Tragedy can be so beautiful

Click on My Photo Cutting Room Floor here (or at right) for more of these New Orleans churches and other images I couldn't get into print but should be seen!

Lunchables - old school

Brooklyn Children's Museum

It's ok, Leigh!

When you get a pet, you should let the blogging about it happen. It's natural. It's love, in pixels. And look, here's what life would be like if you got your self a hedgehog named Numo.

Anniversaire Les Halles

Paul and I commemorated 6 months from our first date with a trip to Les Halles. Some weeks after our romance began I lent him a book I have lent everyone I've ever met, the notorious Kitchen Confidential, which he of course loved (our second literary synergy, after Douglas Adams). So it was a cold February evening and what else to do than tuck in to some hearty bsitro fare?

I ordered the Choucroute Royale (February is Choucroute Month at Les Halles!) and Dr. Atkins would have been proud. But for 2 potates fumée (boiled potatoes), I found before me a heap of pork on a bed of champagne-braised sauerkraut.

Vegetarians, do not read on. Choucroute is actually French for sauerkraut, choucroute garnie (literally dressed sauerkraut), an Alsatian recipe for preparing sauerkraut with sausage and other salted meats. The Les Halles special I ordered included, if memory serves, a smoked pork loin, boudin noir, smoked bacon, frankfurter, salami and salted pork belly. Not a trace of green or any other vegetation, this was rustic, working class fare (for a not-so-working-class price). I only managed one tiny taste of pork belly, with the affirmation "Tony (Bourdain) would want me to." (In the book, Bourdain is vocal in his disdain for the squeamish.) My experiment yielded an unexpected appreciation for sauerkraut and an not so surprising distaste for organ meats. Hey, don't knock it till you try it.

the view from the basement

Filene's Basement Union Square.

Trans-fat on Canal Street

Where cool angels fear to tread:

The Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, Missouri. Because life is full of saccharine moments.

Just a little tidbit for your brain:

Countries drawn according to population.

mercury (retrograde) and B'GAWKing through the week...

Three times a year, for about three weeks, Mercury goes "retrograde", meaning that from the viewpoint of Earth, the planet appears to be moving backward. Many astrologers believe this is a common time for electrical and mechanical problems. I don't know if it's actually happening this week but I use the phrase "mercury's in retrograde" to refer to any old week that is fraught with issues such as the ones I'm having today:
• home computer no worky
• ipod no worky
• can't upload pix to the blog for some reason
• gmail.com won't load
• my cell phone gives an error message to some incoming callers

Sure, it's mostly hooey, but it's fun! For the most trippy, spacey astrology since Rob Brezny, click here.

So while Mercury is pissing me off, you dear friends have 4 opportunities for amazing comedic genius this week in the form of:
Wed 2/22: Sarah Nowak at Ash Wednesday
Fri 2/24: Chicken Ranch
Sat 2/25: Chicken Ranch
Sun 2/26: El Mo at Ampersand

Visit the Chicken Ranch Blog for all show deets!

Guest & Gervais: My Personal Movie Dream Come True

From Variety (click photo above for full article): "Christopher Guest has decided to make a movie about the shooting of a bad movie. In the process, the man who gave us "Best In Show" intends to do a sendup of awards season.

Warner Independent Pictures is targeting "For Your Consideration," which Castle Rock Entertainment will produce, for a fall 2006 release.

Ricky Gervais will join a roster of thesps who've appeared in Guest's previous pics, including Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, Harry Shearer, Eugene Levy, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Coolidge, Michael McKean and Fred Willard."

go kinky, go kinky, go kinky, go!

Two brands of strange whimsy

Marvi's glimpse into the ultimate in dog worship: the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show


Cactus Friends by Tokidoki

kimchi fights bird flu?!

Thanks to Culiblog, I found out that not only does it kill the virus, it's being used to make air conditioners. Click here for the full Reuters article.

On some cartoons that ran in a Danish newspaper...

In case you haven't noticed, here's the photo recap. There are plenty of voices weighing in on the cartoon chaos, but I found this particular tidbit from New YorkMagazine's Kurt Andersen interesting indeed:

"Consider three U.S. news stories that broke coincidentally with the cartoon madness. A Bush-appointed PR handler at NASA had insisted that government scientists refer to the Big Bang as a theory. In an exurb of Denver, a public-school music teacher was forced to write a letter of apology for showing a video about opera, because it featured Joan Sutherland talking to puppets about Faust and Mephistopheles—i.e., it was pro-Satan. And after it was discovered that the producers of an evangelical movie had cast a gay actor, the president of a Baptist seminary said, 'It would probably be an overreaction to firebomb these men’s houses.' Perhaps she said 'probably' ironically, like the Iranians are smirking about their Holocaust-cartoon contest."

highlights: my bloglines

I am sucking down between about 55 to 70 blog feeds everyday to bring you the very best in blog potpurri. Check out the link at right "Fun stuff I've clipped from other blogs." Here are some recent highlights:

• Mangled English Indonesian Valentines
• Recipe: Pistachio and Almond Tart with Orange and Cardamom
• Where to find a $1,000 ice cream sundae in New York
• Order your own custom tartan to your specifications
• A visual history of hard drives

Bon appetit!

vive sans les temps mort!

Speaking of art school: Art Forum on my art school hero and leader of the Situationist movement, Guy Debord. Best known for authoring the manifesto The Society of the Spectacle (1977), his films have recently regained the spotlight. I know more about the movement than the man, and the SI still stirs my imagination, as they stirred 1960s Paris. Liberating everyday life, living life as art, is still subversive.

"The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images." - Guy Debord

quite gorgeous

This artist, Angelo Filomeno, uses embroidery on silk as paint on canvas. My first thoughts on seeing his work were 1) how haunting and beautiful and 2) who has that kind of time?! It made me pine for my UT art school days and unstructured hours that I then had no idea how to spend. I don't know how 18 year olds can be expected to make anything interesting when we have barely begun to know how to think, taste, feel much less express. (Did someone just whisper youth is wasted on the young in my ear?)

collect them all...

Picture book animal stamps from the US Postal Service. Yipee! If only I still used the mail.

and, the snow.

AP Photo

hello!

My productivity has flagged, dear readers, for a couple reasons propelling me back to the dark ages a) a faulty home router for the DSL and b) OS9, yes that's right, OS9! at work - a situation that will be remedied in the next several days.

I've been compelled out of radio silence (buying time on a TMobile hot spot at Starbucks) for a couple reasons. First among them, I found out that Debra, a kickass Brooklynite friend (and friend of The Brooklynite) has faithfully read my erratic musings for the last 6 months. Word!

The other reasons are there's so much going on in the world! Among other newsworthy items, I have a new job at The Week magazine, a veritable Zagat guide to the past week on Planet Earth. It's the end of my fourth day as photo editor and it seems, refreshingly at this point, like working in a library. There are dozens of periodicals strewn around a big central table and we all sit in one large room, the sound of typing only occasionally interrupted by banter. My brain feels a bit like it's been doing yoga - and no more pain in my neck from grasping the phone between ear and shoulder.

The other fantastic newsy bits are that we've been liberated, officially, from both the myth that more money makes you happier and that low-fat diets reduce the risk of certain diseases. Pass the butter, please.

those who don't Super Bowl...

... PUPPY BOWL! Thank you, Animal Planet.

oh sweet temptaion! the Annex Flea Market

the ENTIRE block of 39th between 9th &10th Aves. My undoing, old wood letterpress type. SIGH.

farewell, wine and cigars...

my gals, Mary and Haiyen

midnight meatpacking walks

through the Maritime Hotel...





... and finally to a 1AM BLT and coffee at Florent, 20 years strong and still trendalicious.

a little blog frivolity...

The Meme of Four

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
- Part-time "front desk" person at a hostel in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico for a month when I was 19, in exchange for free lodging.
- Merch girl for a small folk-punk band touring from Austin to NYC
- 3 months as a receptionist/dispatcher at Kendrick McMahan (pronounced "mack maHAN") Cattle & Trucking
- Receptionist for a golf turfgrass company (first job ever)

Four movies you could watch over and over:
- Amadeus
- Out of Africa
- American Beauty
- Real Genius

Four places you’ve lived:
- Colorado (birth thru 8 months)
- Connecticut (9 months thru 4 years)
- Austin (4 years thru 21 years)
- New York City (21 years to present)



Four TV shows you love to watch:
- Lost
- West Wing
- Project Runway
- Scrubs

Four places you’ve been on vacation:
- Thailand, all over
- Mexico, all over on many occasions
- Pawleys Island, South Carolina
- Cornwall, England

Four websites you visit daily:
- Bloglines.com (currently 59 feeds)
- Gmail
- Blogger.com
- NY Times



Four of your favorite foods:
- Dark chocolate + orange in any way
- Chubby Hubby Ice Cream
- Chicken Tikka Masala
- Apple Pie