Paul Smalera

Well, I don’t know what’s happening to the East Village. Since I moved across the island, comes word that Kurowycky Meat Products has closed its doors after 50 years of fatty service. This was the Polish deli of my childhood dreams, complete with slabs of greasy bacon back (boczek pronounced bo-check) sitting right out on the counter, totally safe to eat because they had been cured to within an inch of their lives. The kielbasa, sadly, had to be put in refrigeration several years ago thanks to overzealous DOHers. Salty, fatty meat products are the staples of Polish winter cuisine. I didn’t shop here often enough. It will be sorely missed.

As if this blow wasn’t enough, Teresa’s Polish restaurant, also on First Ave., like, I think the same BLOCK of First Ave, has closed too, according to Gothamist. This was just a simple diner, with cheap and quite good food. No elegies (except this one) will likely be written about it, but I’ve always liked “Fanfare for the Common Man” and this restaurant shared that same space in my heart: just a simple place to get simple food, prepared from scratch and with some heart and love. Too many of these places in New York seem to be going out of business. I wonder what will take their places.

In other news, I reviewed an old favorite for The New York Press this week, the Italian restaurant named Max. And then Eater promptly published a rumor that it was going out business too, though this is still just a rumor for now. What is going on?

Another week, another clip. Read my meandering feature on the east side of Broome Street–its history, its culture, and its future. For out of towners, Broome is one of those little streets on the Lower East Side that, while part of the whole, also looks like a microcosm of all of New York. Ok, there are alot of streets like that. But Broome is more interesting than most. Read: New York Press.

I haven’t posted much lately (and sorry to have to write that, as I hate reading it on other people’s blogs) but that’s becuase I’ve been at work for Condé Nast Portƒolio and things have been a bit too busy there for me to keep up my normal pace of pitching and writing articles as a freelancer.

The good news is that I still have managed to contribute a small piece of analysis to Portfolio.com, launched today, the online companion to the print edition. I could try to describe it to you, but by the time I did that, I would’ve rewritten the whole thing. So why don’t you just click on the headline below and head on over to Portfolio.com to read it for yourself? It’s a really nice site, speaking as a former web developer, I’m really happy to see how nicely it turned out. Have a look:

Daily Brief: McClatchy Jilts Tribune and Gannett for Yahoo

As you’ll see in my latest New York Press review, I was quite smitten with the soy-fueled goodies at Kyotofu. Have a read, and do yourself a favor– check it out!

PS-Yes, Alone in Kyotofu is a play on the Air song from Lost in Translation. I highly suggest you check that out too!

Since I’m a writer, I often find myself looking for and reading books about the “art & craft” as we tend to reverentially call it. Whatever, I’m just trying to learn a few tricks. But one thing I definitely WON’T do for the first book is allow any use of stock photography whatsoever. Besides having a girlfriend who is an excellent photographer, my own background as a web designer taught me to be very careful when using stock. Clients never want to see photos on their sites used anywhere else, but are often unwilling to pay enough to secure exclusive rights for them. I had one photo of a curly haired man in a loud tie wearing glasses that I must’ve used a dozen times. I still see it crop up now and then in bank advertisements.

From everything I know about it, book publishing is mostly a low-margin industry.
A few big Harry Potters keep the midlist catalogs in print. But still, Francine Prose and Norman Mailer deserve better than to share the same dull clip art:

Oh, you don’t think it’s the same? Just very similar. Well, sure, there’s some Photoshop distortion going on. Mailer’s colors are deeper, befitting his Old Lion stature, and Prose’s brighter but still not exactly bright, befitting her matter of fact outlook on literature and its place in the world. But, dear reader, this is the same Photodisc image by Ryan McVey:

Poor Norman. Poor Francine. Such different books, such different writers, yet such generic (if regal) covers. I wonder what the book design bloggers have to say about this one….

Friends, there is good pizza, and there is good pizza. Having grown up in New Jersey, I was used to the idea that if a pizza place managed to stay open for more than a year, the pizza they were serving was probably going to be good. Small town economics dictate that crappy restaurants close fast. Yet here in Manhattan, bad pizzerias are everywhere, and they stay open for years! There are simply too many people on this island who don’t know or don’t care what a good slice should taste like. May I suggest, for those of us who do care what a pizza is supposed to be, that you read my New York Press review of Cronkite Pizzeria and Wine Bar, a new joint on the Lower East Side? Although they are definitely a gourmet sort of place, they are doing all right by me. Mangia!

Photo: Wendy Ploger

It's been a while, but here's another clip of sorts. Over at Conde Nast Traveler's website, every issue of the magazine should bring with it a monthly online quiz. This month's is written by yours truly, and it's all about that city of sin, that according to Guy Martin in this month's issue, may save us all: Las Vegas. To take the quiz, click here. Sorry, no betting!

Somehow this blog has neglected to comment much upon what Homer Simpson called "the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems: alcohol!" I think that's because I originally started it as a repository for clips and failed pitches, but as I've gotten a better feel for what kind of blogging I'd like to do, I've strayed a bit from that formula. So, it's time to talk about drinking.

When I was a sophomore in high school, a teacher advised me that if I ever had writer's block, the best way to unblock myself would be to take a swig of Wild Turkey, or better yet, just keep some by the desk. When I was legal, he added, five minutes later. Great guy.

Now that I'm well into the age of majority, I have to say that one Manhattan is a nice way to get the creative juices flowing. Two Manhattans, however, and while I'm probably charming at a bar, I'm useless on the page. This is all to say that I just discovered NPR : Great American Writers and Their Cocktails, and it's a damn fine compedium of what our great men and women of letters preferred to get soused on. 

Just remember, as F. Scott said, "first you take a drink, then the drink takes you." You've been warned. Now drink up!

I feel like I discovered Ftrain.com years ago, well before I was aware of anything like a blogosphere. There were just blogs back then, little unconnected islands of thought percolating through the phone wires. And because I responded intellectually to Paul Ford's writing on that site, I have always kept a mental note to check it out, every few months, usually late at night or during a slow moment in time, when I feel like I've reached the "end" page on the internet from that stupid commercial.

Usually I was rewarded by some little post or link, but recently, many times I was not. Then, of course, came the majesty of the Gary Benchley serial saga on The Morning News followed by the excellent novel based on those articles, Gary Benchley, Rock Star. We had several months of Ford in full bloom as the book hit the publicity circuit. But lately, again, radio silence. Now I don't spite anyone's need to get away from these glowing screens, but as a reader, I simply missed the site.

Now comes a sudden deluge of posts! Ford has been blogging regularly since 2007 was begat, apparently some sort of New Year's Resolution, get it, get it?  Part of my interest is that Paul is a web geek who writes. After being a web geek for several years, I too am writing, though the first novel is probably at least nine months off and I have happily abandoned the coding part of my brain, except for boutique projects for friends who need websites and of course keeping up this little blog, which is really only hear to call attention to my work as a writer.

Although his posts have been apocryphal so far, I will be reading the blog with great curiosity to see what comes of his efforts. I suggest checking it out sometime.

Put a few million people on a tiny speck of rock in the middle of a whole lot of other people and strange things happen. I'm talking about Manhattan, of course. Ironic Sans: The Astoria Notes actually deals with, der, Astoria, Queens, but that is a whole 'nother speck of rock, just a larger speck than the speck I'm currently living on. If you've ever had issues with neighbors, even if they weren't necessarily horrible The Burbs types of encounters, you'll want to read Ironic Sans' bizarre tale about being told, by his neighbor, that she was pretty much following every move he made in his domicile, sometimes complaining, and sometimes twisting his habits into her own roommate eviction device. Enjoy. 

(This link is from kottke.org but I know I've seen Ironic Sans before…)

« Previous Page — Next Page »