Wilfrid

Double issue for the holiday. A short story and a short "take" from each of Jhumpa Lahiri, Ottessa Moshfegh and Zadie Smith. I admit, I'm impressed.

Nothing really upset me about Tejal Rao's first review, although I did pause over the "slightly menacing coffee aioli."

What you have never, ever seen.

Oh I must be wrong then. 🤷‍♂️

As long as they continue using his content. You would find my name online at media outlets I left years ago.

I try always to pay. If the Omny machine on the bus is out of order (not infrequent) or the subway train is already in the station and the "exit" door is being held open, then I sink into depravity.

Good point. I didn't think of that.

Will have to shake up the alphabetical order. I want to re-read Dead Souls, I want to re-read Oblomov, but not one after the other. Trying to plan reading for my upcoming European trip and in addition to the length of the books I can get through, there's the weight. I think my Modern Library Karamazov would need its own suitcase.

The MTA's own estimate is around 50% of riders not paying which I can totally believe. I have not seen a ticket inspection since before COVID. I may be repeating myself but the fine is so low, that if your objective is to save money, then never paying your bus fare will leave you way, way ahead even if you get caught. Like once every five or six years. I pay like out of charity because I like buses.

Trying to be clearer. A policy discussion about whether bus travel should be free would be valuable if it wasn't essentially free already.

My babble was not very clear. We do have a free bus system essentially. Make it official? Okay. Like make it legal for dogs to poop. I am trying to say that practice has left policy long behind.

I wish I could cook coppa without Barry Manilow entering my head, but the coppa from Foster Sundry in Bushwick is so delicious. I am sure I pictured it up thread. A little tied half-pound roll, browned in the pan, then roasted for 25 minutes. A few carrot batons went in the pan. Juices finished with butter and wine. Followed by Bleu des Basques and fresh raspberries. One of those better than many restaurants meals.

I remember them letting him go. Need to check (like who checks Eater any more?).

You are getting the good stuff 🥳

My bus story today is the M3 running down St Nicholas and it stops and some dozen or so kids get on, mainly through the back door (not an SBS), which takes a while. Then they realize they are going the wrong way, so next stop they get off again, which takes a while. This only happens when nobody needs to pay a fare. Not to be political but any policy that says we should have a free bus network is like a policy we should let dogs shit in the street. Whoa, change!

Of course, if I am already riding the bus and the driver stops to let a late-arriving passenger on, I am like, "Can we just go?" 😄

For me, this project will bring back memories. I was 18 years old, browsing the (very good) library at my high school when I saw a novel called Justine. Like any kid my age, I knew Gerald Durrell's books about animals. I didn't know he had an older brother Lawrence. My first serious girlfriend, however, was named Justine. I borrowed the novel which featured a main character that bore no resemblance to my girlfriend. But I was captivated. It was a while later that I read through the rest of the Alexandria Quartet, and it's significant that the later parts depart significantly from the intense romance of Justine. Which, read today, I still find beautifully if preciously written, but it's in the narrator Darley's struggling voice so that makes sense. Maybe the bigger deal is that before opening Justine I had never heard of the great Alexandrian poet Cavafy, so I am re-reading those highlights at the same time.

Not the best night of the year to let the oven braise short ribs for hours but they were very good, and damn did those carrots yield. I get one star just for that.

I missed that one. This is really shockingly bad. "Get the burger and the chocolate cake." Period. That's all it tells you.

Please tell me she's not going to carry on writing like this. Please tell me she's going to get edited. What an absurdly overwritten piece. As her editor, I would have marked up just about every sentence. I suppose passing through Times Square might resembled "running the gantlet" if you're writing for a non-New York audience. "(L)ocate the lonesome check-in desk on the third floor, you’re escorted to a rotunda of elevators and sent rocketing up the atrium..." There may not be many revolving restaurants in the city, but there are countless high up and rooftop restaurants and bars such that the elevator experience is absolutely not worthy of comment. "(T)hen sunset’s long orange smear, blue night massing like a thunderhead, and all the buildings coming on like constellations." I think leave that stuff to Hart Crane. Me, I had to google "thunderhead," apparently a specific form of cumulonimbus. "(C)reamy-yolked quail eggs, juice bombs of cherry tomatoes..." Useful for those readers unfamiliar with eggs or tomatoes. "(S)hrimp cocktail, nicely plumped..." How do you "plump" a shrimp cocktail. How do you even plump an individual shrimp. (Eww.) "(Y)ielding carrots..." Not the chewy kind. "(F)ries — crispy, salty, keeping you reaching back in..." Not the soggy, unseasoned kind, and yes you can have second helpings. "When a tequila order went awry, no fewer than three people mobilized to solve the issue, returning every few minutes with updates until the amended drink was in hand." Three people and constant updates; perfect. "You can taste your heart in your mouth." Unexpected addition to the menu.

Not the best night to stand over a stove, double cheeseburger from the bar around the corner, skilfully migrated to a low carb croissant.

Hinds have announced dates in Spain early next year. Including Sala Apolo in Barcelona. Again. In January. Again. What are they trying to do to me?

There's a Chevy TV ad been running a while with "It's My Life" on the soundtrack. I thought nothing of it until in a bar last night they were playing War ("Cisco Kid"). Then I felt bad I didn't know how Eric Burdon was doing. Hanging in there at 84. I saw him live, solo, in Croydon; I was mid-teens.

Digression this weekend to re-read "Youth" and "Typhoon," two short works with ships bouncing around in terrifying storms; by no means all Conrad does, but he does it so well. Reminds me I have the Hornblower novels, but do I want to re-read any of them?