Yawp

Is summer here yet?

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:19:28 -0500

Is summer here yet?

One languid Sunday afternoon in Bucerias we took my uncle’s Bug past the cantina out of town...

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:40:00 -0400

One languid Sunday afternoon in Bucerias we took my uncle’s Bug past the cantina out of town...

Breakfast with humpback whales

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:44:00 -0400

I glassed the shimmering bay with the binoculars. A few dinghies listed in the water, but I had seen...

In Defense of Food

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:32:00 -0500

In Defense of Food: About four years ago I worked for a trade newspaper that deals with the fresh...

Riviera Nayarit in a white Bug After hearing the depressing...

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:26:00 -0500

Riviera Nayarit in a white Bug

After hearing the depressing unemployment numbers from back home the other day, we decided to take a long drive in the Bug to help us shake the news.

The Riviera Nayarit comprises a 100-mile stretch along Mexico Highway 200. The name may only be a promotional moniker, but it fits. This Riviera has just as much scenery to offer as the south of France.

It’s a meandering roadway that cuts a path between the sea and the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains. The shimmering sea dances between the trees. Clusters of palm trees dot the countryside. Pineapple groves and gaudy cemeteries race by. All the while the elusive mountains in the background.

We passed such dusty Mexican towns as San Ignacio and La Florida, neither of which appears on Google Maps. Our destination was a dusty backwater called La Colonia. The town had apparently become more cosmopolitan since my uncle’s last visit. “They’ve got cobblestones now,” Steve said. “They’re up and coming.” Still, the town’s beach remains undeveloped, and the only people we encountered were a group of young Mexicans drinking beer in the shade.

We had a late lunch in Guayabitos. The beach was choked with vendors and Canadian tourists, and I was ready to get back to Bucerias.

Street art in Bucerias, Mexico

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:39:56 -0500

Street art in Bucerias, Mexico

Depression era music for a recession era Pete’s Candy...

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:50:00 -0500

Depression era music for a recession era

Pete’s Candy Store felt like a backwater speakeasy last night when it hosted Eden & John’s East River String Band.

The project is a labor of love. John has a real command of the music, which last night consisted of blues tunes by such legendary musicians as Charley Patton and Blind Lemon Jefferson.

John played with precision a variety of hoary guitars, and he delighted in talking about each one in between songs. Eden strummed a steel mandolin and sang with a gentle brusqueness that was more southern black woman than Williamsburg white girl.

In addition, the pair have played a few gigs with artist Robert Crumb. John and Eden play music that doesn’t quite fit in the blogosphere age. That’s what makes it good.

Bacon Band-Aids from Fred Flare in Greenpoint, Brooklyn I bought...

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:18:00 -0500

Bacon Band-Aids from Fred Flare in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

I bought all my friends Christmas gifts from this fun and funky boutique on Leonard and Meserole. Take the G-train to Nassau, and get out on Norman street. Walk east to Leonard and take a left. Meserole is one block over.

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Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:06:01 -0500

And he read it on the show!

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:05:00 -0500

And he read it on the show!

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Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:35:03 -0500

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Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:34:39 -0500

The Atlantic Yards saga continues...

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:50:00 -0500

The Atlantic Yards saga continues...: The above URL Links to a post I did for...

I stumbled into the City Reliquary Museum in Brooklyn yesterday...

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:11:00 -0400

I stumbled into the City Reliquary Museum in Brooklyn yesterday expecting to find a bespectacled historian manning a tawdry collection of city artifacts. Instead, I encountered a guy not much older than myself – and a museum unlike no other.

The reliquary tells the tale of a vibrant and storied city through the eyes of an eccentric collector. Unusual objects – a subway door, building chunks, kitschy Statue of Liberty figurines, old seltzer bottles, peep show tokens and more – are arranged in such a way that the city’s colorful history comes at you in small, random pieces.

Among the strangest of the museum’s display items is an array of paint chips showing the different colors the beams at the Union Square L-stop have been painted over the years. The most surprising exhibit is a recreation of Little Egypt’s infamous “Hoochie Coochie” striptease in a 5th Ave drawing room (don’t be afraid, push the button).

I was not surprised to learn that Co-Founder Dave Herman is an artist, as are many of the directors of the reliquary board. In fact, it started as a street art project in a small window in which passersby were encouraged to leave items. “It was a way to create some interaction with the public,” Herman told me.

The City Reliquary Museum and Civic Organization is strictly a nonprofit affair. The donation-only museum is open weekends from 12-6.

Tree Huts, Tadashi Kawamata The current art installation at...

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:37:10 -0400

Tree Huts, Tadashi Kawamata

The current art installation at Madison Square Park consists of six or so tree houses built high in the trees. The artist, Tadashi Kawamata, is best known for a solo installation he did in 1992 in which he surrounded the Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island with a web of wood scaffolding.

As a pamphlet I picked up in the park reads, “His public installations, also known as ‘displacements,’ transform the spaces they occupy, as whole environments are turned inside-out. Under Kawamata’s direction, complex and chaotic architectural growths of raw lumber, found objects and construction scraps bloom around existing aspects of the urban landscape.”

Indeed, I really dig the way the tree houses clash with the city’s towering buildings — the frowning Empire State to the North, the awkward and angular Flat Iron building sighing from Fifth Ave. But one question: What’s the rent?