Easy and SoothingHot water with mint sounds like a dieter’s scam, but I was cautiously optimistic when friend Astrid offered the after-meal beverage to me because she has great taste (buds). It was refreshing and soothing and didn’t even need any sugar or honey to sweeten the deal.
123 Lexington AveMike often shares goodies he picks up from Kalustyan‘s including raisins even a raisin hater could love and more recently, this flaky, honey soaked baklava. Delicious!
1378 3rd AveAfter just enduring a mediocre Chinese meal, I’m even more adamantly recommending Shanghai Pavilion, a well loved upper east side spot that we ate at when visiting my sister and her new baby at Lenox Hill. Tender, flavorful soup dumplings (called “juicy dumplings” on the menu) followed by a huge bowl of hot and sour soup made for a great start to our meal. Both are top on my personal list of favorite foods, but a bad version is nothing short of depressing (and we can probably all attest to the sad prevalence of bad hot and sour soups out there in your basic take out).
I was happy to find that our main dishes were also exemplary. The Shanghai Sizzling Beef was hearty and yummy and the chicken dish (which I believe was the chicken with garlic?) was phenomenal. Even the ring of bok choy (a bitter that neither of us is a great fan of) was tasty. The meat was not fatty or heavily breaded to cover the weird parts I’ve found at other spots and the sauces were distinct and delicious.
We were fully statisfied and skipped desert, but I am not satisfied that I don’t have an equally great option for Chinese much closer to home.
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Artist and Renaissance Man of the SurrealThere’s so much awesomeness to admire in the career of Roland Topor that it’s hard to know where to begin. As a visual artist he’s created surreal and creepy magic. As an actor he was Renfield in Herzog’s Nosferatu and had a cameo in my favorite Yugoslavian filmmaker, Dusan Makavejev’s Sweet Movie. As a writer his novel The Tenant was adapted into the fantastic Roman Polanski adaptation and as an designer he (along with Rene Leloux )created one of the most visually stunning animated films of all time, Fantastic Planet. I’m in awe.
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Manly Sitcom StarSometimes I feel like the lone defender of Parks and Recreation, the good hearted comedy (in a genuine way – not the schmaltzy, after school special style of the increasingly annoying Community way) that gets better with each viewing. One of the highlights of watching every week is the surprisingly hunky libertarian moustached manly man, Ron Swanson played with dimple smirked charm by Nick Offerman.
Also known as Mr Mullally, the two were photographed in the buff recently for New York Magazine. It made my day. With a career of improv behind him, his more public roles have been few and sometimes questionable (see plumber role on King of Queens) but, to his credit, he’s still surprisingly boyishly and devilishly good looking without the mustache – which is not always the case with facial haired men.
by The DoorsI have a bunch of friends that hate The Doors. On one hand, I simply do not understand but on the other, if you’re really big on the contemporary, sensitive and overly modest indie rock man style, I can see there would be more than a little resistance to the shirtless leather panted swagger of Morrison and co with their drugged up poetry and out of control sexual confidence. If you count yourself among these haters, you should definitely avoid The Doors in Concert. If you think he’s got the bluster of an high school senior talking the pants of every girl he meets on record, you should listen to him ask “wrap your legs around my neck” followed by “it’s getting hard” live. As full of high school hormones the innuendo is, god help me, it still works on me like gang busters.
As an adult, I might be snide about the equivalent sexual pop stars of kids today. The silly antics and puffed up machismo or bravado, but the same things make me tingle with delight here. It helps that the music is genuinely dynamic, exciting, and classic and never more so than when the band is performing at their best. And they’re at their best in phenomenal, angry versions of the epic When the Music’s Over – perhaps my favorite Doors song (it makes me want to scream along “We want the world and we want it now!”) as well as the equally epic The End and the jangly Roadhouse Blues.
There’s so much youthful exuberance and this is exactly the kind of album that makes me feel like I really missed out by not living through the sixties then wonder how everybody’s parents turned out so square and republican regardless.
Corky & Siegel-Schwall (1971)Before purchasing an original concert poster of the band Siegel-Schwall (from this week’s website pick, Wolfgang’s Vault) I was curious to know more about the unfamiliar band.
I found this phenomenal youtube clip where classical chamber music meets the blues and love it! Sadly it’s not exemplary of all their musical releases which (from a quick browse through iTunes catalog) seem more traditionally blues.
by T.C. Boyle (1982)T.C. Boyle is one of my favorite contemporary writers and from the hippie clash of Drop City, to the speculative ruin of the planet in Friend of the Earth, I have recommended many of his works here. Water Music is his first novel and while he may not have quite acquired the brilliant character development you’ll find in his later books, there’s lots to have fun with in the adventures of Mungo Park – trudging through the dark heart of undiscovered (by Westerners that is) Africa and Ned Rise – trudging through the foul hardships of London in the late 18th century.
While Boyle freely admits to playing with the historical facts, Mungo Park was a real life explorer who chronicled his discoveries in a book called Travels in the Interior of Africa. Rogue and con man Rise on the other hand is purely a figment of Boyle’s imagination.
Adventure seems to be the theme of the week, and Water Music is a doozy with cutthroats, gallows, crocodiles, angry Moor warriors, frightening diseases, grave robbing and more. Best paired with something along the lines of this week’s movie pick or one of Herzog’s adventures like Aguirre The Wrath of God.
directed by David and Laurie Gwen Shapiro (2001)Tobias Schneebaum, the charming subject of Keep The River on Your Right, is a fascinating man full of fascinating stories to tell that work much in the favor of filmmakers whose techniques are (at best) uneven and (at worst) invasive, unnecessary and annoying; but I suppose even fish-eye lenses can be overlooked when the story is this compelling. Schneebaum, once a respected New York painter, set off to the wilds of New Guinea and Peru in his younger days to come back with stories of foreign customs (including male sexual partners, which astounded the public in the 1960s), frightening raids, and cannibalism – which is by far the most sensational and most exploited of his adventures; adventures he shared with the world through several publications and garnered Schneebaum both respect and awe.
The movie catches up with the Schneebaum, now making his living as a speaker on expensive tribal cruise ships, as he very reluctantly journeys back to the people and places he once adventured in. He meets an old lover, climbs ruins, and finally rediscovers the people of Peru that he once lived with for months as a younger man. While one might wonder what a fine film it could have made in better hands (Herzog perhaps) it’s a great tale and can be seen instantly on Netflix on demand.
Click here for the rest of Keep the River On Your Right
directed by Jan Svankmajer (1988)With all the excitement surrounding Tim Burton’s new take on the Lewis Carroll classic, I was itching for a journey to the other side of the looking glass myself since I may not manage to get to a 3-D IMAX in the very near future. Netflix on demand was there for me with Jan Svankmajer‘s 1980’s stop motion dream/nightmare, Alice. His vision is distinct, stunning and not just a little bit frightening. All about the visuals and the technique, the movie is predominantly eerily silent which can make it slower viewing – so don’t watch it when you’re tired (especially if you want to enjoy a night of peaceful dreams).
If Svankmajer’s name is unfamiliar, perhaps you’re not up on the Eastern European legacy of experimental animation because in that world, his decaying surrealism is godlike. Alice is a wonderful introduction to the man who has inspired so many. I feel that Carroll would have been thrilled.
Click here for the rest of Alice