Johnson
Locations Department
We get signs like this one all the time. And film crews set up lighting and filming equipment on our street, on average, about once every two months. Since Sarah is outside the specified age range, we certainly won't be calling Ms. Johnson. But Sarah is likely to be in the target audience for this movie, which, I'm guessing, is likely based on Sophie Kinsella's book of the same title. It may end up being a fluffy chick flick, but at least you'll know the main character's apartment will be based on a real home in one of the best shopping districts in the city.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Winners and losers
My mother in-law, echoing a popular and accurate sentiment, often says, "New York loves a winner." This is especially true for the city's professional sports teams. Now, I'm no sports pundit, and the only pro sport I follow with any true conviction is basketball. Unfortunately for me, the New York Knicks, once an NBA powerhouse, has in recent years been about as exciting to watch as my cat's attempt to remove an ice cube from her water bowl. I did attend a couple of games last season at the famed Madison Square Garden, both times using free tickets, both times leaving disappointed as the home team sort of gave up altogether. I've never really been a fan of the Knicks, though, so it's hardly a personal loss.
For more successful sports organizations, there are always the Mets and the Yankees, New York's major league baseball teams. Confession: Having been born and raised in another country, I only recently figured out the game of baseball. Until about two or three months ago, I didn't know what RBI stood for. Until tonight, I didn't know what ERA stood for.* And I'm still learning. I don't know for sure if an understanding of various acronyms and statistical categories is essential to enjoying the "American pastime," but it sure does enhance the enjoyment for me. Tonight, as I watched the Yankees hold off perennial rivals the Boston Red Sox in the ninth inning to win the game by a precarious margin, it occurred to me that I might be in danger of becoming a fan.
It's not hard to be a fan of the Yankees -- they're the most successful North American professional sports franchise in history, winning 26 World Series championships (by comparison, the Boston Celtics, the most successful pro basketball franchise, have a paltry 16 NBA titles). Fairweather fans are a dime a dozen in this city, but still, you have to appreciate the support from the New York area for the phenomenal success of the Rutgers college football** team, who last year finished the season with a 10-2 record, the best in the school's history. Not too long ago, they were lucky to win two games in one season. When I was at Rutgers, several years ago, I never ever went to a game. In fact, when I was at Rutgers, I didn't even know how the game of football is played.
Rutgers is 40 miles outside of the city, but it's the closest you can get to a winning local college football team in a city that desperately wants a college football team to root for. I was on the train today heading back into New York from New Jersey, and in between standard announcements ("ThisstationstopisMetroparkpleasewatchyourstepasyouexitthetrain"), the driver came on the PA system to announce that "Green Bay is beatin' up on the Giants." Then he reported that "Rutgers is number nine in the country," meaning that the Rutgers football team was now the ninth-best*** college team in the nation, according to the AP Poll. In spite of myself, I let out a celebratory "whoo-hoo!" and the teenaged boy in a Nike baseball cap sitting next to me flinched and gave a me furtive glance, as if worried that I might behead him with my cellphone.
*Yes, I know I could have looked up these things online, or asked one of the many sports nuts I know, but it's been far more rewarding learning the game as I watch it on TV.
**By "football" I mean gridiron, or American, football. Not to be confused with "soccer" which, while indeed a beautiful game and one I grew up playing, is merely the second-greatest game in the world.
***Rutgers is actually ranked 11th. Apparently the train operator's information was as reliable as New Jersey Transit's schedules.
For more successful sports organizations, there are always the Mets and the Yankees, New York's major league baseball teams. Confession: Having been born and raised in another country, I only recently figured out the game of baseball. Until about two or three months ago, I didn't know what RBI stood for. Until tonight, I didn't know what ERA stood for.* And I'm still learning. I don't know for sure if an understanding of various acronyms and statistical categories is essential to enjoying the "American pastime," but it sure does enhance the enjoyment for me. Tonight, as I watched the Yankees hold off perennial rivals the Boston Red Sox in the ninth inning to win the game by a precarious margin, it occurred to me that I might be in danger of becoming a fan.
It's not hard to be a fan of the Yankees -- they're the most successful North American professional sports franchise in history, winning 26 World Series championships (by comparison, the Boston Celtics, the most successful pro basketball franchise, have a paltry 16 NBA titles). Fairweather fans are a dime a dozen in this city, but still, you have to appreciate the support from the New York area for the phenomenal success of the Rutgers college football** team, who last year finished the season with a 10-2 record, the best in the school's history. Not too long ago, they were lucky to win two games in one season. When I was at Rutgers, several years ago, I never ever went to a game. In fact, when I was at Rutgers, I didn't even know how the game of football is played.
Rutgers is 40 miles outside of the city, but it's the closest you can get to a winning local college football team in a city that desperately wants a college football team to root for. I was on the train today heading back into New York from New Jersey, and in between standard announcements ("ThisstationstopisMetroparkpleasewatchyourstepasyouexitthetrain"), the driver came on the PA system to announce that "Green Bay is beatin' up on the Giants." Then he reported that "Rutgers is number nine in the country," meaning that the Rutgers football team was now the ninth-best*** college team in the nation, according to the AP Poll. In spite of myself, I let out a celebratory "whoo-hoo!" and the teenaged boy in a Nike baseball cap sitting next to me flinched and gave a me furtive glance, as if worried that I might behead him with my cellphone.
*Yes, I know I could have looked up these things online, or asked one of the many sports nuts I know, but it's been far more rewarding learning the game as I watch it on TV.
**By "football" I mean gridiron, or American, football. Not to be confused with "soccer" which, while indeed a beautiful game and one I grew up playing, is merely the second-greatest game in the world.
***Rutgers is actually ranked 11th. Apparently the train operator's information was as reliable as New Jersey Transit's schedules.
Sowing and reaping in Brooklyn
I first read about Manny Howard, the Brooklyn man who grew a farm in his backyard as his sole source of sustenance, in last week's New York Magazine cover story. But with the likes of Reuters covering his harrowing and only somewhat rewarding endeavor, it looks like the appeal of the story is universal. Make sure you have plenty of time, then read the story here: My Empire of Dirt [NYMag.com]
Friday, September 14, 2007
Italian ice and everything nice
For the next two weeks, Little Italy plays host to the annual Feast of San Gennaro street fair. The San Gennaro festival was once a religious commemoration, but is now closer to a cultural celebration marked by commercialism, entertainment and excess. Not unlike Christmas, come to think of it.Since the festival occurs around the middle of September every year -- along the length of Mulberry Street just a block away from our apartment -- it's impossible for Sarah and me to avoid, or avoid thinking about. You see, our wedding anniversary falls smack in the middle of the festival. And so we get wistful when we see the tre colori flags being strung up by those ugly wheeled cranes, when dirty blue sawhorses are erected as traffic barriers, when loudmouthed construction workers assemble wooden stalls for rigged carnival games.
Okay, so it's hardly a romantic event. It's a noisy, crowded, sticky tourist trap, but it's enjoyable in small doses. Tonight, we walked through the street fair with our good friend Melissa, in search of the artery-clogging, tooth-melting deep-fried Twinkie, among other culinary delights. I don't know what the international reach of the Twinkie is, but if you (like many readers of this blog) live outside the United States and have never had a Twinkie, let me put it as delicately as I can: Eating a Twinkie is like swimming in the East River -- you should only do it once a year at most, because once is enough to make you sort of sick. And if possible, try to avoid doing it altogether, because the risk of death needlessly increases every time you do it.
Of course, like swimming in testy waters, eating a Twinkie can be sort of fun. Especially when it's coated in batter, deep-fried, and dusted dangerously with powdered sugar. We found one vendor who indeed sold such a monstrosity, for $3 each. On Melissa's insistence, I talked the seller into selling us two for $5. He not only agreed, but also gave us three free zeppoles, which are basically deep-fried nuggets of dough almost the size of tennis balls. They were also dusted with powdered sugar. We ate everything.
This happened after we'd eaten a whole dinner's worth of barbecued pork, sausage-and-peppers sandwiches, and curly french fries, but before the cherry and coconut Italian ices.
Two observations while walking through Little Italy among hundreds and hundreds of Italian Americans: First, Italian women are quite breathtaking.
I don't remember my second observation.
Read more about the Feast of San Gennaro here. Read more than you need to know about Twinkies here. [Wikipedia]
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Savvy at Savoy
Tonight, on a whim, we had dinner at Savoy. I'm not going to review the restaurant per se, for that would be redundant. Savoy has been a SoHo mainstay since the mid-90s, and although it was our first time there, it looked like each of our fellow diners was well familiar with the place. I will say that we had a very enjoyable meal of grilled lamb and slow-roasted sockeye salmon, and by skipping appetizers and wine and by sharing one dessert, we avoided breaking the bank as well. That one dessert, by the way, was killer: white chocolate bread pudding with berry sorbet. Phenomenal.
I requested a table in the upstairs dining room, which I knew of by reputation. It turned out to be an intimate space, furnished in a comfortable, rustic way.
We found out that on October 9, Savoy will be hosting something called Nose to Tail Dining, with an English chef named Fergus Henderson. More than likely, the dinner service will make use of every part of an animal, according to Henderson's philosophy and practice of using oft-discarded cuts of meat in cooking. This made me think of The Far Side, a comic strip by Gary Larson that once illustrated the point. In the strip, a group of cavemen are systematically tearing apart the carcass of a woolly mammoth and carrying the pieces off, except for the tail, which lies severed on the ground. A crotchety old grandfather caveman standing nearby points indignantly at the tail and yells, "In my day, we used every goldang part of the mammoth!"
I requested a table in the upstairs dining room, which I knew of by reputation. It turned out to be an intimate space, furnished in a comfortable, rustic way.
We found out that on October 9, Savoy will be hosting something called Nose to Tail Dining, with an English chef named Fergus Henderson. More than likely, the dinner service will make use of every part of an animal, according to Henderson's philosophy and practice of using oft-discarded cuts of meat in cooking. This made me think of The Far Side, a comic strip by Gary Larson that once illustrated the point. In the strip, a group of cavemen are systematically tearing apart the carcass of a woolly mammoth and carrying the pieces off, except for the tail, which lies severed on the ground. A crotchety old grandfather caveman standing nearby points indignantly at the tail and yells, "In my day, we used every goldang part of the mammoth!"
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
No forwarding address
For a New York resident, here's a not-so-surprising statistic: Only a third of New York City homes are owner-occupied, compared to two-thirds in the rest of the nation, says the Census Bureau. That means that, like Sarah and me, most New Yorkers rent the homes they're currently living in.
We've lived in our apartment for three years, but many people I know have lived in theirs much less longer. I find one particular side effect of this urban nomadism in our mailbox every day: We frequently receive mail addressed not to us, but to the previous resident of the apartment. Today, for example, a postcard came for Amy D. from Joseph S. Tanen, Violinmaker. The postcard invites Amy to visit the soon-to-be-opened Tanen shop at 3111 Broadway, next to the Manhattan School of Music.
So at some point in the past, our apartment was occupied by a violinist named Amy. Did she practice on her instrument here in this very room where I'm typing this? Was she an amateur who simply annoyed the neighbors? Is she responsible for our broken doorbell, the one that has never worked since we moved in? Or maybe she made the hole in our screen window -- the one that lets in flies and bees in the summer -- with an overly enthusiastic stroke of her bow. Only Amy knows.
When we move out of the apartment next July, someone else is going to move in and start receiving our mail. Not the bills and the letters of correspondence and the magazines, of course; we'll make sure we leave a forwarding address for those. But perhaps the catalogs from Musician's Friend. And Guitar Center. And Music123, Zzounds, Sam Ash Music, and Disc Makers.
What will these people assume about me? Only they'll know.
We've lived in our apartment for three years, but many people I know have lived in theirs much less longer. I find one particular side effect of this urban nomadism in our mailbox every day: We frequently receive mail addressed not to us, but to the previous resident of the apartment. Today, for example, a postcard came for Amy D. from Joseph S. Tanen, Violinmaker. The postcard invites Amy to visit the soon-to-be-opened Tanen shop at 3111 Broadway, next to the Manhattan School of Music.
So at some point in the past, our apartment was occupied by a violinist named Amy. Did she practice on her instrument here in this very room where I'm typing this? Was she an amateur who simply annoyed the neighbors? Is she responsible for our broken doorbell, the one that has never worked since we moved in? Or maybe she made the hole in our screen window -- the one that lets in flies and bees in the summer -- with an overly enthusiastic stroke of her bow. Only Amy knows.
When we move out of the apartment next July, someone else is going to move in and start receiving our mail. Not the bills and the letters of correspondence and the magazines, of course; we'll make sure we leave a forwarding address for those. But perhaps the catalogs from Musician's Friend. And Guitar Center. And Music123, Zzounds, Sam Ash Music, and Disc Makers.
What will these people assume about me? Only they'll know.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
The 11th day of September
There's nothing different about today, on the surface. Once again, I had to stay late at work, making tonight's dinner the second one I've eaten at the office in a row. I left at 9:30 PM and walked past bars filled with people for whom Tuesday night is as good a night as any for a Brooklyn Lager and a hook-up. Outside the neighborhood supermarket, a man hauled black garbage bags to the sidewalk in a cart, the same type of cart they let customers use inside. At the corner of Lafayette and Prince Streets, a New York Fire Department truck sped by; an ugly Dalmatian hung its head out one of the windows, spotted ears flapping in the wind.
The wind is not pleasant tonight -- it is a sickly breeze that chills in a damp sort of way. It rained all day today, and the air smells of wet leaves. In fact, today's weather is the complete opposite of what it was like on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. On that day, exactly six years ago, the weather had been brilliant. It was the kind of day that made you wish you were outside doing things that made you sweaty and thirsty and eager for a lemon sorbet, instead of stuck in a college classroom somewhere in New Jersey, trying to make sense of synaesthetic approaches in art-making, as had been the case for me.
On that day, a little before 9:00 AM, a student burst into the classroom and announced to the class (before our professor's permission was granted) that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.
The professor (with whom I had a loathe-hate relationship, and whose classes I failed, twice) said in a drone, "I'm going to wait for confirmation on this news before jumping to any conclusions."
I ignored him and left the classroom, out of curiosity, but also out of concern for my stock trader roommate, who had taken the train into New York City that morning, just like he did every morning, and would have arrived at the World Trade Center at around the time the plane hit. I tried calling his cellphone and couldn't get connected. And then I tried calling Sarah, my friend who worked in midtown Manhattan, the girl I had a crush on, the girl who in less than a month would become my girlfriend, the girlfriend I would marry in 2004. "We're sorry, all circuits are busy. Please try again."
So I went to the coffee shop around the corner, sat in front of the TV with a dozen strangers, and watched the world end on CNN.
Afterward, I went home and waited. New York was over 40 miles away, but that was close enough for the university to cancel classes for the remainder of the day, and the following day as well. I tried looking out the window to see if the smoke from lower Manhattan was visible from where I was (it wasn't). I finally got in touch with Sarah, who told me that she was safe, that there were no vehicles of any kind leaving the city, and that she would be staying at her boss's apartment uptown. I got a phone call from a college buddy, who was living just below the Empire State Building in midtown. He was afraid. He worried that a plane would crash into his building too, but he couldn't leave because the train and bus stations were flooded with people, some still covered in dust.
My roommate finally came home later that night, stone-faced and quiet. He had been riding the escalator up from the PATH train station to the base of the World Trade Center that morning when an explosion shook the foundations of the building. He, like everyone else, had thought that it was a bomb. Then he went outside, into the square between the two towers. The second plane hit a few minutes later, a concussive blast so loud that my roommate, who was also the drummer in our band, fell to his knees. When it started raining people, he wept with the five hundred strangers around him. And when it started raining computers and file cabinets and concrete, he ran.
By some miracle, he'd worn his tennis shoes that day.
That day was six years ago. Today, the city of New York remembered the people who died on September 11, 2001. There were ceremonies held, and speeches given, and flags flown, and prayers said, and beams of light turned on, and though I didn't participate in any of these things (for to me, there was nothing different about today, on the surface), I remember as well.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Late night
No real blog post tonight -- I'm still at work, and it's 11:18 PM. Besides, the only thing worth blogging about today is the fact that there's nothing worth blogging about.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Shiso fine: a dinner at Perilla
If you read this post I wrote a few weeks back, you'll know that I have a great fondness for shiso leaves, which, until just a few minutes ago, I'd forgotten is also called perilla. By coincidence, Sarah and I had dinner at the new restaurant Perilla last night, and I'm happy to say that it quite made up for my "oyster letdown" I wrote about in my previous post.
Perilla, at this point in time, is still only famous for one thing: its executive chef is Harold Dieterle III, winner of the first season of Top Chef. We don't often go to restaurants run by celebrity chefs, which can be pricey, pretentious establishments with good if not great food to match. But Perilla, situated in the West Village, turned out to be neither pretentious nor exorbitantly pricey (entrées, but for one exception, top out under $30).
We didn't have a reservation, so when we arrived at 8:00 PM on a Saturday evening, we were told that there would be a one-hour wait for a table for two. We left our name and spent the next half-hour wandering around the Village, which tends to resemble any given Main Street in any given College Town, USA on a Saturday night during the school year (except in the Village there are way more stores with names like Birthday Suit and Pink Pussycat Boutique). At one point, we browsed through CDs at a dingy record store called Disc-o-Rama, but the smell of reefer was giving Sarah a headache (I think it had more to do with the fact that she was hungry). We left, but not before I noticed that even here, amidst the ganja haze, there was a section with Christian music. I mean, they had the album Shout to the Lord, which came out when Hillsong was still part of Integrity Music, back in 1996! You can't even find that in a Christian bookstore in Tennessee nowadays.
We went back to Perilla at 8:30 and decided to have a drink at the bar while waiting for our table. The bartender, a friendly and accommodating young lass, let us try three different wines before making our selections (Sarah ordered the crisp and well-chilled Grüner Veltliner, I the earthy Montepulciano in anticipation of eating red meat). I don't remember when restaurants began to chill their red wines -- perhaps they've always done it -- but I love that they do.
Finally, at 8:50, we were ushered into the dining room and seated. Here's the thing about the menu at Perilla: at first glance, the list of entrées doesn't knock you out. Nothing seems particularly original or extravagant; it's all pretty basic, and all quite American. There's the requisite strip steak, roasted sea bass, roasted chicken, grilled lamb loin, sautéed skate wing, etc. There is a roasted duckling, uncommon, to be sure, but who hasn't had duck before? At that point, I said to myself that everything had better taste really good. I mean, knockout good. If you're going to serve basics, serve them right.
Here's what we ordered:
Appetizers
The spicy duck meatballs were standout. The result is that Sarah now likes eating duck, a surprising and welcome development. The ravioli was also good, coming with white and green asparagus (not listed on the menu) and a wonderfully refreshing citrus flavor, even if the peas were slightly undercooked. The risotto was uncanny -- it was richly flavored with butter and parmesan cheese, yet didn't taste or feel heavy. The steak was much the same -- cooked to a perfect medium-rare temperature, with even the last bite as good as the first, and topped with a whole red onion. The only off-note was the bacon bits served under the steak; too indulgent and overpowering. When I order steak, I want to taste the flesh of a cow, not the skin of a smoked porker.
For the first time in perhaps years, Sarah and I wanted the exact same dessert item, so we shared the excellent fig and plum crisp, a fantastic concoction with too little ice cream and more plums than figs.
As for the decor, Sarah didn't particularly care for the mod chandelier that hung over my head, but the restaurant is tastefully and sparely decorated, and expertly straddles the line between cozy and contemporary, especially the bar area. The tables for two in the back, where we were seated, are quite close together, which made it easy to see what your neighbors had ordered. The dating couple next to us, enamored by the ravioli on our table, asked more than once what we were eating. They later admitted that they were skipping dessert entirely and living vicariously through us, too full of steak and duckling and wine.
I understood completely.
More about Perilla:
Perilla Restaurant - Official website
Frank Bruni's New York Times review
The New Yorker review
Time Out NY review
Perilla, at this point in time, is still only famous for one thing: its executive chef is Harold Dieterle III, winner of the first season of Top Chef. We don't often go to restaurants run by celebrity chefs, which can be pricey, pretentious establishments with good if not great food to match. But Perilla, situated in the West Village, turned out to be neither pretentious nor exorbitantly pricey (entrées, but for one exception, top out under $30).
We didn't have a reservation, so when we arrived at 8:00 PM on a Saturday evening, we were told that there would be a one-hour wait for a table for two. We left our name and spent the next half-hour wandering around the Village, which tends to resemble any given Main Street in any given College Town, USA on a Saturday night during the school year (except in the Village there are way more stores with names like Birthday Suit and Pink Pussycat Boutique). At one point, we browsed through CDs at a dingy record store called Disc-o-Rama, but the smell of reefer was giving Sarah a headache (I think it had more to do with the fact that she was hungry). We left, but not before I noticed that even here, amidst the ganja haze, there was a section with Christian music. I mean, they had the album Shout to the Lord, which came out when Hillsong was still part of Integrity Music, back in 1996! You can't even find that in a Christian bookstore in Tennessee nowadays.
We went back to Perilla at 8:30 and decided to have a drink at the bar while waiting for our table. The bartender, a friendly and accommodating young lass, let us try three different wines before making our selections (Sarah ordered the crisp and well-chilled Grüner Veltliner, I the earthy Montepulciano in anticipation of eating red meat). I don't remember when restaurants began to chill their red wines -- perhaps they've always done it -- but I love that they do.
Finally, at 8:50, we were ushered into the dining room and seated. Here's the thing about the menu at Perilla: at first glance, the list of entrées doesn't knock you out. Nothing seems particularly original or extravagant; it's all pretty basic, and all quite American. There's the requisite strip steak, roasted sea bass, roasted chicken, grilled lamb loin, sautéed skate wing, etc. There is a roasted duckling, uncommon, to be sure, but who hasn't had duck before? At that point, I said to myself that everything had better taste really good. I mean, knockout good. If you're going to serve basics, serve them right.
Here's what we ordered:
Appetizers
- Spicy Duck Meatballs, with Okinawa yam gnocchi, water spinach, and a raw quail egg
- Crispy Rock Shrimp Salad, with baby mizuna, piquillo peppers, and a mushroom soy vinaigrette
- Summer Truffle Ravioli, with sheep's milk ricotta, and forest mushrooms and peas
- Grilled Angus Strip Steak, with escarole, bacon and a sweet onion-horseradish sauce
- Faro Risotto (side dish), with an artichoke confit, parmesan and chili-grape salad
- Black Mission Fig and Plum Crisp, with Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream and spiced streusel
The spicy duck meatballs were standout. The result is that Sarah now likes eating duck, a surprising and welcome development. The ravioli was also good, coming with white and green asparagus (not listed on the menu) and a wonderfully refreshing citrus flavor, even if the peas were slightly undercooked. The risotto was uncanny -- it was richly flavored with butter and parmesan cheese, yet didn't taste or feel heavy. The steak was much the same -- cooked to a perfect medium-rare temperature, with even the last bite as good as the first, and topped with a whole red onion. The only off-note was the bacon bits served under the steak; too indulgent and overpowering. When I order steak, I want to taste the flesh of a cow, not the skin of a smoked porker.
For the first time in perhaps years, Sarah and I wanted the exact same dessert item, so we shared the excellent fig and plum crisp, a fantastic concoction with too little ice cream and more plums than figs.
As for the decor, Sarah didn't particularly care for the mod chandelier that hung over my head, but the restaurant is tastefully and sparely decorated, and expertly straddles the line between cozy and contemporary, especially the bar area. The tables for two in the back, where we were seated, are quite close together, which made it easy to see what your neighbors had ordered. The dating couple next to us, enamored by the ravioli on our table, asked more than once what we were eating. They later admitted that they were skipping dessert entirely and living vicariously through us, too full of steak and duckling and wine.I understood completely.
More about Perilla:
Perilla Restaurant - Official website
Frank Bruni's New York Times review
The New Yorker review
Time Out NY review
Shell shocked
Yesterday, Sarah and I went to the Riverside Oyster Festival, which turned out to be far less grand than its name suggests. Considering I'd heard about this thing two weeks ago and could barely contain myself in anticipation of going, it was hugely disappointing. I'd envisioned rows of vendors with canvas-roofed carts and grease-splattered aprons, dishing out oysters prepared in all manner of "county fair" styles: fried oysters, oyster po'boys, um, oyster sushi... yeah, okay, so maybe my imagination was pushing the boundaries of reality with oyster sushi, which I've only seen on the specials menu in some Japanese restaurants. But you get the idea.
To my supreme dismay, once we arrived at Riverside Park (at 103rd Street, all the way on the West Side of Manhattan), we found that there was only a solitary stand serving only raw oysters. And the "festival" consisted of a whole bunch of people sitting around by the Hudson Beach area of the park, eating raw oysters and cocktail sauce off a plastic plate and ignoring a boorish, grooveless band in the vein of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones playing on a stage in the corner. [Pop culture tip for the clueless: the last time the Mighty Mighty Bosstones were popular, Bill Clinton was still President.] If you were curious what the scenic Hudson "Beach" looks like, here's helpful photograph:
To be fair, everyone knows Manhattan is hardly the first place you'd go in search of a beach. And at least the raw oysters were excellent (harvested in Maine, shucked right here in New York, cold and sweet, and requiring nary a hint of lemon juice or cocktail sauce). But there's a lesson in my disappointment: when in New York, you could attend hundreds of entertaining, unique and well-organized cultural events, or you could go to next year's Riverside Oyster Festival. And sometimes, until you're actually standing on that sand-swept patch of concrete and squinting past the four-lane highway at the rather arresting coast of New Jersey, you just can't tell the difference.
To my supreme dismay, once we arrived at Riverside Park (at 103rd Street, all the way on the West Side of Manhattan), we found that there was only a solitary stand serving only raw oysters. And the "festival" consisted of a whole bunch of people sitting around by the Hudson Beach area of the park, eating raw oysters and cocktail sauce off a plastic plate and ignoring a boorish, grooveless band in the vein of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones playing on a stage in the corner. [Pop culture tip for the clueless: the last time the Mighty Mighty Bosstones were popular, Bill Clinton was still President.] If you were curious what the scenic Hudson "Beach" looks like, here's helpful photograph:
To be fair, everyone knows Manhattan is hardly the first place you'd go in search of a beach. And at least the raw oysters were excellent (harvested in Maine, shucked right here in New York, cold and sweet, and requiring nary a hint of lemon juice or cocktail sauce). But there's a lesson in my disappointment: when in New York, you could attend hundreds of entertaining, unique and well-organized cultural events, or you could go to next year's Riverside Oyster Festival. And sometimes, until you're actually standing on that sand-swept patch of concrete and squinting past the four-lane highway at the rather arresting coast of New Jersey, you just can't tell the difference.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
In the books
Today, I did something I haven't done since I was about six years old -- I got a library card. I've spent many Mountain Dew-fueled hours in college libraries, but I haven't borrowed a book from a public library in over ten years. Until today, I didn't realize how much public libraries have changed in ten years, and how much has remained the same.
The New York Public Library has a branch one block away from my apartment, a fact I discovered just a couple of months ago. Today, I made it a point to visit it for the first time. Two things struck me: there are so many computers! and there are so many kids! Both of these things, of course, totally make sense, especially the computers, but I'm constantly amazed that there are enough children under the age of 12 in New York to fill up a room at any given time. I can't really explain this amazement. Young children are everywhere in NYC, but for some reason, I can't allow myself to believe that they do normal things like visit the library, or go to Toys R Us, or play in a playground.
Some of you may wonder if I've read any books at all in the last ten years. The fact is, every book I've read in the last ten years I either bought at a bookstore, or borrowed from a friend. Some of you may then guess that I probably haven't read very many books in the last decade. You are right. I should absolutely read more. There several writers whose works are only familiar to me by reputation: Cormac McCarthy, Haruki Murakami, Jonathan Lethem, Toni Morrison and Joyce Carol Oates (both of whom taught at my alma mater, and whose inclusion on this list shames me to a degree), Philip Roth, and Jonathan Franzen. And these are just fiction writers who haven't died yet.
But they're a great start.
The New York Public Library has a branch one block away from my apartment, a fact I discovered just a couple of months ago. Today, I made it a point to visit it for the first time. Two things struck me: there are so many computers! and there are so many kids! Both of these things, of course, totally make sense, especially the computers, but I'm constantly amazed that there are enough children under the age of 12 in New York to fill up a room at any given time. I can't really explain this amazement. Young children are everywhere in NYC, but for some reason, I can't allow myself to believe that they do normal things like visit the library, or go to Toys R Us, or play in a playground.
Some of you may wonder if I've read any books at all in the last ten years. The fact is, every book I've read in the last ten years I either bought at a bookstore, or borrowed from a friend. Some of you may then guess that I probably haven't read very many books in the last decade. You are right. I should absolutely read more. There several writers whose works are only familiar to me by reputation: Cormac McCarthy, Haruki Murakami, Jonathan Lethem, Toni Morrison and Joyce Carol Oates (both of whom taught at my alma mater, and whose inclusion on this list shames me to a degree), Philip Roth, and Jonathan Franzen. And these are just fiction writers who haven't died yet.
But they're a great start.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
iWant
This week saw the release of updated versions of Apple's iPod, and I want at least one of them. Yes, yes, I know I'm just positioning myself as a cog in the whole consumerism machine, and technically I don't need a new iPod, since I own four of them already. You see, I bought a second-generation iPod Mini for Sarah some time ago, and later, I received a first-gen iPod Shuffle as a free gift. When the Mini decided to stop working, I bought Sarah a new Nano, which also gave out after several months. So I bought her a second-gen Nano. It was such a futuristic and unfamiliar-looking thing that when she accidentally left it at church office one Sunday, one of the toddlers coming out of childcare found it and promptly put it in the fridge for safe keeping.
Meanwhile, I was able to revive the old Mini, and now use it. Still, it would be nice to graduate beyond a monochromatic screen.
I've played with the iPhone, a near-magical device so well designed that it may as well have time-traveled from the future. I don't particularly need a new cellphone, and especially not one with a built-in camera that merely captures 2-megapixel images. But an iPhone without the phone and camera is something I'd be in the market for, and that's exactly what the iPod Touch is. So should I get one?
I'll think about it. But quickly.
Meanwhile, I was able to revive the old Mini, and now use it. Still, it would be nice to graduate beyond a monochromatic screen.
I've played with the iPhone, a near-magical device so well designed that it may as well have time-traveled from the future. I don't particularly need a new cellphone, and especially not one with a built-in camera that merely captures 2-megapixel images. But an iPhone without the phone and camera is something I'd be in the market for, and that's exactly what the iPod Touch is. So should I get one?
I'll think about it. But quickly.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
The 'roo morgue
I don't intend to turn One Year in New York City into a food blog, but to write about living in NYC without writing about food as often as possible is unjust and irresponsible. And so, fresh on the heels of yesterday's post, I find myself reminiscing about the most memorable meals I've ever had, and realize that I've had a fair share of them right here in New York.
I think it's rare for people to remember particular meals based on the food alone, unless, of course, the food was so astoundingly good that it didn't matter what the occasion was. For example, if I think hard enough, I can remember every meal I had on my trip Maui, Hawaii, last year. But that has more to do with the fact that I can remember virtually everything else about my trip. Based on the quality and originality of the food alone, the most memorable Hawaiian meal was the mixed plate I had in Lahaina, a combination of disparate dishes spanning three continents of influence. It wasn't much more than street food, but really, isn't that the best kind of food?
I remember gustatory delights from other travels as well. You won't believe this, but I had one of the best Hawaiian pizzas I've ever tasted in (of all places) Canberra, Australia, in 1997. The most decadent meal I've had was at the Park Lane Hotel in London (at least I think it was there, for aside from the grandeur of the food, I remember little else owing to my host's insistence that I empty the wine bottle). And the best lobster meal I've had by far was in the great state of Rhode Island, where, at a seaside shanty, I feasted on two succulent crustaceans and heaps of coleslaw, butter and french fries for $22.
But what about New York? What of the freshly grated wasabi at Megu, the toro at Koi, the simple garlic french fries at Barmarché, the herbed butter and strip steak at Schiller's, the chocolate bread pudding at Café Colonial, the grass-fed filet mignon and wild asparagus at Craftsteak, or the chicken adobo at Cendrillon? There just isn't enough time, and the scope of this post is too narrow to accommodate the story behind every memorable meal. Plus, as the title of this post indicates, what I really wanted to write about is my new favorite meat in the world: kangaroo.
Some of you will already be aware of my affection for 'roo meat. If you're adventurous enough to try it, and you do so at an establishment that knows how to prepare it properly, you'll be rewarded with a depth of earthy flavor unknown in 90% of steakhouses out there. I'm talking about eating the meat of animals that bounce across the landscape like dropped balls, to quote Bill Bryson. You can't get that kind of flavor from a sluggish, mooing, grain-chewing beast.
Of course, in order to try kangaroo, you might start at one of the several Australian restaurants in the City, of which the most highly regarded at the moment is Eight Mile Creek, a dimly lit place recalling a cramped old English pub (the real pub is in the basement, where you can get your lager on while watching Aussie rules matches). Eight Mile Creek has decent kangaroo -- I ordered the "kanga skewers," a satisfying if slightly unrefined appetizer. The best kangaroo in New York, however, is at Public (although it may be a special menu item, since I can no longer find it on their online menu). Juicy, full of character, and joyfully tender, Public's 'roo steak remains one of the most memorable meals I've had in New York.
By the way, I've learned that there's 'roo on the menu at Knife + Fork as well. If I go, I promise to take pictures.
I think it's rare for people to remember particular meals based on the food alone, unless, of course, the food was so astoundingly good that it didn't matter what the occasion was. For example, if I think hard enough, I can remember every meal I had on my trip Maui, Hawaii, last year. But that has more to do with the fact that I can remember virtually everything else about my trip. Based on the quality and originality of the food alone, the most memorable Hawaiian meal was the mixed plate I had in Lahaina, a combination of disparate dishes spanning three continents of influence. It wasn't much more than street food, but really, isn't that the best kind of food?
I remember gustatory delights from other travels as well. You won't believe this, but I had one of the best Hawaiian pizzas I've ever tasted in (of all places) Canberra, Australia, in 1997. The most decadent meal I've had was at the Park Lane Hotel in London (at least I think it was there, for aside from the grandeur of the food, I remember little else owing to my host's insistence that I empty the wine bottle). And the best lobster meal I've had by far was in the great state of Rhode Island, where, at a seaside shanty, I feasted on two succulent crustaceans and heaps of coleslaw, butter and french fries for $22.
But what about New York? What of the freshly grated wasabi at Megu, the toro at Koi, the simple garlic french fries at Barmarché, the herbed butter and strip steak at Schiller's, the chocolate bread pudding at Café Colonial, the grass-fed filet mignon and wild asparagus at Craftsteak, or the chicken adobo at Cendrillon? There just isn't enough time, and the scope of this post is too narrow to accommodate the story behind every memorable meal. Plus, as the title of this post indicates, what I really wanted to write about is my new favorite meat in the world: kangaroo.
Some of you will already be aware of my affection for 'roo meat. If you're adventurous enough to try it, and you do so at an establishment that knows how to prepare it properly, you'll be rewarded with a depth of earthy flavor unknown in 90% of steakhouses out there. I'm talking about eating the meat of animals that bounce across the landscape like dropped balls, to quote Bill Bryson. You can't get that kind of flavor from a sluggish, mooing, grain-chewing beast.
Of course, in order to try kangaroo, you might start at one of the several Australian restaurants in the City, of which the most highly regarded at the moment is Eight Mile Creek, a dimly lit place recalling a cramped old English pub (the real pub is in the basement, where you can get your lager on while watching Aussie rules matches). Eight Mile Creek has decent kangaroo -- I ordered the "kanga skewers," a satisfying if slightly unrefined appetizer. The best kangaroo in New York, however, is at Public (although it may be a special menu item, since I can no longer find it on their online menu). Juicy, full of character, and joyfully tender, Public's 'roo steak remains one of the most memorable meals I've had in New York.
By the way, I've learned that there's 'roo on the menu at Knife + Fork as well. If I go, I promise to take pictures.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Gastronomic proportions
I'm going to post a link to one of the best food articles I've read in my entire life. But first, a preamble.
Living in New York to a one-year countdown is like visiting New York with an enlightened tourist's agenda: you have too many things to do and not enough time to do them all. In our case, our adventurous appetites might never get around to finding satisfaction at any number of restaurants in the City in which we aspire to dine. Here's the problem: between Sarah and myself, we like food from virtually every corner of the world. If, for example, neither of us liked French food, we could just eliminate every café, boulangerie, pattiserie and restaurant from our mental lists. But we can't, because even though Sarah is not particularly fond of French cuisine, I love it, especially anything with fromage de chèvre or beurre demi-sel in it. I drool already.
The problem is compounded by the fact that several of the restaurants we would like to visit are -- how shall I put this delicately? -- stupidly expensive. Not that we don't think they are worth it. On the contrary, we have no problem spending money on a fastidiously prepared meal, made from hard-to-acquire ingredients. There are people who spend as much on a new cellphone, or a car payment, or a watch. But it does mean that these restaurant visits are very few and far between; special occasions, if you will.
But.
But, sometimes you read a food article that makes you want to empty the checking account, jump in a cab, and head over to a restaurant where you just might have the best meal in your life, and where that in itself is the special occasion. That's because the article contains these words: [It is] the most expensive restaurant in the country, if not the world. It is also the best sushi restaurant in the country, if not the world. But it's not a story about a restaurant. It's a story about food. I read this article a couple of months ago, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.
Please read the whole story, all ten delightful pages of it. At the very, very least, you'll be a more knowledgeable member of civilized society.
If You Knew Sushi [Vanity Fair]
Living in New York to a one-year countdown is like visiting New York with an enlightened tourist's agenda: you have too many things to do and not enough time to do them all. In our case, our adventurous appetites might never get around to finding satisfaction at any number of restaurants in the City in which we aspire to dine. Here's the problem: between Sarah and myself, we like food from virtually every corner of the world. If, for example, neither of us liked French food, we could just eliminate every café, boulangerie, pattiserie and restaurant from our mental lists. But we can't, because even though Sarah is not particularly fond of French cuisine, I love it, especially anything with fromage de chèvre or beurre demi-sel in it. I drool already.
The problem is compounded by the fact that several of the restaurants we would like to visit are -- how shall I put this delicately? -- stupidly expensive. Not that we don't think they are worth it. On the contrary, we have no problem spending money on a fastidiously prepared meal, made from hard-to-acquire ingredients. There are people who spend as much on a new cellphone, or a car payment, or a watch. But it does mean that these restaurant visits are very few and far between; special occasions, if you will.
But.
But, sometimes you read a food article that makes you want to empty the checking account, jump in a cab, and head over to a restaurant where you just might have the best meal in your life, and where that in itself is the special occasion. That's because the article contains these words: [It is] the most expensive restaurant in the country, if not the world. It is also the best sushi restaurant in the country, if not the world. But it's not a story about a restaurant. It's a story about food. I read this article a couple of months ago, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.
Please read the whole story, all ten delightful pages of it. At the very, very least, you'll be a more knowledgeable member of civilized society.
If You Knew Sushi [Vanity Fair]
Monday, September 3, 2007
How to speak like a New Yorker IV
If you've ever visited New York City, chances are you've taken a trip in a yellow cab (read my post about NYC cabs here). But a common mistake visitors make is not knowing how to tell the cab driver where you want to go. First, some cab drivers may seem uncouth, but it's no reason to be rude or impatient with them. 90% of all the cabs I've ever been in were piloted by cabbies who were skillful, knowledgeable, grateful when tipped, and polite. And the other 10%? Well, I can be sympathetic to the fact that driving a cab in New York will test anyone's patience.
Second, it's important to give the address of your destination to your cab driver in a way that helps him or her (there are over 400 women cab drivers in NYC). For example, don't tell your driver that you want to go to "532 Broadway." Instead, it's far more helpful to know the "cross-street" (i.e. the street that intersects your destination). So if you get in a cab and say, "corner of Broadway and Spring," you're more likely to get there quicker.*
Third, once you're almost at your destination, you may instruct the cabbie where exactly to pull over. Virtually all the streets in Manhattan are one-way streets, so if you're stopping at an intersection, let the cabbie know whether you'd like to stop at the "near-corner on the left" or the "far-corner on the right" or whatever applies.
* True story: Sarah and I once got in a cab because we were too tired to take the subway back to our apartment. We told the cabbie the cross-streets, but he told us that he'd only been on the job for two weeks and didn't know where exactly Mott Street intersected with Houston Street. It was the first time we ever had to give a Manhattan geography lesson to a cab driver.
Second, it's important to give the address of your destination to your cab driver in a way that helps him or her (there are over 400 women cab drivers in NYC). For example, don't tell your driver that you want to go to "532 Broadway." Instead, it's far more helpful to know the "cross-street" (i.e. the street that intersects your destination). So if you get in a cab and say, "corner of Broadway and Spring," you're more likely to get there quicker.*
Third, once you're almost at your destination, you may instruct the cabbie where exactly to pull over. Virtually all the streets in Manhattan are one-way streets, so if you're stopping at an intersection, let the cabbie know whether you'd like to stop at the "near-corner on the left" or the "far-corner on the right" or whatever applies.
* True story: Sarah and I once got in a cab because we were too tired to take the subway back to our apartment. We told the cabbie the cross-streets, but he told us that he'd only been on the job for two weeks and didn't know where exactly Mott Street intersected with Houston Street. It was the first time we ever had to give a Manhattan geography lesson to a cab driver.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Caves of steel
We just got back from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where a stunning if marginally incomplete Richard Serra retrospective is on display until September 10th. If you're not familiar with Serra's unique sculptural works, click here. Most contemporary art enthusiasts will recognize him as the guy who puts up ridiculously large sheets of hot-rolled steel (richly colored with an orange patina) and constructs incidental environments with them. I first heard about him in art school -- his brother Rudy Serra used to teach there. But today was the first time I'd seen his work outside of the printed page, and it was an experience simultaneously new and primal.
New, because as you walk alongside the undulating walls of rusted steel, it feels like an alien landscape. Primal, because your brain desperately tries to make sense of this new environment, so it invents age-old scenarios. When the walls curved outward as they rose, it seemed like you were standing at the bottom of a 15-foot canyon. When they curved inward so as to hang overhead, it was like being in the shade of a cave. It was funny because as Sarah and I explored the different parts of the exhibit, she felt safest and coziest in the "cave" parts, where the walls curved inward. When I pressed her to move on, she'd do so only reluctantly. But she felt instinctively vulnerable in the "canyon" portions, as if her environment left her open to attack. How ironic that ribbons of steel placed inside the geometric confines of an art museum evokes such strong associations with natural geography and the outdoors.
Several steel walls were also placed outside the museum, in the sculpture garden (where the photo above was shot). Fantastic stuff all around.
And of course, we couldn't leave without revisiting the Piet Mondrian gallery, home of some downright brilliant canvases by my favorite painter.
[Click here to view MoMA's microsite on the Serra exhibit, including high-res images and a fascinating time-lapse video of the installation in the sculpture garden.]
New, because as you walk alongside the undulating walls of rusted steel, it feels like an alien landscape. Primal, because your brain desperately tries to make sense of this new environment, so it invents age-old scenarios. When the walls curved outward as they rose, it seemed like you were standing at the bottom of a 15-foot canyon. When they curved inward so as to hang overhead, it was like being in the shade of a cave. It was funny because as Sarah and I explored the different parts of the exhibit, she felt safest and coziest in the "cave" parts, where the walls curved inward. When I pressed her to move on, she'd do so only reluctantly. But she felt instinctively vulnerable in the "canyon" portions, as if her environment left her open to attack. How ironic that ribbons of steel placed inside the geometric confines of an art museum evokes such strong associations with natural geography and the outdoors.
Several steel walls were also placed outside the museum, in the sculpture garden (where the photo above was shot). Fantastic stuff all around.And of course, we couldn't leave without revisiting the Piet Mondrian gallery, home of some downright brilliant canvases by my favorite painter.
[Click here to view MoMA's microsite on the Serra exhibit, including high-res images and a fascinating time-lapse video of the installation in the sculpture garden.]
Friday, August 31, 2007
A band called Battles
Tonight, I went to see Battles perform at the South Street Seaport Music Festival. The night was fun for several reasons, but the two biggest are (1) the concert was free, and (2) Battles is the greatest live band I have ever seen.Okay, the second reason is hyperbolic and possibly wrong. But consider: I have not been to a U2 show, and I have not been to a Lightning Bolt show. Lightning Bolt released my favorite album of 2005, Hypermagic Mountain, and their live show is the stuff of legend (one of my co-workers attended a Lightning Bolt show in Brooklyn and told me that the crowd was so brutalized by the music that they started tearing umbrellas apart). I've also never seen Radiohead live, nor the Rolling Stones, nor Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, nor Rush. So it's possible that I'm missing out on something better than what I saw tonight. However, I have seen Mute Math. And I love Mute Math. I've spoken to Paul Meany, the lead singer of Mute Math, and Roy Mitchell-Cardenas, the bassist. Mute Math is one of my all-time favorite bands.
But here is the truth: Battles is better than Mute Math. Battles is what Mute Math will be in fifteen years.
Anyway, about the concert: I got there really early. The stage was set up outdoors on Pier 17 at the seaport, between a giant schooner and a giant Pizzeria Uno, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. There were already people waiting in front of the stage. The crowd was made up of really skinny boys and the not-so-skinny girls who love them. All the girls had blond highlights in their hair. Even the blond girls had blond highlights. One guy sitting at the front was reading Schindler's List and chainsmoking Kool XLs.
I sat and waited along with everyone else. A young man wandered over and asked me who was playing tonight, and when I said, "Deerhunter. And Battles," he looked at me like I'd just spoken Swahili. I'll bet he was expecting me to say, "Radiohead."
The opening band, Deerhunter, came on at 7:25 PM, almost an hour after I'd gotten there. The lead singer was the skinniest guy I've ever seen. This is not hyperbole at all. Every time he stepped on his stompboxes, I thought he would break a hip. But he didn't. The rest of the band wasn't nearly as interesting, but the bassist would do a stately bow to the audience at the end of each song, which was kind of funny and helpful at the same time because if he hadn't bowed, I wouldn't have known the song was over. Deerhunter made very competent noise-rock music with some ethereal banshee vocals, but they're young and have a while to go before I'd consider buying one of their albums.
Deerhunter played a forty-minute set. The guy reading Schindler's List moved on to Jodi Picoult's The Pact, but he never got up from the ground and barely looked up from his book during the entire set. This was awkward because he was sitting right at the front, and right at my feet. I figured he was just waiting for the main act.
Battles finally came on at about 8:30. The bassist came up first, noodling around with his instrument all by himself, making the signal loop and feed back into itself. Then, one at a time, the rest of the band got up on stage. Complete sonic mayhem ensued. Unless you've heard a noise-rock band, or a really loud math-rock band, I have no adequate method of describing what Battles songs sound like. I suppose you could listen to the samples on their Myspace site, but samples can't properly convey the layered noise that proceeded from the speakers tonight. I tried to put myself in the position of someone who'd only ever listened to, say, the Beach Boys. These are the questions I'd ask: Are their instruments in tune? Are they even playing instruments? Are all their amplifiers broken? Why does the drummer have to play his drums using the butt-end of his sticks? Doesn't he know that it will make his drums sounds too loud? And why do the other guys insist on playing multiple instruments at the same time? Why are they pulling cables and wires in and out of their keyboards and computers and signal processors in the middle of a song? Why all the fiddling with knobs? What? Why can't I hear you?
This reminds me of the general inability of Americans to accurately describe the smell and taste of durians.
That's the unfortunate thing. I had a blast at the Battles show, but I can't explain it to you. You'll just have to go to their Myspace site, listen to the track called "Atlas" and imagine the band performing the song live, exactly the way it sounds on the recording. And if you can imagine finding joy in seeing and listening to that live performance, in understanding how those bizarro noises are generated on stage, and in headbanging to the ruthlessly consistent drum beat along with three thousand other people, then you can imagine how it was tonight.
A hairy tale
I've just now gotten back from my haircut at one of the most interesting barber shops I've ever been to, a dandy's paradise called Freemans Sporting Club. Freemans is actually a men's clothier; I asked how much a made-to-measure suit goes for and was told, "about $3000." For that princely sum, they'll make you a suit that fits like a glove, from virtually any material, including deadstock wool manufactured in the 1950s. But I'm just here to get my hair cut, and the barbershop is in the back of the store. The haircuts are much, much cheaper than the suits.Freemans Barbershop looks like it was built in the 1920s (to see what I mean, check out a picture here), but it wasn't. It's only eleven months old, so the whole place is anachronistic. The barber chairs were made in the 1920s, but there's a 21st century stereo system playing rock n' roll on a window sill. There's a rack of this month's men's magazines (GQ, Details, Esquire) by the waiting bench, but there's also a secret stash of Penthouse issues from the 1970s under the bench. The amply tattooed barber is an amiable 30-something chap who is privy to the latest in technology -- he's looking to import a hot new Japanese hair product into New York -- but wears a porkpie hat and uses a straight razor. And his name is Shorty. It says so on his business card.
How was the haircut? Quick, unfussy, and nuanced; Shorty knows his stuff. I'll be going back, but next time, I'll bring my own reading material.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
More short notes
First, an explanation: Every time I write some short notes, like I'm doing at this very moment, it's not that I have nothing to write about -- it's that I have too many things to write about. I wrote on Monday that I occasionally have about fifteen things in my head at the same time, waiting to be typed out in little digital letters on a too-small monitor, all vying for the spotlight. I used the number fifteen then because I needed a random number, but tonight, I really do have fifteen things to write about. Is that just an incredible coincidence, you might ask, or is Darren lying through his teeth? We shall see.
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The last thing I wrote was number one. This is number two: I've been given the day off tomorrow (Friday), a fact I should be celebrating but strangely am not. Days off from work are few and far between, even in a creative industry like mine, so I end up using them for things I have to do rather than things I want to do.
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Which means, in all likelihood, I'm going to get a haircut tomorrow. In a previous post, I told you how much my laundry bill is. There's no way I'm going to admit how much I have to pay to get my hair cut. That's the problem with hair -- it grows back! And when my hair is long, I look like the kid Bruce Lee beat up in high school.
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The good news is that after I get my haircut, I'll still have time to visit the Museum of Modern Art, my single favorite art venue in the world.
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Also, I'll be attending the Seaport Music Festival in the evening.
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So it looks as if I'll be having a well mapped-out, eventful day tomorrow. But to paraphrase Robert Burns, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. And let me tell you something: there's no better place than New York to make a man feel like a mouse.
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At the very least, I'll have an extended weekend. Monday is the federal holiday known as Labor Day (not to be confused with May Day, which is celebrated on May 1st outside the United States).
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This is item number eight of fifteen: I found out Cameron Diaz is in New York shooting a movie. An acquaintance of mine sat next to her at a Korean restaurant, and that very same day, I was walking home from work and saw that the street was going to be closed off to accommodate a film crew. There were signs posted up on buildings informing the public that parking on the street was disallowed because Twentieth Century Fox was shooting something called What Happens in Vegas... So I went home and looked it up on IMDb, and guess who's starring in it.
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Here's my connection to Cameron Diaz. Remember Prince Street Cleaners, the laundromat I go to around the corner? [Read this post to refresh your memory.] Well, a few months ago, I stopped by to pick up my laundry, and John, the guy who runs the place, told me that if I'd dropped them off later in the day, I would've bumped into Cameron Diaz. She'd ducked into the laundromat to get a button re-sewn, and had waited inside as patiently as the paparazzi had waited outside, cameras in hand. Now, I don't particularly care for Cameron Diaz, but she obviously has superb taste in picking laundromats.
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Actors are in the city all the time, because at any given time, there are countless movies and tv shows being filmed in New York. But no matter how common this is, people will still stop and gawk. When they were shooting You Don't Mess with the Zohan a few weeks ago, I met a woman who told me she was waiting by the side of the street for Adam Sandler's limo to drive by. Never mind that there was no guarantee of even catching a glimpse of the actor behind those tinted windows. Ridiculous, I thought, as I took out my camera and waited with her.
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Number eleven: Speaking of ridiculous, there were two topless sunbathers on the roof of the building next to my office this past Tuesday. Tuesday was cloudy.
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Twelve: Oh, who am I kidding? I don't really have
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fifteen things
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to write
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about.
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The last thing I wrote was number one. This is number two: I've been given the day off tomorrow (Friday), a fact I should be celebrating but strangely am not. Days off from work are few and far between, even in a creative industry like mine, so I end up using them for things I have to do rather than things I want to do.
---
Which means, in all likelihood, I'm going to get a haircut tomorrow. In a previous post, I told you how much my laundry bill is. There's no way I'm going to admit how much I have to pay to get my hair cut. That's the problem with hair -- it grows back! And when my hair is long, I look like the kid Bruce Lee beat up in high school.
---
The good news is that after I get my haircut, I'll still have time to visit the Museum of Modern Art, my single favorite art venue in the world.
---
Also, I'll be attending the Seaport Music Festival in the evening.
---
So it looks as if I'll be having a well mapped-out, eventful day tomorrow. But to paraphrase Robert Burns, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. And let me tell you something: there's no better place than New York to make a man feel like a mouse.
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At the very least, I'll have an extended weekend. Monday is the federal holiday known as Labor Day (not to be confused with May Day, which is celebrated on May 1st outside the United States).
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This is item number eight of fifteen: I found out Cameron Diaz is in New York shooting a movie. An acquaintance of mine sat next to her at a Korean restaurant, and that very same day, I was walking home from work and saw that the street was going to be closed off to accommodate a film crew. There were signs posted up on buildings informing the public that parking on the street was disallowed because Twentieth Century Fox was shooting something called What Happens in Vegas... So I went home and looked it up on IMDb, and guess who's starring in it.
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Here's my connection to Cameron Diaz. Remember Prince Street Cleaners, the laundromat I go to around the corner? [Read this post to refresh your memory.] Well, a few months ago, I stopped by to pick up my laundry, and John, the guy who runs the place, told me that if I'd dropped them off later in the day, I would've bumped into Cameron Diaz. She'd ducked into the laundromat to get a button re-sewn, and had waited inside as patiently as the paparazzi had waited outside, cameras in hand. Now, I don't particularly care for Cameron Diaz, but she obviously has superb taste in picking laundromats.
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Actors are in the city all the time, because at any given time, there are countless movies and tv shows being filmed in New York. But no matter how common this is, people will still stop and gawk. When they were shooting You Don't Mess with the Zohan a few weeks ago, I met a woman who told me she was waiting by the side of the street for Adam Sandler's limo to drive by. Never mind that there was no guarantee of even catching a glimpse of the actor behind those tinted windows. Ridiculous, I thought, as I took out my camera and waited with her.
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Number eleven: Speaking of ridiculous, there were two topless sunbathers on the roof of the building next to my office this past Tuesday. Tuesday was cloudy.
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Twelve: Oh, who am I kidding? I don't really have
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fifteen things
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to write
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about.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
For those about to rock we salute you
A few days ago, I wrote a post entitled Are you experienced? in which I listed several things I have yet to do in New York that I consider part of the "New York City experience." I left out two things that I never got to do and never will: (1) Go to the top of the World Trade Center, and (2) See a punk band perform at CBGB.
Today, Hilly Kristal, the founder of New York's iconic punk rock club CBGB, died of lung cancer complications (read about it here). I didn't know Kristal personally, of course, but I used to read his recollections as they appeared on the official CBGB website. And I used to wonder why I hadn't yet found the time or opportunity to catch a show there, especially since CBGB is not more than several hundred yards away from my apartment. Did I feel too un-cool to attend a show in one of the most revered performance spaces in rock history? Was I intimidated by the lo-fi, derelict aesthetic of the place? I once spoke to Matt Thiessen, lead singer of one of my favorite bands, Relient K, over the phone (I was interviewing him for Relevant Magazine). When he heard I lived in New York, he said that he wanted to go back to New York and play a show, possibly at CBGB. Would I have gone if one of my favorite bands was playing the venue?
I'll never know the answer for sure -- Relient K never played CBGB, and never will, because the club closed last year (read more here). So I never got to enter the space where legends like the Ramones, Blondie, Television and Talking Heads made not just music, but history. I'm no punk, except in my wildest, most implausible dreams, and I can't even consider myself a real punk music fan (I don't even really like the Clash). But I've been musically influenced by so many bands who have played CBGB, including Social Distortion, Green Day and many others. Punk rock informs even the music I play in church, which may sound antithetical, but really isn't, if you think about it a certain way.
So tonight, in honor of Hilly Kristal, and in memory of the greatest rock venue I never went to, I'm wearing my CBGB t-shirt to bed. Good night.
Today, Hilly Kristal, the founder of New York's iconic punk rock club CBGB, died of lung cancer complications (read about it here). I didn't know Kristal personally, of course, but I used to read his recollections as they appeared on the official CBGB website. And I used to wonder why I hadn't yet found the time or opportunity to catch a show there, especially since CBGB is not more than several hundred yards away from my apartment. Did I feel too un-cool to attend a show in one of the most revered performance spaces in rock history? Was I intimidated by the lo-fi, derelict aesthetic of the place? I once spoke to Matt Thiessen, lead singer of one of my favorite bands, Relient K, over the phone (I was interviewing him for Relevant Magazine). When he heard I lived in New York, he said that he wanted to go back to New York and play a show, possibly at CBGB. Would I have gone if one of my favorite bands was playing the venue?I'll never know the answer for sure -- Relient K never played CBGB, and never will, because the club closed last year (read more here). So I never got to enter the space where legends like the Ramones, Blondie, Television and Talking Heads made not just music, but history. I'm no punk, except in my wildest, most implausible dreams, and I can't even consider myself a real punk music fan (I don't even really like the Clash). But I've been musically influenced by so many bands who have played CBGB, including Social Distortion, Green Day and many others. Punk rock informs even the music I play in church, which may sound antithetical, but really isn't, if you think about it a certain way.
So tonight, in honor of Hilly Kristal, and in memory of the greatest rock venue I never went to, I'm wearing my CBGB t-shirt to bed. Good night.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
How to speak like a New Yorker III
If you've ever spent a significant amount of time enjoying New York City nightlife, you've probably heard the term "B&T" or "bridge and tunnel." This term I actually don't recommend using, only because I think it's derogatory and exclusionary in its most popular sense; B&T refers to people who aren't Manhattan residents but come into the city (via the bridges or tunnels) for dinner, drinks, or entertainment. The Urban Dictionary says it succinctly. Wikipedia has a more comprehensive description. My question is: are you still B&T if you came in by the Staten Island ferry?
Monday, August 27, 2007
Short notes
I haven't blogged since late Friday evening, so for those of you awaiting a new post, I apologize for the delay. Sarah and I were in New Jersey for most of the weekend, sharing a Chilean syrah with old friends, having dinner with relatives, and occasionally doing things completely unfamiliar to us. For example, I got to pick shiso leaves right off the plants in my in-laws' backyard, a new and somewhat exciting activity for me. I love shiso. If your experience with Korean food is anything more than cursory, you probably know what it is. An old roommate, who is Korean, used to insist that the leaves were also called "beefsteak." I used to insist that he was insane. But now, years later, Wikipedia has proven him right. The moral is, some crazy people are right.
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If you've ever tried writing daily in a diary, journal or blog, you'll sympathize with my struggle with discipline and consistency. On some days, I can't think of a single thing to write. On others, I want to write about fifteen different things, yet since those fifteen things all seem equally important, none of them seem particularly worthy. Regardless, I consider the self-imposed pressure to write every day to be healthy. Writing is more an act of will than a response to spontaneous inspiration. I read somewhere that the easier it is to read a piece of writing, the harder the writer had to work on it. Like many snippets of wisdom, I have no clue who first wrote this, so if you know, please leave a comment, so I can properly credit the source.
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Speaking of comments, I disabled the login requirement for commenting several days ago, so you may comment away!
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If you've ever tried writing daily in a diary, journal or blog, you'll sympathize with my struggle with discipline and consistency. On some days, I can't think of a single thing to write. On others, I want to write about fifteen different things, yet since those fifteen things all seem equally important, none of them seem particularly worthy. Regardless, I consider the self-imposed pressure to write every day to be healthy. Writing is more an act of will than a response to spontaneous inspiration. I read somewhere that the easier it is to read a piece of writing, the harder the writer had to work on it. Like many snippets of wisdom, I have no clue who first wrote this, so if you know, please leave a comment, so I can properly credit the source.
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Speaking of comments, I disabled the login requirement for commenting several days ago, so you may comment away!
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Without me, without you
I'm fairly familiar with the giants of science fiction cinema and literature: Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott, Terry Gilliam, John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, etc. I love reading a good sci-fi book, and I fondly recall reading massive short story compilations that were invariably edited by Asimov and/or Martin H. Greenberg back in the early 90s. But my mind is better wired for visual stimulation, which partly explains why the covers on some of those compilations were more fascinating to me than the stories themselves. This also explains why the last scene from Back to the Future so affected me when I first saw it in the late 80s that all I did for weeks afterward was draw DeLoreans, even during school.
My favorite thing about how "the future" is portrayed in paintings and movies is not how strange or unfamiliar everything looks, but precisely the fact that there are recognizable elements to even the most futuristic scene. For example, I once had a history book written for teens that described what archaeologists have to do in order to appropriately study a long gone civilization. I cannot, for the life of me, recall anything substantial about the book except for a series of paintings in the final chapter that showed how a riverside community in the year 1500 might progress from tents to log cabins to trading outposts to factories to skyscrapers and onward, all in the span of 600 years. The most memorable illustration was the one that depicted the same community in the year 2100, now a gleaming city with neon lights, flying cars, tubular buildings and glass domes. And yet, it was still positioned by the river, and the geography of the place, though much altered from 600 years before, was recognizable. But the book went on to suggest that 500 years after that, if people had abandoned the city, it would just be another archaeological site, overgrown with trees and inhabited by wildlife.
Have you ever wondered what a megalopolis like New York would look like if humans just disappeared? Personally, my thoughts have never been that morbid, but it's fascinating all the same to see a visual interpretation -- an artist's rendering, if you will -- of the notion. Check out this slideshow of images, based on ideas in The World Without Us, a new book that asks what our environment would look like without the impact of humans. And try not to think depressing thoughts.
My favorite thing about how "the future" is portrayed in paintings and movies is not how strange or unfamiliar everything looks, but precisely the fact that there are recognizable elements to even the most futuristic scene. For example, I once had a history book written for teens that described what archaeologists have to do in order to appropriately study a long gone civilization. I cannot, for the life of me, recall anything substantial about the book except for a series of paintings in the final chapter that showed how a riverside community in the year 1500 might progress from tents to log cabins to trading outposts to factories to skyscrapers and onward, all in the span of 600 years. The most memorable illustration was the one that depicted the same community in the year 2100, now a gleaming city with neon lights, flying cars, tubular buildings and glass domes. And yet, it was still positioned by the river, and the geography of the place, though much altered from 600 years before, was recognizable. But the book went on to suggest that 500 years after that, if people had abandoned the city, it would just be another archaeological site, overgrown with trees and inhabited by wildlife.
Have you ever wondered what a megalopolis like New York would look like if humans just disappeared? Personally, my thoughts have never been that morbid, but it's fascinating all the same to see a visual interpretation -- an artist's rendering, if you will -- of the notion. Check out this slideshow of images, based on ideas in The World Without Us, a new book that asks what our environment would look like without the impact of humans. And try not to think depressing thoughts.
Friday, August 24, 2007
On the fringe
Tonight, we attended a play staged as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. [There are Fringe festivals all over the world now, the largest of which is the Edinburgh Fringe, the original inspiration for the New York one. The Adelaide Fringe is the apparently the second-largest in the world. Who knew?] Sarah and I have seen our fair share of plays in New York, most of them very good. But it'd been over a year since our last one, and I'd forgotten how fun it is to enter a small, dark theater where everything is painted black, and watch real people perform on a stage. Theater acting can be exhilarating to watch -- I'm always a little nervous to see if someone will flub his or her lines. When two characters have a conversation or a confrontation, and the actors perform with nuanced rhythm and drama, it's better than watching most cinematic action scenes, by far. This sounds obvious to people familiar with theater, but I suspect there are millions of people who hold motion pictures up as the paragon of entertainment. I do not necessarily agree.
Tonight's play was a bit of an uneven affair, unfortunately. The first act was poorly written and poorly performed, but after intermission, the play picked up speed and became quite enjoyable. Also, one of the characters pulls out a pistol in the second act, which always makes for high drama. When someone waves a semi-automatic handgun around on stage, you just know it's going to go off at some point. In fact, I think it's a playwright's duty; once you introduce a gun, you owe it your audience to write a scene in which a character uses it. [It's one of the unofficial rules of screenwriting too, except I can't attribute it to anyone because I don't remember where I read it.]
Tonight's play was a bit of an uneven affair, unfortunately. The first act was poorly written and poorly performed, but after intermission, the play picked up speed and became quite enjoyable. Also, one of the characters pulls out a pistol in the second act, which always makes for high drama. When someone waves a semi-automatic handgun around on stage, you just know it's going to go off at some point. In fact, I think it's a playwright's duty; once you introduce a gun, you owe it your audience to write a scene in which a character uses it. [It's one of the unofficial rules of screenwriting too, except I can't attribute it to anyone because I don't remember where I read it.]
Short notes
Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, the first Catholic cathedral built in New York, is right across and down the street from our apartment. I was on my way to work this morning and I saw a man in a black hat walking into the cathedral, looking a tad tired and downtrodden for 9:00 AM. He was wearing a black sweater with "Larry Flynt's Hustler Club" on the back. I wanted to ask him many, many questions, but that would have been rude. I left him alone.
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Tonight, I made dinner for my brother-in-law, Aaron, and a family friend, Al. I couldn't decide what to make, but Sarah suggested I make fish, so I looked online and came upon this stellar recipe for grilled tuna steaks. If you decide to make it, I highly recommend making a cold cucumber and carrot salad to go with it (just julienne some fresh cucumber and carrots into very, very fine strips and place in a pile on top of the fish after grilling).
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I'm going to see Battles, a math-rock band, at the Seaport Music Festival next week. I'll blog about the experience and perhaps take some pictures.
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Tonight, I made dinner for my brother-in-law, Aaron, and a family friend, Al. I couldn't decide what to make, but Sarah suggested I make fish, so I looked online and came upon this stellar recipe for grilled tuna steaks. If you decide to make it, I highly recommend making a cold cucumber and carrot salad to go with it (just julienne some fresh cucumber and carrots into very, very fine strips and place in a pile on top of the fish after grilling).
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I'm going to see Battles, a math-rock band, at the Seaport Music Festival next week. I'll blog about the experience and perhaps take some pictures.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Are you experienced?
For years, I've wanted to come up with an "Experience List" -- a collection of things to do. I'd have to put it online, I thought to myself, and make it interactive so people can check off the things they've done, and get an Experience score at the end. Swum with a pod of killer whales? Check. Climbed a coconut tree? Check. Driven a yellow Ferrari more than a hundred miles? Check. Run in ten inches of snow with no shoes on? Check. You are more experienced than any living person ought to be. Consider a career in outer space exploration.
[This reminds me of the fact that even though I love watching films and consider myself a movie buff of sorts, I still haven't seen Raging Bull, It's A Wonderful Life, On the Waterfront, Casablanca, Taxi Driver, Seven Samurai, Scarface, Annie Hall, North by Northwest, or Ben-Hur. Yes, yes, it's a shame...]
I haven't come up with the Experience List yet, but I have thought about the many things I haven't yet done that are virtually essential to living in -- or even visiting -- New York. Some of them are a bit "touristy" but it doesn't make them any less worthy of doing. I'm sure I will think of many more in the year to come, even as I try to check the following experiences off the list:
[This reminds me of the fact that even though I love watching films and consider myself a movie buff of sorts, I still haven't seen Raging Bull, It's A Wonderful Life, On the Waterfront, Casablanca, Taxi Driver, Seven Samurai, Scarface, Annie Hall, North by Northwest, or Ben-Hur. Yes, yes, it's a shame...]
I haven't come up with the Experience List yet, but I have thought about the many things I haven't yet done that are virtually essential to living in -- or even visiting -- New York. Some of them are a bit "touristy" but it doesn't make them any less worthy of doing. I'm sure I will think of many more in the year to come, even as I try to check the following experiences off the list:
- Dine at Nobu.
- Get a pastrami sandwich at Katz's Deli.
- Tour the Statue of Liberty.
- Visit the Bronx Zoo.
- Attend Shakespeare in the Park.
- Run the New York City Marathon.
- Catch a major league baseball game involving these guys or these guys.
- Be a member of the Museum of Modern Art.
- Listen to Les Paul play at the Iridium Jazz Club.
- Rollerblade down Broadway.
- View the city from the top of the Empire State Building.
- Hike the largest remaining natural forest area in Manhattan.
- Visit the Brooklyn Aquarium.
- See dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History.
- Dine at Peter Luger Steakhouse.
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