Marea
I went and it was super dupper.
It made me think, you know money would not be bad to have lots of cause I would eat here whenever I wanted and take my friends, its not that it was more money than any top spot nor was it not worth every penny, its just that at $200 PP with nice wine it add's up quick if I went once a month, exp since I have lots of friends:>)

$21 mixed crudo, some oysters $12, grand cru pasta's inc a first for me tuna belly ravioli (in a tomate caper etc sauce) $20+ and for me one pasta aint enough so figure $80 for food

I saw a $36 wine I could guzzle, had a Spanish rose w/ oysters that was a brilliant match, and there are plenty of $40-60 wines worthy of creating happyness. So add $70 wine at 1.25 bottles PP + $80 = $150 = $200PP

Great great great meal, hope to afford to go back soon, but most of all I am happy I have lots of friends first and that they like Grand Sichuan BYOB too.....

Saw a short documentary last night on the quilters of Gee's Bend.
Gee’s Bend is a small rural community nestled into a curve in the Alabama River southwest of Selma, Alabama. Founded in antebellum times, it was the site of cotton plantations.... During the Great Depression, the federal government stepped in to purchase land and homes for the community, bringing strange renown — as an "Alabama Africa" — to this sleepy hamlet.

The town’s women developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present. In 2002, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in partnership with the nonprofit Tinwood Alliance, of Atlanta, presented an exhibition of seventy quilt masterpieces from the Bend. The exhibition, entitled "The Quilts of Gee’s Bend," is accompanied by two companion books, The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, and the larger Gee’s Bend: The Women and Their Quilts, both published by Tinwood Media, as well as a documentary video on the Gee’s Bend quilters and a double-CD of Gee’s Bend gospel music from 1941 and 2002.

The "Quilts of Gee’s Bend" exhibition has received tremendous international acclaim, beginning at its showing in Houston, then at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the other museums on its twelve-city American tour.
Really cool stuff although unfortunately, there are only a few images on their website, and they don't even seem to be the really nice ones. Google image search turns up some more though.
Mac started acting real slow, so I did a restart. After a long wait, a folder with a question mark shows up. Dead disc? Time for posthumous apple care?
forever amazon
wolf t-shirt comment thread
the wall
pepsi that doesn't suck
the cut and the pasted

the appropriationist: MoDo

and the appropriated: JoMa
NYTimes looks behind the scenes at the work to open Daniel Boulud's new DBGB.
Micro Four Thirds is a new digital camera technology developed by Panasonic and Olympus that is starting to find it's way into products.
SLR cameras were designed for the film era. The "reflex" refers to the mirror inside, which redirects light to the viewfinder and then flips out of the way when the shutter is fired, letting the light fall onto the film. Because of the mirror, the body of an SLR is relatively large, and because the lenses are so far away from the film plane (or, these days, the sensor chip), they have to be big, too. Look at the size difference between a compact camera and an SLR for an instant example of this.

Micro Four Thirds does away with the mirror, making the camera much smaller. The gimmick is that you can still change lenses, just like an SLR. And because the sensor size is standard across Micro Four Thirds cameras, the confusion of focal length multipliers disappears (although if you do want to know the 35mm equivalent, just times multiply by two), and you you don’t have to sell all your glass if you swap from one camera brand to another.
Panasonic was first to market with the G1, which really doesn't look that much smaller than a full on SLR. But now Olympus has just announced a much more compact offering. Love the retro styling on that one. This might be a really great camera, combining the best of both worlds with a super compact body, super large sensor, and interchangeable lenses. I really like it.
Is this for real? Teenage girl beatbox mastery. I love the hand positioning, like, "yeah, so, whatevs, I'm not even trying here..."
Kobe and LeBron as muppets tv commercial.
sportsfan kerouac
pesto forever

thx adman
**lost spoiler alert**

Unless he stands for damnation. Because despite his sensitive, soothing demeanor, I find myself nagged by the prospect that Jacob could be playing with the dark pieces in this cosmic game. The final moments of the opening sequence may have offered a clue that Jacob is more charismatic Lucifer Morningstar than feel-good sexy Jesus. As Loophole McNameless walked away, head full of hate and schemes, the camera tilted up and we got a full-scale profile shot of the Statue, which was still intact in the 19th century. The mug on the edifice sure didn't look like a jackal to me, thus ruling out the Egyptian God Anubis, protector of the dead. No, that face looked like a crocodile, which gets you Sobek, a morally ambiguous dark god who oversees dark waters and preys on sinful souls in the afterlife. (Very Smokey.) Even worse, Set, the Egyptian god of chaos and evil, was a shapeshifter who often morphed into crocodiles and hippos (another candidate for Four Toed's face) in his clashes with archenemy Horus. Set was linked to infertility (seems Horus once ripped off Set's testicles) (serious!) (and ouch!) and was partial to fish and lettuce. Hey...didn't we see Jacob munching on a filet-o-fish lettuce wrap last night? And aren't devilish gods all for the concept of choice and free will?

If these mythological readings are correct, then we must wonder: What's a seemingly nice guy like Jacob doing on an Island like this? And why the hell is he living in a statue like that? A Christ-like figure dwelling within a statue that's a monument to evil makes for a nifty metaphor for redemption. But it could mean Jacob is the devil. Time will tell.

squeal of approval ...britcom green wing.....puts the risque in bawdy.
lost spoiler of a sort

should also be very good!!

LOCANDA VERDE What was briefly Ago will open on May 19 with Andrew Carmellini, formerly of A Voce, in the kitchen and Josh Pickard, late of Lever House, managing the dining room. Karen DeMasco is the pastry chef. Mr. Carmellini, a partner with Mr. Pickard and Ken Friedman (Spotted Pig, John Dory), has said he wants a neighborhood Italian restaurant. Robert De Niro is one of the neighbors, and an owner of the Greenwich Hotel, which houses the restaurant and is one of its owners. 379 Greenwich Street (North Moore Street), (212) 925-3797.
A New Chapter for Sam Mason's Tailor: Chapter 11:<(((( bummer
finally open and i am
HUNGRY


one of my close pals sent me this

Had dinner last night at Da Silvano - because Bar Pitti was packed - and ordered an appetizer that I was really looking forward to, fried zucchini flowers. They were not good. Mostly batter with something unidentifiable inside, no flavor, and only four of them for $14.50. Of course they were so disappointing that you wouldn't have wanted more on the plate. It was kind of shocking. I thought that when the waiter came back and asked how everything was I would tell him that the dish was really bad, but he never came to the table and asked. A different server came and took the plates away. I make zucchini flowers at home and believe me, mine would blow away Da Silvanos's sorry, doughy disasters.
new gallery in red hook and Mr Gibby in projects room for inagural show!!


hubble troubled
OECD report


Here are the US rankings out of the 30 OECD countries (1 is best; 30 is worst -- worst as in Somalia-like). The names of the countries even more Somalian than the US appear in parens.

Infant Deaths: 28 out of 30 (Mexico, Turkey).

Life Expectancy: 24 out of 30 (Mexico, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Czech & Slovak Republics).

Health Expenditures: 1 out of 30.

Poverty Rates: 28 out of 30 (Mexico, Turkey).

Child Poverty: 27 out of 30 (Mexico, Turkey, Poland).

Income Inequality: 27 out of 30 (Mexico, Turkey, Portugal).

Obesity: 30 out of 30.

Incarceration: 30 out of 30.

Work Hours (ranked in ascending order): 30 out of 30.

Height (women): 25 out of 30 (Mexico, Turkey, Korea, Portugal, Japan).

Height (men): 24 out of 30 (Italy, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, Korea, Japan).
Face the Nation Remix