Saturday, November 26, 2022

Calling Amy Vanderbilt

Saturday, November 19, 2022 
I rarely patronize large chain eating establishments.  Their homogenized predictability is not what I am usually looking for.  Nevertheless, I went into Smashburger, 671 Eighth Avenue, today for two reasons.  I had never tried Smashburger before and the building had a certain allure.  Just a few steps from 42nd Street, it has a flashing marquee over the front door.  Sure enough, 671 Eighth Avenue had an illustrious past as Show World Center.  “In its heyday, Show World Center was called the McDonald’s of Sex, the crown jewel of the NYC sex industry.” 

Now, it’s hamburgers.  I ate a delicious Double BBQ Bacon Cheddar Burger ($11.49).  It had two patties covered with Cheddar cheese, bacon, haystack onions and BBQ sauce.  I could not have had more pleasure at Show World Center.

Sunday, November 20, 2022
Last week, I speculated that Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis might request that New York Governor Kathy Hochul return the able-bodied Venezuelans that he expelled, because of the massive amount of manual labor needed to rebuild much of Florida devastated by two hurricanes.  DeSantis has pivoted and now is negotiating with Qatari officials to import some of the numerous Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Nepalese, Sudanese and Filipinos who worked on the massive construction projects needed to support soccer’s World Cup tournament starting today.  The cruel and unusual working conditions in Qatar are considered good preparation for Florida.  DeSantis was particularly impressed by Qatar’s “kafala” system, in which immigrant laborers are not allowed to return home or even switch jobs without permission of their bosses.
. . .
 
In conjunction with the story of the mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs overnight, the New York Times published an informal list of mass shootings this year.   

What strikes me is the age of the typical murderer.  Colorado Springs nightclub, 22; University of Virginia football players, 22; Buffalo supermarket, 19; Uvalde public school, 18; Memphis driving around, 19; Greenwood, Indiana, mall, 20; Highland Park, Illinois, Fourth of July parade, 21.  In the halcyon days of flower power, you heard the slogan “Don’t trust anyone over 30.”  Now, the telescope has apparently been reversed.  

Tuesday, November 22, 2022
“In a ‘Sea Change,’ Women of the Philharmonic Now Outnumber the Men” is the headline today.  

As recently as 1962 the New York Philharmonic had no women members; the ratio of women to men is now 45 to 44, with 16 vacancies to be filled.  This revolution resulted from a simple change in the audition process, blind auditions, the candidate performing behind a screen.  Yet, imbalances still seem to arise; 27 of 30 violinists are female while the percussion section is all male.

Strangely or not so strangely, the color barrier remains firmly intact, even as the gender barrier has mostly disappeared.  One Black musician is currently a member of the orchestra, two others having preceded him.  (I was unable to find details on Hispanic musicians in the Philharmonic.)  Is this systemic racism, natural selection or merely self selection?  

Certainly the appearance of classical music as a white, European, upper class domain has had to have influenced vocational and avocational choices of young musicians.  However, this is somewhat belied by the substantial Asian-American presence in symphony orchestras, although "in other parts of the industry, including opera, composition, conducting, arts administration and the boards of leading cultural institutions, Asians are scarce."   https://nyti.ms/3BAq9wu  

I am open to suggested definitions of justice.
. . .

I have acknowledged my aversion to most large restaurant chains.  Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen is an exception.  Their crispy, greasy fried chicken is a great treat.  No home cooking has ever approached it.  I am not dismissing the excellent chickens that I‘ve enjoyed in your dining rooms, roasted, stewed, barbecued, braised, sautéed, broiled, baked, but you have to go to a commercial joint to get that crispy crunchy texture.

Popeyes at 934 Eighth Avenue must be their smallest store anywhere.  It seats eight people at max, although it does a thriving takeout and delivery business.  It’s on a block with McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Deep Indian Kitchen, Luigi’s Gourmet Pizza, Chai Thai Kitchen and Starbucks, in case you are still hungry.

I had the three piece meal, including a biscuit, French fries and a Diet Coke for $13.99 and, I must admit, I could not make all gone.  However, I was able to walk five blocks before catching the bus home.

Wednesday, November 23, 2022
The value of higher education:
"In 2021, 47 percent of college graduates bet on sports compared with 22 percent of those with high school degrees, according to a survey by the National Council on Problem Gambling."  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/20/business/caesars-sports-betting-universities-colleges.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=highlightShare
. . .

The Riese brothers are credited (debited?) with creating the food court, a collection of fast food restaurants under one roof.  While the suburban version usually brought together independent businesses, the Riese brothers relied entirely on operations where they held the franchises for the likes of Roy Rogers, Nathan’s Famous, Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin-Robbins and Pizza Hut.  

Urban Space Vanderbilt, 230 Park Avenue, a useless address to locate it, try 45th and Vanderbilt, has modernized the concept and led to several spin-offs and imitators by housing a dozen-and-a-half local vendors tilting ethnic.  It was busy today, but not jam-packed as in pre-pandemic days or was this a pre-holiday slump?

I ordered from Mian Kitchen, featuring Chinese small plates, the #2 combo, two bao and three dumplings ($12.85).  Bao are spongy discs folded over their contents, deep fried shrimp, red cabbage, red onion, cilantro, black sesame seeds and spicy mayo, in one case, and braised beef shank, carrot, red onion, cilantro, crispy shallots and Szechuan sauce, the other, both very good.  The more ordinary dumplings were smallish chicken pot stickers.  

Thursday, November 24, 2022
"The only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is its astronomical number of guns."
 
American exceptionalists might be disappointed to learn, however, that we trail Yemen in the rate of mass shootings among countries with more than 10 million people.
 
Friday, November 25, 2022
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Saturday, November 19, 2022

Hey Kathy, It's Ron

Saturday, November 12, 2022 
Triple header: “No one is saying that these towers are not unsightly.”
. . .

Just after Professor David Webber left Palazzo di Gotthelf for a sybaritic weekend, the rest of his family arrived here aiming for as much hedonism as they could squeeze out of a local Bar Mitzvah.  Besides the pleasure of their company, Ima Irit made a large deposit in my cookie bank.

Sunday, November 13, 2022
Although Chicago is labeled the Second City, a survey by Orkin Pest Control finds it the most rat-infested in the country.   

This is a matter where my normal competitive instincts are suppressed and even finding the Holy Land in second place is too elevated a position.  It appears that where there are people, there are rats.
. . .

Late in the summer, Hurricane Ian devastated parts of the west coast of Florida.  Last week, Hurricane Nicole did major damage to Florida’s east coast.  When Governor Ron DeSanis appealed to his supporters to aid in the cleanup efforts and in the early steps in rebuilding devastated communities, few were willing to leave their golf carts.  Instead, DeSantis may reach out to New York Governor Kathy Hochul for return of the adult Venezuelan refugees that he exported from Florida, who fled their country seeking honest work.
. . .

While I like Chinese food, we like Indian food.  DB Dhaba, 108 Lexington Avenue, is one of our favorites.  It has been recently redecorated for the worse.  What used to be a colorful display of fabrics along its long southern wall is now drab wooden slats.  Illumination is provided by dozens of small lanterns hung above, with flickering bulbs imitating gas mantles, inducing minor twitching.  Fortunately, the food has not seemed to have undergone the same renovation.

We shared onion pakora, crispy fried balls of onion threads, as an appetizer ($7.50).  Madam had saag paneer, cheese cubes in a spinach purée ($16.95).  I had murgh chutneywala, chicken with mango chutney, only mildly sweet, but still too sweet, lacking an edge ($18.50).  All the portions were generous and we also had a naan and rice, making for a very filling meal.  

Monday, November 14, 2022
Michael Ratner was my congenial lunch companion at Wok 88, 1570 Third Avenue, a thriving neighborhood restaurant.  While the dozen or so tables were mostly occupied, the cash register was ringing constantly with delivery orders.  

The food basically warranted this attention.  The two of us ordered three lunch specials from a list of 44 dishes priced at $11 to $13.10.  The lunch specials include a choice of soup, can of soda or egg roll.  Michael had hot and sour soup, I had wonton soup and we shared an egg roll.  Then, we dug into crispy shrimp, beef chow fun and House Special Chicken, very crispy fried chicken that was also variously served as sweet and sour chicken, General Tso's chicken, Honey Tso's chicken and sesame chicken according to what was dribbled on top.   

Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Yesterday, three University of Virginia football players were shot to death and other students wounded by a fellow student who had been a member of the football team.  It seems that the bullying and hazing that he experienced set off a murderous rampage.  Had a gun not been readily available, the result might have been a broken nose, some black eyes and a fractured wrist, lamentable, but not lethal.
. . .

I suggested lunch at Pastrami Queen, 138 West 72nd Street, to Stony Brook Steve.  After all, it's Tuesday and they have a good Tuesday special, a corned beef sandwich and a pastrami sandwich on small rolls (Kosher of course), coleslaw, a pickle and a medium portion of French fries for $16.95.  You don't have to be Jewish.

Thursday, November 17, 2022
I led Gentleman Jerry astray at lunchtime today.  I directed us to Turnstyle, the underground collection of shops at the south end of the Columbus Circle subway station, with the nominal address of 1000 Eighth Avenue.  Before Covid, it had an interesting group of ethnic food stands, my favorite the Bolivian Llama Party and its delicious marinated beef brisket sandwich.  Now, BLP has relocated to Sunnyside, Queens, and more than half the other food stands are closed as well.

Staying in the Latin groove, we chose EZ Paella.  I ordered a lunch special, chicken paella and Caesar salad ($9.95).  The salad was okay, fresh greens and crispy croutons, far more croutons in the salad than there was chicken in the weak paella.  In all, a sorry experience.
 
Friday, November 18, 2022
As you know, December 13th is my brother's birthday.  This year, you can make the celebration more special by signing up for a special broadcast by The Forward at 7 P.M.  Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, daughter of CCNY's Clyde Haberman, will be discussing "The Breaking of America: Donald Trump, Antisemitism and the State of Politics Today." 
 
A contribution of as little as chai ($18) will connect you.  Do it.
 
 
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Saturday, November 12, 2022

Where Have You Gone, Jackie Robinson?

Saturday, November 5, 2022

My mention of jaywalking last week stirred some interest.  Gentleman Jerry supplied a report of pedestrian deaths.    https://www.ghsa.org/sites/default/files/2022-05/Pedestrian%20Traffic%20 Fatalities%20by%20State%20-%202021%20Preliminary%20Data%20%28January-December%29.pdf

California, with the largest population, had the most deaths in 2021.  However, Florida had the second highest per capita rate, trailing only New Mexico, probably because once Grandpa got out of his 1996 Oldsmobile he was pretty shaky on his feet.  Nebraska was the safest state, followed by New Hampshire, where, apparently, most people chose to live free rather than die.


Professor Barry Seldes connected jaywalking to vehicular traffic and parking, the Yin and the Yang of urban life.  

This article contains "a map of every single car parked in the roughly 30-square-block zone bounded by Canal, Lafayette and Chambers streets and West Broadway and Varick Street bearing a placard or other quasi-official emblem (mostly fake placards or agency vests, hats, safety helmets, fake badges, patches, business cards or hand-written notes)."  They cover virtually every square inch of parking space, that is where a car can fit, whether legally allowed or not.   

For a few years earlier in this century, as a staff member of New York State Supreme Court, working in the indicated area, I had a placard.  However, I used it sparingly since commuting by subway was more convenient for me than driving.  Additionally, I was not bold enough to use the placard in parts of the city removed from the courthouse vicinity.  I wasn’t confident that a cop would recognize the pressing need for a Court Attorney to be parked in front of a Broadway theater.
. . . 

On a beautiful night, we walked down to Dim Sum Palace, 28 West 56th Street, for dinner, one of half-dozen in this local chain.  Actually, we aimed for Bengal Tiger Indian Food, 58 West 56th Street, but the hour wait for a table, with its no-reservations policy, sent us down the block.

We sat outside in a sidewalk shed, where service was surprisingly prompt.  While it has a full menu, Dim Sum Palace tries to live up to its name with 48 dim sum items. We stuck to small plates, scallion pancake ($8.50), cold sesame noodles ($9.95), vegetable spring rolls ($6.95) and shredded duck dumplings ($7.25).  The food was generally well prepared, but lacked distinction.  The duck, my first choice, was ground, not shredded, losing its duckness in the process.

Sunday, November 6, 2022
The World Series, which ended last night, was the first since 1950 without a single U.S.-born Black player on either active roster.
. . . 

I celebrated the New York City Marathon with the Goldfarb clan, who took pride in the races run by son Steve (4:39) and grandson David, Jr. (3:07).  I couldn't be happier for the family, especially after they served lunch catered by the 2nd Avenue Deli.  

Monday, November 7, 2022
I had the pleasure of having lunch with Sam Fuchs, who followed me into Stuyvesant High School about 55 years later.  We ate at Yoon Haeundae Galbi, 8 West 36th Street, a very attractive Korean BBQ restaurant, which I previously visited on March 24, 2021.  

Your meat, short rib, shaved sirloin, an $84 bundle, is cooked at the table.  Eight little dishes accompany it, kim chi, marinades, cold mashed potatoes, marinated onions, seasoned salt, anchovies.  The meat is prime, accounting for the price and the limited portions that made me long for The Palm.  I had no complaints about the excellent Busan Neighborhood Pancake, more of an omelet with eggs, scallions, galbi (slivers of grilled beef short ribs) and shrimp ($21).

Sam was very interesting company.  With an engineering degree from the University of Michigan, he spent three years in the Navy as communications officer on a destroyer, a world that I only know from "Mr. Roberts" and "The Caine Mutiny."   

Wednesday, November 9, 2022
The United States Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments today on the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978.  The law says that when a child who is eligible for tribal membership winds up in state foster care, the child should, whenever possible, be adopted by a tribal family. A white couple trying to adopt a Navajo child argue that this is a racial distinction disallowed by the 14th Amendment.  They are opposed by several tribes and the Department of the Interior, claiming that tribes are political constructs.  

The case raises the question for me: Are Jews a race, a religion or a nation?  While I don't entirely conflate Israel and Judaism, 20 minutes after landing at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport you have your answer.  Besides people who look like the original cast of "Shtisel," you see people who attend synagogue no more often than Londoners or Parisians go to church, dashing the idea of religious identity.  Forgetting for a moment the Ethiopians Jews, the Mediterranean Jews and the European Jews look and act very differently, denying a racial connection.  While many Jews and non-Jews think that you can never stop being Jewish, we are a nation with several points of entry and exit.  
. . .

Today is the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the systematic destruction of Jewish lives and property throughout Germany.  It did not escape the attention of the German branch of the international KFC organization (formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken), which proclaimed: Gedentag an die Reichspogromnacht Gönn dir ruhig mehr zarten Cheese zum knusprigen Chicken. Jetzt bei KFCheese!  ["It’s memorial day for Kristallnacht!  Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken.”]  

Thursday, November 10, 2022
We saw Ralph Fiennes portraying Robert Moses in “Straight Line Crazy,” oddly a very New York play that originated in London.  While the cast has 13 people, it might as well have been a one-man play for Fiennes, who overshadows the others as Moses did his contemporaries.

Friday, November 11, 2022
When I was growing up, November 11th was called Armistice Day.  Today, it is Veterans Day in the USA and Remembrance Day in the United Kingdom and what remains of the British Commonwealth.
 
If you watch National Hockey League games, you will see the coaches of Canadian teams wearing bright red poppies on their lapels as a sign of the holiday.  This traces back to a poem written by a Canadian lieutenant colonel after a bloody battle in WWI:
“In Flanders' fields the poppies blow 
Between the crosses, row on row”
. . .

Professor David Webber visited long enough to share lunch with Tom Terrific, the Naz and me at Delight Wong, 300 Grand Street, which you may choose to read as a proper noun or a short sentence.  In either case, it is old school Chinatown, ducks and ribs hanging in the window, a big menu with many things that they "ran out" and an unspeakable bathroom.

The four of us adjusted well to the surroundings and ate heartily; ginger and scallion mei fun, chicken with garlic sauce (not very garlicky), beef with orange, shrimp with walnuts (A+), Singapore chow fun and mushroom fried rice.  The only drawback was Delight's habit, shared by too many Chinese restaurants, of adding broccoli to the plate to make it appear more abundant.  While I usually supply unit prices, I faced translation problems.  The menu was in English, the bill in Chinese and the numbers in Arabic.

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Saturday, November 5, 2022

Walk the Walk

Saturday, October 29, 2022
In a move designed to address controversies at home and abroad, the United States State Department, the Russian Foreign Ministry, the National Basketball Association and the Women's National Basketball Association are poised to announce the trade of Kyrie Irving for Brittney Griner. 

Sunday, October 30, 2022
I've said before that real estate in the Holy Land is a contact sport.  Prices are often extraordinary, because of the physical and political limits to growth.  While the excavation of soil to build the ill-fated World Trade Center provided the landfill to create the new neighborhood of Battery Park City, it was a rare event.  Rezoning or repurposing is the usual path to residential development locally.  Five of the 10 neighborhoods that experienced the greatest increase in home prices in the past year were not destinations a decade or so ago.  

Hudson Square and Hudson Yards are rebrandings of formerly commercial and industrial areas, while Gowanus and Greenpoint kept their classic names as their downscale streetscapes were revolutionized.
. . .

This weekend, the New York Times had a 60-page supplement devoted entirely to fine watches.  Most of the space was taken by advertisements for rare and expensive watches, many looking more like intricately engineered machinery than elegant jewelry.

The publication reminded me of the old Jewish joke about the mohel, a ritual circumciser, who opened a little shop in the middle of the shtetl.  When asked why he hung a clock over the door, he replied, “What should I put there?”

The cover showed an attractive young woman and a horse.  She is wearing a cowboy hat, jeans and a fringed buckskin jacket with seemingly nothing underneath.  There’s not a watch in sight; why bother with the obvious?

Monday, October 31, 2022
The United States Supreme Court heard oral argument today on two cases involving affirmative action in university admissions.  One phrase that is tossed around  these days is "the Constitution is color blind" as a rebuttal to efforts to repair the damage of hundreds of years of our history.  Let it be clear that the Constitution is not color blind and has not been since 1865 at least, when the 13th Amendment was passed, and, possibly from its inception, when it distinguished in Article 1, Section 2 between "free Persons" and, euphemistically, "other Persons."

My own stance on affirmative action is admittedly inconsistent.  I support the single-test, meritocratic approach to admissions to several local high schools.  Some accomplishments should be hard, evoking best efforts to succeed.  On the other hand, it is shameful that so many children emerge from our educational system with inferior skills, which includes tens of thousands of Hasidic kids along with Black and brown children.  The Jewish kids are being maltreated by design, the other kids by  a partially opaque combination of circumstances. 

Once upon a time there was unaffirmative action towards Jews in the Ivy League and other major private educational institutions, which lasted into the second half of the last century.  That's why I lean towards a "fair" approach, disregarding identity.  The current Supreme Court cases argue that Asian American students are being discriminated against in attempts to achieve diversity on campus.  Certainly, as seen at Stuyvesant High School and Harvard University, for example, Asian American students are remarkably successful in academic pursuits, their high numbers leaving little room for others.  However, a study that I just came across somewhat blemishes the view of the "model minority."   https://conference.nber.org/conf_papers/f161005.pdf

It "show[s] that teachers rate Asian students’ academic performance more favorably than observationally similar White students.  This contrasts with teachers’ lower likelihood of favoring Black and Hispanic students, even after accounting for performance and behavior."  A bias towards Asian students advantages them over White, Black and Hispanic students, a distinct form of affirmative action.
. . .

We went to the New-York Historical Society tonight to hear historian David I. Kertzer discuss his book "The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini and Hitler."  At the macro level, there was nothing new -- Pope Pius XII was silent when over 1,000 Roman Jews were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz; his only public reference to racial and religious oppression came in a couple of sentences on page 19 of his 1942 Christmas message without mentioning Jews or any other beleaguered minority by name; he was surrounded by overtly anti-Semitic aides.  The book's value is in the granular details of Vatican decisionmaking during the war years, what was the Pope being told and what was he telling others. 

Supporters of the Pope, who is in line for sainthood, point to many acts of bravery by priests and nuns throughout Europe.  The irony escapes them that moral courage was displayed only at the lower ranks of the Roman Catholic Church.  There was one very interesting observation that had escaped me previously: When the Nazis invaded Poland, probably the most Catholic country in Europe, the Pope was silent, even as priests were murdered alongside Jews.  Such consistency. 

Tuesday, November 1, 2022
Joseph Pinion.  That’s who.
. . .

I wasn’t surprised to read in today’s paper that “Voting-related falsehoods and rumors are flourishing across social media in the final stretch before Election Day on Tuesday.”  Many Republicans are already working on their version of the coin flip: Heads I win, tails you lose. 

Much of the chatter goes back to the 2020 presidential election.  Why are so many people so insistent that the result was wrong?  I see two different groups at work.  The first group are insular folk, living predominantly in rural areas, small towns, suburban and exurban enclaves.  Their family, friends, neighbors have much in common ethnically, educationally, economically, socially.  They more or less think alike and don’t know (hardly) anyone who voted for the other guy or any reason to vote for the other guy.  When they hear results that don't correspond with their world, initial doubt may morph into denial and anger. 

The second group may not be so insular; they may live and work anywhere, but they feel like losers, always falling short.  They see others getting ahead while they are stalled.  Rather than grapple with their impotence, they claim the game is rigged, whatever the game is.  Promotions, scholarships, elections. 

Thursday, November 3, 2022
Great N.Y. Noodletown, 28 Bowery, was the Boyz Club’s destination for lunch today.  The place has undergone a complete makeover.  Once crowded, dark, grungy in the best Chinatown fashion, it is now bright, well laid out, although not roomy.  It has about 12 four tops and one round table for eight, which we partially occupied.  
 
We ate well; salt baked sea bass chunks ($16.95), ginger and scallion lo mein (delivered as mei fun) ($8.75), Singapore chow fun ($13.50), chicken with black pepper sauce ($16.95), beef fried rice ($12.95). Portion sizes were average and tastes were generally B, B+ good.  Consider Great N.Y. Noodletown only if claustrophobia keeps you away from Wo Hop's cavern underground at 17 Mott Street. 
 
Friday, November 4, 2022
I had mixed feelings about the passage of the “Freedom to Walk” bill in California.  It will allow pedestrians to jaywalk, cross a street anywhere that appears to be safe, although a cop’s view of safety may override the pedestrian‘s, resulting in a summons and fine.  Previously, crossings were only legal at intersections with the light.  Of course, it didn't just amount to a matter of Walk/Don't Walk.  The sponsor of the bill cited government data showing that Blacks were up to four-and-a-half times more likely to be cited for jaywalking than whites.  https://a19.asmdc.org/press-releases/20220825-tings-bill-reform-californias-jaywalking-laws-heads-governor

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1971, it was a challenge to obey the jaywalking law as I was a product of New York’s post modern approach to foot traffic.  However, when I returned from exile nine years later, I found that I had thoroughly converted to the system and applied it to the streets of the Holy Land, waiting at crosswalks for the light to change.  Well, I did it for a few days, at least. 
 
The other side of the coin remains the same.  Vehicles are required to halt when a pedestrian sets foot upon the street, regardless of the legality of the pedestrian’s behavior.  I observed compliance to be very high and not just by middle-aged bougies like me.  This was one aspect of California life that I considered civilized.
 
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