Beef over Cheese

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.