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.

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.

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.

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?"

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

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.

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.