I didn’t sleep well last night, due to a too-light dinner and a heavy workload. Nothing like waking up at 4 a.m. with hunger pangs and the usual dead-of-night conviction that ALL THE WORK YOU DO IS SHIT, AND SOONER OR LATER THE WORLD WILL DISCOVER THIS.

I read the iPad for a while, dozed off, got up for good at 5:30. It’s amazing how many people are updating their Facebook and Twitter at that hour. There are really only a couple of hours in the very dead of night when my stream is dead. I know this because one of my Twitter follows is @big_ben_clock, which does nothing but chime on the hour. When two or three of those stack up, I know the United States is sound asleep, coast to coast.

I should follow some Europeans. At that hour, the day is already moving at full speed over there. (And yes, I could simply try to go back to sleep like a normal person, but how can you do that when the world is thrumming with news and information?)

But as usually happens, my wee-hours fears were for naught, the day went well, and I just finished a salad-and-pasta meal with two glasses of wine. I would very much like to watch “Bachelorette” on demand, but fear I’ll be taken down before it’s over. Carbs + alcohol = an early bedtime for me.

In the meantime, I’ll tell you about the fall movies I’m planning to see. Roger Ebert reported a bit from Toronto this week, and says he’s willing to bet “Argo” will be the year’s Best Picture Oscar winner. On the list? Why, yes. Also, “The Master” and certainly “Cloud Atlas,” because I lurved the novel so, so much. Roger says: Stirring and grand, and maybe great, but maybe not. Honestly, as usually happens with books I love, I’m less taken with the plot — although the plot(s) in “Cloud Atlas” are mind-boggling — than I am with the author’s prose style, which movies generally don’t deal with.

And yeah, I think “The Sessions,” but that will probably be a wait-for-DVD. And likely “Lincoln,” although if I can’t go as Brian Stouder’s and Jeff the MM’s date, what’s the damn point?

Did any news happen today? We had a little office chat about Nate Silver, who is so bullish on Obama’s reelection that he’s either going to make his career on Election Night or be struck with the urge to take a long vacation. He was scarily right last time, but who knows what that means?

I was perhaps too flip yesterday in dismissing Jonathan Kozol’s own too-flip observation about homelessness. At the time he made it, I recall a changing world in which great wealth was flooding into the nation’s large cities, closing the SRO hotels that had housed the addicted fringe. They were driven into the street with the freed mentally ill, and walking among this cohort in places like New York, Chicago and even Columbus, it was easy to get frustrated with anyone who suggested a simple solution. As many of you have pointed out, housing is the solution to homelessness, but it has to be the right sort of housing, and it has to be bolstered with appropriate support. If I oversimplified, I apologize.

Tom & Lorenzo have been at Fashion Week and critiquing actresses at the various Toronto film festival premieres, and I’m enjoying both very much. Adding to bucket list: Once, just once, inspiring a smart fashion eye to say, “Bow down, bitches.”

September 11, 2012 — an odd-year anniversary, but discuss if you like.

You only have to visit Yellowstone National Park once to know how it goes: If the traffic’s slow, there are animals nearby. When you arrive at the park, you’re handed a thick sheaf of material with very explicit, liberally illustrated warnings about the dangers of approaching wildlife. Don’t be fooled by a seemingly passive animal! Etc. There are usually drawings of a bison, moose or elk sticking an antler into some idiot’s ass, with underlined text saying these attacks can be fatal or cause grievous injury.

And yet, talk to any ranger, and year after year, tourists leave the park on a stretcher, and the offending beast has to be put down, because of idiots.

One told me they had a particular problem with Japanese visitors, this being back when Japanese visitors were all over the Western U.S. on holiday. “I don’t know if they don’t understand English well enough, or what, but those guys act like every animal in the park is animatronic or something,” he said. (Hence the illustrated warnings.) Just that summer, one had walked up to a resting bison and plopped right down on the beast’s back, while his friend took a picture, or at least that was the plan until the thing jumped up and stuck the idiot in his hindparts.

So when someone sent me this video, and I noticed the long black hair on the tourists involved, I thought nothing could possibly cleave to ethnic stereotypes quites so neatly, that it must be a coincidence, and to be sure, it seems to be. When you hear the people talking, they speak in perfect American accents. And the kind of blatant lack of common sense that would allow a parent to walk right up to a 1,500-pound bull bison with his children, ignoring every warning sign — the raised tail, the angry head-shaking — and then still act like your kid’s near-death experience is a hoot and a half? That brand of dumb crosses all ethnic boundaries.

Out of the gene pool, Gene.

I had a tough last few days, and I’m still catching up. A good friend died, not unexpectedly but before I was ready for it, which is to say, I had dropped what I expected would be my final note in the mail to him the day before. Sigh. And I’ve been working on a short-deadline package that will require one more rewrite, so I cannot linger here.

Coupla links:

Here’s a hug for the president. Wonder how the Secret Service felt about it. Probably like that bison. Update: NYT said the guy got permission first.

Cops roust an after-hours joint/brothel in Detroit. Does any other place in the country refer to these establishments as blind pigs? (The bars, not the brothels.)

Jonathan Kozol has a new book out, looking back at some of the poor children he’s written about through the years. I lost a lot of interest in Kozol after I heard him say that the answer to homelessness was housing, but there’s no question the guy’s been a hero of the literacy movement.

Let’s try this again tomorrow, when the deadline’s over.

It’s been interesting to watch the reaction to Clinton’s speech last night. Of course, Monday-morning quarterbacking of all things is a great and glorious tradition in American life, but you don’t often get to see it done on a stand-up act like that.

Tom Junod on Clinton the conductor:

A simple line of script, such as “my fellow Americans,” would become “my fellow Americans, all of you in this great hall and all of you watching at home” — it would be amplified, elongated, exaggerated, and it would once again remind you that the first talent Bill Clinton revealed was for playing the saxophone.

…He had a talent for familiarity here, as ever — a talent for wearing a blue suit with a red tie, a talent for biting his lip, a talent for waving his finger, a talent for being Bill Clinton that allowed him to get away with everything else. He raised one finger, he raised two fingers, he raised one hand, he raised two hands, he lifted his chin, he dropped his chin, he licked his lips, he flicked his tongue, he lowered his voice in abashment and he raised his voice in something like anger, and every single one of his stock gestures served to remind the audience of who he was and what he meant to them, and allowed him to control the dynamics in the room. He was what everybody said he was — he was a jazz musician and a rock star, but he was also a conductor, and when he lifted his hands, palms up, people rose from their seats, and when he lowered his hands, palms facing the floor, they sat back down.

Molly Ball on Clinton the master:

Bill Clinton spoke for nearly 50 minutes. His speech was dense, didactic and loaded with statistics and details. The paper version handed out to reporters took up four single-spaced pages in a tiny font, and he departed from it frequently. It may have been the most effective speech of either political convention.

…Clinton made arguments. He talked through his reasoning. He went point by point through the case he wanted to make. He kept telling the audience he was talking to them and he wanted them to listen. In an age when so many political speeches are pure acts of rhetoric, full of stirring sentiments but utterly devoid of informational value — when trying to win people over to your point of view is cynically assumed to be futile, so you settle for riling them up instead — Clinton’s felt like a whole different thing. In an era of detergent commercials, he delivered a real political speech.

James Fallows on why Clinton’s speeches succeed:

Because he treats listeners as if they are smart.

That is the significance of “They want us to think” and “The strongest argument is” and “The arithmetic says one of three things must happen” and even “Now listen to me here, this is important.” He is showing that he understands the many layers of logic and evidence and positioning and emotion that go into political discussion — and, more important, he takes for granted that listeners can too.

Yeah, it can get a little tiresome. But there’s more!

The Clinton text vs. the delivered product. Compare and contrast.

Finally, Charles Pierce, because, duh, Charles Pierce. (Link fixed.)

And now it’s time to watch the new big dog speak. I have to get up early tomorrow and work all day, so I’m leaving it to you guys to carry later tonight and in the morning. Let’s see how it goes.

We don’t have a great deal of breaking news in our part of the suburb-o-sphere, but an interesting one dropped today, which was the first day of school for the two high schools: The Grosse Pointe South Blue Devils football team will welcome a transgender member this year, a girl named Meredith who would rather be referred to as “he” and called Seth.

I posted this on the GrossePointeToday.com Facebook wall, and a couple of other people did the same. Given the repulsive commenting going on at Patch these days — are there any internet news outlets with comment sections that aren’t sewers? — I expected the discussion, if you can call it that, to deteriorate rather quickly.

But no. Between three Facebook walls, I count about 50 “likes.” But here’s something interesting — of those 50 likes, 48 are female. Only a handful of comments, but all but two were from women, all getting misty-eyed with pride and tolerance. Two men weighed in; one made a mild joke, the other wondered what the world was coming to and made a sad face. 🙁

So what do you think this says? Are women more likely to be proud of their transgender children, or is this a football thing?

I don’t really care all that much, but I do find it interesting. This is a community that blows hot and cold on inclusion. The repulsive commenting I mentioned earlier concerns guess what? race and is bad enough I’ve wondered whether I should just set the house on fire, collect the insurance and move to Ann Arbor. But a transgender high school running back? Arms wide open!

Oh, well. Night has fallen, and I’m waiting for returns to come in on what I hope is the final act of the Thaddeus McCotter story — the $650,000 special election to fill his seat for all of six-count-’em-six weeks. The column at that link pulls punches, but it’s hard to figure what more punches would do for McCotter:

The primary will determine which two candidates will be on the Nov. 6 ballot to be elected to fill the remainder of McCotter’s term. The winner could serve less than two months before being replaced by the winner of the general election, who will take office next year, but representing a district considerably gerrymandered from the one that sent McCotter to Washington.

It was redrawn by his fellow Republicans to help McCotter hold the seat, but the former Wayne County commissioner and state legislator from Livonia carelessly left his re-election petition filings up to an office staff that botched the job — deliberately and fraudulently, based on criminal cases now pending against a handful of them.

The Republican political establishment tried to avoid taxpayer ire over the cost of the special primary — required to assure the district does have some representation in Washington — by settling on a consensus candidate and discouraging others from filing so the contest wouldn’t be needed. But five Republicans rejected such rigging and filed in the special primary, including Kerry Bentivolio, the ex-teacher from Milford who won the regular GOP primary last month and will carry the party banner in the redrawn district in November.

…Confused? Thank McCotter, whose last months in public office were dominated by an impossible quest for the Republican presidential nomination and the drafting of a sit-com script. Aside from a couple of terse statements, the normally loquacious McCotter has been unavailable — and unaccountable — since leaving office.

I’m going to say this and then I’m going to shut up: We’ve been hearing a lot about voter fraud lately. And here we have, in the McCotter case, a clear-cut case of election fraud, four people charged with falsifying nominating petitions for one filing deadline, and evidence they did it in the previous two elections. Who is howling about this? Virtually no one. My Wayne State colleague Jack Lessenberry takes a few whacks at him — and a few others — here, but that’s about it.

So much for that, eh?

A bit of linkage:

Tom & Lorenzo take a look at Shelley O’s look last night. Via Jolene. Something I learned today: Tracy Reese is a Detroiter, and the dress was a custom design. It certainly showed off the First Guns to maximum advantage.

Mark Bittman says what I was trying to say last week, about restaurants, particularly fine dining:

It simply isn’t what I want anymore. It’s become painful, not in the visiting-the-dentist sense, but in the “you have to go to synagogue; it’s Yom Kippur” sense, a long, drawn-out affair in which even the obviously beautiful and enjoyable parts — the $10,000-a-week flower arrangements, the custom glassware and china and sometimes even the carefully prepared if almost always overly subtle (to my taste) food — were overwhelmed by the sheer tedium.

These are temples of ceremony, with (normally absent) chefs as priests; they’re circuses without clowns or trapezes.

It goes on. Read.

Finally, those of you who follow journalism might know that our own Hank Stuever is spending the term teaching at the University of Montana, as a visiting prof. His class is about writing pop culture, and here’s the good news: You can follow it online! On Hank’s blog! Scroll down to the entry called “Montana,” and come back up. Charlotte, I expect this might interest you.

And so we greet Thursday. Already.

Update: I finished and scheduled this while Bill Clinton was speaking, but before the speech actually achieved liftoff and took off for the stars, with a vapor trail of puppies and bacon streaming behind. I watched the remainder in bed, on the iPad, chuckling and switching back and forth between the stream and Twitter. I think I’d buy, in hardcover, a collection of the best tweets last night, which were hilarious. (I’m indebted to Jill Biden for the puppies-and-bacon imagery, which was in hers.) My fave might be the several who sketched some version of Clinton as James Brown, throwing off cape after cape to run back out and play another encore. Who says public speaking can’t be entertaining?

I’ve been sitting here noodling over a post and can’t get my brain started. This is a sign I should go upstairs and read something instead.

Would you like a small link? Cinemagraphs, i.e., animated gifs with most of the obnoxiousness taken out. These are from the Minnesota State Fair.

An interesting review of Tyler Hamilton’s new book about St. Lance. Looks like the noose is tightening, not that it matters anymore.

“Breaking Bad” fans, what did we think of the finale? The “Crystal Blue Persuasion” montage was great, but then, I’ve always loved that song.

I had a great weekend; did you?

I don’t think it’s ever going to rain here again. I can’t tell you how often this summer I’ve watched healthy storm systems blow out of the Plains, gain a little strength on the hop over Lake Michigan, and immediately start dissipating. Like hurricanes. By the time they reach us, they’ve become a few widely scattered showers. Followed by another high pressure system that will stay for a few days.

I mean, I’m grateful the heat has finally eased up (even though it’s going to be 94 today), but man — this weather is sort of boring. And there’s no water left anywhere.

Upside: No mosquitos. Although we’re still having a West Nile outbreak. And thanks to the hurricane, gas is now $4.20 a gallon. But hey! J.C. Burns is coming for dinner on Monday, so what’s not to love?

OK, then. Much of the news from the convention has been flying over my head; I just don’t have patience for a) these events; and b) the way they’re covered, with every gotcha moment blown up like a party balloon and batted around until the next one comes along. And so, while I heard and disapproved of the peanuts-thrown-at-the-black-CNN-camerawoman story yesterday, I tried to let it roll off.

Then, today, a read a very detailed account of the incident. And this is disturbing:

“I was just about to put on my headset when someone started throwing peanuts at me,” she told me. “I didn’t understand what was going on.” She recovered enough to ask one man, “Are you out of your damned mind?” A pair of older white men walked to the railing preventing people from falling down into the camera pit. One hurled more peanuts at her and taunted, “Here! Want some more peanuts?”

Then they actually started hitting her with them. “This is what we feed to the animals at the zoo!” he continued. While his partner laughed, the thrower leaned over the railing as if he WAS at the zoo and snorted, “Here’s some more peanuts.”

My friend continued, “It was like they were heckling me.” It became clear to her these people were enjoying her torment. Two African-American cameramen and a female Caucasian reporter came over to investigate the fracas, but none had clearly heard what the men said. CNN security arrived by coincidence and set off after them.

(If that narrative is confusing, click the link and read the whole thing. It’s told in the first person by a friend of the camera operator.) That isn’t a tossed-off moment. That’s a deliberate, sustained bout of extreme obnoxiousness. What’s worse is the official reaction:

Then a pair of people who identified themselves as RNC officials came to apologize — or offer what to them passed as such. “These must have been alternates,” one said. “Our delegates would never do anything like that.”

Oh. OK.

However, believe it or not, that wasn’t the most offensive thing I read today. It was this, which may be a little confusing as well, as that link is to part of an interview posted yesterday by the National Catholic Register, with Fr. Benedict Groeschel, a Franciscan friar who appears to be making a rather vile explanation for child sexual abuse in the One True:

Part of your work here at Trinity has been working with priests involved in abuse, no?

A little bit, yes; but you know, in those cases, they have to leave. And some of them profoundly — profoundly — penitential, horrified. People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to — a psychopath. But that’s not the case. Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer.

And it gets worse from there. At one point, he refers to Jerry Sandusky as that “poor guy.”

The NCR has taken the interview down and apologized copiously, as has the friar. He’s playing the I’m-an-old-man card: My mind and my way of expressing myself are not as clear as they used to be.

That might be, but I still say it explains a lot.

OK, it’s Mitt’s acceptance speech, so I guess I have to watch it. You guys pick it up in the comments, eh.

And happy Labor Day weekend. You deserve a day off.

OK, so: St. Lance.

Let’s get my prejudices on the table right up front. I have always thought Lance Armstrong was dirty, at least since I learned how dirty cycling is, which was sometime after his first Tour de France win, and before his last one. I can’t say there was any crushing moment when this dawned on me — I don’t idolize sports figures as a rule — but more of a cynical oh well there goes that one moment.

It always boiled down to this, for me: The sport is dirty, top to bottom, and has been for years. One by one, the titans of the sport have gone from deny-deny-deny to a mumbling OK-yeah-I-did-it-too. And we’re supposed to believe this one guy, this cancer survivor who won seven years in a row, wasn’t? I’ll grant you: None of this is based on hard evidence. I’ll grant you: He never had a positive test. I’ll grant you all of that. I only offer in return: So much smoke, and this guy isn’t on fire?

So I spent much of the weekend reading this and that. Liked this. Liked that. Liked this other thing. Came away thinking mostly the same thing: He was dirty, but the whole sport was dirty. He did what it took to win, and that’s what it took.

He always seemed like something of a jerk. Left his wife and kids, had a couple of kids with a girlfriend, the latest girlfriend. But who cares? Is he running for pope? No. He seems to believe fiercely in the idea that a cancer diagnosis isn’t a death sentence. This is good. He seems to be one of those guys who thinks that exercise will stave off the Grim Reaper more or less forever. He’s half-right, but he’ll learn the other half soon enough. In the meantime, I guess what I’m wondering is, why did we decide people could only be one thing? Good, or bad? He was the best dirty rider in a dirty sport for a very long time, and now this means no one can admire him? Who decided that?

But I don’t admire him. At the same time, I know that if he’s being railroaded, it’s entirely plausible this is the way to do it.

Which hardly counts as any sort of revelation, but we’re talking about a cyclist here. So let’s give it what it’s worth.

So, bloggage?

Ohio State fans? Some of you people — I just don’t know what to say.

I’ve been trying to watch the convention, but I just can’t. Someone bring me up to date, eh?

And happy Wednesday.

I never met Neil Armstrong, but as a native Ohioan, I always felt I knew him at a different level than those who weren’t. I don’t have any particularly acute memories of his first steps on the lunar surface; I dozed until my mom shook me awake for the big moment, after which I dozed off again. I was at a friend’s house when the Eagle landed, and her father — her father, not her mother — shed a few tears.

“Maybe I paid for a few screws,” he said, wiping his eyes.

Alan, who lived closer to Wapakoneta, Armstrong’s northwest Ohio hometown, went with his family for the astronaut’s homecoming. Tens of thousands packed the streets of the northwest Ohio farm town for the big parade. He remembers drinking Mountain Dew rebranded as Moon Juice.

Later, after he’d retired from the space program, Armstrong returned to Ohio to live, teaching at the University of Cincinnati. He gave very few interviews (but some). He was that increasingly rare bird in American life — the truly self-effacing man. He knew his role in history, and participated in responsible scholarship to document and preserve the experience. He talked to serious journalists on significant anniversaries, cooperated with an authorized biography, but never, ever capered for an outsize share of the glory. What many are saying this weekend is true: The space program was one with many, many moving parts, and he was only one of them. His insistence that he not take more credit than was his due may seem strange to us now, at a time when so many publicity hounds bay for the spotlight, but once upon a time this was known as character.

About 10 years or so, I ran across a column about NASA written by an English journalist. It portrayed Armstrong as a bitter recluse, a grouchy crank whose tossed-off quip that he hoped someday his footprints on the lunar surface would be erased was evidence of something approaching mental illness. You’d think an Englishman would recognize modesty when he saw it, but by then we were well into the LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK LOOK AT MEEEEEE era, and maybe he just couldn’t imagine how a man could be satisfied with a college professor’s salary and pension when he could make zillions on the speaking circuit.

Later, I interviewed Armstrong’s biographer, James Hansen, a Fort Wayne native and Purdue graduate. He said he thought the astronaut chose him for the job because Hansen was essentially a science journalist, not a personality profiler, and Armstrong wanted to make sure the whole team of geeks got their due. I think he was right. (I haven’t read the book.)

Someone in my Facebook network posted a wry observance Sunday morning, noting that the story of the birth of Snooki’s baby was already No. 1 on Yahoo’s most-read news index, while Armstrong’s death was at #5. That says a lot, right there.

I asked Hansen to tell me something about the moon landing I might not already know. He said that in parts of the Muslim world, it is believed that Armstrong heard the Islamic call to prayer while on the lunar surface, and immediately upon returning to earth, sought out the proper religious authorities and converted to Islam. (It’s true. The rumor, that is.) Armstrong had to issue a statement a few years back. Apparently these Muslims believe he lived in Lebanon, which is true, but Lebanon, Ohio, near the former home of Kash’s Big Bargain Barn, not Kashi’s Falafel Palace.

Anyway, an amusing nugget that, if I’d ever met the man in person, I’d have liked to ask him about. However, the fact he would have just as soon keep mum about it is fine.

A good weekend around these parts. I spent some of it thinking about St. Lance the Imperfect; maybe that’ll be gelled by tomorrow.

In the meantime, have a great week. Not much bloggage to speak of, but thanks to Little Bird for finding the invisible bike helmet, which is either genius or a well-produced prank.

If you’re near Isaac, stay safe.

I’m watching Project Runway — the long-awated “real women” challenge, so we can see all these bitches melt down at the sight of a B-cup — and it seems the right night for a mostly links post, eh? And I have some good stuff.

Serena Williams in a tight dress. Man, she looks fierce. Those thighs should be registered as a lethal weapon in most states. She could kill a man with ’em. But I have to say: I can’t WAIT until those hoof-shoes go out of style.

An ex-NPR reporter launches a new website:

“I feel like I am, as a reporter in the Capitol, lied to every day, all day. There is so little genuine discussion going on with the reporters. … To me, as a reporter, everything is spin.”

You DON’t say.

We had a good package in Bridge this week, on land use in Michigan, specifically the question of how much land should be in public hands, i.e., the DNR’s. Start here, and follow the “previous coverage” links if you want to know more.

I’m indebted to Jolene for finding two worth reading in this month’s Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ essay, “Fear of a Black President,” and a much shorter, livelier essay on why Fox News-babes are so…painted.

Marinated flank steak for dinner. Man was it good. I’m going to miss grilling season. Good thing it will last a while.

A great weekend to all.

UPDATED: An OID and one great photo essay for you cat lovers out there.

A few years back, I accepted a freelance assignment to interview the three kings of the Detroit restaurant scene. Two of them ran trendy fine-dining establishments, the third a chain of mid- to upper-middle Italian places.

Five or six years later, no one talks about them at all anymore. One went broke, the other reorganized, and the chain is still chugging along. The last time I ate at one I swore I would never spend another penny there, because life is too damn short, and their dedication to serving mediocre food just pisses me off these days.

I think I’ve mentioned before that my biggest disappointment after moving here was the surprisingly lousy restaurant scene. Whenever I mentioned this, people would say, oh you need to try this place out in West Exurbia. It was named restaurant of the year by six magazines and three newspapers! We ate there last month and it was surprisingly reasonable — we got out for under $300.

I don’t want to eat at those places, at least not more often than annually. I want decent, moderately priced places you can drop in on, that won’t cost a fortune. I want a burger place, a pasta place, a Mexican place, a Middle Eastern place, a steak place, a fish place, a few surprises. (I don’t care if I never eat another coney for the rest of my goddamn life, by the way. That’s one burden I’ve been spared, not being a native.) And it’s taken me a while, but little by little, I’ve filled most of these slots. And I’ve found most of them in recently opened places in Detroit.

Last night Alan and I met for dinner at Green Dot Stables, typical of the new sort of place popping up around here. It’s a former Teamsters hangout, and doesn’t seem to have been redecorated under the new regime. No reservations required, just show up. They serve sliders, fries, simple sides and salads — all in tapas-size portions, all served in cardboard trays. The waitress circulates frequently and the menus stay on the table, so if you find yourself still hungry after your initial order, you can throw another $3 slider on the tab, no problem. Drinks come in what looks to be the old Teamsters glassware, only the last time I ordered a summer soda, made with cucumber- and lemon-infused syrup, the chef’s own concoction, something I doubt the union boys were into. It was delicious.

We got out — three sliders, soup for Alan, salad for me, an order of truffle fries later, couple of local craft beers — for $30 on the nose.

The transformation of the local food scene in the last few years has been remarkable. The explosion of urban farms, and the sorts of people who tend them, has led to a new kind of restaurateur, not interested in fine dining so much as good food. There’s a little imitation French bistro we discovered last year, after I sampled the chef’s ratatouille at a cooking demo at the Eastern Market. We pulled up in front and Alan said, “This can’t be right. This place looks like a methadone clinic.” Around back, a little kitchen garden had been scratched out of the ground, and inside they were serving crepes, quiche and the aforementioned ratatouille. You can carry in your own wine, with no corkage fee. Now when I want to go there, Alan says, “Oh, I had lunch there twice last week.” Well, it is near his office.

That’s Le Petit Zinc, if you’re taking notes. Have I mentioned Supino pizzeria, the best thin-crust pie I’ve had in my whole damn life? And even the Park Bar, a place I started patronizing on Kate’s music nights last year, has a Romanian family handling the food, in the Bucharest Grill off in the corner. Try the schwarma. I like the falafel too, but the best in town is the Harmonie Grill, near Wayne State. Ground chickpeas are very cheap; you can almost always feed yourself to bursting for under $10.

I think about those restaurant guys I wrote about, and they seem almost silly now, with their river views and white tablecloths and oh did I mention? Stevie Wonder dropped in last weekend. All I want out of the world these days is something good to eat. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to find it.

So, bloggage?

I try not to overlink to the NYTimes; I know some of you don’t have subscriptions. But this is a blog post from yesterday, remembering the Chase Manhattan bank robbery that became the basis for “Dog Day Afternoon.” Many fascinating details on many levels; do not miss the slide show. Attica! Attica! Attica!

I found this cringeworthy: Dax Shepherd plays the Michigan game. When newspapers try to be fun and playful, it almost always ends up this way. But maybe you’ll like it.