Monday, July 31, 2006
Funniest, Most Satisfying, Drop-Dead Entertaining Film of 2006 (So Far)
That would be 'Little Miss Sunshine,' which I had the joy of seeing with Christi yesterday afternoon. Haven't laughed so much in a movie theater since 2004's Napoleon Dynamite, also seen with Christi. I will dribble out some comments on this gem throughout the week... We also saw five very promissing movie previews, which will also be discussed this week. Finally, I saw four Oscar-winning foreign films, from 1990, 1986, 1970, and 1948, respectively, available on VHS only, all worthy of comment... Stay tuned, film fans....
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Sunday, July 30, 2006
Empananda Mama
Last night I dined with Fernando and Sunil at Empanada Mama over on 9th avenue near 51st street. Empanada Mama (not to be confused with Mama's Empanadas), is a colorful boutique restaurant that specializes in all types of empanadas including the normal beef, pork and chicken as well as some gourmet non-fried baked. I got a mix of empanada style - fried Caribbean, baked Argentine, chicken, beef. The empanadas are served in individual paper bags and stamped with the contents, served in a basket along with a green and red hot sauce. The empanadas were scrumptious- the crust was baked to a golden brown and the meat and vegetables inside were juicy and tender. The sauces made it even more delicious. We washed this exquisite feast down with a pitcher of white wine Sangria, and later hung out for an hour or two in the Colombus Circle park - in the middle of that famous traffic circle - to enjoy the (relatively) cool evening air.
Ninth Avenue is turning out to be a treasure trove of unusual eateries....
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Saturday, July 29, 2006
Oh Dear
The other day I tarred my hand on the rail of the long, long escaltor that elevates me from the bowels of the 5th Avenue E/V subway station...
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Friday, July 28, 2006
Quote of the Day:
"If you say something no one could disagree with, you are probably wasting carbon dioxide. " - this week's Economist
We were just talking about Wonder Woman last night - Mulher Maravilha to Brazilians - inspired by our dinner companion's unusual watch, which featured a face criss-crossed by silver bands in tic tac toe formation....
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"If you say something no one could disagree with, you are probably wasting carbon dioxide. " - this week's Economist
We were just talking about Wonder Woman last night - Mulher Maravilha to Brazilians - inspired by our dinner companion's unusual watch, which featured a face criss-crossed by silver bands in tic tac toe formation....
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Another great quote:
"Hey, Al Qaeda! Ann Coulter is a national treasure! We would be just devastated if anything happened to her!" - afterelton.com, blog on gay and bisexual men in entertainment & media
From a personal ad
"Does this condom make me look fat?"
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"Hey, Al Qaeda! Ann Coulter is a national treasure! We would be just devastated if anything happened to her!" - afterelton.com, blog on gay and bisexual men in entertainment & media
From a personal ad
"Does this condom make me look fat?"
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Thursday, July 27, 2006
Kebabistan and Pilauistan
I dined late last night with Emerson, who's in from Brazil, and his friends, at an Afghan restaurant, and I'm pleased to report Afghan food does differ from its neighbors. I had 'Aushe Burani,' noodles cover with yogurt, spices, and ground beef curry, preceded by spicy pumpkin turnover that were crispier and lighter than samosas, and, again, spicy.
I didn't go out after our 9pm dinner: some of us mortals have to get up for work in the morning...
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Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Quote of the Week:
"I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell." - Harry Truman
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"I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell." - Harry Truman
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Thick As A Brick
Work heated up this week - I'm feeling 'earnings week exhaustion' - though I had a nice, if somewhat rainy weekend with my sister and nephew. We saw two plays, the aesthetically stunning 'Lion King' and the arch laugh-fest 'Drowsy Chaperone' - I'll write more on these later on... Here are some of my recent stabs at art photography:
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Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Crater Lake, Pt 2
as captured by clumsy old me and by the brilliant QT Luong, the Ansel Adams of our generation....
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Monday, July 24, 2006
Crater Lake
There are bigger lakes in the US, but none quite so perfect and pristine, blue azure reflecting off the curved walls of a crater, and lonely Wizard Island forever slightly off the southern edge...
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Sunday, July 23, 2006
Meet the Afrobats, whose high-energy live street show Danny and I caught yesterday in front of the Metropolitan Museum. Deft gymnastics were complimented by witty repartee that made us laugh at our racial consciousness. We were generous when they passed around the hat....
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Saturday, July 22, 2006
Climb Every Mountain, Pt 1
This is Argentina's Aconcagua, the highest point in the Western Hemipshere, 22,834 feet high, over 2,500 feet higher than Mt McKinley in Alaska... I've never been there, but I have hiked the Andes, I did the 25 mile, 14,000 foot high Inca Trail in November of 2002 with Erik.
This is Mount Fuji aka Fujiyama, sacred to the Japanese, the heighest mountain in their country at 12,290 feet (Colorado has dozens of peaks higher than 14,000 feet)
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Friday, July 21, 2006
Happy Friday, Everyone
Commercial subway art.... Beginning with a defaced Owen Wilson movie ad...
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Thursday, July 20, 2006
Happy Friendship Day!
This goes out to my dear friends overseas, my ex Andres and my friend Celia in Argentina and my 'copain' Denis in France. Happy Friendship Day - Día del Amigo - I think this custom is from Argentina and has something to do with the man's first step on the moon, which occured on July 20, 1969, when I was a lad.
Fun fact: Though the 230-year-old French-American friendship was strained over Iraq, the mutual love runs deep. What country has won more Best Foreign-Language Film Oscars than any other? Why, France of course, 13 out of 58, making them the Yankees of foreign film Oscars (Italy's a close second with 12 films). And which country, by far, has walked away with the most grand prizes at Cannes? Why, the US of A, stars & stripes forever, with 16 wins out of 64, also very Yankees-esque, leading Italy with 11 films, the UK with 8, and France itself with 7...
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Wednesday, July 19, 2006
The Big Heat
The US Coast-to-Coast swelter is finally simmering down, with temperatures here reaching as low as 86F after last night's summer storm...
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From The Onion, my favorite feature, “What Do YOU Think?
Question: “Despite mounting evidence to support it, the FDA has reaffirmed its stance against the use of medical marijuana. What do you think?”
Answer 1: " Instead of wasting time on political moves like this, the FDA should get back to doing what it does best; approving new boner pills ."
Answer 2: " This is the slippery slope, man! First they outlaw medical marijuana, and the next thing you know, it's only a matter of time before they make ALL pot illegal."
Answer 3: " It's not like the FDA left cancer patients out to dry. They can still smoke cigarettes. "
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Question: “Despite mounting evidence to support it, the FDA has reaffirmed its stance against the use of medical marijuana. What do you think?”
Answer 1: " Instead of wasting time on political moves like this, the FDA should get back to doing what it does best; approving new boner pills ." Answer 2: " This is the slippery slope, man! First they outlaw medical marijuana, and the next thing you know, it's only a matter of time before they make ALL pot illegal." Answer 3: " It's not like the FDA left cancer patients out to dry. They can still smoke cigarettes. "this entry's permalink
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Nihilsm, Cynicism, Sarcasm, Orgasm!
So shouts one of many outraged women in 'Deconstructing Harry' at Woody Allen's character. "In France, I could run on that slogan and win," he replies.... Mickey Spillane, who died yesterday, at 88, became the 1950s top writer of detective stories with a similar attitude. Below are some delicious quotes from an interview with Spillane. Btw, the movie version of 'Kiss Me Deadly" is awesome, and opens with Cloris Leachman's first movie appearance, running down a road wearing only a trenchcoat and a crazed facial expression...
While acknowledging that his books were the "chewing gum of American literature," Spillane basked in his success."I'm the most translated writer in the world, behind Lenin, Tolstoy, Gorky and Jules Verne — and they're all dead," he'd say.
Spillane took delight in recalling the time, during the early years of paperbacks, when "some New York literary guy" approached him at a dinner party and said, "I think it's disgraceful that of the 10 best-selling books of all time, seven were written by you."
To which, the Washington Post later reported, Spillane replied: "You're lucky I've only written seven books."
A two-fingered typist who pounded out his books on a manual Smith Corona, Spillane always said he was a "writer," not an "author."
"What's the distinction? A writer makes money," he said.
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Monday, July 17, 2006
Danny Day
My sister Deena and my 12-year-old nephew Danny came in for the day - they're here for a few weeks, staying out in Long Island. Danny and I went to the Natural History museum after a meandering odyssey on the subway. Some pictures:
Danny on 8th Avenue:
His hand on subway pole, artsy shot
He takes the camera in hand, and captures mammal dioramas...
.. and anthropological artifacts... more to come...
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Sunday, July 16, 2006
Like Falafel...
My Middle-East Prayer. More about this delicious dish, wish I discovered in Israel at age 9, back when I was so finnicky all I would eat are the falafel balls themselves and the bread - and separately, too..
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Saturday, July 15, 2006
Love Your Planet - See This Film
"An Inconvenient Truth" is a compelling call-to-arms to avoid the mounting calamities of mis-using the Earth, aka Our Home. Global Warming: It's real, and we can still prevent disaster if we care enough... My contribution: A/C off when I'm not here, even if I must come home to a hot apartment...
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Friday, July 14, 2006
Happy Bastille Day
From my West Coast Wanderings...
Lovely, flowery discovery in Brookings, Oregon...
Homegrown fast-food in the boondocks of Northeast California... Take a number!
Concrete, Washington, at the foot of the North Cascade Mountains.. because I belive in a place called Concrete... : - )
In Braille, in case olfactory clues are insufficient....
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Thursday, July 13, 2006
Don't Do That
How not to photograph July 4 fireworks through your living room window... Before I could turn the autoflash off, the opportunity was over...
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Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Sushi's Latin Cousin
Last night I enjoyed a festive and abundant Latin seafood meal at Lima's Taste Ceviche on Christopher & Bedford with my friend Jon and met his girlfriend Oriyan. Ceviche is thoroughly marinated raw fish, in spice and lemon so succulent it melts into your taste buds, and, last night's version was colorfully presented. We shared two large ceviche appetizers and our main dishes, though excellent, suffered by comparison (and from being already full...) To wash it down: Pisco Sour, claimed by both Peru and Chile as the homegrown national drink, made with pisco (a regional brandy made with Muscat grapes) and sweetened and soured with sugar, lemon, and egg white, often touched off with a dash of cinnamon...
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Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Carhenge
I hope one day to visit one of America's most gratuitous, ridiculous tourist attractions, in the remote western Nebraska town of Alliance. I'm referring to Carhenge, a re-imagining of Britain's Stonehenge with wrecked used cars instead of stones, and on a much larger scale.
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Monday, July 10, 2006
Wind-Swept Hilarity
Sunny, windy day at the Hudson River park... You can bicycle, kayak, or people-watch.. Must have been nice today. I am contemplating bicycle rentals - My cross street, 8th Ave, is a major bicycle path artery....
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And Hilarity On Parade....
Thomas' friends out-did themselves with their Iraqi-themed drag 'float' at NYC Gay Pride a few weeks back. The photos are classic - check the rest out here...
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Sunday, July 09, 2006
While I Was Away...
...New York's most ecologically-friendly skyscraper, Hearst Tower was completed and opened to the public in June. This gleaming tower of diamond-shaped glass panes is perched on top of a historic 1920s six-story building, and is "lit to its innermost depths by God's own high-efficiency light source, the sun," according to Newsweek. The tower's elevators are "destination dispatch," meaning that they require passengers to enter their floor at a kiosk, where a screen directs them to a cab, grouping them to wring the last watt of efficiency from their 30-second trips. I must go check this out today....
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Saturday, July 08, 2006
Graffiti murals from Vancouver's run-down East Side, a seldom-seen wrinkle on the face of the legend...
Quote of the Week:
81-year old Shimon Peres, when asked if he'll see a comprehensive Mideast peace agreement in his lifetime:
"First of all, I'm not in a hurry to pass away."
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Quote of the Week:
81-year old Shimon Peres, when asked if he'll see a comprehensive Mideast peace agreement in his lifetime:
"First of all, I'm not in a hurry to pass away."
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Friday, July 07, 2006
Snowbound in late June at Lassen Volcanic National Park in California's rarely-visited northeastern corner, near the Nevada-Oregon border. When thawed out, Lassen is a mini-Yellowstone. Lassen Peak is an active volcano that erupted many times from 1914 to 1921, the last major US eruption before Mount St. Helens in 1980. Lassen Peak is the southernmost volcano in the Cascade Mountain Chain, which extends from British Columbia down to California..
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Thursday, July 06, 2006
From The Onion, my favorite feature, “What Do YOU Think?
Question: “Libya says it will work with the United States to spread democracy. What do you think?”
Answer 1: " If we really want Libya to help spread democracy, we’d better give them their weapons back. "
Answer 2: " Libya might seem like an unlikely partner, but, given our current international standing, every partner is an unlikely partner. "
Answer 3: " The same thing happened with my boyfriend and me, sort of. As soon as I agreed to give up my virginity, he agreed to remove me from his personal list of state-sponsors of terrorism. "
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Question: “Libya says it will work with the United States to spread democracy. What do you think?”
Answer 1: " If we really want Libya to help spread democracy, we’d better give them their weapons back. " Answer 2: " Libya might seem like an unlikely partner, but, given our current international standing, every partner is an unlikely partner. " Answer 3: " The same thing happened with my boyfriend and me, sort of. As soon as I agreed to give up my virginity, he agreed to remove me from his personal list of state-sponsors of terrorism. "this entry's permalink
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Come Back In August
Late June is pre-season in the high Cascades, and snow still covers two-thirds of the roadways at both Lassen Volcanic and Crater Lake national parks...
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Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Back From Vansterdam...
With many tales to tell, which I shall dribble forth for the rest of the month...
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Sunday, July 02, 2006
