July 2008 Archives
« June 2008 | Main | August 2008 »
IKEA and Fairway in Red Hook, Brooklyn
I finally made my excursion to IKEA in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
For the last half century, Red Hook was a desolate waterfront overlooking the Statue of Liberty, Governor's Island and the New York Harbor. A total burned-out industrial wasteland of the Railroad era of the Industrial Revolution. Very slowly, there is a renaissance and we can all enjoy the beauty of Red Hook.
IKEA has managed to establish a bridgehead and started free ferry-boat service between Pier 11 at the Wall Street/South Ferry in Manhattan. All subway lines converge there and a short walk to Pier 11. The ferry operated by the NY Water Taxi operates every 40 minutes during the week-days from 10 am to round about 9:20 pm. What a lovely way to travel there with the view of the Statue of Liberty, the Waterfalls and the harbor-view.
IKEA has a 450 seat restaurant serving all types of Swedish food, such as gravlax, meat-balls, poached salmon, lingonberries, etc. Hot dogs were on sale for 50 cents!
Moreover, Fairway, my supermarket of choice has established an outpost with smashing views of Manhattan. I can't wait to go back for another wonderful time, strolling and eating with the fresh ocean breezes!
IKEA, web site, 1 Beard Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY 11231, 718-246-4532 (directions from IKEA) [Yelp | outside.in]
Fairway, web site, 480-500 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY, 718-694-6868 [Yelp]
New York Water Taxi, Pier 11, IKEA Express, approximately Gouverneur Lane and South Street, New York, NY, 212-742-1969, ext 0
Lobbying for Dictators
[L]obbying for dictators sounds like a caricature of the lobbying profession as a whole--people with no morals shilling for the world's least savory people. But it isn't that simple. In fact, there may be a darker psychological explanation for why Americans would lobby for such awful governments.
"Devils' Advocates: Despots and the lobbyists who love them." By James Kirchick, The New Republic, August 13, 2008
When theory is transformed into ideology
When a theory is transformed into an ideology, it begins to destroy the self and self-knowledge.... No one can tell it anything new. It is annoyed by any detail which does not fit its worldview.... Begun as a way to restore one’s sense of reality, now it attempts to discipline real people, to remake natural beings after its own image.
“The Way of all Ideology,” by Susan Griffin, 1982 (from "The End of the Black American Narrative," by Charles Johnson, The American Scholar, Summer 2008)
"Society is the same in all large places."
"Society is the same in all large places. I divide it thus:
1. People of cultivation, who live in large houses.
2. People of cultivation, who live in small houses.
3. People without cultivation, who live in large houses.
4. People without cultivation, who live in small houses.
5. Scrubs."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.) (writing while a medical student at Harvard)
More
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. - from Wikipedia
- Works by Oliver Wendell Holmes at Project Gutenburg
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. - from Wikipedia
Insight
Thirteen smoke jumpers died in the Mann Gulch fire [August 5, 1949]. White crosses below the ridge still mark the spots where the men died. But after several terrifying minutes [Wag] Dodge emerged from the ashes.
. . .
[Mark Jung Beeman] recommends that, if we're stuck on a difficult problem, it's better to set the alarm clock a few minutes early so that we have time to lie in bed and ruminate.
. . .
One of the surprising lessons of this research is that trying to force an insight can actually prevent the insight.
. . .
Concentration, it seems, comes with the hidden cost of diminished creativity. "There's a good reason Google puts Ping-Pong tables in their headquarters," [John] Kounios said. "If you want to encourage insights, then you've got to also encourage people to relax."
"The Eureka Hunt: Why do good ideas come to us when they do?" by Jonah Lehrer, The New Yorker, July 28, 2008
Hat tip: Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution
More
- Mann Gulch fire of 1949 - from Wikipedia
- "Mann Gulch Fire: A Race That Couldn't Be Won," by Richard Rothermel,General Technical Report INT-299, US Forest Service, May 1993 (14-page pdf
)
- Mark Jung Beeman, Northwestern University
- John Kounios, Drexel University
- Earl K. Miller, MIT
- Jonathan D. Cohen, Princeton
Willis Loughhead at Country
Had a very fine evening last week enjoying a press/blogger dinner sponsored by Arm & Hammer at Country ... the recently renovated Carlton Hotel is very luxurious and comfortable in the Neo-Classical style.
Cocktails and dinner were served on the second floor over-looking the lobby. It was a sight to behold with the lovely chandeliers and Roman style mosaic-tiled floors. The executive chef, Willis Loughhead, presented us with a wonderful series of his creations, running from cod cheeks to pig ears. Wonderful service and lovely French wine.
Learned much about Arm & Hammer and their baking soda ... The next morning, I brought out my silver-plated soup ladle and polished with baking soda - what a brilliant shine! For many more uses of baking soda, see Peter Ciullo's "Baking Soda Bonanza."
Lauren Steinhorn and her crew from Edelman were magnificent ... it was a great pleasure to meet everyone.
Country, web site, 90 Madison Avenue, at 29th Street, New York, 212-889-7100 [savory ny]
More
- "So Fresh, So Clean," Food Rush, July 18, 2008
- "Country Steak to open this September," Strong Buzz, June 30, 2008
- "Country Steak Planned for Country’s Upstairs," NY Mag, June 30, 2008
- "Country and the Café at Country, under Chef Willis Loughhead," eGullett
- "Country," New York Journal, May 12, 2008
- "Willis Loughhead Brings Nose-to-Tail Fare to Country," gothamist, May 11, 2008
- Willis Loughhead - Chef DB
Sandra Rivera - Flamenco San Juan - FREE
Free out-door concert at the Naumburg Bandshell, naumburgconcerts.org
Sandra Rivera - Flamenco San Juan, July 22, 2008, 7:30 pm, at the Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park, enter at 72nd Street and Fifth Avenue, then go to approximately 70th and mid-Park, 718-340-3018
King's Seafood Restaurant
Another great discovery for Fine Cantonese cuisine in Chinatown ... King's Seafood .... a very fine replacement for the defunct Nice restaurant ... the menu comprising: Beijing duck, jumbo prawns with walnuts and broccoli in a mayo sauce, Hong-Kong style T-bone steak (medium rare), half-chicken in garlic sauce, salt-and-pepper pork chops, the whole flounder done two-ways, chicken chow-mein, beef chow-fun, saute "dao-miu" with garlic ... duck meat with green chives .... a very sumptuous dinner for everybody to enjoy ... for less then $30 a person...bring your own wine or champagne ...
I also went there to try their dim-sum lunch .... very, very good food and service but 2.5 times more expansive then Chatham ....
King's Seafood, 39 East Broadway, 2nd Floor, New York, 212-233-3359 [Yelp]
Time for Some Campaignin'
Time for Some Campaignin' - from JibJab on YouTube
Happy Yorkie and owner
Grand Sichuan
Last night, ate at the new location of the Grand Sichuan, web site, 15 7th Avenue South (at Leroy Street), NY, NY 10014, in the West Village. 212-645-0222 [MenuPages |NY Mag | Yelp | Ubereater]
real authentic Sichuan cooking, no-holds-barred very-very hot & spicy mung bean noodles, cool cucumber with green scallion sauce, crab-pork steamed dumplings, dan-dan noodles, tripe & tongue slices, etc. ... so hot that I needed orange slices to cool my throat ... only ordered from the appertizers ... so far, bring your own beer or whiskey ...
See web site for other locations
____________________________________
Subway info (new window opens): MTA map | schedules | HopStop | Interactive Transit Map
Turn off the Internet
(Hint: once you've enjoyed shutting down the Internet, press Alt then F4 to start it back up - works best with IE)
Globalization and Its Discontents
Red State Update: Budweiser Bought By Foreigners? - YouTube
Tony Dragonas
An update on Tony Dragonas, the Greek street-hawker....
I have noticed with great sadness that the city planted tree has been totally embalmed with the greasy-smokey BBQ fire. That poor tree could not survive the constant bombardment of smoke and heat. It is now a blackened dead tree.
This is the good-and-bad about Tony Dragonas... I suppose he must be sent to a re-education camp...
Post by Peter
- Save Tony!, May 24, 2008
- "Tony Dragonas - best grilled hamburger in NYC?" January 10, 2006
"Bachelorhood And Its Discontents"
It wasn't just that the bachelor was untrustworthy, wrote [George] Ade, he was also a “draft dodger” and a “slacker,” one who had exchanged the traditional male role of provider for that of refusenik. Or, as another wag put it, “The bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce.” Until quite recently the office bachelor was seen as a serious liability, and earned considerably less than his married counterpart. Vance Packard, in his 1962 book The Pyramid Climbers, noted that, “In general the bachelor is viewed with circumspection, especially if he is not well known to the people appraising him…[However] the worst status of all is that of a bachelor beyond the age of 36. The investigators wonder why he isn’t married. Is it because he isn’t virile? Is he old-maidish? Can’t he get along with people?” By contrast, the married man was the steady one, the stable lot, not least because, in Tallyrand’s memorable phrase, "a married man with a family will do anything for money.”
"Bachelorhood And Its Discontents," by Christopher Orlet, New English Review, July 2008
"Sources Warn Miley Cyrus Will Be Depleted by 2013"
The Onion: Sources Warn Miley Cyrus Will Be Depleted by 2013
"Global Warming as Mass Neurosis"
Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the mass hysteria phenomenon known as global warming. Much of the science has since been discredited. Now it's time for political scientists, theologians and psychiatrists to weigh in.
. . .
The Arctic ice cap may be thinning, but the extent of Antarctic sea ice has been expanding for years. At least as of February, last winter was the Northern Hemisphere's coldest in decades. In May, German climate modelers reported in the journal Nature that global warming is due for a decade-long vacation. But be not not-afraid, added the modelers: The inexorable march to apocalypse resumes in 2020.
. . .
A light carbon footprint has become the 21st-century equivalent of sexual abstinence.
"Global Warming as Mass Neurosis," by Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2008
More
- EPA's Climate Change Site
- "Don't fight, adapt. We should give up futile attempts to combat climate change." Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, December 12, 2007
- Global Warming: Frequently Asked Questions - from NOAA
- GlobalWarming.org - from the Competitive Enterprise Institute
- Global warming - from Wikipedia
