The rule is: if you have to walk 10 blocks or more in high heels to get to that party, bring extra, more comfortable shoes with you so you can change shoes if necessary.
Problem: clutch is too small for your flats.
Solution: stick them into your husband's coat pockets.
A few months ago an ad on the Internet caught my attention. The New Museum was searching for women volunteers to take part in a contemporary art installation. The living statues were required to go to the museum a.m., take a sleeping pill, get into a bed installed in the exhibition space, and sleep as many consecutive hours as possible.
It turned out the sleeping installation was part of the exhibition “Generation younger than Jesus”, showcasing 50 international artists born after 1976, that we saw last week. First off, the reason why we can still sleep at night is that we were wise enough to visit the exhibit on their free day. Otherwise those 30 dollars would have haunted me for the rest of my life, together with the following (and I quote a review) distasteful, borderline offensive, and cliché in its romanticism of martyred youth (close quote) bullshit:
A new banana skin is placed anywhere in the exhibition space every day by one museum employee after he’s eaten the banana. Of course we were relieved to see that there's a security guard always hovering nearby to protect the masterpiece. Basically this banana skin is more guarded than the Monna Lisa;
Three platforms displaying personal items from three Chinese guys approached on the street by the artist who offered to buy everything on them for $500;
Clips of skateboard catastrophes to “rethink the concept of revolution”;
A Czech artist asked her depression-crippled grandmother to draw from memory items on inventory at a home supply store the woman worked at in Brno for 30 years;
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The museum’s fourth-floor gallery watcher, who has to wear a white tracksuit, stained with embroidered blood;
A black steel staircase that only minutes ago I found out to be an art installation. At the Museum I simply thought it was an emergency fire escape.
The event is drawing enthusiastic reviews such as “With nearly all the selections, one gets the sense that these youthful artists are themselves becoming parents. They’re bunch of Geppetos displaying little Pinocchios for the first time”, and “These young artists show us that the sublime has moved into us, that we are the sublime; life, not art, has become so real that it’s almost unreal.”
While attempting to convince myself that looking at nothing is good for you, I started listening to other people’s conversation because, yes, I wanted to know if I was the only one in the room where the sublime had not taken residency. Man telling his friend: “What really strikes me is… the freedom these artists have”. Right, the freedom to add a bunch more crap to the world.
In the end I don’t blame the so-called artists, though. I think of Maurizio Cattellan (see quote below), or the young painter who issues an invitation to his new exhibition that reads “I've got a bunch of crap showing at The Chicago Art Department's”. Most don’t take themselves seriously. Critics take them seriously. Museum goers take them seriously.
Or perhaps the problem is that I’m turning one year older than Jesus. Or 50 years younger than Geppetto.
“Io non mi prendo sul serio, questa è la mia forma di difesa. Ho sempre odiato lavorare. Nella mia vita ho fatto di tutto: la donna delle pulizie, il postino, il becchino, il giardiniere, il cuoco, il contabile, il
disoccupato, perfino il donatore di sperma, a Verona. Ora mi inseguono tutti e rimango stupefatto, perché io sono sempre lo stesso idiota di prima"
Maurizio Cattellan, il cui Papa di cera abbattuto da un meteorite e’ stato venduto per due miliardi.
Just finished watching the series finale of Six Feet Under.
It's been an awesome 4 year journey.
God bless Hollywood.
We are in recession. Some say that everything will rebound soon while others say that we're in an economic crisis that rivals the one of the 30's. The specter of the Great Depression fuels fear and panic. “We're going into the worst global recession for sure that that we've ever seen”, Obama told the press today.
It’s almost impossible to carry on with this kind of drama almost everyday. No wonder the Kremlin sent an order to all newspapers and broadcasters banning the words "collapse" and "crisis." In search for positive news, I found out that the global economic meltdown will not impact motor sport in India (The India Times) and will not have a major impact on the NBA (NewsDaily Entertainment Headlines). Also, McDonald's sales rise during economic crisis. Chief Executive Jim Skinner commented: "McDonald's strong 
Thus far, our life hasn't really changed much. Thanks God we have not had to resort to living on Ramen noodles. But maybe unconsciously, somehow we adjusted to the general mood of doom and gloom. Our life in the new Great Depression includes:
The New Yorker. My husband received a gift subscription to the New Yorker for his birthday. A typical article is 15 pages long, a real challenge given the increasingly short attention span of the average web user. Reading the New Yorker is a full time job. Indeed I was offered a job a couple of weeks ago and I had to refuse: “Sorry, I just subscribed to the New Yorker.” And more, it’s a zen exercise. The first few times you read one of those neverending stories that any other journalist would have told in two columns you get an urge to yell out "get on with it already!" at least a dozen times. This side effect disappears with daily practice. Once you attain enlightment you’re all set. (Reader, you may have noticed that this post is longer than usual; that’s because I’m trying to do to you what the New Yorker is doing to me.)
The Philoctetes Center is our new preferred destination for lectures. It’s a club of psys whose declared mission is to “promote an integrated approach to the understanding of creativity and the imaginative process.” Emotionally appealing words like creativity and imagination have been used here in order not to scare the shit out of potential members and attendees. Truth is, one of their last roundtable was aimed to “consider theoretical questions in relation to Franco-Algerian politics, the cinema of cruelty, the use of off-screen space, and the Freudian scenario of the bourgeois family”. Last Sunday we went to the Philoctetes for an 
The Big Lebowski Fest was supposed to be the highlight of the year, if only it weren’t sold out when we got to the place. While my husband first tried to argue with security and then to sneak in, I stopped to think about this annual celebration of a massive cult movie that holds sold-out events all across the United States. Dedicated to those who have no clue where they are in life right now.
I haven’t been writing anything lately because I was overwhelmed by all the things happening on this side of the world. The credit crunch, the bailout saga, Sarah Palin and the bridge to nowhere, Sarah Palin and her glasses, Sarah Palin and moose stew…
These events do have an impact on everyday life, as I experienced in my own small way.
I was shopping at Whole Foods the other day. Looking for the #1 item on my grocery list, garlic, I strolled up and down the vegetable aisle four times. Eventually I had to ask for help. One shop assistant tells me to follow him, but we end up staring at an empty basket. “No te preocupe” he goes, “I’ll go get it in the cellar”. Good, go. And while he’s after my holy graal, I’m left contemplating this successful business that freed rich, health conscious people from feeling guilty about their consumption, a psychological absolution of our excesses.
My thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of the shop assistant who reemerged from the cellar and was standing across the hall with his arms wide open and a sorry expression on his face as saying, "Holy crap! Do you believe we run out of garlic?”. I replied to his Latin non-verbal signal with a Latin non-verbal shrug and a facial expression of disbelief as saying: “The world’s leader in natural and organic foods, with more than 270 stores in North America and the UK, with $ 6.6 billion revenue, on the index of the 100 largest non-financial companies traded on Nasdaq run out of garlic? We want change, dude. And some garlic with it.”
The Interfaith Floating Lantern Ceremony reflects a Buddhist tradition to comfort and honor the spirits of the deceased. Floating lighted lanterns were released on the waters of the Hudson River, accompanied by the chanting of Buddhist priests.
Downtown is not a place where we go often. Overall, three things are worth the trip:
1) Century 21, a bargain-hunter’s dream, insanely crowded and inappropriately dubbed ’NYC’s best kept secret’;
2) taking your guest for a walk across the Brooklyn bridge and, despite your husband’s recommendation not to give his visiting friends a lecture on landmark buildings because they don’t give a damn, bring them to the Woolworth building, Customs House, Federal Hall and Trinity Church until they drop;
3) getting married at the City Hall before Carrie does.
This last Saturday at the Financial District was a little different:
- we walked around with a US History PhD student who offered the ammunition to finish off my future guests,
-then we wandered around for an hour or so, looking for a decent place to have a bite. We ended up in a diner where evidently someone is paying off the health inspector. I sat at the sticky counter, asked my waiter what was that bird whistle. It’s the cook, he said, the cook is a bit nuts. All right, as long as he can fix a ceasar salad. Where can I wash my hands? Hmm…. He turns to the other waiter: ¿Dónde está el baño? They start a discussion. Outside, inside, upstairs… They didn’t seem to know. Well, where does the parrot cook wash his claws, then? I passed on the salmonella salad and we left.
-we came across an Italian hole-in-the-wall type of place where the cook and owner was half Italian and everything was fresh and cooked from scratch. A little Italian paradise.
-after lunch we headed over to an electronics expo held in the Winter Garden lobby at the World Financial Center. The expo was disappointing. Moreover, although the Winter Garden is a lovely place, there is always this somber feeling of the sorrow that hangs over the whole area when you look out those $3.5 million new front windows facing the giant hole and agonizing construction.
I love Chinatown. I love Chinatown because it’s pure Blade Runner, except there are no camels. Everyone else hates it. When I take my guests to Chinatown I can read the disgust on their face.
It stinks, they say. The sanitation standards may sometimes be dubious, I say. Moreover, it may stink in absolute terms, whereas in relative terms it’s just slightly smellier and filthier than the rest of the city. Plus, according to French 
standards, "the stinkier the better". Finally, in the grandeur of New York, a stinky neighborhood is not just a stinky neighborhood. It’s a place for discovery and celebration, where you can take a walking-tour of Chinatown's illustrious garbage.
They say it doesn’t give you a real taste of China, and China itself is way more progressive than Chinatown is. There's no denying it, but this is an immigrant neighborhood. Just like Little Italy. Naples, case in point, is more progressive than… Nevermind.
I go to Chinatown at least once a week to buy fresh produce. The moment I’m out of the subway, I’m like Leonard Zelig in Woody Allen’s movie. I immediately chinatize myself. My self-chinatization includes not giving a damn about getting bumped around by old asian ladies, speaking pidgin and masterly dodging spit. Plus, I feel shorter. And I walk faster. I don’t argue semantics with Chinese who aren’t fluent in English. Sometimes you see these girls at the nail salon asking complicated questions like “Do you have sun-dried cherry tomato nail color?” With a puzzled look, the pidgin speaking manicurist systematically repeats the last word: “colol?”. Instead of simplifying it, the girl repeats the question, this time shouting “DO YOU HAVE SUN-DRIED CHERRY TOMATO NAIL COLOR?”. Needless to say, they don’t get too far.
I don’t do that. I’m a result-oriented, one-word communicator. Like the other day at this no thrills no frills back rub place. I wanted a receipt, so I asked: “Receipt?”. She asked back: “Sipt?”, I nodded: “Yes, sipt”. No, of course she can’t give you a sipt. You think you are at the Four Seasons Hotel? I learned my lesson. In Chinatown less is more and never ask for a sipt.
Some of my favorite shots of Chinatown:
This is what I mean by pure Blade Runner. Stall selling cherries in the snow, February 2008.
Store cat. The odd thing is that this is a fish store.
Last night we attended a reception for the launch of a US environmental campaign, a massive consumer engagement initiative which brings together companies and government agencies to help people drive down their carbon footprints. For example, campaign partner Marks & Spencer 
is encouraging its customers to lower their washing temperature to 30˚C, a car insurance company offers up to 15% off its standard rates to clients that drive an environmentally friendly car, London mayor Livingstone is setting the good example by refraining from flushing the toilet if he had only a pee, etc…
We spoke with a few American environmentalists who praised the EU for being light years ahead of the United States in terms of advanced and innovative environmental policy development. They acknowledged that EU best practice and existing standards provide valuable guidance for incorporating environmental concerns into the US national agenda. I was thrilled and flattered. For once, we are the role models. I guess my husband got way too excited because at a certain point I heard him saying that in Europe we are very glad the US is finally moving towards “the adoption of policies we developed and implemented 20 years ago..” Wow, wow, cool down, I thought, or they’ll ask us to repay all the Cheddar cheese my grandma got from the Marshall Plan.
Anyway, for a change we are seen as a world leader in something, and it feels good. True, Europe has become a safe haven for terrorists but hey, at least we teach those damned jihadists to lower their washing temperature to 30˚C.
Mi aspettavo di vedere, che ne so, Sofia Loren o Al Pacino, e invece mi sono beccata Melba Ruffo di Calabria, non senza riuscire ad evitare l’elegante uscita “Oh, ma che ce frega di Melba Ruffo” davanti ad un 
diplomatico italiano; le nostre autorita’ hanno dato discorsi improntati a temi di grande attualita’ quali Meucci, Puccini e Toscanini; ho appreso che Boccelli e’ un bastardo che picchia moglie e figli; ho appreso che per una soppressata come si deve bisogna andare al Bronx; una ragazza straordinaria che ho conosciuto la settimana scorsa portava un ombretto glitterato che cerco disperatamente da quando due anni fa l’ho visto indosso alla moglie di Totti in TV, e me ne ha regalato uno (per le interessate: marca MAC ed esce solo a Natale, almeno a Beirut, go figure…).
L’highlight della serata: una mozzarella di bufala che farebbe risorgere Meucci, Puccini e pure Toscanini.
Going to the party thrown by the Austrian Consulate... in the elevator with a Polish couple... sidelong glances between me and the woman. Panic. I was in a white linen suit and golden stilettos, she was wearing a flowery hawaiian shirt and flip-flops. “Am I overdressed?” I leaned over my husband and whispered, “No, no…” he replied. She whispered something in her husband's ear and he replied “Nie, Nie…”
Turned out the party was a full blown celebration of personal styles.
This is what we call EU harmonization: one party, 27 different interpretations of the dress code.
I would very much like to attend a lecture by Louis Ferrante tonight. The guy is a Gambino-family insider who spent eight years in jail for committing some of the most lucrative robberies in US history, refused to cooperate with the FBI against former associates of the Gambino family, wrote a book (From Prison to Proust) and converted to Orthodox Judaism. There is nothing overly exciting about a Queens born mafiaman who resolved that, as if eight years waiting for freedom weren’t enough, he shall wait another 2000 years to shake hands with the Messiah. What struck me instead was the picture accompanying the article in Time Out about the Non-Motivational Speaker Lecture Series of which Ferrante is guest. The photo portrays a speaker giving his presentation with a tampax tampon stuck up his nose. At least I suppose that’s a tampon. The caption says it was a demonstration of ‘how to alienate your fellow passengers’. Would I feel alienated by sitting in the train next to a man with a tampon stuck up his nose? Is there anything a fellow passenger could shove up his nose without stirring feelings of alienation? A nasal spray, for example, which is thematically pertinent and thus rationally acceptable? His metro ticket, in case he's got no pockets (functionally understandable)? These are some of the existential questions that stirred my enthusiasm for the event.
Unfortunately we also have an invitation to an advance screening of a movie for tonight. My husband told me the other day that he couldn’t make it because the movie starts at 6.45 and he’s got a meeting at 5.30. So this morning I came up with the Gambino plan:
me: “You know, we could go to this lecture by Louis Ferrante tonight. It’s at 8.00, which leaves you with plenty of time…”
husband: “Who’s Louis Ferrante”
me: “I don’t know, but look, he’s got a tampax shoved up his nose!”
Well, I guess my husband has been sitting in one of those useless we-can-save-the-world-you-go-first meeting this morning, absorbed in some tampax-themed soul searching. He called an hour ago to let me know that after all he’s not supposed to speak on any of the agenda items and thus he can make it for tonight’s movie.
My friend the TV advice guy explained to me that an advance screening is usually a longer cut of the movie, where the consulting firm organizing the event asks the audience for feedback, sometimes they hand out surveys and –quote- ‘you fill in whatever bubble you think is appropriate’. Having been denied the thrill of a lecture by a Jewish mafia man with a tampax stuck up his nose, I’m resolved to take full advantage of my advance screening experience and I have prepared a couple of answers such as “I think this scene best reflects Schopenhauer's nuanced differentiations of the universal substratum, propounding the nonrational, phenomenologist will as the ultimate reality’. I can see those Nielsen folks reading my inappropriate bubble and going “what the f---k?? Who does he think he is? Louis Ferrante?”.
I hate dogs. But I would have never dared to tell this black camel that I saw walking his owner on leash around the Lower East Side the other day.
Colin Farrell gave an interview to GQ magazine where he revealed his current passion for Russian baths:
"Hollywood hellraiser Colin Farrell has admitted he is hooked on taking Russian-style steam b
aths while covered in honey. He was a daily visitor to the 10th Street Russian and Turkish Baths where guests are smothered in honey before steaming." Said Farrell: "There's something very basic about rubbing honey on your skin and going steaming with a bunch of strange Russian men."
I found out about Farrell’s fascination with the 10th Street Russian baths only after I went. I wasn’t expecting to see any Hollywood stars. That’s what I anticipated instead: in the worst case scenario, we would go back home with a newly adopted family of E.coli bacteria or with a sixth toe growing on my foot, in the best case scenario we would see a two-on-one gangster fight between a Viggo Mortensen-looking guy dripping blood and sweat while struggling with knife-wielding Chechnyan assassins.
It didn’t turn out to be what I’ve anticipated. I didn’t even get to see the contingent of the Russian mafia having a sweat right in front of me, although Russian baths were known to be a safe meeting place for rival gang leaders, obviously because weapons are difficult to conceal on a naked body. Yet, the place is wild. And I’m not referring to the fact that last time it was inspected on April 7, 2008 four violations were cited including mice and “not vermin-proof”. Non-germaphobes will love the radiant heat stone room and the ice water pool which feels amazing once the epileptic fit stops and you manage to convince yourself that you are not going to die from pneumonia tomorrow.
And about the honey rubbing, haven’t seen any honey but it seems that Colin Farrell went to rehab to get off ecstasy, cocaine, speed, Jack Daniels and wine. Well, that explains it.
I joined facebook in September in an act of submission to peer pressure. Or, say, to please those friends who were begging me to join in and help boost their popularity. Also, I signed up to see what all the fuss was about.
Here is an account of my experience with facebook and the reasons why I believe it is useless or, to put it elegantly, it sucks:
Stage 1: I have been a pretty passive user for a few months.
Stage 2: this is when I got sucked into the whole social networking thing. I was thrilled with facebook and started looking for connections with friends and old acquaintances, all those friends who moved to remote places, people I met at a bus stop 15 years ago, the cashier at my local grocery store in Rome, all past co-workers I couldn't stand... Most people say facebook is great to connect with friends. From my standpoint, facebook was a Ghandian experience, a training ground for practicing tolerance; I came across a bunch of people I loathe, at first I wanted to puke, then I thought 'yeah, why not? let's add this son of a b---h to my friends list'. After all, everyone knows that facebook friends are not real friends, and you teach yourself how to neutralize negative vibes.
Stage 3: when the pests came into the picture. Here are the party poopers: old friends and acquaintances I would never want to be reconnected with. If I wanted to keep in touch with them, I wouldn't have 'lost touch' with them. So simple.
Stage 4: when you stop to think about it and the social scientist in you starts asking questions such as 'isn't this just a narcissist's cyber-playground?' All these guys sharing their dumbest thoughts with 15 million users. Hey, look at me 'Jack is currently reading a book'! Amazing! Thank you for letting me know, seriously! Worst, those who suffer from publicity/privacy schizophrenia. I mean, what am I supposed to do with 'Jane is happy because of what she is going to do tomorrow'??? You either tell me the whole story or just shut up.
They call it social network but the truth is, facebook is about cheap interaction. Social relations means communicating and engaging in a dialogue. There is no dialogue on facebook because there is no content. People look like 5 year old kids picking their nose. They can't articulate a thought that goes beyond the 'Jane is currently reading a book' level of complexity, and social interaction is ultimately reduced to taking quizzes, playing games, sending zombie invitations and poking, with the sole purpose of telling the world what quizz you took, game you played, whom you poked. It's not actual communication, but pieces of digital stammering spammed to hundreds of 'friends'.
Stage 5: when you want to abide by the principle of intellectual honesty to come to a fair judgment by looking at all aspects of the problem. My starting point was: if facebook is inspired by the six degrees of separation and interconnectedness theories, then I can exploit the network's full potential so as to develop some exciting connections. I searched for Jonathan Franzen and Milan Kundera. Guess what? They're on facebook. It seemed too good to be true. In fact, next thing I know, you cannot add them to your friends' list but you can join their fan club. Hm, what a nine day wonder! So, basically, the added value of facebook's gigantic chain of connections is that I can get linked to Jenny Jones from Auburn, Iowa.
Stage 6: I’m strongly considering killing my facebook account. I'm choosing a date. I thought of March 22, marking the anniversary of Sheik Yassin's death in an Israeli helicopter missile strike on his car. But I'm not sure I can stay with facebook for another thirteen months. August 6th is also a possibility: the day the Prefect's office of Londrina, Brazil, authorized the extermination of 50 thousand pigeons.
Fear thou the Londrina judgment day, my facebook!
While his fellows fight for acorns throughout city parks, this guy with a sweet tooth took up permanent residency at a street stall selling roasted peanuts. (photo courtesy of my sister)
After having systematically forgotten to bring binoculars to theatre every time I went over the last five months, my field glasses finally saw the light again since the time they spotted a giant squirrel in a forest in Southern India in 2007: tonight they received their first New York premiere at the Carnegie Hall.
I was so proud of the fact that I remembered to take my binoculars that I didn’t mind we were going to a classical concert, not to the opera or theatre, and thus in theory there wasn’t that much to see. For those who wonder how one can possibly get excited about remembering to do something that he has or wants to do, please put things into perspective by considering the person's memory failure history, i.e. all the times you take your seat at the opera/theatre and go: “oh shit, I forgot the binoculars”. Repeat 10 times in 5 months. There you go.
What I observed through my binoculars gainsay the theory according to which there isn’t much to see in a classical concert, with all due respect to the giant squirrel. Here are my orchestrical-zoological observations:
I loved Stravinsky’s Petrouchka. It bears all the powerful and evocative elements of Russian culture.
“My music is best understood by children and animals.”
Igor Stravinsky
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