Cloudless Chimes

In the tunnel, walking from the #5 IRT to Times Square Shuttle, we heard this ethereal trio of voice. Unfortunately, the vid doesn’t capture the beauty of their music echoing in the tunnel. Should have been filmed from further away.

Posted in Arts & Events, The City on June 9th, 2010 | No Comments » [ Share / Bookmark + ] 

Shut Up!

Until now, we’ve given a pass to Dick Cavett, the former talk-show host, whose latter years have amounted to a creepy nostalgia tour–a regular New York Times column that endlessly reminds us of the icons and walking cliches he’s interviewed, always with some anecdote about how so-and-so returned the admiration (see his ode to John Wayne) . Although Cavett can never be accused of originality, he can be nailed for smarmy self-aggrandizement and re-using the same tired lines (he once told Norman Mailer to “stick it where the sun don’t shine,” then claimed later that this unfunny put-down came to him in a burst of inspiration, though he used it at least one other time previously–after Lester Maddox walked off his show). In other words, Cavett represents the kind of squareness that is everything we once disliked about Manhattan–the wannabe wits and celebutards who frequented Elaines and Studio 54 and slummed with Woody Allen. Still, we’ve given him a pass because  his stories are interesting in the way rotting corpses are interesting: we know they’re dead but we wonder what they looked like alive.

Until now. His little essay on the passing of Art Linkletter is a new level of smarmy. We weren’t big fans of Linkletter–we watched him mainly when we were home sick from school–but he was good at what he did. Everyone, except maybe Cavett, understands this. Cavett, for some bizarre reason, goes after Linkletter for being a lousy monologist (long story short: Linkletter was one of many who hosted the tonight show during the gap between Jack Parr and Johnny Carson, and he stunk up the monologues). Cavett takes particular pleasure in recounting a lousy joke that Linkletter made lousier by over-telling the punch line. Yet Cavett does the same thing when he excuses himself for going after a dead man:

Someone, I guarantee, will react to this with the pre-recorded, “How can you      speak disrespectfully of the dead?” Truth is, I have always found it remarkably easy. Why anyone, by dying, should thereby be declared beyond criticism, innocent of wrongdoing, suddenly filled with virtue and above reproach escapes me. And the minor crime of smothering jokes hardly puts Art Linkletter in the pantheon of history’s malefactors.

We get it, Dick. You’re irreverent. Except irreverence only counts when someone is sacrosanct. If you’d gone after Ronald Reagan or even Johnny Carson when they died, we might have liked you better. But Linkletter has been so long out of the picture that probably less than 10% of the population knows who the hell he is.

What makes the column a true example of Cavettonia–I-want-to-let-you-know-I-met-this-celebrity-but-I’ll-pretend-this-story-is-really-about-something-else–is his adendum about Linkletter losing three of his five children. Something about writing a column that supposedly has us in hysterics (yes, he actually pre-warns us that the Linkletter story he’s about to tell is a thigh-slapper) to mock a man who never did anything worse than entertain the masses, then ending with unfathomable tragedy strikes us as truly fucked up.

Posted in The City on May 29th, 2010 | No Comments » [ Share / Bookmark + ] 

The Frying Pan

Variously described as “a frat party on steroids on a boat,” or swarming with “People I Hated in College,” or polluted with “wall-to-wall ex-frat boys,” The Frying Pan is actually a historic lightship, originally built in 1929, formerly at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay, now docked at Pier 66 near Chelsea piers. It has filthy toilets and crappy service (or is it the other way around?), and looks as if it were raised from the ocean floor yesterday…but we still like it. And not just the name.

During hot summer days we know of no cooler place to sit down, order a bucket of Corona beer and scarf mussels with fries. Oh, and there’s the view—a trillion times better than that  insipid tourist Mecca in San Antonio (don’t get us started),  especially nice during toxic sunsets.

The Frying Pan

23rd Street and The Hudson River,

Veronika Pfeiferova

Posted in Food & Fashion, The City on May 19th, 2010 | No Comments » [ Share / Bookmark + ] 

frat boys mussels pier 66 riverwalk The frying pan

Secret Square

We love secret restaurants like Crif Dogs and the (reportedly) ultra-violent Backroom, but they are in Squaresville,  Manhattan. Which is why we love Benchmark, a Park Slope boîte, tricky to find, unless you keep an eye out for the Second Street menu on a lectern. Once though the courtyard behind Loki Lounge, you come upon a gentleman’s club ambiance specializing in American Kobe-style steak (served with goat cheese whipped potatoes) to be eaten while gazing at exposed brick dotted with surveying equipment. Best feature: by-the-glass wines, many of which go for $6.

Benchmark
339-A Second St. between Fourth and Fifth Aves.
Park Slope, 718-965-7040

Sehrish Aslam

Posted in The City on May 19th, 2010 | No Comments » [ Share / Bookmark + ] 

Shut up

What we like best about Ricardo Hernandez are his fabric collages and sketches; they give us night terrors.

What we like least about Ricardo Hernandez  is what he says about his art:

“In my work,” he said, during our recent visit to his 106^th studio, “I try to convey the weaknesses and strengths of man (both physically and emotionally) by using a cocktail of seemingly delicate materials, like fabrics, strings, wood, wire, glue and others, to make robust sculptures that echo the complexities of the human condition.”

Shut up and paint, Ricardo.

Posted in Arts & Events, The City on May 19th, 2010 | No Comments » [ Share / Bookmark + ] 

Recharger In Love

Recharger has been in love twice:

The first time was with the 1983-1984 New York Islanders, the “Drive-for-five” team that tragically fell short to the Edmonton Oilers.

The second was with Bobby Valentine’s 1999 New York Mets, a team that shook up the Atlanta Braves in two of the most thrilling playoff games in franchise history—including Robin Ventura’s “grand single,”—but ultimately lost that series when journeyman carbuncle Kenny Rogers walked Andruw Jones to force the winning run.

It is 2010, eleven years later, and we feel stirrings of desire for this year’s Flushing Flav. As with the beginning of all great affairs, we have doubts; we have seen warning signs. We wonder when, given the right circumstances, we will be enjoying a post-coital smoke when our paramour says something that causes us to realize he is mentally ill.

Nevertheless, we have gone too long without the embrace of a strong, willful athlete. We must admit that Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey are sexy, smart and look fantastic in cleats.

David Wright is dullsville in bed, had dinner once with Bush junior at the White House, but unlike our previous boyfriends, is reliable.

Jose Reyes can salsa, merenque, and rumba, but we wonder if he can go the distance.

And we take special delight that leading hitter Jeff Francoeur comes direct from the Atlanta Braves.

Then again, Jason Bay is a creepshow reincarnation of Roger Maris, and GM Omar Minaya is just plain creepy.

Yet, each night when we lay head to pillow, we find our thoughts drifting to our bulging-biceped heroes in blue and orange.

Please, boys, be kind. We don’t think we can survive another broken heart.

Posted in The City, sports on April 29th, 2010 | No Comments » [ Share / Bookmark + ] 

Marry Me a Little.

Used to be, wedding couples, if they were super daring,  would smash wedding cake into each other’s faces. We never figured out where this custom originated, but we found it, um, odd.

This is part speculation, but it seems that nowadays, couples have to show they don’t care for the whole ceremony/commitment/wedding thing, man.

Take these two we snapped recently under the Highline. We love the ethnic thing, the funky background, the we-don’t-give-two-shits smirk, but then again, we also detect a certain contempt.

For what, we don’t know.

Posted in The City on April 25th, 2010 | No Comments » [ Share / Bookmark + ] 

Boom Boom!

Madonna, L’Wren Scott and Kirsten Dunst were not there.

Recharger was. Looking wistfully out the windows of the Standard Hotel’s penthouse bar that was, and maybe still is,  called The Boom Boom Room.

Its floor-to-ceiling views of The Hudson River, high-priced cocktails, freaky-thin waitresses and surrealistic vortexian humongoid black-holian formation that dominates the bar, we closed our eyes and pretended, if only for a second, that our pockets overflowed with insider-trading cash.

Posted in The City on April 23rd, 2010 | No Comments » [ Share / Bookmark + ] 

Orange and Weird

Má Pêche, David Chang’s orang-y breakfast and lunch boite located in the Chambers Hotel is a bi-level space with street-level bar and take-out bakery, and  lower level dining room.  It is very orange. This is Mr. Chang’s first venture above 14th street—he owns four other restaurants, all Momofuku clones—but this space is the sparest. A large X-shaped table fills the room surrounded by walls that are mostly bare—with one notable exception: “Bad Route,” a painting by Miguel Calderon, made famous by Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tennenbaums.

If you are not into French/Vietnamese fusion—oysters, crab, and scallops, pork ribs fried cauliflower, mussels, bún du riz (rice noodles, pork ragout, saw leaf herb),  and short ribs with spaetzle, go anyway.

The painting is that weird.

Má Pêche 15 west 56th street. nyc 10019 | btwn 5th + 6th ave

Spencer Stewart

Posted in Arts & Events, Food & Fashion, The City on April 19th, 2010 | No Comments » [ Share / Bookmark + ] 

Sandwiches from Outer Space

Chalk up another point for hipster gastronomy.  Off-the-beaten-path Saltie, specializing in sandwiches, coffee, baked goods, and—drumroll—ice cream, is a hit!  You’re thinking, Another bodega? Saltie is a far cry from the typical corner joint. The tiny establishment, located on Williamsburg’s 378 Metropolitan Ave, is the mind-baby of Caroline Fidanza, formerly of Diner, the hipster Mecca.

Our hunger-induced visit left us biased, and satisfied, critics. The cornbread and chocolate-filled pastry with mocha cappuccino was multi-orgasmic. Not so the Mystery Sandwich. The “mystery” means the restaurant chooses the sandwich. For us, the restaurant chose the Spanish Armada, a sandwich which looks good on paper but, like the original Armada, was not well-organized and sank. Each of  the three ingredients were tasty, but the proportions were wrong—like a Britney Spears song with too many violins. The focaccia is superb, as is the potato tortilla filling; but too much southwest style sauce—it was a focaccia action movie with Tom Cruise sauce.

Despite these minor disappointments—including limited seating—we urge a visit.

Saltie: 378 Metropolitan Avenue, 718-387-4777.

– Spencer Stewart

Posted in The City on April 6th, 2010 | No Comments » [ Share / Bookmark + ]