Save the Rhinos

So I had a bad day at work. So what. At least my entire species isn't on the precipice (well, not this week anyway). Learning that there are now, as of today, after the demise of Nadi, a rare white rhino in the San Diego Zoo, there are as few as thirteen -- 13 -- white rhinos left on this planet made me literally shudder, as if, as the old saw goes, someone just walked over my grave. But not my grave -- if I may be so hyperbolic -- the...the planet's. (OK a planet wouldn't have a grave per se but you know what I mean). It may have something to do with the fact the rhinos in general seem to me to actually be dinosaurs which I understand scientists have ruled out, but hey. I can't even touch upon the devastating fact that it is in large part due to human misdeed that these lovely warty beasts may disappear; you can read about it here.

How Many Baby Carrots Have to Die?

Well, I estimate around 53. For my carrot-ginger soup, that is. I've perfected the recipe (well, for my palate at least) and posted it back on the kitlog, if you're interested. While poking around for the original recipe (which of course I had at my fingertips, on my bookshelf, in the Joy of Cooking -- '97 ed. -- but that's so... old school) I found variations (and a shout-out here to a lovely lady in Maine or Canada, not sure which) who posted it in the version closest to what was in my head.

Which reminds me of why I'm posting again here today. What's up with the fake baby veggies? Both my healthfood store (Lifethyme) and my stupormarket (William Morton on LaGuardia Pl) sell "fresh baby spinach" lovingly encased in plastic containers (which I'm trying in vain to devise a way to re-use). Anyway, it's NOT BABY SPINACH. It's... mature, adult and occasionally over-the-hill spinach impersonating baby spinach. It's like me saying I'm 22. I'd be laughed outta town. So how come these wizzled greens are being sold as the tender, virginal microgreens that they clearly AREN'T?

Catching Up at MOMA

Cleo and I went to the Museum of Modern Art to see the Jeff Wall photography exhibit a couple of weeks ago. I liked its vibrancy and surreal realism (?) but didn't understand some of them. We're talking about huge blowups of exquisitely printed shots, often semi-staged (or fully? I don't know) but always grounded in the everyday.

One of the most interesting was a view of a panorama (the photo itself may have been panoramic in some sense, but the subject was a museum-type panorama with painted walls from the past -- there were stagecoaches and possibly Civil War militia men -- but also, in the nearer distance, what looked like restorers working on the walls... so... layers of reality here, replete with a strange round observatory-looking thing in the middle.

"Restoration," said the artist, "has a postrevolutionary, even counterrevolutionary implication. I was interetsed in the double entrendre in the title, the idea that panorama and the "regime" of restoration of which it is involved could be identified with an ancien régime, which ironically we are preserving, and even resuscitating, bringing back to life."

Wow, just realized you can view what may be the entire exhibit online, complete with zoom-in and commentary -- thanks, MOMA. You rock.

Congrats to Nicole and Manousos on their new baby. Yay! Nicole is another friend from my tenure at Scholastic (like Cleo, from above). They now (Nicole and Manousos, not Cleo) live in Crete (how cool is that?) where she is being creative and entrepreneurial.. Note to self: plan a trip to Greece. I found an older picture of us (as usual, I'm not enjoying being photographed and hence look somewhat deranged and oddly like Drew Barrymore, who I don't think I resemble in real life. Yeah, that's me on the right. Where did that fabulous shirt go?? Nicole is the cute one on the left.)

Lobster. Manna from heaven? Or cockroach of the sea?

I'm in no position to judge. But my family sure is! A short vacation (or long weekend) to Maine resulted in a new-found appreciation for rainy days, fireplaces and family. And lobster. Details to follow. For now... some quick observations:

JetBlue rules. Seriously, I've never been more comfortable on a plane. So what if the flight is only an hour from NYC to Portland, ME. I'm convinced I could fly to New Zealand direct on the airline, if only they went there.

Is it only in Maine that one finds roadside "Whoopie Pies for Sale"? (Route One, just north of Bath).

Maine has more (not always great) antique stores than residents. I'm serious.

Twittering to Myself

Today I'm going to document every move I make. Not because it's interesting, that's for sure. Just for... documentary purposes. It's like... me... twittering but alone and to myself.

So. I woke up around 8, went back to bed and dreamed. Got up, recorded the dream using Google Notebook, since this piece of #!%@ computer only has MS Works (WTF?) on it, for therapist and now dream-analyst sister. Did not embellish.

Washed hair, towel dried, made oatmeal (non-instant) with my usual slice of Rice cheddar cheese melted in it. I swear you'd like it. Also made some green tea (using both the caffeinated Yogi tea and the non, which has lemongrass or something and tastes better.) Added some stevia (300 X the sweetness of sugar!).

Ate and drank listening to KEXP (Seattle) internet radio. George Monbiot, well-spoken Brit journalist discussing his book Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning. I loved one idea: get the city buses out of the cities and onto the highways between the suburb and urb at much more efficient speeds, reliability and convenience.

OK, I also read a bit of Esquire whilst sipping my tea (why am I receiving this magazine? actually it's amusing... a small window into the minds of men. Or minds of small men.).

Marveled a bit again at netvibes.

Great. So now I can record that I've sat on my butt for some 30 mins at the start of the glorious day. OK, tea gone, I'm going to do my 90 situps and then go poke around Manhattan. Buy a new phone (where are you, little Razr?), find some summer clothes, go to gym, meet up with C., buy some spinach, order some books, and record some more of this so-far-not-overly-exciting day.

.............................................
Well, here's what I didn't do: sit-ups and gym. Hm.

Ok, I did buy Don Delillo's new book Falling Man, which I'm already 55 pages into, and which is great in his sort of understated, breezy yet weighty way. Also got a highly indulgent book on typography and that novel with the post-its on the cover (can't recall; gave to C. to carry home when we separated at 20th street -- he went home, I went to Filene's Basement, as is my wont).

Later, later, many doll-hairs later... I'm munching on Tibetan Goji berries, updating this completely unnecessary blog and noting weird confluences. To wit:

I buy a D. Dilillo book (he wrote a book called Mao). I notice that in the news someone defaced a famous image of Mao. Read more.

Ate lunch (tuna tartare for me) at Markt with C. Couldn't explain what "Markt" meant but thought of the word "telemark" - a skiing term. Then, when home, read this: Cousin of Ski Champion Bode Miller Killed After Shooting Cop, which, while sad and weird, takes place in NH, which reminds me of the Old Man in the Mountain (an iconic and now gone rock formation in New Hampshire's White Mountains), about which I wrote in my previous non-blog blog. (Sorry for linking to Fox News; it was only one on Googlenews at the time, I'm lazy, and in this case it's true news.)

Kablooey!

So nice to have something catastrophic happen that isn't somehow our fault. And by "our" I mean the human race, Americans or at the very least Democrats who can't control what the Republicans do.

Per NASA: The brightest stellar explosion ever recorded may be a long-sought new type of supernova, according to observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes. This discovery indicates that violent explosions of extremely massive stars were relatively common in the early universe, and that a similar explosion may be ready to go off in our own galaxy.

Interesting stuff. And now for today's wish list item. Simple, elegant, Chanel.

Lunatics, Wild Winds and Tune Dispensing Pez

Oh I'm in a black mood. I walked to work today and there was something wrong with the wind. Every time I headed in a southerly direction (which I pretty much have to to get where I'm going) the wind would pick up the hem of my skirt and pretty much inch it up, between my legs so that it looked like I was wearing some kind of weird shorts. The fabric (see image, right) was such that if I WERE wearing shorts, I would look like a lunatic. I spent the entire walk trying to casually pluck the skirt DOWN, which pretty much ruined my mood. On a lighter note, today's wish list item.

Only 182 Days Left

Yes, it's almost my birthday (November) so I'm going to include a wish list item in every post for the next however many actual days until I turn (um) 35 again. Here is today's whimsical wish: a nifty little tree-branch USB memory stick. Not exactly cheap, but as you know I'm worth it. You can buy it here.

Cry Me a River

My new route to work takes me down the west side of Manhattan along the Hudson River and serves to remind me why I live here. I love rivers, I love wide rivers with historic pasts (though I guess any major body of water has some sort of "historic" past but you know what I mean). I could live in Kentucky if I were situated on a hill looking down on a river. The ocean is better, but rivers do it for me too. They put me in a state of contemplative, just-this-side-of-melancholy meditation (a good state for me).

The photo here is evidence of what must be considered progress, again, in the realm of beautification. Not much to look at now (and kind of post-apocalyptic in a cool kinda way) but this is just part of "Segment 3" of the sprucing up of the 550 acres of Hudson River park, which includes 400 acres of open water that will, according to the Friends of Hudson River Park, provide an exciting public venue for boating, touring, fishing, swimming and many other activities.

They Care

Huh. I'm ... nonplussed. Con Edison asked me, by letter, if anything was ... wrong. Apparently, I'm not using enough gas. Seriously. They think there may be a malfunction with my meter. There isn't. What comes to mind are the following responses, if I were required to respond, which, thankfully, I'm not.

a) I'm trying to minimize my carbon footprint
b) I've lost the urge/skills to actually bake
c) My oven might be broken (it smokes if set to over 200 degrees)
d) I'm too cheap to clean my oven and so it might be "broken"
e) the only thing I cook on the stovetop these day is 1-minute oatmeal

Answer = D

2007 Tribeca Film Festival

Notes from the red carpet
I arranged to meet C. early for what I found out was the sold-out second premiere film of the '07 Tribeca Film Festival, Zak Penn's "The Grand." Shooed away (signage would've been nice, people) from the main entrance (Tribeca Performing Arts center, part of the Borough of Manhattan Community College) I found the actual entrance (around the corner on the Westside Hwy) for the world premiere of The Grand, starring Woody Harrelson and others.

The Movie
Funny stuff, especially considering it was, I believe, mostly improvised. And I'm not a huge fan of improv for improv's sake, believe me. (Flashback to "improvising" Blanche Dubois in film school - yeesh.) The poker tournament mockumentary boasted a great cast of character actors: Cheryl "Oh, Larry" Hines, Woody Harrelson, a scene-stealing Gabe Kaplan (!), Werner Herzog (impeccably creepy and hilarious as a murderous bunny-holding German lunatic), David Cross (who makes you laugh just looking at him -- and I don't mean that in a bad way), Ray Romano (not a fan before, but the guy grows on you), the wonderfully oily Dennis Farina and Chris Parnell (ex-SNL). Mainstream blockbuster? Probably not. I would imagine it'll be be a must-see for the poker-crazed Vegas-addled and fans of movies like "Best in Show."

Confusion at the door .. and on the floor
Tickets weren't really tickets until you trade in the "tickets" you bought for a totally different-looking... ticket. OK, oh well. A large man tried to turn back a huge swath of ticket-holders but C. adroitly slipped by him and I followed. We found seat in the auditorium after some frustration (way too many seats reserved for ESPN people. Whatever.) Also, the survey takers were a little too in your face and for some reason they were handing out yucky Zone bars or something that immediately made you thirsty.

TFF =WTF?
Read more from the Village Voice

Is it a film marketplace, a supersized studio junket, a hip downtown international cinephile convention, a pan-borough plug for greater Gotham?
More from Variety

Zoning Schmoning

Most temperate days, I walk to work. Over on King Street (where I live) to Varick and then down to the World Financial Center in a zig-zagging fashion, down Hudson to Spring, down Greenwich to Chambers and on down to my office across from Ground Zero (to the east) and the new, under-construction monolith that will be the new Goldman Sachs headquarters.

Speaking of construction, it's nuts down here. And up there (through Tribeca to my neighborhood). The place is awash with trucks and equipment and materials and dust and workmen in hardhats everywhere you look. At lunch time, it's easy to stumble over the men sitting on the ground leaning against nearly every building as far as the eye can see. In a way, it's inspiring (progress!) and at the same time it's depressing. Bad for the environment, bad for the once-unique neighborhood, bad because I can't afford any of these new luxury apartments.

Nice write up here.

Back to Web 2.0

Nice post title. Someday we'll actually (post-apocalyptically and wistfully probably) be saying that when the entire Web is an untangleable hairball of mashed-up wizmos and gidgets. Anyway, what I mean is, about my trip (see below, below the creepy owl).

And I'll keep it short. First, when flying domestically, DO order the vegetarian meal (when booking) if ONLY to have marginally better food MUCH sooner than everyone else. I don't know about you, but yes, I'd like to bring my own but always feel gross pulling out a... sandwich? a wrap? an Italian with the works? which when I pack them don't come with a nice tray and silverware and often I've forgotten napkins. But anyway.

I sat on a another depressing transcontinental Continental flight sans movie (dinky screen showing Dreamgirls -- argh -- and no, I haven't yet purchased the highly necessary univeral headphone jack and will NOT pay $5 for headphones for ANY movie that's not, like, Siriana or Departed or something -- which I doubt would ever play on Continental).

So anyway, (at the risk of sounding rather ageist) what's up with the heartbreak of sitting next to old people? They tell you their life story (unbidden) which is often poignant and even riveting (in this case involving an 82-year old Dutch woman, her Kenyan husband (who sat beside her, ignored), her father in a concentration camp, her move to New York City in 1963, her (and this is where it kind of devolved) love of Nascar and Harlequin Romances -- all fine and good and she even had some wise counsel for whatever lameass insight I threw HER way about MY life and then?

And then... She did what they always do: they just leave. No goodbye, no "Dear, it was a true pleasure. Let me give you my number in case you ever find yourself in northern New Jersey," no NOTHING. It happens more often than I care to admit (is it me?) and I vow to be more vigilant.

One of the best collection of design inspired links I've seen.

Leo in Beantown

I forgot to mention the wonderful February trip to Boston, where I met up with my sis and checked into the Royal Sonesta [who? what? me? us? We're not big on hotel chains... we're too snobby AND too cheap] for a mini-vacation. We raided the mini-bar, admired the view and readied ourselves for an evening with Leo Kottke, unmatched acoustic guitarist at Harvard's beautiful Sanders Theatre. Leo was great -- funny and self-deprecating. His verbal noodlings reminded me a little of Spalding Gray* (sigh). His 6- and 12-string guitar music was amazing. While I didn't hear the hoped for "Jack Gets Up" or "Corinna, Corinna," it was all good, with the music honeyed by the wood of the very impressive stage.

* Must get tickets to Stories Left to Tell.


The hotel, too, was amazing. Right on the pretty-much frozen Charles River. We had dinner at the better than expected Restaurant Dante. The next morning P. kindly picked us up and whisked us home to Ma and Pa in Edgecomb, Maine. Well, first we took a detour through New Hampshire (not my most favorite state) and stopped off at the Audubon Society (where P. works.)

San Francisco Web 2.0 Trip

San Francisco trip for Web 2.0 conference was super short and really sweet. We stayed at the Westin St. Francis on Union Square and because of a complicated situation (one night on my Amex card, next three nights on corporate card) they bungled the reservation which resulted in an upgrade to ... Room 1221!

Where Fatty Arbuckle -- the scandal-plagued silent film comedian -- ended his career one boozy night in which a starlet died and the room in which, later, Al Jolson suffered a fatal heart attack while playing gin. Haunted? Possibly. While we ended up moving to a new room the next day, the ghosts came with us and had a gay old time unplugging every appliance we plugged in. Seriously.

Now, I lived in SF in my late 20's, after attending U.C. Berkeley for 2 years and again, later, working for Levi Strauss. But I hadn't been back in a very long time. Highlights of the trip included the whacked out horrible Pier 39 with its crazy lazy sea lions; great meals at The Slanted Door in SF and Chez Panisse* in Berkeley; the Berkeley campus and Berkeley Hills; a burrito in the Mission District; a 2.5 second walk along the Pacific Ocean (windy and freezing). Photos here.

* I had the Baked Sonoma goat cheese with Viki's lettuces; a thin-crusted pizza with nettles, the artisan cheese selection (Dante, Tome des Recollets, and Pavé) and a glass of the most delicious Muscat. All incredibly tasty.

Web 2.0 highlights included watching Google head Eric Schmidt chat with journalist John Batelle. There was also much a-twittering, flickring, digging, swiveling and so much more. I of course, also opted for a truly exciting session on networking. I had thought it would be vaguely about social networking but it was ... well, let's just say I know now more than I would want about linear load-balancing, SSL and TCP.