Koskiousko and Gowanus top list of bad bridges, roads

Oh, golly, it's shocking news. The bridge that spans the nations worst oil spill, on the highway that has to be the universe's most frightening place to encounter cocaine abuse, has now been sited as being in the worst condition of all in NY. No! Poor General Koskiousko, he deserves better from us. (And better spelling.) Crains: Koskiousko and Gowanus top list of bad bridges, roads.

Vendy, my mouth, she waters

Bikey buzzsaw nightmare

O, brothers and sisters. You lock your bikey tighty to the pole, u-lock and cable, but when you comes back the pole is gone... and where's your bikey!!!

Turns out the DOT guy was just as concerned as I (the innocent bystander) was. I saw what was going on (and covertly snapped pics), and decided I'd wait by the bike in case it was a messenger's and he / she'd return soon. DOT guy was just following instructions to remove the dead pole, didn't want to see the bike get ripped off, and after removing the pole he placed the bike next to a safe pole and metal-strapped it to that pole. When I saw him do that I approached him and thanked him. Bikey's owner will have a heck of a time getting the strap off, but that's way better than losing the bike. (BikeMacho will have thought DOTMan shouldn't have taken the pole - maybe just told his boss No? Get real.)

De Blasio and Liu Win in N.Y. Democratic Runoffs

NYT article by By JULIE BOSMAN and KAREEM FAHIM (photo by Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times).

Money quote:

The decisive showings by Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Liu were also a victory for the Working Families Party, the labor-backed group that endorsed both candidates and that mobilized its formidable field operation to turn out voters on a day when most polling sites were largely empty.

And both Mr. Liu and Mr. de Blasio, unlike their opponents, were vocal critics of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s successful effort to persuade the City Council to amend the term limits law so he could run for a third term.

Me love WFP.
OK, now I can go back to wine making and navel gazing.

No whining, NY Dems - get out there and vote for de Blasio in the run-off. Now!

In my mailbox today from Betsy Gotbaum:

Dear Steve,

Today is the runoff and I wanted to tell you why I believe Bill de Blasio is the best choice to be New York City’s next Public Advocate.

Throughout Bill’s eight years in the City Council, I have seen first-hand the leadership and dedication he will bring to the Public Advocate’s office. We worked together to increase access to food stamps for hungry New Yorkers and provide better resources for the homeless. I stood with Bill as part of the coalition he led to stop the Mayor from undemocratically extending term limits.

I have joined the New York Times, Citizens Union and many other prominent elected leaders in endorsing Bill because of his exceptional record of independence and integrity. I know without a doubt that Bill has the best temperament and record to be our next Public Advocate. Please join me in voting for Bill TODAY. New Yorkers need a Public Advocate who offers new solutions for the future of our City and to keep this vital office strong.

Polls are open across the City today from 6AM (now!) until 9PM tonight. To find your polling location, please visit Bill's website. I hope you will join me today in voting for Bill de Blasio for our next Public Advocate.

-Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum

Fake Steve's W. Safire RIP

I've always been a big fan of occasional poetry. Fake Steve's R.I.P., William Safire. Gotta love it.

Mos' wine time '09

Yes, ladies and gentleman, this past weekend was kick-off for wine time '09 on 11th Street in our little burg.

Here's what's happened:
B&L have dropped out for the year due to moves & timing complications.
M&P.S. have dropped in for the year.
Don Jaime, el zorro plateado, is in the hen-house.

M&P.S. put have crushed of central valley Grenache, and are also working with some Syrah juice from Lodi, aiming at a Rhone blend.

S&L and P have crushed together a 70% Merlot, 20% Cab. S., 10% Petite Sirah thang. And also a small batch of Muscat Alexandria - their first foray into white. All central valley CA grapes.

Along side the new mess we still have all of the S&L and P North Fork Cab. S. from 2008, and a carboy of Sangiovese from 2007, and a case or two of bottled 2006 Zin / Alacante blend. Oh, looks like we're gonna have to have another Puttanesca party in 2010!

DIY hallucinogenic goggles

Via Make:

This post will describe how to construct a pair of goggles which can be used to induce geometric visual hallucinations via strobe light patterns. This tutorial should be accessible to anyone familiar with Arduino hacking, and I do not go into details of the electronics design. The effects are quite remarkable, and enjoyed by many.

Peek-a-boo!
We Alone On Earth.

The oldest living things in the world: benefit party

THE OLDEST LIVING THINGS IN THE WORLD:
ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION BENEFIT PARTY

Tickets: $25
Available Here

Come out for an evening of music, trapeze, and entertainment featuring New York's indie-rock vaudevillians The LISPS, Dance performances by Jenny Rocha and her Painted Ladies, an Art Auction featuring works by the MacDowell Colony Felllows plus free Vodka Cocktails, Haircuts and free GRIMALDI'S Pizza. Hosted by Galapago's resident artist Olga of Olga and Bjorn!

Join us for this amazing evening of art and entertainment benefiting The Oldest Living Things in the World project. Internationally acclaimed artist Rachel Sussman has been researching, working with biologists, and traveling all over the world to find and photograph continuously living organisms 2,000 years old and older. Sussman, who is fiscally sponsored by the Brooklyn Arts Council, is endeavoring to raise funds for an expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula to photograph 5,000-year-old moss this winter.

Galapagos.

Being Dead, Jim Crace

I've just picked up a copy of Jim Crace's 10 year old novel, Being Dead, at P.S. Bookshop in dumbo (psbnyc.com). It's the third novel of Crace's I'm reading.

How's this for a first paragraph:

For old times' sake, the doctors of zoology had driven out of town that Thursday afternoon to make a final visit to the singing salt dunes at Baritone Bay. And to lay a ghost. They never made it back alive. They almost never made it back at all.

Sent via thingy.

Oh, the music references in Inherent Vice

Gee, except for the one drunken post I didn't say much about Inherent Vice - but let me say this: Pynchon's musical references are a blast and I can't tell when they blur from real to made up. My two favorite real ones (real as in I remember them from the first time around and there they are in the book) are to Thunderclap Newman's Something In the Air, and more generally, to Wildman Fischer (who's tune I remember best is Merry-Go-Round).

Idaho be spamzilla'd

So saith Message Labs. 93.8% of all Idahoan email be spam. At net security via /. I'm sure there's a reason. (What's 93.8% of 17?)

Feature Photography, National Portrait Gallery

share the experience, vicariously....

longtime bloggo favorito Cardhouse makes substantial mention of roadtrip recently experienced thru PA NV CO UT MI CA OH IN IL NE IA AZ WI, by car and rail. Makes Juju want to jump ship here at NoNo HQ and head off for some misadventures of our own...

and hey, can you say "Green Chile"?

sure, we knew you could...

We got to see Oliver not hallucinate

The TED video of Oliver Sacks that I had over on the right side? We got to see him deliver a lecture on the same subj., expanded, at the NYPL Live doo on Monday. Great fun. How many people will each of us see in our lives who glow in quite this way?

Twenty120 in the age of opulance

Like the lady says, twenty films, one-hundred and twenty seconds a piece.

ahhhhhh.... the lads...

gosh, juju gettin' to be an ol' dog...

truth is, the largest influence on my life, particularly in those formative days of yesterday, were these young fellows, John in particular. Would never have picked up drumsticks or guitar if it hadn't been for the fab four.

Something terrible is happening

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Thank you, Juju. Funny or Die, Move On, et alia.

The last lick of Juju Pongo's Love Balm

You know what? I lead a blessed life. Really, I do.

After dinner this evening, in the cooling down and in a long sleeved T and sweater, trucking along through Larry Sportello's disportings, about page 280, I had the last lick of the batch of Juju Pongo's Love Balm we started last April and uncorked in June. Yum-diddly-icious. On the rocks with a splash of fizzy. Time to start another batch. And another batch of anisette, while we're at it.

About dinner: as a side I cooked up a half dozen tomatillos and a half dozen small yellow & green squash and a plum tomato, all with about a quarter of one wicked hot pepper - yellow and crinkly - that Lota picked up at the market on Sunday. Habenero-type-hot, but long-shaped. The market ladies didn't give it a name. I'll tell you what, after chopping that pepper, each time I put my hand in my back pocket the extra sensitive mucus cells around my sphincter started screaming, OK? Behind me, Satan Pepper! (Is that bad to say?)

Petty Theft Auto

Well, kids, we've had our 4th auto break-in of the last 25 years.

Went to mon mini this morning to move her. Remember, when last we met, I had just recovered miraculously from a fevered (and ryed) evening and was ecstatic to snuggle the little darlin' into a spot up the block only six inches longer than she, bumper to bumper. Well, maybe in my euphoria I forgot to, uh, lock the doors? Anyway, this morning I got there at about 7 and I see that the driver's door is unlocked. But all looks fine inside. I start her up, squinch out, but half way down the block decide to pull over because I'm hearing too much road noise: let's check everything out.

I get out of the car, walk around the back, and there over on the curb... gee, a change-purse just like the one I keep in the car. Zactly like the one I keep in the car. I pick it up and it has a couple pennies in it. Road noise - yep, the passenger door's ajar. So..., maybe 2 people were in the car? No real reason for one person to enter at the driver door (the only one that would have been unlocked when I parked it) and exit through the passenger door - not to mention the contortions that would be necessary to do so. But the glove has everything in it, including the EZPass. (Note to self - double check that the registration is still in there. And both plates are still on.) Check the arm rest - and, gee, the change purse is missing. Freaky that I pulled over exactly where it was thrown away. Mini knew! Trunk looks fine, toolbag there, etc.

So, all in all, looks like a couple of bucks in quarters and maybe a few singles. I got off easy.

(The other three events of our car-owning history: 1986 Seattle, pink - once red - Volvo, fly window forced (y'all remember real fly windows?), door popped, rear shelf mounted speakers lifted; mid-90's Carrol Gardens, '94 Dodge Shadow, paint flaking from roof & hood, entered and used for a smoking party, lots of vegetable matter left in car but nothing taken; early 2000's, that same Shadow, now in Park Slope with less paint and no A/C, lifted by a couple of young teens with a stolen master key, desperately poor taste, and ruinous driving habits.)

Ju ju's in complete agreement with G.C. ...

on this twitter (social networking bullshite) business, and yah, got to admit, ourowndamnedself got onto that facebook thing for about 45 minutes before we thought better of it.

damned tough enough to get back into the bloggin' thing! Been a rough couple of months here so we gonna take the New Yorker's advice and buy this book.

hola Esteban! hola Lori! be careful 'round those large arachnids, mos' specially in the water closet...

Wildlife

On Tuesday, late afternoon, just before heading down to dumbo for the de Blasio campaign's primary night gathering, I stepped out the back door, and there was the iridescent green hummingbird, zipping it's snoot in and out of hot pink fluff and deep purple trumpets. That is one weird dinosaur, mister. J had been seeing it next door, and B sees it across the street every year, but this is the first time in the 11 or 12 years we've been in the house that I saw it. Then, down I go to dumbo for the election returns and Bill not only kept M. Green from reaching 40%, he finishes first! Runoff! Gonna have to do it again, you registered Dems, bigger and better.

Then, yesterday morning, there was the giant, giant spider. As big as the hummingbird, OK? Here's the deal. You know the WC off our kitchen? It's so small I have a recurring fantasy that I stand up off the seat too quickly and gouge my eye out (always the right eye) on the hook screwed to the back of the door. And the door itself scrapes against the wood floor when you open and close it (because the floor swells from the leaks described some vague elsewhere). Sooo, in this tight little spot I in one fluid motion sat me down and dragged the eye-threatening door shut before me, and there along the chittering drag of the door and floor is a spider that would choke an ox. Yipes! Not sphincter-relaxing! So I start pushing the door back open and away from me and it's chitter-dragging the spider with it by some gnarly mash that first I think is web but then I realize must be crushed leg(s?). I bolt, clutching my pantaloons, and go about my business in other parts of the house.

A couple hours later, just before leaving the house, I steel my nerve and peek in the WC. Wolfgang has freed itself from the trap and laid it's massive body against the floor-molding stage-left of the toilet. I tell myself it is dead. I imagine how many scavenging insects of what size will be needed to carry it away. I realize there is nooo way I am going to directly involve myself with it's removal. But this morning, the carcass is gone. Lori hasn't said anything. I can only assume that crows or feral cats broke into the house and dragged the thing away.

Meanwhile, I'm thumb-typing this on thingy in the back yard, and... the hummingbird is back. It can only signify that Bill de Blasio will win the run-off and be our next Public Advocate, or I will never get to use the downstairs WC again. Keepin' my fingers crossed and remembering that God helps those who help themselves, I'm volunteering for the campaign.
Sent via thingy.

Oh, my: Mafia's new business: sinking nuclear waste at sea

Well, ain't this the darnedest thing.

The informant said the mafia had muscled in on the lucrative business of radioactive waste disposal. He said that instead of getting rid of the material safely, he blew up the vessel out at sea, off the Calabrian coast. He also says he was responsible for sinking two other ships containing toxic waste.

From the always frightening Homeland Security Newswire. Why do I read it? (Yes, I'm asking me.) And did I mention that when P & I took that restorative bike-ride through Prospect Park yesterday afternoon, we stopped at the boathouse and while gazing at the milkweedy green, he stepped me through, again, the many many ways I had let myself be duped by the whole 9/11 whitewash?

Dear Diary (condensed), I am better now

Finished 2666 and want to talk about it but only know one other person who's read it. Started Ed Cray's The Erotic Muse and laughed on almost every page, but set it aside for a little while after reaching the rabbi who performed circumcisions with his teeth. (Write me if you want to know the second half of that couplet.) Started Pynchon's Inherent Vice. Was sitting out back and damn if the same ultrafat robin isn't sitting again on the same branch of the crabapple. Wave of foreboding. Robins are supposed to be hopping on the ground, pulling worms from the grass, not sitting in trees. Everyone knows this, no? At lunch I sat on pier 11 watching the marine whirlybirds that brought the President to town. Was feeling kind of achy in my sides. Stare, read a little, Word Mole a little. Word Mole scores are plummeting - what gives? K9 cop puts his hand on my shoulder and tells me that when the POTUS returns I'll have to move to another bench - I'm at his dog's spot. Nice guy (really, no sarcasm). Achy achy. Back at work I'm told it is my 22nd anniversary there - my oh my, that's a whole other diary entry. R to 4th & 9th and decide to wait for the 75 to 7th to get mushrooms to go with dinner. (The bag of shiitake from the market a couple of weeks ago went bad - we had a couple of days of heavy rain and there were leaks again in the kitchen and I convinced myself that the sheetrock was mildewing or rotting and giving off a deadly smell that we would only be able to get rid of by ripping out the walls. I was so bummed by it I couldn't make myself discuss it with Lota. Then, thank God, I noticed the bag of mushrooms. Peeeyeeewwww!!) While waiting for the 75 P&K and the kids pass by in their car, stop at the light and P hassles me for taking the bus rather than walking. Lota is at a screening, I do up half the dinner, sit out back and feel a full blown fever coming on. Cold & hot & shaky. I decide to switch from water to rye & soda. The cat drags me indoors, fever breaks sometime in the middle of the night but not before I dream of a flock of big friggin' owls. Hoot mahn, scary! Big! One of them swivels it's head toward me and... Morning. I'm no a dead yet. Move the car and manage to park it on the block in a spot everyone else has passed by, exactly 6 inches longer than the mini itself. Hit me!. I check at the corner, just after 7:00, and Grumpy is open and I buy the beans I would have bought last night if I hadn't passed out. Hit me! I sit out back, and the robin is not there. Hit me! (I've got to assume the owls ate him.) I score 1,000 more on my first game of Word Mole than I'd gotten all day yesterday. Hit me!!! I write M @ work to let her know I'm taking the day. Pretty sure the heaven's are singing.

Yes, David Cross is spanking Jonathan Ames

And who, if asked, wouldn't?
I was too slow to get my own camera out, and maybe too slack-jawed. This pic is from the faster shutter of chobotic. You sort of had to be there to get the full flavor. Nothing like a Brooklyn Book Fest. It could make a person want to read a book.

Brooklyn Book Festival

Hey, kids, see you later this afternoon at the Brooklyn Book Festival. Lota's got an aggressive go-here-go-there plan, but, me, I think I'm going to just park myself on the mall at Boro Hall and take what comes. Want to see those foodniks / nyawkers Kurlansky and Jennifer 8. Lee and Liz Thorpe at 3, and then Jonathan Ames at 5. (Lota's reading his latest, The Double Life, and loving it.) Maybe DJ Spooky in between?

Citizens Union endorses Bill de Blasio

C'mon you knee-jerk M.Greenies, give it up.

Watchdog group Citizens Union joins the NYTimes, Mario Cuomo, Rev Al, Ed Koch and your Mom in endorsing Big Bill. Just a couple of days away. Giddyapp!

The city needs an advocate who can serve as an effective counter to a strong mayor and active council, as well as work collaboratively within government to bring about needed reform. De Blasio’s strong principled stances on issues of local and citywide importance, like his leadership on the term limits battle, his willingness to fight for causes that need a champion, as well as his collaborative, inclusive, consensus-building approach in the Council reflect his ability to play such a role. Though each of the other three candidates have compelling attributes that would serve the office well, it is de Blasio’s fresh perspective, thoughtful positions, varied set of skills and broad experience that make him CU’s preferred candidate.

Sweetcheeks moves from Mazotti to Jalopy

A couple days shy of exactly three years from when we first brought her there, we moved Sweetcheeks (1946 Gretsch Synchromatic, hello) from Mazotti, where she was often ogled and dandled but never purchased, to Jalopy, where we hope she'll find a new owner & home.

The folks at both places are really great.

Rapha Gentlemen's Race

OK, let's add this to the list of things I will never do in this overweight, asthmatic, and pretty happily undisciplined lifetime. I'm pretty proud of myself when Lota and I ride the bikes from home to a pizza at the Flea and back. I do not ever expect to hear myself say The landjaeger salami I brought for everyone helped out immensely at mile 80...

via bikehugger

Happy Nine Eleven Day?

What's the possible greeting? Mostly folks do the knowing-look thing then ask each other how they are doing.

Nice photos at the NYTimes: The World as of 9/10/01.

Robots retreat from 3rd Ave / B75

Well, I was going to write to say it's funny traveling in to mean old Manhatto to see guys who live and play on the block or in the neighborhood (Michael Hearst and LEMUR at Joe's Pub), but then I read down to the bottom of the latest LEMUR email, and... gasp!

Due to economic considerations, we've been forced to close our space at 461 Third Avenue. It has become too expensive to maintain a space in the current economy.

Ah, well, it's not all doom and gloom, and they explain, but sheesh!
Kids, get out there and support your local musical robots and robot builder / composers. They need us, and we need them.

And let me describe this block on third Ave for those of you who don't know it. On the East side there's Bar Tano (makes my elbow sore just thinking about it), the League of Urban Musical Robots, and a storefront mosque. Across the street there's a newish real estate office, a Yemeni American friendship society, and a Mexican flat fix shop. I (blissfully without proof) blame the RE office for any rent increases on that block.

My Bro swears by these things

I'm trying to get my Bro to make up a couple of stainless steel punch-down tools for this year's wine making, but his spare time efforts are going to these beer can chicken steamers - go to cabin, light fire, pop three Buds and place in rings, insert chicken over cans (squwawk!), put on fire, 60 to 90 minutes later beer-steamed-chicken-heaven. I keep meaning to ask if it matters how heavily you and the other folks in the cabin drink during the cooking time. Two and three can models now available.

Thank you, Messrs Krugman and Lutes

Reading Underground

Nice article in the NYTimes by Alexis Mainland, Reading Underground, about how & what people read on the subway. (Everything, every which way, of course.)

I just about always read on the subway when I'm riding solo, but lately I'd thwart the curiosity of Ms. Mainland or The Reader over at The Subway Book Club because I've been making paper covers for my books: mostly to keep them from getting too bunged up in my bag, but also just to be a little more private in public.


Here are a couple still in their homey sheaths. On the left, Perlstein's Nixonland, in a cover made from an old interoffice envelope, turned inside out. On the right, the separately bound The Part about Archimboldi from Bolaño's 2666, made from the cover of some unwanted circular stuffed in our mailbox.

Blind Man's Colour The Warm Current's Pull

Directed by Cuz Kev - Kevin Chapados - & Chunwoo Kae
Let me suggest clicking through to YT, going HD, and cranking it up really loud. BMC blog, myspace.

Dante Paris coffin

The source image is a poster / graffiti I photographed in Paris, 2006, somewhere in the neighborhood surrounding Le Bon Marché. The Dante-ized version is here.

How I saved $1,500 this afternoon

I've been completely creepy with bike greed lately, and edging closer and closer to a big investment that would have necessitated saying goodbye to my dear old Milano. But, I've been saved. Cost $45 at the corner Brooklyn Bicycles shop: a sporty pair of Portland Design Works Dapper Dan ergo grips. Sassy!

Of course... it was Dapper Dan (non ergo) that started me down this whole path to MORE, if I remember rightly. That and the damned white tires. They're on the Dutch Master...

Bird doo, grape skins, Labor Day

I walked out the front door yesterday just as Joanne was coming out of hers, and she said, Did you see?, and I said, The Orioles?, and she said, Yes!, and I said, You know, just last night I said to Lori, I have to ask Joanne if she's seen orioles back there, because first I saw some very gold finches and then I thought I saw orioles but worried, hey, maybe they're giant mutant gold finches?

Well, we went on and on and back and forth. And it's great. Don't know if they're still there, but they were for three or four days. And, Man! they love the grapes in our arbor. Wrastling around up there and eating out the insides of the grapes and shitting up a huge gooey white & lavender storm. They were even taking the grapes out of the arbor and back to the crab-apple above our favorite bench and were eating and psychodelicdoodooing there, too.

Can't remember what I was going to say about Labor Day. Let's take the afternoon off and try to remember.

Purple haze all in my eyes, uhh

September, it comes, the Jamboree

Kiddees, epst speptembster in bookwind - oomp meems do jamboree bepst beep spoon! Nu!?
September 11 & 12: Park Slope Bluegrass/Old-Time Jamboree @ Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. BSEC. Beeswax. Shampoo! Four strings six strings eight!