Brooklyn Bike Jumble

"On May 31st, JJ Byrne Park and the Old Stone House will host the 1st Brooklyn Bicycle Jumble, New York's only outdoor bicycle flea market and celebration of New York City bike culture."

Yes, I ate the marshmellow, but I lived to tell the tale

I had heard about these studies, but to hear and see this video presentation by Joachim de Posada is a joy.

And, I have a story of my own to tell, which I remember whenever these kinds of issues come up (see video). I was spending a summer on campus, and it was hot. A philosophy nerd who was also there had a cantaloupe. I offered to trade an LP I had for the cantaloupe, which he though was absurd and kind of primitive and (immediate gratification and all that). We made the trade, and I was very happy. And the the philosophy guy never really took it in that I didn't like the LP.

Cocaine test prompts Red Bull removal in Germany

Yow. AP blurb, and Slashdot thread. (The targeted ad that popped for me when I went to the /. thread was Lance Armstrong advertising FRS. Giggles.)

Memorial day in the land of wild pansies

Happy Memorial Day, folks.
Here in the land where the weak are eaten, Fleet Week in full force (daily emergency emails alerting us to flyovers and warships in the harbor and just chill out and DO NOT EVACUATE), I'm photographing the pansies that wildly seeded themselves in the cracks of our patio and various pots and garden nooks. And I'm defrosting the last of the berries and peaches we put up last summer so we can have them after the BBQ burgers. Gonna grill those burgers over crab apple branches that died off over the last year or two.

By the by, I ran a few errands this morning and when I emptied my pockets just now a 1944 penny turned up. 1944. On Memorial Day. Kind of spooky, no?

ju ju's heading to the desert southwest...

& before departing, he wants to share some interesting linky bits:
the esteemed columnist for the local fishwrap, Jon Carroll, on the Golden Hour;
via the online NYRB, The Crisis and How to Deal With It;
two chunky, chewy bits of linky goodness courtesy that Kottke guy, Infinite Summer & RunPee.com;
leave you with a really good question posited by the wizard behind the scenes at Ethel the Blog, S. Baum...

senor pongo intends to try to keep his hand in here on occasion whilst sunning himself poolside, imbibing his favorite chilled cocktails and noshing on many south of the border style comestibles...

8th Annual NYC Commuter Race

The money quote from the Gothamist: "And every year the cyclist wins. When will the gaming commission investigate T.A.?". Also at TransAlt.

(OK, really, how many librarians have spoke cards? What? They all do now! Begorrah!)

Foreedge painting

Foreedge painting, at Boston Public Library, via Internet Scout. Called a hidden art. Imagine how much more hidden if one replaced edge with skin.

Which reminds me of a joke I loved as a teenager. You know this one? The punch line is, The old man says, "Wait", and starts clapping his hands, "Bump di-di-bump-bump, Bump di-di-bump..."

Bridge of Sighs

Hey, we only knew Douglas Gillespie as a sassy guy, and our connection was all about food and drink. (Hell, until last night we didn't even know he had a last name.) Turns out he's a pretty stunning dancer, with the Kate Weare Company. Yowza.

More boast, Ab Ob, Ron English, Cuz Kev (Chapados)

Nice interview of Ron English on the FlavorWire.

as timely a list as you will ever see...

by way of the estimable m. woods & his wood s lot, courtesy of Salon
(once you get past that ad blip thingie),
The 13 people who made torture possible

Lock me, Dr. Memory

Hal critiques your lock-up.
In a nice piece of theater, we saw Hal steal David Byrne's bike, last year? Year before? While David Byrne watched.

Me, these days, I use an OK Kryptonite U lock for the back wheel and frame, and I have anti-theft spindles and bolts on the front wheel and seat post. I used to carry a cable, too, for the front wheel. Maybe I'll start again - doesn't add much weight. And lock down my Brookes saddle. Sigh. When I ride itty ikey I wear a motorcycle style cable lock and thread it through all the nooks and crannies.

The Antiques

The old guy likes The Antiques.

The Antiques

methinks we all have wondered why it seems so...

obvious, the incredible amount of idiocy and non-critical thought that permeates our culture of late. By way of Phayrngula (via Akkam's Razor) an introduction to Charles Pierce's Idiot America.

an Immediate Moment Edit:
link to original essay here

mebbe mo' later...

Yea, Verily! as threatened (!) earlier,
this next via the wily codger behind the curtain
at G. Coale's weblog thingie,
Joe Bageant's Escape from the Zombie Food Court

Hee hee, ha ha, ho ho - Funy Business, tonight at the Morgan Library

Hey, kids, we're going to see Lyda Ely's film, Funny Business, tonight, at the Morgan Library, where one of the current shows is On the Money: Cartoons for The New Yorker. There's a cocktail doo before the film, and I'm hoping to meet Roz Chast (images), though I can't imagine what I'll say except hummana hummana hummana.

Abraham Obama, tonight, 8 PM 92nd St. Y Tribeca

Oy, yo yo yo, doing anything tonight? Cuz Kev (Kevin Chapados) directed Ron English's Abraham Obama, screening tonight at the Tribeca Branch of the 92nd Street Y.

some miscellaneous linkage from ju ju's desktop...

long been a fan of Chronicle columnist J. Carroll who delivered this to us yesterday and revisits the topic today;
then, there's an interesting story on the topic of self control provided us via the New Yorker's Jonah Lehrer entitled Don't!;
then, ya already know we pointed ye in the direction of the Morning News in yesterday's post, and that's where we found this piece on our (well, most of us in this category these days) penchant for collecting one thing or another;
and wrapping this up, something interesting and, mmmmmmmmm, well, hard to describe going on at Clusterflock today...
tiny wee bit of clarification necessary here:
today refers to the clusterflock posts of the 14th of May

p.s. ju ju's alter id jaypea be seriously considering resurrecting l'marquis d'monquis effort, currently in hiatus. Dis be sorta inspired by dinner conversation with friend last night 'bout all the hot air currently being expended on the topic of bush cadministration's torture policies,etc. without nary a word of the School of the Americas, and no, we not gonna get started on it here, but consider yerselves forewarned...

Homeland Security officials attacked and held hostage

A group of Mexican youths attacked a busload of DHS employees and middle level officials, and are holding 17 hostage. They've sealed the bus and flooded it with dope smoke and won't let anyone out to go to the bathroom. Or maybe not. The NY Times says the image is Boy Scouts training to protect their country from terrorists. Who you gonna believe? Actually, I haven't read the article, I just like the photo (Todd Krainin for The New York Times).

Yo Stumpy! Yo Dante! Yo Esteban!

lookee here!

con muchos besos y abrazos a todos ustedes,
Ju Ju

and then,
later that same day:
ju ju sharing The Morning News with ye...

Oh NO!
another website to add to all the others I'm trying to keep up with!"

be sure to check out this edition's gallery, White Space.

Hecho en Nueva York

Some things still are.
(Me loves Tom Cat. The bread and their trucks.)

algo para la cocina de Ju Ju...

courtesy the NYT online,
something yummy (and so economical too!)

later that same morning:
why Ju Ju loves Clusterflock reason #131,
Leave me the F__k alone
me luvin dat conversation takin' place in de comments...

where ju ju spent his saddidey...

amongst good friends and many fellow guitarists,
an afternoon of music, the pause that refresheth, yummy munchies,
lots of beer and wine, and more music, music, music...

be forewarned, there will be video w/Audio;
let the caterwauling ensue!

May is back to bike commute month!

We flew home last night. Today's forecast called for sunny 60's, so after I put on the suit I thought, what the heck, and got on the bike. Nice chat at Smith and Atlantic with a bearded dude in long shorts and arm warmers all about the perfect weather and sweat and keeping clean clothes at the office. Got to Boro Hall and was happy to see they'd tripled the number of bike racks (thanks, Marty), happy to see the same coffee vendor in the shack, and bummed (but not surprised) to be having a little asthmatic gaspola. Maybe will squirt before the ride home.

Anyway, heaven.
Sent via thingy.

donde esta el 'amburguesa mas sabroso en Nueva York?

pos, quien sabe?
hmmmmmmm?

stumpy?
MellieMel?
anybody?

forty year anniversary of Easy Rider...

wow...

caught sight of that news at some blog or another, you can look up your own item regarding this news via this googled link.
Just an aside here, recently viewed a film titled Elegy w/Ben Kingsley and Dennis Hopper, a long way from his role as Billy in Easy Rider.

manohman, was just an impressionable young buck of sixteen when I saw easy rider, the northgate theatre in ol' EPT...

Later that same day...
two wonderful pieces from two different sources, both worthy of thy studied perusal:
The Things That Carried Him by Chris Jones, courtesy Esquire Magazine online;
How David Beats Goliath, by Malcolm Gladwell, via the online New Yorker.

The search for the zozo

Streetfilms.

Toilet paper tube faces

At Make. (#1 and #2, nyuk nyuk)
By Junior Jacquet.

Seeing large numbers

Check out Chris Jordan's work - Running the Numbers.

Paper, scissors, rock

Posted while spending an hour reading my book and twiddling my smart phone. Hmmm.

Kid's rocket MNIDOAILY logo

The rocket and stars in the current MNIDOAILY logo comes from Picture Book of Astronomy, by Jerome S. Meyer and Richard Floethe, 1945. Lookee here!

It wasn't as good as it used to be, and I decided to lose the hat

We went to a restaurant last night that we used to be regulars at, but haven't been to in maybe a year or two, during which time it had ups and downs, closed and reopened. We sat at the bar and the tender got our drinks wrong, then forgot to put in our apps order, then took forever to take our dinner order, which took what seemed like an hour to emerge from the kitchen. The owner, who always used to greet us, both in the restaurant and when we bumped into him now and then on the street, saw us, but didn't come over.

When we left and were a block away, I realized I didn't have my hat. I decided not to go back for it.
Sent via thingy.

Mister Lucky

Isaac Chotiner review of Outliers, in The New Republic

Gladwell's overarching thesis in Outliers is so obviously correct that it hardly merits discussion. "The people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are." Also, tomorrow is the beginning of the rest of your life. Gladwell writes as if he is the only person in the world in possession of this platitudinous wisdom.

And,

It is Gladwell's discussion of IQ that gives the clearest window into his thinking, and also most acutely exposes the problems with this shallow and irritating book.

Really, thank you.

The bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar

“My birth, is the subject of the most humiliating criticism."

Eine kleine Mayday sonic mayhem

1995, Craig Baldwin, Sonic Outlaws. Via rhizome.

Brooklyn Food Conference

Tomorrow, just down the Ave, at John Jay.

H1N1 and bacon wrapped oysters

First, why is this dish referred to as angels on horseback, and by whom? In real life, I mean.

Second, do you poach the oysters before wrapping them in bacon? Do you broil the darlings or do them in a pan of oil? Do you bread them for extra crunch?

Does properly cooked mean deliciously cooked? I hope so. Clearly it does if you are at Porchetta.
NY Restaurants Fear a Pork Pullback.

Keep your hands off my A on H, honey.

scanwiches - ?

mmmmm...
yummy stuff;
mo' yummy stuff from the wonder that is NPR,
Spring's Cold Comfort...

s'a good thing that it is nearly lunchtime...

They asked me to make the block party poster again this year

Last evening's mock-up makes me worry that they'll think they made a mistake. (Well, to tell the truth, that thought didn't occur to me. It occurred to Lori and she shared it with me.)

dickensURL - love it - the opposite of tinyurl

DickensURL.com
as in:
http://dickensurl.com/4853/The_men_who_learn_endurance_are_they_who_call_the_whole_world_brother

lovely piece on secession by H. Hertzberg...

via the New Yorker magazine, Online Edition,
So Long, Pardner;

via NPR.org, D.Faris seconds that emotion,
Don't Mess with Texas ... Get Rid of It!

Current swine flu is the inevitable result of modern farming methods – HS Daily Wire

http://hsdailywire.com/single.php?id=7867

The statement isn't so shocking. That it's being made in the Homeland Security Daily might be. Dig that word *inevitable*.
Sent via thingy.

28 flights down, thank you

Me and thousands of my best friends evacuated our buildings this lovely Monday morning. Golly, it's good to be away from that boring old Portland, ME, and back here Gotahm!

so much music...

via the Hype Machine,
by way of Akkam's Razor
All the blogs that The Hype Machine checks for fresh music.
so little time...

Lunchtime specials at the Thomaston Cafe, Thomaston, Maine

Including, today:
* Shad roe pan fried and served over a bed of spinach w/ bacon and home fries.
* Finnie haddie cakes w/ salad.

To die for.
Sent via thingy.

coming soon, to a theatre near you

ju ju spock in Starship Bloopers
aka
the revenge of the ex-girlfriend...

leader of the monkeez indeed...

Bar Lola, Portland, Maine

At the top of the big hill, just past the firehouse. Totally fabu. We shared 10 (ten!) dishes. Am totally wiped. (Note to self: lay off the Scotch.)
Sent via thingy.

dos cosas...

and both worth sharing...

via esteemed weblogging comrades Steve B. and Kevin M.,
first up, Mr. Baum points us to this moment in time,
and Professor Murphy provides us a timely history lesson
(for which I am very - ! - grateful, ignorant fool that me be...)

one o' these days me hopes to buy each of dese guys a beer
(or some adequate substitute...)

Brooklyn Based, and bees buzz

E forwarded mail to me last week from Brooklyn Based (which caused some brain fog that only cleared when when I saw E this weekend: She said, Did you get my email? I said, no, but I got an email from someone with your name - oh, that was you? stroke).

Anyway, it was all about beekeeping in here in River City. Lori says, No. There go the mead plans.

worthy of mention hereabouts...

& credit where credit is due,
me thanking the clusterflockers,
and now, without further ado,
Wunderkammer

Tour de Brooklyn

I said what I said, and I meant what I meant...

Nice label!

Bitter sage

Cross posting a pic from our wee private winemaking blog. Have a sage & lemon thing happening on a grain alcohol base, that should finish just in time for the big summer party hereabouts. Naming it Juju Pongo's Love Balm.

Billionaire's Vinegar

Just read the first third of Benjamin Wallace's The Billionaire's Vinegar. A fun whodunnit, especially for me in this time when I seem to be awash in booze (prep for the 3rd annual puttanesca and new wine bash, trying to get Pietro to bottle his 2007 wine so I can make some room in the cellar, experimenting with making a couple more liqueurs...). There was something I read in the book yesterday that, on first blush, I scoffed at, but then quickly changed my mind about.

There was a romantic aspect to it all. Rodenstock and his new friends were "drinking history," as they liked to say, and would commonly wax historical about what Goethe, Schiller, or Napoleon was doing in the year of the vintage they happened to be opening just then.

And I thought, poo, poo, but almost immediately followed that thought with, Hey, we have some old wine. I want to drink some wine that was made before 9/11. Hmmm. (I just went down there and checked - the oldest bottle is a 1966 antique port. Boom boom.)

Shameless promotion: Eating for Beginners

Neighbor and puppet-master-blogger (eh, he's pulling my string again), DL, points to other neighbor Melanie Rehak's Eating for Beginners where, yo yo yo, on my very first visit I see a WCW pome, just like at home.

Golf, wee bairn

Am at bar of Bridge Cafe stop
Circa late 1790's stop
Good salad stop Reading David Owen's article re Askernish in current New Yorker stop
Remembering Jack Pero who taught us golf with whiffle balls circa late mid 1960's stop
Hellofa lot more like the Askernish game of Old Tom in Owen's article than anything I've seen on the vidi lately stop
http://newyorker.com stop
FORE stop
Sent via thingy.

Coke spermicide

Collage-itti

Carroll St. F.

Sent via thingy.

so THAT'S the secret...

not saying that most of yourstruly's paramours have had decidedly simian characteristics (& just what would you expect would attract a big ol'ape fellah like me anyways...)
"hey, my leetle monkee-gal, howzabout a steak dinner?"

p.s. - ain't that the truth...

Diorama Zen

web zen / diorama zen, from September, 2008.

Apropos the little contest we've been running, prizes have been selected, including Vladmaster's The Public Life of Jeremiah Barnes, and Slinkachu's Little People In The City.

Buona Pasqua

The best anisette I ever had...

... I had last night before beddy bye, just a wee dram, and it was made by me from this simple recipe in Dona & Mel Meilach's Homemade Liquors, page 83:

• 2/3 tbsp anise seed
• 1/2 tsp fennel seed
• 1/2 tsp coriander seed
• 1.5 cup vodka

Mortar the seeds, and put into the vodka for 1 week, shaking daily. Then strain and add

• 1/2 cup simple syrup

I strained it a number of times before I was happy (cheesecloth). I also turned it a few times a day for a few days until I was really happy with the integration of the syrup and the infusion, but I probably could have instead just shook it real hard when I added the syrup.

Way less cloying than most. (My syrup was 2 parts sugar to 1 part water.) Spicy! Yummy! Finished product about 30% alcohol.

Ain't misbehaving

Blow me down. Right now, go listen to Irving Mills' Hotsy-Totsy Gang playing Ain't Misbehaving (singing and dancing by Bill Robinson), 1929 Brunswick recording, at Scott Alexander's Red Hot Jazz Archive site. Yow! I'd gotten out of the habit, but 20's dance music is biting me again.

the will to live...

ahhhhhhh...
Sophie Tucker lives
that picture reminds me so of my late, lamented cattledoggy, Cam...

May - NYC Bike Month

Worlds collide - Mamas & Papas dioramas / my life as a professional

I rarely post about work related matters, even in a general manner, but I think this item will pass censor.

I invited folks from companies where I spend a goodly amount of my employer's money to submit dioramas in a head to head competition. Theme: The Mamas & the Papas. Due date: April:10. Judging: April 15. Judge: me. Judging criteria: undisclosed (and, uh, unknown).

These are some pretty competitive people submitting.
See: here. (Will post more as they come.)

Submissions so far from: Autonomy Interwoven, Cervalis, Cisco, Fidelus, Insight, IntApp, LexisNexis, Microsoft, Mindshift, Premier Tehnology Solutions.

Mechanical Music Extravaganza

Quake! Colleague LD is pointing us to the next Mechanical Music Extravaganza, Sunday the 19th in Wayne, NJ. Been a long time since we took this drug. But you know what they say... Once you've had shellac, you'll never go back!

That drip of mu on his nose made me feel real bad for the pork guy

What a couple of days his weekend. Saturday morning was whippin' windy and chilly. We went up to the farmers' market and the guy from Flying Pigs - not Mike Y but the guy who's name I don't know - was shivering and had this little drip of mu at the end of his nose. We felt so bad for him we got him a cup of hot cider. That probably warmed him and then he probably had to piss, on top of shivering. Dang. But he did have more hot sausage than usual, and the Wilklow people had more flat irons than usual, so, sorry, it worked out real nice for us.

Sunday! Sunday was a beaut! Warm and blue and we had all three meals cooked at home. Leftover wheat berries & farro for breakfast a la Bittman; lunch was scallion pancakes and that Sicilian sheep cheese flavored and colored with saffron that we bought at the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills when Lori had meetings there last month; dinner was that Batali pasta dish with tons of black pepper and arugula and cacio de Roma, and we got to eat it in the back yard as the sun set and the air cooled. Lori remembered that we hadn't had that dish in five years. (Gonna have the leftover pasta tonight as a side with some of the flat irons.)

Some rain, some wind

Sent via thingy.

And, of course, there is the charango...

(By the by, I read the posts over at Futility Closet - why assume Will Rogers was joking?)

two wonderful linky bits...

(well, three actually...)

numero uno: Curious Expeditions;

numero dos: Futility Closet;

and, providing referral to both of those wonders, bifurcated rivets.

Tiples, taro patches, and Antebellum

Been thinking of tiples and taro patches lately, half from enjoyment of my Akulele uke and half out of pure g.a.s., and that led me to stumble on Jake Wildwood's Antebellum Music site.

Do, if you're feeling strong, see the custom electric tiple at Specimen. Gadzooks!

25 years today!

What we been readin'

What's it to you? Ah, well, since you asked...

After finishing Mr Barth's The Development I really did dive into Andrew Sullivan's The Conservative Soul, as I threatened myself I would. Great friggin' book. Much of the first half of it is devoted to an explication of fundamentalism better than any I would have thought to have read. Taking it seriously (and opposing it) on its own grounds. And then a description of fundamentalism's grip on the current Grand Old Party and its dark service at the core of the Bush administration. All as a prelude to Sullivan's description of true conservatism. Makes a liberal wish he could help the conservatives wrest back control of the GOP.

Then (or maybe during), Ricky Jay and Rosamond Purcell's Dice: Deception, Fate & Rotten Luck. Then (and now) Umberto Eco's Serendipities : Language and Lunacy, alternating with recipes from A.J. Rathbun's Luscious Liqueurs. (Something about a fantasy of replacing much of the booze in the cabinet with our own concoctions. The better to read Eco by.)

You?

Do you think Cosmos is obscene?

Bless you, Gerald Ross. Bless you, Ukulelia. Ukulele Cosmos.

Sigh. Great sauce. Meat dry. WInchester Cathedral.

I thought I'd make up for last evening's disappointment by making Bittman's dish-o'-the-day, pork clay pot. Let me tell you, the sauce was delish. Double delish. But in a hurry I couldn't get any pork shoulder and went with some chops that were too lean, so even though there was plenty of liquor in the pot, they dried out. I was a little disappointed, but not like last night. After dinner I went rumaging through hooch hutch, found two bottles of the same porto (thank you, RR), both three quarters empty, decided to combine them to make a little shelf room and, oops, filled a wee glassy for my troubles. Well, the chile and ginger from the sauce, the dinner wine, the we dram afterward, the small disappointment of the dry pork, the lingering hurt of last night's dinner... and I found myself singing. Singing Winchester Cathedral. Huh.

The disappointing meal

You know when you make dinner and it's just not that good? I hate that. Happened last night and it's still bothering me.

I was making a simple dish - a bunch of veg diced 1/4 inch (eggplant, zucchini, yellow pepper, celery, red onion), roasted, then sauteed in butter, add some chives, and mix it all with some whole wheat pasta - but I was following someone else's method, roasting the veg at a lower heat & for shorter than I would have on my own, and when it just wasn't turning out, instead of adjusting, I slavishly followed on. So the veg didn't roast enough, then didn't break down enough while sauteing, and I would up with more of a chunky-veg-relish-thing than a chunky sauce.

Why didn't I just slow it down and follow my eyes and nose and taste? Sheesh.

Cycle Chic

Loved the link out in Juju's last post from clusterflock to Cycle Chic (Copenhagen).

Alas, weather here is still a'teasing. Warmer, but the sun just won't break on through. Last night in the 20's. Brrrsky. More like those Copenhagen pics than Brother Berkeley.

sunny hereabouts...

after a rainy night, astonishingly bright sunday morning sunshine flooding through the living room windows...

point ye in the direction of the clusterflockers, many good photos on display there (sequence of photos begins w/the seventh post of the 22rd...) in response to early post on the 21st...

Obama Veg

Meatballs!

Our friend, Mikey S., born and bred and lived his whole life here in our little borough, took me a few months back to see Mark Strausman give a cooking demo at De Gustibus. Mikey has become chummy with Strausman over the years and after the demo a number of us chatted. Well, out of the blue in the mail yesterday was a copy of Strausman's and Pino Luongo's Two Meatballs in the Italian Kitchen, inscribed to me by Strausman, and all of it Mikey's doing. Grazie mille, Mikey.

And it's a great read, this cookbook. All of the homages and disconnects and insults of the two friends that are the conversation between traditional Italian regional cooking and Italian American cooking.

Reading chapter 2, The Great Meatball Debate, I suddenly understood something in one of my own family traditions that I'd seen a thousand times before but never given much thought to. How my Mom serves meatballs.

(Sidenote: I spent most Sundays of the first 8 years of my life at my Grandmothers' apartment in the Bronx, as did all of her children and their young families. My southern Italian grandmother's meatballs and my Italian American mother's meatballs are very different - maybe not as different as northern Italian Luongo's and Jewish American Strausman's meatballs, but way different.)

So, my realization.
Like most Italian Americans my Mom cooks her meatballs (and, in the older family days and still for big dinners, her sausage, veal, pork, braciola, or whatever she chooses) in her tomato sauce. First brown the meat, then into the sauce. (Strausman doesn't brown the meat first. To the barricades!) But then, unlike in the Italian American spaghetti and meatballs tradition, she doesn't server the meat on the pasta. But she also does not quite serve the meat after the pasta as a separate course. The meat gets put into it's own serving bowl, with sauce, and appears on the table after the pasta. Like maybe, literally less than a minute after the pasta, but after the pasta and not before. Then some of us put the meat on our plates along with the pasta, and some of us eat the meat after the pasta, but no one puts the meat on their plate before the pasta.

A small step in the lifelong process of understanding one's family.

And today's only Saturday and there's still time to shop for Sunday dinner!

happi first day o'spring!

won't ye be my neighbor?

in re our own earlier post hereabouts,
Mark M. weighs in on the topic...

& gaawwdamm, it be good to see S. Baum back at it regularly on EtB

on the cusp of spring's arrival...

meself am feeling a bit of melancholy these days, and there be any number of reasons for that, tho we won't be getting into much detail hereabouts, altho might liven things up elsewhere with those stories...

we all aware of the headlines regarding those same producers of headlines, the demise of daily newspapers across the country, the effect that the very technologies we utilizing to share these thoughts with ye and for ye to indulge in lengthy perambulations throughout the ether be, well, in some fundamental way, the things that contributed mightily to the scenario, & yourstruly sad to read about it, to realize it. Amigo-at-a-distance Gordon Coale relates a bit of his own history with Pacific Northwest newspapers & within that post a link to Clay Shirkey's piece on topic. Esteemed amigo Lee S. delivers something of an epitaph for the local fishwrap, where we once labored together on the killing floor of the classified ad sales department and where he labors yet, dealing with the stories of dead folk daily. Speaking about that local fishwrap, longtime columnist there Jon C. makes some mention of related events in yesterday's column.

so, is kind of unsettling, no?

Not so fast...

Wella, wella, wella, this one's for all of you who are somehow outside of the NY Post's footprint. That's a condition I'd normally say is a good thing, but every now and then there's a cover that makes you smile.

Tobacco, where have you been

It's been a bad past year, breathing wise, requiring drugs and instilling something between caution and fear. But the last month has been suddenly better, and this last weekend I was able to ride bikey w/out xopenex, and this evening after making wild rice w/ baby bok choy and broccolini (t) (sku 3277) (hurts me just to type that word, but it tastes good) and cutting the backbone out of a chicken (I use a cleaver, not a sissor, and I leave the keel bone in) and rubbing the s(k)in side with a voodoo of cumin, corriander, allspice, ginger, salt, cayenne, black pepper and a sassy sweet paprika-like powder and doing it up at 425 for about 40 minutes, and drinking most of a bottle of Almira Los Dos grenache syrah blend... Where was I? Oh, after that, and Lorishki and me chatting about the day's challenges and Lorishki going upstairs to bathe, I thought... C O H I B A. And yes, with my newly recovered lungs and the last of the Los Dos I grabbed one of the little Cohibas I still have stashed away from the last Paris trip, and in the dark of the back yard, hoodie up, I did smoke that little beauty. And it was good.

Are you lonesome tonight, Jumbo Jimbo?

Salute! Are You Lonesome Tonight, at Jumbo Jimbo.
I find myself looking for lots of songs from the 20's and 30's lately. The one above (1926) is by Roy Turk and Lou Handman.

The Development (more berets) - John Barth

Back when I started studying litrichur, scratching slates with coal, etc., John Barth (and, unofficially) was an already established writer. I remember reading Floating Opera and Chimera in classes - don't remember if I first read Sotweed Factor for fun or profit. (Just thinking about it makes me want to do it again. Or Letters - maybe I'll take a crack at Letters.) But anyway, he was there then, and he's still here now, and I've just read last year's The Development. Thanks, Mr. Barth.

The ending of the second story in the book made me cry. On the subway. Generally, brothers and sisters, don't do this. Your fellow passengers assume you are, you know, crazy or unstable or just generally about to impinge on their personal space in a way that's really going to harsh their mellow - though probably make for good dinner / drinks conversation. But Mr. Barth is 79 now, and was just a few years younger I guess when writing The Development, and he was writing about the things he and his coevals are worrying about and going through - the diminishing of life, health, the shortening of days, dementia, death. It's a long life, but we do get to the end of it.

Sidenote: The Scriptorium asks, and answers:

For whom is the fiction of John Barth fun? Perhaps for lovers of complex metafictions. For people constrained by nineteenth century notions of realist literature it is a place of fear and confusion.

World Naked Bike Ride - giddyap!

una cosa mas...

etta james

i would rather go blind


courtesy the fine mind behind gmtPlus9 (-15)

p.s.

methinks me died an' gon t'hebbin...

the unspeakably named mc-thing...

and it goes so nicely with a bold chianti...

an endeavor recommended for..

the more hirsute amongst ye...

Beard Team USA

1 million names

What's the biggest crowd you've ever been in? I'm guessing for me it would be the Caribbean Day parade in BKLYN - I haven't been for a few years, but they say these days it's up to about 3 million people, so I'm guessing I must have been around the 1 mil. mark or better. Bigger than Vietnam or Iraq era marches I've been in.

Anyway, this just in:

Terrorist Watchlist reaches 1 million entries (representing about 400,000 individuals)

U.S. Terrorist Watchlist reaches 1 million entries; since many individuals on the list have several entries owing to the different ways in which their names may be rendered, the number of individuals on the list is about 400,000. full story

Lunchtime Robert Melee

City Hall Park. Rodin + crayons.

Via thingy.

Oscar Aleman - Besame mucho

Da'Levy writes to say that he's listening to

(Will I never tire of this new imeem widget toy?) O.A. wiki; vidi.

Everybody hurts

We were lucky enough to see the arts benefit / REM tribute at Carnegie Hall last evening - twenty bands playing REM tunes, and then REM came on for a little night-capper with Patti Smith. Describing it all would be linky-dink-a-doo all afternoon - maybe I can find a post by someone else somewhere else - (Yes - I can - the poster site here for now) but this post is here to say that the emotional high-point (low-point? stress-point?) was Vic Chesnut and Elf Power performing Everybody Hurts. Woof!

VC:
North Star Deserter

Hey, something about that Elf Power site - the painting by Terry Rowlett - Through The Garden. I've seen it. It used to hang in the place that was Zipper. On Smith Street. No? makes me wonder if the Zipper people are from Athens, too.

Germs, Viruses and Secrets

I'm still a big fan of Steven Aftergood's Secrecy News.
From today's email:

"No one in the Federal Government even knows for sure how many of these labs there are in the United States, much less what research they are doing or whether they are safe and secure," said Rep. Bart Stupak at a 2007 congressional hearing, the record of which has recently been published. "What we do know is that the Federal Government has been funding the proliferation of these labs on an unprecedented scale."

See "Germs, Viruses, and Secrets: The Silent Proliferation of Bio-Laboratories in the United States" (pdf), House Committee on Energy and Commerce, October 4, 2007 (published December 2008).

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Imeem, umeem, we al scweem fo imeem

Nu? Macinwi's an imeem fan. Hard not to be!

I will never wash my kazoo again

I posted about January's Pete Stampfel / Ether Frolic Mob gig at Jalopy, and that was fun, but let me tell you, last evening's doings wuz da bes yet. Clicky away on that little kazoo pic - they had a box of them last night, signed by everyone on stage and to be used (vigorously, if not tastefully) by the audience. And they were. But, horrors, the sweat and spit and lipping and squeezing wore away the Sharpee! Still, the "Peter" is professor Stampfel hisself, and the "John" is John Cohn. "Jeannie" Scofield, who is the perfect vocal foil to PS. Jalopy is the place to be.

Sausage!

I don't think my gustatory friend will mind me sharing this:

"I thought you all might appreciate this photo taken at the annual sausage making event that I was fortunate to be able to attend a couple of weeks ago. Thirty of us gathered in a house in K..., New York and we turned over 300 pounds of pork shoulder into sausages over the course of the day. We were supervised by three Italian brothers who have been doing this forever. The shot you see is us seasoning the ground pork before putting it into the casings. Throughout the day, we were fed – fried cheese, various kinds of pizza, grilled pork – and we ended with a feast of pasta, pork stew and home made wine. Truly heavenly ( and I went home with 10 lbs of sausage!!)"

Sent via thingy.

'Nuff said

I just couldn't let this go

Aside from really loving the song, the dance number in the second half is to die for. Those clear raincoats! And the way Modugno stretches out his right arm the first time he sings Ciao, Ciao, Bambina. (c)(t).
Of course, as a kid in the Bronx, it would have been Jerry Vale, not Modugno that I would have heard.

Thank you, neighbors

We snuck into JFK last evening just before the storm, and I had a sorry time of it dragging myself out of our time-lagged bed this morning knowing that I needed to go downstairs and face the foot of drifted snow at our door, shovel in hand... When, low and behold, booted and hooded I swung our house-door open and saw that someone had shoveled our walk for us. Not just the sidewalk, but a path right up to our door.

Thank you, neighbors.