I apologize for the tardiness of this dispatch, this week, unlike last week, was actually factually busy, New York-ass things abounded as the weather crept up into I’m-allowed-to-wear-shorts highs (over 80 degrees). As you'll read below, my life was plagued with some banal ass issues because no matter how nice it is you can’t escape the problems of this thing we call life. LET’S TALK ABOUT IT.
ROSES AND THORNS
When I got to college I heard about kids who would sit down to dinner with their parents and name three good things and three bad things that they saw or experienced that day, they’d call them Roses and Thorns. This sounded like a nice way of communicating as opposed to my childhood of spending dinner hoping that we’d sit late enough to miss the boring syndicated episode of MASH and be dining just as the awesome syndicated episode of Night Court was coming on. So now I’m stealing this idea for what may or may not be a running feature!
ROSES:
My brother is currently visiting NYC for the first time in his adult life and wanted to see some art. He hadn’t been to any museums in the city so we decided to take him to The Met, which to me, despite its well-earned reputation as a palace of stolen artifacts, is the capital M Museum of Museums. It, of course, ruled. He wanted to see more modern stuff, which isn’t really the Met’s thing, but there were plenty of great objects. Even if they aren’t showing one of your all-time favorite paintings you can’t help but stumble onto something new and exciting every time you weave your way through that labyrinth of human creativity. This time around I became aware of Fulper Pottery and had to immediately apologize to my wife for the incoming used book that I was going to buy about it.
The new season of Top Chef has been great so far in a micro sense, everyone on the show is super talented and seems genuinely kind about competing, but in a macro sense, the whole thing is pretty hilarious. They’ve gathered the best (or at least most willing) finalists and winners from 20 seasons of Top Chef from around the world and forced them to make English food every week. I can’t wait for the ep where they all take a turn at Smack Barm Pey Wet.
We went to see live music at a club for the first time in what feels like years and it remains awesome to see a performer who’s “got it”. Oh boy does US Girls (aka Meg Remy), a band/project that I’ve enjoyed for about 15 years now without ever seeing live, “got it”. Though the sound was kind of terrible at the club, somebody turn that lady’s mic up for crying out loud, you could feel the control and power she had. Half stalking half dancing across the stage, the music was moving her and moving through her and that’s a rare thing to see. I highly encourage you to get out and see the show. More about Meg in the Sound of the Week section.
THORNS:
I did not mean to make every fifth or so thorn a bespoke complaint about the MTA but this is just how it goes! I work in the West Village and live in Ridgewood Queens and often times I have to return home on the later side of things. This requires the deadly F to J to M transfer which honestly is not that bad considering the other options, however, there is one truly infuriating quirk to it. When the F train arrives at Delancey everyone rushes to the two narrow stairways that lead up to the J platform, we do this without any knowledge of the J train status. We go only armed with the vain hope of every public transit rider that the thing you need will be right there combined with the bone-chilling fear that the said same thing will be slipping right through our grasp. This little dance that our dumb broken subway system has choreographed for us would be depressing all by itself but the deceleration and slump of the people as they get to the top of those stairways realizing that all of their energy both physical and emotional was for naught give the whole thing an extra dash of bummer-ness.
When I go to my ceramics studio I try to get a healthy lunch and recently this has meant going to a vegan buffet at a place that I think maybe funding a cult of some sort. This isn’t a problem for me; if the allure of unfortunate murals and all-you-can-eat kale salad leaves you tithing seventy-five percent of your income so you can achieve the third level of whatever and sleep on a bunk bed, that’s your business. The thing that gets me was the vegan “chikin” that I tried this week had a little stick inside of it to simulate an on-the-bone chicken experience and it was horrifying! It was like getting a shoebox birthday card from your sweet old boring Deb in accounting and instead of the regular anodyne joke featuring an old lady, there’s an H.R. Giger drawing inside! I understand the urge to make fake meat as much like real meat as possible but believe me, biting into something and finding a dowel overrides any pleasant memories of eating chicken wings at your family BBQ. They didn’t have a question about this on the food disgust test but I think that’s just because only the most psychotic person would be into this sick shit.
I understand the joy of a secret joke1 but for crying out loud this footnoting has got to stop2 ! I lived through the first ironic jokey footnote wave3 and it was a pain in the ass then and it hasn’t gotten better now!
SOUND OF THE WEEK
This could be a song or just like a sound I heard or something. MY SUBSTACK MY RULES!
Here’s the new U.S. Girls album! Listen to it! Or also this one! Or this one! They’re all great but these last few are outstanding!
CELEBRITY SIGHTING OF THE WEEK
In case you didn’t know, I LIVE IN NEW YORK and there are a lot of celebrities here. I often see them and now I’m going to tell you about them.
It’s been a real dry time for me a ‘lebs so nothing in here! I did hear some funny gossip about a celebrity but that’s not what this section is for! Take it in on the heel and toe to the other thousands of internet-based gossip mongers for that you little freaks!
THAT’S IT!
I have spent over two thousand dollars on comedy classes, so I better!