Even after seven nights a week for two decades, I am still stopped in my tracks every time my bartenders snap those metal lids onto the cocktail shakers and start rattling the ice like maracas. I still close my eyes for a second, taking a deep inhale, every time the salted pistachios are set afire with raki, sending their anise scent through the dining room. I still thrill when the four-top at Table 9 are talking to one another so contentedly that they don’t notice they are the last diners, lingering in the cocoon of the wine and the few shards of dark chocolate we’ve put down with their check.
Posted: April 14th, 2020 | Tags:Uncategorized | Comments Off on meadows–not my favorite thingIllustration by Chloe Cushman. Courtesy of The New Yorker.
How have you been spending your time in self-isolation? It depends how much you count the time you spend sulking. Let me put it this way: when they compile a list of the heroes of this era, I will not be on it.
What does urban life mean without our ability to go to public spaces? Does it even feel like a city anymore to you? No. After September 11th, I was on the street twenty-four hours a day, and I was riveted by the things I saw. I’m not talking about being down by the World Trade Center; all over town there was stuff you never would have imagined seeing. But now it’s just sad. On the one hand, you’re happy you don’t have a million people slamming into you while they’re looking at their phones. On the other hand, it’s like a meadow without the good features of a meadow. Meadows—not my favorite thing. There are no restaurants in a meadow. But there are flowers, there are trees. This is like a meadow with no trees.
I want to go back to Cuomo, because he’s getting such adulation for his role in this, and I’m curious if you think that it’s deserved. He’s being compared to Trump, so naturally he looks like Abraham Lincoln. First of all, Trump is very lazy. I can tell you, the same way basketball players say “game recognizes game,” sloth recognizes sloth. This is a lazy guy. I actually know this. And Andrew Cuomo is an incredibly industrious person, and I do think he’s doing a good job. He’s doing a job, which Trump is not.
listening to the original broadway cast recording of west side story — straight masterpiece
i loved this walking tour of NYC’s east river with the architect deborah berke. highly recommend, it’s strangely fortifying and hopeful. asphalt green — what a place!
