Blog Archives

One of my favorite places at the Met:

The Mets called up Ike Davis this afternoon. This may be the first time a New York baseball player has shared the same name with a Woody Allen character.

Rounding out the starting nine of the A.S. Konigsberg All Stars: 

c:  Boris Grushenko

2b:  Virgil Starkwell

ss:  Allan Felix

3b: Sandy Bates

lf : Alvy Singer

cf: Miles Monroe

rf: Mickey Sachs

bench: Leonard Zelig

p:  Fielding Mellish

rp: Howard Prince

manager: Broadway Danny Rose

A real head-nodder…

I had dinner with a friend last week and asked him, “What’s your favorite vegetable?

“Asparagus,” he said without flinching.

“Really? You don’t mind that it makes your pee smell funny?”

“No, I love that, man.”

Go figure.

For the longest, I didn’t dare try asparagus and funny-smelling pee was the least of it. But I’ve learned to like asparagus in spite of that peculiar side effect. So I was eager to try a slow-cooking method that I saw in the Times last week.

I made it last night and it was tasty. Props to Melissa Clark for the article.

[Photo credit: Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times]

I haven’t seen the big Henri-Cartier Bresson show at the Modern yet but I did catch this review in The New Yorker:

Cartier-Bresson has the weakness of his strength: an Apollonian elevation that subjugates life to an order of things already known, if never so well seen. He said that the essence of his art was “the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event, as well as the precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.” Too often, the “significance” feels platitudinous, even as its expression dazzles. Robert Frank, whose book “The Americans” (1958) treated subjects akin to many in the older photographer’s work, put it harshly but justly: “He traveled all over the goddamned world, and you never felt that he was moved by something that was happening other than the beauty of it, or just the composition.” The problem of Cartier-Bresson’s art is the conjunction of aesthetic classicism and journalistic protocol: timeless truth and breaking news. He rendered a world that, set forth at MOMA by the museum’s chief curator of photography, Peter Galassi, richly satisfies the eye and the mind, while numbing the heart.

…The hallmark of Cartier-Bresson’s genius is less in what he photographed than in where he placed himself to photograph it, incorporating peculiarly eloquent backgrounds and surroundings.

I’m looking forward to seeing this one…

Nice piece by Sam Dolnick in the Times yesterday about a paltry tribute to Thurman Munson:

Thurman Munson’s widow, Diana, has never been to Thurman Munson Way, but she said that her husband would have appreciated the street’s low profile.

“He wasn’t about the big superhighway and mainstream streets,” she said. “It fits his personality so much more that it would be an out-of-the-way street and be something that not a lot of people would embrace.”

“After 30 years,” she said, “he would just be pleased that they’re still talking about him.”

It remains unclear exactly why this street was chosen to honor Munson. Henry J. Stern, who was a member of the City Council’s parks committee when the honor was bestowed in 1979, could not recall the exact circumstances. But he said it was probably chosen because it was reasonably close to Yankee Stadium.

The Yanks have won the first four series of the season; today, they aims ta sweep the Rangers. The dangerous Rich Harden is on the hill for Texas. He’ll face Andy Pettitte. Derek Jeter is out with a head-cold.

Enjoy the day, dudes and dudettes, and let’s go Yan-Kees!

It’s a lovely spring morning in the Bronx. Today gives NBA playoffs and baseball, lots more baseball.

Yanks go for the sweep against the Rangers.  Here’s hoping for a good day. In the meantime, some Sunday soul.

It’s gray but not raining.  Yanks and Rangers.

Let’s Go Yanks.

Eh, what’s one more just for the hell of it?

Staying with the theme of big and bad, dig this picture by Frank Frazetta:

Not  a lot of laughs in ol’ Frank’s work, but it sure am Bad.

It’s the new style:

[Photo Credit: Leah Nash for the New York Times]

Sh*t-kicker Friday:

It cooled down in New York tonight after an almost muggy afternoon. Rained some and the wind kicked-up but Phil Hughes was effective and cool, kind like so:

Well, maybe not that cool, but he pitched well and the bullpen was excellent. Robbie Cano made like so…

and hit a couple of dingers, while Curtis Granderson was more like yay:

with a pair of triples. Derek Jeter hit a home run but also made a two-out error in the ninth which allowed Mariano Rivera to earn a cheap save.

And that’s word to Jackie Rob:

Final Score: Yankees 6, Angels 2.

Phil Hughes makes his first start of the season tonight. But first, dig one of the most stunning opening sequences in movie history:

Next: Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

A Smoke Backstage, By William Harnett (1877)

Our boy Josh Wilker, whose book dropped earlier this week, was featured in Bats, the baseball blog over at the Times yesterday. Greg Hanlon writes:

The memoir follows Wilker, now 42, into his adulthood, most of which he characterizes as a series of failures for a would-be writer. Having long since stopped collecting baseball cards, Wilker found himself lost and adrift, with childhood’s “unbroken ladder of years seemingly aimed in the direction of the gods” having dissipated.

In 1999, in search of fulfillment and literary inspiration, he moved for a year into a Vermont cabin without electricity or running water while teaching creative writing at a small state college. Without much else in the way of stimulation, he found himself staring at his baseball cards by a kerosene lamp. The childhood memories stirred up by the cards inspired him to write. By turning to his cardboard gods, Wilker found his voice as a writer. His blog followed a few years later, followed by the book deal. (In addition to his writing, Wilker works part-time as an editor and proofreader, and lives in Chicago.)

Wilker counts Frederick Exley, author of “A Fan’s Notes,” a fictionalized memoir weaving his New York Giants super-fandom around tales of his alcoholism and mental illness, as one of his literary heroes. Exley’s influence is apparent in “Cardboard Gods.” Both narratives are steeped in the authors’ feelings of failure, but they end on a triumphant note that is the writing of the books themselves. “Cardboard Gods” is also a worthy descendant of “A Fan’s Notes” in showing that when it comes to sportswriting, what the games mean to its fans is often more interesting than the games themselves.

You want great Sichuan? Then take the train (take the train) to Flushing and look no further than Spicy and Tasty.

Hell, let’s make it an ass-kickin’ two-fer:

After the Yankees lost to the Angels 5-3 this afternoon a friend of mine, big Yankee fan, came up to me and said, “You know, I’m really sick of how long it takes them to sweep a series.”

Straight-faced and completely serious. “It didn’t happen for the longest last spring,” he continued, “now, they ain’t even sweep the Angels. What’s up with that?”

“Dude, you are the reason why people hate Yankee fans,” I told him. “What’s a matter, winning the first two series of the year isn’t good enough, winning the Whirled Serious last fall wasn’t enough, you greedy bastid?”

“See that’s how you and me are different,” he said. “You focus on October, I want total domination all season.”

Now, what do you say to that?

Up at Yankee Stadium today, there was more of this kind of piggish behavior as Javy Vazquez was booed after a pedestrian outing. We know the story here, success breeds entitlement. That doesn’t mean we have to like it. Ah, but what would rooting for the Yanks be like without some good, old fashioned self-loathing? Walt Kelly put it best: