About the Six Dessert Pie Faces That We Ate the Other Day

Last Friday, Aditya came over for dinner,

and he brought six! Pie Face dessert mini pies.

We split them into thirds,

and had a good bite of each one.

The flavors were:

pumpkin, chocolate mousse, apple,

cherry, lemon, and pecan.

They were incredibly delicious,

with good crust to filling ratios,

and the fillings were light and sweet.

It was a great way to kick off Memorial Day weekend.

Memorial Day Weekend 2012

We went to the beach on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

The weather was beach perfect. 

Samantha, Chris, Lisa, Daddy, Jon, and Dom

(It's a great panoramic photo, 

demonstrating what we did for hours straight 

all weekend.)

  

I read a little and got just a little bit sunburned,

but I mostly stared at things mindlessly.

Yeah, it was a really good weekend.

An Afterthought of a Road on the 59th Street Bridge

We went to McCarren Park last Saturday

in our car.

Weekend subways are terrible.

And I don't believe that there's a G train.

It's like a unicorn, but MUCH less cool.

It took us half an hour to get across town,

and when we did,

we were on this road that was basically slapped on

to the side of the bridge.

Jon loved it.

He felt groovy. We both did.

A boat in the East River.

Secret road.

Secret road.

Secret road.

Silvercup!

It took about fifty minutes door to McCarren Park each way.

In the comfort of our bucket seats,

air conditioning,

and tunes,

it sure beat waiting for

and then actually riding the subway.

Saturday Stroll through Central Park and Bouchon

After stocking up on some jeans and summer stuff from Uniqlo,

we took a detour through Central Park.

It's called Tornado.

It's still up in May apparently.

Also, they need a copy editor.

"Centra Park"

Oh, man! 

My photo looks like the website's.

We stopped by the Central Park Zoo

to see what the sea lions were up to,

but they were hiding again.

At least this goat looks like it's having fun.

We bought a salted pretzel for the road.

And stopped by Bouchon in Columbus Circle for a snack.

This is their version of an Oreo cookie.

(I kind of prefer the original,

where I can eat the entire row of cookies,

for about the same cost as one of these.)

And this is a fromage blanc parfait.

This was delicious.

Fruity, sweet-tart cheesy, and refreshing.

It was all in all good stroll.

"Untitled" (Placebo) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (or Free Pineapple Candy) at the MoMA

I went to the MoMA

last Friday to see what's new.

One thing that I came across in this visit

has become one of my favorite pieces of art.

It's by Felix Gonzalez-Torres.

And it's 1000 to 1200 pounds of silver-cellophane wrapped

pineapple candies.

That you are supposed to pick up and eat!

Mmm . . . art!

Updo

Updo.

Divide hair into three parts.

Updo.

Loosely braid the three parts at your base.

Updo.

Twist each part and secure with bobby pins.

Works best when you do this with wet hair, I think.

Sunny Photos for a Torrential Monday Morning

This Monday morning was the kind of stormy morning 

that makes you just want to sleep in, read, drink warm things,

and think back to sunnier mornings that have passed.

Even with rain boots and a raincoat,

I was thoroughly soaked.

I think I need to add an umbrella back to my rain arsenal.

Play my rain anthem, Stanley.

Undead Music Festival: Tonic Reunion at Le Poisson Rouge

Sex Mob

Last Wednesday and into the wee morning hours of Thursday,

Jon and I went to see the Undead Music Festival's Tonic Reunion Concert

at Le Poisson Rouge.

It was like we were in college or young or something crazy.

Here's a sample of Sex Mob,

which is the only band that I really wanted to see.

Apparently, I've seen them before at 

the Miles Davis Tribute Festival in 2001.

I don't remember them 

since there were a million musicians at that festival,

but they were awesome on Thursday night.

Obviously, my cell phone's recording can't do it justice,

so you should check out their songs on Grooveshark or YouTube.

Elysian Fields

Here's the schedule:

LE POISSON ROUGE / TONIC REUNION SHOWCASE:6 p.m. - Doors 6:45 - Heather Greene & Ursa Minor (Heather Greene, Mino, Michelle Casillas, Rob Jost, Robert DiPietro, & Tony Scherr)7:45 - Jamie Saft's New Zion Trio 8:15 - The Refuseniks with John Hollenbeck, Ted Reichman & Reuben Radding9:00 - Dougie Bowne's Peninsula with Chris Speed, Jamie Saft, Michael Leonhart & Hilliard Greene9:30 - Short Tonic Documentary9:40 - Billy Martin Improv with Erik Friedlander, Marcus Rojas & Calvin Weston10:20 - Yuka C. Honda's EUCADEMIX with Miho Hatori, Eden Rice, Jared Samuel & Michael Leonhart11:00 - White Out w/ Bill Nace11:30 - Elysian Fields 12:00 - Steven Bernstein's Sex Mob12:30 - Ben Perowsky's Moodswing Orchestra with Michael Blake, TK Wonder1:00 - G. Calvin Weston, Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Vernon Reid

The 9:00 group started at 9:30, 

and everything else just started later thereafter.

Dougie Bowne's Peninsula, etc. was good,

but I couldn't really dig it as much as Jon did.

The Tonic Documentary broke in the middle of showing it,

but basically, the guy who owned Tonic is putting together a documentary

about Tonic and how it was a great haven for musicians

to try new things without having to go to the bowels of Brooklyn/other suburbs.

Why did Tonic close down?

Yuppie neighbors and rent, of course.

Billy Martin Improv was awesome.

I have a huge crush on Martin, Medeski & Wood,

but for whatever reason Jon doesn't want to ever take me to their concerts.

Yuka C. Honda is part of Cibo Matto,

who is the only band I recognized that was on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I heart Cibo Matto and Buffy.

They did a beautiful version of "Le Vie En Rose".

White Out had a really short set.

I think the woman in this band was dancing strangely to the Dougie Bowne band.

I think a lot of the older people in the room were high.

And used to be hippies.

Elysian Fields came on around midnight.

The singer joked that at Tonic,

they'd be slated to go on so late

that they hardly had anyone to play for anymore.

Their set was good and short,

but kind of soothing.

Sex Mob came on around one a.m.

They brought the energy back.

It was unusual how the whole room suddenly became so awake and alive.

None of the previous bands managed to do that.

Overall, as a venue Le Poisson Rogue wasn't too crowded 

for this festival of awesome jazz.

We managed to find a place to sit and eat and drink for hours 

without having to sit on floor by the stage or against a wall.

The room was small enough,

so the acoustics were good,

but since we sat somewhat toward the back of the room,

there were A LOT of people talking.

And you can hear them all talking over the music,

which was kind of annoying.

Though we were curious about the later bands,

we were resolved to show up at work the next day

with some wits about us,

so we went home and slept

to go to work the next day.

Responsibilities.

They're so not jazzy.

A Tree Grows in Central Park

Oh my God.

I am turning twenty-nine

in

a 

month.

Happy birthday, Pam!

That Time It Was the First Awesome May Weekend in 2012

This past weekend was so warm

that I broke out my shorts.

The ladies need a tan. 

Yes, I call my gams, "the ladies."

Have you seen my chest?

There's nothing to brag about there.

I sat in the sun until my butt felt like

it was burning on the bricks.

Jon wore his new "dry technology" polo shirt

from Uniqlo.

The dry technology worked.

He wasn't a soaking mess.

Success!

Mother's Day 2012

It was a gorgeous Mother's Day.

We got ice cream from Je & Jo 

and pastries from Sullivan Street Bakery

and dim sum from Sunshine 27

for Jon's mom and por por.

All the food was so delicious.

We got a tiramisu cake from Mitsuwa

and a package of mapo tofu mix

for my mom.

It was a really good tiramisu cake.

We also ate some chicken, corn, and mashed potatoes.

Why are mashed potatoes always so good?

Chicken Feet for Mother's Day

Jon and his por por

in front of Sunshine 27

on Mother's Day.

At dim sum, we got a bonus chicken feet,

since some kid who was sharing our table chickened out on eating it

after he ordered it from the dim sum lady.

Jon's por por says the feet are the cleanest part of the chicken

because the restaurants spend a lot of time cleaning it.

Like a pedicure before cooking it I guess.

Happy Mother's Day

Hammer Time with Thor

Movie time!

:) -- Ooh! -- I wouldn't be too embarrassed about recommending this.

:/ -- Err. -- Maybe if you've got nothing else to watch at all.

:( -- What?! -- As in What is this garbage?!

Thor

:/

I was told that it was funny (true) and that Natalie Portman didn't play a pivotal role (LIAR!). At least there are enough jokes about tasering Thor that made the movie funny.

Overall: Thor loses his hammer and has to get it back, and for some reason Natalie Portman's character shows up and helps him. Here's a South Park clip that demonstrates exactly what's wrong with Natalie Portman and her character in this movie. Additionally, Natalie Portman has an annoying voice, and since it's an action/adventure movie she's shouting a lot. Plus she plays some brainiac, dedicated scientist-type person. (Eye roll and UGH. Can they just make her dumb and boring for once so she doesn't have to over act to demonstrate how smart and dedicated she is in each and every one of her movie roles?) Thor is funny, but the movie is only mildly entertaining. I'd give it a sad face if it wasn't for my love of the multiverse misunderstanding hijinks that ensue. I saw the movie while reading Bossypants, so I guess that says something about both Thor and Bossypants.

Surprise: Well, it didn't suck as much as I thought it would. Also, Luther's in it.

Friday Late-Afternoon Stroll Through Central Park to the Frick Museum

A few Fridays ago I walked to the Frick Museum for Renoir Night.

I saw the head of a sea lion poking up from beneath the pool . . .

at the zoo.

This underpass smelled a lot like piss.

This is the petting zoo part.

It was closed, but I recalled one of Dani's stories

when one of the animals threw up on her

during her nanny days.

Poor Dani.

It's a WWI monument.

The green background is just too pretty.

At the Frick Museum entrance.

The Renoir exhibit was marvelous,

and the whole night was a lot of fun.

Young Adult

Movie time!

:) -- Ooh! -- I wouldn't be too embarrassed about recommending this.

:/ -- Err. -- Maybe if you've got nothing else to watch at all.

:( -- What?! -- As in What is this garbage?!

Young Adult

:/

I love young adult books. Reading about those experiences helps me replace some of my own more traumatizing experiences, and it keeps me knowledgeable about what middle schoolers and high schoolers are doing (or at least reading) nowadays. Here's a quick list of what I think that is:

• drugs
• dealing with bullies, crushes, stalkers, abusive family members, teachers, parents, and stepfamilies, etc.
• detention
• boarding school
• sex
• growing apart from childhood friends
• suicides
• school dances and other events
• killings
• brawls
• growing up
• discovering who they really are (royalty, aliens, superhumans, werewolves, witches, etc.)

Overall: One of the movie posters (see above) is really cool--like a parody of the old The Baby-Sitters Club covers. From the trailer this movie seemed to promise a narrative about a thirty-something woman who was popular in high school, and she's trying to reclaim that feeling. I thought the setting was going to be a high school reunion or something like that, but Mavis (Charlize Theron), a miserable young-adult book ghostwriter, heads home from "the city" (which is Minneapolis--not really a city, is it?) to save her ex-boyfriend from his happy marriage and brand-new baby. (Ho, ho, irony.) Mavis was a mean girl in high school and is still a mean girl. I'm not sure how believable it is, since she just seems a little more psycho than misunderstood. It's sometimes funny and mostly awkward, but a bit disappointing considering that it wasn't as clever as Juno (the writer is the same). It carried much more of the tone of depressing movie reality as Up in the Air (the director is the same). Like, WHAM-oooooohhhh! Oh. (That's the tone of the movie.) !!!REALITY!!! (That's the denouement.)

Surprise: You don't think they will--and you kind of hope they don't--but they do. All. The. Way.

The Time Jon and I Saw Feist at Radio City and It Wasn't That Great

On Saturday, May 5, Jon and I saw Feist at Radio City. We had gotten our tickets early, and Jon made sure we were just a few rows from the stage. As a joke though, we looked on stubhub to see what tickets were going for, and to our chagrin, they were MUCH cheaper. We felt a bit gypped. The concert was supposedly sold out! What's interesting is that when she was at BAM, tickets a few days before the concert were going for like $200 a piece, so this was just mystifying. Maybe a majority of the audience felt they were better off going to a Cinco de Mayo party instead of a Feist concert to get laid/find a husband?

The seats around us were pretty empty for awhile. The whole place was pretty much empty for Timber Timbre. (And though we saw some of their videos and were a little bit familiar with their songs, it wasn't a very interesting set.) 

In the beginning of the show, the ushers were being pretty strict about the seating. And Feist seemed really upset about the pit and orchestra seats being empty, singing about it in like three songs. So to make us feel even shittier about buying the expensive tickets, she invited everyone to move up closer. And the ushers/security went a little nuts getting everyone out of the aisles. It wasn't much fun staring at people's asses and having them kick me as they scrambled for better seats for like half a song every time this happened.

And once everyone settled down the first time, we had this fifteen-year-old girl (maybe a long-haired boy?) to deal with. She was pumping her fists at the Feist songs and standing up while the whole orchestra was sitting down. (It's a freaking Feist concert, not a fist-pumping kind of concert!) I was so baffled.

The woman in front of us talked to the usher (who looked like a really old version of Magnitude) about it, and the usher asked the girl to sit down. I'm not sure the woman did this entirely because she and her boyfriend were also annoyed, or because she was pissed off that Jon and I were complaining kind of loudly about it during the applause or whatever. (The woman came back, and said, "You're welcome." Um, thanks--but please hold the attitude. Jeez.)

But then Feist went out into the audience and grabbed a bunch of people onto the stage with her, and people were up and out of their seats so they could see what's happening. 

You guys, it's not because the music was so good that they had to get up and out of their seats--it's because people wanted to see the performer that they were paying for. These stunts kind of pissed me off. Especially when the people who were dancing on the stage with her were just filming her sing with their iPhones. What?!

Maybe I'm a little jealous of that, but still, when the dancing was done, they just stood on the stage, blocking my view of Feist. So, more unnecessary asses to view, and no Feist.

In addition to all the asses, other distractions include a water bottle that I bought. The concession stand guy said it was their policy not to give a cap. But that is crap. I've gotten bottle caps from Radio City water bottle purchases before. I mean, really, am I supposed to put my bottle on the floor and hope no one kicks it over? 

Also, she had an enormous band and three really weird backup singers. The backup singers were just too weird. The camera that streamed video to the background kept panning to them and the crotch of the drummer, who looked a lot like this guy on Party Down. (Speaking of doppelgangers, her guitar guy looked like George Saunders.)

I was way too distracted by everything else that was going on to pay attention to the music, but all in all, I think her concert at MacCarren Park Pool was better. It had the democracy of a general admission venue and the informality that Feist seemed to crave.

Toward the end of the show Feist pointed out the exit signs, which are the only things that she can actually see from the stage, and suggested that after awhile you end up wondering which one you'd take given all those options. Or maybe she said something different. I think everyone was just waiting to rush the stage again if she invited them to.

In any case, while I can see that some people had a great evening, I think that Jon and I had a better time getting shakes and burgers after. Feist's voice is beautiful live, but when you can barely see her, you might as well stay home and do the dishes while listening to her songs.