Wilfrid

Hilton Als reviews the two shows inthe new New Yorker, but he starts off talking about that damn goat.

I might rethink that. I read Septology in 2020 or '21. I recently reread the first part. I read all Fosse's fiction as soon as it appears in English. There's no distance, as there was with Karamazov, Middlemarch, Quixote. I'm not sure it belongs on this list.

Crave might be worth a try. I go by the UWS location a lot.

Middle has Marched. Beautifully written from page one, but it is true to say the plot really picks up pace in the second half. And the closing pages are priceless. Where next? 17. Eliot, Middlemarch 18. Ellison. Invisible Man 19. One Faulkner or another 20. Some part of Septology 21. Gogol, Dead Souls 22. Goncharov, Oblomov Maybe I'll dip into Septology before Ellison. I will have to split those two funny, but again long, Russian novels apart.

Will look that up.

I need to control an urge to re-visit Portland, Maine just to eat oysters. At least I had additional reasons to go there last December. Is there anywhere in NYC serving a good selection of really good oysters?

Cool. Will check that out.

I must check again to see if it's in the library. It has been very popular. Meanwhile, residents of my building like to leave books in the lobby if they want to be rid of them. Occasional treasures there (I found a copy of Marcus Aurelius). From that source I am now reading Peter Guralnick's immense biography of Sam Cooke. As with his Elvis bio, almost overwhelming detail on gigs and recording sessions, but he makes it all interesting. And of course plenty of interesting people in the background; just introduced to a very young Dionne Warwick. From the same source, Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend. I have been avoiding those novels due to my usual suspicion of anything popular, but it was pretty good. I have the second volume of the quartet arriving Monday.

Yay, and flee communism. 😆

I must tell Ana (gratuitous Hinds reference).

That menu does look interesting, especially the Lady Edison Jin Hua ham. The Lady Edison country ham was a highlight of my trip to Richmond and the Jin Hua reads as even funkier.

(I suppose this is related to my pedantic and likely unpopular view of what a "review" should be. A nice article on these people and what they're doing would have been interesting. A "review" should surely have some utility.)

Right, it's the four things together: - They're serving a maximum of 30 covers per week - The very late finish to dinner - Dealing with public transit, not just to get back to the city, but then more than 100 blocks uptown from the PATH probably well after midnight (@mongo Going to Jersey City or Newark at the end of the evening to sleep is a different matter). - Nothing to drink.

Ah, good idea. I do have a flask but haven't used it in years. Imagining being ejected from the valuable seat in the storefront when they catch me taking a sly sip.

Good point.

I didn't get a star.

Yes, if dinner finishes at 11.30, travel via PATH should get me home shortly after 1am, depending on how the D train cooperates. I'll be ready for a drink by then, for sure.

But, Jersey City?

Did the Tuxedo 2 last night and it was great. Apparently I am good at absinthe washes.

I never much liked Rauschenberg's combines. You know, the stuffed goat with a tire round its neck type of thing. That is not a problem with the two exhibitions running a convenient 15 minute walk apart on Museum Mile. The Guggenheim has a compact show of wall art (as opposed to combines). Prints, photogravure, collages. You can really enjoy his use of color for once. Then stroll up to the Museum of the City of New York and get a whole different side: Rauschenberg the street photographer. Who knew? A big show, mainly of New York City photos. And here's something unexpected. At the Gugg, they are showing a large floor piece consisting of a series of huge clear plastic discs each illustrated by Rauschenberg. They are connected by cable to a little keyboard which can be used to make them spin back and forth. But there's a guard to make sure nobody touches it. At MCNY, however, there's a movie showing the exact same piece in action -- when it was new and robust, I guess.

This has been a great season for must-see exhibits. Let me commend Ruth Asawa at MoMA. I had never heard of her (she died in 2013). This is an immense retrospective, worth seeing just for her breathtaking wire sculptures - many suspended from the galleries' ceilings. But, from her days studying under Albers at Black Mountain college through her later life career as a teacher, she seems to have been able to make just about any kind of art work. Her versatility is astonishing.

Utility. For me, anyway, and likely for many other readers. I guess, if you are lucky enough to score a reservation on one of the two nights they open each week, seating 15 people, and if you drive and therefore don't care about no alcohol, or if Jersey City is convenient for you, it might be a useful review.

So, absinthe is more expensive than Chartreuse and not everywhere had it. Okay. Tracked down a reasonable bottle at Warehouse Wines & Spirits. My Turf cocktail was a failure. The recipe called for two dashes of absinthe. I tried to trickle some from my free pouring bottle into the jigger too much. It masked everything else; no point using maraschino and dry vermouth. Sazerac much more successful and probably the first I have ever made, but that's an absinthe wash. I think the Tuxedo calls for a wash so I'll try that next.

Yamamoto. Wow.

Equally useful reports.