Spill On Aisle 3

Monday, March 25 2019

I am consumed with envy.  I sat home the entire weekend while my luggage spent the whole time in Paris.  I wonder if it is even experiencing separation anxiety.

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If you need to answer questions about voting and political systems in just about every corner of the world, such as what countries allow voting at age 16, here's your source.

https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2019/how-the-world-votes-2019/index.html

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In case you doubted the value of a good education, read the following excerpt from a wedding announcement in the Sunday Times.

"The groom, 37, operates the Queens International Night Market, an open-air night market in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, featuring vendors selling food and merchandise, as well as cultural performances celebrating the diversity and heritage of Queens and the rest of New York City. He was previously a corporate lawyer with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, the Manhattan law firm.

He holds three undergraduate degrees from the University of Michigan, a bachelor of arts in philosophy, and two bachelor of science degrees, one in biopsychology and cognitive science and the other in mathematical physics.  He also received both an M.B.A. and a law degree from Yale."

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I am unsure if my sense of deprivation caused by the absence of Chinese food for the last several weeks is greater than that of the president in not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.  I didn't take my situation sitting down, however.  I hied off to Chinatown to have lunch at Wo Hop, 17 Mott Street, the sancta sanctorum of Chinese food.  I ate alone; none of the usual suspects were available on short notice to accompany me.  That allowed me to selfishly devour a very large plate of Singapore chow fun ($9.75), exquisitely prepared at Wo Hop, containing wide noodles, chicken, shrimp, pork, egg, yellow onion, green onion, and bean sprouts dusted with yellow curry powder.  Note that this dish, even at Wo Hop, does not usually appear on menus, but, if you see Singapore mei fun listed, you can expect Singapore chow fun on demand.

I took another big step to return to my dubious state of normalcy tonight by going to a Ranger game at Madison Square Garden with my brother.  At least, lunch was a great success.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

We are delighted that Marianne Motherby, an attorney from Berlin, is on vacation here for a week.  Since she studied American politics at the University of Massachusetts in the past, we chose to go to "What the Constitution Means To Me" on Broadway, an excellent one person work that weakens when two peripheral characters are introduced for some unneeded balance.  Don't worry if your hearing aid batteries run down towards the end; you'll relish all that went before.

Before the show, we ate at Bocca Di Bacco, 635 Ninth Avenue, one of a trio bearing the name on the West Side.  Prices were reasonable and the quality good.  Most notable was the enormous list of wines by the glass, mostly in the $12-15 range, consistent with the restaurant's name -- Mouth of Bacchus. 
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Professor Barry Seldes, a devoted reader, has forwarded a study by The Economist of the cost of living worldwide.  https://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=WCOL2019

This link requires registration to open, but it is worth it if you want to see where the Holy Land stands among the world's most expensive cities or the comparative price of a loaf of bread today and in the past.  I'll give you a little taste; Singapore, Paris and Hong Kong share the #1 position as the most expensive city in the world.  

An alternative list is available from Mercer, a management consultancy, with Hong Kong, Tokyo and Zurich at the top.  No registration is needed, at https://mobilityexchange.mercer.com/Insights/cost-of-living-rankings#rankings  

Thursday, March 28, 2019

As soon as I walked into Little Alley, 550 Third Avenue, I realized that I had been there before (August 7, 2017).  I enjoyed my lunch then, as I did today, but I observed that "it is awkwardly located on Third Avenue between East 36th and East 37th Streets, more than a quarter of a mile from the office towers around Grand Central Terminal and even further from the massive NYU medical complex on First Avenue, both suppliers of huge lunch crowds."  In that regard, nothing has changed.

Little Alley offers a lunch special costing $11-14, including hot and sour soup and a spring roll with choice of a main dish.  I had Savory Scallion Beef, thin slices of beef, yellow onions and scallions cooked in a rich, dark sauce, quite delicious.  The portion barely reached medium sized, but the white rice served along side helped fill out some of my creases.

So, the next time your car breaks down in or near the Queens Midtown Tunnel, the only nearby landmark, go to Little Alley while waiting for the tow truck.
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"Subway Bathrooms: Are They as Bad as You Think Bad as You Think?"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/27/nyregion/subway-bathrooms.html

The first bad news is the inventory, "operative restrooms" in only 51 of the 472 stations in the transit system.  The reporters found that the quality was no better than the quantity.  I don't think you should bother reading the article.  Instead, wait for the day when the headline reads "Subway Stalls Sparkle."  Just keep waiting.
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I usually don't comment about art because I don't know a damn thing about it.  But, I recommend reading this review of the work of El Anatsui, a Ghanaian living in Nigeria, unless you happen to be passing by Munich, where his show is being held. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/arts/design/el-anatsui-art-review-munich.html

I can't remember exactly when and where I saw his work, but a look at his CV shows several times that our paths crossed.  In any case, it left a very strong impression.  He works not in stone, bronze, wood, marble or on canvas.  El Anatsui assembles hangings (tapestries, curtains, drapes, reliefs?) from discarded liquor and beer bottle caps and foil bottle seals, bent, shaped and woven into large, colorful undulating pieces. 

The article has some good pictures, but you really have to get close up to see the challenge that the artist faced.  One work on display is 45 feet by 26 feet; it must consist of hundreds of thousand scraps of metal stitched together with fine thread or wire.  

I can't help contrasting El Anatsui with an action painter, such as Jackson Pollock, or a color field painter, such as Mark Rothko.  Those guys might have agonized over their work and reflected long before actually executing their art, producing works that appear simplistic to my (philistine) eyes.  But, El Anatsui's labor and intensity are immediately on display.
. . . 

Well, some people lose their luggage, while others lose their fortunes, their reputations  and their souls.  That was the lesson from "The Lehman Trilogy," a very imaginative work brought over from London to the Park Avenue Armory a/k/a the Seventh Regiment Armory.  The building itself is fascinating.  It centers on a block-long drill hall, where the play is performed.  In addition to this stark space, where tanks used to rumble, there are interior rooms that are furnished with stunning ornamental woodwork, marble and stained glass. 

The play is prodigious, the Lehman brothers moving into Lehman Brothers, a journey of 164 years.  At almost 3-1/2 hours, it feels like it.  The acting is brilliantly handled by three men, Englishmen in fact, whom we first meet as the three German Jewish immigrants, opening a small store in Alabama selling fabrics and clothing.  I found this to be the best part of the evening, maybe because they were more interesting than their progeny and other characters encountered along the way or maybe because I was still fresh.  Not unlike "What the Constitution Means To Me," "The Lehman Trilogy" weakens at the end when peripheral (non-Lehman family) characters come front and center.  Go see them both; that's the word.