Saturday, January 20, 2024
What an exciting evening. We met Eva and Jerry for dinner at ABA Turkish Restaurant, 325 West 57th Street, an ordinary looking place with very good food. We shared a cold appetizer platter, including hummus, eggplant salad (baba ganoush), lebni (yogurt), ezme
On this very cold night, we all took a bus crosstown to see a new play, "The Sweet Spot," by Alice Jankell, about an elderly couple awaiting the birth of their first great-grandchild and debating going into an assisted living facility. This was a situation not far removed from some of us and it produced some squirming in our seats. It was very well acted by Joel Leffert and Nancy Nichols, husband and wife in real life and members of West End Synagogue.
Capping off the excitement was the realization that I lost my mobile phone on the bus ride to the theater. I called it, to no avail, and tried 311, the city's general helpline, and 511, the transit-specific helpline, with no success. I will persevere.
Sunday, January 21, 2024
My brother did some super sleuthing and came up with an address by Deane W. Malott at his installation as president of Cornell University, September 19, 1951, on the left, and an essay by Harold Taylor, president of Sarah Lawrence College, in the Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1949, on the right. [Get the magnifying glass; it's worth it.]
Monday, January 22, 2024
After another series of fruitless telephone calls to my number and 511, I surrendered to my fate and marched off to the Spectrum store on Broadway near 61st Street to buy a new mobile phone. At times like that, I dredge up memories of finding money on the street, most recently $16 in front of the NYU orthopedic medical center on East 38th Street. I figure that, over the years, I've paid for the phone.
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Here's a topic for middle brow debate, the Greatest TV Shows of All Time according to Variety, the show business newspaper.
I'll save you some time scrolling down and give you the top five in ascending order:
- Breaking Bad
- The Simpsons
- The Sopranos
- Mad Men
- I Love Lucy
Let the arguments begin.
. . .
The New York Times offers "The 7 Keys to Longevity" https://www.
I can tell you what shortens lifespan -- replacing a lost mobile phone. Over three days, it took three brief visits to the Apple store, one very long visit to the Spectrum store and one very long telephone call to Apple technical support wrapped in aggravation before I was restored to what passes for normalcy.
Another memory that these last few days evoked was December 1979 when I stopped smoking after many years. What was I to do with my hands? Reaching for a cigarette, lighting a cigarette, holding a cigarette, extinguishing a cigarette keeps your hands busy. What replaces that? Similarly, a mobile phone may be held onto for reassurance, even if not in use. While not glued to my phone like a teenager, I admit that I usually keep it in reach when not actually in hand.
Which brings me to my literary idol Calvin Trillin. He has a new book “The Lede,” a collection of essays, many of them to do with journalism, including a brilliant observation about the current state of the New York Times. He writes that he would flip through the section now labeled Styles, “looking for tips on how to acquire the mannerisms of an in-the-know teenager.”
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
About one in 10 restaurants in the United States serve Mexican food. Only 1% of Americans live in counties without a Mexican restaurant.
What does this say about efforts to build a wall along our southern border? Too little, too late?Thursday, January 25, 2024
My life is an open blog. I withhold typically only the immaterial, the immodest and/or the really inane. My $1,000 hamburger is none of these. It started on January 15th, but it resolved today, so I kept quiet in the interim. On January 15th, four of us went to Long Island City; I was driving. The streets were very crowded with construction vehicles and, at the corner of Queens Plaza South and Jackson Avenue, I tried to move over to turn onto Jackson Avenue. "Crawling," as described by Scrupulous Art Spar, one of my passengers, I bumped the rear edge of a truck and an elongated spheroid piece of sheet metal popped out of my fender. (An elongated spheroid is the shape of a football.)
I submitted a claim to my insurer and was awarded $1,050 to repair the damage. Okay, but, of course, my policy has a $1,000 deductible, so the hamburger I had for lunch, admittedly a triple, cost me $1,013.55, which I have rounded down to $1,000.
January 26, 2024
I caught up with Johnathan the Poet at lunch at Thai Villa, 5 East 19th Street, decorated in carved wood and brass. It was very attractive and it might as well be genuine, as far as I know. He had good stories about his recent trip to South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland with his congregation of Black Jews.
I had a lunch special, pad see ew, stir-fried wide rice noodles with Chinese broccoli, egg, and chicken ($17). Included was a vegetable broth and two small pieces of chive pancake. A good deal, on the whole, although there is never enough chive pancake for me.
I have a $500 deductible (only $30 more than the $1000) I haven't seen or even heard of many of those TV shows. I am going to make a concerted efort to get a glimpse.
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