Sherman Square Pundit

Signing off

2008-09-02T11:15:00.004-04:00

Posting activity has trickled to almost nothing these past few months. Work, family life, vacation ... and so, although I think I'd like to keep the site up on blogger for now, I won't be actively posting. Thank you all for reading, cross-linking & commenting, the laughter, grunts & tears.

Best.

Sherman Square Pundit

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The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. - Marcus Aurelius

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Television Before and After

2008-08-04T10:29:00.005-04:00

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Depression Modern Bar

2008-08-04T10:14:00.006-04:00

Work hasn't entirely stopped our progress with the apartment renovation and what I am charitably calling our interior design efforts. We purchased a 1930's vintage depression modern (a.k.a. depression moderne a.ka. streamline moderne) style bar from, uh, er, Depression Modern, a great furniture shop in Soho. Then, we found the 1940's decorative mirror from a small antique shop in Williamsburg this weekend. We're now looking for a table lamp that'll illuminate the bar corner without over-crowding the top.

A brief word of explanation

2008-08-04T10:08:00.003-04:00

Okay, I'm back.

Whew. It has been almost two months since my last real post. We finished, about two weeks ago, the deal that had been keeping me from posting; that deal was an excruciating slog. I've got tons of stories and have thought about posting a write up, but nothing positive can come of that (don't want to post something that'll come back and bite me). Suffice to say, we survived, the client seems happy enough and we all are moving along to the next deal.

Sure is quiet around here ...

2008-06-25T19:30:00.003-04:00

Gifts are certainly welcome

2008-06-19T20:14:00.008-04:00

Commentator Chatham asks:

i am impressed with how many times you have linked to chances blog. i am not even sure he knows. Question for you, does a complete reno require a housewarming gift? inquiring minds want to know

Yes. If you're thinking about getting me something for the apartment, I want the villain chair.

Underwater

2008-06-19T10:05:00.005-04:00

Work's picked up in a big way this week. Early mornings, long nights, 2 1/2 hour conference calls with business people. Would love to post, but its time to pay the bills ... please check back next week.

Until then, some random cool links of stuff:

Next week the Brooklyn Bridge waterfall is scheduled to go live.
Got a thing for secret passageways, hidden doors and esoteric clues? I do. And I want to live in a house like this some day.
And apparently the Romans played D&D about 2,000 years ago!

In case you didn't notice ... we're winning in Iraq

2008-06-17T10:55:00.008-04:00

From the front page of the print edition of this morning's Wall Street Journal:

"Sadr's followers signaled they won't resist a crackdown in Amara unless Iraqi troops make warrantless arrests."

Translation: Sadr's wings have been clipped and his political base now sounds only a tad more radical than the student communications director of your local ACLU.

' just in case you doubted that Mr. Bush's war might change Iraq into a modern constitutional republic.

Fake Political Campaigns

2008-06-13T12:02:00.014-04:00

The crowd pleasing full contact sporting competition I like to call the "Presidential Race" has gotten a lot less amusing now that the presidential candidate field has been winnowed down to two presumptive nominees. We can all look forward to five months of the "he said - I'm disappointed he said that - I didn't say that, why are you distorting my record?" cycle.

Also, McCain and Obama are both too polished and, frankly, too polite, to let any real zingers fly. And there's so much $$ being spent on '08 that I doubt the machers in either party will allow things to go off the rails.

What I'm amazed about, though, it the apparent lack of joke candidates. When I was growing up, every four years the great cultural icons of the moment (usually advertising spokesmen, sometimes popular TV characters) would run gag-presidential campaigns. You don't see that anymore. What gives?

So here's my rundown of some of my favorite fake political campaigns from the past:

1. Bill the Cat.

Bloom County is my favorite all time comic strip. I still have my "Don't Blame Me, I voted for Bill and Opus" t-shirt. Do you?

2. Spuds McKenzie.

Apparently Anheuser-Busch is trying to hide the evidence, since I can't seem to locate a "Spuds for President" screenshot or video clip anywhere.

3. Randee of the Redwoods

Remember this guy? He ran a grass roots (okay, AstroTurf) campaign in '87, captured the youth vote, and lost out on the VP nod to Lloyd Bentsen by just a few hundred votes.

4. Brewster's Millions

Great, great flick with Richard Pryor and John Candy. If only more voters heeded his words and voted "none of above" on election day, we'd live in a very different world.

5. Dennis Kucinich

Seriously, did even his chippie wife think he had a shot?

6. Heywood Jablome

1983 candidate for president of the student counsel, Edmund Muskie Junior High School, Kearney, New Jersey. Lost to Anita Bath in a landslide.

Gimme Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses

2008-06-13T11:07:00.014-04:00

I've been doing a bit of research lately on my family history. A fair amount of old public records (census records, military draft enrollments, old telephone directories) has been digitized and indexed, so you can now search for online for forensic evidence of your not-too-distant ancestors. I've been using ancestry.com and it's been rewarding - I'm sure there are others genealogy search services out there that are competent as well.

The most rewarding artifact that I've been able to discover is this image of the S.S. St. Louis:

This is the ship that carried my paternal great-grandfather, Louis Abramowitz, across the Atlantic (How great is it that the ship that carried my ancestor Louis was the St. Louis?)

Louis hailed from Kiev, then part of the Romanov empire. He boarded the St. Louis in Southampton, England and arrived in New York City on May 14, 1911.

Apparently, the St. Louis was an America vessel, launched November 12, 1894, with a total of 10 boilers, 64 furnaces, and could fit 320 1st class passengers, 210 in second class, and 800 in third class.

Here's an image of the ship's manifest of "Alien Passengers" bound for the United States (click on the image to enlarge):

Louis' ethnicity on the ship's manifest is listed as "Hebrew". He is listed as being a 25 year old native of Russia, born in the town of "Klotzh", a name that doesn't appear on any modern maps. The manifest also lists Louis' occupation as "Tailor" and his final destination as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

I particularly love the tailor part. According my great-Aunt Bea (his oldest daughter who sadly passed away just this year at the age of 90), Louis was a terrible tailor. No skills. So when he settled in Baltimore around the time of World War I, his boss suggested he find himself another line of work. Louis ended up becoming a kosher caterer, starting a tradition that now extends through four generations in my family (that behind-the-scenes history in the kosher business goes a long way towards explaining why I don't keep kosher, but that's grist for some other post).

Louis' grandchildren and great-grandchildren now operate or manage kitchens or restaurants in 3 states, including both Millers (by blood) and Attmans (by marriage) in Baltimore, The Belvedere in Connecticut and East Coast West in San Fransisco.

Somehow Emma Lazarus’ The New Colossus seems appropriate:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Phase Three: Interior Design

2008-06-13T10:44:00.009-04:00

If Phase One was the planning and permits and Phase Two was the actual construction, Phase Three will be interior design. We figure, you spend the time, money & energy going through a year-plus renovation, you can't put back the same well worn and mostly mismatched furniture. So, we're in the market now for new stuff. In the meantime, though, we're living with the old furniture and some temporary fixes - such as a folding card table for a dining room table. And pillows on the floor instead of a sofa. Still a lot of boxes to unpack and rooms to set up, but here's what some of it looks like so far.

Renovation Update: Details, Details, Details

2008-06-13T10:24:00.009-04:00

It's been a few weeks since I've uploaded pics of the renovation and construction. We've moved back in and are now fighting the daily struggle to unpack everything, organize the closets, move the furniture around and generally tie up loose ends. We've had (OK, my wife, the Punditress, has had) dozens of appointments with delivery people, building people, the contractors, TimeWarner cable, Verizon, etc. So I don't have shots of the finished project just yet.

For now, here are a sampling of detail shots that we took in the final hours before move-in time. First, a rather fascinating detail of the ball-bearing catch lock for our closet doors, followed by a sample of sconce we picked for the living room and hallway, the media cabinet, and finally the fixtures in the master bath. Enjoy.

Careful What You Read on them Internets

2008-06-13T10:14:00.010-04:00

An anonymous commenter writes:

Let's clarify a couple of facts: Howard Dean did not run in 2000. he ran in 2004. My support of his candidacy has nothing to do with trees on my old street.I did not organize the community the protest two years ago. A neighbor stuck a flier under our door and we met once with the town forester who agreed that most of the trees did not need to cut down. The trees enhanced the value of the property (both aesthetically and financially) so of course we want to save them.Thus, my desire to save the trees had absolutely nothing to do with politics. However, I guess there is the added benefit that you mentioned that I had not even thought about: those trees may help to reduce atmospheric carbon that may lead to global climate change.Finally, all of us who lost our power on Tuesday night did not really have to suffer through the 96 degree heat wave without a/c because the storm itself ended the heat wave.Unfortunately, we couldn't use the slipnslide since it was in the garage and we did have power to open the door.I do not think anybody died or was seriously injured so things were safe. The city did lose 6 people to heat stroke the prior two days.

I have no idea what this lunatic is talking about.

In other news, I had a great phone call with my sister last night. Apparently the power came back on yesterday and everyone is doing great.

Also, my brother-in-law just accepted an offer to run the fact-checking department at the New Yorker.

And I now know how David Sedaris felt.

UWS Street Scenes: A Dog and his Guitar

2008-06-13T10:12:00.002-04:00

Safe in the City

2008-06-12T11:55:00.008-04:00

This week has been one of those (many) times I'm glad I don't live in suburbia. Rain storms swept through northern New Jersey earlier this week. Over 250,000 people were left without power (meaning, no A/C, right in the midst of our first 96 degree heatwave of the summer). My sister's family lost power for about 36 hours ... school was cancelled, and she spent the day playing with the kids on a slip 'n' slide. Sounds like fun.

She sent along some pics of the damage in one of the neighborhoods where a bunch of trees were knocked down:

What a shame. Just last year, the township had planned on knocking down those very same trees because their roots were damaging the streets and sidewalks. My brother-in-law (a real "Dean in 2004" supporter [note: original post said "Dean in 2000"]) organized a community protest that saved most of the trees. Now, mother nature accomplished what the municipal authorities could not.

And we think the federal legislation can stop global climate change? Good luck.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed: Constitutional Scholar

2008-06-11T09:55:00.008-04:00

Riding the 2/3 on the way down to work this morning, I read a buried-on-page-17 blurb in the WSJ about the Klahid Sheik Mohammed's trial:

Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, who’s insisting on representing himself, told Col. Kohlmann, the military judge, that while he was an “expert in the gospel and the Koran,” he had no training in the common law system. Nonetheless, the alleged terrorist commander’s comments suggested he held sympathy for the 20th century American analytical movement known as legal realism.

A thought hit me on the train - this guy has a name right out of central casting. "Sheik Mohamed." What's with that?

Earlier news pieces on the Khalid Sheikh Mohamed (that's a lot to type - let's go with KSM from now on) trial mentioned KSM is looking forward to "martyrdom". Presumably, he understands that we tend to give the electric chair to folks found guilty of 2,973 counts of murder. So what KSM calls "martyrdom", we in the U.S.A. call "justice."

Of course, KSM is the guy whose original plans for the 9/11 attacks involved ten hijacked planes. From GlobalSecurity.Org:

Indeed, KSM describes a grandiose original plan: a total of ten aircraft to be hijacked, nine of which would crash into targets on both coasts—they included those eventually hit on September 11 plus CIA and FBI headquarters, nuclear power plants, and the tallest buildings in California and the state of Washington. KSM himself was to land the tenth plane at a U.S. airport and, after killing all adult male passengers on board and alerting the media, deliver a speech excoriating U.S. support for Israel, the Philippines, and repressive governments in the Arab world.

Got that? His original plan was to direct dozens of compatriots to kill themselves while murdering tens of thousands of civilians, only his plane would land safely. Boldly triumphant, KSM would step out onto the tarmac and deliver a speech. Wait, what?

Mohamed remarked on the judge’s brusque treatment of civilian attorneys, whom he repeatedly silenced before they could state their objections.“You tell [David Nevin, a volunteer civilian attorney], ‘Sit down! Sit down! Sit down Sit down!,’” said Mohamed. “It is inquisition, not trial.”

OK, low hanging fruit first. KSM is a sociopath, egomaniac, coward and hypocrite. A guy who planned the murder of thousands has no business whining that the judge keeps overruling his (court appointed, tax payer funded) lawyer's objections .

Then there's this choice nugget:

“I consider all American constitution” evil, he said, because it permits “same-sexual marriage and many other things that are very bad,” he told the military judge, Col. Ralph Kohlmann. “Do you understand?”

On the larger point, though, KSM gets it half-right. The American Constitution permits things that are very bad. That's the point of limited government by the people, for the people. The system is purposefully flawed for the simple reason that people are flawed. We don't have pretensions that the Constitution embodies a divinely inspired code of conduct. What KSM calls evil is a document that compels ordinary Americans to work through issues of morality and civil conduct to arrive at socially beneficial compromises (to whit: without resorting to political inspired murder). That's a beautiful thing in my book.

I Got Dumped For Obama

2008-06-11T09:51:00.004-04:00

My cousin's friend made this video and posted it on YouTube:

Sure, it's a riff-off of the ObamaGirl video, but there's room in our politics for creative borrowings. Don't believe me? Compare:

President Bush, 2004: "Yes, America Can!"

Candidate Obama, 2008: "Yes, We Can!"

Now that's change we can believe in.

UPDATE: Actually, the chic in the video is my own cousin, Rachel Keller. I don't see much of the Kellers ... who'd of thunk it?

Daily Kos Mocks McCain's Teeth

2008-06-05T16:00:00.006-04:00

In a single post, the Daily Kos today manages to make an issue out of John McCain's hair and teeth. Both cheap shots imply something else about the candidate ... he's just to darn old to be president.

I wonder how the left wing of the Democratic Party would react if, say, Fox News mocked Obama's hair and teeth to imply something critical about one of his, shall we say, immutable characteristics?

You stay classy there, Kos.

NYC Dating through the Eyes of a Corporate Attorney

2008-06-05T12:09:00.006-04:00

As you can see from the blurb about me at the top of this page, I'm a happily married and gainfully employed father who left the world of dating years & years ago. But many of my peers are none of those things: not a parent, not married, not committed to a relationship or Parkview, stuck in the mire and merriment of NYC dating. One of them, whom we'll pretend is named "Will", wrote this fitting piece for Dealbreaker:

The High Yield Debt ("Junk Bond"): The untamed and often uncontrollable vixen, commonly referred to as the mistress. She's not looking for any long term investment, but she could offer a mind-blowing weekend in Maui, as long as she doesn't pick up the tab. There is no middle ground with these types--they enjoy either the high flying adventure or nothing at all; they come with a price. If their partner slips up in any way or ceases to perform, she will immediately default, leaving a trail of broken hearts in her often destructive path. The Junk Bond is perfect for the young and the immature--those who have not experienced the ups and downs of the dating world and simply want to reap the benefits of lust and adventure. They won't stick around to raise your children, but they will give you a great escape from them.
The Investment Grade Security: The 1950's housewife. She's quiet, calm, sweet, and patient; she'll never get too riled up and will stick with you even in the worst of times. Considered by many to be the ideal wife and future mother of one's children. Perfect for the well seasoned and experienced individual--one who has seen the highs and lows of the dating scene and is ready to settle down into a stable, committed relationship. They'll never make you rich, but will also never let you down.
The Bridge Loan: Perfect for the recovering heart-broken man. She is generally kind and gentle, often not requiring much from her partner, but generally giving exactly what is needed--a short term tryst that will leave her partner confident and more experienced upon her leave. She rarely leaves a trail of broken hearts in her wake because she always has the grace to end the relationship amicably. In fact, many men call upon the bridge loan several times in their lives for quick fixes to broken hearts. She, being the selfless type, is always willing to accommodate.
The Asset Based Revolver ("ABR"): The ABR is the trickiest of all the breeds of women--often the most superficial, but generally the most desirable by those with great ambition. She can help her partner reap great benefits, but can take them away just as quickly. She is a social climber, socialista, and often the life of the party--constantly armed with Christian Louboutins stilettos, Balenciaga handbags, and a perfectly sculpted slender body accented with wildly untamed hair. She will make an initial investment in various types of men, but will only stay with those who continually build upon their fortunes. Any faltering in realized ambition will cause her to immediately walk away, taking with her not only her partner's pride, but often a significant portion of his assets--not to mention his social circle. She carries great penalties, but for the ambitious, she will give continually greater rewards proportionate to her partner's increased net worth. Great marriage material for the superficial and ambitious men of the world, but be warned: If she files for divorce, the consequences will be catastrophic.
The Subordinated Debt: Generally the second, third, fourth, etc. wife. She's often a short term fix to a misguided life, frequently brought about by some midlife crisis filled with dreams of reinvention. Arriving in the picture only after her partner has already made his considerable wealth, she rarely reaps the financial benefits of the first wife, to whom her partner owed the most, and to whom her partner always gave, and will continue to give, the most. The subordinated debt will generally have to sign a bullet-proof prenuptial agreement that will reap her modest, but never outsized returns upon the almost guaranteed divorce. She's perfect for the self-made man who needs the affection of a beautiful (and often younger) woman and the appearance of stability with a marriage. The subordinated debt is always hoping that upon her partner's death, she will be favored in the will, but she is always disappointed when the children from the first marriage get the lion's share of the wealth.

Read the rest live on Dealbreaker. Check out the comments - they're uber-fun.

Harness the Power of the 'Net, Change the World

2008-06-05T10:23:00.007-04:00

This is why - new technology, new networks of social relationships, new challenges to authority - the Internet is AWESOME. And it's the kind of thing that should make President Mubarak, Kim Jong-Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Vladmir Putin, Hugo Chavez, and yes, mediopolies like the AP, BBC, New York Times and CNN quake in their boots:

Via CNN [emphasis added]:

James Karl Buck was released from a Mahalla jail after sending a one-word blog post from his cell phone through the Twitter Web site. The message -- "Arrested" -- alerted all of his friends on the site of his detention. Twitter, a social-networking blog site, allows users to send status updates, or "tweets," from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook in less than 140 characters. That message helped free Buck, whose college hired a lawyer for him, but it didn't help free Mohammed Maree.

And no, I wasn't familiar with Twitter, either, before I read this article.

Bo Diddley, R.I.P.

2008-06-05T09:53:00.008-04:00

This is a little old, but I thought it appropriate to mention the death of Bo Diddley, born Ellas Otha Bates in McComb, Mississippi. Anyone who has ever learned to play the electric guitar has had to explore the driving right-hand rhythms created by this pioneer.

A lot of the obits that appeared this week credit Bo with creating the Bo Diddley beat - that bam, b'bam, b'bam, bop, bop. Actually, he didn't create it - it's a classic Haitian drum rhythm. But he did adopt the beat for the electric guitar, crank up the distortion and belt out some timeless lyrics filled with stark broken imagery, down South bravado and proto-rock sexiness.

And yeah, he got swindled on those royalty payments. The rocker in me says that's a crime. The lawyer in me says, he should've read what he signed. And if he didn't, he should've hired himself a better lawyer.

Another thing - his early band appears to have included the earliest female electric guitarist I've ever seen; it certainly looks like he had the first mixed-sex rock outfit. Thus Bo paved the way for such great acts as Jefferson Airplane, Feetwood Mac, Blondie, the Talking Heads, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, the Pixies and others!

And then there's the cameo appearance as a pawnbroker in the Dan Akroyd-Eddie Murphy classic, Trading Places. Actually, his IMDB bio shows a fair number of cameos and appearances as himself or otherwise.

Anyway, here are some classic clips of Bo working his four sided six string:

Rest in peace, Bo Diddley. Thank you for your music. You will be missed.

She's Out (Maybe)

2008-06-03T13:23:00.005-04:00

Via Yahoo ... Hillary aides have announced she may concede the delegate count after today's primaries. It all depends upon what your definition of "concede" is.

UPDATE:

Maybe not. Clinton surrogate Terry McAuliffe calls reports of her conceding "100% incorrect." She's Out! She's In! She's Out! She's just like Ann Hetche!

Primary Finale

2008-06-03T09:28:00.003-04:00

Here it is, your once-in-a-lifetime political occurrence; the day when the South Dakota and Montana primaries make national headlines. Enjoy!

Tracking the mega-narrative split among Democratic primary voters, experts say the American Indian vote is split. Are they even allowed to vote in the general election?

Meanwhile, everyone's predicting The Hill TM will drop out after tonight? And the WSJ reports that she told staffers to report to New York for the big end-of-primary season party but to expect to pay their own bus fair home. Gee, you'd think the Clintons could spring for a several hundred bus tickets for those staffers still deluded enough to buy the crap after all these years ... any doubt they won't even stock top shelf booze at the party tonight?

Johnny Rotten - Fifty, Fat and Still Awesome!

2008-06-02T11:20:00.003-04:00

Check out this in-depth interview with former Sex Pistols and PIL frontman Johnny Lydon (nee Rotten), via Britain's Telegraph:

Johnny on...

Sex: 'There was so much sex around in the Seventies, it got very boring.'
Death: 'There's nothing glorious in dying. Anyone can do it.'
Bono: 'He should lay off the preaching. If you mean to do some good in this world you don't need to go bowing to the Pope.'

Read it all.

Renovation Update: Almost There!

2008-06-02T11:05:00.005-04:00

It's been several days since my last real post ... but I'm pleased to report that we've moved in! It has been a crazy couple of days of moving boxes into the apartment while up to eight contractors and workers scrambled to put the final touches together. Unfortunately, our home laptop crashed last week, so I can't post or upload pictures from home. There's not much to see, either, as every corner of the apartment is filled with half-unpacked boxes and suitcases. It will be a long week putting our home back together.

The good stuff:

the master bedroom is a cool, sophisticated color with a dynamite pendant light fixture;
our master shower is awesome - a totally luxurious enclave with a strong, relaxing water flow and quiet, secluded feel to it;
closets, closets, and more closets;
the brand new floors look dynamite - no splinters, no buckling, just yards and yards of polished bamboo brilliance;
I have a hallway! City residents will attest, a true hallway is a rare, rare feature in most NYC apartments. No matter how the rest of the renovation turns out, the hallways make me feel like a wealthy man.

The bad stuff (for now):

a lot of the plumbing isn't in final form yet; they've jerry-rigged a few things until various valves and pipe fittings arrive sometime this week;
those brand new floors are slip slip slippery;
we've only now realized that the hallway and master bathroom have no air conditioning vents, so it is going to get pretty humid back there during the summer;
our master tileworker mislaid the marble tile around the medicine cabinet in the secondary bathroom (this is the second time this guy bungled the job - running up expenses for materials and pushing back the whole renovation a couple of weeks); and
in the rush to finish the job, our contractors obviously cut a few corners - they installed the bathroom door lock on the outside of the bathroom (not much good there), they seem to have glued the towel bars onto the walls instead of sinking mollies into the tile and screwing them in (our double towel rack has already fallen off), they re-wired certain lighting fixtures to make our dimmer switches useless; and
we now have 2 extra rooms (the new bedroom and hallway) to fit the same furniture that we used to have, plus we've shed at least 3 big pieces of furniture in anticipation of the renovation (a coffee table, china cabinet and sofa). So we're not back to sitting on pillows on the floor of the living room until our new sofa and other pieces arrive (which isn't too soon, since we haven't bought everything yet ...).

So, all in all, it's great to be back home, but there's plenty of work to do. I'll try to get pictures up later this week.

Kids that Rock: The Black Lips

2008-05-28T14:56:00.002-04:00

I hope you've all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. If you haven't read so already, check out this blood-warming story about Frank Woodruff Buckles, America's sole surviving veteran of World War I.

It'll be a short week this week, so this post is filler. More great videos of the kickin'-est band in America today, the Black Lips.

Apartment Renovation Update: T-6

2008-05-25T07:50:00.010-04:00

The painting has taken WAY longer than either the general contractor or we expected, but the results are showing. The painter-subcontractors appear to have skim coated the entire apartment (this despite skim coating being outside the scope of the project, although for what we're paying, it could've been).

Now that we're six days away (T-6) from moving back in, I am astounded at the number of aesthetic details that we've had to address. Switch plates - pure white or berber white? Closet door latches - ball bearing or mirror? Bathroom moulding - accent line on the inside or the outside? Mounting your plasma on the living room wall - HDMI, component cable or S-video?

All I can say is, I'll be thrilled once we settle back in next weekend.

Where once there was a wall, now there is freedom. Just like Berlin, 1989.

86th Street Subway Station Part III

2008-05-25T07:23:00.006-04:00

Hi Life West

2008-05-25T06:45:00.007-04:00

The Hi Life, one of our favorite long-time UWS haunts, apparently has purchased a novelty car to advertise their draft beer, 8 oz burgers, big bowl pasta and half-price-sushi-Tuesday goodness. I can usually take-or-leave NYC bar & restaurant novelty cars (the white stretch-SUVs with laser-light blue windows and chrome turntable radials appear to be perennial nightclub gimmick that takes serve no purpose other than to impress the B&T crowd and take up invaluable parking spaces), but this one I love. Why? Anytime you combine a two-foot tall martini with a car designed without seat belts, air bags, power steering or anti-lock brakes, that just has to turn out right.

86th Subway Station Part II

2008-05-23T12:18:00.013-04:00

Here is another series of photos of the ceramic murals from the 86th Street Subway Station, starting with a rather detailed reproduction of the 72nd Street Control House. Enjoy!

Addition to the Blogroll: Stuff White People Like

2008-05-21T10:28:00.011-04:00

The folks at Stuff White People Like know my mind all too well:

White people love rules. It explains why so they get upset when people cut in line, why they tip so religiously and why they become lawyers. But without a doubt, the rule system that white people love the most is grammar. It is in their blood not only to use perfect grammar but also to spend significant portions of time pointing out the errors of others.

Looks like I've just been called out. Mazel Tov, Christian Lander! You've just made the Blogroll (Hat tip: Chance Bliss).

Come on, Eileen ... Loneliest Girl in the Store

2008-05-21T08:20:00.006-04:00

Via Gawker:

"The Dexys Midnight Runners as pictured on the saddest iTunes store list."

And via Your Monkey Called:

"The One Hit Wonder Finds Its Starkest Graphical Expression ."

86th Street Subway Station

2008-05-20T22:33:00.008-04:00

As we've been living in a month-to-month rental during the last phase of our renovation, I've been boarding the 1 train (for you old timers, the Seventh Avenue IRT) at the 86th Street station (a different stop than my normal route). The 86th Street station has a beautiful series of glazed murals - over 30 by my count - that each depict unique scenes of street life on the Upper West Side. I'll be posting additional shots of the murals over the next two weeks.

New Yorkers at Home

2008-05-20T14:54:00.003-04:00

The Gothamist has a great post featuring a snippet of Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt's a book, America At Home. The post also includes several fascinating photographs from the book - a Chinese family of 5 crowded into a 2 room apartment, artists lofts in Williamsburg, an apparent disposophiac on the UWS, a rhinestone & jungle apartment in Peter Cooper Village, and more. Check it out.

Top Seven VP Picks for Senator McCain

2008-05-19T22:19:00.026-04:00

With Obama looking ready to wrap up the Democratic nomination after tomorrow's Oregon primary, the MSM's turning to reporting the next important topic of beltway speculation: Who is going to be John McCain's pick for the VP slot?

Frankly, with all off the flotsam that has accumulated during Barack's primary fight with Hillary (Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, Michelle Obama, Tony Rezko, Rashid Khalidi, Hamas, et. al.), McCain could name a pet rock as his VP and still win the general election. But just in case the McCain team hasn't decided, I though I'd offer the Sherman Square pundit's top picks:

1. Former NY Governor George Pataki – A good looking, relatively charismatic and scandal-free centrist Republican. He can help McCain with the historically true-blue northeast vote. And putting him on the 2008 ticket will prevent Pataki from being tempted to launch a rescue effort to recapture the NY governor’s seat from trainwreck-in-waiting Gov. David Paterson.

2. Robert Downey Jr. – The New York Times recently reported that Downey may be a secret conservative (NYT registration required). True or not, his $100.8 million opening weekend for Ironman proves he can at least play a sucessful and muscular capitalist force for good. Plus, the movie star and indie film maverick can help McCain capture the ex-brat pack vote, been-to-prison celebrity vote, grown- men-who-still-read-comic-books vote, the male-hookers-for-coke-money vote, and the all important not-afraid-to-do-blackface vote.

3. Barack Obama – Always keep 'em guessing. Plus, Obama would be a good choice just for the Rovian pleasure of seeing Maureen Dowd perform compositional acrobatics as she explains why adding Barack Obama to the ticket proves once-and-for-all that all Republicans are unabashedly racist.

4. Jack Donaghy - We were pretty upset when CEO Don Geiss fell into a coma just hours before announcing to the Board that Jack would be his hand-picked replacement. Now Jack's stuck in a no-end office deep inside the Beltway while Geiss' flamboyantly gay son-in-law Devon Banks runs the show. Jack is credentialed to the hilt - "bow hunting Polar Bear, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, once driving a rental car into the Hudson River to practice escaping, showering with Greta Van Susteren and, claimed to have overcome a peanut allergy through sheer willpower." And, like McCain, he's got experience reaching across the aisle ... usually to get his arm around scandalicious Senator C.C. Cuningham (D. Vt).

Bonus: Naming Donaghy to the VP slot may prevent Jack’s real life alter-ego, limousine liberal Alec Baldwin, from pontificating on his wacko-theories of government in the pages of Vanity Fair for at least a couple more months.

5. Erica Rose Campbell – This busty Playboy and Penthouse model with a smile of gold and a farmer's daughter charm has renounced the world of cheesecake and found Jesus (links may be NSFW). Her recent emergence as a Born Again Christian would help bolster McCain’s appeal among the Pat Robertson / Ralph Reed set that keeps threatening to stay home on election day. Needless to say, if Obama with his shirt off can pull co-eds away from MySpace and Facebook, Erica with her shirt off could lock-up what pundits are calling the single most important voting block in the 2008 election: heterosexual men with a pulse. Plus, McCain has an opportunity to show real bi-partisanship here, as the opposition research should be a real cinch (she's already been worked over, and we've got the pictures to prove it).

Bonus: Erica for VP just might cause Gloria Steinam’s head to explode in a fit of feminist pique.

6. General Tarkin – Every Republican president needs his Fixer – the guy who hides dead bodies, launders the kickback cash, stages the photographs of political opponents saluting the North Korean flag while feasting on the barbequed corpses of endangered artic seals. Nixon had G. Gordon Liddy. Regan had Oliver North. Bush has Dick Cheney. Of course, Cheney will be a tough act to follow. I can think of no one better for McCain than the Imperial commander of the Death Star. This is a guy who, despite possessing no discernable hand-to-hand combat powers or familiarity with The Force, is so jaw-dropingly evil that he can haughtily boss around Darth Vader in a conference room full of subordinates and walk away totally unscathed.

Bonus: He makes McCain look young in comparison.

7. Trogdor the Burninator – Actually, Trogdor would be a pretty terrible choice. Virtually no on-camera charm. And what's with the arm coming out of his back? Trogdor would alienate almost every conceivable segment of the electorate. But I’ve been looking for an excuse to link to this YouTube clip, so what the hell. (Hat tip: Chance Bliss).

Renovation Update: Walls and Doors

2008-05-19T06:37:00.010-04:00

There's exactly two weeks left for the renovation and I'm beginning to feel the tension. We have to leave our temporary / rental apartment May 31st, so if the apartment isn't ready for us to move back in, we'll be screwed.

The good news is, I stopped by the apartment over the weekend to check on progress and was pleasantly surprised. Most of the doors in the new half of the apartment (master bath, master bedroom and bedroom hallway) have been installed. Here's a shot from the new hallway looking into the bathroom with the outer door open and the inner sliding pocket door fully closed.

Here's the same shot with the outer door partially closed. As you can see, we're still waiting for the frosted glass insert for the outer bathroom door.

Here's a shot of the narrow double doors for one of the four closets in the new bedroom hallway.

And here is a close-up of the sliding pocket door that will separate the outer (sink, vanity & linen closet) room of the bathroom from the inner (shower and comode) room.

Meanwhile, plastering and prep work of the drywall is continuing.

This week, we'll hopefully have shots of the bamboo floors to share (right now, the finished floors are covered with cardboard and tape for protection while the rough work continues) and some more finished rooms. Plus, moulding/framing of the new doors, new door hardware (IOW, handles), ceiling-mount light fixtures, and wall-mounting the plasma TV.

Renovation Update: Floors and Master Bedroom

2008-05-15T09:11:00.010-04:00

We've picked a soft metallic blue-grey (Benjamin Moore AF-695) for the master bedroom walls, offest by AF-10 white for the moulding. The contractors have been patching and smoothing over the walls for over a week (looks to me like the functional equivalent of skim coating).

Pretty soon it will be time to order the new (queen size) bed. I had promised that, once we started the renovation and moved out of the old apartment, we would never sleep on my bachelor-era concave backbreaker 2000 TM. I bought that mattress ages ago from my sister's then-boyfriend's family (they owned a mattress factory in North Philly). To give you an idea of how old this mattress is, my sister's married now (to someone else) and has 2 kids. One of them wants to learn how to drive already. The ex-boyfriend is a shuffle board instructor on a cruise ship. North Philly, on the other hand, is still North Philly. And somehow I'm the only one left with any evidence of their relationship.

The prep work on the floors continues ... the black sheets are a micro-fiber plastic material that works to insulate, soften, and sound-proof the bamboo floors.

Next up: bamboo floors and closet and shower doors! Stay tuned!

Blind Faith: Can't Find My Way Home

2008-05-13T22:28:00.004-04:00

Here's a juicy clip of frequently overlooked British supergroup Blind Faith (Eric Clapton, Steven Winwood, Ginger Baker and Ric Grech). Besides being a pretty rockin' clip (the clip starts out with Steve Winwood introducing their "new number" Can't Find My Way Home), this version is omits the acoustic arpeggios from the album version to much greater hard rock / pre-First Wave British metal effect.

I'm repeatedly amazed at the depth and diversity of clips that fly under the radar on YouTube. This is what the Internet if for, and why the intellectual property / copyright rules of old media just shouldn't apply, dangnamit.

Renovation Update: Master Bath

2008-05-13T21:55:00.005-04:00

The contractors have hand-cut the edging around the bulkhead on the shower. With that detail out of the way, we're almost done with the shower in the master bath.

They're also close to finishing the detail work around the recessed shelf above the shower bench.

Our bathroom hardware vendors measured the space for shower doors last week; although they had told us they doors would be here already, they now estimate installation will be finished by the end of this week.

Not the Best Poker Player in the House

2008-05-09T14:32:00.009-04:00

Less than a week after she eked a minor victory in the Indiana primary (where she announced that she had joined the John Birch Society wing of the Democratic Party), Clinton has adopted a new strategy to secure the presidential nomination:

Yup. The pundits all agree. She's played the RACE CARD. And wow, for a veteran, did she flub it. See MSNBC's take here. And the New York Post's take here. And the New York Daily News. And over at the WSJ Online, pundit-licious Peggy Noonan.

What to say that hasn't already been said? I defer to Kenny Rogers:

You've got to know when to hold 'em
know when to fold 'em
know when to walk away
know when to run.

Who knew? All this time, the Gambler was actually a metaphor for the topsy turvy world of a 21st century presidential campaign!

Thanks to RighsideVA for the "race card" image.

Law Students Can be Well, Um, Dumb

2008-05-08T20:42:00.022-04:00

A while back I received an email from a law school buddy looking for some friendly alumni advice. Being a good friend, I took the time to respond in proper law school format - the good ol' Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion (IRAC).

ISSUE PRESENTED

If you were friends with a stripper - who you met before she became a stripper - and she asked you to act as security for a private engagement where she would be making $100 an hour, do you think your wife or girlfriend ("gf") would have a valid argument that you shouldn't do it?

RULE

The rule is, husbands and boyfriends are to strippers what paraplegics are to pogo sticks. That is, they should be enjoyed only safely from a distance and no touching is allowed.

ANALYSIS

If you're in something that either one of you thinks of as a committed relationship, then (a) you shouldn't be anything closer than two-arms-length acquaintances with a stripper; (b) if B doesn't apply, she should be so hot that she charges at least $500 an hour; (c) if (a) and (b) are satisfied, you shouldn't be present when & where that stripper friend is stripping; if (a) and (b) are satisfied but not (c), your gf/wife must also be present; (d) what on earth makes you think you're qualified to act as security to a stripper? do you know have a five point exploding heart death grip that I don't know of?; (e) remember, "security" for a stripper at a "private party" is rat's hair's distance away from "pimp"; (f) while some partners around here may disagree with the above-analysis, [firm redacted] could revoke your offer if anything negative sprang from that activity.

CONCLUSION

(a) Apologize immediately & profusely to gf/wife for asking the question in the first place, (b) buy her something big and shiny and (c) promise to not to be such a bonehead in the future.

2008-05-08T20:33:00.002-04:00

This might be unfair, but after the North Carolina and Indiana primary results, I'm in a celebratory mood. And what better way to celebrate the demise of Hillary's campaign than with a little Ziggy and the Spiders from Mars?

But She's Really, Really Needs It

2008-05-08T20:24:00.003-04:00

David Kahane at NRO has a knock-down metaphor-ladden piece on Hillary that pretty accurately fairly captures the Clintonista dynamic that is being inflicted on us by (who else?) the Clintonistas. How many metaphors? A quorum. A plethora. In short, more than metaphors than China has nipples.

Imperial Presidency

2008-05-08T18:13:00.009-04:00

So, what will our country's verdict be about this president: the elitist, alcoholic blue blood scion of a Mayflower family, educated in the best schools of the Northeast and who never worked an honest day in his life; who amalgamated power to the executive branch to a unheard of degree, changing the basic constitutional balance of the nation in the process; whose federal programs were time and again struck down by the Supreme Court but who refused to moderate his vision for a new America; who trampled on constitutional freedoms by rounding up individuals on trumped charges of "national security" and put them into a prison camp with no access to lawyers or rights to appeal; recklessly alienated millions of Europeans, Asians and Africans with a Manichean, "us versus them" foreign policy; ran up the national debt to record levels; and diverted public funds for his own personal gain?

Sounds awful. So will history's verdict be? Good enough to put him on the back of the dime?

Yeah, cheap shot, but I'm talking about liberal demigod and patron saint of the Democratic Party, good ol' Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Anyway, FDR came up in this interesting MSNBC story about a long-forgotten subway station situated under the Waldorf Astoria.

Via: Ace of Spades.

Renovation Update: Major Changes

2008-05-08T07:15:00.016-04:00

I stopped by the construction after a long weekend away and was thrilled to see the progress we've made. First, the master bath: they've added a dark grey grout around the quartzite tiles in the outer water closet and have installed the custom-bathroom vanity. They've designed the vanity to match the new doors we're installing in the closets and bedrooms throughout the apartment (hopefully early next week).

After a bit of back and forth with the tiler, and my wife's six trips to different tile and marble retailers throughout New York City (she actually hand picked a dozen tiles from over twenty different lots of marble), the bathroom floor looks great. Since we had had a few misfires with the tiler, my wife and I actually laid out the marble exactly as we wanted them last Thursday night and numbered each tile on strips of blue tape:

Meanwhile, aside from flooring, an overhead light fixture and some painting, the master bedroom is substantially complete:

The main (old) apartment looks rather bare with the furniture moved out and the old floor ripped up. They've delivered our bamboo flooring to be installed this week.

A view from inside the living room out towards the entry hallway and door.

Finally, they've started work on the pre-existing bathroom by ripping out the shower doors, full length glass mirrors (cracked since the day we moved in) and old medicine cabinet (never fully opened, another broken relic that we had been living with for years).

The biggest difference that we've noticed is the greater sense of space and flow. From a bare 600 square foot single bedroom, we now have sufficient space where one person can stand in one end of the apartment and have no idea what's going on in the opposite end of the apartment. As a guy, I am really looking forward to the greater amount of elbow room (although as a father, perhaps I shouldn't be too excited that I won't be able to tell what's going on down the hall...).

Those Wall Street Money Brokers

2008-05-06T12:30:00.019-04:00

The New York Post reports today that Senator Hillary Clinton announced that she knows who’s to blame for our current economic woes: Wall Street money brokers. Get the full quote here:

"I stood up to Wall Street, calling on them to take responsibility for their role in the home mortgage crisis ... Why don't we hold these Wall Street money brokers responsible for their role in this recession?" [emphasis added].

Hmmmmm.

The former first lady (two times) and the junior senator represents the Empire State, where the financial services sector (“Wall Street”) accounts for 20% of the state’s total revenue. She is a former partner of the Rose Law Firm - a firm whose practice includes complex commercial business transactions and whose website boasts the Coolidgesque mission statement: “The needs of business are our primary concern.” She has sat on the board of Fortune 500 companies such as Wal-Mart. Her husband has partnered with perhaps a half dozen private equity shops, investment funds and consulting firms. Her daughter is a former McKinsey consultant and now works at the hedge fund Avenue Capital. Where I work, we call all of those professional and familial contacts with the financial system “institutional knowledge”.

The point being, she’s well positioned to know that there is no such thing as a money broker. Stock broker? Check. Mortgage broker? Sure. Insurance broker? Yeah, why not.

But there simply aren’t any money brokers on Wall Street. There aren’t any on Main Street, either. No one with an ounce of financial acumen uses the term "money broker."

Now let me think. When did we last hear about money brokers?

So we have a would-be president shucking her way through the cornfields of Indiana, tellin’ them farmers who to blame for their troubles (nevermind that corn is up 60% since 2005). Maybe we can find a better image to illustrate the point.

Well, I'm certainly glad that problem has been solved. Now where is my passport and suitcase?

Final point: lest you think I'm being a little over-sensitive, Hillary chose her words very carefully here. How carefully? Carefully enough that her campaign put out a correction last night when she was originally misquoted as saying "money grubbers" instead of "money brokers."

Morning views from the terrace

2008-05-06T08:06:00.007-04:00

The new (temporary) apartment has a beautiful terrace with eastern, western and southern views. The morning sunlight really draws you out of bed in the morning.

Moving Out

2008-05-05T06:19:00.013-04:00

We've hit another milestone in the story of our apartment renovation. Work has progressed in the studio to the point that the contractors want to start work in the main apartment. With that milestone, we've had to pack up seven years of accumulated stuff and move out of the one-bedroom for a month. We moved out on Friday (big thanks to our family who helped lug boxes downstairs and let us borrow their cars).

The amazing thing is, even after crating 30 boxes or so of stuff, there's still a fair amount of furniture that we've decided to leave behind (the contractors will just have to work around it all).

The other striking thing is, now that we've removed our books, clothes, plants, rugs, chairs and sofas, the imperfections in the apartment that we've been living with for years now really stand out. For example, we suffered water damage to our floors over a year ago; with the rugs rolled up and out of the way, its pretty obvious how much we've needed to redo the floors:

We've been living, too, with broken closet doors for who-knows-how-long. I don't think it has bothered me so much in the past. But looking at them in these photos, I've pretty excited to think we'll be installing new paneled doors that actually stay closed.

This week we should be in for some dramatic improvements. We'll be ripping a hole through the wall to connect the apartments; adding floors; and installing the glass for the master shower. I'll try to drop by the old apartment mid-week to shoot some new photos to post.

Dartmouth Unbound

2008-05-01T12:52:00.015-04:00

Two things happened yesterday that got me a'thinking about current affairs at the College on the Hill. First, there my post yesterday about Dean Zimmerman mangling of the English language in an email to students. Second, there's been the three phone calls over the past two nights (during dinner, no less!) from a push polling firm hired by the College to convince me to back their slate of candidates in an upcoming Association of Alumni (AoA) officers election.

So it hit me this morning; there's going to be an election for something and someone cares enough to hire a professional political consulting firm to influence this election. Who would be bankrolling the push polling? Well, I am. That is, I would be, if I bothered to give any money to Dartmouth College when they call for their perpetual appeals for donations to the student fund (usually when I’m only half-way through my first Gin Rickey for the night).

The point is someone cares enough about this election to spend millions of dollars of other peoples' money (OPM TM) to stay in power. And like a wave it hit me. Everything about that phone call radiated the festering smugness, insecurity and unabashed self importance that only grows in the stilted womb of the Ivy Tower.

I'm not sure I care one way or another who controls the AoA. Since there seems to be a growing bias against legacy admissions at Dartmouth, I have little self-interest in staying connected to the institution; why should I donate my hard earned $$ to subsidize a sorority of post-modernists, deconstructionists and technocrats in New Hampshire if it won't help my daughter's chances of admission?

But my instinct tells me that, if someone is spending millions of dollars of OPM TM to stay in power, they’re probably doing something wrong. And so I’m voting for the insurgents.

Renovation Update: Bathroom Grout

2008-05-01T00:32:00.006-04:00

Floor tile issues aside, the mater bath is coming along nicely. The edging tiles have come in from Italy and the contractors have started to add grout. We selected a pure-white grout for the interior room - I think the effect is quite striking:

Renovation Update: Bedroom Moulding

2008-05-01T00:14:00.004-04:00

While we work out our concerns with the bathroom tile, the contractors decided to put up the wood (unpainted) moulding in the master bedroom. Tomorrow they should be ready to re-tile the bathroom floor, continue the moulding through the hallway and install the first doors.

When Deans Speak

2008-04-30T17:31:00.012-04:00

I don't usually go in for pointing out grammatical mistakes or typos in other people's emails. After all, we're dealing with an electronic medium, spur of the moment writing, relaxed proofing standards, etc... But when (a) the author in question is an administrator of an Ivy League school, (b) that Ivy League school is my alma mater and (c) she's a representative of the administration actively seeking to disenfranchise alumni from our traditional involvement in campus affairs, well then, all bets are off.

So anyway, when Dartmouth Dean of First Year Students Gail Zimmerman emailed the student body about some campus incident or another (see the background details here), she included this embarrassing nugget (emphasis added):

Whether that ability exists or not, it would not likely stop her emails from reaching your inbox given the dearth and ready availability of other free email systems such as hotmail, gmail, and yahoo.

Dean Zimmerman is an administrator who insists that Dartmouth students use diffuse constructions like "First Year Students" instead of "Freshmen." I guess she's too busy harnessing the power of language to build a new social order to bother consulting a dictionary.

Via the Dartmouth Review.

New York's Bridges

2008-04-30T16:21:00.005-04:00

The Gothamist reports today that over the next two years, six of New York City's major bridges will turn 100 years old. The City has formed a commission to coordinate the celebrations.

UWS Spring: Trees by the Water

2008-04-27T13:38:00.003-04:00

I took a walk with the family yesterday down to the 79th Street Boat Basin. The trees along Riverside Park where in full bloom. What a beautiful day in the UWS.

Apartment Renovation Update

2008-04-27T13:02:00.010-04:00

Our guys haven't ignored the rest of the apartment while work in the master bath progresses. They've been getting ready to lay down new bamboo flooring by working the floors with a strong citrus-flavored anti-adhesive to get rid up the remnants of the original par quet.

They're also finishing the framing and surfacing of the bedroom walls and walk-in closet.

My wife's been looking for a mini-chandelier for the closet. Chandelier in the closet? Well. we are planning on decorating the apartment mostly contemporary / modern, so the wife thinks a classical crystal - frilly chandelier in the closet might add a bit of humor into the mix.

It's tough to appreciate the detail from these photographs, but the contractors are doing a great job plastering and smoothing out the new walls in the bedroom:

Master Bath Update

2008-04-27T11:51:00.013-04:00

The tiling work is probably 85% done in the master bath. As with any project, we've encountered a few snafu's along the way. Neither we nor our architect or contractors realized we needed to order 1/2 inch edging tiles (the ceramic equivalent to moulding) for the shower stall. We've placed a rush order for those pieces but the shower can't be finished until that additional shipment arrives from Italy (in 3 weeks!).

Meanwhile, the quartzite slabs have gone up on the walls in the water closet area (around the future medicine cabinets and sink). Even covered in white plaster dust and without grout, I think the quartzite was a good choice:

The contractors also did a great job cutting the quartzite down to 4" by 4" squares for the shower floor (shown here, again pre-cleaning and without grout):

The top of the shower bench is looking good:

The third tile element in this master bath is the white marble tiles for the floor. I like the brown-gray veining my wife picked out on this pieces:

These last two photos, however, show another snafu with the tiling. The contractors had to cut the 16" by 16"tiles into rectangles to finish the edge against the wood floor of the hallway. So far so good. But they inexplicably found two or three marble tiles from our batch with no veining and (what looks to us like) distinct yellow discoloration. Now, when you look into the bathroom, it looks like we selected two different types of marble for the floors (see the first horizontal row of darker tiles in the photograph above). While the two-tone marble effect is a common enough choice for many bathrooms, it isn't something we had contemplated. The choice is all the stranger since they used another couple of the "good" tiles (no discoloration, distinct veining) for the sections of the floor that will eventually be hidden under the vanity and closet floor. We're going to ask the contractors to redo that small section if we have enough "good" tiles left in our order.

How the West Was Lost

2008-04-23T15:04:00.004-04:00

The Black Lips. These guys rock. Check out their MySpace page for info & tour dates.

I hope it was a nice suit

2008-04-23T14:46:00.012-04:00

We have a saying around my office, "You are a professional, act professionally." In other words, it doesn't matter whether you choose to be a lawyer, a journalist, a cab driver or a cashier; YOU should do YOUR job better than I could if I stepped into your shoes for a day.

With that in mind, here's an excerpt from a recent Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. The facts of the case aren't really important here (the case involves a female physician bringing a Title VII discrimination claim against the Tulane School of Medicine after the medical school denied her tenure). Her attorney's conduct, on the other hand ...

Phipps: . . . so that’s about all I have to say, Your Honor. I don’t have anything other than that. You know, my client lives in Chicago. We communicate occasionally on the phone, she sent me the documents. And um, she’s a doctor. She continues to earn a living, and she’s generally unavailable if you call her because she, she’s sort of a traveling doctor.
Judge: That’s not much of thing you come in here and tell us, I guess.
Phipps: Well, my attitude is, the [district court] judge got it right . . . And as far as whether even Ricks should apply, I don’t think it should.
Judge: What do you do about Morgan?
Phipps: I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know Morgan, Your Honor.
Judge: You don’t know Morgan?
Phipps: Nope.
Judge: You haven’t read it?
Phipps: I try not to read that many cases, your Honor. Ricks is the only one I read. Oh, Ledbetter, I read Ledbetter, and I read that one that they brought up last night. I don’t know if that’s not Ledbetter, I can’t remember the name of it. Ricks is the one that I go by; it’s my North star. Either it applies or it doesn’t apply. I don’t think it applies.
Judge: I must say, Morgan is a case that is directly relevant to this case. And for you representing the Plaintiff to get up here—it’s a Supreme Court case—and say you haven’t read it. Where did they teach you that?
Phipps: They didn’t teach me much, Your Honor.
Judge: At Tulane, is it?
Phipps: Loyola.
Judge: Okay. Well, I must say, that may be an all time first.
Phipps: That’s why I wore a suit today, Your Honor.

Via Above the Law and the Legal Profession Blog.

Well, that explains everything

2008-04-22T10:33:00.008-04:00

Dada-ist provocateur, Yale student and future cultural editor for the New York Times Aliza Shvartz explained this weekend the idea behind her blood laced senior art project:

It is the intention of this piece to destabilize the locus of that authorial act, and in doing so, reclaim it from the heteronormative structures that seek to naturalize it .... As an intervention into our normative understanding of “the real” and its accompanying politics of convention, this performance piece has numerous conceptual goals. The first is to assert that often, normative understandings of biological function are a mythology imposed on form. It is this mythology that creates the sexist, racist, ableist, nationalist and homophobic perspective, distinguishing what body parts are “meant” to do from their physical capability. The myth that a certain set of functions are “natural” (while all the other potential functions are “unnatural”) undermines that sense of capability, confining lifestyle choices to the bounds of normatively defined narratives.

Okay. It is now clear to me why I almost failed out of college. For MY senior thesis, I failed to externalize the suburbanist modalities of my personal hagiography by subjecting the "self" to ultracrepidarian fissures.

Meanwhile ... anybody want to wager she doesn't know what "normative" means?

Monday morning around Sherman Square

2008-04-21T23:04:00.004-04:00

Master Bath (Con't)

2008-04-21T22:41:00.008-04:00

It is now the begining of week 3 of our apartment renovation. The primary tiling of the walls of the interior master bath is almost complete. Here's a couple of close-ups of the machine the contractors are using to cut the ceramic tile. I'm not 100% sure what one would call this machine, but "water cooled rotary saw" sounds about right.

They've been slowly but steadily adding rows of tiles to the main walls. The green plastic spacers are of course temporary; they'll be removed once the previous day's work has set.

And here a couple of shots of the architect's plans for the bathroom. It's good to see they're not just making it up as the go along.

All in all we are pleasantly satisfied with the progress in the bathroom. Of course it occurs to me I haven't yet posted an explanation of what the final product is supposed to look like. Basically, we're shooting for a two-room master bath mini-suite. The outer room will have the quartzite walls and include the sink, medicine cabinets and linen closet. This outer room will be separated from the inner bathroom by a sliding pocket door with glass insert. The inner room will house the shower and commode. We're ordering the shower doors and the glass-insert for the pocket door this week. I'll post additional pictures in a couple of days - whenever there's another visually signficant step towards the final product.

Happy Passover!

2008-04-19T09:07:00.003-04:00

Historic Photos of Wall Street

2008-04-18T15:52:00.010-04:00

I've been browsing the archives of public domain images in the Library of Contress website and came across these historic photos of Wall Street (I work a couple of blocks away in downtown Manhattan). Anyway, here are few interesting photos and prints that I've found:

Looking west towards Trinity Church in 1878.

A print from 1847.

Another old print and a couple of stero prints.

Inching My Way to the Corner Office

2008-04-18T08:55:00.005-04:00

One of the administrators in my firm has told me I need to move offices to make way for the incoming summer associates. This is my current view:

And this is the view of one of the offices they've offered me:

Its going to be difficult but I think I'll be able to adjust.

Shock Value: Updated

2008-04-17T22:40:00.005-04:00

Well, that didn't take long.

Yale: Student's Art Project Only 'Creative Fiction'
A Yale student’s bizarre art project in which she claimed to have repeatedly impregnated and induced abortions in herself is a work of "creative fiction," the university said in a statement this afternoon.

A college spokesman said the project was "designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding [the] form and function of a woman’s body."

I guess it takes a college girl (yes, I use the word "girl" deliberately, as only a child would pull a stunt like this) to find ambiguity in how the female body functions. I guess it's also safe to say she's not friendly with anyone in the medical school.

The Panic of ‘73

2008-04-17T13:20:00.006-04:00

This cartoon appeared in Harper's Weekly, Oct. 18, 1873 (from the Library of Congress):

The caption reads:

“Cartoon showing Pres. Grant helping female personification of America out of the wreckage of Wall Street, saying ‘I am glad to see that you are not seriously hurt. The houses in this 'Street' have been shaky and on false bases for a long time’.”

This is another entry in the “The More Things Change” file ... The Panic of 1873 was a “severe nationwide economic depression” caused (in part) by the unintended consequences of short-sighted federal monetary policy. Congress moved the U.S. from a silver- and gold- backed currency to a gold-only backed currency. The move triggered a national sell-off in silver positions and led to the demise of at least one well established banking house (Jay Cooke and Company).

The parallel is not exact, of course, but the recent downturn in the housing and credit markets has arguably been exacerbated by the easy money policy of the Fed: by keeping interest rates low, the Fed increased the supply and thereby drove down the price of credit, leading lenders to lend more and borrowers to borrow more (since both lending and borrowing had become comparatively cheap).

And then there’s the byline of this November 3, 1907 New York Times article explaining the Panic of ’73:

“It was Then the Era of Paper Money, So That the Great Credits Which Were Created Had No Currency Basis.”

‘Nuff said.

72nd Street Control House and Verdi Square

2008-04-17T12:40:00.009-04:00

A bird's eye view of the 72nd Street Control House, the newer 72nd Street Subway Station and Sherman Square's bigger cousin to the north, Verdi Square.

And now a little Classical Gas

2008-04-17T12:00:00.002-04:00

This is old but awesome:

But she insists it's not about "shock value" ...

2008-04-17T11:32:00.007-04:00

This is probably the most disgusting thing I've read about in years:

For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse.

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

Some of us pro-choice social conservatives (yeah, we do exist) have been saying for years that the scare tactics used by the Democrats in the abortion debate belittles the seriousness of the issue and leads to poor choices by the very people the abortion regime is supposed to help.

Reminds me of a quote by Abbott Lawrence Lowell:

"Of course there's a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don't take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates."

Master Bath (Con't)

2008-04-16T22:52:00.007-04:00

We've picked a white and light blue pinstriped tile for the shower walls; these are tiles that we've custom ordered from Italy (we ordered this stuff months ago - 10 weeks lead time from Italy!).

We're also using quartzite squares (4 x 4) for the floor of the shower and in larger scale (12 x 12) around the medicine cabinets. The contractor was originally planning to build a cantilever bench (~ 1 foot deep x 2 feet wide) using a quartzite slab, but apparently quartzite doesn't come that big (either that or it is prohibitively expensive. I wasn't paying too much attention when my wife was explaining this part). So the contractors are framing a bench block that will be covered in quartzite tiles (if my math doesn't fail me, the bench tiles should be 7 x 3 ... or 8 x 6 ... whatever. I tend not to sit too much in the shower, anyway).

Master Bath

2008-04-16T22:28:00.012-04:00

Work is really progressing with the master bathroom - this bringing my ownership of private restrooms inside the city limits to a grand total of two. I'm particularly excited about this phase of the project - mostly because, even though we recently celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary, I haven't really bought into the whole "bathroom intimacy" aspect of marriage.

Here you can see they've tarred the wet areas of the master bath.

In other news, crude oil hit $114.93 a barrel today.

Here you can see the drop ceiling for the shower and what will be water resistant recessed lighting fixtures.

Preliminary Framing

2008-04-16T22:05:00.010-04:00

Here you can see the metal framing for what will become a drop ceiling. You can just make out the current popcorn ceiling. We could have had the ceiling scraped, but that is a labor intensive process that would have added days and dollars to the project. We also wanted to add recessed lighting, but since our mid-70s-construction ceilings are made of concrete, there was no easy way to accomodate recessed lighting besides effectively re-pouring the entire thing. Better to just drop the ceiling 3-4 inches.

More metal framing for the drop ceiling and for the outer bedroom / hallway wall.

The brown sheet of plywood shows the depth of what will become the master bedroom walk-in closet.

I'm not sure what the fire extinguisher is doing inside the wall ...

Here you see the framing for the master bath. The grey square in the upper quadrant of this picture is the framing for one of our medicine cabinets. We decided on his- and her- medicine cabinets for each side of the bathroom sink, another framed space is opposite this photo. The blackened trapezoid figure on the floor is the metal and tile framing for the master shower.

Demolition and Drywall

2008-04-16T21:10:00.009-04:00

The contractors have done a good job ripping the studio to hell and putting up some basic framing. The space feels tiny but I am reminded that there are several hundred pounds of trash that will be coming out of the apartment before too long.

Bands I've Known - Part 2

2008-04-16T17:44:00.012-04:00

Jump to Bands I've Known Part 1 here.

5. Pedicabo - A Dada arthouse experi-core outfit I performed with in college. I have to say "performed", not "played", because it was never really about the music. The concept of the group was a bunch of too-cool-for-the-Ivy-League punks who not only did not know how to play their instruments, all of their instruments were stolen. Take that, Bill Joe Armstrong! I lost about 2 years of guitar chops trying to learn how to play like I couldn't play. Oh, and Pedicabo means something really bad. Still, we managed to put out 4 albums and a British EP, plus a few bootleg tapes.

6. Muncle Steve - Five or six guys with one tenuous link or another to Boston, gathering together once or twice a week in Alphabet City for beer and loud music topped off with a midnight run south to Houston for some authentic Cuban arroz con pollo. Yeah, we were part of that mid-nineties Lower East Side rock revival. And yeah, we rocked.

7. The Menloves - no, not that kind of menlove. Named after a 1830's Court of Common Pleas tort case. We were a bunch of 1Ls performing for a law school Talent Show. Not much talent on display that day, my friends. Yes, I have video of this one. No, I won't post it.

Apartment Renovation: Before

2008-04-16T17:05:00.025-04:00

Last year, my wife and I purchased the studio next door with the idea that we'd rip down a wall, put up a few closets, and transform our current 550 square foot 1 bedroom into a true 2 bed, 2 bath combo. Flash forward twelve months and we are finally starting construction. It's not that we've been dragging our feet -- it's just that choosing the architect, contractor, floor plans and building materials and obtaining Dept. of Buildings and co-op board approval takes time.

So, here are a few shots of the studio (I estimate it at 400 square feet) that I took before our contractors started demolition:

Yes, the bathroom was perhaps the grimest room I've seen since hitchhiking thru the Sinai back in '94. We've asked the contractors to make sure that room gets demo'd first.

More on Changing Manhattan Neighborhoods

2008-04-16T16:19:00.007-04:00

My neighborhood has changed a bit since I moved west from Yorkville around eight years ago. OK, maybe not so much ... my favorite bodega closed down two years ago; Sesso, the restaurant where I took my future wife on our first date, has since gone out of business; and hole-in-the-wall bars like the Snug and the Raccoon Lodge West have changed into the Dead Poet and Crossroads.

Anyway, it looks like our little corner of the Upper West Side is right on the cusp of a significant transformation. There are half a dozen high-end luxury condos going up. The Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle is acting like an anchor and seems to be pushing brand-name retail (Pottery Barn, Best Buy, Brooks Brothers) up Broadway towards the heart of the UWS. Celeb Chef Daniel Boulud opened a new wine bar across from Lincoln Center, while Lincoln Center and West 65th Street are getting a much needed facelift.

I don't see neighborhood change as an altogether bad thing - sure, I would prefer fewer Starbucks, Duane Reades and retail banks in my neighborhood, but I surely wouldn't want the neighborhood to be restocked with the SROs, junkies and prostitutes from The Panic in Needle Park days. Not everyone agrees, of course:

Gentrification as "Benign Ethnic Cleansing".

Ethnic Cleansing. Umm, OK. Just as long as we don't get hysterical or anything.

Changing Manhattan Neighborhoods

2008-04-16T14:16:00.009-04:00

Another day, another New York Times article about developers changing the face of a quiet Manhattan neighborhood.

It looks as if the quiet of the upper west side is to be rudely broken into by the building of several playhouses. The latest step toward the transformation of that neighborhood into another Rialto is the probable purchase of a lot on Sherman Square, at Seventy-third Street, by Thompson Dundy, proprietors of Luna Park, Coney Island.

Oh wait, that article is from 1904.

UPDATED:

Anyone get the "Rialto" reference from the last post?

Bands I've Known - Part 1

2008-04-16T13:21:00.009-04:00

I've been playing guitar since I was thirteen -- just about the time that Def Leppard's Hysteria rocked the charts. I been in a number of bands since then. A couple of those bands got to the point were they played a few live gigs. Some lasted for several years and developed decent catalogs of original material, while at least one was more of a poster band than an actual musical ensemble.

Anyway, here's a list of the seven greatest bands I've played in over the years (why seven? Because I refuse to be bound to a base ten narrative):

1. Ground Zero - a bunch of Catholic school kids playing eighties hair metal and hard rock in my parents' basement. As with many high school bands, we lacked both a drummer and bass player.

2. Mutel - Alternative weirdness with the townies, from back when "alternative" was just called "college rock." Our musical inspiration was Jean Paul Sartre. Yes, this was our band in 10th grade (sophomore lit, existentisalism, get it?). My friend Pete wrote a great original called "Screaming Purple Hellhounds." To this day, I can't remember the words, can't remember the melody and can't remember the chords.

3. Genetalia* - My first real experience with a live gig. We played the Alumni BBQ at Homecoming. Drunk alumni rocking out to our covers of "Dazed and Confused," "Love Me Two Times" and "Sweet Child O' Mine." A gaggle of black robed monks at the back of the gymnasium yelling at us to turn it down. The thrill ... the stench of grilled meats, cheap beer and the boys' lockerroom. I went home that night and told my parents I wanted to play music for a living. I'm an attorney now, so you know how that conversation went. An audio tape of this one exists, somewhere...

* We actually never had a name for this band. Genetalia was the name of a rival band of underclassmen at my school. They were actually much better than we were, plus they had fans. So we used the name on the flyers.

4. Moab and the Cannonites - My sophomore summer in Hanover, New Hampshire. We played an ice cream study break in the Hitchcock dorm. Pretty good turnout and a decent performance on our part, except the lead singer, Matt McGill, couldn't remember the melody to Runaway Train by Soul Asylum. He had to run upstairs and listen to the tape while we covered with Jazz Odyssey. I still have video of this gig.

Historic Photos

2008-04-16T12:32:00.008-04:00

We live across the square from the 72nd Street Subway Station. Actually, the station isn't really a station at all -- it is a "control house" -- one of only three left in all of New York City. Here are a few old photos from the Library of Congress.

First Steps

2008-04-16T12:09:00.003-04:00

Greetings and hello from Sherman Square. You might be thinking, "Where the hell is Sherman Square?" Fair enough.

Quoting Wikipedia:

Sherman Square is a diminutive public space at the intersection of West 72nd Street and Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in New York City. The small parcel of land, acquired by the city in 1849, was named for William Tecumseh Sherman, who had once resided nearby, in 1891.

Diminutive? Sure. Litter prone? Check. Inconsequential? Probably. But this tiny park, probably one of the smallest in the five boroughs, is where I live. And so I love it. Otherwise what kind of neighbor would I be?

Sherman Square Pundit

Signing off

Television Before and After

Depression Modern Bar

A brief word of explanation

Sure is quiet around here ...

Gifts are certainly welcome

Underwater

In case you didn't notice ... we're winning in Iraq

Fake Political Campaigns

Gimme Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses

Phase Three: Interior Design

Renovation Update: Details, Details, Details

Careful What You Read on them Internets

UWS Street Scenes: A Dog and his Guitar

Safe in the City

Khalid Sheik Mohammed: Constitutional Scholar

I Got Dumped For Obama

Daily Kos Mocks McCain's Teeth

NYC Dating through the Eyes of a Corporate Attorney

Harness the Power of the 'Net, Change the World

Bo Diddley, R.I.P.

She's Out (Maybe)

Primary Finale

Johnny Rotten - Fifty, Fat and Still Awesome!

Renovation Update: Almost There!

Kids that Rock: The Black Lips

Apartment Renovation Update: T-6

86th Street Subway Station Part III

Hi Life West

86th Subway Station Part II

Addition to the Blogroll: Stuff White People Like

Come on, Eileen ... Loneliest Girl in the Store

86th Street Subway Station

New Yorkers at Home

Top Seven VP Picks for Senator McCain

Renovation Update: Walls and Doors

Renovation Update: Floors and Master Bedroom

Blind Faith: Can't Find My Way Home

Renovation Update: Master Bath

Not the Best Poker Player in the House

Law Students Can be Well, Um, Dumb

But She's Really, Really Needs It

Imperial Presidency

Renovation Update: Major Changes

Those Wall Street Money Brokers

Morning views from the terrace

Moving Out

Dartmouth Unbound

Renovation Update: Bathroom Grout

Renovation Update: Bedroom Moulding

When Deans Speak

New York's Bridges

UWS Spring: Trees by the Water

Apartment Renovation Update

Master Bath Update

How the West Was Lost

I hope it was a nice suit

Well, that explains *everything*

Monday morning around Sherman Square

Master Bath (Con't)

Happy Passover!

Historic Photos of Wall Street

Inching My Way to the Corner Office

Shock Value: Updated

The Panic of ‘73

72nd Street Control House and Verdi Square

And now a little Classical Gas

But she insists it's not about "shock value" ...

Master Bath (Con't)

Master Bath

Preliminary Framing

Demolition and Drywall

Bands I've Known - Part 2

Apartment Renovation: Before

More on Changing Manhattan Neighborhoods

Changing Manhattan Neighborhoods

Bands I've Known - Part 1

Historic Photos

First Steps

Well, that explains everything