Wait 'Til Next Year

Monday, September 13, 2021

As a partial antidote to the stories about September 11, 2001 on Saturday morning, I looked at the New York Times, first in print and then online, for a story about the Mets-Yankees Subway Series baseball game Friday night.  As a Mets fan, I was delighted by the 10-3 outcome. 

 

However, my enthusiasm was not shared by my favorite newspaper's sports section.  In the print edition, most space was devoted to the US Open tennis tournament and 9/11-related stories.  Online had far more stories - pro football, college football, US Open, high school basketball summer camp, 9/11, horse racing, pro soccer, disciplining a major league baseball player, auto racing, conviction of an Olympics big shot, pro surfing, Olympic diving, high school field hockey, tactics of baseball managers, dragon boat racing, Derek Jeter, obituaries, World Cup soccer, Mohammed Ali documentary and crimes by NFL players, alleged and convicted.  Not one word about the baseball game: nada, rien, gor nisht, niente, méiyǒu, tipota, nihil, zippo.   

 

Come on, fellas.  This is Noo Yawk we're tawkin' about.

. . . 

 

"Josh Mandel, Jewish Ohio Senate candidate, compares Biden’s vaccine mandate to the Gestapo."  Guess which political party he belongs to?

. . . 

 

Two years after I left Morton Street in Greenwich Village another legend arrived.  Kenny Shopsin took over a grocery store on the corner, applying his formidable culinary skills and idiosyncratic personality traits to make it into a landmark.  Calvin Trillin provided a good account of the man and his business in The New Yorker.   https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/04/15/dont-mention-it 

 

Shopsin's has moved twice and the owner has died by the time I actually caught up with it yesterday in its location inside the Essex Market a/k/a Essex Street Market, 88 Essex Street.  By the way, the Essex Market, created by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1940 to bring pushcart peddlers indoors for health and safety reasons, has moved across Delancey Street (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094921/) into a large, three-story building housing vendors notably removed ethnically, socially and economically from the original occupants.  

 

Shopsin's serves breakfast and lunch from an enormous menu to a handful of tables and a small counter facing the hectic kitchen.  The many dishes offer familiar ingredients in often unthought of combinations, for instance, "Chubby 2 Slutty Stuffed Pancakes - Mac’n Cheddar / Veggie Saus., Egg, Cheese" ($17) and "Gidget - Tuna, Avocado, Bacon, Tomato Pesto Bread" (I don't know if one or more commas is missing) ($17).  I had "Blisters on My Sisters - Broil Chedda over Sunnies, Peppers, Beans, Collards, Onions, Tomato, Rice, on Corn Tortillas" with diced chorizo extra ($19).  

 

It was excellent and, in ordering it, I broke one of the rules that Kenny used to punitively enforce: You cannot copy a neighbor's order.  Sitting at the counter, I could not avoid the lure of the Blisters being eaten by a young man nearby, although I almost stopped on my immediate right at "Bubba - Crispy Fried Shrimp, Grits, Eggs, Corn Bread" ($21) in front of his girlfriend.   The quality of the food was very high, the prices slightly high.  Note that currently Shopsin's is open only Wednesday-Sunday, 10 AM to 4 PM.  Do not wait as long as I did to eat here.  And, the young man at the counter taking orders showed none of the founder's fabled belligerence. 

. . . 

 

One thing that particularly annoys me about Republican politicians is how they give hypocrisy such a bad name.  Top of the list right now is their reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has already killed almost 700,000 Americans, presumably including some Republicans.  Republican governors, especially in states with high infection rates, insist on preventing proven public health measures, notably vaccinations and mask mandates, at least while a Democrat is in the White House.  Yet, such programs are everyday functions of their own state governments.   https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/12/us/politics/vaccine-mandates-republicans.html

 

Promoting the general welfare is not a new idea in American governance.  

. . . 

 

I had lunch today with Jeffrey Heller, licensed attorney, registered nurse, human rights crusader.  The pandemic has forced Jeffrey to suspend temporarily his crosscountry bicycle rides to raise awareness and funds for the just treatment of refugees.  

 

We went to Pho Shop, 141 West 72nd Street, a reliable Vietnamese restaurant with six rickety tables outside.  We each had a banh mi, the classic Vietnamese sandwich on baguette, his crispy fillet of sole, mine beef bulgogi (both $12).  Not only did I enjoy the sandwich and the company, but Jeffrey gave me this button advocating universal human rights.  

 

The sentiment is important, but note that FDR spoke it exactly 80 years before our failed Fascist putsch.  

 

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

My sandwich yesterday was Vietnamese, but the beef was cooked Korean-style.  Today, after a doctor's appointment in Tribeca, I sought a whole Korean restaurant, Gunbae, 67 Murray Street.  It's a deep, relatively narrow joint, with about 15 sturdy tables anchored to the floor.  Each has an embedded grill, with a sexy, chrome exhaust mechanism directly above resembling a submarine's periscope.  

 

I did not order BBQ, the house specialty in a dozen varieties, more appropriate for a dinner.  Instead, I had a large portion of japchae, rice noodles with thinly-sliced rib-eye, shredded carrots, yellow onions, chives, mushrooms, zucchini slivers and sesame seeds ($17).  It seemed too bland; the "oyster soy sauce" that it was cooked in lacked punch.  Or, maybe the hot, spicy, peppery taste of four of the six salads that accompany every meal threw my normally resilient taste buds off.  

 

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

I learned that 163 countries and territories prescribe motor vehicle traffic driving on the right side of the road, while 76 keep to the left.  That's an interesting, but useless fact. 

 

By contrast, an interesting and valuable fact is that California spent $276 million on yesterday's recall election, all in behalf of a Republican masturbatory fantasy.  Apparently rehearsing for every November to come in the future, they were crying Foul even before the first vote was counted.  Were they looking in the mirror, that would be an apt reaction. 

. . . 

 

Tonight begins Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  A major myth wrapped around the Jewish High Holy Days is that the Great Decider opens the Book of Life for the coming year on Rosh HaShanah and seals it on Yom Kippur, having made the fitting inscriptions.  When Mother Ruth Gotthelf died a few hours before the (sundown) start of Yom Kippur in 2012, I allowed myself to believe that she had earned almost every minute of the year ending.  Today, fellow members of West End Synagogue may be experiencing similar feelings upon the news of the death this morning of Jane Weprin Menzi, a founder, builder and continuing supporter of our community.  R.I.P. 

 

Friday, September 17, 2021

Having just completed observing the High Holy Days, looking to both atone for past transgressions and setting forth on a more responsible path, I have to reach out to my Republican brethren.  I am sorry for my harsh words, my uncritical opposition, my narrow perspective.  Now, in 5782, I will try to act as a good Jew as long as you don't act like a horse's ass.

. . .

 

Two weeks ago, I presented a photograph of several pinpoints of light, far less than President George H. W. Bush's "thousand points of light."  Your response to me was hardly more enthusiastic than the country's to him.  The few guesses came nowhere close.   

 

The scene was my (really our) desk in a darkened room.  It shows that, rivaling natural moonlight or starlight, we have abolished darkness.  There were at least seven sources of light clustered together - computer, printer, router, mouse.  There were also a few more scattered around the room, beyond the camera's eye.   While I am only a modestly "green" person, I realized how much fuel is wasted by providing an unnecessary soft glow in millions of empty rooms. 

. . .

 

I anticipate having to apologize to Republicans again next year at this time on the brink of 5783.  However, today, I added another group that evoked atonement-worthy behavior.  At midday, I went out shopping and found more than a dozen Lubavitcher Hasidim congregating near the intersection of 72nd Street and Broadway.  Not one was wearing a mask, not around the chin, not around the elbow, not a mask in sight.  

 

Motivated by the Jewish obligation to "repair the world" (tikkun olam), I told each and every one of them that they were killing Jews by not wearing a mask.  I wasn't able to repair much of the world, however, because none of them seemed to speak English.  They had not been merely imported from 770 Eastern Parkway, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, they came from downtown Israel, where the CDC reports "Very High Level of COVID-19 in Israel."  https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/covid-4/coronavirus-israel

 

What a New Year's present.