Wilfrid

Oh yes, and The British Museum is Falling Down. Long time ago I read him, I admit.

Well I didn't know that there were people called Schnipper involved in Schnipper's and Hale & Hearty, so I learned something, if not about the soup. I never went to Hale & Hearty because (1) the name and (2) soup, meh.

I'll tell you how it ends... 😄

I made it down to the Baldwin show at the Brooklyn Central Library. Photographs marking his ten year engagement with Istanbul, 1961-1971, but mostly taken around 1962-5, I believe. The photographer Sedat Pakay clearly had much access. At first sight it's a tiny exhibition and you wonder, did I need to come a long way? This is deceiving; it's just very scattered, around the entrance room, around the main ground floor; and I almost left before I saw a little sign, the exhibition continues upstairs. Which it does. Put together in one gallery, this would be satisfying. Of course, the trip can also be paired with the Brooklyn Museum, but there was not much there I cared about that I had not already seen.

Well, what do you expect? It's astonishing (and you can buy and watch on Netflix). On the one hand, vastly entertaining; on the other, how can you not wonder at the endless patience required to orchestrate huge, endless chase sequences with many characters using stop-motion photography? It's also a parable about AI. And worth flagging positive diversity in a movie set in a fantasy nostalgic England.

Gary is a seriously messed up person.

And the Baldwin keeps coming. Might see this at the weekend, depending on temperature. https://www.bklynlibrary.org/exhibitions/turkey-saved-my-life

Would love it, except behind a pay wall. I could list my own favorites.

If you have Mubi, this is a ravishing way to spend half an hour: https://mubi.com/en/us/films/allegorie-citadine

Look closer, 10+ years of experience as a restaurant critic, 4+ years of professional or educational culinary experience? This is random HR stuff. Bruni? Grimes? Wells? Even Sifton? Anyone? No. Whoever gets the job will not have done that stuff. And will get paid more. I assume there's a requirement to advertise it.

I agree with that too. Are they looking for someone young and cheap? (I.e. not me.)

Yes, your food shopping bill will be reduced but I agree that's a startling low range. Believe me, much less well known journalists earn within that range...

I have never liked this holiday. I could have spent time with family and shared my gloom. Instead, I am pacing through the evening, defying the thunder outside, with funny hors d'oeuvres plates. Smoked salmon with scoops of Zabar's cream cheese and lox. Foie gras with black truffle butter. Pernil with lime. The last, portions chiselled from a vast pork shoulder.

Oh, I remember her.

Jeez, how long did that take?

Booked Hisop.

One degree of separation. I knew a litigation partner based in Atlanta who, as a young lawyer, had been offered -- and declined -- a role in the Carter administration. Looking him up, I learn that he passed away in June this year. That's my Jimmy Carter story.

Yes indeed.

Just three days short of 100 and three months. Well done, Jimmy.

This seems the perfect place to mention the Schomburg Center's centennial tribute to Baldwin. Plenty of photos, great video footage including Baraka's eulogy at his funeral. Not a huge show, but bigger than the supposed Baldwin show at the NYPL Schwartzman building which turns out to be one glass case within the large Treasures show. Apparently they are rotating the Baldwin memorabilia once a month. For regulars? Well, there's always Pooh.

Controversially racy when people noticed that she was underage. I learned recently that in the DiCaprio version the studio replaced Natalie Portman (14) with Clare Danes (17) to make the love scenes less creepy.

Only 73.

For anyone not following my obsessions, I am flying to Barcelona to see Hinds at Sala Apolo. I will also see my godson, who lives there, and his father who will travel from the UK for post-punk pop.

This suddenly got real. Just over two weeks away. I have La Sosenga reserved and I am looking at the Hisop menu. The good news, my usual hotel is hilariously cheap mid-January.

I just learned there's a new Wallace & Gromit movie, "Vengeance Most Fowl." I have bought a ticket to interrupt the tedium of New Year's Day. This must be the first since the original voice of Wallace, Peter Sallis, passed away.