nsa whistleblower outs self.

charted cheese wheel
eat wild
the madness of art
English and all that

mall rat

The Writers Guild of America on Sunday unveiled its list of the “101 Best Written TV Series of All Time,” topped by HBO’s “The Sopranos.”

An ancient limestone platform dating back to 425 B.C is the oldest wine press ever discovered on French soil.

giant rodent kills man in belarus. be careful with your ridiculous wildlife photo ops, i guess is the lesson from this one.

Brancusi filmed

In a rare culinary outing we went to Atera on Wednesday night. One of the best meals of my life. Not counting meals memorable for reasons beyond the food (Skinny's 71 Clinton NYE party, etc...) this was probably top 3 along with Mugaritz and I can't even think of another to put in that class.

Very small room. Open kitchen with surrounding bar seating, and then just one other table (we had the table.) Just a single prie fixe menu. No choices, no substituions. The food is highly inventive, but not in a crazy sci-fi way (not that there's anything wrong with that style.) Great ingredients paired in unexpected ways with a lot of thought obviously going into both flavor and texture combinations. Each course was a real delight. Started with 10 rapid fire "snacks", followed by three small sort of appetizer like dishes, followed by three slighly more substantial but still small entree like things, followed by a bunch of desserts including the entirely edible "egg" shown below. It was a ton of food, but not enough to make us feel bloated afterwards. I love this style of small plates. Sort of like ordering everything on a more tradional menu and then sharing, except you don't have to share!

Highly recommended.

Business Insider article on Atera.

Vegetarianism explained.

waste water from natural gas drilling in NY found to be radioactive

manhattanhenge

Hitler teapot

new skyline

William Scott images

Seabreeze - Daytona, Florida. Circa 1904.

dark room
"Perhaps culture is now the counterculture" / a defense of the humanities