Picture by Bags. 

Bob.

This morning I was sitting on a crowded IRT train, headed for work. At 86th street I looked up and noticed a beautiful young woman standing not too far away. Dark looks, thick eyebrows. Her face was as inviting as a cherry tomato and I imagined that it might look more like a beefsteak tomato when she got older. How much work does she put into trimming her eyebrows, I wondered.

At the next stop a blonde haired Latina woman got on the train with her son, kid must be about 9 or 10 years old. They stood next to the girl with the face like a cherry tomato.

I remembered back to a book I read last year by a therapist who is also a Buddhist. The therapist told a story about a patient who objectified women like I was doing now. The patient tried to move past his lust and imagine what women’s lives were beyond his sexual fantasies. I am often conscious of trying to do this while I look on with admiration at a woman’s looks.

After a few stops a seat opened and the boy sat down. He wasn’t directly in front of his mother, who was still standing, but a seat away, still within reach. I got a better look at her now. She wasn’t nearly as pretty as the other woman but her figure was something else–full bossom, round hips and a zaftig bottom. I thought about my mother, who was a single parent raising 3 kids when I was that boy’s age. Mom was also full figured and beautiful though with a more European sense of style.

Then, I saw the boy reach over for her hands, trying to get her attention. I looked up and saw a tear rolling down the side of her face. The boy held her hand and said something but I couldn’t hear him because I had my headphones on. She looked away from him and up to the ceiling. I turned and looked at my shoes, not wanting to stare. For a moment, I thought about my mom and then myself as a kid.  I looked at the boy once more as I got up to leave the train at my stop. I wasn’t thinking about his mother’s tits and ass anymore.

More spring notes from the intrepid Chad Jennings.

[Photo Credit: NJ.com]

Over at the New York Review of Books, Frank Rich weighs in on Richard Zoglin’s new Bob Hope biography:

When Bob Hope died in 2003 at the age of one hundred, attention was not widely paid. The “entertainer of the century,” as his biographer Richard Zoglin calls him, had long been regarded by many Americans (if they regarded him at all) “as a cue-card-reading antique, cracking dated jokes about buxom beauty queens and Gerald Ford’s golf game.” A year before his death, The Onion had published the fake headline “World’s Last Bob Hope Fan Dies of Old Age.” Though Hope still had champions among comedy luminaries who had grown up idolizing him—Woody Allen and Dick Cavett, most prominently—Christopher Hitchens was in sync with the new century’s consensus when he memorialized him as “paralyzingly, painfully, hopelessly unfunny.”

Zoglin, a longtime editor and writer for Time, tells Hope’s story in authoritative detail. But his real mission is to explain and to counter the collapse of Hope’s cultural status, a decline that began well before his death and accelerated posthumously. The book is not a hagiography, however. While Zoglin seems to have received unstinting cooperation from the keepers of Hope’s flame, including his eldest daughter, Linda, he did so without strings of editorial approval attached. Hope’s compulsive womanizing, which spanned most of his sixty-nine-year marriage to the former nightclub singer Dolores Reade (who died at 102, in 2011), is addressed unblinkingly. And with good reason—it was no joke. At least three of his longer-term companions, including the film noir femme fatale Barbara Payton and a Miss World named Rosemarie Frankland whom Hope first met when she was eighteen and he was fifty-eight, died of drug or alcohol abuse.

[AP Photo via NPR]

Man, it’s lovely out there, today. Positively springish.

Serious Eats does Sichuan Dry-Fried Green Beans.

Photograph by Blake Little

It’s Monday. Shake it.

[Photo Credit: Isabel Munoz]

Hey there folks, I haven’t gone away as some of you may have noticed on some of the recent threads, I’ve just been warming up (or trying to stay warm as the case may be).  Welcome back to Where & When! As you also may have noticed, I’ve taken the liberty of readjusting the game chronology to a single, progressive line of games in order to keep a better account of which challenge we happen to be up to (thus Season 2 is now incorporated to the original timeline, and I’ll get around to renaming those games shortly).  It’s been a harsh winter here in the outskirts of The Big Apple, and I’ve managed not to destroy anything that anyone would miss in between working outside in Frigidaire temps and recovering from non-flu like symptoms, but as our fearless leader Alex would most likely say, “Never mind that s***, here comes Game 68!“ :

Another easy (if you’re from the area) one to figure out, along with some embedded nostalgia if you really are familiar with it.  The good news is that it looks pretty much the same today; the buildings are all still around, that is.  Of course, it’s not as tidy as this seems to be, but time and cleanliness wait for no man.  So you’re job, as usual, is to track down the where and when of this picture and report back to us in the comments. This may be easier than I think as I look at the numerous clues in this one, so don’t pop a vessel if you get stuck.  Winner (and we know how to become a winner, eh?) gets the golden mug of our customary hot chocolate with whipped cream for the cold weather (though it is gonna be a bit nicer this week supposedly), and the rest of us will share a spot of tea for our efforts.  Bonus? Tell us what big store is off-screen to the left at the time this picture was likely taken and you’ll get a few warm brownies with whatever you’re drinking.  Tell us a neat story about this area and I might sprinkle a dash of brandy to sweeten your experience >;)

So, let’s all get on this and have some fun, eh? I can’t make any promises on how soon I will return, but hopefully there will be more opportunities to play again soon. In he meantime, discuss, enjoy and don’t peek at the photo credit!

Photo Credit: Al Ponte’s Time Machine

Couple of fun mixes from the one and only Prince Paul to keep you warm:

Prince Paul's " Its Not the size of your Mix Its how you use it " Mix Tape Vol 1 (Obscure Series) by Prince Paul on Mixcloud

Prince Paul's " Its Not the size of your Mix Its how you use it " Mix Tape Vol 2 (Obscure Series) by Prince Paul on Mixcloud

Picture by Bags.

Drive, he said.

[Photo Credit: Justin Thomas Leonard via MPD]

Degas

I’m no great fan of Babka but damn, this looks good.

[Photo Credit: Maren Caruso]

I have a friend who’ll watch the NFL and occasionally check in on a hockey or basketball game but who really sits around all winter waiting for baseball to return. He’d watch a channel that just showed a still picture of a baseball; that’d be enough to keep him warm.

I spoke to him  yesterday and he was so excited to see an exhibition game on TV.

So happy, in fact, he got busy with photoshop and sent this.

Ah, baseball.

If you are ever in Carroll Gardens stop by Esposito & Sons. I lived in that neighborhood from 1996-2000 and was a regular at Esposito’s–their pickled eggplant alone is worth the trip. Plus, John and George are Yankee fans.

I was happy to see this:

Esposito’s Pork Store, Brooklyn from Brinda Adhikari on Vimeo. [Photo Via: South Brooklyn Post]

Curt Schilling kicks ’em in the Grill. 

…But keep in mind, this is Curt Schilling.

Picture by Katsuhiro Otomo.

Work it out.

[Painting by conjunto universo via This Isn’t Happiness]

Celery root salad. I’m so going to try this.