Picture by Jason Levesque. 

From a 2005 Paris Review Interview with Charles Simic:

INTERVIEWER: You’ve often said New York is your favorite city: Was it love at first sight?

SIMIC: It was. It was an astonishing sight in 1954. Europe was so gray and New York was so bright; there were so many colors, the advertisements, the yellow taxicabs. America was only five days away by ship, but it felt as distant as China does today. European cities are like operatic stage sets. New York looked like painted sets in a sideshow at a carnival where the bearded lady, sword- swallowers, snake charmers, and magicians make their appearances.

[Photo Credit: Andre Robe]

Via Kottke, here’s the 50 greatest summer movies according to the Dissolve. 

Sweet Cherry Pie. Yes, please.

Kline.

Indeed.

Caravaggio. 

Rest in Peace, Paul Mazursky. 

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Harry and Tonto, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, Moscow on the Hudson, Down and Out in Beverly Hills. The man made some choice movies.

Herge.

Got 7 cups of duck fat? Then you too can make fries the way they’re supposed to be made.

Hey, Now.

[Photo Via: The Sun Break]

Twenty-five years ago today I saw the second showing of Do The Right Thing over on 8th Avenue in a theater that no longer exists. I’d just graduated high school and I went with two classmates to see Spike’s new movie on opening day.  A few few years earlier we’d seen School Daze on its opening day in Times Square. On both occasions we were the only white people in the theater. I remember the cheers at the end of Do The Right Thing when a passage from Malcolm X was shown on the screen.

Oh, Watch Out Now.

Droppin’ some NYC. 

Did you know there was such a thing as Popsicle Week? Neither did I. Dig.

And check out this lovely-looking variation: Smoked peaches and cream.

“Woman at a Window” by Edgar Degas (1872)

Get Funky.

[Photo Credit: Josh Soskin]

Mint Limeade. 

Picture by Vittorio Giardino.

R.I.P. Eli Wallach. 

Alexandra gives a Lemon-Ricotta Cheesecake. I know I’ve posted this before but what the hell, I’m hungry.