What photo shoots are made of:

Props. For rent at Prop Haus

random sweets

Atlantic Ave. Treasures

City Foundry is a wonderland of forgotten industrial whatnots.


Paul and I pose for Andrew in the unsusually mild January night.


Handmade tooth-fairy pillows at Acorn.

The Year o' the Dog starts with a bang... MANY bangs...

...thanks to super firecracker confetti blaster things that were on sale in abundance.







and then, the Toys 'R' Us zone - dee doo dee doo dee doo dee doo

Go get your F*&!in' shinebox.

Me & Sopranos/Goodfellas/Raging Bull's Frank Vincent.

Pimp My Ride, but for hicks

...and I use the term hick affectionately.

Could CMT's big rig mechanics, the "Chrome Shop Mafia," be the new Fab 5? I'll be tuned in to find out.

Maybe I've just o.d.'d on cool and need a fix of airbrush sunsets and "semper fi" bumper stickers. Maybe it's just nostalgia for long cross country drives and truck stops. I remember seeing the truckers camped out in their cabs as my family's station wagon pulled back onto the highway, our bellies full of biscuits and whatever fried green thing that passed as a vegetable. I always wanted a see inside these miniature mobile homes that people rolled down highways - criss crossing our country with food and cars and everything under the sun. Now's my chance.

Meet Snack

We adore him.

year o' the dog: first 2 weeks recap

Flo & Robert (age 16, above) shacked up in Kensington, Brooklyn. Scenes from the warming soireé:



I finally got Paul down to my favorite Curry Row restaurant, Milon, where we dined till stuffed for about $20.



Gigi on the scene! Jessica's new baby girl, Georgette came to visit us at the office. Little does G know I've been sitting next to her for the last 7 months, albeit she was en belly:


Then last night, the Korean BBQ extravaganza that was Marvi's 30th birthday, starring James the freak.



Sadly for the hotel guests, there was no security checkpoint.

flickr food

I want to see a squirt gun duel!

A recent mention in A Brooklyn Life boosted my ego (I'm published in the same mag as a Pulitzer Prize winner!) but also served to remind me what a treasure the Brooklynite is and what a glorious future it has ahead. I am hoping to contribute as a photo editor for the next issue. A subscription is only $10! As you'll read, Top 10 Reasons to Subscribe include: #7 Brooklynite editor Daniel Treiman will challenge New Yorker editor David Remnick to a squirt-gun duel on the Brooklyn Bridge as soon as we get 2,000 paid subscribers. Do it!

whaddup? DAWG!

A big shout out for Leigh, who is adopting this adorable sugar-bean of a pup currently known as Simba*. Year of the Dog for REALS. Welcome, Doggie Doe!

*new name pending....stay tuned.

Photo Exhibits I'm Hankering to Go See

Click on the images for more info.

Ice Capades: Chinese Stylee

Every year, the Grand World of Ice and Snow draws thousands of tourists. It's a good thing, too, since the good citizens of Harbin, China haven't had much to offer since the trans-siberian railway pulled out of town for the last time. Instead of despairing, for the last 20 odd years they take an abundant resource, ice and snow, add art and throw a party. Old Stalin park becomes a sledding extravaganza filled with replicas of famous buildings. A turn-of-the-20th-century architectural relic itself, Zhong Yang Street (Central Street), boasts an amalgam of influences: Russian, French, Japanese and even American. According to one online city guide, the Christian church was believed by locals to damage the local feng shui, so they donated money to build a Chinese monastery.

what price light?

This image struck me as poignant because, as the tragedy of the Sago Miners so tragically brought to the nation's attention, coal is "the workhorse of the nation’s electric power industry, supplying more than half the electricity consumed by Americans" (US DOE website: energy.gov). What kind of first-world country still sends people into mines? Isn't that why we invent robots? I'm guessing its an involved and tricky process that would confuse our current level of AI. I'm also guessing, going out on a limb here, that alternative energy sources aren't high on our government's priority list. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge anyone?


photo by Eddie Adams, coal miner ca. 1969. A miner then earned an average of $14.80/day.

Why Read Blogs

I am a late comer to the so-called blogosphere. I can't believe I just said that word. *sigh* But here I am, since July 2005, blogging away about my favorite yogurt and my poor suicidal cat. But in the last couple months, I've really started exploring what else is out there, and its much less scary than one would imagine. Oh sure, ther's Mullet Hunters and CatNews, but you'll also find such tasty delights at Better Living Through Design, Gizmodo, DesignSponge, 101 Cookbooks and BlogHungry to name a very, very few (visit Weblogs.com to see just how many). None of these look like anything I've ever seen while hitting the "next blog" button at the top of this page. I even nominated 3 Quarks Daily for a Bloggie Award (to be held at SXSW in my own hometown of Austin.) Post a comment here about your faves.

In an attempt to entertain family and friends yet satisfy my own long repressed journalistic urges, I am trying to dial down the vanity photo diary and increase the original and/or whimsically useful content. I promise essays, recipes, tirades, funny anecdotes and, of course, pet photos. And, like every blog worth its pixels, a 2006 Gift Guide come holiday time. Those of you who are regularly interested in my meanderings may now subscribe via email (see right). Or you can catch my RSS feed, and others, via aggregators like Bloglines and NewsGator to manage all of your feeds. Check them out and start learning why USA Today technology columnist Kevin Maney says 2006 will be "The Year of RSS."

Zuzu belle

Why are textbooks so boring?

There is an enormous disservice being done to Our Children: boring textbooks. They drone on with their "this happened, then this happened, then this was discovered" that no adult, much less an ADD, hormone-adled teenager, would find interesting.

Bill Bryson put this bug in my brain. I wish that I could send a copy of his book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, to every kid in every high school science class in the English speaking world. He retells the history of the universe with the Brit-wit for which he is famous and beloved. And he's making me like astronomy. He also paints such compelling, bumbling portraits of the scientists for whom all of our nebulas, phenomenons and theories are named. We forget that science, at the end of the day, is simply a way of being systematically curious and that many funny mistakes are made along the way. For instance, Percival Lowell, an astronomer who began the search for Pluto, also believed that Mars was covered with canals built by "industrious Martians" for irrigating the arid areas nearer its equator.

I wish I could write text books that find the humor, wit and wisdom in the story of the American Revolution, presidents, calculus and organic chemistry. I was an A student and that stuff still left me cold. But I memorized the information, like eating my veggies.

If educational texts could make kids laugh or tempt them with tales of scandal, controversy, failure and triumph, maybe they'd relate. They'd fear trying and failing less because they'd realize all the Greats fumble at some point. Maybe history would stop repeating itself so much. Or maybe they'd just remember to search the night sky for supernovae once in awhile and recycle more.

catching up

...with gal pals Flo and Lauren at the RVR




...with the trim district. Pictured: M&J and some place on 37th St.



...with a cab home early!

How To: Make Tortilla Chips

1. Cut corn tortillas into quarters.
2. Heat a deep skillet (about 2 or 3 inches) filled with vegetable oil. Get it really hot.
3. Fry tortilla pieces until crispy.
4. Cool on paper towels to absorb excess oil, salt lightly.

#1 After 35 years

...not that I watch football...

arrrggg!!!

This article in today's New York Times should have been written by me:
Essence of Sweet Potato, Sip by Sip

Tuesday Morning, filled with rage

"Dood" Ron Regé, jr, Print # 35 of 50, 6" x 4.2". From Tiny Showcase.


5 AM - Paul wakes late for his flight to Vegas. I know if I fall asleep again I'll end up twice as groggy so I make my way into consciousness.

6:30 AM - Leaving Paul's much too early for my taste, the black, rain-slick streets, freezing rain and umbrella-eating wind. I finally give up on using an umbrella and hunker down into my coat. I pass other black bundles on the sidewalks, we remind me of huge urban penguins. I am very deeply annoyed at having to deal with anything but warmth and comfort at this time of the morning, or at all. I calculate my train route to maximize time under ground versus time above and slip into the belly of the subway.

8:20 AM - Too early for work, I nurse a latte at Starbucks and derive evil enjoyment from the fact that I am now watching the Umbrella Wars instead of battling them. I hate wind. I hate flimsy umbrellas. I hate people who don't notice they just put your eye out with their ginormous pointy large-enough-for-3-people umbrella.

9:15 AM - At last, my desk, warm, safe, benign. I vow not to leave until I absolutely must. To soothe the frustration, I become an art collector.