Category Archives: Not economics

Here is the response I received from Jolene Travis, Assistant Director of Public Affairs, Media Relations at Cooper Union, after she read my post. Dear Felix, After reading “Occupy Cooper Union” (12/5), I writing to ask for a correction to … Continue reading →

poll by twiigs.com

The fifth annual* Von Salmon Wine Contest returned to the East Village last night, and this one was the nerdiest yet. Rather than use grape varieties (Pinot Noir, Merlot, Rioja) or region (Beaujolais) as the theme of the contest, we … Continue reading →

I’m a fan of the New Yorker on Facebook. So I should be able to read the Jonathan Franzen essay about David Foster Wallace and Robinson Crusoe, no? No. Turns out that TNY’s clever gimmick about opening the essay up … Continue reading →

My name has been pronounced many weird ways over the years, but never quite like this:

People have opinions, and it’s kinda hilarious to see conservatives try to simultaneously complain that Weigel had erroneously been counted as one of their number while at the same time complaining that he wasn’t “objective”. I do believe that Weigel resigned rather than was fired, and it’s easy to see why he’d want to do that after reading the absolutely horrendous column by their lame, sad toady of an ombudsman today.
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Thanks, Petunia, you were delicious!

Old friends of mine might remember a question about umbrellas I had back in the 1990s. Has Mark Hurst come up with an answer (page 25)?

The University of Cambridge is celebrating its 800th birthday this year, and so all around the town are banners like this one: The obvious question, of course, is what is the significance of those dates? … The problem is that although the timeline includes no fewer than 80 different years between 1209 and 2009 (not including the ones at both ends), only one of them coincides with the seven in-between years on the banner: 1446, which marks the founding of King’s College.
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We waited in a very long line which did not move for almost one hour, and yet I was completely content drinking a beer patiently (generally not my greatest virtue) while arguing whether or not we were in East Williamsburg or Bushwick as a very loud garage punk band entertained the crowd. Rockstar butcher Tom Mylan carved up the most gorgeous roasted pig while a team of folks assembled tacos for distribution. … Bring it on… large juicy mounds of pork wobbled around on the flimsy plates as we snatched the goods and found a corner to merrily eat in silence.
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In the days leading up to today, Stefan was obsessively checking the forecasts and the satellite pictures, looking at an enormous thundercloud, at least 1,000km across, which was right in the way and which would make the eclipse a total wash. … Just as the eclipse was approaching totality, the sun started peeking out from between the clouds, and at one point there was an astonishing sight where you could even see what was left of the sun in the middle of a tiny swatch of blue sky, with sunbeams streaming down between almost-black clouds.
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Looking at the people who judged the taste and not just the price of the wine, the results were close, but unambiguous: the best wine was C, the Massiac — more people judged it their favorite than any other wine, according to a show of hands I asked for, and it also got the highest average rating. … Wines A and C — the two French wines, which were also the most and the least expensive wines respectively — both got 13 (out of 44) votes as being the most expensive wine, and both got 4 votes as being the cheapest.
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Michelle and I have organized a wine contest to be held in the beautiful tasting room at the lovely Pasanella and Son vintners , in the South Street Seaport where Michelle’s Sea Warriors public art exhibition is going to be held. The contest will double as a fundraiser for the art project, which will involve flying pirate flags from vintage lampposts; if you donate more than a certain amount, you get to keep one of the flags for yourself when the project comes down.
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The official announcement: Flat file sale by the work of Michelle Vaughan… there will be drawings/paintings from past series, plus a few special pirate pieces. … Studio Sale Thursday, June 4th 5-8pm 10 Jay Street #609 Brooklyn, NY 11201 (F Train to York Street, or A/C Train to High Street)
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Now it seems there’s a non-zero chance that my dream will come true and that the current plan to close off small chunks of the Great White Way is only the beginning: If the Broadway plan does succeed, the next step (though Sadik-Khan is not talking this way publicly) will likely be to close more sections of Broadway until one day in the near future the entire boulevard has been converted to pedestrianized open space. … Imagine a Manhattan with two major parks: one built in the nineteenth century as a confined space of bucolic wonder; the other refashioned in the 21st century as a long, open boulevard slicing the island on the diagonal.
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After grabbing some ingredients at the shop and shoving a pig’s head in my bicycle basket, Felix and I rode over the Williamsburg Bridge back to the East Village while the head wobbled behind me. … After adding fresh water, wine, leeks, onions, garlic, carrots, celery and pepper, we dumped Sally (I had to give it a name, my god it was staring at us all day) back into the pot to simmer for 6 hours.
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How is it possible that Lisa Wilson, in a three-sentence, 58-word letter to the editor, can raise more serious and more interesting moral issues surrounding the institution of surrogacy than Alex Kuczynski did in her entire 7,700-word cover story on … Continue reading →

Have you been to Back Forty recently? The first thing on the menu is a $4 starter of “Pork Jowl Nuggets with Jalepeno Jam” which is, I swear, the single greatest dish being served in New York City right now. … Continue reading →

Pete Wells will tell you, and show you, and talk about, what you get for $1500: a 20-course meal, with paired wines. Gael Greene has the play-by-play, including this: Several tables have emptied even before the bacon. Foodists have to … Continue reading →

Four years ago, Apartment Therapy ran a Sleeper Sofa competition. (Evidently, four years ago the switch from “sofabeds” to “sleeper sofas” had already happened.) Apartment Therapy put together a shortlist with 15 sofas on it. I found it quite quickly, … Continue reading →

Brad DeLong: One way in which 2009 is different from 1993 is that the Democratic Party is far to the left of where it was back then–let alone back in 1977. Is the Democratic party the only major left-wing party … Continue reading →

This is the kind of thing which tipped support for Proposition 8 over the 50% mark: The NYT boils the story down to one paragraph: A total of $73 million was spent on the race there, a record for a … Continue reading →

Only twice have I seen lots of American flags on the streets of downtown New York. Once was after 9/11; the other time was last night, after the election of Barack Obama. An impromptu midnight street party sprang up on … Continue reading →

In her Fishbowl NY exit interview, Rachel Sklar says that she’s “excited to do stuff in other verticals”. Earlier today, a friend of mine in the media unselfconciously used the words “surface” and “obsolete” as verbs in rapid succession. Both … Continue reading →