Billy Budd
A wonderful sort of review (if you can call simply regurgitating your mood at the time of reading the book a review) of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, complete with references to The Smiths.
One can almost imagine what this kids dorm room looked like, the standard issue Wittenberg chairs, with requisite posters of both the Simple Minds and Morrissey adorning the wall space not occupied by the hand made bunk beds. The guy sure has a point though.
The NFL in London
Al Michaels once commented during a Green Bay Packers away game (there were quite a few Packer fans in SF, Seattle, or wherever they were playing that week) that if there were to be a Redskins/Dallas game played on Mars, there would be Packer and Cub fans outside the venue in the hotel lobby. This photo, from the Giants/Fish game at Wembley Stadium in the London Borough of Brent this past weekend, confirms this.
This fan is also violating one of GQ magazines top 10 sports fashion fopaws, by wearing a jersey to a game in which his/her team is not playing. I personally think this fopaw is flawed, as the Packer fan is obviously there to cheer against the G men to give the Pack a better position in the overall NFC standings, in the hope of furthering our chances for home field advantage. Any little bit of energy helps.
Numbers in film
A very cool collection of clips from 100 different movies, using numbers starting from 100 in descending order. Very pleased to see the swallow scene from The Holy Grail made the cut ("Listen, in order to maintain airspeed velocity....), very dissapointed to see “nine times Mrs. Bueller, nine times” didn’t.
Nasty keyboards
If you’re a germaphobe and can’t stand the thought of all those nasty little microbes squatting in your keyboard not paying any rent, and you happen to have a dishwasher, you could try this. More than brilliant. Kudos, Coudal.
Guy launches full size X-wing fighter
And it’s hardly surprising what happens next. Brilliant as all hell.
Be Kind, Rewind
Jack Black’s new film about two guys who run a video store. The videos get erased, so just like Hollywood, they remake them. Hilarious.
In Rainbows
Radiohead has finally completed their new album, and has made it exclusively available via their website. It can be downloaded starting 10.10. For downloaded copies of the album (most likely 128kbps crap), they’re using the pay what you can format. The discbox (double heavy gram vinyl+CD+download) is rather pricey at around $80, but at least they’re including a heavy vinyl copy and they throw in the download. Radiohead’s choice of making the album available only from them is a rather obvious and refreshing giant middle finger to the record industry that seems intent on implosion.
Picasso
The girls and I took the El to Daley Plaza Saturday, and we stopped for a bit to slide down the Picasso. It was a cool day with very low humidity levels, so they picked up quite a bit of speed sliding down the steel sculpture.
Grace is Gone
Cusack has come an awfully long way from the kid in the WLS t-shirt holding up the wall and wearing underwear on his head in Sixteen Candles.
Hipster olympics
This brilliant youtube video chronicles the 2007 hipster olympics. Set in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, but it would also fit quite nicely in Wicker Park.
One of the contestants heads to an ATM, and the announcer quite accurately says: “He’s got a nice head start over to the ATM, where he’s got to verify whether or not his parents check has cleared. And it has.”
Dick in 1994
Dick was quite a bit more informed in 1994 apparently - in this 1994 interview, he actually makes a bit of sense. Brilliant.
Top Gear coming to BBCA
There are occasions when the stars align beautifully, and August 20th will be yet another example. Make certain your DVR’s have enough space, as Jeremy Clarkson, the incomparably english James May, and Richard Hammond will be viewable on american cable TV. No more hunting for BitTorrents (unless you want the full 1080p version) - the absolutely brilliant Top Gear will be a regular on BBC America. The shows irreverence knows no bounds, and even if you don’t care at all for cars, this is perhaps the funniest UK TV since Monty Python.
Henry K. Rollins
Former Black Flag front man Henry K. Rollins, has quite a bit to say. I nearly fell off my chair watching his animated diatribe on Walmart, as well as his letter to Ann Coulter. Be warned, Henry likes to use a few colorful metaphors.
Breaking up with Due’s
I’ve been going to Pizzeria Due at the corner of Wabash and Ontario ever since I was a toddler. My parents took me to the original Uno’s and Uno’s down the street annex of Due’s as a kid, and I’ve been going there often since. When I was living away from Chicago, a trip back would have to include a visit to Due’s at 619 N. Wabash, for a sausage and garlic pie. I’ve brought countless friends to the place, touting it as the best example of Chicago’s deep dish pizza art form.
Sure, there are chain Uno’s (Due’s sister pizzeria) all over the country, but they use a chain recipe that might as well be from Pizza Hut. The crust is thick, but it’s wrought with preservatives and other very detectable partially or wholly hydrogenated ingredients that don’t even come close to the pie available at the two original downtown (ok, north of the river, so not technically downtown) locations. The pie at Uno’s and Due’s was a sure thing, unchanged for 40 years. There are certain things in life I could count on in Chicago. Fast driving middle-eastern cabbies, a great time at Wrigley Field no matter the score, a great view from the Hancock observatory on a clear night, and Pizza from Wabash and Ontario. Then something strange started to happen.
The pizza at Due’s has been extremely inconsistent for the past two years or so. I’ve heard new owners took over during that time, and the crust would on occasion be too thick, soggy, burned, or even undercooked. Everytime this sort of thing would occur, I’d always attribute it to an overtly crowded night, or perhaps the pizza chef was having a bad day. But it happened with more frequency, and what started out as counting on a good pie turned into hoping that I wouldn’t get a bad one. A perfect pie there was becoming a rarity, so I actually started cheating on my favorite pizzeria with a place over on Wells, called Lou Malnati’s. It was a bit like getting used to a new girlfriend - exciting but strange, as there were quite a few memories about the old Due’s that kept telling me to stop and go back. But the pies at Malnati’s are so consistently good, I’d go to Lou’s if I wanted pizza. The pie at Lou’s is deep dish but with a thin crust all the way around the pan (the way Due’s used to be before they screwed around with the recipe two years ago), and the crust stays crisp even if you get take out. They never burn it either.
Then last night, we met my cousin and her friend for dinner at Due’s. She got there first, and ordered a medium sausage, a medium spinach, and a small cheese for the kids (at Due’s you have to order when you go in, then wait for your table). We arrive with the kids, and sit down. The waitress comes to the table and says: “let me just make sure your order is correct - I have a medium sausage and spinach pizza, and a small cheese.” I tell her that can’t be right, there is a medium sausage and a medium spinach. She goes away and a manager returns, very apologetic. He says they’ve already put the correct order in, but it will take 40 minutes to bake the pie. They give us a free round of drinks, and come back 40 minutes later with three medium pizzas. One medium sausage, one medium cheese (not a small mind you) and a medium sausage and spinach, not plain spinach as requested. The medium cheese was a problem, as the girls like the small size as the slices are little.
So they royally screw up the order, then screw it up a second time. The pizza was horrible, the crust was slightly burned in places and too thick in others. The crust on the spinach pie was completely waterlogged. And then it finally happened. I then came to a very sad and seemingly permanent realization, that I have to officially break up with Due’s. It was very much like a breakup scene in a movie - all the memories came flashing through my head of all the people with whom I’ve come here to dine. I remember all the talks with the bartender Eddie, and all the hours outside waiting for a table. I fully admit there was cheating in the relationship, but there is always that moment when you actually leave that seems to be the most revealing. It was a very odd moment, one snapshot in time where I realized that something I’ve cherished and cared so much for my entire life is no longer for me.
So eating pizza in Chicago has become new again - trying quite a few places to find the perfect pie. Lou Malnati’s is definitely the front runner, Gino’s East a close second. I’ve even had some success with a place in my neighborhood called Piece, serving thin new haven style pie of all things. It’s very much like Shakespeare’s in Columbia, Mo., which carries with it a bit of nostalgia as well. I might go back to Due’s again to see Eddie and down a Goose Island 312 or two, but I’ll probably avoid the pizza.