Michigan, Redux

I'm not sure what "Night Lunch" is, but i like it already.

Michigan

Last weekend My Better Half had a short vacation in Ann Arbor with her sister Julie and Julie's husband Jesse. We wanted to see them at home before they move to Pennsylvania (planned for this fall or winter), and also take an opportunity to get out of the city for a few days. It was nice and relaxing.

We visited Greenfield Village, an outdoor hodgepodge of American history with old farmhouses and working farms, glass blowers and blacksmiths, textile weaving and the like -- including Edison's laboratory buildings from Menlo Park, an old courthouse in which Abraham Lincoln practiced law, and some Wright Brothers originalia. The whole thing is part of "The Henry Ford", a kind of history Disneyland started by everyone's favorite anti-semitic industrialist. (I didn't make a single Nazi joke the entire time we were on the premises.)

Our visit coincided with an appearance by Thomas the Tank Engine (sorry for the crap photo):

Danielson Famblie

To be simultaneously awful and boring sounds like no mean feat, but it's accomplished by the overwhelming majority of the "Christian" pop music i've ever encountered. Aside from the insipid quality of the music and lyrics, there's often a belittling or threatening attitude toward non-Christians.

Not so Daniel Smith, whose various musical incarnations (most notably Danielson Famile) take the exhortation to create a joyful noise farther than most. The music is decidedly joyful, even ecstatic -- and to many ears it certainly qualifies as "noise". What really sets Danielson apart, though, is attitude: everyone is welcome. Daniel Smith makes invitations, and doesn't sneer at those who don't accept.

Friday evening, My Better Half and i enjoyed the documentary "Danielson: A Family Movie", which chronicles the musical life of Daniel smith and his family and friends from 1995 up to a year or two ago. One thing neither of us had known was that Sufjan Stevens was part of the band for a while, before storming the indie-folkie scene on his own.

OK, so there's a cute little blog entry; right on, 15.

But then, Saturday afternoon MBH and i are wandering around the Slope, she's power-shopping, i'm mainly bored. We stop by Bonnie's for a late-lunch burger (mmm) and on our way out, who should be walking in? Sufjan Stevens! Normally i wouldn't have recognized him, but having just seen the movie the night before, i did.

OK OK OK, i know, nobody cares. But i thought it was funny.

Who Watches The Watchmakers?

I got back from a bidness trip to Boston to find one of these crouching over our neighborhood. (Thanks to neighborhood blog across the park for the pic and some info.) This is pretty disconcerting; our little part of Flatbush Ave is by no means a festival of peace & love, but it's not exactly a war zone, either.

(These pictures are great because they make the thing look like a mech, which it doesn't so much in person.)

"Youngsters: Observation Changes Everything"

The opening for Keith's new show "Youngsters: Observation Changes Everything" is this Friday at Posey Baker, 7 to 9 pm. Everyone who is not there will be considered square.

Los Angeles

We went to Los Angeles!

(Actually, we got back a week ago; i've just been procrastinating putting up an entry. I s'pose when this happens one should reexamine one's blogging motivations and practices. Think i'll procrastinate that one, too.)

They sure have got the nice weather out there, at least in March. While we were there i was still healing a blister i got shoveling snow on the mean streets of Brooklyn.

What did we do?

Eating! As many of you know, i am a champ-een eater and still have my eye on the Fattest Man in the World prize, if i can just find the time to train. Korean fast food in a shopping mall food court, fourteen times nicer than any food court i'd ever seen! All-you-can-eat sushi! Danish pastries! (Really? Yes!) Ivan's world-famous snack-mix! Pinkberry! PINKBERRY! You can't beat Cocoa Crispies and banana at Pinkberry.

Visiting! Friends Ivan and Sarah and their pug Twiggy are back in action in Sunny CA, and you'd never know they had left. You would definitely know that Ivan's not from there, though. He's Ipswitch through and through.

Solvanging! Sarah had to work, but Ivan tagged along with My Better Half and myself to visit Solvang, the quaint Dutch Danish town in CA wine country that apparently was featured in "Sideways" (which i have yet to see). Anyway, it was fun. We ate at a Dutch Danish smorgaasbord, which was quite enjoyable but drove home the point that the Dutch Danish aren't known for their cuisine, so much as their pastries. And speaking of pastries -- we had some. They were yummy.

Trespassing! Well not really, we had permission; but i like to jazz it up by pretending. We four (plus pug) spent a day at someone else's rented house in Malibu while they weren't around, which was just like you imagine only the hot tub didn't work.

Museuming! This time around we hit up LACMA. Unfortunately, their modern/contemporary building was closed, apparently out of spite. (Also their outdoor Calder is teh lame.) But, we had a good time.

Scrabbling! 2007 is looking to be a good year for Yours Truly in the Me-vs-Ivan Scrabblympithon. He crushed me at Scattergories though, the impudent... guy. Ivan and i teamed up and trounced the ladies in Trivial Pursuit and Taboo, to keep up appearances.

Movieing! I looove going to the movies, but for whatever reason (laziness? poor planning skills?) it's not the twice-weekly event i would like it to be. On this trip, though, we convinced Ivan and Sarah to go see The Host, which we all enjoyed immensely. It was ironic, too, since Sarah is Korean. (Well, maybe not ironic ironic, but at least Alanis Morissette ironic. That is to say, unremarkably coincidental.)

Shopping! MBH is a champ-een shopper, and i am not. We went to the unholy outlet-shopping town of Camarillo, and she shopped until i thought i would lose my mind. I had to get out of the shopping complex, so i took a walk, enjoyed a cup of coffee, and took a picture of some dirt; still had time for a good nap before it was time to go.

Californery

Tomorrow morning My Better Half and i will be flying to Los Angeles to spend a few vacation days hanging out with friends Ivan and Sarah and Twiggy. Yay! MBH probably is looking forward to driving. Me, i'm looking forward to doing nothing... at... all...

Another Busy Weekend

The Ides of March was My Better Half's birthday, which we celebrated with friends Keith and Beth, Brian and Lindsay, Karin and Alex, and Abby and Josh; the fun started at Kasadela, and then we moved the party to Ben & Jerry's to sample Stephen Colbert's new ice cream, "Americone Dream". MBH brought in a good haul this year, but the winner (in my opinion) was this gigantic, crocheted eyeball made by my sister:

Friday was a quiet dinner at home.

Saturday i made MBH a birthday breakfast, featuring Eggs in the Basket (which a nearby brunch spot calls "Toad in the Hole" -- wikipedia disagrees), accompanied by one of MBH's favorite brunchy cocktails, Bellinis! Proper Bellinis, too, not some stank mix with peach schnapps.

MBH's parents came to town Saturday afternoon (with a birthday poundcake), and we went back to the little island (which i like to call Lisland) for the evening. Dinner was at Steak Frites, which was OK. (You'd think a place that called itself "Steak Frites" would build its menu around a streak frites to wow a schlub from North Dakota, but as Sharmila says, you'd waste a thought. The tuna tartare was very good, though.) Then we traipsed across Union Square to see "Be by Mayumana", a percussive/musical dance/acrobatic performance along the lines of Stomp and Blue Man Group (or so i've been told; i haven't seen either of the latter). We all had a good time and were quite impressed with the crazy stuff those dancing kids can do onstage.

Sunday afternoon we all took a short tour through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (just around the corner from our house), then MBH and i saw her folks off and went back to Manhattan to meet friends Jess and Mike. We had a nice dinner at Palacinka (a pressed sammich with merguez, goat cheese, tomato, and olive tapenade -- mmm!), then MBH and i had a drink and listened to some music at Toad Hall before heading home. We both wish Toad Hall was closer to home, but you couldn't pay us to live in Soho.

Worshipping The Golden Bull

For some time now i've been consternated by the incredible regard many right-wing Christians hold for unfettered markets (excluding drugs and pornography, of course). Back in the day, when they were deathly afraid of the Godless Communists, it was kind of, you know, cute. But as it becomes increasingly obvious that our market-driven approaches to some problems just aren't working, this fanatical devotion to The Market starts to look like idolatry.

Support Our Troops!

But only if they're straight.

More than 11,000 [gay soldiers] have been fired under the policy, including more than 800 mission-critical specialists and 300 linguists covering 161 different occupational specialties.

Good thing we dumped thousands of troops from the ranks before and during our Next Big War! They might have, i don't know, shot some bad guys, or something. But in a gay way.

Aliseo

Last night: dinner at Aliseo Osteria del Borgo with My Better Half, my mom, cousin Tris (my cousin Greg's wife), and her friend and colleague Charis. Tris and Charis were in town for a long-term project with New York City schools, helping them design programs to prepare inner-city school kids for college, or evaluate the effectiveness of such programs, or something. It was interesting, but we had a lot else to talk about as well. The difference between family and blood relations was discussed briefly (as far as i am concerned, the two have so little to do with each other i am sometimes surprised how many people conflate them). This was my first time ever meeting Tris, but it was quickly clear that she's family.

Aliseo is the perfect kind of place for get-togethers like this: quiet but not dull, lively but not hectic. The food is wonderful, tending toward the simple and comforting, and the wines are always well-chosen (we typically ask the waiter to pick out wine here) and very reasonably priced. The owner is a character, and often seems to be entertaining friends at one of the few tables. It's not far from our house, but i wish it was closer, just around the corner. In the Movie of my Life, it should serve as the set for several Important Dinner Conversations.

Quiet Weekend

This last was a relatively quiet weekend for us here in Awesome Brooklyn.

Friday night My Better Half and i got together with friends Keith & Beth and Brian & Lindsay at our go-to Enduro, the reliable Mexican place than opened late last year in our neighborhood (and vastly improved the variety of available food options). Good times as always with that crew. And at that place, for that matter.

Saturday night we stayed in and watched "Brazil", which is even better than i remembered. (I think MBH might have preferred "Time Bandits", though.) "Brazil's" treatment of the banality of evil (among other things) is superb without even being explicit, which alone makes it far and away better than contemporary movies of its type that tend to be shrill, preachy, or explanatory to the point of narrativicide. Michael Palin's Jack illustrates everything we have to look forward to if we continue to allow the party of torture to infect our government and our culture -- a bureaucratic apparatus of smiling functionaries whose only purpose is to perpetuate institutionalized cruelty, and whose only effect is to transform tax dollars into grief and citizens into mutilated corpses.

And yet on top of all that, it's a fantastically fun movie to watch! And, it's got a great musical theme and score -- MBH finally got to hear the music i'm constantly humming. And, what a cast! Jonathan Pryce, Robert DeNiro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm... Terry Gilliam is awesome, even if he does come off as an utter goofball in interviews and DVD commentaries.

Sunday morning found us at Fred's in Little Connecticut brunching with friend Heather, who we hadn't seen in a while. It was nice to catch up. Then we each spent a lazy Sunday avoiding doing our taxes and scraping caulk from a tub. We wrapped the weekend up with "Drugstore Cowboy", which still holds its weight. I had forgotten Heather Graham was in that; it was pretty easy to do.