May 2007 Archives

It's been ridiculously hot, so hot that I've had to put my lip balm in the refrigerator cause it was melting in the bathroom cabinet.

And it's not even summer yet.

Anyhow, New Zealand's The Midnight Youth have a newish single out, called "A New Day." They've got an eh "making of" vid on YouTube and the single is playing on their MySpace page.

The opening reminds me a lot of U2's "In the Name of Love," but after the intro, "A New Day" becomes its own.

It sucks to be sick, and I haven't been sick like this in a long time. Nor does it help that it's been so hot out.

The upside, if there is one, is that it gives me time to catch up on my reading. When I'm not sleeping, or sweating, or generally feeling miserable, that is.

I've almost finished "Heat" by Bill Buford, and I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't become a cook myself. Of course, it could just be the illness-induced delirium talking.


I read the first chapter of "Bit Literacy" by Mark Hurst, an advocate of the "no mail in your inbox" philosophy. "Bits are heavy" is his mantra.


Last week, I bought the latest edition of Monocle, but only had the clarity to get through "Kitakoga," the manga included as a separate insert. Yes, adults read comics, too, you know, even ones that are prime vehicles for product placement.


I also started watching Nike's "Keeping up with the Grouchers" but got depressed. I'm barely in any condition to leave my home. Why taunt myself with videos of elite athletes training to run really fast?

See the video at NikeRunning.com

Ugh. I hope this bug goes away soon.

Why, oh why did I ever leave L.A.?

This weekend, the Los Angeles Convention Center plays host to "Celebration IV," the periodic "Star Wars" nerd party fan fest that includes DIY films, sneak peeks, costume contests, and a march of the 501st Regiment.

The last three celebrations coincided with the release of the abominable Episodes I, II and III, and so I refused to attend.

Thank goodness this year's fete is due to the 30th anniversary of the original "Star Wars" movie, which I hold dear as the first film I ever saw in a movie theater. But of course, I'm no longer in town, so I can't go. Rats.


Some of the coolest on-site photos in my nerdy geeky opinion have been of the Vader Project. Sixty artists were invited to reinterpret the big black helmet, with some stunning results. My personal fave is the Vader/Statue of Liberty mashup:

Celebration IV runs through May 28. If you're lucky enough to be in L.A., go! And may the force be with you.

Update:
Argh. Can't seem to get the Flickr Badge to load, so if you'd like to see more photos from the Vader Project and Celebration IV, visit Bonnie Burton's Flickr page.

Something went haywire with my hit counter, so I've been messing around with the MT templates. The site should be OK now. Apologies to those who read this site on PC. RSS readers should be all caught up now as well.

This is ridiculous. The first day of summer isn't even here yet, and we've already hit 90 degrees. My old but trusty Galaxy oscillating fan won't keep things cool once the humidity level rises.

Though I've been whining about it even since I arrived, it's time to bite the bullet: I'm buying an air conditioner.

It's my first large appliance purchase ever, and it's a little disappointing — I was hoping to buy a really nice stove/oven or maybe one of those shiny Gaggenau refrigerators — but at least I can take my window A/C unit with me when I move.

I'm learning about all sorts of things like the importance of an Energy Star rating, a high energy efficiency ratio (EER) and new curse words for ConEd, which has proposed a 17 percent spike in electricity prices for renters and homeowners.

Fortunately, this being Memorial Day weekend, the local appliance outfitter, PC Richard is having a sale and free shipping with certain purchases.

My UPS man will receive a very nice tip the day my window unit arrives. Meanwhile, I'm going to hope this weekend's forecasts hold up: temps no higher than 85, with possible thunderstorms Sunday evening and Monday.

Yesterday, TV stations showed naval ships on parade in the Hudson. Members of our country's seafaring military are in town for the once-a-year PR and R&R event known as Fleet Week.

Had it not been for the "Anchors Away" episode of "Sex and the City," I'd have never realized what a big deal this is for the Big Apple. Nor would I have realized why so many sailors in white uniforms were wandering around.

If you're in town and want to take a tour of active warships, or just hang out with some of America's finest, check the schedule.

There are some fun panoramic photos from past years aboard the USS Kearsarge and the USS John F. Kennedy.

One of the photo galleries I used to visit in L.A. had an exhibition of works by Jean-François Rauzier, whose claim to fame seems to be creating supersaturated, hyper-real photos.

I've never seen his work before, but I thought it was pretty cool.

See for yourself:

Part of the Hyper-Photo exhibit by Jean-François Rauzier.

There are plenty of California rituals I did not get to while I was living there. So when I was invited to be a part of San Francisco's annual Bay to Breakers race/parade, I jumped at the chance.

It turned out to be a history-making event. For the first time in its 96 years, a woman won the event, finishing the 12K (7.46-mile) course in 38:55.

My team and I, on the other hand, had no ambitions of the sort and were diverted off the course just after the sixth mile, essentially for being too slow. (The Great Highway, where the course finished, had to be reopen by noon. At our pace, we weren't going to make it....)

But for thousands, finishing was not the point. Participating was.

There were blue people.

There were naked people.

There was Pac-Man.

There were stormtroopers.

There were salmon running against the flow of the parade (an annual tradition) yelling "Spawn!"

And then there were your usual assortment of Running Elvises, Pamplonan bull runners (complete with beer carts designed to look like bulls), rolling cantinas, space ships, pool parties, chickens, tacos, bananas and other assorted costumes.

According to SFGate.com, 60,000 people took part. I was happy to be one of the crowd.

Someone once asked me what my idea of home was. I had to think for a while before answering, since when traveling, I'll even call my hotel room "home."

Home isn't just where my stuff is, or the place I've paid money to stay at (apartment, hotel room). In that sense, it's a mutable word, because "home" is a place to which I look forward to arriving.

And so, despite having been gone for several months now, I still think of L.A. as home. It's not just because it's where many close friends are; I honestly like the city. Yes, the traffic's terrible, housing's expensive, and some of the people are fake. But I've lived nowhere else where so much is so close to you: food, culture, outdoor adventure, indoor playgrounds, big thinkers (UCLA, USC, JPL — which is technically in Pasadena, not L.A., but it's close enough), serious poverty, architectural marvels and mistakes, and more movies than you can shake a stick at.

On the one hand, this may mean I need to live in more and different cities to see that Los Angeles is not unique. Then again, what does it matter if I think L.A. is one of a kind?

It's good to be home.

I got lost at the airport today. Instead of getting off at the domestic terminal, I entered international, looking desperately for a departures screen that would tell me which gate my flight was leaving from.

I passed the usual stuff: duty free shops, fast-food joints, bars. And then I came across a little kiosk staffed by four people who were hanging out, not doing much. I didn't have time to talk to them, but I did grab a brochure.

Looks like people who travel a lot have a new convenience available to them: Clear, the verified identity pass. It allows the haves (enrollment starts at about $100 a year) to slip through security screenings.

Enrollment is a two-step process, but it's pretty simple. Only thing is the Clear card will only whisk you through security at five airports:

• Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky (CVG)
• Indianapolis (IND)
• New York JFK Terminals 4 and 7 (JFK)
• Orlando (MCO)
• San Jose (SJC)

The slow rollout will continue with service at Albany (ALB), Little Rock (LIT), Newark Terminal B (EWR), New York JFK Terminal 1 (JFK) and Toronto (YYZ) later this year.

I suppose the hope is to bring new meaning to "you're now cleared for takeoff."

I'd be curious to find out more about the inner workings of the company issuing and administering the Clear program. Corporate information identifies law reporter and media magnate Steven Brill as the CEO. GE Security, Lockheed Martin, Baker Capital and ARINC are his partners in this venture, called Verified Identity Pass Inc. (VIP. Get it?)

An article from the June 12, 2006 edition of USA Today has some background.

As I pondered the perfection of the carmelized top of my crème brûlée, several things occured to me at once:

• There really is art everywhere.
• Whoever carmelized the sugar on my dessert is a food perfectionist in the best sense of the word.
• The only reason I remember the names of the accents over the 'E's in "crème brûlée" is because of my seventh-grade French teacher. Merci beaucoup, Mlle. Cooper!
• I'm going to have to exercise a lot to burn off tonight's dinner.

And so without further ado...

On the nightstand:
• Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford
(Amazon|BN|Powell's)
Every once in a while, I entertain the idea of chucking it all and cooking for a living, but I'm not sure I'd survive in the macho world of restaurant kitchens. Instead, I pick books like this one, and live vicariously.

Bill Buford was the founding editor of the literary magazine, Granta. He also wrote for the New Yorker and this book was an extension of a story about "Molto" Mario Battali.

In it, Buford describes his own journey from writing about food to making food, and the seemingly consistent motivation of all who love cooking: to pour emotion into food that brings pleasure to those who eat it.

• "Bread and Chocolate: My Food Life in and Around San Francisco" by Fran Gage
(Amazon|BN|Powell's)
Though I'm always trying to get my stovetop skills up, I'm really more a baker than a cook. I like the exactness and precision of recipes, the physicality of working with dough, the sculptor's art in a perfectly turned crust, cookie or cake, the way you can weigh the finished work with all your senses.

This is a reread — I ripped through the book when I first bought it in 1999.

At the time I thought I was buying a cookbook. Really, it's a memoir with recipes, written by baker and pastry chef Fran Gage, who ran the wildly successful Pâtisserie Française (there go those crazy accent marks again) in SF before closing shop and becoming a full-time food writer.

• Olive magazine
(Website)
I have become such a devotee of this magazine that I bought my first (and hopefully only) food scale earlier this year.

Like most food magazines, there are a collection of recipes around a monthly theme — May was the British issue — but there are also essays, travel tips, and the sheer joy of food running throughout.

Right-o. Guess I'll do a couple laps between the kitchen and my computer desk now.

I went to a movie. It was OK.

I was fully expecting "Hot Fuzz" to be much funnier and more outrageous than it was. The truly great scenes are available as film clips on the official web page.

Most everything else was kind of "eh" — though the closeups of the souped-up Honda Jazz police car (hope I pegged that right) with drilled racing pedals and aluminum shifter were pretty funny.

Meanwhile, the scene on the street was very quaint. Lots of teen and adult sons and daughters walking arm in arm with their moms, and lots of young moms and dads pushing strollers or ambling with young kids in tow or zipping ahead on the sidewalk.

It is Mother's Day after all. Hi, Mom!

Simon Pegg, left, and Nick Frost can't believe it's taken me this long to see their film.

It's been out for a bit, I know, but opening weekend came at the end of a full week fo Virginia Tech shootings coverage.

I'd thought about going at the time, but I jumped when the gunfire sounds on the official website exploded out of the speakers, so I figured I'd wait 'til I was in a better emotional space.

That day would be today. "Worth it or not" recommendation TK, but any time a film explores male homosocial relationships (and gives me the chance to use that word), I'm so there.

For many, New York conjures up images of designers, fashion shows and sample sales.

Being spring, lots of places are unloading merchandise. So on this rather nice day, with temps and humidity levels coming down, I scoured the listings.

Unable to afford to even look at anything in the Daryl K warehouse, I ventured off to Showroom Seven, where Mary the proprietress makes use of the vertical space to cram stock from British designer Orla Kiely, somewhat unfashionable local label Imitation of Christ (since the demise of the Matt Damhave and Tara Subkoff partnership), Mona & Holly, jewelry from Erickson Beamon and others.

There were plenty of clothes, but nothing really jumped out at me. So I ventured farther south to SoHo, where two denim labels were blowing out inventory.

I made my way out of the subway exit to stand on the corner of Canal & Broadway. People were six and seven thick on the sidewalks, making it nearly impossible to make my way to the abandoned space where Loomstate and Rogan had temporarily set up shop.

It's amazing what can be done with some 2-inch square studs, loose fabric and a staple gun. There were two gang rooms (one for girls, one for guys), bins and shelves full of jeans, sweatshirts and other casual wear, plus something that looked like a Victorian nightgown. (Rogan, what were you thinking?)

Being that Rogan is kind of a guy label, there were lots of slim men in aviator glasses and Jack Purcells checking out the merchandise. I found little of interest, so I dashed off to Kitchen Commune for mac and cheese. The food was not great and the people behind the counter were too fabulous for me. But thus fortified, I walked on past chain stores, including the Uniqlo world flagship.

From what I gather, Uniqlo ("oo-knee-coo-roh") is sort of Japan's equivalent of H&M, or maybe Gap. I have yet to see anything in the stores that calls out to me, though there are some interesting pieces in the online catalog.

Maybe I will take that sewing class....

Went for a quick jaunt around Central Park with a friend and his newborn in the mighty, mod Stokke Xplory stroller (blame the funny name on the Dutch).

While we discussed work and the mysteries of being a new parent, I also noticed something rather odd: people everywhere around us were liplocked.

No matter where we were — Wollman rink, the Kerbs boathouse, the Loeb boathouse, Bethesda Terrace — it was the same.

Sitting on rocks, perched on park benches, lounging in the grass -- maybe it was the humid evening air. Maybe it was spring fever. Lucky for the little one the Xplory has high walls that blocked the side view. It would have been sensory overload.

Oh. My. God.

I have just discovered the most amazing bread ever. A browned, crunchy crust surrounding a light, spicy interior flecked with bits of prociutto that punch your tastebuds.

Slices are served in a bread basket at The Kitchen Club in SoHo, but sources say it comes from Parisi Bakery, the Italian place with three locations that have served local luminaries including Ol' Blue Eyes himself.

A trek is in order. Stay tuned.

Today, 40,000 people ran from Times Square to the great lawn in Central Park to raise money for women's cancer research and recovery programs. In taking part, I think I finally discovered an event that's smaller and in some ways more disorganized in New York than it is in L.A.

People were crammed into the streets, which had been shut down to cars, but not to bewildered map-toting bystanders, who desperately tried to ford the stream of runners, walkers, strollers and dogs heading northbound. We were on a mission to get to the finish line. They were trying to get to some of the pricest shopping in all Manhattan.

"Tourists," we racers grumbled.

The run to and through the park was pretty good, though it took at least a half mile before the crowd dispersed enough for people to actually start running. There was also the added challenge of trying not to crash into other people and animals in the race and those — including horses pulling carriages — coming the opposite way.

Neverthless, fun was had, money was raised, and my iPod told me that I'd gone nearly four miles, a couple of which were at a 10-minute pace. Not bad.

At the finish, friends and I regrouped by cell phone and headed to Annie's on the Upper East Side for a celebratory carb-laden breakfast. I couldn't resist a tall glass of orange juice and pumpkin waffles with a touch of whipped cream. Never mind that pumpkins are not in season. These were great.

Afterward, we walked down Third Avenue marveling at the various stores and discussing whether men could enjoy shopping. The guy I was with vouched for his own conversion. When he quit smoking and started running, shopping for running-associated stuff became his motivation, he said.

We went our separate ways for the afternoon. I, still feeling somewhat frisky, decided retail therapy of my own was in order, so I headed to Paragon Sports near Union Square to find running shorts.

It proved a difficult task. Most were either too short, too low, too big or too poofy. I guess it's back to browsing through the online catalog at Road Runner Sports.

By this time, my quads were getting a little sore. A sports therapist had once advised runners to inflict post-race self-torture in order to prevent debilitating injuries: Buy the hardest tennis ball you can find and roll it over your IT band using as much pressure as you can muster. And remember to breathe. You'll hate yourself while you're doing it, but over the long term, your muscles and your knees will thank you.

I selected my weapon of choice, the Penn Championship Hard Court model, a can of three for $2.

I delayed the inevitable by traipsing off to the Barnes and Noble store, looking for travel-related books. It occured to me that while plenty of novels and essays have been written about Italy and France, I couldn't find any books about Germany, other than travel and etiquette guides.

Hmm.

Home again, I read a chapter, then cracked open the Penn can. I took a deep breath and hummed the Star Spangled Banner as I shimmied the bright yellow ball down my right side, then my left, three times each.

Spent, I took a nap before meeting a friend for scotch at the swank Hudson Cafeteria, where our discussion about how to save our respective professions faded into a background of rowdy, fabulous 20 and 30 somethings egged on by a live DJ spinning reworkings of Michael Jackson.

Outside, the wind had picked up and the temperature dropped 20 degrees as we said our goodbyes and headed home, our minds a little looser from the drink; our legs a little stiffer from the run.

A colleague invited me to dinner at Le Bateau Ivre, which calls itself New York's first true French wine bar, raw bar and grill. It was almost like being in Paris. We were surrounded by plenty of French and French speakers — the resto is, after all, près de l'Organisation des Nations Unies, and it gave me a chance to flex my rusty French skills.

"Le caille rotie, s'il vous plaît."

The servers eyes flew wide. "Ah! Bon! Vous comprenez français?"

A three-minute conversation about wine pairing ensued. Faced with a choice of about 250 wines, I let the server pick. It went well with my boneless quail.

My colleague said Bateau Ivre was one of his favorites — a place where someone who grew up as far from the city as you can imagine could really feel cosmopolitan.

At dinner, I rarely pass on the opportunity to have dessert, so when the menu came, I pored it over.

The magic word flambé leapt out at me.

"I love desserts on fire!" I proclaimed, as the server came rushing over to see what was wrong. (Maybe I said the word "fire" a little too loudly.)

Another exchange of instructions and out came a perfectly composed tarte tatin — ultrathin slices of apple laid atop a bed of lemon cream nestled in a flaky crust. With it, a copper saucepan filled with a carmelized syrup loaded with some liqueur I can't remember. One snick of the lighter and *poof* the sauce was liquid blue flame poured over the center of the tart.

It burned for a good minute or two.

My dinner companion and I sat mesmerized, me reminding myself to hold my head back lest my eyebrows get singed.

It occured to me only too late that I should take a picture. Oh well. It was delicious. And I can always go back for another.

"Star Wars" will always hold a special place in my heart. It was the first film I ever saw in a theater (mine was a sheltered childhood).

Everything about the movie made a huge impression on me — the now-famous text crawl, the characters, the story, even the robots: R2-D2 was my first interspecies crush. (Again, sheltered childhood.)

So when I found out today that Mimoco, a Boston toy design company, has released a series of "Star Wars"-themed USB keys, I got all excited.

Not that I'm going to get one. Starting price is about $70 for the 1GB model. Ouch.