Bonjour Tristesse

I was recently in France, where pretty much everyday, like every French person, I put a golden, fragrant, crunchy, chewy baguette under my arm; and unlike every French person, waited to get home before tearing into it in the middle of the street.
Last Sunday, I went into a boulangerie and purchased a ficelle, which is a smaller, thinner baguette (so as not to appear like the grosse cochonne I am).
I ate this glorious thing sans anything. No butter, no jam, no jambon, no fromage. It was so spectacularly good, it did not need anything else. I ate it in the park and could have eaten five more, but I have my dignity.
New York may have pretty much everything the heart desires, but there is no good baguette to be found. Those of you who think there is, are deluding yourselves and should stop immediately.
We have found a very decent croissant and pain au chocolat, and French pastries a block away, but a simple, wholesome, perfect pleasure like a baguette, which is flour, salt, water and yeast, New York cannot muster. This makes me extremely sad.
Some say it's the water. Pourquoi?
I just feel like crying.

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

Thomas Vinterberg's extraordinary The Hunt, and Woody Allen's better than usual Blue Jasmine.

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

Must See Movie of the Week: Caesar Must Die, by the fabulous Taviani Brothers.

How Am I Doing? Koch: The Movie.

Spooky Mama.

Only for masochists or the deaf and blind: Les Miserables.

We're In The Money

Photo by Yehudit Mam

Actually, no. We are not in the money. Like almost everyone we talk to these days, we are nowhere near the money. But the good news is that we are working a freelance gig in the Financial District. We are among the money!
A lot of people around here hate working in the Financial District. Well, I am loving it. It is funky!
I am working at a building on Broad Street, almost across from the NY Stock Exchange. Broad Street used to be a beautiful curved, wide street; that is, before the terrorists made everything around here into a crappy barricade. Still, it has a je ne sais quoi that transports me to the olden days. I can imagine the horse carriages and the cobblestoned bustle of old New York as it was learning to make money. There is a completely preposterous Hermés store amid the police checkpoints and the canine squad and the bad food joints like Au Bon Pain, Cosi and Pret a A Manger. And a big Tiffany's around the corner. Maybe, every day, when they finish robbing us blind, the wheelers and dealers go downstairs and get their honeys a diamond ring or themselves a silk tie. I don't see no one else raiding the shelves at Hermés.
I love this street with reams of tourists taking pictures of the stock exchange and the statue of George Washington across it. Not far from here is the Customs House where Herman Melville toiled, perhaps not knowing that soon thousands of embittered Bartlebys would populate this teeming neighborhood.
I had lunch with my friend Ildy at Fraunces Tavern, which is ancient, and has just reopened after being flooded by Sandy. It stinks of mold and the food is bad, but it hails from the 18th century. The narrow streets with archaic names like Stone and New and Ann are peppered with old landmark buildings among the steel behemoths. On New Street, there is a crummy barber shop where they also buy gold. In contrast to every other neighborhood in this city that has been prettified, gentrified and generified, here it is still ugly, which is wonderful.
And it is so crowded!  It's where the robber barons and the plebes meet. There are ridiculous fancy restaurants for the Masters of the Universe that seem to offer exclusively carnivore menus in very masculine decors, as befits the alpha males working above them. For the rest of us drones there is a lot of shitty food to be had, with nary a place to sit down, in the guise of endless Subway chains, horrible delis, nefarious Chinese dumps, revolting pizza places etc. However, I have been able to locate some decent food. Sophie's Cuban, a franchise of dependably greasy and yummy Cuban food is on forlorn New Street and it's cheap and plentiful. Today, I had a spectacular pho at Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches on Nassau St. Yesterday, I had a very decent Vietnamese sandwich at Baoguette. Tomorow I may try the Korean Taco place, which doesn't even have chairs. None of these joints goes to the trouble of decorating. They all look like dumps. Many of the fast food joints are tiny enough that drones are discouraged to eat out. You see armies of them brown bagging their lunches to their desks, like modern slaves. Like those men who manned the oars at the crack of whips on Viking ships.
Everything reminds you here of the haves and the have nots and nowhere in NY are they in closer proximity to each other. I just love how horrible it is.
If you walk north from the NYSE, you hit Nassau street, which is New York's version of every funky, graceless street that exists in every big city in the planet. Narrow, dirty, crammed with ugly, cheap clothes stores and fast food places.
The Bank of New York building on Broadway has a spectacular art deco mosaic lobby. It is breathtaking. The neoclassical building of the Chamber of Commerce looks like a beautiful, forgotten cake, dwarfed by ugly giants.
On top of it all, this area was pretty screwed by hurricane Sandy, so many businesses are closed, and there are many noisy trucks still draining water from basements. There is little sunshine in this narrow heart of New York. I am afraid my love affair with this part of town may not last long.

Sandy: "I'll Take Manhattan..."

Darlings! It's sad that only an event of catastrophic proportions would get your Enchilada back to these pages. She has been busy reviewing movies and working for no pay for the greater good of artists, but she is back to tell you about her "nordeal" apres Sandy, that evil bitch.
After the no-show that was last year's Irene, which left us stranded for four extra days in Cancun, we thought, pinches gringos, how they exaggerate. However, since the images of the great eye of the storm in the sky were pretty dramatic, this time we decided to play it safe and calmly follow the panic. Here's the report.
Sunday afternoon:
The supermarket downstairs is in pre-apocalyptic mode. I have never seen so many people stocking up, including in 9/11. Bread is gone, water almost gone, but most importantly, supplies of potato chips and Doritos, etc. have vanished off the shelves. I guess this is what people understand by non-perishables. Being totally unversed in the arts of post-apocalyptic survival, (despite experiencing the 1985 earthquake in Mexico, 9/11 and the 2003 blackout), instead of buying unappetizing canned goods, I buy the fresh ingredients for a spaghetti carbonara, asparagus and shallots and every single supermarket item that is sure to perish in the event of a blackout. See, being a denizen of chic downtown, I am convinced that power outages are reserved for the unhip. Serves me right.
Monday evening:
We are smugly following the dramatic non-reports as yet from wind battered TV reporters, all appliances working at full speed, when we see a huge blue aura come from about where the transformer of 14th Street is, the lights dip, and pop, we are without power. Being from nations like Mexico, where there are frequent power and water outages, we have learned one thing: power outages are extremely infrequent in the United States, but when they happen, they last forever. Basically, we're screwed. Soon we run out of water, since we live on the 13th floor and the pump doesn't get this far without electricity. Our building does not have a generator. So candlelights and wine it is. Also, pasta with broccoli and anchovies that I managed to cook before lights went out. So far so good. I feel like we're in Barry Lyndon and I am Marisa Berenson.
Outside our window, it looks like everyone is in darkness except for people above 34th St. What we can see of Soho, the West Village and the L.E.S is pitch black. But lo and behold, in the first extraordinary feat of surrealism (there are more to follow), the two NYU buildings next to us are awash in light, TVs glowing, stereos playing, water flowing. NYU has power. No one else does. Typical.

A room without a view. 

Throughout the night, the wind shakes our windows, which the super has informed me, are shatterproof. The building creaks. Soon we learn that the big tree that gave shade to our backyard is down like a house of cards. It broke the sturdy iron garden fence and collapsed on Houston St. It could have killed someone.

Our fallen gentle giant. 

All of lower Manhattan is in utter darkness and silence. No cars, few sirens, no noise. Eerie.
Tuesday morning:
Against all sensible advice, Magnificent Arepa wants to snoop around. So down we go through thirteen flights of pitch black stairs, with our flashlights and Petra in tow.
The streets are empty, everything is closed, the wind has scattered tree branches everywhere, some windows are broken and some street signs are askew. Tourists roam around like Jews in the desert, with nothing better to do. Downtown hotels are in darkness. We go all the way down to Battery Park, with the winds still howling, and sure enough, the water has receded but I have never seen it so high. It is lapping at the level of the promenade. This is super scary. It looks like a Michael Bay movie.
We wonder if Joe's Shanghai, which never closes, is open (soup dumplings and scallion pancake would certainly restore our spirits right about now). You know that you are in deep doodoo if Joe's Shanghai is closed. My cell phone has no signal and I rue the day when I let the fucking cable company convince me to relinquish my land line. I also can't find the transistor radio that helped me miss the party at the 2003 blackout. I heeded Bloomberg's advice and stayed home while everybody had a ball on the streets.
We are effectively incommunicado. I don't mind so much living in darkness, the respite from internet is actually nice in a way, but no water is not fun. The weather has been balmy up to now (surely the reason for the storm in the first place -- global warming central), but now it's getting chilly, and no heat, no water and no power up 13 flights of stairs becomes challenging.
Tuesday evening:
We go to our friends in the NYU building next door (luckily they just happened to move there), for a shower and to charge phones that don't work and go on internet. They are on the 26th floor, and the view of lights above 34th St and a black nothingness below is amazing. It is so reassuring and lovely to suddenly find out that dozens of friends are inquiring about us, some offering shelter. At this point we are seriously considering relocating, because what we hear on the streets is not good: it could take "days" to restore power. We get a godsend message from a friend who offers his apartment uptown. And we take it.
We go for a fast recon mission on the streets before trudging up the stairway. Our neighborhood and beyond are in the darkest dark, but NYU students are roaming about and the Korean delis on Broadway are open. The cashier tells me they will be open all night and selling breakfast in the morning. Two Koreans and a Mexican helper with three flashlights, and they feel safe enough to do it.
People are charging their equipment outside the NYU library and student center. Wicked Willy's, a bar on Bleecker, happens to be open, and it's doing brisk business, an oasis of light and booze in the darkness.
Through our walks during the day and at night we marvel (as we did during 9/11 and the blackout) at the civilization of New York City. I've seen one or two aimless people perhaps looking to steal something (or maybe I'm just paranoid) but other than that, that tourists and citizens feel safe enough to walk around with children and pets in tow is a testament to the safety and the greatness of this city.
Wednesday afternoon:
Coming down in darkness with Petra and our bags and computers in tow, we find a bunch of neighbors huddled in the lobby eating pizza. Suddenly, I get pangs of survivor's guilt. Here we are, abandoning ship, while there are people in our building that have nowhere to go. A lot of elderly people cannot leave their apartments. Luckily, our building is a solid community and I know that neighbors keep an eye on each other. I tell myself that we are helping the building by not straining its resources even further. The no water situation in a 30-story building with 180 apartments is not to be taken lightly.
We are lucky to get a cab (they are scarce downtown) and a cabdriver who does not object taking us uptown and who did not gauge us. All of a sudden, as if there was a thin, invisible line demarcating the damaged from the untouched, on 26th Street there are lights, stores are open, people are going places. Frantic Manhattan as usual. It's surreal.
The trip from Houston St to 66th St, which usually takes about 15-20 minutes, took almost an hour and a half and cost $35. Mainly because of this:

Cranes are flying. 

I'm sure I'm not the only soul experiencing a high degree of schadenfreude at the prospect of bad karma for this building, where the apartments start at $80 million.
Uptown, it's as if nothing ever happened. It's Halloween. Adults and kids are in disguise (so not hip), the cineplex is open (praise the Lord!), restaurants are crammed. The only sign of something askew is that the supermarket has run out of fresh garlic. Meanwhile, this is the first time that we watch on TV the horrifying footage of the damage inflicted by Sandy in New Jersey, Staten Island and other places. We can't believe it.  As is usual, no word whatsoever on TV about the devastating effects of Sandy on other, even less fortunate countries, like Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, etc.
But there is a silver lining:
• The Halloween parade has been canceled, which gives me no small amount of glee. I hate this holiday and in particular this parade. Sorry lovers, I'm a hater.
• This storm effectively put a lid on the media obsession with the election and those stupid polls (which I am convinced are fabricated), and derailed the campaigns. This election will arrive at its home stretch with less of the incessant, polluting noise of punditry, and more of the real choice that is staring us all in the face. Sandy certainly puts in perspective the callousness of the Romney/Republican philosophy. The storm affected mostly blue states and the federal government's help will be very welcome. Obama has reacted how a president reacts. He may have severe failings, but he is a decent human being, not a robber baron. When the shit hits the fan, I'm sure all those people who clamor for less government may think twice if it it is them that have to be rescued by federal aid, by working infrastructure, by first responders, by a working government. When the shit hits the fan, are we going to vote for an experienced, serious president, or for a sleazy, indifferent corporate buffoon?

I wish safety and a speedy recovery to all those who are struggling through these difficult times.

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

The 50th edition of the New York Film Festival is in progress:

Noah Baumbach gets a muse with the delightful Frances Ha.
The Taviani Brothers collaborate with William Shakespeare in the masterful Caesar Must Die!
And the insufferable You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet by Alain Resnais.

Go Preach To The Choir

iWarning: This is a major rant. If you are sensitive to religion, God, atheists, etc, stop reading now. 

Friday, August 24, 2001: A beautiful afternoon to venture out to Coney Island and eat cold borscht on the Brighton Beach boardwalk. We get on the B train. It is quiet, almost empty and very pleasant.
All of a sudden, a young black man starts preaching at the top of his lungs, even though there are only about 10 people in the car. He hollers about how Jesus saved him, and how we all need to follow Jesus, and every two words it's Jesus this and Jesus that. We are with our dog Petra and we're not about to try to change cars in the middle of the Manhattan Bridge, which is the strategic location where this young man chooses to assault us and take us hostage with his extremely loud spiel.
Imagine that I get on a subway car, and in the loudest voice possible, perhaps even with a sound system to back me up, I start screaming at the top of my lungs that God doesn't exist, and that belief in Him has brought humanity extreme cruelty, human imbecility and suffering, etc. I bet a lot of people wouldn't like it. I bet someone may find this really offensive and tell me to shut up. In olden days, much milder stuff would get you burned at the stake. But when it comes to God and religion, even today, we are all hostages, because nobody has the guts to find this religious blather the most aggressive, obnoxious, offensive, insulting form of imposition. People are afraid to speak up against it, because they know it's a lost battle. It's reason versus obsession. You can't engage, because you will never be right. They also live under the misguided notion that somehow God is off limits. God freaks can attack us mercilessly with their certainties but we can't even ask them politely to zip it. It's a taboo to be against God, and by extension the morons who claim to be His messengers.
God freaks, by the way, are so demonically insane that they are willing to change the definition of female rape ("legitimate", "forcible") in order to outlaw abortion. This is the grossest, vilest form of human perversion. But someone screaming about God in your ear? You have to grin and bear it.
What about Jews? Buddhists? Members of the Church of Elvis? Why do they need to listen to this Jesus crap? It's offensive to anyone who happens to believe in something other than Jesus.
I have no doubt that this enraptured young man may be an effective preacher one day. That is, if he actually finds something interesting to say. Demanding that we must all follow Jesus just because he did does not cut the mustard. It is fucking annoying, and it sounds like a broken record. I once went to the Abyssinian Church in Harlem and heard a smart, compelling preacher. I did not agree with everything he said, but he was thrilling. He had interesting stuff to say. If you are going to force me to listen to this bullshit, at least have the courtesy to make it worth my while. Otherwise, shut the fuck up. I don't want to hear it. Freedom of religion doesn't mean you have the right to force me to listen to your bullshit. The subway is not the place to preach. That's what church is for.

The clown from Hell 

We had a wonderful time by the beautiful sea. We got on the D train at dusk. Again, a few people, tired from a day of sun and noise on Coney Island. A dude half dressed like a clown stands in the middle of the car and starts bleating grotesquely and shaking a pair of very loud maracas. He is appalling. He is the exact opposite of funny; a black hole of pathetic, insane cluelessness. He is so bad, he is scary. He bleats like a tortured animal, screeching "I love you" and shaking the maracas in our faces. Even Petra, who is an expert subway traveller, is rattled by this idiot. A French family of three gapes at him like he is the Antichrist, their teenage son beseeching them in French to move to another car*. But nobody says anything. Understandably, since he may be deranged. We gesture to him gently to tone it down, but he keeps screaming.

Appalled French Family

But then comes the clincher. Turns out he's a Christian, and God and Jesus and all that fucking unholy crap from utter HELL. Of course he is a Christian: he knows that's how he gets away with murder. One could call the police on him and get him busted for being a public nuisance. And that's what I should have done. Call 311. But they might give him a pass. Why? 'Cause he's a Christian.
A young black woman eggs him on, obviously making fun of him. He latches on to her, but it turns ugly the minute he finds out that she thinks he's crazy, not funny. He starts hurling abuse at her. The Christian clown that one second ago was boasting that he never curses and he just wants to "entertain and give joy", has a mouth like a sewer, even in the presence of young, scared children. And still, the parents keep quiet. He and the girl start having a ferocious argument. He mentions the word "Christian" once again and that's where I lose it. I scream at them both to shut up. I ask him to please pipe down. We want quiet, I demand. This fat moron comes right at me, and starts insulting me. I tell him what he is doing is aggressive. The crazy black girl actually stands on her seat and looks like she is about to jump on him. Finally he gets off the train, still complaining loudly that he's a Christian. Like he can't believe that we are all evil for not letting him assault us with his deranged screaming.
This is New York. The reason why people do shit like this on subways is because they know we are all afraid to engage with them and put them in their place. I can ignore and tolerate all kinds of annoyances, but religious people trying to impose their beliefs on me, that makes me righteous angry, regardless of faith. Using Jesus as an excuse to pester people is even worse.
I don't go around trying to convert people to atheism. Your faith is your own damn business and you have no right to hoist it up on me in a public place, unless it is a temple and I'm walking through its doors of my own accord. Goddammit.




*Moving to another car is pointless. They may follow suit.

We're Lost In Music

We Are Family, The Greatest Dancer, Like A Virgin, Notorious, Let's Dance, I Need Your Love, Good Times, I'm Coming Up, Upside Down... What do all these great dance hits have in common? They were written and produced by the incomparable Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic, back in the days of Disco.
I hated Disco when I was growing up. I thought it was tacky and stupid. Of course, now I love it, but then I turned up my nose at it. However, as soon as I heard the unmistakable sound of Chic, I thought:  this is good. This is good Disco. A funky, classy, robust, pared down sound (no tacky oingo boingos) that made me want to get down. It boils down to this: the fantastic baselines of Bernard Edwards (may he rest in peace) and the urgent, buoyant, contagious signature rhythm guitar of Nile Rodgers. Plus excellent arrangements (listen to that piano in We Are Family, or the horns in I'm Coming Up or I Want Your Love) and the cool female voices. The best Disco music in the history of the cosmos. Period.
Rodgers is one of the greatest producers of hit songs ever.
Chic is chic.
Yesterday, the free concert by Nile Rodgers and The Chic Corporation, as it is now called, at Lincoln Center Out Of Doors was the most delightful concert I've ever attended. There was no drama to get in, as is increasingly the case in other free Summer concerts in the city like the ever annoying Summerstage  and the perpetually mobbed series in Prospect Park. This was a breeze.  I've seen the Stones, U2, Pink Floyd, Springsteen and many others. They have been awesome, but this was sheer joy. 
Mr. Rodgers showed up, amiably taking pictures of the crowd before the show, clearly happy to be there, impeccable in a white suit and dreadlocks, with his backup band all in white. Remarkably humble, he seemed to me, perhaps a sign of the consummate musician that he is, more of a session magician than a star performer. He delivered absolute dancing heaven.
At one point, he stopped playing to let us know, as he pointed to a tall round building in the back of us, that there many of his greatest hits were composed, with Madonna, with David Bowie and with his musical partner Mr. Edwards, one of the greatest electric bass players of all time. He let us know that Chic was NEVER a cover band. They wrote and arranged many amazing hits sung by Diana Ross, Madonna, David Bowie, Duran Duran, Sister Sledge and many others. But we knew that. Or we should have guessed by the ineffable elegance of most of them. The odd man out is Like A Virgin, which seems to have been composed by Minnie Mouse. Still, it does have its catchy hook.
Rodgers was charming, easy going and youthful looking, even as he confessed about bouts of ill health and taking a walk with a member of Duran Duran on the beach at Ibiza recently, both almost crippled and coughing. He said if he had known he would last so long, he would have taken better care of himself. I can only imagine how Chic partied.
The audience was a great mix of young and old, black and white, lucky tourists and people who got down to dance to those amazing tunes. Had you never known what the hell is Chic, you would still recognize all of them incredible dance tunes. In contrast to some of the pop crap we hear today, these songs deserve to be monster hits. Their influential riffs and baselines have been appropriated by countless artists.
Chic has been nominated four times to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It's about time it gets in.

McCarren Pool

Only in New York does going to a public pool feel like entering a maximum security prison, but that is the fun to be had on an adventurous outing to our brand spanking renewed McCarren pool in the edges of Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Those who are dying to splash around in a sea of hipsters should probably relegate themselves to weekends. I went on a tranquil Tuesday morning and although hipsters were in attendance (to their credit, you can still tell them apart in a bathing suit), so was everybody else. Old Polish men, Hispanic families, Black families, non-descript white people and everything in between. It was a breeze to get in and the pool was relatively empty. There is a lap swimming section that is delightfully devoid of splashers, but you have to swim laps.
I strongly recommend to visit on a weekday, unless you are a type A personality or you love milling about in interminable lines.
As you approach the entrance, which is peppered with policemen, park rangers and security personnel, you are asked to show the contents of your bag and to produce a sturdy lock. If you have no sturdy lock (none of that wee luggage bullshit), you will be turned away, because the city will not countenance anyone whining about stolen property.
The list of rules is what I assume you have to sign in to when you are welcomed into Alcatraz and short of a cavity search: you can't bring anything with you. No bags, no valuables, no electronics, no arms, no food, no beach chairs, no radio, no nothing. You can bring a hat, a book and sunscreen inside your towel, which you are asked to shake out in front of guards as you exit towards the pool area, after you shower. I loved feeling like a convicted felon as I went for a swim. I'm not kidding. It's what makes this place great.
My eyes get moist at a benevolent administration that spends 50 million dollars in a pool and recreation center that gives FREE access to ALL people. They also give free lunches to kids during the Summer. They have free swim lessons. They have free exercise programs. This is democracy in action. Of course this is also where things may get a tad hairy, but I support cities taking these kinds of gambles and showing people that everybody can enjoy these kinds of programs by consenting to adhere to civilized behavior. Mexico City now has a bike program. I'm sure everybody thought the bikes wouldn't last a day, but if I'm not mistaken, the incidence of bike looting has been negligible if not nil. Our beloved paternalistic mayor Bloomberg and the parks commissioner are betting that with enough police to surround Sing Sing, New Yorkers will be able to enjoy a splash at McCarren pool in peace. I think it will happen. It did the day I went.
So there I was, parking my ass in the hot, hard concrete, another lovely nod to the urban outdoors, swimming in the brisk blue waters and looking at all that humanity, thinking "this is truly delightful".
After my swim, I walked many blocks until I found Pies'n Thighs and I ate three pieces of heavenly fried chicken and cheese grits with a biscuit and I was extremely happy, bordering on ecstatic. I regret foregoing the banana cream pie. When I got home, I read that a floating turd had been found bobbing around in the pool day before and the pool was evacuated for a couple of hours. Was this the reason for the absence of mobs? Perhaps. Oh, well. Let's have some faith. 

A Threat To Judaism

We Jews worry about Iran and terrorists and anti-Semites and haters, but in my mind, a dire and dangerous threat to the survival of Judaism as a legitimate religion, and also to the survival of Israel as a democratic Jewish state, is the explosive growth of the ultra-orthodox community and the demographic decrease of secular Jews.
This is extremely scary. Judaism is not about the minutiae of whether you are allowed to take an elevator or steep a tea bag on the Sabbath, or to look, God forbid, at a woman. That is superstition, debasement and the distortion of a great religion. Obsessive compulsive religious disorder is what it is. But there is among some Jews an absurd and unspoken view that maintains that the ultra-orthodox are the only ones who know all the rules and therefore are the true keepers of the flame, which is utterly false. Secular Jews are allowing the fundamentalist fringe to distort and take ownership of Judaism through their abandonment of their own culture and history. They will have no one but themselves to blame when most Jews become a herd of retrogrades, like the Taliban.
Rabbis and Jewish Cassandras have always blamed this secular Jewish decline on intermarriage. This may be so, but only to a certain extent. As a Jew, you could marry Mother Theresa or the Dalai Lama and still know and celebrate Jewish traditions and teach them to your children, if that was your wish. You don't even have to believe in God to be a good Jew. But you have to know where you come from and what made you this way, and if you have children, you have to let them know as well. The lack of interest on the part of many secular Jews in knowing and furthering these traditions and the Jewish languages is tragic, regardless of whether they are religious or not.
In Israel, secular Jews are to blame for allowing the ultra-orthodox to abuse the citizenry and the state using religious piety as extortion. The abuse is so egregious and has gone on for so long that only recently have Israelis started to demand that their fanatical fellow citizens join the army and obey civil laws like everyone else. I don't understand what took them so long. Actually, I do. Thirty years ago, the ultra-orthodox were still a minority and, since they marginalized themselves from modern society, no one took them seriously. Now that they have exploded demographically, and in the process have become even more intolerant, retrograde and insane, and worse, politically powerful, all of a sudden Israelis can see too well the monster they have created. A monster that demands the humiliation of women on the public sphere, and sucks the teat of the government dry while doing absolutely nothing to ensure the survival of the state, except for breeding like rabbits (a cynical and ultimately self-defeating ploy for those who think this is going to help Israel at all. I'm talking to you, Bibi). A theocratic Israel, drained of intellectual, scientific and artistic talent is as good as dead. 
All Jewish communities in the diaspora have enriched their countries in many ways, but the American Jewish community is unique, given how culturally influential it is and given the singular circumstances of immigration to the US, the fabled melting pot that only happens here. And while the presence of the cultural American Jew is felt more strongly than ever in the public sphere, the actual Judaism of many secular American Jews threatens to become a vestige, since they are quite uninformed about their religious tradition. Soon all that may remain of an intellectually vigorous, vibrant and essential Jewish culture may be the neuroses and the shtick, like an episode of Seinfeld.
I am an atheist, but I went to a secular Jewish school in Mexico, I speak Hebrew and Yiddish and I come from a community that, while thoroughly secular, respects religious tradition mostly in an orthodox way. No one in Mexico, not even the Jews that attend conservative synagogues, would think of shortening a shiva (the Jewish mourning tradition) to Tues and Thurs from 4-7 pm because of convenience, like some American Jews do. This is shocking to me. I have heard American Jews say "my parents are Jewish, but I am not". This is appalling to me. Unless you are consciously willing to renounce your cultural and historical heritage, what the hell does that mean? Nobody speaks Hebrew, let alone Yiddish or Ladino. It's a great loss.
To be honest, (and this is maddeningly paradoxical), as much as I admire the American penchant for inclusion and tolerance, I feel far more at home at an orthodox High Holiday service than at the newfangled smorgasbord of inclusiveness that is offered by some progressive branches of American Judaism. I prefer a male rabbi and a male cantor and all that patriarchal jazz, to a yoga and meditation kabbalistic Shabbat service; so sue me (in the interest of full disclosure, I don't attend either. I've paid my dues as a Jew). Still, the lite, p.c. version looks to me like a new agey jamboree of phony rituals. Maybe that's because I grew up with the orthodox way, and that's what's close to the bone.
This enthusiastic re-purposing of Judaism, by the way, is an American singularity that does not tend to happen in any of the other Jewish communities in the diaspora, except maybe Canada. Jewish American parents, products of a great democracy and brave new children in a land of immigrants striving to become as American as possible, shunned the old world shtetl mentality of their grandparents, then tortured their kids with half-baked Hebrew school and now nobody knows anything.
It's a hard problem to fix, and some American Jews are trying, with magazines like Tablet, a great resurgence of proud Jewish humor (see Larry David and Judd Apatow), hip communal seders in happening nightclubs, prayer shawls with rainbows and other manifestations of modern Judaism. But I suspect that what is needed to ensure the survival of the modern Jew is a revitalization of a more solid Jewish traditional and cultural education.
I'm not saying we should not evolve. Certainly, there are some ideas in our ancient, tribal religion that are incompatible with our modern day ideology (among them the oppression of women, the ostracizing of gays, and practical injunctions that have been rendered moot since the advent of electricity), but I wonder whether we are diluting the great Jewish transition into modernity with such minute tailoring to our lifestyle, that Judaism becomes unrecognizable, inauthentic and therefore, disposable. The greatest irony is that it has been so hard and has taken so long for us to get here: to be able, for the most part, to live freely and safely as Jews in the world, without fear of annihilation, and yet we are losing the battle for Jewish culture, from inside. We cannot allow the ultra-orthodox to dictate the rules of Judaism in the 21st century, unless we want to live in the dark ages again. We must know our stuff and those of us who have children, must pass it on to them.

I have been always deeply anti-religious, complaining as a child that if Passover is supposed to be a celebration of freedom, why then are we forced to eat nothing but Matzoh for eight days. The beautiful Passover seder my grandfather led with gorgeous praying melodies, songs and jokes, I hated during most of my childhood. Now, when I go back to Mexico to Passover seder at my uncle's home, I am deeply moved at the bizarre accident of history that allows us to eat gefilte fish Veracruzana style and a matzoh and mole gratin, while we listen to a beautiful, unique style of prayer that is centuries old. I am deeply concerned that when my uncle is gone, this incredible seder, this authentic connection to centuries of dogged determination to survive, is going to disappear forever. His sons know the melodies, but the investment with us busy, modern Jews is one of diminishing returns. I am already mourning, not the loss of religion, but the loss of a rich and stubborn culture.
I am convinced that living in a self-imposed religious ghetto is not the only way, nor the right way to sustain Judaism. The only Judaism that can thrive in the future is a strong, genuine tradition that accepts its millennial roots while living in harmony with the modern world. But for that, we gotta know our own story.

At The Hotel Chelsea

In 1884 it was the tallest building in New York. It's storied past as a haven for artists and bohemians is well known. Sid Vicious's girlfriend Nancy Spungen was stabbed to death there. Edie Sedgwick set her bed on fire there. Charles R. Jackson, the man who wrote The Lost Weekend, committed suicide there. A bunch of artists too numerous to mention lived there. It is haunted with bohemian spirits.
Now The Chelsea as we know it is no more, another victim of the relentless advance of the future, or as it is called today, developers. Of course the new owner wanted to build a rooftop bar, which was immediately nixed by the area's community board.
Yesterday, I got a chance to get one last glimpse into its phantasmal vibe. The occasion was The Quality Of Presence, a collective art exhibit in the soon to be vacated apartment of one of its residents.

Wagging tongues were saying that Patti Smith, who once lived there, had been invited by new management to make her home there. Who knows if this is true. Being a complete cynic, I wouldn't be surprised. Once you are successful, you can no longer be a bohemian. She cancelled a private concert she was going to offer for the new owner, developer Joseph Chetrit, after longtime residents raised a stink. 
One could not expect this idiosyncratic, quintessential New York landmark to remain unscathed after so many years of benign (for artists) neglect, particularly when the entire town threatens to become the Meatpacking District. But that doesn't make it any less painful.
I was never inside it before, which I deeply regret, and I feel lucky that yesterday I was able to get one last glimpse before it is turned into some soulless, painful pastiche that will try to bank on its ineffable cool, and miserably fail. All we can hope is that the ghosts of bohemians past will scare the living daylights out of the new guests.
Of course, there had to be a no pictures policy in the building, which of course we disregarded. I took bad iPhone pictures:

What will become of fabulous El Quijote next door? I hope it is a landmark too. Losing it as well would be too much to bear.

Mexican Food in NY City

I moved to NY City in 1992 and the panorama of Mexican food in the city was appalling: nachos, watery frozen margaritas and burritos the size of Sherman tanks. A guacamole made from a single puny avocado would set you back 9 dollars (still a fortune, in my view) at Rosa Mexicano, which was decent but outrageously expensive for food Mexicans eat at home every day.
Luckily, things have changed, and with the influx of many Mexican restaurant workers and the realization that Mexican food is serious gastronomic genius, New Yorkers now have many much better, more authentic options to enjoy.
Still, I am extremely hard to please because I am a stickler for authenticity, or at least coherence. People ask me what is my favorite Mexican restaurant in NY. To be honest, I rarely eat Mexican in town. It tends to either exasperate (the added gringo preciousness) or disappoint me (the lack of understanding of the genius of the technique and the ingredients. The cluelessness). 
My standard response so far is, I really like the appetizers at Hecho En Dumbo. They are very good. The rest of the menu is also good, if uneven. But you can't go wrong with their sopes, carnitas and tamarind margaritas (the only exception I will make to the classic margarita). My problem is that food that you can have on the street in Mexico for a handful of dollars becomes adds up expensively when served at a NY restaurant. La Superior in Williamsburg does decent tacos, but again, it lacks the schmutz, the grime, the proletarian aspect of the real thing (Wait. Apparently now they have a taco truck). And I have yet to schlep all the way to Queens in search of a decent taco. I hear they are not very good.
Several years ago, La Esquina promised to make my dream come true: a place where you can get a quick taco fix after the movies or after bar hopping. I really like their sopa de tortilla, which may not completely pass muster in Mexico, but is very dignified here. Some of their tacos are quite good, and so is the quesadilla de huitlacoche. However, their taco de acelgas (swiss chard) is overwhelmed with lime, for no discernible reason. Not all tacos go with lime. Beef and pork tacos go with lime, stewed vegetable tacos don't. But La Esquina still does not replicate the Mexican taquería experience, because of the ordering system, because New York has yet to understand and refine the fine art of being a taquero, which slings perfect tacos at breakneck speeds to hungry crowds. The good news is, since we are fast becoming a Third World country with rising inequality, and NY is becoming more expensive by the minute, we might yet see the advent of cheaper, better food for us plebes. The rise of the food truck is a sign. Soon nobody will be able to afford to eat in a restaurant anymore.
Ever since I moved here, my dream was to open a torta joint in NY, so that my fellow citizens could learn the meaning and magnificence of a truly spectacular sandwich. I imagined my place as a tiny hole in the wall, with maybe 6 seats, no decor but the best sandwiches in town. It may happen yet. Recently, Tortaria, a torta and taco place, opened in University Square. Tortaria is also one of those joints which can satisfy the need for a quick taco or torta apres le film or avant la debacle, so we gave it a try. The food is tasty. But there are concessions I do not understand. I imagine, much to my chagrin, that many of the compromises one sees in Mexican joints all over town are due to some of the ridiculous hygiene regulations of the city, like not being able to have food hanging around, and who knows what other unduly paranoid rules. But it's the creative flourishes that annoy. The bread at Tortaria is like a brioche hamburger bun, which is very good, but it is not the classic torta bread (bolillo or telera: the closest thing is a Portuguese roll). Then the fillings are good, but too fancy. Braised short rib torta. I know it sounds petty to complain about this, which might even be very good. But the point of a torta is that it is simple. The point of a torta is that you can have ham and cheese, or eggs and ham, it does not need to be caviar. Also, the point of a torta and its attending tortero (the guy who makes it) is that you can choose your own combos. So if you want to have chorizo with potatoes and egg, they can make it for you. Still, we had the torta de milanesa, (schnitzel torta, a Mexican classic) and it was very tasty, with a chipotle mayo, avocado, beans, etc. But the crust of the schnitzel was burnt and the whole thing was not exactly a classic torta. Their steak tacos are pretty good, and they make the tortillas in house, which is great, but I am tired of people calling carnitas to stuff that isn't. Carnitas are the height of Mexican street food. This was just stewed shredded pork. It's like calling tapioca caviar. Don't. Plus, their sopa de tortilla is absolutely inedible.
I've been to Tacombi and was disappointed, not so much by the flavors, but by the tepid temperature of the tacos. Tacos are served piping hot. Pleasant La Camelia on Bedford street is very tasty, but you almost need a microscope to see the tacos, whose tortillas are made in house but end up resembling sopecitos more than a taco. Dos Toros, which is a better Chipotle (utterly abject), has good tacos, but not very authentic. They're from San Francisco.

So the closest to a real taco experience are the now ubiquitous taco trucks. Not all of them are good, but now there is one, Mexico Blvd., that I really like. I must disclose that the owner, Jorge Loaeza, is a very good friend of mine, and the man who gave me my first job in advertising in Mexico City, back in the Pleistocene period. Yet if his tacos, tortas and guacamole were not splendid, I would feign madness and avoid talking about them. I am happy to report that the tacos and tortas of Mexico Blvd. are delicious. The tortillas from Tortillería Nixtamal are very good, the fresh salsas are awesome. They found this perfect torta bread somewhere in upstate NY and it is delivered to them every day. Jorge and his son Jordi have developed some secret guacamole method that manages to keep it green and fresh without overwhelming it with lime juice. My only nitpick is that I would love the chips to be plain and not the lime and chili chips they provide. I am that vantz of a purist.
Because they are food lovers and Mexicans (which is actually one and the same), the Loaezas understand the essence of Mexican food, so theirs is pretty authentic. They don't invent fancy stuff. You can recognize the truck by its elegant black and gold design. I love eating my tacos and/or tortas right there, and washing them down with a cold Sidral Mundet (Mexican apple soda), as in a true taquería. Mexico Blvd.'s customers get most everything to go, but I would invite them, now that the weather is nice, to eat standing by the truck. It may be the closest to the Mexico City taco experience you can get in NYC.

Human Kindness

Why is it that when I fall on the streets of Manhattan no one ever picks me up, but when my iPhone is about to be crushed by a rush of cars, several bystanders attempt to stop traffic in order to save it? When I fall, everybody averts their gaze, but an iPhone lying in the middle of the Bowery brings concerned spectators on both sides of the street.
I'd like to believe it's because iPhones are incapable of human embarrassment, whereas aiding a fallen Enchilada can be a tad cumbersome and awkward.
But it's not because we place a higher value on our gadgets than on clumsy humans. Right?

Let's Rant Today

We haven't done it in soooo long, it's starting to feel like this Enchilada has lost her kick, but we can always count on someone to get a rise out of us, so here goes:

Yesterday, attending a performance of Other Desert Cities on Broadway, the guy stuffing the seat in front of me is wearing a white baseball cap. Every time he moves his head, instead of the stage, I see a huge blob of visor, flap or however you call it. This has happened before. Usually people take off their headgear as the lights go down, and in case they don't, one only has to ask politely and people will comply.
I had a feeling that with this individual it wasn't gonna be so easy. Who wears a white baseball cap to a Broadway play at 8 pm at night? In the sweetest voice I could muster, I said:
ME:
Sorry to disturb you, but will you please remove your cap when the play begins?
HUMAN STUFFED DERMA:
NO! I WILL NOT REMOVE MY CAP!
ME:
It is disturbing my view.
HSD:
You will see just fine.
ME:
No I won't.
HSD:
I DON'T FEEL COMFORTABLE TAKING OFF MY CAP!
ME:
Even in the dark?
I considered calling the usher, but there were plenty of empty seats around me so I switched seats and I let it go, not before saying:
"I want you to know that this is extremely rude and in bad taste. I asked you politely". 
Then I muttered "stupid people with caps" and "asshole" sotto voce, for dramatic flourish.
Now, if the guy had said, "I have a protuberance the size of Nairobi that will distract you far more than the lousy cap", or "you really don't want to have my naked pate with random hairs in front of you, lady, it's a horror show", or seriously, "I have a medical condition and I can't do that for you", I would have been empathetic.
But where the hell do neurotic New Yorkers get off with this sense of entitled self-pity? ME ME ME! I am special, so screw anybody else. Whatever happened to manners? Back in the day, you had to remove your hat any time you went inside. Those were the rules. Hey, back in the day people would go to Broadway in evening attire, not jeans and sneakers. I wished I could channel Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey and give this whiner a piece of my mind. I hate that show (oh yes I do) but Maggie Smith is God's gift to mankind. She is immortal.
Next:
I am addicted to Farmland Dairies Skim Plus Chocolate Milk with Omega-3. I have a bowl (or two) of that with Cheerios every night and I credit this diet with losing 7-8 pounds since the Summer. Roll your eyes as much as you want. The milk is creamy, tastes strongly of chocolate, and last time I had a cholesterol screening, my good cholesterol went up. Heaven. Now, this baby does not come cheap: almost six bucks for a half gallon. I guzzle it like a Hummer guzzles gas. Alas, the last two times I bought it, it had changed. Gone was the creaminess, gone was the chocolatey flavor, now it was plain mediocre milk with a faint taste of chocolate. The price, however, remains the same, if it has not gone up. In the Morton Williams in front of my house, prices rise by the hour. Anyway, you bet I gave them a call. And spoke at length about my disgruntlement to the answering machine. Very politely, but not, as devastatingly as Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey.

God Damn!

I am lucky to have such fabulous friends that they give away tickets to the opera.
To 6-hour operas, to be exact. So I dropped everything I was doing to see the new Met's production of Gotterdammerung, by Richard Wagner. This, as far as I could gather from the program, is the last of the operas in the Ring cycle, which lasts about 17 hours total. Apparently the guy had not yet heard of "cut to the chase".
To be honest, I could care less about German mythology*. There is always some magic potion to blame for all the chaos. It's not a character flaw; not someone made a tragic mistake but somebody drank the wrong brew without knowing.  Siegfried, who is in love with Brunnhilde, takes a magic potion and falls out of love with her and in love with another woman. Disaster ensues.
I was curious to understand why Wagner is an endurance contest for both audiences and singers alike. I believe I have the answer now.
The new production by Robert Lepage has been very controversial, because it is very modern. It's hard to describe, but the stage is dwarfed by a huge contraption of wooden planks that move as the scenes change. Projections of water, fire, a forest, are screened on the planks.  Apparently, at the beginning the machinery was clunky,  causing great grief to the humans on stage, but now they seem to have worked out the kinks. I liked it, once I got used to it. But after 6 hours, the novelty wears off. And I'm thinking, if you have people sitting for 6 hours, you may want to change things a bit. Keep 'em entertained.

I think the problem is that the singers have little to do but stand and sing. I was sitting way up there in Valhalla, so it was hard to see the acting. Still, it seems that all the energies were dedicated to figure out the staging of the machine, but not that of the singers, who are extremely static, screaming to the winds. Then again, if you have to sing for 6 hours straight, you may not want to be running around the stage.
I welcome less literal productions of operas, because Opera, a bizarre mix of the sublime and the ridiculous, can always do with less of the ridiculous. To wit, there is a plot point in this story, where Siegfried runs around with a schmatteh over his head. It's supposed to have magic powers, but it still looks like a schmatteh.
So now that technology allows for great magic onstage, instead of cardboard forests and cellophane flames, new productions should be fun. But, at least in this instance, something about the grandeur of the stage machinery stifles the colorful imagination of the story. The German mythology has very powerful images, like dragons, flying horses, water nymphs, women with shields, etc. A lot of that is left to the imagination through the singing, provided that you read the useful but pedestrian sounding supertitles. If instead of being dark and brooding and too intellectual, this whole spectacle would be more dreamlike, as is the quality of myth, I would have been more transfixed. But it felt a bit cumbersome, while this enormous work needs some agility. 
The Met orchestra, splendidly conducted by Fabio Luisi, sounded great, the singers as far as I could tell, were pretty awesome, particularly Deborah Voigt as Brunnhilde. That woman can sing. And sing. And sing. And the guy who played the meanie was amazing too. Major bravos for him.  Siegfried sang beautifully but the singer needs to get lessons in deportment. He moved like a slob from Jersey. 
I won't pretend that I did not doze off a couple of times. I was awake for all the good parts, including an awesome fight between two sisters (Deborah Voigt and Waltraud Meier), the part of the chorus, which is gorgeous, the beautiful music when Siegfried finally bites the dust, among others. At the end, Brunnhilde sings like for 15 minutes with little interruption. It is truly an amazing feat of vocal power.
But there were these incongrous plaster statues (the Gods) that looked totally kitschy, and at the end their heads blow off (or rather pathetically pop out like popcorn) in the most incredible display of self-annihilation by a director I have ever seen. For 6 hours we finally bought the planks and the projections and the drab  costumes and the stern minimalism and endured 6 hours of Wagner to reach the apotheosic conclusion and Lepage closes with the cheesiest effect, thereby undermining everything we saw and breaking the spell, in what I can only assume he mistakenly thinks is an ironic comment about the fragility of the gods. It was so ridiculous people were laughing, and not in a good way.
It was slow, exciting, ridiculous, magnificent, crazy and very, very long.
I'm glad I saw it.


*I resent that major Jew hater Wagner and his obsession with Teutonic myth. He can stick the braids and the horns and the breastplates up his ass. The music is great though.

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret.

And on DVD, Miranda July's The Future.

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

Coriolanus: A great Shakespeare adaptation by my boyfriend. 
Shame: One of the best performances of the year by my other boyfriend.

Auxilio! The Mexican Dropout Rate

The New York Times published an article about the appalling dropout rate of Mexican high school students in New York City, which is the worst among Mexicans in the country. The numbers are horrible:

If the article is sad and shocking, the comments section is terrifying. So many hostile comments comparing the ignorant Mexicans with the progress-driven Asians, classic comments about sending everybody back, and Americans getting "the dregs", instead, I guess, of Nobel Prize winners.
Anybody who thinks that the NYT is only read by bleeding-heart liberals is in for a rude awakening. I was so offended by the hatred and hostility of the majority of the comments, that I chimed in:

If you come from a country where poverty makes work, not education, the most significant social value, and you yourself had nothing but an elementary school education, if at all, it is hard for you to understand why education is so important. You place a much higher value on work, so that the family can survive. Unfortunately, many of the hardworking Mexican parents who come here are victims of these circumstances. If they barely had an education in their native language, how can they be expected to master two? How can they really comprehend what education means?
If Mexico better educated its people and gave them more opportunities, there wouldn't be millions of Mexicans trying to make a better life for their families in this country. But it is in the interest of the ruling Mexican elites to keep Mexicans poor and ignorant. The government has to deal with millions less people, and wages can be kept miserly, all because the majority of Mexicans can't really afford to have an education.
Don't blame the immigrants. And don't blame bilingualism. Bilingualism can be a solution if it helps Mexican parents learn English, so they can participate in the education of their children.
John, 23: these people are not the dregs. Without their hard work and cheap labor, who else would Americans like you exploit? 

John is a commenter who thinks that Americans are getting the dregs (that is, Mexicans) of the cream of the crop of immigrants.
Let me add that Mexico has a free education system ranging from elementary school to a postgraduate degree, but even a free education is something that many Mexicans cannot afford.
Twenty years ago, as I started my career in Hispanic advertising in New York, our agency was commissioned to create a public service campaign to address the issue of the Hispanic dropout rate in the city. In those days it wasn't yet about Mexicans, but still more than 50% of Hispanic students did not finish high school. We created a powerful campaign (TV, subway and bus shelter posters, radio) based on the poor prospects that young Hispanics faced if they did not continue their high school studies onto college. It was meant to shock them and their parents into thinking seriously about finishing school. It never saw the light of day because of squabbling between the different well-intentioned but politically correct social agencies that were supporting it, among them the United Federation of Teachers and I don't remember which Hispanic groups. We were heartbroken. We all thought it would have made a big splash.
The numbers among other graduating Hispanics seem to have risen since then, but the Mexican immigrants to the city are relative latecomers and something must be done to shake them out of their belief that work, not studying, is the most important value they can instill in their children.
The reasons for dropping out of high school here are many, but key are: an illegal status and fear by parents of deportation plus lack of serious opportunities for illegals, and lack of education and English skills by parents, who do not participate in the education of their children simply because they can't. I have always maintained that Hispanics who come to this country need to learn English. In fact, the big Spanish TV and radio channels, which have absolutely no educational or cultural programming, could include bilingual or English literacy programs for adults, if, as they claim, they are so invested in the well-being of the community. Hispanics are not going to desert them the minute they learn English. Why wouldn't they keep enjoying their favorite programs in Spanish?
Many of the NYT's commenters have a very negative perception of bilingualism. I don't think that having Spanish media or bilingual communications in Spanish is the only thing that keeps immigrants from learning the language. It helps of course, but bilingualism is something to be desired by everyone. In the anti-immigrant hysteria currently sweeping this country, defending bilingualism has become tantamount to invoking Satan, but speaking more than one language is always an advantage to anyone, including Americans who rely on the fact that their language dominates the world, and thus can't see why it is desirable to speak something other than English.
Bilingualism is a two way street, and just as Spanish speakers are aided by communications in Spanish, by the same token they can learn English through bilingual education and immersion. What keeps Mexican parents, who are key figures in their children's educational attainment, from learning English is their inexperience with learning in general. Learning a new language is already very hard for adults, and many Mexicans are at an even bigger disadvantage because of their extremely deficient educational level, which is a national disgrace. This, unfortunately, is the perfect storm that the article speaks about. Their neglect of education needs to be changed into an appreciation of education as a value of the highest priority.
Education makes you smarter. Let's say things are so bad that you may still only find a job washing dishes: if you speak two languages and you are educated, you will rise faster than someone who doesn't. This is not a hard message to understand. A strong work ethic is a great value to have, but education provides a wider net of opportunities and a true chance at progress. Imagine: with their hardworking ethos, plus a strong value in education, there is no limit to what Mexicans (as well as anybody else) can do.

This is The Last Straw

Arrests, pepper spray, evicting protesters from Zuccotti Park and now they're banning the cheese and crackers from Sardi's (and the mini pretzels too!).
This has gone too far. This is a fascist state.
I've had it with Bloomberg and his obsession with hygiene. If he wants this city to be so squeaky clean, he should get rid of the mountains of rats and garbage on the streets, not the radioactive orange cheese and mini Ritz crackers from Sardi's, which, as the article points out, constitute dinner, with the olive in the martini as an appetizer, for many theatergoers. It is a much more satisfying dinner than if you order from the menu, believe me. Now you have to pay three dollars for hardened, congealed cheese?
The end of civilization.
I say let's firebomb everything!

Petra's Diary

Petra discovers snow.