It seems Brooklyn is not safe, either

I don’t have his permission, but I have to share with everyone this image Brian made for me, I believe in Paint. Apparently my worst fears involve a tentacled monster in red pumps. Thanks, B, I feel so much better now!

P.S. “Cloverfield” is more worth seeing than I thought it would be. Can’t go wrong with a J.J. Abrams project.

Panicked movie pedestrians are always fleeing to my borough

I saw “Cloverfield” last night and it made me once again gleeful to live in Brooklyn. You never see monsters going after the Kentile Floors sign, the Williamsburg Savings Bank, or the Red Hook wheat grain elevator. As long as the Big Bad doesn’t show up between 9 and 5, I’m good.

Photo of sign and bank in background by limonada on Flickr.

What would you say?

Don’t you hate it when you leave a confrontation and later think of all the witty retorts you could have made? I’ve been mulling over two situations that recently arose and what would have been the best way to handle them. They are of differing egregiousness, but they both raise the question of proper response.

Situation 1: I have a friend in Texas who’s of Hispanic heritage. He owns a house with his wife and two kids. He told me that often when he’s out mowing the lawn white people will pull over and ask him—in slow, enunciated English—how much he charges for yard work. I am appalled by this but not shocked, and mostly I am flummoxed to think of a funny response that could put these people in their place. Any ideas?

Situation 2: A female friend of mine was on the subway after work the other day. She had her iPod earphones in but not on, so she was able to hear a conversation between two fashion snobs nearby as they critiqued her outfit. “Look at those shoes! Oh my god.” “Is that a run in her stocking?” “And check out that hideous tote bag!”

In both cases my friends took they high road because they are sweet people, and either ignored the imbeciles or responded in a friendly, understanding way. But that’s no fun. I’d like to hear what you think would be the best rejoinders to have made in their place. It's good practice for the next time you're in a situation so offensive as to leave you speechless.

I think it’s time for me to go home

I’m so beyond bored at work that I just clicked on this CNN video headline:

Snoozy baby bear can’t stay awake

And boy howdy, I was not disappointed.

Congratulations, Sarah and Tim Oskey

My New York friends have no idea who this is, but for the folks back home (Hi, Calaveras!) I wanted to put up a couple photos of my friend Sarah’s wedding. She was the most gorgeous bride ever and her husband, Tim, is a wonderful man of whom I thoroughly approve.

(Update: This is Sarah and her father, walking down the aisle.)

Sarah and the groom.

Below is a “blended family sand ceremony” to join Sarah together with her new daughters.

Triumphantly entering the reception.

Michigan Musings

Or, things I learned during 72 hours of airport epiphanies, hotel shenanigans, awkward conversations, class collisions—oh, and one wedding.

· There are Chicken Dance weddings and non-Chicken Dance weddings.

· Big Boy restaurants still exist.

· There are still people who use ‘gay’ as a hilarious pejorative. As in: “You drink wine instead of beer? What are you, gay?”

· Never take a 6 a.m. flight.

· People outside New York City wear running shoes all the time. And sweatshirts with the names of colleges or sports teams on them. And grown men wear baseball caps in restaurants.

· New Yorkers outside of New York always look overdressed. Which is fine with me.

· Michigan is flat as a pancake and no one puts fences around their yards.

· It’s possible to pay $9 for one beer at an airport bar.

· Having cable television in a hotel is only exciting for five minutes. Then you realize you have no interest in cheesy Sci-Fi Channel movies or a reality show about Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends.

· People in the Midwest are really into hockey.

· Always bring a flask to a wedding.

· If you are the only single person amid a crowd of married wedding guests, pretend to be married so you can participate in the maddeningly recurring conversation of how this wedding compares to theirs.

· If you order a Grey Goose martini at a Detroit airport bar, they will give it to you in a plastic cup. (This wasn’t me, I just witnessed it. Seriously.)

· There’s a ubiquitous Michigan bumper sticker I never see in New York: “Buy American. Save Our Jobs.”
· People from my graduating high-school class are divorced or finished having kids before I’ve even contemplated getting hitched.

· The Judds’ “Love Can Build a Bridge” will remain stuck in your head for the rest of your life if you hear it during a wedding ceremony and again at the reception.

· Dunkin’ Donuts serves as a welcome beacon of all things civilized and East Coast when you see one after days languishing in the nether regions of the country.

· The actual moment of going from single with one last name to married with another happens in just that—a moment. Weird.

icky Monday

Carolyn will post something as soon as she recovers from her trying weekend in BFE and the land of married people.

Last post of the week!

I am headed to the blue skies of Michigan. It’s been long, long since I was that far from a coast. What will I do without the forlorn cries of seagulls adrift on the ocean breeze? Okay, I don’t get much of that here, either. But still, I always find it strange to be in the middle of the country—I feel so landlocked. To be honest, my Midwest geography is painfully bad. They have lakes over there, right? Perhaps they have lakegulls.

Someone told me recently that getting dressed up in Michigan means wearing a Kid Rock T-shirt. I can’t envision a way to fit that into my wedding attire, but maybe I can purchase one while I’m there. I will give my regards to Flint, MI, for you all, and try not to think the whole time of Michael Moore.

P.S. Feel free to continue trading snarky or enlightening remarks in the comments sections in my absence. :) I'll be back on Monday to harass you with airport-boredom observations and wedding pics!

Photo by Michelle Figurski on Flickr.

Leave our 'pie' alone

Sorry for another lowbrow post—I swear next time I’ll write about the friendship between Godard and Truffaut. But I just have to comment on Gothamist’s summation of a Wired piece about the brilliance of New York pizza. San Francisco is a “pizza backwater”? Hey!

NYC Pizza Rules, But Does Anyone Really Know Why?
Why New York City's Iconic Pizza Is So Tough to Replicate

Now, look. I have tried to be nice about the pizza here. I’ve eaten without complaint what locals consider the ultimate ‘pie’: tomato sauce and scarce cheese on a thin crust. And I’ve come to terms with the fact that the idea of pizza here is just different from that on the West Coast. There, we enjoy fresh, tasty toppings on our pizzas: artichoke hearts, red onions, feta or goat cheese, grilled chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, portabella mushrooms, garlic sauce. I enjoy getting an entire farmers’ market on a pizza or having a Thai-style or Southwestern slice. But since that’s not how it’s done here, I’m working at appreciating the finer points of NY pizza; apparently it’s all in the dough.

So why must this writer insist on bashing California pizza? Can’t we just agree it’s a matter of taste and let each coast enjoy its own version? There’s so much strife in this world, people. Let’s not let pizza come between us.

Photo of my absolute favorite pizza growing up: Chicken & Garlic Gourmet from Round Table. Mmmm….

A catty note

The reasons I dislike Keira Knightley are manifold—she’s a poster child for anorexia, lacking any womanly curves, and her upper-crust accent drips contempt, rendering any character she portrays utterly unlikable. But upon viewing “Atonement” last night, a new one revealed itself to me: she constantly walks and stands with her arms dangling awkwardly behind her and her hip thrust out. I think this might be the case of someone going too far with the modeling stance of pulling back the shoulders, but the result is of a heavily made-up and conceited sapling waving two twigs behind in the breeze.

But I’m not a hater. She’s a lovely, accomplished woman. Et cetera, et cetera…

In defense of the dress

The dress is dead, say the style mavens. They’ve given a deadline of this September for us all to be out of dresses and into “the pant.” Three summers of dresses, they say, is enough.

Long Live the Dress (for Now)

Two things. One, I was incredibly pleased to discover on moving to New York two summers ago that women here wear dresses for work and play throughout the warm months. I started buying dresses for the first time since prom, and I now delight in throwing them on and feeling comfortable and cute. Nothing could be more perfect for our hot, humid summers than a breezy dress.

Two, if the fashionistas are making this declaration now, the reality of it won’t trickle down to us regular folk for at least another season. So no need to start stocking up on pleated trousers yet. More importantly, most of us can’t afford to replenish our closets on the whims of style. Today I’m wearing a dress I bought for a beach wedding six years ago. Take that, fashion police!

I think it’s too bad that in much of the country the trend is not toward women gallivanting about in dresses. I say we rise up and with a jaunty flick of our skirts declare that the dress is never dead.

Fun with Before & After

I hope you’re not tired of flower photos. I haven’t left the confines of the city in more than three months, so I’m captivated by any little patch of nature. Plus, this is the first spring where I’m really paying attention to the successive waves of growth and blooming here on the East Coast, and I find it completely fascinating.

Let’s play a game called "Watch Spring Evolve in the Secret Garden.” Shall we?

The differences between Feb. 25 and April 21 are stunning.

This corner, so brown in January, filled with daffodils by April.


The witch hazel by this bench was the only spot of color in February. By April 17 it was accompanied by yellow flowers and overshadowed by a cherry tree about to burst. On April 21—only four days later—the cherry blossoms exploded!

February saw this urn at the entrance stuffed with sad-looking sprigs left over from the holidays. By March 18, someone had switched out the red twigs and planted pansies in and around it. Then by April 17 all manner of bulbs had grown up.
The first intrepid bulbs braving the snow in February have now grown into daffodils and tulips. I expect irises next.
The bleakness of Jan. 31 turned into a sunny snow on Feb. 25 then to pink glory on April 21.
These little bulbs poking up through the snow became daffodils and then tulips.
February’s little crocus, the first I saw all season, was replaced by an effusion of green by April.

And now, extra photos of tulips glowing in the sun last week.

Someday I'll have my own garden and experience the joy of making flowers grow from nothing.

Dear Oregon:

Maybe your votes will matter after all. Don’t screw this up!

Sincerely,

Carolyn for Obama ‘08

Post-lunch thoughts

The weather gods are making me like New York again. I think this happens every spring in the Northeast. One month after you’ve decided life is not worth living unless it’s at an equatorial latitude, spring spills blossoms all over the taxi-worn streets and you begin to rethink things.

I support the troops but…

…does it have to be now?

I want to send warm thoughts to Pam Gibson, the maid of honor and niece of the bride at a friend’s wedding I’m attending this weekend. Pam’s Army unit has just been called up and will be deployed to Iraq this week, two days before the ceremony. I am not shocked by the military’s horrendously bad timing, as that seems to be the way it goes with them. But it does make me sad to think she won’t be there, and I wish her all the best for a safe journey.

Happy Earth Day!


You’re being deluged with environmental awareness droplets this week in the media, so I don’t want to bog you down further. (Although, really, you could reduce your carbon footprint. I mean, come on. Go to the farmers' market. Ride a bike.)

So I will just share with you this cool tree from the New York Times Science section.


The oldest tree. Sometime around 7542 B.C., a spruce tree started growing on Fulu Mountain in Sweden. It is still growing. Spruce trees can produce exact clones of each other, and while the currently visible part of the tree is not 9,550 years old, scientists found pieces of wood beneath it that are that old with exactly the same genetic makeup as the above-ground part of the tree. Photo by Leif Kullman.

A certain kind of literary life

My blood is boiling over this L.A. Times piece that purports to examine the question of whether it’s possible to be a young, struggling writer in New York these days, when “bohemian writers have been forced out by hedge-fund guys.”

Literary Young Men and Their First Novels

The three authors the Times uses to illustrate this point are Nathaniel Rich, Ed Park, and Keith Gessen —demonstrably NOT AT ALL young, struggling writers. They each have a wealth of literary and media connections that have led to their books getting exactly this kind of national coverage. Rich is a Yalie and the son of Frank Rich, a New York Times columnist. Park has worked for the Village Voice and the Believer, so he’s in with New York publications and the McSweeney’s machine. And Gessen is an Ivy Leaguer who worked at the New York Review of Books and then started n+1, which created its own whirlwind within the right kind of publishing circles. They exemplify the fact that it’s next to impossible to get anywhere in New York without an inherited network and a literary pedigree.

Perhaps I suffer from outsider's resentment. Of course I envy them their connections that made it easy to get book deals and then land the kind of literary media coverage that most debut novelists would kill for. I will accede that they probably worked very hard on their projects.

But I can’t help but gag someone when someone in the center of this navel-gazing world says he “doesn’t want insularity and chumminess to kill literature and ideas.” Gessen and his n+1 pals are models of insularity! I read his buddy Benjamin Kunkel’s novel and it has the same problem that all of these books do: they are novels by writers writing about their own tiny worlds. Gessen’s book, All the Sad Literary Men, follows three bored, boring, overly cerebral aspiring authors exactly like himself. Park wrote in only slightly veiled manner about his time at the Village Voice. And Rich’s novel follows the quest of a young man with a “passion for literature and language.”

My ire is multi-pronged on this issue. I hate to see such a tiny cadre of writers dominating the ever-shrinking book coverage. I find it disappointing and annoying that these writers lack the imagination to write anything more creative than barely masked accounts of their own lives. And I wish that they’d own up to their own egocentrism and stop pretending they are heirs to the bohemian past.

I won’t hold my breath.

Bostonia has all the fun

Man oh man do I wish I lived in Boston again, just for today. It’s Patriots’ Day! This little-known holiday in the Commonwealth celebrates the anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord, the first skirmishes of the Revolutionary War. More importantly, it is the day the Boston Marathon is run, turning Back Bay into a weird carnival, and most importantly, it’s a day off from school and many workplaces.

Dang, I could use a three-day weekend about now. Anything to avoid another gray, dispiriting start to a workweek.

Race updates

A reenactment on Battle Green in Lexington. I used to work a farmers market on that field. (Photo by Joanne Rathe/Boston Globe.)

Pope update

The Pope's mass at St. Patrick's is currently on SIX of the eight TV channels I get. What, God doesn't like Saturday morning cartoons? What a grouch.

I used to be a Californian

Now I get sunburned in 15 minutes walking up the street.

These people can’t be much different, right? I mean, we’ve all been covered up for seven months. Maybe they’ve been secretly going to tanning salons or flying to Barbados. Or perhaps we’ll all have a need for aloe tomorrow.

Happy first day over 70 degrees! (And the only one for a while.)

Paparazzi shot taken on a grassy pier on the Hudson at lunch today. Most people were more attractive than the guy sleeping next to me. And showing off for members of their own sex. Yay for the Village!

Knock, knock…Not the Pope!*

Does anybody else think it’s weird that the Pope is visiting the U.S.’s most Jewish city during Passover?

And is anyone else already tired of hearing about the Pope being here? I mean, I’m sure he’s a great guy and all, but unless he’s the one responsible for bringing this lovely spring weather, I can’t really get excited. (But check out that awesome hat.)


*Alluding to a bad joke made by a friend of mine. Ask Robert for details.

Excuse the sweeping generalization, but…

You can tell a lot about the gender breakdown in publishing by looking at my department’s refrigerator.

The contents are perpetually this: 27 containers of non-fat yogurt, 5 cans of Diet Coke, 8 forgotten apples, and 6 sticks of low-fat string cheese, plus 3 frostbitten Lean Cuisines.

If only it included Jell-O shots you’d think I worked at a sorority house. I mean, perhaps there are men here also watching their waistlines, but I don’t believe that’s the case. And of course, each day the girls make a group decision to forgo the lunch they brought in favor of a trip to Chipotle for a burrito, but you can see the thought was there.


This blog post brought to you by The Coca-Cola Company.

Happy, happy birthday to Robert Repino, who today joins the Old-Enough-To-Know-Better-But-Will-Do-It-Anyway Club!

From the thousands upon thousands of crazy action photos of Mr. Repino, I choose this one, which is just cute. Awww…

Let’s all raise a glass to our favorite Philadelphian, whose friendship I feel very lucky to have.

Lifestyle story gone mad

Wouldn’t you hate to be the guy assigned this article about how newfangled toothbrushes don’t fit into traditional holders? Brushes to Set the Teeth on Edge. Or maybe he pitched it himself.

Conversation at news meeting:

“Hey, so I’ve been noticing a highly disturbing trend in housewares. It’s really been affecting my quality of life, and I’m sure the lives of many Americans—my toothbrush DOES NOT FIT IN MY HOLDER.”

Silence. Pat on the back by editor. “Ralph, I feel a Pulitzer coming your way.”

Fine, New York Times, make mention of this calamity in industrial design. But do you really need to run 1,592 words on it? Thank god you made room for rambling quotes like these:

“Now I have all manner of toothbrushes lying on top of, next to, perched on ... everything but in the holder itself. I’m so annoyed. Everything else has a place.” She wasn’t finished complaining: “Or it’s stuck in it. The very first half an inch is holding it into the holder. It’s pathetic. I should just buy a cup. A nice-looking cup. Why are we trying to be fancy?”

I didn’t think I had time in my life to worry about the size of the holes in my toothbrush holder, but now I have no choice!

Things I learned yesterday

1. Walking across the Manhattan Bridge is possible, but it does lack the ambiance of strolling across the Brooklyn Bridge. Rumbling trains and soaring fences detract from an otherwise great view of lower Manhattan. Bonus: fewer foreign tourists snapping photos that you will stumble into. Ever wonder how many strangers’ vacation shots you appear in?

(Sorry for the glare but this has to be the prettiest baseball diamond in the city.)

2. Your friends were right: the moutarde sauce for the all-you-can-eat mussels at Chez Oskar is indeed superior to the mariniere sauce. And “all you can eat” only ever means as much as they want to serve you before they force you out with glares and disappearing service

3. Do not let people take flash photos of you at a party in a dimly lit bar. You do not want to know what you really look like dancing.