" />
« March 2008 | Main | May 2008 »
Having just dropped a couple hundred bucks on a brand new bike, I'm obviously hoping to avoid it looking like this any time soon.
The more enthusiastic members of the bike cult tell you never ever to lock up your bike. This is ridiculous to me, since that effectively means you can only ride to places where you've got your bike at all times. This my make perfect sense to some folks, that's not why I got my bike.
So, I'm trying to learn about locks and such. Coincidentally, Clarence Eckerson, a friend of Tammi's and a bike rights advocate filmed a piece for StreetFilms about properly securing your bike. Tammi posted it on her blog, here.
It's pretty useful, but I'm a bit put off by the attitude that anyone who doesn't know what they're telling you is an idiot. It's common in a lot of areas, especially computers. I'm sure I've done it many times, but it's still obnoxious.
Also, for anyone annoyed by my use of the term 'Bike Cult,' please note that one of the people in this film is from something called thebikechurch.org.
As a part of my 'Action Sports' beat, I was sent out to the first annual Moto-X World Championships. The event wasn't particularly well promoted, so there weren't that many people there. All the same, the tricks seemed pretty good to my entirely untrained eye. I got to see someone else finally manage to pull off a double back flip, which hadn't successfully been done in the States since Travis Pastrana did it at the Summer X Games in 2005.
Much more importantly, I stuffed myself with Fish Tacos and local(ish) beer. More on that to come.
We inadvertently took advantage of the great exchange rate at Pata Negra in Condesa. Even though it was listed as a tapas bar, very few of the dishes we got turned out to be particularly small.
When I ordered 4 empanadas, 2 sandwiches and a lamb skewer we saw our neighbor eating, the bartender warned us that we may want to tone it down a bit. But, given the prices, I couldn't imagine that each dish wasn't going to be gone in 3 bites. Everything was considerably bigger than that.
Having had a number of empanadas in Buenos Aires the year before, I expected a small turnover, smaller than a Jamaican Beef Patty. Instead we got what looked much more like a slice of Sicilian Pizza, a thick square covered with pastry and filled with spinach, salmon or other such things. They were huge, if not all great. We tasted a little of everything to make sure we took advantage of the variety we ended up with.
The winner of the meal has to be the sandwiches, especially the one pictured above, stuffed with juicy red chorizo slices. yummy.
In the end, I think we paid $40US, including a few sangrias that Tammi had and several local beers. All with enough food to feed 4 or 5 people.
The first time discovered that Ramen was more than the crap I bought at the drugstore in Amherst for 8 pack for a dollar was on my first trip to Hawaii. Waikiki in particular gets a lot of Japanese tourists and among the amenities offered is a good deal of Japanese food.
I totally fell for Ramen there, Udon specifically. I mentioned it in the Hawaii Guide, but it bears repeating.
In any case, I'm pretty psyched to hear about the recent openings of more ramen shops in the East Village. So far I have only been to Udon West on St. Mark's, which I just stumbled upon and hasn't gotten any press that I know of. The other two have been severely over-blogged, so have been packed. I'm hoping that the attention will die down and I'll get a chance to check them out soon.
In the meantime, enjoy this shot of a lovely curry udon with fried chicken that I had at Udon West.
::c::
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 2008.
Artist: US Senator.
A month or so ago, I came across a few US Senator pieces out in Williamsburg. Until then, I had only seen his stuff in San Francisco, under the freeway in SoMa. Despite the name, the paste ups are invariably portraits of US Presidents, usually accompanied by the number president they are.
I'm not sure how many are around. So far, I've just seen this one and one of Nixon (with no number, that I could see).
This was one of a group of Missionaries we came across when we went out to see the pyramids. We talked to them briefly after climbing up the smaller pyramid. The conversation was pretty funny. When we told them that we were from New York, one of the guys was blown away. "Oh, wow! New York! Wow! I've never been anywhere like that. New York!"
Of course, I pretty much had the same reaction when I heard they were Missionaries from Utah...
Teotihuacan, Mexico City, Mexico. 2007.
"We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us." -Frida Kahlo
I'm not sure who the artist is, please let me know if you do.
Chelsea, NYC. 2008
Yesterday, after buying my new bike out in Red Hook, Tammi and I rode around Brooklyn and then back home. Tammi was my 'wingman,' following behind me on her rollerblades. I was really nervous at first, but managed to get home without incident. I wasn't sure that I'd be riding much when I first decided to get the bike, now I'm planning my next ride for later this week.
I'm heavily resisting joining the bike cult. I will be locking up my bike outside occasionally, I won't be going to any critical mass rallies any time soon.
::c::
Several years ago, when I first saw this piece, I was transfixed. Mostly by the intensity in her eyes, but also by the clear African characteristics of her face. That's something you don't often see in museum art.
Later, I was struck with deja vu while standing in a huge open hall at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. "Fountain of the Four Parts of the Earth" by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux depicts this woman, along with four other representatives of the peoples of the world, holding up the globe. It took me 10 minutes of racking my brain to understand why I recognized her.
It wasn't until my recent visit to the Met that I finally understood her expression. According to the caption, the bust is captioned, "Why Born a Slave?"
It's been about 6 months since I cut my hair. I guess that coincided with winter hibernation, because I'm suddenly seeing a bunch of people who haven't seen me since then who are _shocked_ at how short my hair is.
Conversely, I'm amazed at how much it's grown since the cut. I'm psyched to have my mini-fro back. It hasn't looked like this since I was 24.
::c::
Tuesday night I attended a class in Pig Butchery at The Brooklyn Kitchen in Williamsburg. It was led by Tom Mylan, the butcher for Diner, Marlowe & Sons and Bonita.
A dozen of us watched as Tom dissected a 105 pound half pig into it's various tasty cuts.
It was glorious.
When it was all done, we took turns picking out cuts to take home. The only piece left was the kidney, which was cooked right there and passed around on toothpicks.
Tom mentioned a proposed similar class butchering a lamb. I hope that happens, I'd definitely check that out.
Among us in the class was Scott Gold, author of The Shameless Carnivore, who also shot many photos of the event. I hope to see them on his site at some point. Mine are posted on Flickr, here.