Fast Forward

Monday, September 17, 2018

The weekend real estate section pointed to a study on "The Best Cities to Raise a Child."  https://www.zumper.com/blog/2018/08/the-best-cities-to-raise-a-family/

95 American cities were ranked on 10 variables covering income and expense, commuting time, crime rates, and unemployment.  "Of the ten best cities to raise a family, nine of them were either in the Midwest or the South, which was due largely to lower mortgage expenses for homeowners, shorter commutes, strong local economic conditions, and lower infant care costs."  Thus, such Edenic sites as Lexington, Kentucky, Omaha, Nebraska and Lubbock, Texas rise to the top of the list, while New York sits at #84, between St. Louis and Chicago. 

I don't doubt the accuracy of the data used and the scoring.  However, the question that looms large is "To what end are you raising a child?"  None of the chosen cities have a population over a million; all but one are under half a million.  Who are you going to talk to?   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population  

They are also very white.  None has a significant African-American population. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_large_African-American_populations

Don't even ask about the Jews or the availability of bagels.  Actually, it could be worse.  In noozling around, I found that Judaism is the second largest religion in 231 counties out of the 3,143 US counties.  Christianity is always first.
http://www.usreligioncensus.org/images/NL201703LargestNonXnMail.pdf

None of the traditional Big Five American symphony orchestras is located in "the Best Cities" nor are "21 Must-See Art Museums in America."  https://www.fodors.com/news/arts-culture/20-must-see-art-museums-in-america

If you are not in good enough shape to get around, sorry, but you won't find any of the best hospitals in "the Best Cities."  https://www.usnews.com/info/blogs/press-room/articles/2018-08-14/us-news-announces-2018-19-best-hospitals

Finally, while 3 of the top ten are home to major universities (University of Wisconsin, University of Texas and, as concession to my dear friend David McMullen, Florida State University), none of them has a team in any of the four major professional sports leagues. 
. . .

Commemorating the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the near destruction of economic viability throughout the world 10 years ago, The New York Times has a special section: https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/financial-crisis-10-year-anniversary

The most telling article reminds us that the recovery has tilted the playing field even further off kilter.  "A decade after this debacle, the typical middle-class family’s net worth is still more than $40,000 below where it was in 2007, according to the Federal Reserve."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/business/middle-class-financial-crisis.html

On the other hand, H.L. Mencken said that "a wealthy man is one who earns $100 a year more than his wife's sister's husband."
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It's been two weeks since the Village Voice, founded in 1955, the first countercultural newspaper in the country, folded.  Once an inch thick with classified advertisements for New York area apartments and sexual diversions, the Internet replaced it entirely.  I read it while living in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s and had it delivered once I went into exile in Los Angeles.  Upon my return to the Holy Land, divorce decree in hand, I turned to the Voice to seek my next one and only in its personal ads.  I answered them and I placed them. 

I still remember how my puckish sense of humor caused the usually libertine Voice to discover the limits of its tolerance.  I submitted my SJM ad under the headline "Dresses British, Thinks Yiddish," admittedly a borrowed phrase.  Nope, not Kosher, in a manner of speaking according to the Voice.  Embedding the J in my shorthand identification was OK, but "Yiddish" in the headline was treyf, even surrounded by the Voice's usual array of pansexual offerings.  I don't recall whether I substituted "Hates walks on the beach," but it took many more years to find Ms. Right. 

Thursday, September 20, 2018

I spent 28 hours without cable news, 28 hours without late night comedy shows.  5779 starts with a pretty clean slate, only my personal destiny at issue, no constitutional crises, no international trade wars, no additional charges of sexual predation, no changes at quarterback for the New York Giants.

In the spirit of the new or renewal, I headed for Sigiri, 91 First Avenue, only one of two Sri Lankan restaurants in Manhattan.  It would be a first for me, but after working my way downtown, I found the restaurant closed.  Actually, the door was open and the manager present.  However, the chef wasn't and the manager had no estimate of his arrival time.  So, wondering whether this was an omen for the new year, I moved up to The Tang, 120 First Avenue, a newish noodle shop. 

The chefs were at work at The Tang; two, in fact, crammed into a tiny space at the front of the narrow store.  It has 14 stools at 7 square, chunky wood block tables, offering a very small economic base to operate from.  The Tang features noodles, wet and dry ($12-14), and more than a dozen "small plates" ($6-12). 

I had "MJM" ($13), "House made sesame paste topped with sliced chicken thigh, cucumber slices (slivers really) and salted mustard" over noodles thicker than mei fun, thinner than lo mein.  One to three little red peppers appear next to other dishes, but MJM has none although hot, hot enough to merit two.  Fortunately, Diet Coke was close at hand, my lubricant for many Chinese meals.  

As with several other Lower East Side/East Village Chinese restaurants, The Tang's sincere efforts don't threaten my devotion to Chinatown, less than one mile away.
. . .

On the way home from the Lower East Side, I headed for the Strand Bookstore, 828 Broadway, a national treasure.  It advertises itself as having 18 miles of books, not further quantifying its stock.  That's a lot, maybe more than any other bookstore.  Toronto had the self-proclaimed "World’s Biggest Bookstore," asserting that it held “over a million” books.  However, it closed in 2014 and no one has reached for the title since.
 

The Strand is great, but not as great as it used to be.  It wasn't the range of titles that used to distinguish the Strand.  It was the prices.  The Strand was famous for offering reviewers' copies of the latest and greatest at half price.  It seems that new books customarily went out to dozens, even hundreds of prospective reviewers, many of whom simply forwarded their copies to the Strand at around 1/4 of list price, where they filled contiguous blocks, if not miles of shelves.  Today, I was told that reviewers' copies are scattered throughout the store.  

Reviewers' copies aside, The Strand now sells many books at list price, something I don't recall in the past.  The front of The Strand doesn't even look like a bookstore anymore.  Most visible are canvas tote bags, refrigerator magnets and T-shirts with witty sayings when not just promoting The Strand.

Friday, September 21, 2018

I am one of 87 Americans not on Facebook, it seems.  It's not that I don't recognize its virtues and my concern for privacy is no more than average.  Rather, I'm stubborn and not having led this parade, I refuse to join it.  Thus, my isolated status.   

The New York Times, in one of its wonderful interactive features, illustrates the links that have been forged or facilitated by Facebook. 
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/19/upshot/facebook-county-friendships.html 

There is a wealth of fascinating data here, sliced and diced county-by-county.  Where there is a Marine Corps base or a retirement community, links extend widely throughout the country. 

The overarching factor is distance between connections.  "Counties with more dispersed networks — where a smaller share of Facebook friends are located nearby, or among the nearest 50 million people — are on average richer, more educated and have longer life expectancies."  By contrast, counties with tighter connections "are more likely to have lower labor force participation and economic mobility, and they have higher rates of teenage births."  So, consider updating your list of pen pals.

. . .

Stony Brook Steve and I took a walk to Cha Pa's Vietnamese Kitchen, 314 West 52nd Street, for our first lunch together in 5779.  It's a small place, long and narrow, twice the size of The Tang, but still small.  It was crowded at lunchtime and we had the misfortune of sitting next to a young couple of strivers who were eagerly planning to collateralize dandruff or something of that sort.  The food eventually outpaced the conversation. 

We shared an order of spring rolls ($6 for four), unaware that we would be served 2 gratis as a vorspeis.  I ordered Five-spice Chicken ($10.50 at lunch, $12.50 at dinner), one quarter of a husky chicken, where the spices were part of the marinade before broiling.  A generous mound of rice, cucumber slices and shredded carrots accompanied it.

Steve raised the question of how far back in the 20th century would a Vietnamese restaurant have appeared and thrived among the general population in the US.  Three joints in a row on Baxter Street in Chinatown have been around a long time, but I don't know if they reach back to the 1960s or 1970s.  I recall Le Colonial, 149 East 57th Street, as an early example, but it was and is a Frenchified Vietnamese restaurant, very attractively decorated to resemble the home of one of Ho Chi Minh's worst enemies.