claudineko.blogspot.com

Oh Land in the sky

2012-02-01T10:50:00.000-08:00

I interviewed Oh Land last summer in the penthouse of the Rivington Hotel on the Lower East Side. I took this photo (above) with my phone as she posed for the actual photographer. Nice view, eh? I watched her sing at Webster Hall, then in Boston for a show at the House of Blues a few weeks later, and again, back down in Manhattan where she played the Bowery Ballroom. Each time, I marveled at how interesting she is to watch -- whether she's just lifting an arm or shifting her shoulders to a quick staccato. Below, are tearsheets from S Magazine, but to read the whole story, you're gonna have to look for the hard copy. I know they sell them at McNally Jackson Books on Prince St.

Aamanns/Copenhagen sneak peek!

2011-10-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

Another day, another Danish-royalty party. These shots are from yesterday's stop on the Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark's U.S. visit. Chef Adam Aamanns' new smørrebrød spot at 13 Laight Street in Tribeca won't officially open until late November/early December, but here's a look at what will be served:

Denmark's the Spot!

2011-10-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

I spent the last couple of weeks scrambling to write a story about Nordic cuisine in New York City and sat down with many of the city's finest purveyors of gravlax, smørrebrød, rye bread, pickled herring et al. One guy I didn't get to interview was Rene Redzepi, famed chef at Copenhagen's Noma, aka the "best restaurant in the world." But I finally caught up with him in Union Square yesterday, eating a local apple no less, where he was promoting Danish cuisine to an audience of foodies, press and the Crown Couple of Denmark.

As for American chefs who inspire him, he cited Thomas Keller ("an astonishing chef"), Wylie Dufresne and David Chang. In fact, Redzepi's head chef at Noma is yankee Matt Orlando.When I asked him if he had plans to open any restaurants in NY, he gave me a sad face and shook his head, "No," saying, "I love New York City. Who doesn't?" But he's pretty happy and busy with what's going on with his work back in Denmark, so really, nothing to be sorry about.

However, as an addendum to the part in my article about the New Nordic Manifesto, Redzepi said he was "surprised" that chefs here were looking at it for their own Scandinavian cooking. "They're not rules —they're inspirations," he says. "If you have rules, it becomes absolute. That's a horrible thing. Who's to say just because you want to incorporate olive oil that it's not Nordic cooking?"

Below, samples of bites prepared by Adam Aamanns -- who will be opening an eatery in Tribeca by December. (At very top of post, æbleskiver dusted with vinegar powder.)

Potatoes with mussel cream

Beet Root smørrebrød

A smorgasbord.

P.S. As for my story which came out today - I highly recommend stopping by Nordic Breads, mentioned in the intro for their "dark piquant rounds of Finnish rye." (Multiple locations: New Amsterdam, Union Square and Stuyvesant Town Greenmarkets; some Dean & Deluca’s, Shaller and Weber; Whole Foods Market)

Is it really the end of S̶e̶p̶t̶e̶m̶b̶e̶r̶ October already?

2011-10-20T01:57:00.000-07:00

When I was researching my story about places to eat around Lincoln Center during Fashion Week, there were plenty of restaurants to choose from. Rosa Mexicana or Fiorello's would have been too obvious. Salumeria Rosi was too far. Boulud Sud would have been one too many Bouluds...I was on the fence about Gastroarte--but then I saw their insane platings and thought, "how perfect."Above, squid ink risotto and seafood. Below, beets! and further down, Lincoln Ristorante by day.

New stuff

2011-07-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

I hung out with actress Jena Malone in Los Angeles earlier this year and wrote about it for S Magazine. And if you happen to pick up an issue and all you do is gawk at the nude photos of her without reading the story—shame, shame on you.

Feels like WTF

2011-07-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

Wendi "Daaaaaang" Murdoch's leading lady

2011-07-20T15:33:00.000-07:00

(At The London Hotel's Maze restaurant: Actress Li Bing Bing, right; director Wayne Wang, left.)

I had trouble figuring out how to write about this whole Snow Flower and the Secret Fan business, even if I did suggest it to my editor at The Paris Review in the first place. But at the time of the pitch, I hadn't yet seen the film, and was intrigued about the possibilities. After watching the movie, things became murkier from an editorial standpoint. At one point, there was going to be some pretty heavy lesbian porn references, not to mention the use of the FUPA acronym. But as my friend Tom pointed out (while I was past deadline and ready to give up), "often journalists will find a topic that's just easy/provocative under deadline rather than say what they really think." Though, it's not like had I gone the FUPA route, I wouldn't have been saying what I really thought anyway. Here's my end result, and here's the awesome Wendi Murdoch smackdown clip.

Free Ai Weiwei?

2011-07-19T21:37:00.000-07:00

In New York and in Miami, I saw these posters, remnants from Ai's 81 days of imprisonment. Of course, he's not really free, is he.

Re-Post

2011-07-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

I should remember to post this every year:

Just got back from yet another depressing lecture at MIT on Carbon Capture and Sequestration. Not familiar with CCS? In a nut: We are in the global warming shitter because we drive too much, fly too much, and can't control our rate of needless consumption. All of this requires energy, much of which comes from burning coal in power plants, and results in a runaway train of carbon emissions that's destroying the earth and the air we breathe. So scientists are trying to figure out a way to suck the carbon from these plants and then inject them deep into underground geological formations or even beneath the ocean -- which if they ever do figure out how to make work, then has the potential to wreak even more catastrophic results, like ocean acidification, ecological destruction, blah blah blah. On top of that, if they do miraculously figure it all out, it's only a fraction of what we need to do to make it all...not so bad. Because no matter what, it's gonna be bad.

I spend my time learning and obsessing about this problem, the enormity of it and perhaps the futility of trying to fix it, wondering if I'll ever be able to use a disposable plastic fork without feeling overwhelming guilt or not despise a culture which perpetuates mass retailers of overpriced superfluous junk. But mostly, I wonder why so many bikers have to be killed by cars and their drivers.

This morning, when I pedaled across the intersection of Harvard and Cambridge in Allston, like I do almost everyday, I saw yet another ghostbike chained to a light pole, memorializing the life and death of a 23-year-old girl who was killed riding her bike a week or so ago. Her friends had covered the street corner with flowers, notes, pictures, even a giant graffitied message saying, "Kelly, we love you." Bikers, you see, whether they are conscious of this or not, are doing us a huge favor by choosing not to pilot giant heaps of gas-guzzling, carbon-emitting, war-inducing metal. Yeah, I'm a biker, so it sounds like I'm just wanking one off, but you can't really argue with it. Just try to.

So, wear a helmet, ride a bike, ride safe, save the world.

I originally wrote it in May of 2007, after I'd left New York the first time, and was mired in the world of Nova science now. When I was a more prolific blogger. I later commented:

"We need a complete overhaul of our cultural values, and a greater respect for our fellow humans. People think they're minding their own business while coveting and collecting things, when really everything we do effects somebody else and then comes back to slap us on our asses time 10: breathing, eating, all of it. Biodiversity is key, not only in nature, but in humanity, our urban metropolises, our comfortable Ikea-turned out homes --so it behooves us not to run each other over and think more about what is essential to life, liberty and happiness.

The recession happened, and as painful as it is, to some more than others, I know it isn't all bad. It's taught some of us how to be frugal, yet make the most of it (i.e. out of work, and nothing to do but look at the birds). Nevertheless, I've lost touch with some of these ideals in the last year or so, and it's time to refocus.

2011-05-10T16:34:00.000-07:00

I'm assuming this is based on a scale of 1-10, 1 being low and 10.3 signifying tomorrow's -- sorry, next weekend's --impending apocalypse.

Artist Ai Weiwei missing for 9 days

2011-04-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

Artist Ai Weiwei has been detained by the Chinese government, according to news reports. Nobody knows exactly why he was arrested or how long he'll be held. Back in 2007, when I was living in Boston and spending quite a bit of time attending various lectures and talks at the multitude of universities around Cambridge, I interveiwed Ai. He had been invited to speak at MIT's School of Architecture, and I was immediately taken by his personal and artistic sense of humor. He was very generous with his time, and shockingly candid with his criticism of the Chinese government. I was worried he'd get in trouble. Here is an excerpt.

BLVR: The Chinese government's push to build Beijing up into a world-class metropolis filled with skyscrapers is destroying historic neighborhoods. Are you okay with that?

AWW: First, I don't think it comes from design. Any design, any city, any kind of craziness or tragedy, it all comes from a long time of preparation. Destroy or build. Crazy or non-crazy. I'm not nostalgic about the old city. I don't enjoy it that much. It was just a city with one emperor and the rest of them just rats or meaningless people. Of course, it has its own conditions. The society was so different—it was a feudalistic society. It didn’t come to a point of industrial revolution until 20 years ago. And today, we jump into this globalization of the economy and Internet age. Of course, there has to be chaos. It has to be crazy and I don't think there's anything wrong about it except this government which is really incapable of doing anything meaningful. Otherwise, I think the building can be bigger, larger, and the city can be much more crazy. The problem is the government structure is so deadly stupid, not really solving problems but creating a lot of problems itself every day.

BLVR: How are you so free with your criticism of the Chinese government? Don’t people tend to end up in prison for that? Or are you safe because of your involvement with high-profile projects?

AWW: It’s not like before. It’s very clearly losing power in every aspect, but trying to fix up all the problems or potential problems. The whole attitude of society has become much more open and realistic. They realize that the only way to make a more democratic and free society is to let different opinions come out. The government has improved in the last two or three years. Of course, the structure is still the same; there’s still a one-party system and strong censorship.

The whole interview can be read here. And info on "Never Sorry," a film about Ai directed by Alison Klayman can be found here, as well as the "Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei?" Frontline documentary here.

One-Year Anniversary

2011-04-06T16:16:00.000-07:00

All dressed up and...

2011-03-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

These came from downtown L.A.'s Bottega Louie. I've heard it's a pretty, loud restaurant where the food is only okay. But those macaroons were right on point.

At last.

2011-02-08T08:39:00.000-08:00

MTV Shows

In 2010, I lived in a fancy hotel and worked as a story producer for My Life As Liz, Season 2. Both of these (unrelated) experiences had me jumping up and down on a king-sized, satin-sheeted bed - and not sleeping nearly enough. The show premieres tonight on MTV at 11 pm.

Awww, pussycat

2011-02-07T13:22:00.000-08:00

I interviewed actress and icon Tura Satana (July 10, 1938 – February 4, 2011) for Giant Robot way back when. She talked to me about everything from overcoming gang rape to conquering the art of nipple-tassle twirling. Bye-bye, pussycat.

Somewhere

2011-02-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

Actor Stephen Dorff was one of the first interviews I conducted with a celebrity during my tenure at Jane Magazine. He stood me up on our original phone date, and I eventually ended up having to go into the office on a weekend to have the conversation -- which lasted over two hours and was pretty amusing. In retrospect, I'm surprised at some of my questions and responses, but then again, I had initially been pretty annoyed by his delinquency. I thought of him recently because he's in that new Sofia Coppola move, Somewhere, and then found that someone had posted our interview on the web. I have re-appropriated it here. The photo, by the way, was taken by Michael Stipe.

West Coast report

2011-01-27T20:06:00.000-08:00

Flip flops in January is a pretty damn civilized concept, especially when I think about the nuisance of crossing an intersection in NYC, post-snowstorm (which apparently is all the time these days). But now that my closest geographical acronym is PCH, I'm pissed that I'll be missing this Adrian "in conversation" with artist Leanne Shapton event next month at the Strand, where he'll also be signing copies of his new book Scenes from an Impending Marriage. I went to his (really amazing) wedding years ago where guests were given the original version of this comic as favors. Which reminds me, I should have sold mine on eBay when I still had a chance.

Wednesday, February 9th, 7:00 pm
Strand Bookstore
726 Broadway
In conversation with Leanne Shapton.

Oh, lepidopterist.

2011-01-27T16:55:00.000-08:00

Nabokov -- writer, hotel dweller, lepidopterist. Le-pid-op-ter-ist. You had me at hotel dweller. You definitely had me at writer. And now, butterflies.

"To write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write." -Gertrude Stein

2011-01-25T14:25:00.000-08:00

And that is why
sometimes,
I prefer taking photos.
Or
smashing a whole bunch of glass and rolling around in the debris.

The best lunch deal in town: Del Posto

2011-01-19T21:35:00.000-08:00

Last fall, Sam Sifton gave Del Posto, the Bastianich/Batali mega-restaurant in the Meatpacking district, a 4-star rating -- his first since he became the New York Times dining critic in 2009. And while I generally believe rating systems with their stars, numbers, or other funny little icons to be inevitably flawed, I'm down with Sifton. After heeding a rec by my NYC neighbor who is a sommelier at the restaurant, I found Del Posto to be one of the best fine-dining experiences I've ever had. Of course, I'm the kind of person that is easily impressed by whipped lardo as a complimentary option to spread on your choice of three fresh-baked breads, cheese graters re-imagined as serving trays for dessert canapes with wooden pullout drawers revealing a second secret layer of more dessert canapes, and an off-menu children's entree of gnocchi with truffled butter. And did you see those gold-dusted cheese-risotto balls?

But on top of the exquisitely prepared dishes and drinks, the waitstaff also maintained a down-to-earth elegance, even providing a purse stool for our 4-year-old-friend's Dora the Explorer backpack. Later, our waiter conceded to the fact that most truffle oils are fake, including their own, enhanced by chemical compounds such as 2,4-dithiapentane to impart that certain je ne sais quoi - which, of course, did not stop that gnocchi from being inhaled like a plate of peanuts backstage at a circus show.

The damage: $29 for a three-course lunch prix fixe. (Of course, the a la carte order of their hundred-layer lasagna is extra.) Info: www.delposto.com, 85 10th Avenue/16th Street, 1-212-497-8090.

Stomach apron

2011-01-13T13:58:00.000-08:00

Straight to the point.

Good. Better. Best. Bested.

2010-12-16T06:40:00.000-08:00

A few people have asked me how I came up with the idea of interviewing playwright Edward Albee for this month's fiction issue of Vice magazine. Basically, Albee wrote one of my favorite plays, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and last year, after falling madly in love with Montauk, I learned he also owns a barn out there, where he runs an artist-and-writer residency program. I applied -- and ultimately, did not get in. (Yes, I was sad.) When Vice came looking for story ideas, it naturally occurred to me that I would've been just as happy having a conversation with the octogenarian, preferably sitting out by the beach at his Eastern Long Island abode. Of course, as much as we tried to schedule a meeting in Montauk, where he spends much of his summer, we ended up at his loft in Tribeca. I was not disappointed. However, I should note that I felt unusually nervous about this interview -- and I've chatted up many luminaries throughout my career, so I had prepared a very long list of questions. Turns out, I barely looked at them throughout the conversation.

P.S. Albee told me he has nothing to do with the selection process for writers in his residency program, so no hard feelings.

Coffee, butter, biscuit.

2010-11-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

Over it.

2010-10-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

This Thursday, Oct 28 at 1 pm, the New York City Council's Committee on Women's Issues is holding a public hearing about street harassment of women and girls. Show your support and attend: near City Hall at 250 Broadway, 14th Floor committee room.

And for future reference, if you're in a situation where a guy is threatening to do physical harm to you, has indeed just shoved you from behind, or groped you et al, and you draw a blank on how to respond - dial 911. After all these years of repeated assaults, I finally did the research. Even if there is no literal fire in his pants or guns or knives or bashing of a woman's head onto a metal sewer grate, etc. involved (yet), you still can call 911. And if the situation is safe enough, take a picture of the douche and post it.

Paris, je sorta t'aime

2010-10-17T06:46:00.000-07:00

In other news, I have just returned from France, where I had the opportunity to see Rick Owens' Spring-Summer Collection '11 at Paris Fashion Week. Even though I had a seat directly behind his wife Michele Lamy, my photos were not nearly as good as these. Here is an excerpt from the show:

Though I have never truly entertained the idea of spending more than my rent (*I have an apartment in Manhattan) on a single item of clothing, I ended up going to his boutique at the Palais Royal and his section at Le Bon Marche to try on some of his coats. Of course, both times, I left empty handed. Tant pis.

In any case, I used to hate Paris. Now, on my sixth or so visit, I feel differently. Thank you Mr Owens, Mr. fig-avocado-cheese sandwich guy, bowl of buttermilk at Breizh, Bordier beurre aux algues, Velib, Mr. Montparnasse-cemeterie Pepe le Pew, citron yogurt in the glass jar, fans of Oscar Wilde, Christian Constant fat chip, Bibliothèque François Mitterrand and Jochen.

The tree house is up!

2010-10-17T06:35:00.000-07:00

My Vice magazine story about tree houses, that is. Read it here.
It's worth taking a look at, even if you've already seen it, because I posted new photos and edited the ending. In the original version, posted on the Vice site, there was some confusion in the last paragraph about when I made the call to my neighbor. We talked at 3 a.m., long before I had arrived in the tranquil no-service zone of west Sonoma County. It's also worth it because it's my favorite story I've written in over half-a-decade.

Tickled pink

2010-09-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

My latest, an interview with fashion designer Rick Owens on the Paris Review Daily.

Not The Yellow Book.

2010-09-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

In the library collections of the Edward Albee Foundation barn. I know exactly which one I would immediately pull out. Watch for my interview with the playwright himself, coming sooner or later to a Vice magazine near you -- once I finish writing the thing, of course.

Deep end

2010-08-27T12:57:00.000-07:00

Speaking of ninjas...

2010-07-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

I ended up on the water taxi to Governor's Island this past weekend with a guy in a pseudo-Punisher skull tee and a Vanilla-Ice hairdo and a girl sporting a severe bleached blonde haircut who wouldn't share their four-person bench with me. It was so off-putting -- until a couple hours later, when I saw the duo up on stage opening for MIA at the Hard Fest NYC show: Ninja and Yo-landi Vi$$er of Cape Town's Die Antwoord. They do this sort of techno-based Afrikaans hip-hop that evokes both Alvin and the Chipmunks and Eminem -- and somehow it works. Die Antwoord's performance was so climactic, I left as soon as M IA appeared, caught the first ferry back to Manhattan, and rode my bike through the post-midnight downpour. And now, looking for illustrations, of course, Dave Choe got there first. If I'm not mistaken, those two numbnuts in the background below, with their shirts hanging around their necks, are his sidekicks, including (L) Harry, director of Dirty Hands: The Art and Crimes of David Choe.

Listen to the Echoes

2010-07-23T09:58:00.000-07:00

I was at a party last night, doing my usual ridiculous thing -- avoiding it, when I picked up a journal and started reading a lengthy interview with Ray Bradbury. (This was to celebrate a book of Ray Bradbury interviews, hosted by The Paris Review.)

I thought I'd read a little, drink a little, and, then, if the two editors I knew who were helping host the soiree weren't presently freed up, leave, you know, French. But the interview was so charming, I ended up cozying into this long, brown leather couch with some bourbon, immensely enjoying the fact that I was essentially sitting in on a very entertaining, very full conversation with Mr. Fahrenheit 451 -- as opposed to the usual unnerving party staccato.

Several pages into it, a man set his coat down on the chair in front of me. I looked up and smiled politely. As we shook hands, I couldn't help but excitedly ask, "Have you read this interview with Ray Bradbury?" His answer was the best I could've ever hoped for: "I wrote it." His name is Sam Weller, and he spent ten years of his life working on two books about Bradbury: The Bradbury Chronicles and now Listen to the Echoes (with a foreward by the Pixies' Black Francis, no less!).

A highlight:

Q: ...you did receive the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. How important was that for you?

A: It was a fantastic evening. There was a real problem getting back to my hotel room, though. The hotel where they held the ceremony in New York was so huge, it filled me with despair. Since my stroke, I walk very slowly. I saw a sign that night that said: NEXT RESTROOM, TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY MILES. The registration desk was on the eighth floor. You have to wait ten minutes for an elevator just to go up and register! That night some of the women were taking me back to my room and I said, For God's sake, where's the men's room? We couldn't find one. One of the girls said, There's a potted palm over there, why don't you go use it? So I went over. Nobody saw me. At least I don't think so.

Rocking Machine for sale

2010-06-18T10:10:00.000-07:00

Phillips de Pury and Company is having an art auction, next week June 24 in NYC. They'll be hawking, among other things, Herman Makkink's Rocking Machine (1969). Of course he was Dutch and his last name is Makkink. It's one of the few things I remember from A Clockwork Orange. The auctioneers have tagged it as a "kinetic sculpture." I'm looking to redecorate my apartment this summer, and while it could be an amusing addition to my bohemian/country/Swedish-Japanese dwarf aesthetic, I wouldn't have the cajones to actually go for it.

Okay, I lied. I remember a lot of things about Clockwork.

I know someone who'd love this, also up for sale:

When it rains in L.A.

2010-06-14T06:32:00.000-07:00

It's a rare day in Los Angeles when you can pack in several appointments with an efficiency usually reserved for a city like New York. But back in April, I had to interview two bands (Maroon 5 and Taylor Locke & the Roughs) and an artist (David Choe) on the same day, while editing down a friend's grant application essay before his deadline the next afternoon. Fortunately, the musicians only lived a couple miles from each other, if that, and the artist's studio was a twenty-minute drive downtown. In between, I managed to meet a friend for lunch at Best Fish Taco in Ensenada on Hillhurst, followed by dessert at Scoops in Wilshire to get some brown bread ice cream. And then ended up having dinner with Dave, his girl and his pal James Jean at The Lazy Ox (my favorite restaurant in L.A. right now, with their genius salads, rice pudding, and fantastically interesting and tasty daily specials. Like crispy pig ears and welks in lemon and butter, if you must know.) As a result, I have three stories in Nylon and Nylon Guys this month, detailing some special moments with M5's Adam Levine and Jesse Carmichael, Taylor Locke et al, and Dave, who has a self-titled coffee-table art book available for purchase July 7. Oh yeah, and I spent a good few hours editing my friend's application statement until the wee hours of the night.

Our House, In the Middle of the Trees.

2010-06-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I'd been telling just about everyone I came in contact with how deeply impressed I was by the journalism coming out of Vice magazine and their VBS web TV channel. My dream of looking back at my career, at oh, 90-years-old and saying, "I'm proud to have always been a journalist" was flagging under the pressures of a bad economy and seemingly shrinking opportunities. And then there was Vice's editor-in-chief interviewing post-civil-war Liberia's General "Butt Naked" -- cannibalizing rapist, committer of war-atrocities-turned born-again Christian -- and wondering if it was okay to eat dinner with killers to the nth power. My faith in interesting journalism was restored right then and there, and I thought, I really need to start pitching to these guys. Of course, life got in the way, and the notion fell into a frozen ditch somewhere along the potholes of Bowery. A month later, when the weather warmed up (it helped that I'd gone back to the West Coast) and I was minding my own business, I get an out-of-the-blue missive from their managing editor, asking me for story ideas. And hot damn, just like that, my faith in humanity -- restored, like a post-fire, fifth-floor East Village walk-up. The very first pitch that popped into my my head was something I'd been wanting to write about for three years, after I climbed a 100-story redwood in the San Francisco Bay Area to see a secret tree house. And here it fucking is. Along with my Employee of the Month accolades.

Ever faithfully yours.

28 E. 20th Street

2010-05-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

From the master bedroom of Teddy Roosevelt's childhood home in the Flatiron district, and conceivably, where Teddy Roosevelt was conceived.

Seedy behavior, as usual

2010-03-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

In the fall of 2008, I moved back to Berkeley, CA, where my plan was to write things I wanted to write -- leaving deadlines aside while doing all those things you can't usually do because you've got some editor sitting on your head for a 2,500 word piece on the dangers of anti-depressants. But kicking workaholism after a decade in New York City for me was as futile as promising to only eat half of a carne asada super burrito and save the rest for later. So I filled out my days by volunteering at the John Muir Elementary School, working with Farmer Jasper (Eiler) and Chef Carrie (Orth) in the gardening and cooking program. I originally intended to spend a few hours a week at the school, but as soon as I entered the magical, amphitheater-structured garden hidden in the courtyard of John Muir, it became closer to a few hours a day. While the kids got to learn where food comes from, the basic science behind gardening, from weather patterns to nitrogen in the soil, and how to prepare simple, yet interesting recipes, etc. -- I do believe I benefited equally as their average kindergarten- to fifth-grade-level student. (p.s. Caitlin Flanagan, you can SUCK IT. More on her Atlantic Monthly piece later.) And now, it comes full circle. A few weeks ago I was assigned two pieces on gardening for iVillage.com, which not only prompted me to interview the Berkeley Unified School District's Edible Schoolyard mentor/adviser Wendy Johnson, but also a staff gardener at the High Line park and the curator of the Central Park Conservatory Garden. It also instigated my new East Village roof top garden experiment.

Read about growing an edible garden here, with photos here.
Or creating a cutting garden here , with a slideshow here.

And while we're at it, I have another story in this month's Men's Health (April 2010), a nutrition piece on cooking with oil.

She'd Be California

2010-03-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

Landed in Southern California yesterday to sunny, clear and 82F degrees. The forecast looks perfect, and the surf this morning was clean and chest to head high. Nice to be home.

New York, my love, you're not lookin' so bad yourself.

No.

2010-03-12T13:43:00.000-08:00

She & Him

2010-03-04T07:30:00.000-08:00

Just heard that my profile on Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward, collectively known as the musical duo She & Him, is out in the current issue of Nylon. I interviewed them about their new album, Volume 2, when I was in California a couple months ago. I tried to pull some dirt out, but all I got were pink-nosed bunny rabbits and buttercream-frosted vegan cupcakes. They got that laid-back native Californian thing down like City Bakery has with hot cocoa and cubic marshmallows. It was a surprisingly difficult story to write. Haven't picked up any copies yet, but here are some preview photos my editor had sent me.

All the pretty colors

2010-02-14T07:05:00.000-08:00

"Start with skepticism" - H. Zinn

2010-01-28T06:44:00.000-08:00

It was a miserable November day last fall -- an unnerving mess of rain, wind, and cold. I don't know whose bright idea it was to walk down to Soho and look for jeans -- probably mine, and yes, I am embarrassed to admit it. Coming upon a line outside Cooper-Union's Great Hall, RG and I spontaneously decided to wait in it so that we could join the audience for a special event that day, "The People Speak Live." Matt Damon was headlining to promote a History Channel documentary with his old Cambridge neighbor, Howard Zinn. Despite the inclement weather, our deliberation was brief: Shopping or intellectual self-improvement..."Howard Zinn is, like, major," I think I said.

Looking withered at 87, Zinn maintained a very charming vibrancy and sharpness of mind, commenting on audience questions such as the reality of Obama's presidency vs. his campaign hype with, "What comes through clearly is that we cannot depend ... on [political leaders] to remedy the injustices. It's people's movements that push and prod the leaders of our government."

RIP, Howard. We couldn't help but fall in love with you, not just a little, but a lot. Now go and check out A People's History of the United States.

There is my mind

2009-12-04T09:52:00.000-08:00

Here lies the brain of H.M., the most famous patient in memory research. He died last year at the age of 82, after over five decades of being intently studied by neuroscientists. When he was 9, he was hit by a bicyclist, and began suffering epileptic seizures -- up to 11 each week. In his mid-twenties, he underwent a lobotomy which essentially made the seizures go away, but also mistakenly took away his ability to remember anything new. So if you asked him at 6 p.m. what he'd had for lunch that day, he couldn't say. Yet most of his memory up until the surgery remained intact. For example, while he was never able to remember new acquaintances again, he remembered his mother. And after she passed away, he experienced grief each time he learned of her death -- again and again. Though it's difficult to grasp how he perceived his life, he once said:

"It does get me upset, but I always say to myself, what is to be is to be. That's the way I always figure it now."

Thank you, H.M., for all that we have learned from you, and your 2,401 brain slices which the U.C. San Diego Brain Observatory will now be studying. And for those minds whose whereabouts we are still looking for, thank you Maxence Cyrin for taking on the search.

Rivers

2009-11-12T09:38:00.000-08:00

When I was in California a couple months ago, I was assigned to interview Rivers Cuomo for Nylon magazine. I asked him all kinds of questions, like if he still asks groupies to jump naked on his hotel room bed after shows. Some of his responses made it into the article. It's out now in the November issue, the one with Serena Van der Woodsen on the cover.

P.S. No, he does not bounce naked on his bed with fans now - maybe just his family.

The Walker

2009-11-06T10:51:00.000-08:00

My friend Maggie.

2009-10-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I spent much time around caskets and dead people, but after being thrown into a dark coffin last night and spun around (For fun! Really! Yes, way!), it reminded me of a story I once wrote that required me to work in a Detroit-area funeral home. At the time, particularly after observing my first embalming, I felt I had been damaged for life. But as my friend Dave recently reminded me, "Nothing lasts."

I just posted the whole text, which you can read here. (You may want to skip the New England Institute embalming description if you plan on eating any time in the near future.)

2009-10-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

For the last year, I've been writing my way in and around this recession, attempting to take advantage of slower times, promising myself to finally spend time on "my own writing." I took off for California again, but instead of producing copious amounts of cohesive book chapters and scripts, I generated pages of fragmented, confused narrative, and really, just lived. I went to the ocean, often; I became fairly obsessed with hunting for wild fruit. I climbed fire trails, watched sunsets, prepared elaborate dinners involving caviar and saffron with friends and family. I tried in vain to answer a question from a child at the school where I volunteered: Why do clouds float? I touched melting glaciers, descended into craters, and yesterday, having returned to the city, witnessed the Tompkins Square Park dog halloween parade.

Today, as fall wrings out the last days of warmth, I sat on the front stoop of my new home-for-now and read John Steinbeck. "And although it has nothing to do with this story, no Abbeville child, no matter who its mother was, knew the lack of a stick of spearmint ever afterward."

It's a men's world.

2009-10-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

This month on newsstands, I have two pieces out. For your convenience, you need only stop at the men's interest section. In Nylon for Men, a short profile about Danish rock band Mew. And in Men's Health, Go Fish!

RIP Edgar Allen Poe, again. And again. And again.

2009-10-11T09:12:00.000-07:00

Apparently nobody showed up at Poe's original funeral, so today, on the 160th anniversary of his death, Baltimore is holding two more.

Coincidentally, I sat in on a lecture by Michael Chabon up at Columbia University a few days ago, titled "I was Edgar Allen Poe" -- as a child, Chabon obsessed over the idea of being the reincarnation of Poe. I learned quite a few things during the talk -- that Chabon is a pretty funny guy, that singer Jeff Buckley did a recording of the ballad Ulalume, and that Poe is considered the first (well-known) person ever to try to make a living solely by writing. And so it follows, from a BBC News article today, that Poe "died an impoverished lunatic at the age of 40. His tombstone was destroyed. An enemy wrote his obituary and damaged his reputation for decades."

P.S. Asked if he had any mantras for when he hit obstacles while trying to write, Chabon answered with several, including: "This is it, this is the one that's going to kill me," "I'm not up to this" and "Help."

Clutter=Frugality=Virtue=NY MOMA. So there.

2009-10-08T23:11:00.000-07:00

"My mother's idea is, 'If something is not broken, but we should use again, we can. If we waste them, maybe in the future-future, we have nothing.'" -Artist Song Dong, "Waste Not" exhibition at the MOMA in New York.

So don't give me funny looks when I have the compulsion to save those pink or green biodegradable spoons from Yogurtland. One could argue I'm not only participating in upholding traditional Chinese values, but an exercise in modern conceptual art as well.

Plus, I'm not the only hoarder. From burpandslurp.files.wordpress.com:

366 days, today.

2009-10-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

This is an installation for Urban Play Amsterdam (2008) from Stefan Sagmeister's "Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far project." It took eight days, over 100 volunteers and 250,000 Eurocents. Less than a day after it was completed, a local started taking the pennies, and the police, in an effort to "preserve" the artwork, swept up the remaining coins for protective custody.

Addendum.

Egg Tarts and Country Squires

2009-09-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

I love this story about the Phoenix Bakery's strawberry cakes in Chinatown, Los Angeles. My friend Betty wrote it, and while she was reporting it a couple of weeks ago, I got a chance to join her and spark a few of my childhood memories. Namely, death-matching with my older sisters in the back seat of the car, parked in the bank lot on Broadway while my parents food shopped. My mom insists we were never left alone, but who's paying attention when you're being tickle-tortured on the floor mat of a Ford Country Squire station wagon? The best memory: Pink boxes carefully tied with string and filled with egg tarts, sesame balls, yellow-sponge and taro cakes.

Surfing at the End of the World

2009-08-23T19:33:00.000-07:00

Photography by Jason Green

7 a.m. Woke up, got out of bed, rode my bike to the LIRR and three hours later, double-overhead at the end of the world.

Epic 8.23.09

2009-08-23T19:08:00.001-07:00

Wheelers

2009-07-30T02:15:00.000-07:00

I was riding up Bergen Street a few weeks ago when these appeared in the horizon. They weaved up and around in fluid, synchronous flocks, sometimes splitting up into groups, sometimes coming all together. That's when a fellow biker pulled up along side me and spontaneously began telling me about this old guy who stands up on his roof, waving his arms around.

"So he just stands up there and conducts the pigeons?"

"Yeah."

And it just gets better and better.

Fair Syndication Consortium

2009-07-23T06:20:00.000-07:00

We seem to have made some headway in solving this whole "newspapers and magazines are dying" debacle.

Editor & Publisher reports that over a 1,000 publishers -- including the NYT, Washington Post, Conde Nast, and even Gawker -- have band together to "track sites that swipe and re-use content from the original creators. The Consortium would then contact the site as well as the networks serving ads for compensation." So that means I'd owe E&P some money, eh? Or is this considered fair use? Actually, since the article doesn't disclose whether E&P's publisher joined, I'm assuming not.

Here's hoping it all works out smoothly.

Bikes and Skinny Jeans

2009-07-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

Urban Outfitters now has a portal linking their shoppers to custom-built Republic bikes. Though my instinct is to make some sarcastic comment (see "Ipecac" reference here), I actually think it's not repulsive. Bikes should be as mainstream as hipster fashion. That said, I'm much more into this and this.

OMG

2009-07-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

Planters Cheez Balls are dead. And have been for quite awhile.

Anniversary

2009-06-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, while I was on fellowship in Boston, I decided to brush up on my Mandarin-Chinese speaking skills. I found a woman from China, a doctor, on Craigslist who had also recently moved to the city, and began a language exchange. Once a week, we'd meet in Cambridge and converse: 45 minutes in English, 45 in Chinese. We'd talk about mundane topics -- involving words that I could pronounce with ease -- and not necessarily things that were really on my mind. For example, "I am having a nervous breakdown trying to understand synthesizing a chemical compound, namely from a Mexican root plant, into an anabolic steroid" was not one of them.

One evening, we met at the Barnes and Noble cafe in Harvard Square. After multiple sessions talking about weekend plans, the orange line to JP, and, like, siblings, I decided to venture onto more trenchant subject matter. I asked her what she knew of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In 1989, she was just a child, maybe in high school, and lived in a city far from Beijing. She recalled it as barely a blip in the news -- certainly nothing of too much note, some students causing trouble. I was incredulous, though at the same time, having studied contemporary Chinese history during undegrad, not. But surely, I pressed, she'd seen the internationally famous "Tank Man" image. She didn't know what I was talking about. I became obsessed, and led her down to the history aisle. I pulled book upon book from the shelves. Totally futile. Sweaty and nauseous from the effort, I finally gave up and we parted, with the implicit understanding that we'd meet again the following week.

The next day, I pulled a link from the Internet and prepared to forward her the image. But somehow, I couldn't hit send. It's hard to explain why I suddenly decided to become a willing accomplice in covering up a shame of such magnitude. Perhaps I just didn't want to rip her from her bliss. In the end, you can't pull or push someone else into facing life's harsh truths, and certainly not inside an anemic Barnes and Noble. We never met again.

For those who aren't afraid, here it lies.

And here.

Last night

2009-06-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

I was biking through Long Island City

listening to Tom Waits, Nina Simone, Cat Power, Karen O

feeling a bit lugubrious -- despite the glorious weather --

when suddenly out of nowhere, the sky exploded and

I was no longer in such a shit mood. In fact, I was ebullient.

Speaking of Karen O, she is on the latest cover of Nylon magazine. I have a few pieces published in that issue, including a feature on a French girl rock band called the Plastiscines, a bitty q&a with singer Anjulie, and a spread about up-and-coming UK musicians. A highlight from my Beth Jeans Houghton interview:

Do you still have a day job?
I did, up until last week. I worked in a magical coffee shop called Heaton Perk in Newcastle. They serve happiness on a plate if you ask nicely. But I had to leave because the boy I love lives above it and he got a new girlfriend and I didn’t want to hear them fucking.

Back

2009-05-26T07:31:00.001-07:00

Nobody cut the cheese

2009-05-13T05:07:00.000-07:00

Amazing. Our new government really is working for my specific needs. That absurd Bush-administration-imposed, 300% Roquefort tariff has finally been knocked down. Now, instead of taxing arbitrary EU food items to compensate for losses from the EU ban on hormone-fed U.S. beef, the USTR has negotiated to triple the amount of non-hormone U.S. beef exports over yonder. Logic - don't you love how it makes sense? And in fact, we should be seeing Roquefort prices dropping in about four years, when they remove all existing sanctions. If you're not quite a cheese fanatic, other items, like Pellegrino and ligonberry sauce, were also saved from the tax. This reminds me of the time Bloomberg banned smoking in restaurants, and almost makes up for the lack of universal healthcare. Well, not quite.

Rock on, Roquefort

2009-04-22T12:35:00.000-07:00

My USTR contact just informed me the 300% Roquefort tariff has been delayed once again, pushing back to May 9 from April 23. This should allow more time to negotiate with the EU, and hopefully rescind the tax. Bated breath, my friends.

French Country Living

2009-04-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

While waddling through France looking for food-related stories earlier this year, I simultaneously worked on a Country Living magazine feature, on chefs and their favorite recipes from their mothers. I know I sound like a luddite for being so impressed with technology, but I gotta say it was fairly awesome when I got a call from Sara Foster, who's based in North Carolina, while I was making faces with French cows in the Norman countryside. (Possibly as surreal as interviewing Frank Stitt over my cell phone from the floor of my friend's 6e Parisian flat at 2 a.m. GMT.) "Just Like Mom Used to Make" is out now, in the May issue, and also includes treasured recipes from PBS' Lidia Bastianich, Chicago-chef Rick Bayless, Lucques and AOC's Suzanne Goin, cookbook author Deborah Madison, Nancy Silverton (Mozza Osteria and La Brea Bakery),and Alabama's Frank Stitt.

(Pictures, above: Nancy Silverton's mom's Egg Salad Sandwich; below: Mrs. Foster's Chicken Pot Pie)

(More, left: Mrs. Goin's Priest's Pancakes and, right, Deborah Madison's mom's Cherry-Almond Babka)

Microlecule

2009-04-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

Took the 51 down to Shattuck last night and went to Halsey Chait's first solo show at the Firehouse North Gallery (1790 Shattuck Ave./Delaware). I've been waiting for this one for a while and glad to have been in the right place at the right time.

It takes him about 48 hours to finish each piece (please fact-check, I was only eavesdropping) and yes, he needs to take breaks. Fingers cramp,etc.

(Above) This is a close-up of my favorite, "Night City." Limited-edition archival pigment prints (of all show pieces) are affordable, for now. www.firehousecollective.com.

And (below, left) the artist himself. Not bad, eh?

Consolidating

2009-04-03T15:57:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, my Giant Robot blog has been mysteriously corrupted and I can no longer post there. So it's as good a time as any to consolidate here.

Took the morning to head over to the water and catch a few waves. Before we mustered up the courage to paddle out at what we now refer to as "Ice Cubes," we stopped by a deli, where I ordered a bagel sandwich and started staring at the cover of this large-format magazine in the discard pile.

I immediately thought, "This guy is copping Dave Choe." And then I thought twice and sure enough...

It's the 2007 premiere issue of "boarding lifestyle" BL!SSS magazine -- and the best single-issue mag find since a friend got me the 1995 Drew Barrymore Playboy issue.

It's a nice, long interview, and ends with classic Dave: "I don't care about being right or wrong. I just want to live." I think he's still in China somewhere causing trouble...

Beef over Cheese

2009-03-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

For the last two weeks, I've been reporting a story for the Los Angeles Times about the death of U.S.-sold Roquefort cheese, an innocent casualty in the EU/US dispute over hormone-fed American beef. Althought L'Aigle Noir, aka the Black Eagle, featured prominently in my article, I have to say my favorite Roquefort is the Papillon Black Label. It's richly flavored with a crystalline-like mold texture and is best savored in a dimly-lit room with some epic Chopin. Last week, I bought the last chunk of it at my neighborhood market for an astounding $10.99/lb -- the last time I saw it was at $44/lb in Silver Lake's Say Cheese shop, and in a few months, it may be closer to $100/lb. The cheesemonger told me it wasn't moving and he needed to get rid of it. While I was busy freaking out over my grocery coup, he explained to my friends who were with me that it was like getting vintage Jimmy Choos, still in the box, at clearance. But trust me, I'm going to town in these high heels.

32 Stories

2009-03-17T12:53:00.001-07:00

My friend Adrian Tomine has a new (old) book coming out next month. A revamped-edition of 32 Stories. He says the existing book version was going out of print, and instead of settling for a reissue, he decided to do a little artistic overhaul: "...present it more like little artifacts from my teen years, rather than a proper book. And that supplementary booklet does indeed feature my heinous yearbook photo on the cover, which kind of ties into the new essay that's inside. But I'm hoping it'll be kind of a funny surprise when people first open the box." And that's a Tomine quote hot off the gmail press.

I highly recommend picking this set up -- Adrian's been critically-acclaimed for years now, from his New Yorker illustrations to his Shortcomings epic. But these original Optic Nerve comics are the archetype (a word whose definition I particularly remember from freshman year of college when he did some kind of art project on it). Anyway, as I was saying, the mini-comics are what paved the path, before he moved to Brooklyn, grew that beard and got married. Now that I am in Berkeley, once again, and in fact, living in his old apartment, think I will re-read them myself.

2009-03-02T09:42:00.001-08:00

Check it out - my plan is working! The New York Times is launching community-based "citizen journalist" sites, accessible through their own online edition. Of course, "citizen journalist" is just a euphemism for "unpaid reporter" - but if I were in J-School or just starting out my career again, I'd be on it like mold on Roquefort. We all had to work for beans at one point in this industry -- and you'd be surprised how delicious they can be.

2009-03-01T10:37:00.000-08:00

This morning, while enjoying the sun in my parent's backyard, my dad handed over the business section of the L.A. Times. That's right - handed it to me, so that I could read David Lazarus' Sunday column
advocating the iTunes model of economic sustainability for newspapers:

"When Napster and similar file-sharing services debuted about a decade ago, people said the music industry was dead because consumers would no longer pay for sounds. Then Steve Jobs and iTunes arrived, and the music industry was reborn (more or less).

I feel the same way about newspapers, all that genie-out-of-the-bottle talk notwithstanding. Yes, the Internet's eating our lunch. And, yes, that's because we served it up ourselves. But let's talk about now."

Unlike the proposal I put forth in my last post, Lazarus recommends an even better solution: have the papers band together to form a consortium ("the more the merrier") and offer an online subscription. The SF Chronicle says they might start charging for online access, but somehow, it doesn't seem as worth it in comparison to paying for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal (which does charge), or better, a consortium of papers.

Currently, it costs $1.44/week to get a daily, print-edition of the L.A. Times delivered to your doorstep -- that's $6.25 a month and $75 for the year. If you subtract the production and delivery cost, an online subscription would only be that much cheaper. Of course, maybe when 3G phones finish taking over the world and clunky computers become obsolete, people will once again be willing to fork it out for simple luxuries, like reading the paper.

Eat this.

2009-02-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been obsessively debating the gloomy future of print media with just about anyone I come in contact with. However, despite my daily intake of wrist-slashing NPR news reports and mediabistro.com alerts on publication closures and massive layoffs, the discussion didn't quite reach a fever pitch for me until a few weeks ago. I was having dinner with a group of bloggers, when we got on the topic of print media vs. blogging. It went something like this:

Me: The New York Times cannot die! If it comes to the point where we have to make a choice between letting respected news media go or having to pay for it, I will gladly pay for it.

Blogger (who mostly posts stuff pertaining to race issues): That would never work. People expect content on the internet to be free. Global Voices Online is a great site that gives local, independent perspectives...

Me: Geezus, people blow money on stupid stuff from eBay all the time. More importantly, the press serves as a fourth branch of the government...checks and balances, democracy, the free world! Blogs can be useful and interesting, but they just don't hack it when it comes to reporting the news.

Blogger: But plenty of articles misreport information and have biases.

Me: You have a point.

Since it was a dinner hosted by my sister and her husband, or maybe because I was suffering from spring roll-induced lethargy, I let it go. In retrospect, as nice and funny as the blogger was, it's infuriating. As we all know, many blogs rely on a steady stream of information first reported by journalists from the mainstream media so that the blogger can aggregate/link/bitch about. Of course, there's the argument that some blogs scoop papers with intimate, on-the-ground info that reporters couldn't possibly dig up on their own in a similar time span. But there is a big difference between a pithy blog post with a fragment of key information and a well-researched, well-reported story that's been vetted by fact-checkers, top editors, copy editors, and any of the multitude of professionals who get a look-see before the story goes to print.

Our well-established news media, along with its savviest, experienced reporters and editors, must not go the way of the Columbia Basin Pygmy rabbit: extinct.

Upon further rumination, instead of fighting each other, perhaps the answer is uniting the best newspapers with the best blogs (Lockhart Steele's Curbed Network comes to mind), to strengthen content, keeping everyone relevant. The New New York Times, online paid subscription required.

And to fulfill my blogging responsibilities, this Time Magazine piece by Walter Isaacson couldn't have said it better. I share his sentiments, and have even ranted in recent weeks: "If iTunes can do it, then why can't the freaking L.A. Times do it, too??!!!"

Eat the head.

2009-02-15T11:52:00.000-08:00

I saw this ad for the first time yesterday on the local Chinese TV station and immediately laughed out loud. Whether or not Tmobile got their money's worth pimping it out to a largely 1st-generation Chinese-American demographic is another issue.

Je t'aime, Berlin

2009-02-07T13:17:00.000-08:00

Many people, when considering the ultimate European city, think, "Why, Paris, of course." Non moi. As a cheese-obsessed, Godard-loving, Carla Bruni-listening, otherwise exuberant Francophile, my non-lustrous opinion of the croissant city has always confounded me. And that is why I return, time after time, looking for that moment of clarity where I raise a glass of Pernod over the glorious stench of an oozing cut of Camembert and say, "Ah, oui...Paree." Recently, in a moment of economic denial, I got a ticket to Charles de Gaulle and joined a friend for yet another attempt at love. The awesome Velib bikes almost sealed it, but ultimately, it didn't go so well (vomiting literally ensued). Eventually, I made my way east to visit some old friends, and while I haven't entirely given up on Paris, I'm still happy to say, "Ich bin Berlin, all the way, yo."

On my second night in, an American-expat friend of mine invited me to a birthday party, well attended by filmmakers, artists and ethnomusicologists. It was held at an intimate bar with a beautiful chandelier in Prenzlauer Berg, where the crowd passed around a bottle of Polish vodka masquerading as a fat feathered rooster. I was hungry -- having lost my appetite the previous three days when I was still in Paris. Their menu was beautifully simple, and painted on the wall:

Not feeling quite ready for a heavy meat sauce, the bartender/waitress prepared the most comforting, delicious bowl of spaghetti with a tangy cheese, cracked pepper, olive oil, and I think a little lemon juice. Here she is, working behind the cozy front counter:

I still think about that spaghetti.

Gulasch Bar:
Winsstrasse 9
Prenzlauer Berg

When I left the bar, the streets were quiet, the TV tower radiating overhead like a spindly, stainless-steel matriarch on Quaaludes.

For brunch the next morning, my friends Mareike and Achim had their usual Sunday fare: coffee, bread, assorted cheeses, butter, honey, pate, jam, muesli, yogurt, fresh fruit and a bouquet of fresh flowers.

Later, they took me to Mueggelsee, the city's largest lake. Due to the sub-freezing temperatures, it ended up being a magical walk on water alongside speeding ice sailors and skaters, culminating in hot ciders and mulled wine.

In the end, I didn't take nearly enough photos or spend nearly enough time, but you get my point.

2046: A world without blemishes?

2009-02-06T10:15:00.000-08:00

Way, way back in high school, I sat next to a kid in science class who once prophesied that there would be no more ugly people. Natural selection, he announced, would have it so that the weak, stupid and unattractive would be weeded out of the gene pool. And launched today is Modelinia, a website all about, what else, but models -- here to prove that even though there are plenty of non superficially-beautiful people still evolving in the human race, the end for us might be near! ...You think I'm only kidding.

Wherever the truth lies, I, a self-proclaimed intellectual freak with a penchant for despising all things materialistically impractical and low-calorie, thoroughly enjoyed my viewing experience of Modelinia. My prediction? Bye-bye cable TV.

RIP Odetta

2008-12-12T12:16:00.000-08:00

Glad to have met her.

New development

2008-12-04T10:35:00.000-08:00

This has been a long time coming - between false starts, illicit night-time fig picking and extended trips to the North Shore - but finally, here is a trial version of my new website. I'm still building it, but if you have any recommendations or requests for particular articles to post in my selected "stories" section, try the contact page.

Here is an evolution of title page images, nixed for various reasons from "too generic" to "you look like Michael Jackson":

Thanks especially to S.M. and M.V-M., and all my friends and family who have given me their 2 cents, and occasional dollar.

One Pot

2008-11-26T11:08:00.000-08:00

The most beautifully illustrated story I've ever written-- a 10-page feature on one-pot meals -- now on newstands in the final issue of Oprah's O at Home magazine. Interviews and recipes from Chez Panisse's Alice Waters, Bayona's Susan Spicer, Tabla's Floyd Cardoz and Oprah's former personal chef, Art Smith.

It's Cole in here.

2008-11-13T09:50:00.000-08:00

Get it? It's Cole in...nevermind. In September 2007, I started a book project with pun lover and fashion designer Kenneth Cole. One year, two months and several days later, Awearness: Inspiring Stories About How to Make a Difference is finally in stores. Kenneth's newest slogan wordplay: "No good deed should go unpublished." Of the 86 politicians, actors, doctors, athletes, entrepreneurs, musicians, chefs, artists, scientists, lawyers, academics, etc. who discuss their personal causes in the book, I interviewed 50 of them. One of my favorite moments: taking the liberty to greet Robert Redford at the beginning of our conversation with, "Hi Bob" (Apparently, that's what he goes by.)

Unfortunately, Bob was not able to come to the launch party in Grand Central last night. However, fellow contributors Rosario Dawson, Harry Belafonte, Lauren Bush and Matisyahu were, as well as myself and a few friends. Please pick up a book or at least go to the Awearness Blog where you can find all kinds of information about getting more socially active.

(Me and my oldest friend in the world, Susan)

Kenneth

Rosario

More pictures here and here. A peak inside the pages here.

2008-11-05T19:00:00.000-08:00

At the end of September, I returned to live and write in my erstwhile home of Berkeley, California. It's a dream life, amidst fruit trees, bicycle boulevards and, not too far away, the Pacific Ocean. The daily routine is a bit absurd. Morning buns at La Farine, followed by solitary sessions under a redwood canopy, and then, late afternoon, off to the coast with Pepe the Oaxacan wonder, Philip the Great and what they like to call "tamale power" procurred from 24th street in the Mission. We are always in search of the next best wave, however crappy it may actually be. Maybe Rockaway, maybe Montara, but most likely Half Moon Bay. The water temperature is somewhere in the 50s, not exactly easy on the naked toes, but oddly refreshing, especially when it licks up just as you make it over the lip. Anyway, I'll be here for a little while.