Saturday, October 27, 2018

Sounds Familiar

Monday, October 22, 2018
Verbissener, in German, translates as "dogged."  In Yiddish, it has evolved to farbissener and translates as "mean."  That's what came to mind when I read the headline "Trump Administration Eyes Defining Transgender Out of Existence."

Reading the story, we learn that evangelical Christians were "incensed" by the Obama administration's loosening of federal guidelines that disadvantaged people with gender and sexual behavior issues.  Far be it from me to preach to the converted, except these folks  seemed to have missed the point.  The Sermon on the Mount is at the core of Christianity and is summed up in the Beatitudes, which could probably serve all humankind.  (Matthew 5:3-10)

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

It leads me to believe that Evangelical Christians = Farbissener Christians. 
. . .

A high-rise residential building is being built almost immediately due east of Palazzo di Gotthelf.  It's supposed to be over 50 stories tall, which would reduce our direct morning sunlight.  This does not generally support a legal claim for relief.  However, there is now an interesting computer program for prospective buyers or the merely curious.  "Search the address of any building, and Localize.city will describe the sunlight on every side of the building, throughout the year.  The descriptions include hours of the day when it will be brightest, along with how different floors are affected by shadows cast from surrounding buildings."

Tuesday,  October 23, 2018
Today's paper tells us that Bill Cosby has gone through 17 lawyers from 11 firms in his defense against sexual assault charges, so far unsuccessful.  Mentioned in passing is the notorious tale of a local divorce battle where the eventual ex-wife of an extravagantly wealthy man went through 21 law firms.  She failed to observe the 11th Commandment, as enunciated by Calvin Trillin, "Enough is enough."

One intractable element of the couple's dispute was child support.  New York State has a formula for child support to apply in everyday situations, that is up to $80,000 of the couple's annual joint income, with the court's discretion as to how to proceed above that figure.  The formula requires that 17% of the non-custodial parent's income go to child support for one child; smaller increments cover additional children.  Child support under the formula is supposed to cover housing, food and clothing; other child-related expenses, such as tuition, recreational activities, gifts, toys, and childcare have to be hammered out by the parties.  
Logic fails completely when you get to the very rich, billionaire rich in this case.  Pop is currently worth $17.4 billion, according to Bloomberg.com, but was probably in the more modest 10 figure range during the divorce battle, 20 years ago.  We can only guess at his annual income, but even a 1% return on $1 billion is $10 million.  Child support of 17% (not required under law at that level) would be $170,000 annually, more than $14,000 monthly, which is what the court ordered.  Unhappy mom had asked for $7 million annually to shelter, feed and cloth their daughter, 3-years old at the start of the battle, that is over $583,000 monthly, more than $19,000 daily.  

In this matter, two wrongs only make a bigger wrong.  $170,000 yearly from pop is a spit in the bucket; $19,000+ daily for snookums is absurd.  Is this a great country, or what?  
. . .

Approximately 2,000 men, women and children from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador 1,000 miles from the southern border of the United States constitutes, in the words of our fearless leader, a "National Emergy"?  Where has the Home of the Brave relocated to?
. . .

The white male Republican candidate for Georgia governor defended the retention of Confederate monuments.  "We should learn from the past -- not attempt to rewrite it."  After all, the South won the Civil War.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Last night, Tom Terrific invited me to join him at The Winning Side, a new play, somewhere between Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway.  It deals with the amoral career of Wernher von Braun, whose fascination with rockets allowed him to ignore in what direction they were headed and the conditions under which they were created.  In parallel was the readiness of the American government and population at large to forgive and forget von Braun's history in order to beat the Russians in space, to be on the winning side. 

It was a very well done production, avoiding clichés on the whole.  A post-show discussion with the playwright and several science journalists was an unexpected bonus.  I almost remained silent, but then I raised my hand and recalled how soon the the national exhilaration over the Moon landing in 1969 dissipated and its influence gone.  "International students account for 70 percent of the full-time graduate students (master’s and Ph.D.s) in electrical engineering, 63 percent in computer science, 60 percent in industrial engineering, and more than 50 percent in economics, chemical engineering, materials engineering and mechanical engineering." 
http://www.nfap.com/pdf/New%20NFAP%20Policy%20Brief%20The%20Importance%20of%20International%20Students%20to%20America,%20July%202013.pdf

What if the Reds beat us to the Moon as they had with the first space satellite and man in orbit?  Would you care if Tang had a Russian name?  The difference would have been that a bunch of Nazis would have been kept in detention rather than laboratories in Huntsville, Alabama. 
. . .

I was fortunate to have Gentleman Jerry as my companion at lunch today.  We met at his office in midtown and stuck close by because of his crowded schedule.  I was, however, able to take him to a joint that was new to him in spite of its proximity, Num Pang Kitchen, 140 East 41st Street, one of a small chain of Cambodian sandwich shops.  In fact, if you subtract the Num Pang group, you have one Cambodian restaurant left in Manhattan.  While a gourmet may be able to make meaningful distinctions among Cambodian food, Vietnamese and Thai food, a gourmand like me is content to enjoy what is put in front of him without possibly stirring up resentments rooted in the sometimes sad history of Southeast Asia.  

In any case, Num Pang makes a good sandwich, a banh mi by any other name.  I had the coconut tiger shrimp, with cucumber, pickled carrots, cilantro and chili mayo, on a toasted roll, not quite a baguette ($11.25).  Jerry had grilled steak with the same trimmings ($11.95) and expressed his satisfaction.  Most of Num Pang's business at all its sites is takeout, but we sat on stools at a counter opposite the order/prep/pay counter, ignoring most of the hustle bustle surrounding us.    

We walked a half block to have coffee at Maison Kayser, 370 Lexington Avenue, one of a dozen or so high quality, local bakery/cafés originating in France.  I had a tarte tatin (I think I heard the clerk call it apple cake) ($4.95), that was so good that I didn't notice that it wasn't chocolate.

Thursday, October 25, 2018If you are a New York City kid of roughly my vintage, growing up in a Jewish household of modest means, edging towards assimilation, occasionally your parents would strain their wallet and challenge Holy Writ by going to a Chinese restaurant.  The restaurant you went to was either up a flight of stars or down a flight of stairs, no doubt to hold down the rent, which made it more likely to attract our patronage. 

I thought of this as Michael Ratner and I approached Wu Liang Ye, 36 West 48th Street, up a flight of stairs.  Once inside, we were entirely divorced from our exotic boyhood memories.  The room was quite grand, high ceilings, crystal chandeliers, gold-trimmed crown molding, maybe what the French consulate in Shanghai would look like.  The menu also left Brooklyn far behind.  No column A, no column B.  And the prices, you couldn't even see Pitkin Avenue in your rear view mirror; even Mott Street seemed a blur.  However, it was just about worth it.

We shared pan seared pork dumplings ($11.95 for 6), mixed seafood with noodles in soup ($14.95) and camphur (sic) tea smoked duck (half, $26.95), all at the head of their class.  The only thing that could have been better is if they charged the prices on the takeout menu, 15-25% lower than our bill.  But, I'm not complaining (much). 

Subway Sight



Friday, October 26, 2018
This afternoon, a Florida man was arrested on suspicion of sending pipe bombs to Barack Obama, George Soros, Joe Biden and others.  He owned a “white van, the windows of which were plastered with a thick collage of pro-Trump stickers.”

In other news: 

September 27, 2018 – “Dutch police grabbed terror suspects from inside a white van during a series of flash raids, which they said foiled a major attack using suicide vests, assault rifles and car bombs.”

August 10, 2018 – “The Metropolitan Police was called to Aldgate East underground station this morning after the white van was left in the middle of the road.

June 26, 2018 – “Terror as white van drives into Dutch newspaper offices in ‘slap in face for democracy’”

April 23, 2018 – “At least nine people were killed and 16 others were injured after a white van jumped the curb on a busy Toronto street Monday afternoon."

March 25, 2018 - [Hartlepool, England] "this particular white van driver . . . drove at the three people who were standing outside of the house and then pinned them up against the wall with his van." 

December 28, 2017 - "6 sent to hospital after [white] van jumps curb, strikes pedestrians in downtown Seattle."
  
August 21, 2017 - "A French official says a suspect who rammed his white van into two bus stops in the southern French city of Marseille, killing a woman, is being treated for psychological problems."
  
August 17, 2017 "A white van mowed down pedestrians along Las Ramblas, a popular boulevard in the heart of Barcelona, Spain, on Thursday."

June 18, 2017 - "Moments earlier, a white van had ploughed into a group of people outside the Muslim Welfare House in north London as they left evening prayers."

June 4, 2017 - "Police were called after a white rental van was driven into pedestrians on London Bridge at about 9.58pm on Saturday night."

November 5, 2014 - "IDF troops found the white van which was driven by a Palestinian motorist who plowed into three soldiers who were standing on the side of the road in the Gush Etzion bloc on Wednesday night."

October 21, 2012 - "film of a white van swerving across four lanes of traffic to deliberately hit a couple pushing a pram in the Cardiff hit-and-run horror was being studied by police last night."

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Snow Suitable

Saturday,  October 13, 2018
11 Down -- Leaves work?

Monday, October 15, 2018
I'm not a lover, I'm not a fighter, but I'm definitely a looker.  An attractive woman or a particularly well-dressed man will receive my appreciative glance.  Over the decades, I have certainly been boorish, but never physically or sexually abusive.  Even as we increasingly expect men to act in a civilized manner with women, to practice restraint even when hormones are raging, and remain aware of disparities in power, based on physical strength, position or status, we should recognize the contraindicated popularity of "slutty" clothing, mostly among young and youngish women. 


A good (bad) example of this style trend can be found in an article in (what I persist in calling) the society pages of The New York Times this weekend.  https://nyti.ms/2A4a0Sb  (Try to find the printed version, which literally illustrates the subject better than the electronic version.)  The article deals with new lines of wedding dresses.  In print, six dresses are shown; three of the color photographs are 3" x 5 3/4", the other three are 2" x 4".  Four of the dresses have very deep cleavage, one other is seemingly transparent with strategically appliqued flowers, and one completely see-through above the waist.  Yes, you can see it (them) all.  By the way, 4 of the 5 designers identified are women and the other is a collective. 

A wedding day is all about brides.  (One or two grooms marching down the aisle never reach that Wow factor.)  Will some weddings be labelled "For Adults Only"?  Are we being dared not to look?  No, I don't think that "they are asking for it," an insulting suggestion, but I think that it is reasonable to ask "what are they thinking?"  Here is one explanation: "The reason why people want to wear the slutty style is because they want to look more appealing to others or look more liberated by wearing sexy or skimpy clothing."  http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/fashion-beauty/difference-between-elegant-slutty-and-trashy-slutty/#ixzz5U1gHDB00

There are so many other ways of looking more appealing or looking more liberated than displays of flesh that will inevitably attract unwanted stares or worse.  Just who are the "others" being appealed to and do you really want to appeal to them?  Need common sense be abandoned to signify liberation?  Should I be embarrassed when some women go to great lengths to embarrass themselves? 

In digging around, I found this headline: "How To Still Dress Slutty Even In Winter When It's Freezing Outside."
https://www.elitedaily.com/women/ways-to-wear-slutty-clothes-in-winter/1683930  Yeah, freeze your tuchis off so that we know that you are not just desperate for attention, but mindless as well.

Tuesday, October 16, 2018
PRESIDENTIAL LIE DETECTOR
Believe                          Don't Believe
Saudi Arabia                Women
Vladimir Putin             Scientists
Kim Jung-un                The New York Times
. . .

Open Table is a convenient web site for making restaurant reservations.  It even worked in London.  It also serves to remind you of restaurants by location or cuisine, if you need a hint.  Last night, it published the "Best Overall Restaurants in Manhattan."   https://www.opentable.com/s/dinerschoice?topic=Best%20Overall&&metroid=8&regionids=16&ref=9472&cmpid=em_email2018&utm_campaign=Email%2BMass%2BAuto%2BNA%253A%2BNA_112_DinersChoice_Region_version1&utm_source=simon&utm_medium=email
 
Open Table claims that it creates its list from the preceding month's reviews.  While I use the program, I never followup with reviews, but apparently a lot of other folk do, more than 400,000 monthly.  This past month, 4 of the top 10 local restaurants were Japanese, 1 Korean, 2 French, 2 American and 1 Italian.  What would interest me is a frequency distribution of reservations made by cuisine.  I don't mean to substitute quantity for quality, but I am curious about the dining habits of my fellow inmates.
. . .

No question about the Boyz Club at lunch.  Eight of us met at Jing Fong, 20 Elizabeth Street, that cavernous dim sum palace.  I always promise myself to record everything we eat when having dim sum, but those eager ladies rolling those carts at us from every direction don't give me a chance to take notes.  All I can report is that we had 23 items, 3 or 4 pieces on a plate, costing each of us $15, with generous tip. 


Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Certainly, my list of "best" restaurants would contain some Chinese and I was happy to have had very good Chinese food in London.  However, I was not willing to give the British the opportunity to challenge American hegemony in hamburgers.  So, today, in order to restore the natural order of things, I had lunch at Island Burgers & Shakes, 422 Amsterdam Avenue, which is, of course, on Manhattan Island.  It's a narrow joint, with 7 two tops and a bar with 5 stools.  Corrugated aluminum covers the ceiling, one wall is exposed brick and the floor is lightly-stained wood planks.  It achieves the funky look that it aims for.  

Lunch offers a good bargain, cheeseburger or chicken sandwich, French fries or salad, and draft beer or canned soda for $14.95 including tax.  Other hours, the cheeseburger alone is $14.95.  I had a cheeseburger, choosing mozzarella among six alternatives, served with lettuce, tomato, fresh onion and pickle chips.  The large meat patty, nearly 1/2 pound I estimate, was well cooked, too well, in fact.  I asked for medium rare and, as too often the case, got medium.  Had I asked for rare, I might have had nothing to complain about.

Thursday, October 18, 2018
Hamburgers are not the only vital nutritional category that goes unsatisfied in London.  I had to pass on pizza.  I chose to fill in this gap today at ōath Pizza, 2169 Broadway, a new joint, new locally that is, part of a chain that started around Boston.  It features 8 versions, 7 at $11, 1 at $12.50, in interesting combinations, e.g., "The David" containing balsamic vinegar, mozzarella, roasted mushrooms, sweet Italian sausage, ricotta and fresh basil.  You can have a basic cheese pizza at $8 or concoct your own version for $11.  Half pies can be ordered for about 2/3 the price, but, let me warn you, the whole pie is only about 7" in diameter and you won't swear off your next meal after finishing one.  

On the other hand, what I had was delicious, this week's special, a banh mi pizza, the intersection of Italy and Vietnam ($12).  It tasted like a hot, open-faced banh mi sandwich.  Besides the imagination, the crust was particularly memorable.  Sayeth a food writer: "At Oath, it’s all about the crust.  Theirs is perfectly crispy made with 100 percent pure grain North Dakota Mills flour that is flash seared in pure olive oil then grilled in a convection oven for just 90 seconds delivering a perfectly golden, chewy crust."   https://www.chowhound.com/features/oath-craft-pizza-successful-122
 
Another positive at ōath is the soda fountain, a do-it-yourself number with a wonderful array of flavors -- pineapple cream, orange hibiscus, classic root beer, black cherry with tarragon, and agave vanilla cream in addition to draft cola with and without sugar.  

To sum up, ignore the pretentious format of its name, which only appears sporadically in its print materials, and order maybe two pizzas to fill you up.


Friday, October 19, 2018
I learned from the New York City Transit Museum that Monday, December 29, 1947 was the busiest day in our subway history.  While the daily average these days is 5.7 million rides, 8,533,468 rides were recorded on the first workday after the city's largest snowfall ever, 26.4" on Friday, December 26th, bringing most transportation to a standstill for days thereafter.  https://www.6sqft.com/december-26-1947-a-record-breaking-snowstorm-blankets-nyc/  (Watch the classic newsreel footage.)

Grandpa Alan, then Cute Little Alan, remembers looking out over the snow drifts on Pitkin Avenue and seeing downed overhead wires, either power or telephone.  Then, everything's a fog until I passed the bar exam.
. . .

Answer -- Teataster

Saturday, October 13, 2018

In the Company of Friends

Monday, October 8, 2018
This trip to London began 53 weeks ago when I read that a new production of "Company" was scheduled for London in the Fall of 2018.  Patti Lupone, a favorite of mine, was set to play the role originated by Elaine Stritch and, most significantly, Bobby, the 35-year old, single, male commitmentphobe at the center of the play, would be reimagined as a 35-year old, single, female commitmentphobe.  Stephen Sondheim had refused past proposals to potschke with the character he created, but now worked on the revisions.  This I had to see.  So, I ordered 4 tickets on-line on October 1, 2017, expecting that Londoners David and Katherine Brodie would want to join us.  

I had plenty of time to shop for good flight and hotel deals and now we are taking advantage of this advance planning.  Saturday night, we saw this exciting, new "Company," made more exciting by the last minute substitution of the understudy in the role of Bobby, her debut in this demanding role, where she is on stage 99% of the time.  A welcome departure from every Broadway musical that I have seen this century was the absence of amplification; the performers were not miked.  In all, this production of "Company" was far better than the two others that I recall.  (With one exception, I have seen every Sondheim musical multiple times.)
. . .

Sunday morning, the Upper West Side's Power Couple went to the Camden Lock Market, which once featured local arts and crafts, but now has hundreds of merchants offering every T-shirt known to humankind.  Fortunately, the Jewish Museum London was close by at 129-131 Albert Street.  It's relatively small, with 3 main permanent exhibits -- an introduction to Judaism for the 99.6% of the non-Jewish British population; a history of Jews in Great Britain (mostly cruel); British Jews and the Holocaust.  The latter featured the story of Leon Greenman, a British Jew with strong family ties to the Netherlands, who was in Rotterdam when the war broke out.  His papers were misplaced and he was unable to prove to the Nazis that he was an enemy civilian rather than a Dutch Jew.  He went through six concentration camps, surviving the war, returning to England.  His wife and child were murdered in Auschwitz.  He lived until age 97, but never remarried.  
. . .

The Brodie's are not finished with us or vice versa.  Sunday night, their friends Colin and Fleur invited us all to dinner, along with Robina Rafferty, another mutual friend,  and Fleur's sister Nina, a concert musician.  This Anglo-Celtic-American conglomeration worked out splendidly -- food, beverages, fellowship and conversation almost worthy of Noël Coward.
. . .

Madam and I cruised through Harrods this morning, where I came across this abomination.

I spent 10 minutes explaining to the sales clerk why this was an offense to both the sports community and the fashion community.

Tuesday, October 9, 2018
Last night, we saw "Hamilton."  When I told David months in advance that we had tickets for "Company," he countered by getting tickets to "Hamilton," almost as big a hit here as in New York.  Since I had resold orchestra seats to "Hamilton" in New York last year for $1,200 each, I was especially pleased to pay £100 each for seats a couple of thousand miles east.  The vast difference in pricing results from the good efforts of the London production company.  Actual tickets are distributed at the theatre immediately before show time upon presenting ID and the credit card used for the purchase, whether the purchase was made on-line, by telephone or at the box office in advance.  Thus, goniffs like me are stymied.

It's a very good show, definitely worth £100.  While the execution was flawless, I marvelled most at the imagination behind it.  It's just about the most unlikely pairing of topic and style conceivable.
. . .

David guided us around the East End for a few hours at midday, a neighborhood that might be likened to Sicily, absorbing wave after wave of "invaders."  For instance, Brick Lane Jamme Masjid a/k/a Brick Lane Mosque, 59 Brick Lane, is in a building that was established as a Hugenot Protestant chapel in 1743.  In 1809 it was bought by the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews.  Blessedly, this was a flop and in 1819 the building became a Methodist chapel.  Congregation Machzike Hadath took over the premises in 1898 as the Spitalfields Great Synagogue.  That congregation moved to the suburbs in 1970 and the building apparently was unused until 1976, when it was reopened as a Mosque, serving the growing Bangladeshi community.
. . .

Thanks to Ittai and Linda, frequent travelers to London, for recommending The Palomar, 34 Rupert Street, "serving the food of modern day Jerusalem."  It's a small restaurant, 10 tables and 10 seats at the bar, making it difficult to get a reservation, but worth the effort.  Portions are meant to be shared, but are small.  Item prices are reasonable, however, so keep on ordering.  We had baba ganoush with pomegranate seeds (£4.30); m'sabacha, chick peas in tahini (£4.30); burrata, buffalo mozzarella with za'atar, tomato salsa and olive oil (special, didn't catch the price); sea trout tartare (£12.50); seared scallops (£15.50); chargrilled aubergine (£7.50); balsamic glazed chicken livers (£11.50); polenta with shaved parmigiana, mushrooms, asparagus and truffle (£9.80).  Service was excellent; the seltzer flowed like water.  Everything was excellent, as a matter of fact.

Since we were in the vicinity, we ended the evening with gelato at Vanini Swiss Chocolate, 1 Sherwood Street, which now has a sign over the door proclaiming Vittorio Swiss Chocolate.  I had a scoop of Nocciole Piemonte (hazelnut) and a scoop of coconut, both superb (£5 for two scoops).  However, to assuage my disappointment at the absence of any chocolate flavor tonight, the kind salesclerk gave us all dark chocolate squares.

Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Homeward bound, but first might you want to know whose smartyphone wound up on the tracks under a train at the Gatwick Airport station?  OK, we'll skip it.

Thursday, October 11, 2018
Instead of reentering the domestic scene slowly and deliberately, I had lunch with the Feingold Faction, former students of Stanley Feingold, still gathering a year after his death to argue politics and public policy.  We attack the issues, and each other only inferentially, with almost the same vigor that we displayed in CCNY classrooms more than half a century ago. 

Friday, October 12, 2018 
I jumped back into American politics yesterday at lunch.  Last night, I took a riskier step back to my normal life after that wonderful trip to London by switching back and forth between the Rangers hockey game and the Giants football game on television.  I had the misfortune to see the worst parts of the Giants game and miss the best parts of the Rangers game.  Thus, I could only curse at the television and not have the chance to cheer.  Life returns to normal.
. . .

I hope I get over my jet lag soon enough to dive into the fabulous interactive map of (almost) every building in the US that The New York Times has just delivered to our electronic doorstep.

As an additional gift, the paper promises to include in Sunday's print edition: "A special section featuring a giant four-page-wide map of all the buildings in one of six metropolitan regions: New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco or Dallas-Fort Worth.  The map you’ll get depends on where in the country you buy the newspaper."  Don't be ashamed to go through your neighbor's trash.
. . .

An  essay by Loudon Wainwright III just went on-line, listing his 10 best protest songs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/opinion/loudon-wainwright-protest-songs.html

Don't be deterred that "old folkies" sounds like "old fogeys."  Make your own list.  Here's your chance to return to your Joan Baez (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhbjrPrBGe4), Phil Ochs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv1KEF8Uw2k), Woody Guthrie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKVnur5DkdI), Odetta (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVFngnEP09E&list=PLS6aMtdhI9EpdBg8tRug_4WoFC1KnDfFg&index=26), the Almanac Singers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIU-7G7txmo&index=4&list=PLQHbCqFi89N2ZPkB7z2r4xuWL0pt3kbc0), Buffy Sainte-Marie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUbMoyolxmU&list=PLB0-2WaBbyvkxv-_XlFxdiAu8gWqPI4Vq).  

When you want to take a break, maybe you'll play a little Allan Sherman (https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=tightropetb&p=allan+sherman#action=view&id=57&vid=e18f945b82fefd458d319758df58952e).

Saturday, October 6, 2018

London Calling

Monday, October 1, 2018
What is the upper age limit to be able to distinguish Kanye West from Jay-Z?  Whatever it is, I have certainly passed it even after watching Kanye West, or so I was told it was him, perform on Saturday Night Live this weekend.  His appearance was notable not for the banal tune that he performed imperfectly disguised as a bottle of Perrier, but for comments that he made as the show went off the air.  In our democracy, everyone is entitled to a point of view, but in this modern age his celebrity qualifies his remarks to be quoted near and far.  

West’s advice to his fellow citizens was concise: "Follow your heart and stop following your mind.”  Of course, this denies a central theme of Western philosophy dating back to Aristotle and Plato, the attempt to elevate reason over passion.  Should we instead follow our mind and stop following our heart?  Philosophical purity aside, I doubt that either approach would get us through one 24-hour day.  
. . .

Choosing how to live has always been a challenge, but in modern times, blessed or cursed with great mobility, so too is where to live.  The weekend's real estate section provides a list of the most energy efficient places in the US, in case you would like to delay turning the Earth into a cinder.

Here, the mind directs us toward density, where resources are concentrated and we benefit from the economies of scale, while the heart might point to the wide open spaces, broad vistas and some privacy, consuming land, water and energy at a disproportionate rate.  While I acknowledge that the latter (suburban, exurban) approach might offer beauty, it would only be for some, because open space is finite while our (collective) ability to reproduce is not.
. . .

Speaking of where to live, the real estate section also offered an interesting tale of a couple who decided to buy an apartment after renting for many years in a Harlem building.   https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/realestate/house-hunting-in-flatbush-brooklyn.html

They were thoroughly happy with their neighborhood, but the couple moved to Brooklyn "[a]fter watching Harlem slip out of their budget."  This illustrates, for better or worse, the power of market economics.  A "bad" neighborhood has become "good," even better than good.  For whose benefit?
. . .

Further on the subject of switching identities, today's paper informs me for the first time about "clean meat — meat that is grown in laboratories from animal cells."

The article carries the seductive headline "Meat Labs Pursue a Once-Impossible Goal: Kosher Bacon."  Currently, "facon" is available, a vegetarian concoction, and beef fry, thin, fatty slices of Kosher cured beef that fries up crispy.  Each has its limitations.  Facon tastes like, well, facon; beef fry falls on the meat side of the great Kosher divide -- dairy vs. meat.  Apparently, clean meat may not be classified as meat, opening up the wonderful world of cheeseburgers to my people, some of them at least.

In the spirit of Aristotle and Plato, however, there is an overarching question: Is imitating a forbidden product a willful defiance of laws that date back millennia?  Shouldn't there be a price for being Jewish, besides pogroms, expulsions, ghettoizing, forced conversions and rhinoplasty? 


Tuesday, October 2, 2018
America has generally proclaimed itself a land where anyone could get ahead, ignoring the explicit and implicit barriers placed in the way of some of our people.  Yet, I would grant that upward mobility has been characteristic of our society over generations.  A new study graphically represents the influence of neighborhoods on how and whether children prosper in later life.  
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/upshot/maps-neighborhoods-shape-child-poverty.html

For instance: "
Children raised in poor families in some neighborhoods of Memphis went on to make just $16,000 a year in their adult households; children from families of similar means living in parts of the Minneapolis suburbs ended up making four times as much."  Not surprisingly, race is a vital contrasting element.  Otherwise, "[r]esearchers still don’t understand exactly what leads some neighborhoods to nurture children, although they point to characteristics like more employed adults and two-parent families that are common among such places."  So, middle-class values seem to generate middle-class lives. 

Thursday, October 4, 2018
Hello from London.  Our flight yesterday across the Atlantic was quite pacific.  The only things worth noting were the dreadful food and the presence of 3 dozen or so Satmar Hassidim returning to London after spending the Jewish holidays in New York.  The sight was disorienting.  Satmars, possibly the most reclusive Hassidic sect, belong in Brooklyn and Kiryas Joel, an enclave in Orange County, New York, named for the late Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, who rebuilt the Satmar Hassidic dynasty after WWII, not London.  

It reminded me of a business trip to Germany, my first trip to Europe in 1972.  Our hosts took us to a Chinese restaurant in Dusseldorf for lunch.  While a novice at foreign travel then, I was already well versed in Chinese restaurants.  So, I was surprised listening to the waiters.  They spoke Chinese and broken German; the waiters that I was used to spoke Chinese and broken English.
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Speaking of Jews, I saw why Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, finds it easy to offend Jews, locally and worldwide.  In anticipation of soon winning the New York Lottery, we are staying in Knightsbridge, a ritzy part of London.  Harrods is at the nearest corner.  We walked around the neighborhood for much of the day and saw countless Muslims, Muslim women at least, distinguishable by their hajibs, headcovering scarves; chadors, full-length robes; or niqabs, head-to-toe coverings leaving only the eyes visible (letterboxes, as some Brits irreverently call them).  Recognizing their significant presence, many stores had signs in Arabic and hookahs were widely available at cafes and restaurants.  I have no way of knowing whether the many people I saw were UK citizens or if Muslims are found as readily in other parts of the country, but successful politicians know how to count and I imagine that Jeremy has done the ethnic math.
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Food outranks politics, at least it did for us at dinner.  We ate at Al Arez, Lebanese Cuisine Cafe & Juice Bar, 128 Brompton Road, one of a small chain.  It has a large menu with hoummus (their spelling), lamb, chicken, falafel, eggplant, chick peas and rice in familiar and unfamiliar combinations.  Olives, a sweet and hot chili sauce and a garlicky yoghurt are complimentary, along with fresh, thin pita breads.  That was an excellent start, but nothing that followed made it past fair.  I had mixed shawarma, roasted thin slices of marinated lamb and chicken (£13.25), and my young bride had Mousakaa B'zeit, a stew of "Fried aubergines baked with tomatoes, chick peas, onions & spices" (£12.00).  In my meat, the marinade had long evaporated without a trace, and the spices meant for the stew must have missed the pot.

On the other hand, our two waiters, one Lebanese and one Palestinian, were charming and eager to please.

Friday, October 5, 2018
An absolutely necessary element in this trip to London was time spent with David and Katherine Brodie, dear friends for almost two decades, since David and I met at Cardozo Law School.  While the girls went off to the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the modern day version of Laurel & Hardy headed for Chinatown.

We chose wisely, Beijing Dumpling, 23 Lisle Street, a long, narrow room with crude square wooden tables and backless stools.  Ordering is done from a 100 item checklist, only about 20 that might be identified as dim sum.  Accordingly, we mixed our choices: pan fried pork dumplings (£3.60 for 3, the only overpriced item), chicken soup dumplings (£6.20 for 8), special mixed meat and seafood ho fun (£7.50, a large portion of wide noodles with chicken, shrimp, lobster and whelk (and would you know if it's not whelk?), and crispy aromatic duck (£17.50 for half a duck, including 10 pancakes, cucumber and scallion threads, and hoisin sauce; all the makings of Peking duck except the duck was shredded, not sliced -- a great dish and a great bargain).

We rolled out of Beijing Dumpling and strolled around Soho, the theatre district and Piccadilly, making a strategic stop at Vanini Swiss Chocolate, 1 Sherwood Street, for gelato (1 scoop £3, 2 scoops £5), their extra dark chocolate, a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
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After a well-deserved nap, madam and I took the short walk to Westminster Synagogue, Kent House, Rutland Gardens, for Friday night services.  It's a Reform congregation claiming 1,000 members, but we got a very different impression.  About 35 people were present, more than half boys and girls in B'nai Mitzvah training (you know when you get gifts).  The service itself seemed conventionally Conservative, male pronouns all over the place, no mention of the Matriarchs (an interesting omission after more than five millennia of Jewish mothers), Hebrew prayers straight from the book.  They did give me a 60th anniversary yarmulke, though. 
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Multiculturalists that we are, we chose Indian food for Shabbos dinner after services.  Haandi, 7 Cheval Place, deserves its reputation as one of the best Indian restaurants in London.  I've never had better chicken biryani (£18.00) and my lady wife thoroughly enjoyed her Punjabi Aloo Bagan, "Whole baby aubergines and potatoes prepared in a special onion masala" (£10.90).
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This entire wonderful day, no one in my hearing said "I like beer."