I wish I could get to New York more often. Every six months, say, often enough to have a few favorite places to go to, ideas about hotels. Alas, I am not that person. Enough time passes between visits that the place remakes itself two or three times over.
The last time I visited with Alan and Kate, we stayed on what I called the far west side, i.e., Jersey City. Back then, there were a few hotels, populated mainly by south Asian men who shlepped off to work in the financial district in the morning, in polo shirts and lanyards, on the PATH train. Now those hotels are surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings and a few restaurants, and the area is now called Wall Street West.
We actually stayed in the same hotel — a suite thing, just a couple blocks from the PATH. Manhattan is even more a gated community for tourists and the super-wealthy than ever, with most of the tourists gathered around the World Trade Center site. Seriously. On Saturday, I think English speakers were in the minority, with guided tours going on in about a million other languages. But we were bound for Brooklyn, and ended up in DUMBO, which I’m told stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge, with the O added so it’s not a neighborhood called simply DUMB. Correction: Directly Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Thanks, commenters.
Walked around. Ate meatballs. Went up to Prospect Park. Came back over to Manhattan and strolled the east Village. Talked and walked and talked and walked, until I had a giant blister on one toe, at which point it was back under the river via PATH and a bottle of wine in the suite.
Repeat on Sunday. I bought Kate a CBGB T-shirt, which her government teacher told her was worth extra-credit points. And then home, where after about 48 hours, my feet have finally stopped hurting. Mostly.
But I’m grateful for every chance I get to see the place, although I have to say: Shopping in New York isn’t the thrill it once was. What’s there is outrageously expensive, and what isn’t you can find on the internet. Maybe if I had a few more days to wander. But then I’d need new shoes. Or maybe a wheelchair.
One photo from Dumbo (I’m done with the capitalization):
Yes, what a crazy idea! Come into the tent and type a letter! Wacky.
There is so much good stuff about the shutdown today, I can’t possibly cover it all. But here’s Paul Krugman, and here’s Charles Pierce, and everything else is out there for the finding.
For a chance of pace, how about this? Two idiots scuffle with the police. In the process, a paddleboat — yes, a paddleboat — is used in an escape attempt and capsized. It is difficult to capsize a paddleboat. In fact, i”d think it was nearly impossible, in anything other than extraordinary circumstances. And yet they managed.
Dexter said on October 2, 2013 at 1:49 am
Always fascinated by New York, I am always reading everything I stumble across on the internet about the place. I listen to NYC-based satellite radio shows and I hear about fine restaurants as well as dollar-pizza joints. I hear how the standard drink in a cocktail lounge or bar has escalated in price from $15 to $17, except in the really high-dollar restaurants, where a cocktail is now a cool $20. Last year the guys on the radio show were so happy: just two blocks from Times Square and environs where the McGraw-Hill Building houses their enterprise, they found a dive bar where they could pound bargain cans of PBR at the low cost of $7 a can. Since I stopped drinking a couple decades ago, I bet that is still twice what you’d pay at say…”The International Bar” in downtown Detroit. Since the publishing houses are in New York, authors are flown in several times a year to check in on their work. I remember Mitch Albom writing about his favorite lounge, the bar at the Carlisle Hotel. He’d go see Bobby Short, who worked there until he died at age 80.
Anyway, you can pay hundreds of dollars a night for a fancy room at a midtown hotel or you can stay at the converted sailor’s home now call The Jane Hotel on the West Side Highway or the famously crappy Hotel Carter, one block off Times Square.
If I ever get back there, I have a list of things to do , a list s long I’ll need a month at least to tackle this bucket list. I need a Gray’s Papaya. http://www.z-mation.com/phpbb/files/ny_grays_papaya_hot_dogs_1_162.jpg
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Deborah said on October 2, 2013 at 4:58 am
Every time we’ve ever been in NYC it has not been expensive. Part of the reason for that is the time we go, usually in early February. Hotel rates are super low and we don’t go to fancy restaurants. We like to go to the museums, walk around and gawk at everything, stroll the Highline, sometimes see a play if we can get reasonable tickets somewhere. I have friends there that we visit etc. If we go to a restaurant it’s usually someplace like the Cafe Sybarski at the Neue Gallery near the Metropolitan Museum, for brunch or lunch. For dinner we often get provisions at Whole Foods and eat late in our hotel. We don’t go to bars either. My favorite place to shop is Uniglo, a low priced clothing emporium owned by a Japanese company. I also like to go to Rizzoli’s, a book store on 57th. It really doesn’t have to be expensive at all.
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Deborah said on October 2, 2013 at 5:01 am
That’s Uniqlo not Uniglo.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 2, 2013 at 7:07 am
This Ain’t No Party . . .This Ain’t No Disco . . .This Ain’t No Foolin’ Around! (Life During Wartime, indeed. Congress is war by other means.)
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Suzanne said on October 2, 2013 at 7:39 am
I am an unabashed NYC lover. It is a truly crazy place but each time I go, I can’t wait to return. I love walking around Central Park and Riverside area by the Hudson. Fort Tryon Park is stunning and I could spend a week at the Met Museum. The Falafels from the food trucks are not yo be missed and I hope to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge someday. I haven’t yet because I’m always with someone who is afraid of heights!
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BigHank53 said on October 2, 2013 at 7:50 am
A twelve foot python isn’t actually that big. I mean sure, it’s a good twenty-five to forty pounds of snake, but it’d be pretty difficult to get hurt by one. Snakes are really dumb. I mean REALLY dumb. They’re smarter than bugs, and that’s about it. To a snake, there’s only about five categories of stuff in the universe: things to eat, things to climb on, things to mate with, things that are going to eat them, and…everything else. An adult human is too big to eat, so once you convince the snake that you’re not going to eat it, you’re pretty much set. All of the human fatalities caused by pet constrictors (that I know of) resulted when an unwise handler allowed the snake to form a complete loop around their neck. The snake can’t tell the difference between your neck and a tree branch (yeah, the big constrictors like to climb, too) and will tighten right up for a good grip.
This one was certainly a pet that some dimbulb dumped when it got larger than they were comfortable with.
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nancy said on October 2, 2013 at 7:55 am
What I just heard: Blah blah blah SNAKE blah blah blah SNAKE blah blah blah LOOP AROUND YOUR NECK blah blah blah.
And I don’t even object to snakes. But these invasive species — Burmese pythons, mainly — are destroying the small mammal populations of the Everglades. And I would shit my pants if I found one in my yard.
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coozledad said on October 2, 2013 at 8:14 am
This pretty much explains Florida for me- a brain liquefying virus spread by shit-throwing monkeys. It explains Ross Allen, Rick Scott, my in-laws, the waiter we overheard telling his customers “Whatever you do, man, keep away from that joe-joba. It’ll fuckin’ fry your hair!”
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/blogs/gone-viral/os-herpes-monkeys-florida-091713,0,2764147.post
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coozledad said on October 2, 2013 at 8:30 am
The Rood boys should have listened to this PSA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbqiCxEIeEo
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Snarkworth said on October 2, 2013 at 8:31 am
Overpass. Directly Underneath the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.
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Julie Robinson said on October 2, 2013 at 8:59 am
Ack! I’ve got a kid moving to Florida next week, and her little dog would just be an appetizer for one of those pythons. She’s pretty good about keeping her on the leash, but still, yikes.
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nancy said on October 2, 2013 at 9:15 am
Snarkworth: Thank you!
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Randy said on October 2, 2013 at 9:25 am
In Canada, our civil service is still at work, but Parliament is prorogued. The Prime Minister insists it is a proper procedural move by a majority government, but we all know he is a deeply insecure, needle-d*ck dork who was picked on in grade school and is now getting his revenge. On all of us. Still not as bad as the Tea Party. If anyone is out of work because of this, I hope you get back soon.
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Deborah said on October 2, 2013 at 9:45 am
I’ve not been to Brooklyn since it’s been gentrified. I wanted to walk around there on my stop through NYC after my Beaver Brook class in early Sept but I didn’t have enough time. Some of my BB fellow classmates who currently live in Brooklyn or recently moved from there, encouraged me to check it out, they gave me all the directions of how to get there and where to go. I can’t find my notes and don’t remember anything. It rained the afternoon I got to Manhatten and I left the next afternoon.
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Deborah said on October 2, 2013 at 9:46 am
Manhattan
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Connie said on October 2, 2013 at 10:18 am
I’ve been to NYC twice for conferences, always stayed in conference block hotels, once in midtown at 6th and 34th and one at the Hotel Edison just off Times Square. My focus was more on going to shows and restaurants, though the best thing I ever did was put together a group who paid $35 each for a fabric shoppers guided tour of the garment district. I spent way too much money, much of it on silk and linen.
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Dorothy said on October 2, 2013 at 10:35 am
Oooh Connie that sounds heavenly to me! Have you sewn anything with what you bought there? I am in the process of packing up my sewing room and I’m vowing to do a better job with storage/organization in the next place. And I thought I was doing okay in this place when we moved in almost five years ago.
I have been to New York twice and both times it was not a long enough visit. I yearn to go back and explore more. My boss goes regularly and I live vicariously from some of the things she has seen/done. It’s always work when she goes but once in awhile she has time to see a show or two. The receipts for dinners she gives me for justifying her VISA statement – oy! I remember being utterly stunned at the price for breakfast at the Hilton mid-town where she stayed a few years ago. Made me cross-eyed, it was so outrageous. She was meeting with some college trustees at the end of the week before she had to catch a plane, so of course it was all about convenience for them. Otherwise she usually is very economical with the restaurants she goes to.
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Dorothy said on October 2, 2013 at 10:41 am
I just had to go look up what stunned me about that breakfast receipt. Three people – $108 (that included the tip). Three orders of “two eggs any style” was $51. So that comes to $17 for two eggs. And two orders of bacon was $14 – so $7 for maybe 4 strips of bacon. SEVENTEEN DOLLARS FOR TWO EGGS!!! If I had to pay that, I’d expect them to have the damn chicken lay the eggs right in front of me before they whisked them off to the kitchen to scramble them for me.
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Charlotte said on October 2, 2013 at 10:51 am
I lived in NYC my first two years out of college — worked in publishing and was so so so poor. Ate well, thanks to the farmers market (which wasn’t boutique-y then) and the little shops down 2nd avenue into Little Italy and Chinatown. There was one — about 2nd and 10th maybe? Tiny storefront. Old Italian guy who sold fresh mozzarella and olives. That was it. And only 2, maybe 3 varieties of olive. I’ve never stayed in a hotel though — luckily, I’ve got some family I can stay with, but it’s been a decade since I was back in the city. I keep thinking maybe I”ll have another book to sell …
Angry Chinese and Indian tourists who couldn’t get into Yellowstone yesterday. I imagine there will be some poaching as well — bow season just started, and if they’ve furloughed the park cops … http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/government-shutdown-forces-yellowstone-park-closure/article_96c148e3-56fc-5a7c-930f-7c9cc57672bd.html
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Dexter said on October 2, 2013 at 10:54 am
nance…thanks for telling us your tale of a short visit to The Big Apple. I have to say I was a bit disappointed that there was no mention of utilizing a CitiBike for a short jaunt.
http://theinterrobang.com/2013/06/louis-ck-rocks-a-citibike/louisck-2/
Maybe you were with non-bikers. Deborah mentioned The Highline. That’s actually #2 on my NYC bucket list, number one objective is to walk or bike across the Brooklyn Bridge. 🙂
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Dexter said on October 2, 2013 at 10:56 am
The Last Word: Alternate Endings, Breaking Bad:
http://www.thewrap.com/breaking-bad-vince-gilligan-shares-5-alternate-endings/
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Connie said on October 2, 2013 at 11:15 am
Dorothy I bought several lengths of Hoffman batiks in crinkle gauze cotton from which I made mostly skirts. And I found one of the batiks in regular cotton at an Indianapolis quilt shop, so was able to make a coordinating vest with the print plus two colors of dupioni. I still have two long pieces of sandwashed silk and a half yard of a very expensive silk that coordinates. Unfortunately the shades of fuchsia and teal are not fashionable today. If you do go I’ll pull out that old file and at least tell you which blocks we went to.
Our tour leader also took to us a local restaurant for lunch, of a type I consider uniquely New York. It is the worlds largest salad bar and buffet, paid for by weight.
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coozledad said on October 2, 2013 at 11:17 am
Charlotte: Did you ever go to Paolucci’s? They got booted out of their old place on Mulberry.
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Dorothy said on October 2, 2013 at 11:30 am
When I worked at the quilt store in Pittsburgh I adored the Hoffman fabrics we carried. One time the salesman came in the shop and (kiddingly) I asked him if I changed my last name to Hoffman, could I get a family discount? He always wore pants made out of Hoffman prints – his wife sewed them for him.
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adrianne said on October 2, 2013 at 11:33 am
Nance and I hoofed it or subwayed it through NYC, and ate very well and reasonably cheaply by frequenting tapas places and bars. Only regret: Not having a drink at a joint called “The Four-Faced Liar” in the West Village.
The Citi Bikes are a great idea, but I have to say, everyone who came sailing past us on one looked like a super dork.
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Julie Robinson said on October 2, 2013 at 11:37 am
Tom Clancy has died at the age of 66. Although I’ve not read his books, I did see a couple of them in movie form.
Dorothy, I’m having fabric envy too, at Connie’s stash. Connie, just wait a couple more years and those colors will roll around again.
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brian stouder said on October 2, 2013 at 11:49 am
I read and enjoyed his first book. (IIRC, all he was was an insurance salesman who enjoyed reading the United States Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine, as did I in those days)
After that, meh
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Prospero said on October 2, 2013 at 12:21 pm
Bleeding Edge is a great NYC book. Dorothy, that is quite a nice story. In regard to Tom Clancy, straight to video.
And Cit-bikes are a clear extension of socialist behaviorism Barack Obama got from his daddy he spent all of six days with, which led to his anti-colonial world-view, and sorry if that makes me seem elitist, Basset. Kiss my ass.
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Bitter Scribe said on October 2, 2013 at 12:25 pm
My sister lived on the Upper East Side for more than 20 years. The only way she could possibly afford it is because she lucked into a rent-subsidized apartment. Almost all her neighbors were rich.
The neighbors were always throwing out clothes and shoes that had barely been worn. Sis would retrieve anything that was her size and, being very handy with needles and thread, would do things like change the buttons or collar, or add trim. More than once a neighbor would say to her in the elevator, “You know, I used to have a blouse somewhat like that, but yours is much nicer.”
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LAMary said on October 2, 2013 at 12:34 pm
Deborah, Tom and Lorenzo mention a Uniqlo item today. They discuss Rebel whatsername’s horrible cat face tee shirt, which leads them to confess to wearing kitties in space tee shirts and Uniqlo house shoes with cats on them. They provide a link. I will be needing a pair of the cat house shoes. I can sense it.
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LAMary said on October 2, 2013 at 12:41 pm
Uniqlo shoes
http://www.uniqlo.com/us/store/lifewear/sweat-room-shoes-animal/078052-03-004?ref=womens-clothing%2Fwomens-accessories
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Heather said on October 2, 2013 at 12:49 pm
There’s a hole in one of my house slippers so I have the perfect excuse to buy the cat ones. Thanks LAMary!
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LAMary said on October 2, 2013 at 12:52 pm
They have bird ones too.
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Charlotte said on October 2, 2013 at 12:58 pm
Cooz — I don’t remember eating there, but I was so broke I only ever ate out when someone took me out. Which wasn’t often. I could hardly afford the occasional movie.
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Jolene said on October 2, 2013 at 1:18 pm
Etsy is also a good source of distinctive slippers. Apparently, hand-felted slippers are a thing in certain parts of Europe, as most of them seem to come from there. I bought some for my nieces and my nephew last Christmas, and they were a hit.
Here are the results of an Etsy search on “hand-felted slippers”: http://www.etsy.com/search?q=Hand-felted%20slippers&view_type=gallery&ship_to=US
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Prospero said on October 2, 2013 at 1:23 pm
And what’s with that Dinesh anti-colonial accusation? Weren’t Washington and Jeffeerson kinda anti-colonial? Even a little bit? And that’s a bad thing? But….Obama. Mau-mauing the Flak-catchers. We are getting our hatreds out of order.
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Jolene said on October 2, 2013 at 1:30 pm
A better search: http://www.etsy.com/search?q=Felt+slippers&view_type=gallery&ship_to=US&page=2
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MarkH said on October 2, 2013 at 1:40 pm
Yeah, Brian. Too bad Clancy couldn’t put that idle curiosity together with a good story-telling ability. He coulda sold a lot of books.
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Kaye said on October 2, 2013 at 2:08 pm
I have enjoyed Tom Clancy books. “Jack Ryan!” Was my first thought the first time I drove past Quantico.
Dangit Jolene! I have been hanging on to the thought of making felted slippers for several years. Now you have brought that thought out of the cobwebs and I will have to go shopping for yarn. The ones you linked to will probably be better made and cost less – maybe I just need to shop there 🙂
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Lou Gravity said on October 2, 2013 at 2:12 pm
I guess you won’t be moving to New Jersey either: – http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_jersey&id=9221307
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LAMary said on October 2, 2013 at 2:23 pm
There are many reasons to not move to New Jersey. Python sightings are far down the list.
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Prospero said on October 2, 2013 at 2:42 pm
Mike Luckovich gets it right, as usual.
What is it about gerrymandering the House to the tune of three to one vote per representative and getting trounced twice in the Presidential election, and failing in the stacked paleoconservative Supreme Court do GOPers not understand? These ahole bastards have to glom onto liberals for whom nothing but single-payer is lib-rull enough. Those people ain’t on your side Yertle. Nor yours OOmpa.
I like slippers, but only one kind: LL Bean slipper socks. We wear them allatime and leave the heat off. All winter long. Never run the heater.
Sorry, but Tom Clancy was a lot more prolfic than he was good. Somewhat better than Clive Cussler, but that isn’t saying much. I’d imagine that is being judgeemental, but Tom Clancy was a hack that churned out the same book over and over. Like David Balducci or …gasp… Jackie Collins. If that sounds elitist, fuck off. Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce were better writers by a mile than Ernest Hemingway. By a fucking mile. And that is my opinion, which is why it came out of my mouth. It shouldn’t be necessary to repeat that caveat. Unless you are droolinng in your gruel.
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Prospero said on October 2, 2013 at 2:49 pm
Today is the anniversary of the releae of Love Over Gold, the absolute masterpiece of Dire Straits. Mark Knopfler is a true genius and Telegraph Road is as great as rock music can get.
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Prospero said on October 2, 2013 at 3:04 pm
What GOPers accomplished by shutting down the gub-mint: Fouled the air and our drinking water, made it more dangerous to go to work, made sure more endangered species will move up the ladder toward extinction. These people are assholes. Greenbacks are more important than people. GOPer Teabangers killed people today, and they should be made to account for it someday.
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brian stouder said on October 2, 2013 at 3:08 pm
Prospero – I attended a free public lecture by David Balducci at IPFW (the local university) some years ago, and the thing that made an impression on me was that he’s one of those people who refers to himself in the third person.
The guy was in NO doubt at all as to who was way too cool for school (his-own-self, ‘course!).
If I want to read fiction, then I read Laura Lippman, period.
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Prospero said on October 2, 2013 at 3:47 pm
Brian@43: Ballplayers like Wade Boggs and Chipper Jones do that too. Ahole egotists, as am i in the eyes of Basset. Somehow, I got on that guy’s bad side by noting how easy it was to scam the math side of the SAT. And I have the Godwful nerve to express myself fluently in English, to denounce rednecks and to make fun of Naish-vull. Criminey, y’all got a footbal coach that attacks opposing players. I actually read a D. Balducci book once. Mighty fucking bad. And I believe that James Joyce was a far better writer than was Ernest Hemingway, who wrote The Old Man and the Sea and should have quit there. F. Scott Fitzgerals was considerably better, and if you stoked Faulkner with Ambien and Abilify, you’d have ended up with Hemingway. If we aren’t opinionated, what are we? Pretty much nothing.
Brian@43: There are some pulpish writers I like. Steven King, Ken Bruen, Walter Mosely (best author on race in America, ever), T. Jefferson Boone, John D. McDonald, above all James Lee Burke, who is a master, and his daughter Alafair who will carry it on for many years to come. Oh, and George V. Higgins, who invented that style Mr. Leonard mined for all those years. And which produced a way better movie version with Robert Mitchum (of the Smirnov School).
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Prospero said on October 2, 2013 at 4:09 pm
This is what the Orange Boner meant when he said “Jobs, jobs, jobs”. We’ll wipe them out. GOPers. Gotta love them. Couldn’t trash the US economy whaed it was coming back, go for the world. I’ve seen this movie. It stars Rowdy Roddy Pepper and Keith David and a lot of ugly MOFOs.
Tom Clancy? He invented that Iran-Contra Inslaw bullshit, right?
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brian stouder said on October 2, 2013 at 4:13 pm
Mrs Headings, my World History teacher in my senior year at Fort Wayne South Side High School back in 1978-79, had us all read Joseph Conrad’s book Heart of Darkness – contemporaneous (more or less) with the release of Coppola’s Apocalypse Now….
and so the value of (well written)fictional writing, when trying to understand real events (or truth, by other means) isn’t entirely lost upon me…. but almost!
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Prospero said on October 2, 2013 at 4:24 pm
Heart of Darkness is the best book ever written in English by a person for whom English was his seccond language. And it certainlt got the Vietnam misadventure right. I got in trouble with the nuns because I had The Ugly American in my bookbag.
And that is exactly why those SS football players grow up to be the thugs you can legaly murder in FLA if they are wearing a hoodie.
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Prospero said on October 2, 2013 at 5:10 pm
Try as they might, GOPers can’t hang this debt limit shit around Democratic Party necks. That’s a lie of Gingichian bulk. And Newt is the most Panglossian gluttons of all times in politics. Lting like there is no rapcha tomorrow.
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Prospero said on October 2, 2013 at 5:41 pm
Actual facts about PP/ACA instead of pure GOPer bullshit. Those elections just don’t count when a brown guy wins them. And three times as many people voted for House Democrats than voted for House GOPers. That ain’t right, and they need to give back their paychecks and the cost of their Cadillac Health Care, because not a gutdom one of ’em has been doing her job.
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Basset said on October 2, 2013 at 5:54 pm
Pros, I thought you were outa here for at least a day or two – looks like yesterday’s pissed-off stomp to the sidelines is a little shorter than usual.
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Connie said on October 2, 2013 at 5:56 pm
Brian, I just saw the announcement for Lippman’s next book, coming out in the new year.
In other news my doctor just told me that the reason for the severe shoulder pain is a fracture. I see the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow. This might involve a new shoulder.
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Prospero said on October 2, 2013 at 6:13 pm
The House has the votes to pass a straightforward funding bill, but Boehner is blocking it. It would only take 17 Republicans joining with Democrats to pass a bill — and Republicans even admit those 17 votes exist! — but Boehner won’t bring it to the floor. A straightforward funding bill has the support of a majority of representatives in the House, but not of Teqabanger Republicans, and that’s all the Speaker cares about , the ultimate definition of putting party before country.
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Dexter said on October 2, 2013 at 6:18 pm
I don’t think we have more than one or two people in drug and alcohol recovery here at nn dot c.
If any of you are in , or know someone in recovery, no matter for a day or for 50 years, send them this URL. It takes us to Paul Williams’ blog.
What a remarkable, wonderful man! 23 years off the coke and the vodka, he’s grateful every day and shares his journey, and invites guest bloggers to this blog, which is sort of in the style of what we used to call weblogs.
http://www.gratitudeandtrust.com/
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MarkH said on October 2, 2013 at 7:23 pm
Dexter, thanks for that link. I’m not a recovering addict, but like many here, know more than a few. Including my nephew, five years in. Here’s a segment on Williams from a recent CBS Sunday Morning.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-57536877/paul-williams-evergreen/
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Deborah said on October 2, 2013 at 8:20 pm
My husband got me a pair of felted slippers for Chritmas one year awhile ago. They were made by a Danish woman and sold at a cool design store in Chicago called Luminaire. I loved those slippers and wore them for years until my toes poked through. I tried to buy replacements but could never find them. Thanks for the Etsy link, Jolene.
LA Mary, one of my favorite designers, Jil Sanders designed a few seasons of clothes for Uniqlo. I bought a down coat, a couple of shirts, and a dress from various seasons, sold at Uniqlo in Soho for much, much (much) less than things at the Jil Sander stores or Barney’s or Niemann’s. She did it for a couple of years and then parted ways with Uniqlo unfortunately. I love the stuff I bought, especially the down coat.
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Deborah said on October 2, 2013 at 8:30 pm
Here are the felt slippers I had, http://www.piawallen.se/unisex-p-361-c-175.aspx (only mine were bright green, my husband eventually bought some for himself in black). I guess there’s a difference between felted and just felt. Felted stuff is knitted first then felted. These slippers are made of wool felt. And she’s Swedish not Danish. Why did I not Google her before?
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coozledad said on October 2, 2013 at 9:09 pm
The thing I really like about Paul Williams is the completely non-judgmental view. That attitude is what makes doctors of laymen.
You’ve got that going, too, Dexter.
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Jolene said on October 2, 2013 at 10:24 pm
This is one of the pairs of slippers I bought. I got a kick out of the design, and my niece did too. You can get them in any color, with or without a closed heel.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/73524857/yin-yang-felted-slippers?ref=shop_home_active
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 2, 2013 at 10:53 pm
Wow. Small town homecoming parade, bonfire in the high school parking lot as the sun sets, the marching band playing after speeches by various team captains (everyone from field hockey to bowling to football, young men and women with the women doing better in the stringing together complete sentences department). Then the milling about with the flames burning down into spark streamers sputtering across the gravel, the local fire department on hand largely to prevent unauthorized leaping over said flames.
Life is good.
Hat tip, Dexter and Paul W. One day at a time!
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Basset said on October 2, 2013 at 11:24 pm
My small-town high school down in southwestern Indiana didn’t have field hockey, or bowling, or football – I don’t remember there being any girls’ sports at all by the time
I graduated back in ’73, or a homecoming parade. Wouldn’t have gone if there had been one; nice description, though, Jeff TMMO.
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coozledad said on October 2, 2013 at 11:55 pm
There needs to be a movie about these kids, and how they got dicked.
http://powerpop.blogspot.com/2013/10/speed-kills.html
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Dexter said on October 3, 2013 at 1:26 am
A confused Asian driver, a business executive in a Land Rover (SUV) with his wife and his baby child, gets tangled up with a Black motorcycle “family” and it ends ugly and shameful on the West Side Highway on Manhattan Island.
The videos are straight out of G.T.A. kids’ video-game videos, but this shit B real.
I don’t even want to link to the videos but they’re easy to find on about every news site.
Lee Marvin and Marlon Brando this ain’t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwB_Mrnwr_8
I guess the whole scene on that highway and that side street was just heartbreaking.
I also had to “take a chill pill” about 30 hours ago. I noticed water spraying out of my hot water heater, up to the ceiling and kind of all over the utility room. I told my wife to come look at what we were dealing with and she sort of panicked and I said I’d drive quickly (about a three minute drive) to try to catch the plumber before he left his shop, but she insisted we call first, which always results in the secretary saying no plumbers are there at this time, but this time the owner answered. This is why it’s great to always pay your plumber bills promptly…you never want to get them mad. He came straight to the house with wrenches and got everything calmed down and then at 8:00 AM the crew came down and installed new water pipes as needed; the water heater was OK, just busted pipes, just old is all.
I had to go the grocery and buy a few gallons of water to get us through the night and I also, for the first time in decades I would say, bought a case of 20 ounce water bottles. Even at that I felt guilty, all the plastic, which we discussed here a couple weeks ago, but I started feeling like I had been dealt such a cruel hand and all…y’know? That’s when I calmed down and instead felt grateful that all I had was a burst pipe. I remembered the Colorado flooding, all the damage to so many homes, and all I lost was …I guess a bill for the plumbers. A little bit of money, as Marge Gunderson said in “Fargo”.
Thanks, coozledad, aw shucks. 🙂
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Jolene said on October 3, 2013 at 1:34 am
Brian Williams had a piece about that motorcycle incident in tonight’s news, Dexter. Apparently, such groups are becoming a big problem on highways around the country, especially on weekends.
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