Paul Smalera

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….

The New York Times weighs in on the East Village, where I live, circa 1985:

Sometimes an area’s appearance differs markedly from its reality and that is true of the East Village. ”There are bohemians who live here who are only pretending to be bohemians,” said Alfred Marston, chairman of Community Board 3 at 137 Second Avenue. ”Actually, many of them are the most straight-laced of people who work days in the financial district and want to shed that prim, professional image at night and on weekends.” UNLIKE other areas of the city, said Mr. Marston, a financial consultant with a doctorate in economics, ”a lot of people who feel they have missed the boat in their private lives head for the East Village looking for a renewed lease on their youth and, obviously, some of them find it because more well educated, professional people keep coming.”

It’s reassuring to know that even 22 years ago people here were bitching about the yuppies with day jobs moving into the E.Vil and ruining it for the true artistes. However, not all has remained the same:

Quality-of-life problems abound. Residents complain that garbage remains uncollected for weeks, graffiti are endemic and the Fire Department says the East Village is among the most arson-prone areas in the city.

Granted, there is a personal irony in coming across this article today, as I Googled looking for a good Indian restaurant in the ‘hood, because I had my first semi-serious run-in with a totally crazed drugged out guy, probably about my age, looking for “80 cents to buy some vodka.” Perhaps he was stuck in 1985, because $.80 sure don’t buy any vodka I know about.

What really sticks out, when the article talks about prices for housing (buying and renting) is how little prices have actually gone up 22 years in terms of just the numbers themselves. ($500k for a two-bed, for instance). I don’t think though, that salaries are anywhere near as valuable, relatively speaking, as they were in 1985. Translation: even if we have more dollars in 2007, we can buy less with them.

Read the article if you have a second. I assure my out of town friends no one is swarming over vacant lots and abandoned buldings anymore, because there are none.

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

Many of you will recognize the still above as being from Office Space, the excellent movie about the dystopia all too many of us spend our waking lives contending with. But did you know the guy giving Jennifer Aniston a hard time about not having enough “flair” on her uniform is none other than Mike Judge, the creator of the movie, along with Beavis and Butthead and the universally lauded Idiocracy?

Wait, you don’t know about Idiocracy? It’s the movie set in 2505, when generations of, uhm, lesser minded folks, had exponentially way more kids than “smart” people who were waiting for the economy to be on the upswing before deciding to bring another life onto the Earth. Really, hadn’t heard of it?

Well, many others have catalogued how Judge got the shaft from Fox, his distributor. The movie, which I’ve seen on DVD, paints a pretty bleak picture of America, and especially the corporations that essentially run it. From Carl’s Jr. being able to remand children to the state, to the country’s irrigation needs being unsuccessfully attended to by Brawndo sports drink (”It’s what plants need!”), the picture is of dumb-ass people whose few needs (tv, food) are barely attended to by a failing nanny state. Politics, just as now, is essentially a meaningless contest of one-liners, except in more of a pro-wrestling atmosphere, and the president is a porn-star.

What’s crazy about Office Space and Idiocracy is that as much as you’d like to believe the premises aren’t possible, you know people who’ve lived through Office Space (OK, without the Superman III robbery aspect) and Idiocracy, well…

In the movie, Starbucks, has apparently decided coffee is just not cutting it anymore. They decide to offer, as a value add, handjobs. Crazy, right? Well, as Slashfood noted, Seattle, the home of Starbucks after all, is already well on its way. Actual quote:

“Espresso joints. . .have decided to spice up their images with sexy outfits and flirtatious female baristas to try and attract business away from competitors.

“If I’m going to pay $4 for a cup of coffee” said one male customer, “I’m not going to get served by a guy.”

Right on, dude! Just wait and see what your great-great-great-great grandson will get with his lattes! Provided that, you know, he doesn’t get any crazy ideas about how to pay for it.

Stranger than fiction, there's a restaurant called E.U. in my East Village neighborhood that is just unable to stay open. And I swear it's my fault, if you believe in causality. Maybe my girlfriend's. You see, every time we have gone to eat at EU (three times now), they close within 48 hours, only to re-open, still the same visually, but palpably weakened in terms of karma. My study:

Closure the first: After a long, contentious, crazy battle to open, E.U., the European Union, finally started serving in April 2006. Mind you, when we moved to the E.Vil, we had our eyes on EU as a perfect addition to the neighborhood. Yes, my girlfriend and I are hipster gentrifiers. I'm sorry, we'd rather be crunchy, long-time residents, but that wasn't in the cards. We like the East Village for what it once was, not what it is now, but our chances at scoring some $500 a month 3 bedroom suite pretty much went out the window when we weren't born in time to take advantage of living in the drug-ridden, crime infested neighborhood this once was (which may actually be preferrable to the bridge and tunnel infested, street fight, striped shirt douchebaggery carnage inflicted on my neighborhood every weekend night.) 

So, EU opened, after battling like crazy for a liquor license against a community board that stupidly stood idle while a hundred other dumb bars got or renewed their licenses. Yes, the green lantern bar with the awful name (No Malice Palace) on 3rd, which regularly creates a sidewalk queue while the inside of the bar is actually empty, just to drum up some buzz, has a license, but a restaurant serving braised beef cheeks and razor clams does not. Go figure. They opened for three days to give BYO a go, but after they got told they could not operate as BYO, they got closed. But, that one night we got to eat dinner there, the beef cheeks were OUT OF SIGHT.

Closure the second: Brunch. Good burger. Good eggs. Still no booze. They had re-opened in advance of the license, which I gather Giraldi et al. thought was forthcoming. In fact, it was not. Again, le shutter for EU. If the actual EU closed this often, Germany would still be on Weimar currency.

Closure the third: Brunch, again. Good burger (fried egg on top, Aussie style, but I guess Aussies were once Brits, right?) Then comes Eater to tell of the Sunday night meltdown that apparently happened mere hours after the hostess told us we had to sit at a two top right next to another couple because the next table over "had to stay a four." At 1pm. In a restaurant that had six other occupied tables. Out of, like, fifty. Neighborhood brunch place? Uh, if my neighborhood brunch place is empty, you'd think they'd have the courtesy to space out the diners OR just say "anywhere you'd like," when we go to sit down. Perhaps this is why EU advertised for a whole new front house on craigslist.

Finally, according to Eater, a new chef, Akhtar Nawab, the FOURTH attached to this restuarant in less than two years, (Burrell, Ochs, Elliot) has brought some solid experience to the resty, along with hopefully enough of a clue to bully the management for a decent front of the house. And they've re-opened in just four days, the shortest time ever in all the jinxes we've apparently put upon EU by attempting to dine there. I looked forward to seeing what Ned Elliott could do, but now Giraldi and Hennings say he was just a warm body while they went after their man Nawab.

Please, EU, don't give up the good fight just yet. We really want to see what you've got to offer. And may I put a word in for the braised beef cheeks, if Akhtar deigns to serve them? 

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…)

Since I'm going to be doing some more food writing in the coming months, I thought I might start an occasional feature on the blog of writing about good meals I've had between reviews. I was lucky enough to be dining with my photographer/girlfriend Wendy Ploger when I ate brunch at Flea Market, which on the surface seems like any number of tiny French bistros that line the streets of Manhattan. 

I don't think anyone goes to a bistro expecting to be introduced to the future of food, a la foams, cooking in plastic bags, Parcojets, or any of the other exotic kitchen devices and techniques that have gained currency in recent years. No, what you expect is to enjoy the original culinary revolution: the techniques, precision and combination of ingredients that brought the French to global preeminence and made the name The French Laundry a perfect one for Thomas Keller's more modern culinary revolution.

What you're seeing in the picture above is what the Flea Market does well. The place has a cute feel, good music, and a slammin' brunch Croque Madame. The Croque ("munch") is nothing more than a good piece of French bread with a slice of ham, some Gruyere cheese and bechamel sauce, heated and grilled so that it gets all gooey and perfectly melted. It's then topped, as shown, with a poached egg. Do you know how easy it is to make a bad one of these?

I've had some real stinkers. Hard (not runny) yolk. Bad cheese. Unmelted cheese. Cold cheese. Icky ham. Stale bread. Old sauce. If it's not all perfect, it's not worth eating. So to make it as good as Flea Market does, and to pair it with a lightly dressed mesclun, as above, that makes use of the sauce and egg yolk as a de facto second dressing, shows that not only can someone in the kitchen make a Croque Madame, they understand the thinking behind it and why the ingredients are prepared the way they are. It shows competency and appreciation for the old ways. It complements the atmosphere of Flea Market, where you feel you might actually be in a bistro somewhere on the Left Bank. It's food that doesn't know how artful it is, even as it outclasses so many other pedestrian meals.

Lichee foams and thyme sorbets are great, but for my money, nothing beats a perfectly poached egg. Flea market, on Avenue A right across from Tompkins Square Park, is a place I'd recommend to those who agree. The service is fine, the wine list works, and the price is right. It probably won't change your world, but then again, if you've never experienced a great duck confit, it just might.

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