Thou shalt not covet your neighbor's

house. There were no fewer than two stories about New York city families living in brownstones (average price what $5 million?) in yesterday's Times.

Now, I like a second era baroque townhouse* or a Stannie White-designed Florentine Palazzo as much as the next guy, but I was stricken by a different article. It seems that donations of turkeys to one church that gives out Thanksgiving turkeys was down some 40%, 60 as opposed to 100 last year, another was down from 16,000 to 10,600.

First, of all I'd like to say, take your economic recovery George W. Bush and shove it up your ass. But, second, I would like to make the following unabashed request of downtown hipsters, or anybody for that matter, for my friends: the Catholic Workers .

The CW movement was founded by Dorothy Day, a converted socialist, and Peter Maurin to serve the poor and promote pacificism. There are two CW houses in NYC, both are located in the East Village.

Mary's House
55 East 3rd Street
b/t 2nd and 1st Ave

St. Joseph's House
36 East 1st Street
b/t 2nd and 1st Ave

St. Joe's is open for soup (mostly for men) Tues-Fri. Maryhouse is open for lunch for ladies Mon-Sat.

During Christmas, the Catholic Workers give Christmas presents to people who live in their houses (mostly formerly homeless/formerly alcoholic or addicted/undocumented/aged men and women), and people who come often for soup and lunch. They collect new and newish articles and wrap them individually for people who would otherwise not receive presents at all.

I urge everyone who can to drop off any relatively new or new clothes, books, electronics, games, toys and personal items (anything suitable for a gift) at either house any time before Christmas Eve. Socks, particularly, are welcome, because it is virtually impossible for a homeless person to stay warm and dry in the winter in New York city. You can donate the tiniest thing, something you don't even think has any worth; it will make somebody feel valued.

Important Note: Please do not mention this blog, or me, when you make a donation. The Catholic Workers do not solicit nor do they promote their particular religious or political agenda. They have no idea I am doing this in this way.

The CW does not accept government money; they exist solely on personal donations. Their purpose is to do works of charity -- To feed the hungry; To give drink to the thirsty; To clothe the naked; To harbour the harbourless; To visit the sick; To ransom the captive; To bury the dead -- and works of mercy -- To instruct the ignorant; To counsel the doubtful; To admonish sinners; To bear wrongs patiently; To forgive offences willingly; To comfort the afflicted; To pray for the living and the dead -- in the model of Jesus Christ.

Also, as a pretty regular and open sinner, I can tell you that Catholic Workers reserve their admonishments mostly for the government

. . . they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

abiding by Isiah 2:4.

And if you feel you cannot donate to an openly religious organization, donate something somewhere -- it's a mitzvah.

*From Tom Fletcher's wonderful site New York architecture images and notes.

Sac-religion.

Who are these two? (and don't you wish there is a Charlie-Chaplin-directed silent clip of them making out in some archive somewhere?)

They are, in fact, Gloria Laura Mercedes Morgan Vanderbilt and, her identical twin sister, Thelma, who was, that Nazi, the Duke of Windsor' s girlfriend, when he was still Edward, Prince of Wales, before Wallis Warfield Simpson (what a mug, but she was a good dresser).

GLMMV was the girlfriend of Edwina Ashley Mountbatten and, of course, was the naughty mommy of naughty Gloria Vanderbilt, who recently wrote another naughty memoir.

Sac would have you believe that the Vanderbilt girls were my classmates, but the truth is -- they were a year behind me.

I read they used to put belladonna in their eyeballs to attractively dilate their pupils. I advocate that. I also advocate those dresses -- cut on the bias in satin and charmeuse. Come to think of it, considering genetics and all, there might be some racy celluloid out there.

Their autobiography? Double Exposure.

More pentimenti for (provisionally) Turkey Day.

As a child in a vehemently Italian extended family, I prayed for frozen green beans and turkey pot pies. Something like:

"St. Jude please let me take something out of this Barbie lunchbox that my classmates will recognize."

Anything could come out of there: a giant sandwich of eggplant caponata on Italian bread, a hunk of frittata made of squash blossoms and eggs or a bowl of lamb sausage, peppers and onions, and whatever it was, I KNEW it would smell more than pb&j or tuna salad. That was a guarantee.

Well in advance of the American gourmet food explosion my grandmother was producing artisanal products and using seasonal ingredients, because, "American" food -- like Wonder Bread and creamed spinach -- literally caused her to gag.

She made her own pasta, bought raw milk "black market" cheeses from her Italian connection and never cooked a frozen vegetable in her life. I think she had a single stick of butter for like 5 years. Olive oil was her delicious flavor conveyor of choice, and she used it (and Southern Italy's favorite allium -- garlic) liberally. The vegetables of my childhood were broccoli rabe, escarole and arugula. Not one of which was remotely familiar to any of my classmates or, indeed, my teachers.

So I thought: Ah ha! When I grow up, I'm going to eat frozen pizza, grilled American cheese and soup from a can ALL THE TIME.

Well, it's not that easy.

My palate had been spoiled for processed and American foods. Apparently, I inherited my grandmother's American food gag reflex. Happily, I was able to effect a less than hostile truce between pasta e fagioli all the time and frito pie. Just about the time I was able to make my own food choices, a sea change occurred in American attitudes toward food. There emerged two men, two men who, like Tierisas and Beatrice to poor besotted Dante, guided me through the heaven and hell of gastronomy.

Over the years, I have had many influences with respect to my (neverending) education about food, but these two men, twin collossi if you will, Seymour Britchky and Calvin Trillin, were the beginning. It was a dark day for food this year at the death of Mr. Britchky. He remains for me, the gold standard of food reviewers. It is a testimony to his devotion to fair review that, unlike current pop star critics *cough*Amanda Hesser*cough* *cough*Frank Bruni*cough*, there is no easily obtainable photo of him. His obituary.

I am lucky to still have Calvin Trillin, and he always comes to mind on Thanksgiving. For a long time he was a veritable Cassandra howling into the wilderness, but we, his devoted acolytes, know his time has come.



I give you his ruminations on Thanksgiving:

I have been campaigning to have the national Thanksgiving dish changed from turkey to spaghetti carbonara.

It does not take much historical research to uncover the fact that nobody knows if the Pilgrims really ate turkey at the first Thanksgiving dinner. The only thing we know for sure about what the Pilgrims ate is that it couldn't have tasted very good. Even today, well brought-up English girls are taught by their mothers to boil all veggies for at least a month and a half, just in case one of the dinner guests turns up without his teeth... (It is certainly unfair to say that the English lack both a cuisine and a sense of humor: their cooking is a joke in itself.)

It would also not require much digging to discover that Christopher Columbus, the man who may have brought linguine with clam sauce to this continent, was from Genoa, and obviously would have sooner acknowledged that the world was shaped like an isosceles triangle than to have eaten the sort of things that the English Puritans ate. Righting an ancient wrong against Columbus, a great man who certainly did not come all this way only to have a city in Ohio named after him, would be a serious historical contribution. Also, I happen to love spaghetti carbonara.

[In our family]...Thanksgiving has often been celebrated away from home. It was at other people's Thanksgiving tables that I first began to articulate my spaghetti carbonara campaign--although, since we were usually served turkey, I naturally did not mention that the campaign had been inspired partly by my belief that turkey is basically something college dormitories use to punish students for hanging around on Sunday... I reminded everyone how refreshing it would be to hear sports announcers call some annual tussle the Spaghetti Carbonara Day Classic.

I even had a ready answer to the occasional turkey fancier at those meals who insist that spaghetti carbonara was almost certainly not what our forebears ate at the first Thanksgiving dinner. As it happens, one of the things I give thanks for every year is that those people in the Plymouth Colony were not my forebears. Who wants forebears who put people in the stocks for playing the harpsichord on the Sabbath or having an innocent little game of pinch and giggle?

Finally there came a year when nobody invited us to Thanksgiving dinner. Alice's theory was that the word had got around town that I always made a pest out of myself berating the hostess for serving turkey instead of spaghetti carbonara...

However it came about, I was delighted at the opportunity we had been given to practice what I had been preaching--to sit down to a Thanksgiving dinner of spaghetti carbonara.

Naturally, the entire family went over to Rafetto's pasta store on Houston Street to see the spaghetti cut. I got the cheese at Joe's dairy, on Sullivan, a place that would have made Columbus feel right at home--there are plenty of Genoese on Sullivan; no Pilgrims--and then headed for the pork store on Carmine Street for the bacon and ham. Alice made the spaghetti carbonara. It was perfection. I love spaghetti carbonara. Then I began to tell the children the story of the first Thanksgiving:

In England, along time ago, there were people called Pilgrims who were very strict about making everyone observe the Sabbath and cooked food without any flavor and that sort of thing, and they decided to go to America, where they could enjoy Freedom to Nag. The other people in England said, "Glad to see the back of them." In America, the Pilgrims tried farming, but they couldn't get much done because they were always putting their best farmers in the stocks for crimes like Suspicion of Cheerfulness. The Indians took pity on the Pilgrims and helped them with their farming, even though the Indians thought that the Pilgrims were about as much fun as teenage circumcision. The Pilgrims were so grateful that at the end of their first year in America they invited the Indians over for a Thanksgiving meal. The Indians, having had some experience with Pilgrim cuisine during the year, took the precaution of taking along one dish of their own. They brought a dish that their ancestors had learned from none other than Christopher Columbus, who was known to the Indians as "the big Italian fellow." The dish was spaghetti carbonara--made with pancetta bacon and fontina and the best imported prosciutto. The Pilgrims hated it. They said it was "heretically tasty" and "the work of the devil" and "the sort of thing foreigners eat." The Indians were so disgusted that on the way back to their village after dinner one of them made a remark about the Pilgrims that was repeated down through the years and unfortunately caused confusion among historians about the first Thanksgiving meal. He said, "What a bunch of turkeys!

[My thanks to the Parrot for the text. My god! He's a shrink, hee hee.]

Now, I'm sure you are saying, spaghetti carbonara is readily available, everywhere! I can have it any day of the year.

Well, believe it or not, even in New York, that was not always so. Mr. Trillin originally wrote these words sometime in the 1970s. In his hilarious and incredibly influential books, American Fried; Alice, Let's Eat; and Third Helpings, Mr. Trillin chronicles his dual passions -- his love of his wife Alice and food. These books have been issued in a single volume entitled the Tummy Trilogy. They are required reading for any foodie or humorist.

Before these forays into the wilderness by Mr. Trillin and Mr. Britchky, to find pancetta alone required a strategy worthy of Patton. Now we are able to celebrate with spaghetti carbonara every day (and in Greenville, South Carolina and Scottsdale, Arizona too!), because of food pioneersmen like Calvin Trillin and Seymour Britchky (and, to be fair, others, and pioneerswomen) who were willing to brave the desert of American cuisine to discover the untapped water table below.

In the Depressionada Family Thanksgiving Meal, turkey was squeezed in somewhere between: the antipasto, baked clams and stuffed mushrooms, lasagne or manicotti, sausages, meatballs and bracioles, insalata of romaine/ chicory/arugula/dandelion, fruits and nuts. No one really ate it, but it was our nod to L'America. I can only imagine some kind of delight in heaven where my grandmother, Mr. Britchky and Mr. Trillin's beloved Alice are beaming, because they delivered America from the stranglehold of green bean casserole.

Happy Thanksgiving and Tanti Auguri.

I could love you but why begin it?

Cause there ain't any future in it.



Bye bye baby, baby good-bye

(Bye baby, baby bye bye)

Bye bye baby don't make me cry

(Bye baby, baby bye bye)



Dan Rather to step down.

Of riso, risotto, nonne and the decline of the upper class.

Yesterday
My parents adhered to a pre-Victorian notion of childhood; that is: children = tiny adults. There were no frivolous Judy Blumesque reads around the house and certainly no Spongebob- Squarepants*-type cinema.

Consequently, I spent a good part of my childhood watching the films of Ingmar Bergman and the French New Wave. My father prized all good filmmaking, but, there was a certain oeuvre that stood before all others. These hallowed few engendered the type of respect and awe our family reserved only for the Lincoln Brigade, Renaissance Art and FDR.

What movies could cause a family of working class socialists to be hypnotized by the blue light of RCA's cheapest 13" b&w television? Only one genre: Italian Neo-Realism.

We venerated these scripts not only because of the political and economic hyper-realism that so influenced American movies of the 60s and 70s, but also because my grandmother, who came from Naples, had intimate relations to, and associations with, those Italians who suffered the devastation of World War II. We watched these films as historical documents, as a view into my grandparents' world and to what happened to their paesani. So in a sense, these stories were our stories. This made for an interesting model of the world on the part of a 6-year-old. My baby brother just fell asleep.

In those days, there were, of course, no video tapes, not even betamax, so we were relegated to watching PBS virtually 24/7 (although as I recall, PBS went off the air at like 2:00 in the morning, so I use that term figuratively) and going to revival houses like The Thalia, The Regency, New Yorker, Theatre 80 Saint Marks and The Bleecker Street Cinemas. My parents dragged my brother and I unabashedly to theaters at late hours to what often was the the only American performance of these movies. My brother and I wore footy pajamas.

Mommy and Daddy were delighted to save babysitting costs and would negotiate the price of our tickets with the effective argument that my brother and I could not follow an iota of what was on the screen. We were so definitively poor that an indulgence in my father's passion had to be rigorously budgeted (and staunchly defended to the more bourgeois members of our family).

Occasionally, a wildcat theater owner in Brooklyn would try to make a go of foreign movies, AIP pictures and new filmakers like Peter Fonda, Martin Scorcese and Woody Allen. These houses would tank pretty quickly, but even as a second grader I knew to honor the pursuit of one's dreams. In my father's world -- which effectively was mine -- one unquestioningly rooted for the underdog. That's just the way things were done.

Today
Here is one of the voluptuous heroines of the movement, Silvana Mangano in Giuseppe Di Santis's Riso Amaro. At sixteen Ms Mangano won the Miss Rome competition and the next year she was a competitor in the Miss Italy contest (one can only imagine the level of those competitions). I chose this photo of an imperious peasant as exemplar of womanhood in this genre because she is the grandmother of risotto specialist herself, Giada De Laurentiis.



My father would have certainly chosen Anna Magnani. I always thought she looked like any number of my aunts and great aunts and not nearly glamorous enough for the movies.

Is there an actual point to this meandering anamnesis? Maybe.

Tomorrow
I am delighted with the prospect of a retrospective of one of the progenitors of the movement, Luchino Visconti, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. For me it is so fitting that this festival should take place in Brooklyn. Even now sometimes when I am taking the train over the bridge, the years melt away and there is only the pain and wonder of my childhood.

While Riso Amaro and other work by these masters like Roma Citta Aperta, Ossessione and Rocco and His Brothers** scared the shit out of me, the later works of these directors were lush (although no less sociologically critical) ruminations on the upper classes and so cinematically breathtaking that they continue to influence my aesthetic even today.

Of these, particular to Visconti, are: Il Gattopardo, The Damned and Ludwig. The Damned is my favorite.

I enthusiastically advocate seeing every movie in this series, but it is The Damned that I absolutely would not miss. Strictly speaking, it is not the best of his work, but this elegiac portrayal of the demise of an aristocratic German family and the appropriation by Nazis of a young socialist speaks tomes about class conflict and a sanguine, modernist approach to domination and control.

The Damned contains some of the most stylistically beautiful moments in cinema history, not the least of which is an entrancing Charlotte Rampling.*** Ms Mangano, too, evolved from peasant goddess to aristocratic hateur in the rather anemic Death in Venice.

When I was a kid I identified with the doomed aristocracy as typified by the inhabitants of The Damned and De Sica's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. In fact, I am still quite fond of doom as a leitmotif. As a result, despite an impoverished start, I have been able to effect an ascent and decline more than once in this lifetime. My life has been, in short, quite cinematic.

*Could someone please illuminate me regarding the popularity of a soap pad?
**Rocco and His Brothers along with I Vitelloni are particularly informative when viewing Mean Streets.
***!!PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:!! No matter what, do not, I repeat, DO NOT miss this link and the other photos located at this site. Also, please note the baroque pearl drop earrings -- I keep thinking about them as a possibility for the holiday season. In black too I think.

And speaking of festive New Year's Eve wear, more Silvana Mangano:



I really think you should reconsider the possibilities of Giada De L. Really.

Alienation's for the rich.

Watch this great little documentary about They Might Be Giants on the Sundance Channel.

By nine p.m. the moonlight must appear.

I believe in God. I believe in Science.

Despite creationist claptrap, the co-existence of religion and science is possible.

Jesus changed water into wine setting the precedent for science to turn Vladimir into Ketel One.

Special thanks to him and her for inspiring theological discussion.

Getting to know you; getting to know all about you.

Getting to like you; getting to hope you like me.

This is why I like Quintus Curtius's history of Alexander:

Women attend dinner parties. At first they are decently dressed, then they remove their top-clothing and by degrees disgrace their respectability until (I beg my reader's pardon for saying it) they finally throw off their most intimate garments. This disgusting conduct is characteristic not only of courtesans but also of married women and young girls, who regard such vile prostitution as 'being sociable'. -- Section 5.1.36-38

He's like Truman Capote with fasces.

I wish I could have a mini farm

with mini horses and mini cows and tiny chickens that lay tiny eggs.




Wouldn't it be great to have a mini sheep meadow in Washington Square Park with little sheep? You could make Barbie clothes from the shearings.

Alexander the Greek

Grudge match.

I actually took this course. That Quintus Curtius Rufus was quite a card.

Carne Knowledge

Hither and thither there has been much talk about how hot Nigella is. I just can't get past the long dirty hair hanging into the food and the way she she licks her gobbed up fingers. Grosses me out. And zut! I find her much lauded decolletage a tad matronly.

Je vous propose a new pin-up chef.


Giada De Laurentiis

I was prepared to dismiss her culinary skills, because she was so good looking, but unbelievably enough her show Everday Italian is actually pretty good. Once you get past her disconcertingly giant head, she's actually quite adorable.

Amuse bouche: she is Dino De Laurentiis's granddaughter. For some reason this cracks me up.

I fell in to a burning ring of fire

I went down down down
and the flames went higher.
And it burns,burns,burns
the ring of fire
the ring of fire.

Caveat Waiter

I adore sites like Shameless Restaurants where employees vent against their masters. However, I was nauseated by an entry entitled "tip tricks" which purports to advise brain dead waitstaff on techniques for improving their tips. I would respond to novices -- no, no, no!

I think I have written before, I am not interested in any personal information from the staff at all -- even your name. Also, you risk not only your tip but a withering and condescending stare if you join into MY conversation. If you insist on ignoring my nonverbal clues to cease, I may even go to the manager. That is:

WRONG WRONG WRONG
Me: Beck was correct, they did overclean the Libyan Sybil.
Dinner Partner: No, you must understand that by his late career Michaelangelo was a Mannerist. The colors are absolutely consistent with his contemporaries.
Waiter: (Who has not yet asked if we needed anything.) Are you talking about the Sistine Chapel? I went there last summer with my sister and her kids. We waited on line for 3 hours!

RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT
Me: Beck was correct, they did overclean the Libyan Sybil.
Dinner Partner: No, you must understand that by his late career Michaelangelo was a Mannerist. The colors are absolutely consistent with his contemporaries.
Waiter: (Pausing a moment until he has our attention.) Would you like a cocktail to begin?

Other absolutely wrong "tips."
1. Don't smile at me. I'm not in McDonalds. I'm about to blow $800, good evening is sufficient.
2. Keep your name to yourself. I really could give a shit if your name is Thom "with an h."
3. Do not under any circumstances squat at my table. I am not a slow kindergartener learning my letters.
4. Do not under any circumstances TOUCH me. I will then be well within my rights to bite that hand.
5. Repeating my order may irritate me too. We are not at Olive Garden. If the waiter is confused, maybe: How would madam like the chops? But really, 85% of the job is listening, so, you know, do it.
6. Upsell -- O no you hadn't. Also, management really ought stop sneaking in a litany of higher priced off menu specials. That pisses the shit out of me.
7. Using my name. Hate to break the news, but it will not give me a frisson of glee to hear it from you. Unlike surburban parents out for their anniversary or 25-year-old hedge fund traders, I am quite accustomed to hearing it. Your using it will seem like a (albeit subtle) gambit for a tip.
8. Unless I ask, keep your suggestions to yourself. My initial inclination, as it is with everyone else, waiters and customers alike, is that you have a naugahyde* palate, so I don't really care which wine is your "favorite." Additionally, if you insist on recommending higher priced wine and items from the menu, I will suspect that, on your salary, you must be, ahem, pilfering.
9. Weather reports, smiley faces and thank you scrawled on the check? In a red state maybe, but not around here buddy.

Do you think I am a cruel snob? Think again.

Obsequious unctuous Uriah Heepism is absolutely unnecessary to be a good waitperson. First of all, it lacks dignity, but, additionally, it is just more work for the poor beleagured service person. Concentrate instead on making sure I get my food timely and correctly. Try to slightly anticipate my needs -- like if my wineglass is empty, e.g.. (But I have to tell you, you're not fooling anyone with the overpouring of wine in hopes of a second bottle. I and my companions will just stop you if you're overeager.) If you think about it -- merely doing your job with competence is a great deal less work than wooing every diner. Let me tell you, if you don't annoy me, bring me my food and ask me periodically if I need anything -- you will be richly rewarded. It's only fair, right?

*See Calvin Trillin re: Victor S. Navasky.

It's pronounced

Frankensteen.

[s]he would rush away from . . . [her] odious handiwork, horror-stricken. [Sh]e would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of life which [s]he communicated would fade; that this thing, which had received such imperfect animation, would subside into dead matter; and [s]he might sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would quench for ever the notion of the hideous corpse which [s]he had looked upon as the cradle of life. [Sh]e sleeps; but [s]he is awakened; [s]he opens . . . [her] eyes; behold the horrid thing stands at . . . [her] bedside, opening . . . [her] curtains, and looking on . . . [her] with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes. (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, p. 170)

Odious Handiwork:



Doctor's orders
Once upon a time a long time ago there was a little store downstairs on 8th street between 5th and 6th Avenue where punk rockers could get slightly more couture getups than were available at Trash & Vaudeville, Manic Panic, Enz and other places that catered to the diaper pin and mohawk crowd. That store was the eponymously named Patricia Field, a poor girl's Betsey Johnson.

As punk fashion changed and softened into new wave and entered the main stream, so did the fashions in Ms. Field's tiny emporium. Sometime in the mid 80s it became the destination of choice for prom dresses for girls from New Jersey and Long Island. Of singular impact on downtown fashion in the mid-late 1980s and early 1990s were NYC's drag queens. Wigstock, Lucky Cheng's and the makeup counter at the newly renamed "House of" Fields were all manned by statuesque beauties. PF's was then the place to go for extreme glamour -- high hair, long false eyelashes, ostrich and sequins.

The Creation
Before Sex and the City, Sara Jessica Parker's major contribution to fashion was that she looked great naked and occasionally wore odd "high fashion" garb, but by 1986 even Princess Di learned not to wear outfits like these. So Parker hits S&tC and is dressed by the redoubtable Ms Field whose fashion philosophy appears to be wear one of everything in your grandmother's & grandfather's closet and finish with priscilla curtains. I mean there really is just no excuse for some of this shit. Manolo Blahniks can be redemptive, but they only have so much power over something like this.*

Conclusion
Is there a point to this tediously crafted fashion history? I would say, before you think about effecting a Carrie, Samantha and whatever the rest of their names are look, remember that look is wholly inspired by drag queens and Johnny Rotten and every cheap piece of shit you can buy on Saint Marks Place. When feeling the need to over-accessorize I say remember the words of that fashion icon Winston Churchill:

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honour and good [taste]. . . . Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

*For the correct use of the silk flower, and indeed, all accessories. See her.

Fashion: Life on the Street

O the sights I saw!

In what can only be described as a moment of sheer lunacy I walked from 40th street and Lexington Avenue to the new Gwathmey building yesterday. I was incredulous.

Uggs boots in numbers too big to ignore, most disturbingly a particularly mukluk-y version on a weathered, 55-year-old bleached blonde who had clearly spent too many seasons on Gin Lane, SPF 0.

A plethora of ponchos the most irritating of which was a ONE-shouldered camel job, tres Wilma Flintstone on someone old enough and monied enough to know better (you get the picture).

Finally brooches, broaches and pins of every kind, and some on really hot young girls. It was all I could do to keep myself from grabbing a couple and putting my eyes out.

That'll teach me.

Why Isaac?

This name has the double spelling, yitschaq, and yitschaq (Isaak), corresponding to the two forms in which appears the root meaning "to laugh"--a root that runs through nearly all the Semitic languages. In Hebrew both tsachaq and sachaq have their cognate nouns, and signify, in the simple stem, "to laugh," in the intensive stem, "to jest, play, dance, fondle," and the like. The noun yitshar, meaning "fresh oil," from a root tsahar ("to be bright, conspicuous"), proves that nouns can be built on precisely the model of yitschaq, which would in that case signify "the laughing one," or something similar. Yet Barth (Die Nominalbildung in den semitischen Sprachen, 154, b and c) maintains that all proper names beginning with yodh prefixed to the root are really pure imperfects, i.e. verbal forms with some subject to be understood if not actually present. Hence, Isaac would mean "laughs": either indefinite, "one laughs," or "he laughs," namely, the one understood as the subject. [From Bible Tools.]

My name is La Depressionada and I have an unhealthy interest in

Jemima Khan (despite her unfortunate choice of pelvic butterfly decoratif -- doesn't that just scream je vous presente my vagina?). In addition, I love the name Jemima, daughter of one of my top ten biblical heros. Of course, we in the colonies are precluded from the use of the name Jemima (with or without the "h"), because of the connotation concommitant with the venerable Aunt and pancake product.

To bead or not to bead.

The tears coursed down her cheeks - not freely, however, for when they came into contact with her heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed an inky color, and pursued the rest of the way in slow black rivulets.

-- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Prompted by Maccers's meditation on the re-emergence of the poncho -- nothing really if not accompanied by sombrero and mustache -- I once again return to one of the fundamental questions of my existence:

Why can't attractive fashions be revived?

• charmeuse
• bias cut
• denier
• silk velvet
• hosiery
• fully let out pelts
• stacked heels
• armiture
• gored skirts
• silver fox collars
  

These are terms which ought to show up on the fashion pages more frequently than ponchos for chrissakes.

I have heretofore championed the lunula manicure, and today I discuss the beaded eyelash. This is not what the www would have one believe -- eyelashes with BEADS on them. It is the process by which little beads appear at the ends of one's eyelashes. You can see it on Kiki de Montparnasse in Man Ray's universal Larmes pictured above.

I think it began as a byproduct of early forms of cake mascara -- superior to creme btw -- but ultimately became a look to be achieved. As far as I have discovered, beaded eyelashes were produced with a mixture of hot wax and sooty charcoal -- like what is left on the match after it is extinguished. I'd certainly like to confer with any cosmetics historians about how to achieve this look. I think it is the dernier cri for an evening out.

O and yes and note the thin eyebrows. (Gloria Swanson for the curious.)

Subjects for future consideration: why the 1930s is a template for chic and can one separate nazi sympathizers from their fashion sense?

Lou Andreas

Alizinha* and I had a fine time listening to Jerry Schatzberg at Puzzle of a Downfall Child. In it, Faye Dunaway, (here's a picture of FD looking like the Altar at Pergamon, but I digress) who plays a model named Lou Andreas, keeps saying Lou Andreas** isn't my real name which reminded me, here's a pic of Rilke's g/f:



Very Genevieve Bujold, n'est-ce pas?

*Nice cleavage girls. Happy Birthday RKB!
**She was also Freud's penpal.

Most excellent interaction.

I have started taking the subway again after a brief 22-year-hiatus. Fascinating developments there. Anyway, Monday night I went to see Jerry Schatzberg's interesting 1970 semi-classic Puzzle of a Downfall Child as recommended by Filmbrain at the sparklingly, newly renovated Brooklyn Academy of Music, and despite the cold weather I took the R train. Nothing really eventful happened on my way except that I was able to listen to some bond trader drone on to his colleagues (and poorly) about poker strategy. But on the way back. On the way back! Magic.

Seated at a twosome at the end of the train: 1 boy and 1 girl, teenagers, probably Puerto Rican maybe Dominican, streetsmart clothes -- timberlands, down jackets, baggy jeans. The girl is studying (something like sociology), and the boy is helping her. I'm sitting in one of the long rows of facing seats about 1o feet away.

in media res

Girl: I got a B+ on my last test, and I didn't even study!
Boy: Oh yeah?
Girl: Hey this is a copy of Osama Bin Laden's speech.
Boy: What's it say?
Girl: She reads him part (I can't really follow along). You know I used to believe in this war and shit, but you know they have been lying. Why did we start a war against a country that didn't even attack us. Like they don't give a shit who attacked us and shit.
Boy: Yeah, they don't give a shit.
Me: Hey how old are you two? You know you have to vote right?
Both: We voted. (I thought they were younger). But, it didn't make a difference.
Me: Keep voting it will.
Both: We know!

Then they talk to me a little bit about how the war is shit and Bush sucks etc. I say imagine if you studied how good a grade you could have gotten etc. etc. Conversation dies down. A couple of stops later I'm getting off.

Me: You made me very happy. I'm glad to see kids who are interested in the future of the country.
Both: Hey thanks.
Me: If you guys are the future of the country, I'm good with that.
Girl: (as I'm leaving the train calls out) Don't worry! We'll take care of the future for you!

True story. True.

On cold November days there is nothing to do but

dream of Provence and the vistas of lavendar and marjoram that perfume the air. And let memory speak of sun-warmed fruit and fresh goat cheese. And allow thoughts to drift to making love in the afternoon on the stone-cut veranda and sipping an essence of roses.

And recline and watch the sun set over the sea, the sand and the olive trees.

Let us now praise famous librarians.

I've always had a love for librarians -- after all, they hold the keys to the kingdom. I especially love East Village librarians, because in the heat and in the cold, EV librarians deal with an inordinate number of mentally ill and homeless people; the library being one of the last refuges of the poor and disenfranchised in NYC.

Today there were three people ahead of me while I waited to place a book on hold. The first two guys, both very down on their luck, were querying the librarian about giving their real names to the New York Times online. The rampantly paranoid conversation lasted about five minutes. I was becoming impatient, but the librarian, elegant and Grace Paleyesque, answered their questions calmly and kindly with absolutely no condescension. The next on line, a biker from Louisiana, let me go ahead of him "because that's how we do it in the South." As the librarian researched my query, this deranged son of dixie began a diatribe detailing the unhappy fate of anyone discovered wearing a turban in his hometown: "when the enemy is among you, you destroy him."

Somehow, the librarian deftly managed him and simultaneously put my book on hold. Never raised her voice. Not once. Her voice remained perfectly modulated though these transactions, the mere witness of which caused me to want to run from the library and get on the express line in Barnes & Noble.

So, today I celebrate a true American hero: the East Village librarian.

Au revoir les dollars.

Somewhat less fun to shop for lipstick and scarves.

Another silken autumn Sunday

. . . another Marathon.

Pheidippides.

"So, when Persia was dust, all cried, 'To Akropolis!
Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!
"Athens is saved, thank Pan," go shout!' He flung down his shield
Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the Fennel-field
And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through,
Till in he broke: 'Rejoice, we conquer!' Like wine through clay,
Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!"

--Robert Browning (1879)

Of course you could save $3.50 lb.

if you use string beans instead of haricots verts.



But, if you use string beans they won't get eaten and you will lose the
$1.49 lb.

Haricots verts with almonds

1. Snip the non-pointy ends.
2. In an abundant amount of boiling salted water cook a small amount of the beans at a time.
3. After 3-4 minutes remove the beans and plunge into cold water with ice cubes. Drain.
4. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
5. Toast 2/3 of cup of sliced or slivered (I prefer sliced) almonds at 375 degrees for five minutes. Shake and toast another 2-3 minutes more.
6. Mince 2 shallots.
7. Melt 3 tbs. of butter. Saute shallots until translucent.
8. Toss in drained beans. Coat with butter.
9. Add almonds. Toss.

If this dish comes out right; it is the perfect autumnal dish -- deep green beans and toasty brown almonds. It's beautiful.

I know, steaming the beans retains more vitamins -- but who wants to eat grey green beans? I think the more elegant, traditional dish uses hazelnuts; but I like this better, and it is the quintessential side dish to your Thanksgiving dindon.

I had to ax that priest blog, because while I love a little

doctrine and Roman Catholicobilia, he got very stridently reactionary after the election. In his place, I suggest the Adventures of Confessions of Saint Augustine Bear.

Credit where credit is due: from the b/f.

Sac's new tack.

To obliterate his sorrows after the unfortunate outcome of the recent election, bloggus pater familias sacromentus, Sac, has begun a new programme which will consist of posting pictures of hot girls. Probably, because of some kind of weird genetic imprint or because I watched an incredible amount of tv as a child, whenever I think of hott, I think of Swingin' Chicks of the Sixties, and of those chicks, nobody, NOBODY was hotter than Pamela Tiffin.



I don't know what it is. The big hair. The heavy eye makeup. The real tits. I love these girls.

But I digress. Here's the thing. PM has two, yes count 'em TWO daughters, Echo and Aurore, who are actresses. They were in James Toback's excellent Black & White, which to my mind began as brilliantly as a movie could begin: two hot girls (one of them a still smokin' Bijou Phillips) making out with a guy in Central Park. By careful and scientific inductive reasoning and analysis I have determined that PM's daughters (1) must be hot, (2) are probably in their twenties, and, of course, (3) would look excellent making out. I can't find any pictures of these two, but I feel certain they would be a balm for Sac's gilead.

I am not going to be deterred in my search for pictures of these two. B/f has some screen capture software; I'm going to employ him in this effort because, now, more than ever, is a time for unification and healing.

Amuse bouche: Father and husband, Edmondo Dandon, is a "highly astute, cultivated Roman philospher." Could this be any better? I don't think so.

Speaking of Babs Stanwyck

look at how smokin' she was.


To me she looks a little like Elizabeth Spiers, if Ms Spiers had been the survivor of a plane crash in the Amazonian jungle and been away from the tensions of the stewardship of Mediabistro and the call of the www for a month or two.

Brain and brain. What is Brain?*

Got milk? Get brain. I can't tell you how much I love this from Gothamist. If it were not for the internets, I'd have no idea what the kids think is cool.

*Spock's Brain, Star Trek TV series.

How stupid is Julia Roberts?

Julia Roberts never struck me as any more stupid than other actresses, but today on Oprah she readjusted me.

Clearly unaware that her male and female fraternal twins would be in individual amniotic sacs, she claimed she could feel them "playing with each other" while in utero.

She called these things: f**k "flowers."

We'll order now what they ordered then.

Everything old is new again.

The NY Times heralds the return of Chardonnay. This, of course, is not unexpected even if one cynically suspects that California vintners have merely hired adequate public relations people. (I don't.)

In the fine new movie Sideways, which I hesitate to recommend to bloggers, because it may be necessary to be not the shiniest new penny to really enjoy it*, one of the main characters, played by Paul Giamatti**, an oenophile, explains to his friend that some Chardonnays are actually okay. It is Merlot, he (rightfully) rails against. It also stars, the always entrancing Sandra Oh -- she's the director's wife.

*I say this because of a conversation I once had with one of my bosses' daughters, aged 17, about Bull Durham. She: "I really didn't get that movie." The wine discourse, however, may redeem this movie for my more youthful compatriots.

**You know how there's always a guy, and he isn't good looking or particularly anything, but you are IN LOVE with him. PG is that guy for me. He was brilliant in American Splendor, the story of cartoonist Harvey Pekar. I had a semi crush on his father, Bart Giamatti, (I know, I know), and I am incredibly envious of his wife.

Rough, incendiary draft of something I've been thinking about.

Interim title: The moat in mine own eye.

Last night Jon Stewart said that he now actually understood the cultural wars.

This may be true for some New Yorkers, but others still have yet to buy a clue. The first of two incredibly myopic (yeah I know it's supposedly Junk English, but there is a difference in nuance between the terms myopia and short-sightedness) quotes from this Manhattanite-woman-film-producer, who btw was comforted by her DOORMAN (What's a doorman? half the country asks, is it like a brother-in-law?):

"What's different about New York City is it tends to bring people together and so we can't ignore each others' dreams and values and it creates a much more inclusive consciousness," she said. "When you're in a more isolated environment, you're more susceptible to some ideology that's imposed on you."

Yeah especially if your values are lovage foam, $600 strollers and $1,000,000 studio condos. (What's a studio condo? half the country asks, is it like a pickup?)

2nd quote:

"We live in this marvelous diversity where we actually have gay neighbors," she said. "They're not some vilified unknown. They're our neighbors."

Speaking of the vilified unknown how many charismatic, tongue-speaking Christians are our neighbors? We are not so fucking marvelously diverse if you consider our currency, which happens to be CURRENCY.

It's time, we start taking some responsibility for why some of the country is responding to the Democratic party the way they are. This party is the party of the WPA and the War on Poverty and yet many of the poor shun us.

Note: This is a not yet a fully baked theory, just so you know. But, there's something there I think. For additional support I'd cite that fucked up article in NY magazine about fucked up only children in Manhattan. No wonder the rest of the country thinks we're the spawn of satan. We're spawning something alright, and I'm as guilty as the next film producer. Now, fire away.

Next president of the United States.

Local favorite on fire.

L'Emmerdeur particularly excellent today.

3 November 2004

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
-- Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

Now you see it . . .

Can you imagine the consternation of the Rehnquist clerks who have been hired for next year? If need be, they could spend the year eating cinnamon walnut raisin bread with Stilton and blogging (or not).