Passport dinners
Recently LA and I brainstormed an alternative to Taco Tuesdays (with Scrubs viewing). This is something that can be any night of the week, and involve a revolving cast, depending on whose home we go to. This extravaganza is
Passport Dinners. This involves picking a location
, making a dinner that would be found in that area and showing a movie from/about that location. While initially concieved for foreign lands, we seem to be incorporating exotic locations of the US as well. So far we have visited the South (Midnight in the garden of good and evil), India (
Fire), and last night Morocco* with a viewing of Casablanca. The next destination? Chicago! (can you guess which movie? its not a musical and its fitting for a November viewing . . . )
*
Moroccan carrot salad was a surprising hit
an excerpt
from
Teacher Man by Frank McCourt:
"Sometimes [the principal would] slip in a word or two about the necessity of teaching diagramming and I'd promise to try it. . . I tried but failed. I made lines vertical, horizontal, slanting, and then I stood, adrift at the blackboard. . . [The principal] understood. . . He said some people just dont have it. . . Joe Curran certainly had it. Afterall, he was a graduate of Boston Latin. . . H could diagram in Greek and Latin and probably in French and German. Thats the kind of training you get at Boston Latin."
I like that passage for a couple of reasons. 1. My Dad was always upset with our school system because we never had to learn sentence diagraming, and he had to endure it, darn it, so we must as well. 2. I know a Joe Curran who probably
can diagram in all those languages.
what the heck have I been doing?
In about 2 months I will have Internet access at home and hopefully this will lead to an increase in blogging frequency, as my current rate of posts has started to resemble, or even lack behind
my brother's. Until then, I will try to summerize, bestweekever style.
I went through a NYC culture crash last week, visiting the
National Design Museum, specifically an exhibit on dinning through the ages (Feeding Desire) . . . this consisted of 4 centuries worth of flatware. It is interesting to note that one piece really did remind me of the past. . . Did you ever go to a birthday party at a bowling alley? There was always a pizza party after the bowling in a back room that had the faint scent of sawdust from the previous over-ambitious 8 year old reveler. And following the pizza they brought out little cups of ice cream (chocolate or vanilla) and little wooden spoons to aid in the ice cream consumption. Anyway, it was these little spoons, in the "Pine State" wrapper that was in the exhibit that lead me to then wonder, if this is here, why isnt the 7-11 Slurpie straw/spoon?
The next stop on the culture parade was to see the longest runing off-off Broadway production,
Line. Hmm, what can I say about this show to put it any positive light at all? Well, Fleming was a convincing character. To give the show credit, it's leading lady had sprained her ankle and the understudy wasnt available (hmm, unpaid actors not available at a moment's notice on a Friday night?), so the gal who was available and "familiar with the play" read her lines off th
e playbook while onstage. I suppose too, since the play is 32 years old, the blatent mis-treatment of women was perhaps not as offensive in its year of origin.
What was the original tipping off for culture week was to see Barack Obama read from his new book at the 17th st Barnes and Nobles, got axed in favor of spending a day in Bayridge (a neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn). It was one of what has become a few R rides to see if we (TS and I) like the neighborhood. We do, and have spent the past few days in a ferver to get all the i's dotted and t's crossed so we get the apartment we liked.
As of a few minutes ago virtually all our paperwork is in and we wait for the nod or frown from the board at Birnhouse . . .
ny blase (imagine a little acent agu over the e)
One of things that is great about NY is the people watching. I think if you live in NYC long enough you get over it, double takes become a thing of the past. A prime example of this I observed on my walk to the train . . . a 30ish lady with shockingly bright pink hair crossing paths with a ~6 year old boy in a monkey suit . . . neither seemed to notice the other.
One can tell I'm still a NYC newbie; I gawked at both.
double 10
Today is Tiawan's independance day celebration. I admit, I didnt know much about this day, but when the parade started out my window at work, I was curious and
looked things up. There is something about a parade, even if your not sure what the signs say to make an afternoon festive. What is always fun is seeing the dragons dance down the street to the beat of various drum bands, and little kids eyes widen with awe.
NYC was being a jerk this weekend
Here it is, autumn in NY . . . it was
Open House New York this weekend . . . the makings of a beautiful weekend, right? No, this city was pissy. First there is the train debacle. It seemed any train I wanted to take was being re-routed, coming once an hour, or completely stopped. This meant over an hour and a half to get home Saturday night (midtown to Park Slope). Then on Sunday I had plans to check out the Crystler Building, a green bakery in the east village and maybe the HighLine park. After looking at the bakery and where I was (basically Macy's), reading LA's text that the information about the bakery was available everyday, I knocked it off the list of sites for the day and headed to the Crystler by foot. I was stopped twice for a row of 12 police cruisers passing, all with sirens on(loud. very loud). I kind of think it was the same group and perhaps they were lost? It seems ridiculous that 2 dozen cars would be headed in opposite directions minutes from each other . . . perhaps it was a left turn difficulty?
When I got to the shiny tower, there were some people milling around outside, but when I stepped inside the building, the tour had been cancelled for the day. There are only 2 days a year with this tour, and it was cancelled for one of them.* I did learn that there was a tour at Grand Central Terminal and headed over. I learned that people had been waiting for an hour and that no one had seen the guide yet. hmmm, it was too nice of a day to wait for an unlikely-to-show guide, so I headed outside.
While I was walking east, everyone was stopped and staring behind me, so I turned, to see a cab half hanging over the railing of the bridge above. And a crane was raising to . . . help the cab? but wait, there were so many bright lights on the crane . . . it turns out they were filming Will Smith's latest flick.
At this point I gave up on Open House and decided shoe / paper shopping were a more productive endevor, and started walking toward Union Square. I was crossing along the crosswalk (I had the little man) in the upper 30s a dude with a walkie talkie grabbed my arm, yanking me back. Bewildered I looked around, and at him. There were no cars around, no other people around, and all the guy said was no one can cross here. No reason given. Perhaps it was still the movie "set", but I was re-routed an additional 2 blocks before I could cross the street. So first the trains were a waste and now, I couldnt even walk around town.
When I finally got on the Q back to Brooklyn, emerging at Pacific, I was greeted with the Flatbush Avenue street fair. Walking up Flatbush to 8th Ave, the aromas of several tasty delights teased my nose, and caribean, latin, and hip-hop tunes blended together. Treating myself to a buttery corn-on-the cob, I was glad that at least Brooklyn could redeem itself from its past days behavior.
*apparently they only have one guy that gives the tour and his voice went out after multiple tours on Saturday.
buttons and ribbons and trimmings, oh my!
Yesturday I made my first visit to
M J Trimmings . . . I cant believe I have lived here for over a year and not made it to that place yet! There are so many things to look at and so many craft ideas coming in, there was a total bottleneck of thoughts.
I did pick up a few things, but withheld many purchases with the thought that I can always come back later (I have a bad habit of buying supplies for crafts and not making it for quite some time).
EK/EE gave me a bag of sample fabrics to do with as I please, and I finally have the ingredients I need to create something stellar out of these pieces . . . perhaps I will post a pic when I'm finished. . .
muddled
The other night at Bar Toto, I ordered a drink solely because it's description contained the phrase "muddled orange." It actually turned out to be delicious, but had the description been more specific (ie, orange pulp), I may not have ordered it.
Thinking about this now, I wonder how much of advertising that works is the whimsy . . . perhaps the idea of Audrey Hepburn dancing to AC/DC is more compelling than the look of skinny black pants . . . perhaps the thought of drinking Irish coffee in Ireland is more compelling than the cold and muddy environment . . . perhaps to think that the guy across from me on the train is flirting is more compelling than the actuallity of his contemplation of his latest myspace posting.
If advertising works on "muddled," can science? politics? religion? or does it already?
~deep thoughts by a bored optometrist
