Dear diary, where I been?

No where much.  Where the weak are eaten, mostly, and a quick trip to DC.  Lota been to Sundance and back.  Been working working working.  Floundered in the midst of a half dozen books and finally pulled myself out by the bootstraps of The Sense of an Ending and Flaubert's Parrot.  Have been enjoying some home made vermouth a la Yvette can Boven and been slicing the bresaola.  Almost bought an electric slicer but settled instead on the big honkin' Victrinox Forschner hollow edged knife.  And I have a pork belly working, too.  Burned last year's seasonal stalks and saw that the bulbs and mint and a few other early-risers are saying hello.  Saw in the times today that I'm three years younger than Cindy Sherman.

 

Bresaola, phase 2

Glistening, but about as firm as a well done piece of meat, the bresaola emerges from two weeks of curing in salts and herbs.

The, washed & dried, it sits on a rack for 2 or 3 hours, before hanging to air-dry for the next three weeks at maybe 60 F/

Start sharpening those knives.

 

Giddyap! Rider Rebellion.

Coteghino Fasciato (Spiced Pork Sausage or Cotechino Boiled in a Wrap)

A nice piece of coincidence: one of the books we bought ourselves for Christmas is an extract translation of Pellegrino Artusi’s 1891 opus, La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiare bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well), published now as Exciting Food for Southern Types, by Penguin, and in it is what I’ve transcribed below, which I read last evening while still digesting the D&G’s New Years Day dinner feast of the cotechino that we made last Friday.  (Long sentence!)

Coteghino Fasciato
(Spiced Pork Sausage or Cotechino Boiled in a Wrap)

 I will not pretend that this is an elegant dish, but rather one for the family, and as such it does the job perfectly well, and indeed you could even serve it to close friends.  Speaking of close friends, Giusti says that people who are in a position to do so, should occasionally invite their close friends to get their mustaches greasy at their table.  I am of the same opinion, even if the guests will probably proceed to speak ill of you, and of how they were treated.

Skin an uncooked cotechino weighing about 300 grams (about 10 ½ ounces).  Take a large, thin cutlet of lean veal or beef weighing between 200 and 300 grams (about 7 and 10 ½ ounces), and pound well.  Wrap the cutlet around the cotechino, tie it all up with twine and put on the fire in a saucepan with a bit of butter, some celery, carrot, and a quarter of an onion, all coarsely chopped.  Salt and pepper are not necessary, because the cotechino contains plenty of these ingredients.  If you plan to use the sauce on a first course of macaroni, add some slices of untrimmed prosciutto or some bacon.  When the piece of meat is browned all over, pour in enough water to cover it halfway, and throw in some little pieces of dried mushrooms; simmer slowly until completely cooked.  Strain the sauce, but add back the mushrooms, then use the sauce, along with cheese and butter, to season the macaroni.  Serve the cotechino as the main course, keeping it wrapped in the cutlet but removing the twine, and garnishing it with a good amount of its own sauce.  

It is a good idea to thicken the sauce for the pasta a bit with a pinch of flour.  Put the flour in a saucepan with a bit of butter, and when it starts to brown pour in the sauce and boil for a while. 

A side dish of carrots goes very well with this dish.  First boil the carrots until two thirds done and then finish cooking in the meat sauce.

Cotechino

10 pounds of cotechino made yesterday @ D and G's for New Years Day dinner.  Woof!


steve.lewis@farawayhills.com. thumbtyped

Chris Hedges, OWL, the human amp

I've been lazy or busy or both and haven't made my way up to the park for close to a month.  I watched this earlier this morning and I started wondering what it might feel like to be part of the chorus.  There's the juice of it, the usefulness of it.  There's also the message, which you might or might not agree with, but you still deliver.

Well, we didn't have a tree this year...

... so we lit the street-found Harmony baritone uke.

So, Macinwi wants to play the uke...

... and I've been thinking of great three and four chord songs that might help.  A little Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain?

Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain
recorded by Willie Nelson
written by Fred Rose
 
C
In the twilight glow I see her
G7                      C
Blue eyes cryin' in the rain
 
As when we kissed good-bye and parted
  G7                   C     C7
I knew we'd never meet again
 
F
Love is like a dying ember
C             G7
Only memories remain
C
Through the ages I'll remember
G7                      C
Blue eyes crying in the rain
 
 
Now my hair has turned to silver
G7                       C
All my life I've love in vain
 
I can see her star in heaven
G7                      C   C7
Blue eyes Crying in the rain
 
F
Someday when we meet up yonder
C                          G7
We'll stroll hand in hand again
C
In the land that knows no parting
G7                      C
Blue eyes crying in the rain
G7                      C
Blue eyes crying in the rain

Wreath, home from market

steve.lewis@farawayhills.com. thumbtyped

The Lost Memory of Skin

I've just read Russell Banks' book...

Bike sync

More, nice, synchronicity.  Within two days of getting back from Amsterdam I finally gave into the itch and bought a Dutch bike Reasoning was somewhere between wanting the old sore back to be able to ride in an upright position, and just plain old wanting.  The urge was there after the last two trips, but this time it was overwhelming.  So, from Rolling Orange in Cobble Hill, home came, I don't don't know, what shall I call it?  Mr. Bike.

(Baguette not included, stardust-embedded tires glowing very nicely at this angle.)

So early yesterday morning Mr. Bike took me for a ride and we found a 20 block detour to the bakery on the corner.  Leaving the bakery I realized I had dropped one of my gloves along the way - old buff leather work-gloves.  Sigh.  I'd had them a long time, and really liked using them for riding.  Wella.  So, back home, and wouldn't you know it, I pushed Mr. Bike into the yard, and there on the ground,  right where I'd started out from, was glovey!

Well, that made me so happy I decided to photograph it and Mr. Bike and go right inside and post about them.  But when I got inside, there was a better surprise.  Raymond had forwarded mail from Larry, and it started like this:

We just went for a bike ride - to the India border and back, about 6 km each way (although it didn't seem that long).  The very nice hotel manager loaned me his brand-new cycle, and they managed to get another for Parsu Ram.  It was good exercise (although I couldn't beat PR at racing as I could last time! old age is creeping up).  Anyway, the border is alive with all sorts of activity, a lot of it probably illicit.  It was a nice straight shot on the highway but the usual traffic, bullock carts, rikshaws, big smoke-belching trucks, etc.  We had some tea at one of those highway-edge shops, looked filthy but tea's not such a risk I hope due to necessary boiled water...

 ... and goes on to describe "innumerable adventures, not always but mostly good adventures."

Coffee table

A coffee table in the lobby of Hotel Roemer.

Amsterdam / Stew sync delayed realization

We returned from Amsterdam Thursday late afternoon, and Friday we aired ourselves out on 5th.  Sitting outside a cafe a livery car stopped for a light, and looking out the back window was Stew.  Wasn't until this morning that I remembered Stew's Amsterdam connection: Passing Strange. 

Streetfighting in Amsterdam

steve.lewis@farawayhills.com. thumbtyped

I'm so dizzy...

 Was in Fish's Eddy at lunchtime yesterday, and on the radio...

#----------------------------------PLEASE NOTE---------------------------------#
#This file is the author's own work and represents their interpretation of the #
#song. You may only use this file for private study, scholarship, or research. #
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------##
From: Brian Scherer

Dizzy - Tommy Roe


D   G   A    A

D     G   A     A      E       A          B         B
Dizzy,          I'm so dizzy, My head is spinnin'

        E         A         B       B
Like a whirlpool, it never ends

          E         A         B       B
And it's you girl, makin' it spin

                  F        Bb        C
You're makin' me dizzy


F                  Bb
First time that I saw you girl

   C               Bb               F
I knew that I just had to make you mine

     F               Bb
But it's so hard to talk to you

       C              Bb                F
With fellas hangin' 'round you all the time

C                                Bb
I want you for my sweet pet, but you keep playin hard to get

A                G              A
Goin' Round in circles all the time

REFRAIN


Verse 2

I finally got to talk to you
And tell you just exactly how I felt
Then I held you close yo me and kissed you
And my heart began to melt
Girl, you've got control of me, 'cause I'm so dizzy, I can't see
I need to call a doctor for some help


REFRAIN

Repeat twice, first time in F (F, Bb, C)  then in G (G, C, D)


I hope this is closer than the trash I submitted before (at least the
lyrics are).

R. Brian Scherer
Eli Lilly and Company
rbscherer@lilly.com

Lewis Klahr's The Pettifogger: Collaging the crime

Guardian article with images from Lewis' latest film, and Lewis' comments on them.  Lewis Klahr's The Pettifogger: Collaging the crime – in pictures.

If only Sid had had a ukulele...

Macinwi wants you to know about Amanda Palmer.  Anthem!

Slow Jam - OWS

Hydro for acting! Audrey Franklin!

Vonage voicemail text transcription:

"Hi, this is assembly member Jim Brennan. I'm inviting you to a free screening of gas plant. The award winning documentary about the environmental dangers of Hydro for acting the film will be shown at 630 on Thursday, November 3 at the park slope Methodist Church on sixth Avenue and eighth Street after the film. They'll be refreshments and a discussion about how to respond to the government proposal to allow Audrey Franklin in New York State. I am opposed to Frank. Once again that's Thursday, November 3. Thanks so I hope to see you there"

And we are all about keeping Audrey Franklin out of New York State!

PURPOSE OF 1969 NUCLEAR ALERT REMAINS A MYSTERY

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2011, Issue No. 100
October 25, 2011

Secrecy News Blog:  http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

PURPOSE OF 1969 NUCLEAR ALERT REMAINS A MYSTERY

For two weeks in October 1969, the Nixon Administration secretly placed U.S. nuclear forces on alert.  At the time, the move was considered so sensitive that not even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was briefed on its purpose.  Still today, no conclusive explanation for the potentially destabilizing alert can be found.  Even with full access to the classified record, State Department historians said in a new volume of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series that they were unable to provide a definitive account of the event.

Previous historical scholarship has inferred from selected declassified documents that the alert was somehow intended to communicate a firm resolve to end the Vietnam War by whatever means necessary.  (See "Nixon's Nuclear Ploy" by William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball, National Security Archive, December 23, 2002; and "The Madman Nuclear Alert" by Scott D. Sagan and Jeremi Suri, International Security, Spring 2003.)

But based on the classified record, that interpretation remains unproven and uncertain, according to the gripping new State Department FRUS volume on "National Security Policy" (pdf).

"The documentary record offers no definitive explanation as to why U.S. forces went on this alert, also known as the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Readiness Test," the editors of the FRUS volume said (Document 59).

"There are two main after-the-fact explanations: first, that nuclear brinkmanship was designed to convince the Soviets that President Nixon was prepared to launch a nuclear attack against North Vietnam in order to convince Moscow to put pressure on Hanoi to negotiate an end to the war in Southeast Asia" along the lines that previous historians have suggested.

The second proposed explanation is "that the President ordered the alert as a signal to deter a possible Soviet nuclear strike against China during the escalating Sino-Soviet border dispute."  Consistent with the second interpretation, the FRUS volume provides new documentation of intelligence reports indicating that Soviet leaders were considering a preemptive strike against Chinese nuclear facilities.

Astonishingly, even the most senior U.S. military leaders were kept in the dark by the White House about the nature of the alert-- before, during and after the event.

"It is difficult to measure the success of this operation," wrote JCS Chairman General Earle G. Wheeler to Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird on November 6, 1969, "since... the objectives of the test are unknown."

"It seems prudent if maximum benefit is to be gained from an operation of this type that at least you and I and the senior commanders are informed of the objectives and goals," General Wheeler suggested (Document 92).

In the end, the secret U.S. military alert -- one of only a few such cases involving U.S. nuclear forces -- had little discernable impact.  "There has been no reflection of acute concern by the Soviets...," the CIA reported in an October 27, 1969 memorandum included in the FRUS volume (Document 89).  "There has been no reflection of the US military alert posture in Soviet or Chinese news media or diplomatic activity."

Of the small White House group that directed the secret 1969 alert, perhaps only Henry Kissinger remains alive and active.  He did not mention the alert in his memoirs, the FRUS editors noted, except perhaps in an oblique statement that the United States "raised our profile somewhat to make clear that we were not indifferent" to Soviet threats against Chinese facilities.

Monster

On the counter at Cafe Fika on Pearl, not many blocks south of Zuccotti Park.
Sent via thingy

The Recipe Project

One Ring Zero's The Recipe Project.

What is The Recipe Project?

"It's a 116 page hardcover cookbook book and full-length CD. The book features recipes, interviews, and essays from Mario Batali, John Besh, David Chang, Tom Colicchio, Chris Cosentino, Tanya Donelly, Mark Kurlansky, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Andrea Reusing, Michael Symon, Aaron Sanchez, Michael Harlan Turkell, Kara Zuaro, Emily Kaiser Thelen, Jonathan Dixon, Michelle Wildgen, Christine Muhlke, JJ Goode, Melissa Clark, and Matthew Amster-Burton. Plus online bonus tracks by Hubert Colson, Dave Wondrich, Jenny Morris, and John Currence.

The CD features recipes from the above chefs, set to music, and sung WORD FOR WORD! (In most cases, the musical styles were suggested by the chef.) Guest vocalists include Claudia Gonson (The Magnetic Fields), Tanya Donelly (Throwing Muses, Breeders, Belly), and Allyssa Lamb (Las Rubias Del Norte)."

Mark Naison's "Communalism and Cooperation in Park Slope in the 1970's and 1980's "

DW forwarded the text of Mark Naison's post to us a week or two ago.  Here it is, on Naison's blog, With A Brooklyn Accent.

The year Liz and I moved to Park Slope, 1976, was a tough time in New York City. The city had just been saved from bankruptcy by an Emergency Financial Control Board that just mandated draconian cuts in all city services, especially parks, education, fire and sanitation, a policy, which, coupled with the wave of arson and abandonment that had swept through the city’s poorer neighborhoods, created the atmosphere of a city under siege. Buildings and neighborhoods which could afford it hired their own security forces, others, like ours on West 99th Street created volunteer security patrols to protect residents during evening hours...

I fixed my pen. Maybe everything will change, again?

About six months ago I broke the most expensive pen I'd ever bought - a yellow Aurora.  When I did that I stopped writing a long-hand diary, and switched to writing at a keyboard - my diary entries got longer, more daily, and I also just about stopped any sort of posting to public sites.  About an hour ago I borrowed some crazy glue and reconstructed the pen.  (I should have taken photos, but didn't think to.)  And I have an urge to post about it.

That reminds me: I brought an old pair of Clarks into the shoemaker today to have new crepe soles put on. 

Not since the civil war... (Simon Schama)

Every day at Opryland, the staff arrange my shaving gear a different way

Sent via thingy

Bikey likes the new NYC lockups!

The mechanical meters replaced by the Muni Meters are being replaced by new lockups in the hood. Bikey likes it! (Why didn't they just alter the meter posts that were already in the ground? Or are these new things sleeves that fit over the old posts?)
Sent via thingy

Street pig

Portland, Maine, at Pleasant and Maple.  Pebbles in concrete.

Sent via thingy

First fireflies of the year, and something smells dead

First yesterday morning in the back yard one flew drunkenly into a flowerpot.  Then last evening, a couple sparking under the shad bush out front.  Meanwhile, there's the smell of something dead in the front of the house.  First, a couple of days ago, from behind the radiator or under the floorboards as you walked into the house.  Now, this morning, closer to the wall by the entry way, between the door and the living room.  I can smell it while sitting in the big chair we've promised to the silver fox.

Realizing that posts with long titles and little content are like Twitter

So, what's the problem?

Waking up to things that everyone else already seems to know

The Books are my personal musical, Oh, hello!, so far this year.

The Bottom Line presents New York On My Mind

Next Wednesday. River to River.  Friends will be there. Like a high school reunion if you went to school with Rosanne Cash, Marshall Crenshaw, The GrooveBarbers, Garland Jeffreys, Willie Nile, Martin Rivas, Suzzy and Lucy Wainwright Roche, Catherine Russell, Vin Scelsa, Loudon Wainwright III, Dar Williams,  John Leventhal, Mojo Mancini, Meg Griffin and a bunch of other people.  And, of course, Alan Pepper, the dude in the Ray Bans.

Freedom Riders

Tonight is Hal Willner's Freedom Riders project at Celebrate Brooklyn.

Jaume Plensa’s Echo

A few weeks ago we hit the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.  I hadn't been around the park for months, so hadn't seen Jaume Plensa’s Echo.  Wow.  There are many pictures of it on the web, but few give a real sense of how luminous and hovering and present it is.  The pic below is by Noel Y. C.

 

Happy Worst Day Ever!

Terry Moore has just made my life better

Except Obama, except Obama, help us Jesus!

Her name, I believe, was Sally Ann James, and as Representative Pallone read “no person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,” Ms. James stood and shouted, “Except Obama, except Obama, help us Jesus!” Then the Speaker directed the Sargent to remove her from the chamber. Rodriguez and I each took one of her elbows and led her away.

Some news reports said she had a placard, but I did not see that. “Help us Jesus,” however, I heard her say that in the Chambers, and she said it quite a few more times as we led her away and through the tunnel that connects the Chambers to The Pen, and then over and over as we turned from the tunnel and passed through the gray metal door that leads to the Room, “Help us Jesus!”.

In the Room we beat her, not too much, but about the face because most people find that very upsetting, and then generally. We broke a few bones but did not do anything crazy. We did not sexually abuse her, and we have not sexually abused any female hecklers since early in the Pelosi tenure. Every speaker imposes his or her own limitations or additions on the actions of the Sargent’s arms, and that was Pelosi’s. This far and no further. This far the Lord has helped us. What will Weeper Boehner want? Nothing kinky, I hope.

Then I broke her neck, Ms. James. Rodriguez laid her body down and in a single stroke severed her head with the large, heavy blade we keep in the Room just for that purpose. We put the head in a plastic carrying case, like an old style gym bag, really, and I walked with it out to the garage, where I got into one of the idling Federal cruisers.

We drove to the White House. Someone had already fetched a stepstool and put it along the fence on the Pennsylvania Avenue side. I climbed up, opened the bag - I hate this part because my balance isn’t great and I can’t hold on to the fence to steady myself - grabbed Ms. James’ head by the hair and ears with both my hands, let the bag drop, raised her head up above my own and brought it down hard so one of the spikes of the fence jammed up her neck and into her the skull. Properly impaled, right there next to the others, some of which were in very poor shape, while the crows flapped up and waited.   If she had had a placard, I would have hung it below her.

Alexander McQueen

The Names

Back in the last week of March I grabbed an old paperback copy of DeLillo's The Names from a shelf in our living room.  It was printed in '83, and we figure we read it in 85.  It's a touchstone book for us, it was very wound up in ideas we were thinking and projects we were planning.  This copy was yellow and brittle, the covers falling off.  I taped it as best I could and put a paper cover over it, but it was still in such poor shape that if I tried to hold it with one hand on the subway, with my thumb jammed into the binding to keep it open enough to read, it cracked.  I told Lori about what bad shape the book is in, and she remembered that we bought a hardcopy some time later.  We looked for it, voila, and that's the copy I finished.

About that hardcopy: it's a first edition (1982).  And, judging from the mark on the bottom of the pages, it had been remaindered.  A first edition of our favorite book by one of our country's great living writers, about themes that completely dominate our times (oilwarterrorismcomplicity anybody?) remaindered.  Not available, by the by, as an ebook.

Owsley Stanley dies, one week before world ends in nuclear stewmelt

NYT obit.

Photo: Rosie McGee, via Reuters

Even unicorns!

Pasted to the bottom of the 9th Street F station, at 10th & 4th.  Pretty sure that's from taylorthornebutler.com.

Revenge!

Decemberists.  The Mariner's Revenge Song.

Clutch my pearls

“I’m not afraid of the real truth. There is nothing you can tell me about yourself that is going to make me clutch my pearls.”

Chef Gabrielle Hamilton, interviewed by the NYTimes.
I am going to try to work the phrase "clutch my pearls" into conversation at least once a week.

Also in the article:

“This is a health-food restaurant, in a way,” she said. “People feel well here. In the sense that there’s no guilt, there’s no denial, there’s no self-deprivation.”

Hurdy Gurdy Man - I could not resist

This was posted on Rhizome as a comment to Brian Khek's Venus With Drop Shadow.  (Sounds like a random generator sentence, no?)  I couldn't resist posting it here.

The last time I went to London for work was quite a while ago now.  Five years?  I put up in a too big too fancy place not far from my office, and the fire alarms kept sounding through the night.  At some point I was very cranky, very jet lagged, and I worked out Hurdy Gurdy Man (and then Atlantis) on my uke.   Of course, if I'd been carrying a computer instead of my uke, I could have just gone to donochords.  And hummed.

I'm no a dead yet. (I think)

Our friend, Zahra Partovi, has invited us to a screening of her new film,  REM:

Rapid

trEe        

       Movement

Our old, old, old friend, Lewis Klahr (begorah, we're old) was just in town showing films at Millenium, and sad to say, we weren't able to get together.

Our friend, Giuseppe, took us to a raucous birthday celebration for himself at Enoteca Maria in St. George, the county of Richmond, and I had flashbacks to looney times of 30 years ago.  Yowza!

A crisis has struck the family, and we siblings have pulled together as though not a day has passed since we lived under one roof.  It's sad and beautiful.  And we're no a dead yet.

Our Valentines Day dinner in the borough of Love

Well, I'm wiping the cobwebs from my eyes.  I see I have a couple of unanswered emails from JalaPeno.  It's a call to post.  Bruddah, I'll answer.  Meanwhile:

we had buckwheat galettes in which we wrapped leftover duck confit, plum butter, and shallots (because I forgot to buy scallions).  The batter for the galettes is from David Tanis, and the confit is leftover from last night's dinner, still making it in the way Ruhlman outlines, and it was sitting there in the fridge for most of the last month, slumbered under it's pool of rendered and then congealed fat until we crisped it last night.  Magic duck fat.  And we had it with stir fried book choy and daikon.  We cooked it together,a la Valentine, Lota at the hot hot cast iron for the galettes and me at the wok.  Happy Valentines, y'all.   Food is love.

The table, my seat...

So, here's something I've noticed.  The table we eat our meals at, I call "the table".  I don't really have very warm feelings for it.  I'm not sure why.  It's perfectly good, and other people seem to like it.  I must have liked it pretty well when we first bought it, I guess about 14 or 15 years ago. 

There's a seat at the table I think of as Lori's seat, and a seat at the table I think of as "my seat", and they are opposite each other.  I sit in my seat at dinner time, when Lori sits in her seat.  When we have lunch at home, Lori sits in her seat, and I sit in the seat at the end of the table to her left, which seems closer to her than my seat does, and that seems right for lunch.  When Lori's not home for dinner and I sit at the table, I sit either in her seat or in the seat I sit in at lunch, but not in my seat. 

I just about never sit at the seat at the other end of the table, and I don't really know why.  It just seems like that would be wrong.  That's the seat I most often drape a coat or sweater over, if I'm going to do that sort of thing.  Lori often will drape a coat over her seat: I'll always move the coat from her seat to the seat at the far end of the table, when she's not in the room.

I thought about this a few mornings ago.  I woke at 4 and decided to stay up and read, and my mind wandered.  I think it was the morning I finished reading The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, which is very beautiful and simple and sad and has an improbably happy ending, improbable but you feel it's somehow deserved and you just go with it.  I dozed off again at 5:30 or so, and woke again at 6 and thought that there was something I was thinking about that I wanted to jot down, but I couldn't remember what it was.  I remembered that I thought it wasn't really the type of thing I usually write about in my journal, so maybe I would post it, but that's all I could remember.  Then last night or this morning I remembered what it was I was thinking, then I forgot again.  Then I remembered, and it's not that I think now I should post it, but I just made the new image with the third eyes for the Dante banner, and I need some text to separate the banner from the image I posted the other day - almost the same image, minus Dante.  So.

My hat...

Dutch A/V: Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith

Doh, it's a little late to say so, but we were at LaMama Friday night for Dutch A/V, and it was a great evening.

And, you know, something about the sample video below?  It's all in the evening, and yet in a way it's only tone.  Everything counterpoints off of it.  Watching it now it sets up a frisson, but it doesn't tell the story.  Oh, la.  Trust me, if it comes around, be there.

Dutch A/V (sample) from Tommy Smith on Vimeo.  And Mr. Watts.  Uh, like this: Thus Far (Alternate) by reggiewatts

Bobby Bare Jr. in DUMBO tonight and we plan on enjoying the heck out of it

BOBBY BARE JR. & SPECIAL GUESTS ROCK BROOKLYN, NY 1/11/11
MANHATTAN THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS!?… HAVE YOU EVER BEEN DOWN UNDER THE MANHATTAN BRIDGE OVERPASS?
1/11/11 – WHEN NASHVILLE ROCKER BOBBY BARE JR. MAKES HIS DUMBO DEBUT – TAKING OVER SUPERFINE BAR RESTAURANT – THE PARTY REALLY GETS STARTED!
THE UNTITLED BOBBY BARE JR. DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS COLLABORATE WITH SUPERFINE TO PRESENT: AN EVENING SHOWCASING INDEPENDENT MUSIC & INDEPENDENT FILM
JOIN US IN DUMBO – THE CENTER FOR ALL THINGS ART AND ALL THINGS THAT ROCK
DOORS OPEN AT 8PM
PURCHASE ADVANCE TICKETS HERE – $10 ($12 AT THE DOOR)
*PRICE INCLUDES FREE DRINK TICKETS

The forfathersproject

Our friend, Marlon Cole, is the editor of 4fathers, forfathersproject.org.

And, if you happen to be near DUMBO this evening:

PIXOD STUDIO
55 Washington Street, Suite 451
Brooklyn, NY 11201 (DUMB0)

TIME:
6PM - 10PM

forFATHERSTM project invites you to the...

Intro Photo Exhibit / Meet & Greet

forFATHERSTM project Invites you out to the top of the year 4F meet and greet. The photographic project displays the importance
of having a Father in a child's life. It is a time for us to honor these Fathers we see pushing strollers, holding their child's hand across
the street and picking their daughter up from school.

Visually displaying these positive images will be the hope for better parenting and a brighter future for our children, with the roles of men taking on the responsibility of being an active father in his child's life.

Our mothers cannot do it alone, dads we need them and having you involved in this project will help make it more influential.

25th anniversary of the destruction of The Garden of Eden

ADAM PURPLE AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HARVEY WANG

FusionArts Museum (Gallery B)
February 2-20, 2011
Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday: 12-6 pm
Friday and Saturday: By appointment only
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 3 from 6-9 pm
57 Stanton Street, New York, NY 10002


NEW YORK, JANUARY 4, 2011 – January 8, 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of the destruction of The Garden of Eden, an earthwork created by Adam Purple that once spanned five city lots on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.  This selection of Harvey Wang’s photographs, for the most part unpublished and on display for the first time, documents the expansion of the Garden from 1978 to 1985.  Rare prints of a few of Adam’s 1975-76 negatives will also be shown.

In 1975, Adam Purple set out to plant a garden behind his tenement building at a time when the Lower East Side was a crime-ridden wasteland.  It was a massive undertaking – the site had been buried in rubble from the demolition of two other tenements. While clearing nearly 5,000 cubic feet of debris using only simple tools and raw muscle power, Adam began to create his own topsoil from materials he found at the site and around the city. In addition to traditional composting, Adam made the seven-mile round trip to Central Park on his bicycle almost every day to bring carriage-horse manure back to the Garden, carrying about 60 pounds on each trip.

His circular design had mathematical and metaphysical meaning: The Garden of Eden grew exponentially with the addition of each new ring of plant beds, and at its center was a double Yin-Yang symbol. By 1986, his world famous eARThWORK had grown to 15,000 square feet. Among the many crops and flowers were 100 rose bushes and 45 fruit and nut trees.

Adam “zenvisioned” the Garden expanding until it replaced the skyscrapers of New York. For Adam Purple—social activist, philosopher, and urban gardener/revolutionary—the Garden was the medium of his political and artistic expression. When the Garden was slated for demolition to make way for a federally funded housing project, many prominent New Yorkers wrote letters and delivered statements of support for Adam and the Garden.  Alternative designs that would have spared the Garden or incorporated it into the new structure were displayed in the 1984 exhibition “Adam’s House in Paradise” at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in SoHo.  Nevertheless, The Garden of Eden was razed on January 8, 1986, and the new housing project did not include an apartment for Adam or space for a new garden.

In terms of his revolutionary ideas about sustainability and living as humble members of the natural world, Adam was ahead of his time. He has not yet been properly recognized as an important environmental artist.  It has been 25 years since The Garden of Eden was destroyed, and this exhibition aims to ensure that Adam Purple and his unique, site-specific artwork are not forgotten.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
To hear an interview with Adam conducted by Amy Brost for the StoryCorps Oral History Project, visit http://www.harveywang.com/podcast.html or download the podcast from iTunes.  For the interview transcript, contact Harvey Wang at (212) 777-5918 or hw@harveywang.com.  A slide show of selected photographs along with audio excerpts from the StoryCorps interview is on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfBvdzgQxY

TO HELP SUPPORT THE EXHIBITION, VISIT KICKSTARTER.COM BEFORE FEBRUARY 2.  Search for Adam Purple on the site or go to:
http://kck.st/ejHJg6

ABOUT HARVEY WANG

In the 1970’s and ’80’s, Wang was a resident of Chinatown and the Lower East Side, an admirer of Adam Purple, and one of several photographers and journalists to visit The Garden of Eden periodically to document its expansion.  His photography career has spanned more than 30 years.  Wang’s books include the critically acclaimed "Flophouse: Life on the Bowery" and "Harvey Wang’s New York." His photographs have been exhibited in museums and galleries across the country, including the Museum of the City of New York, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and the New-York Historical Society.  In addition to his work as a photographer, Harvey Wang is a commercial director and a filmmaker.  His short films, ranging in style and approach from documentary to experimental, have been seen in festivals all over the world. His film "Milton Rogovin: The Forgotten Ones" won the prize for Best Documentary Short at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival, and "Triptych" was chosen as Best Experimental Film at the 2004 Rhode Island International Film Festival.  He recently directed his first feature film, "The Last New Yorker," which had its theatrical release in 2010.
# # #

www.harveywang.com

Swap. With beer. And charity.

Sunday 1/23 Swap Meet @ Southpaw
bring something..take something…

3-8pm
$5 cover includes a drink and free food, good music & cheap drink specials all day

Trade or donate your unwanted items in good, clean condition…
Clothing, housewares, books, records & electronics.
nothing to trade? purchase items for a small donation to NY Cares and Housingworks.
All donations and items remaining from the swap to benefit NY Cares and Housingworks.
…get the junk out of your trunk and come on over!

Money: I am an ass dollar bill

Money: St. Jude dollar bill chain letter

Money: Psalm 103 dollar bill

Button or tooth

Chunk of button or tooth, not sure which, long saved (by me) in a box.

Money: 1976 nickel, abused

Let's get lost. Undercity. With Andrew Wonder.

UNDERCITY from Andrew Wonder on Vimeo.
 undercity.org

Stumpy's delicious 23 month chicken liver sandwich, in 13 easy to follow steps

Step 1:  February, 2009, win old maple handled S. Richard (Southbridge, MASS) cleaver at silent auction to benefit Lucky Dog Farm, at Applewood.  Put cleaver in drawer, lose track of it.

Step 2:  June, 2009, Purchase a beautiful knife made by Roselli, from the fine folks at einmaleins in Oly, WA.  This knife puts all other knives out of my mind.  It becomes my knife.  The S. Richard cleaver recedes further into the drawer.

Step 3: November, 2009, another trip to einmaleins, and this time I come away with Michael Ruhlman's Ratio, which gets me to baking bread every week.

Step 4: January, 2010, I buy a very nice pair of poultry shears, all stainless steel, no plastic, so I can more easily cut the backs from chickens and pursue my current favorite dish of a spice rubbed, flattened chicken.  I adopt the habit of cooking the livers from these split birds as a cook's treat.  Lori need not know.

Step 5: May 2010, I have been experiencing bread ennui, and am reinvigorated by Thorne's Outlaw Cook.  But that doesn't last...

Step 6: July, 2010, damn it's too hot to bake every week and there's just too much good bread in the neighborhood.  I become a bread slacker.  I even stop making pizza.

Step 7: October, 2010, I decide to use the wine yeast and the must from this year's Primavera production to make, yes, purple pizza.  Flour is back in my life. 

Step 8: December, 2010, sculptor Frank Saliani describes to me how he makes a no-knead bread.  Hmmm.  I do the same.  And again.  And again...

Step 9: December 2010, I watch a video of Melissa Clark making a prime rib.  Her knife, her knife...  the lady uses a cleaver!  I rummage through our kitchen drawers.  There it is! Feels good in my hand...

Step 10: December, 2010, Lori buys so much nutmeat for baking Christmas cookies that it affects the futures market. There are bound to be leftovers.  There are.

Step 11: December, 2010, whenever we're at home on Christmas day we have a Polish meal of pirogi and kielbasa.  Usually we buy rye bread to go with it.  This year we forget to buy the rye bread, so I decide to make it.  I can only find 5 pound bags of rye flour on Christmas eve.  There is rye bread in our future.

Step 12:  January, 2011, I make New Years Day rye bread.

Step 13: It all comes together.  I buy a chicken for dinner and prep it just before making lunch.  There's the liver, in the little glass cup, waiting for me.  While Lori reheats eggplant leftovers for herself, I fry up the liver.  I butter two slices of our rye bread.  With my mighty cleaver I chop up walnuts.  Then mighty might cleaver minces the liver, smooshes it together with the nuts, and spreads it on the buttered rye.  Then back into the frying pan and pressed down a bit on each side to warm and toast everything just a touch.

And let me tell you, Sweet Baby New Year, it was totally worth the wait.  Delicious.
Happy happy, everybody.

See you at St. Marks?

And a happy New Year!  And there's poesy in the air!  Nu?

Captain Beefheart has passed away

Photo by Ebet Roberts.  Obit at NYTimes.

From the obit:

A bolt-from-the-blue collection of precise, careening, surrealist songs with clashing meters, brightly imagistic poetry and raw blues shouting, “Trout Mask Replica” had particular resonance with the punk and new wave generation to come a decade later, influencing bands like Devo, the Residents, Pere Ubu and the Fall. 

I would have heard Trout Mask Replica the first time in Steve Clark's bedroom, circa 1971 or 72 I think.  Steve and his brothers were big Mothers and Beefheart fans.  It leaves a mark.

“We see the moon, don’t we?  So it’s our eye. Animals see us, don’t they? So we’re their animals.” 

Frank Saliani's lazy bread

I developed a shtick (which really can be like developing a tic) this last summer about not baking bread anymore: because it's too easy in our neighborhood to buy great bread. (I'm thinking particularly of baguettes from Almandine, and sourdough baguettes sold at Grab, and my own bread sort of sucks compared to these.) 

I found myself doing the shtick at a pop up gallery Jonathan Fabricant had this past weekend with two other artists - Frank Saliani and Angela Earley.  What brought it on was Frank offering peanut butter sandwiches on bread he makes, and cookies he baked.  Frank described this particular bread he's making for the sandwiches.  He doesn't knead it.  He makes it wetter than you normally would.  He throws his leftover oatmeal into it.  He let's it rise all day, without punching it down, then just divides it in half and bakes it in baguette pans.

Even as Frank described this, I knew I was going to try it.  And over the weekend I did.  And it turns out to be the absolute killer bread for peanut butter sandwiches.  Super dense, small, consistent crumb, you can slice it real thin.  I had PB&Banana for lunch yesterday, and today it'll be PB&Apple.  Am retiring the shtick.

His safe return was much to the relief of his mother

 

Damgaard Holger/POLFOTO, via Associated Press
Palle Huld, in 1928, as a teenager about to see the world. 

Tintin!

And everything is going fine

We're just back from the premier of And Everything is Going Fine, @ MoMA, and let me urge you, friends, if you are anywhere near NYC when this film opens there in the coming week, GO SEE IT!  (Shameless promotion!  Amy Hobby!)  It is as though the man is in the room with you, from beginning to end.

Buck Howdy

Via everywhere else.

Hauling my reading from the heap

My reading's been all the heck over the place - marooned in the middle of four books at the same time now, and I needed something small and sharp to prod me out of it all.  Seems like Paul Auster's Sunset Park is just the thing.  Your mileage may vary.

City Council to debate idea of Walmart in NYC

Ug.  What's to debate?  Please, kids, write your council person.  Or go knock on their office door in your neighborhood.  It's that storefront on the avenue, currently nestled between the other active small business storefronts.  The one that'll be nestled between the empty storefronts if you don't go knockin' now.  Crain's article.

Why should I care? Who is my brother? What should I remember?

Shameless promotion: Human Rights and Memory.  Coauthored by our friend and neighbor, Danny.  Who's proper form of address is apparently Daniel Levy, Associate Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone

And Lori and I have plenty to be thankful for.

Nice op-ed piece about Thanksgiving and eel (and eel and wasteful greed).  I don't think we've ever had eel on thanksgiving, but seeing this and having mentioned my grandparents here a couple of days ago I will just say that I have some pretty dramatic memories of eel thrashing around their kitchen.

Mary Margaret McBride interview of William Carlos Williams, Dec. 4, 1950

I couldn't possibly describe how important WCW was to my thinking and wanting 30 and 35 years ago. I've just listened for the first time to Mary Margaret McBride's radio interview of Williams, December 1950, collected with lots of other great WCW recordings at the UPenn PennSound site.

Best use for stick match. Ever.

Dude, don't light it.  NYPL Digital Collections. 

Image Title
:  Foreign body in eye.

Standard Reference
: Cartophilic reference books W62-79-b

Source
: [Cigarette cards.] / First aid

Location
: Stephen A. Schwarzman Building / George Arents Collection

Catalog Call Number
: Arents Cigarette Cards 865

Digital ID
: 1570037

Record ID
: 800370

Digital Item Published
: 4-26-2007; updated 6-25-2010

Gone to the country

We had a great time getting to hear Ray Allen talk about his book, then seeing & listening to John Cohen play with the Dustbusters, and then seeing Pete Stampfel's Ether Frolic mash up with the Dustbusters for the rest of the evening.  Thank you, Jalopy.

Hey, you say, Why don't you ever mention other folks in the Ether Frolic?  Hey, right, OK.  Jane Gilday.

Turkey

It was always a favorite story of mine as a kid to hear how my grandfather would walk the turkey home from the market in the Bronx, up to the apartment where my grandmother would kill it.

Reahabilitation Through the Arts

The Unofficial House Band of Sing Sing from Fly's Eye Films on Vimeo.

Lota and I attended a benefit last evening for Rehabilitation Through the Arts - mostly theater, but also some music, dance and poetry readings - and you would have had to have been a stone not to have been moved.  A few of the scenes and monologues written by prisoner members of RTA were just devastating. And lest you think this is a soft heart-on-the-sleeve sort of thing, New York State Commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services, Brian Fischer, attended and was honored for his support of RTA. 

Miwa Matreyek - myth and infrastructure

At TED.  Semihemisphere. I've become an instant fan.  Did you see Digitopia?  Kind of freaks me out a little - the disembodied hand thing.  (A la The Beast with Five Fingers, then The Hand...)

Working Families line - walk it

Missing

Pslope. Heartbreak.
Sent via thingy

The Kids Grow Up

I'm reposting this from Lori (Cheatle - hey, Goog, it's Lori Cheatle again, producer of fine feature length docs!)'s Hard Working Movies site.  Hoopla!

The Kids Grow Up opens in theaters

Posted on October 24, 2010

The Kids Grow Up will have its theatrical premiere this coming Friday, October 29th at the Angelika Film Center in New York City. The film will expand on November 12th to Los Angeles, and then will roll out to several cities after that. See today’s Arts & Leisure piece in the New York Times.

Mean Mom Bad Wife

This new shop in our neighborhood...

... reminded us of our old friend, Nicole Lucas Haimes, who is the Mean Mom Bad Wife.  Fo sho.  Way over yonder on the JP coast of the Internet.

Macinwi discovers the Avett Bros.

(@ NPR)

Stew & Heidi & The Negro Problem tonight @ BAM

Tonight.  See you there?

Been making wine all month...

Dah, it's that time of year, when I live over there...

NY bike riders, please vote!

From TA:

Dear Street Activists,
Crain's asks: Should we pull the plug on Manhattan bike lanes?
Transportation Alternatives asks: Are you serious?
Please vote!

http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/polls/2010/10/should-we-pull-the-plug-on-man.php

And forward!
Thanks!

The Breaking Winds, in The Lady Gaga Saga

You go, Dakota!