This salad is crazy nice.

Picture by Susan Derges (1991)

Beautiful gallery of NYC subway photographs over at Magnum Photos.

“Green Pan and Black Bottle” by Pablo Picasso (1908)

We’ve been through this before. Many times, in fact. But it’s hard to get enough of a classic.

Schooling with Oscar Peterson.

No lie.

[Photo Credit: Lovely Derriere]

The dumbass–but delicious-looking–food craze in NYC at this moment? Cronuts. Wait in line for two hours? Nah. But I wouldn’t turn one down it it was offered to me.

[Photo Credit: New York Observer]

The Making of Pete Rock and C.L.Smooth’s enduring classic, “T.R.O.Y.”

[Featured Image Via: Indulgy]

Just Another Masterpiece by Franz Kline.

Last night I went to a live model class at the Society of Illustrators on the east side. It’s a neat place and the session was attended by old-timers and kids alike–cartoonists, book illustrators, comic book artists, professionals and amateurs. It’s been more than a dozen years since I’ve been to such a class but I got the itch recently when talking to some old painter friends of mine. I figured what the hell, why not? It’s been too long.

The night before the class, I couldn’t sleep I was so excited.

It took an hour or so or flailing around, not really knowing what to do, where to start or continue, before I settled in and got a little bit of the old feeling back. Mostly though, it wasn’t about any finished product as much as it was about paying attention and really looking. After the second hour my hand was cramping and my eyes hurt. But I felt good. I think I’ll go again.

Speaking of Tip…Funski.

[Image Via: The Complications You Could Live Without]

Food 52 with 10 cooking projects for Father’s Day.

Tough but well-written story about the aftermath of the Newtown shooting by Eli Saslow in the Washington Post:

They had promised to try everything, so Mark Barden went down into the basement to begin another project in memory of Daniel. The families of Sandy Hook Elementary were collaborating on a Mother’s Day card, which would be produced by a marketing firm and mailed to hundreds of politicians across the country. “A difference-maker,” the organizers had called it. Maybe if Mark could find the most arresting photo of his 7-year-old son, people would be compelled to act.

It hardly mattered that what Mark and his wife, Jackie, really wanted was to ignore Mother’s Day altogether, to stay in their pajamas with their two surviving children, turn off their phones and reward themselves for making it through another day with a glass of Irish whiskey neat.

“Our purpose now is to force people to remember,” Mark said, so down he went into his office to sift through 1,700 photos of the family they had been.

The Bardens had already tried to change America’s gun laws by studying the Second Amendment and meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office. They had spoken at tea party rallies, posed for People magazine and grieved on TV with Katie Couric. They had taken advice from a public relations firm, learning to say “magazine limits” and not “magazine bans,” to say “gun responsibility” and never “gun control.” When none of that worked, they had walked the halls of Congress with a bag of 200 glossy pictures and beseeched lawmakers to look at their son: his auburn hair curling at the ears, his front teeth sacrificed to a soccer collision, his arms wrapped around Ninja Cat, the stuffed animal that had traveled with him everywhere, including into the hearse and underground.

Almost six months now, and so little had gotten through. So maybe a Mother’s Day card. Maybe that.

Mark turned on his computer and began looking for the right picture. “Something lighthearted,” he said. “Something sweet.” He had been sitting in the same chair Dec. 14, when he received an automated call about a Code Red Alert, and much of the basement had been preserved in that moment. Nobody had touched the foosball table, because Daniel had been the last to play. His books and toy trains sat in their familiar piles, gathering dust. The basement had always been Daniel’s space, and some days Mark believed he could still smell him here, just in from playing outside, all grassy and muddy.

Now it was Daniel’s face staring back at him on the computer screen, alit in an orange glow as he blew out seven candles on a birthday cake in September.

[Photo Credit: Linda Davidson/The Washington Post]

Via Ego Trip, here’s a good, long interview with Q-Tip. Just when you thought Tip was an unbearable flake you watch something like this and understand what he’s about. Sure, there is some self-consciousness but he’s an artist, after all. Beyond that, he’s funny and smart and it’s a good interview. Oh, and skip ahead to the 50:30 mark to hear a snippet of Primo’s incredible demo version of Nas’ “Memory Lane.” Can’t get it out of my head, man.

Banksy.

Photographs by Miroslav Tichy. 

Easin’ into Monday.

[Photo Credit: Giacomo Sinapsi]

Oh, heck yeah.

Questions: Taken literally, what’s incorrect in the final scene of Annie Hall (shot from inside O’Neal’s Balloon)?

After that it got pretty late, and, we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I realized what a terrific person she was and how much fun it was just knowing her, and I thought of that old joke. You know, this guy goes to his psychiatrist and says, “Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken.” And the doctor says, “Well why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.” Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships– you know, they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd, but, I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.

Answer: It wasn’t late at all. If you notice the light, it’s coming from the east, which means this scene was shot early in the morning.

Not that it makes any difference…unless you are an anal New Yorker.

“That’s a polite word for what you are.”