The Supremes

Viva Justice Anthony Kennedy, who provided the swing vote to curb the Bush Administration's excesses in Guantanamo. I think terrorists should be wiped off the map, but people should not excuse the abuse of power because of this or any other reason. This cannot be a country that supposedly promotes freedom and invades countries on account of it, while it has prisoners enduring torture and without recourse to the law.
The Bush Administration's violation of the Constitution, the Geneva Convention and the rule of law sets a dangerous precedent for every American citizen and for this country's human rights record. Guantanamo's prison should be dismantled and the suspects treated according to the rules of war, or of the land.
The New York Times editorial states it better than me:

The key to the decision was the court's swing justice, Anthony Kennedy. He provided the fifth vote for the majority, and wrote a separate opinion that eloquently distilled the key principles: that "respect for laws" duly passed by Congress and signed into law by the president is particularly necessary in times of crisis, and that "the Constitution is best preserved by reliance on standards tested over time and insulated from the pressures of the moment."

This is the latest in a series of rebukes to the Bush administration. The court has already rejected its claim that the Guantánamo detainees have no right to be heard in American courts, and that an American citizen designated an enemy combatant can be held indefinitely without being brought before a judge.

The current conservative court is not hostile to law enforcement or presidential power. But it is proving to be admirably protective of individual freedom and the rule of law. Rather than continue having his policies struck down, President Bush should find a way to prosecute the war on terror within the bounds of the law.

Fun Food

New York is place where one can eat extremely well, but many times the restaurant-going experience is frazzling. It is a drama to get a reservation in well reviewed places, it is a drama if you show up and the rest of your friends haven't or if you are 2 minutes late. In most places the noise level is insane. For the outrageous prices that seem to keep mushrooming to the stratosphere, the experience and the food are a letdown many times. Expectations are ultra high, and sometimes previously well reviewed food is not up to par with the hype; service is peremptory, if not downright smarmy, and utterly charmless.
SO, last week I had some lovely friends in town who love to eat well. They actually had lunch at Per Se and I asked them to tell me every single thing they tried on their tasting menus, which probably cost the budget of a small country. They ate very well and came back happy and very full.
I decided to take them to Room 4 Dessert, the place Bill Buford wrote about in that week's New Yorker. I imagined that everyone was going to be clamoring to get in, but in fact, it was not so hard. Except we had to eat dessert at 8:30 pm. Chef Will Goldfarb answers the phone himself and takes the reservations. He is quite a character. He welcomes you in, he chats, he shows you his cookbook library and makes sure to tell you that he studied with the guy from El Bulli (which I thought was a bit much). It was his birthday so we sang him the Mexican birthday song, Las Mañanitas.
Room 4 Dessert is a really fun experience. We were 5 adults and one 11 year-old girl, which was great, because the more people, the more desserts you get to taste. We all had the dessert tasting menus and ooohed and aaahed passing the beautiful rectangular plates around. The wine list is excellent and affordable and some of the desserts are fun and fantastic. It's a great idea for a romantic date or to go with a couple of friends and have little paroxisms of sweetness.
My friends went crazy for a red Lambrusco sparkling red wine that was gorgeous and tasty and fun.
The desserts are newfangled, fun, intriguing and quite a few of them amazing (others not so great) They are never overly sweet, and some of them play with not being sweet almost at all. I ordered the red dessert plate: A vaccum packed raspberry meringue slab that was unbelievable. A beet sorbet that was sheer concentrated beet flavor, super-refreshing and strange and not that sweet, a vodka-hibiscus jell-o that was a perfect little cube of freshness, really subtle with the kick, not of the vodka, but of the hibiscus. There was a sort of cheesecake that wasn't that great but it was covered with a red wine glaze that was delicious. Those are the ones I remember. Other desserts were a pistachio financier which is one of the best cakes I've ever had, an incredible apricot sorbet, a delicious olive oil chocolate cake, an amazing foam of white beer and grapefruit, mango "gnocchi:" etc. The flavors and textures explode in your mouth and it really is a fun, delightful experience.
The piece de resistance was that I had sung the glories of the sushi bar at Jewel Bako to my friends so much that they wanted to go there. I hadn't been there in about 2 years and was afraid that maybe the amazing, handsome chef Masato was gone, or that with the Lambs opening other restaurants, the place could not be the same anymore. We were easily able to get a reservation at the sushi bar at 9 pm on a Monday, which made me wonder. To make a long story short, after having the omakase dinner, my friends said they liked the experience and the food of Jewel Bako better than Per Se. Jewel Bako and chef Masato rule. And again, it isn't only the food, which is the best sushi I've ever had, but the delightful, pleasant, civilized, wonderful, graceful experience of the place. If only more NY restaurants were like that.

At a loss

My head is so full of soccer, I can't think of other topics. And I'm starting to get bored with that one too.
Of course there are many things to bitch about: the government accusing the New York Times of unpatriotic reporting; the endless, idiotic cycle of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, the criminal incompetence of FEMA, the rise in rents, whatever.
So the flag desecration amendment didn't pass. Good. This is the only country I know where people are free to put the flag in their crotch and use it as a bra or a headrag, but the stupid senators get into a tizzy when it is used for actual purposes of self-expression.
And since I have miraculously returned to my ranting mood:
On Monday a man riding a bike was killed by a truck on Houston St. It was a horrible accident.
New York City needs to have bike lanes on every street, and bicycles need to be taken more seriously as modes of transportation. There are very few cities where riding a bike makes more sense than New York, and riding a car, less. But the car traffic continues to be ridiculous, and bikers are basically ignored. To ride a bike in the streets of New York is extremely dangerous, when it should actually be the norm.
New York should follow the example of cities like Amsterdam and Berlin and encourage bicycle use, and discourage motor vehicles. This would create less congestion, less pollution, less fuel use, less traffic, more space, healthier people.

All you can eat Buffett

Memo to the other gazillionaires, particularly to Carlos Slim, owner of half of Mexico:
Instead of just talking bullshit about how to make a country grow, share your wealth, amigo.

This will make you feel better

And I thought I was fat...

MONTERREY, Mexico - Health officials said Manuel Uribe weighed 1,235 pounds when he made a desperate plea for help on national television in January.Unable to leave his bed for five years, the 41-year-old mechanic in the northern industrial city of Monterrey longed to move again. His plea was answered by doctors and nutritionists who prescribed a high-protein diet, helping him lose about 200 pounds since then.
Gilberto Montiel, health secretary for Nuevo Leon state, said medical officials have been monitoring Uribe's weight and confirmed the loss."I feel better now, I can stretch and move a bit more," Uribe said Monday... Still, Uribe said he has just enough energy to sit up and move the sheet that covers his body. His goal is to lose another 770 pounds.For the last five years, Uribe has been bedridden. He keeps a television and a computer he uses to update his Web site near his iron bed.

There is always someone out there who makes you look good.

Today's soccer rants

I rest my case.
Is everyone blind? Am I going insane? Today's penalty against Australia was over a non-existent fault, designed to ease the Italian team's qualification into the next round (such as yesterday's free kick for England where Beckham bent it like genius). That was what the Univision guys were saying (plus adding that the Spanish referee was paying the Italians back for having robbed them against Korea last time around). I saw the mistaken call with my own eyes. What is the point of all this soccer mishegoss if the results are going to be rigged like that?

I seem to be the only person that is forgiving the Mexican team its dignified loss against Argentina. Mexicans are angry and frustrated. The catchphrase in Mexico right now is: "they played like they never had before and they lost like they always do". I'm just relieved the team didn't humiliate us altogether, because people don't forget that they played dismally and they happened to move ahead almost by sheer dumb luck. That is why I expected the worst. Mr. Ex-Enchilada sent me a very good article today written by Juan Villoro explaining very cogently all that's wrong with the Mexican team and their coach and sports in Mexico and the country in general. Still, the Mexico-Argentina match was a great match, well played by my countrymen, sloppily played by the Argentines, who are a much superior team. The first Argentinian goal seemed to have been aided by the head of one of the Mexican defenders. The second Argentinian goal was a thing of sheer poetry by Maxi Rodriguez, that no human power on Earth could stop.
By the way, the Italian referee of that game was voted by the female audience of the bar where I saw the match the handsomest man in the entire World Cup. Gorgeous.

It is now Argentina v Germany and I'm so rooting for the Tango Squad. I bet the referee will aid the Germans and I hope the Tango Squad surprises them and beats the hell out of them. They are an amazing team and they play beautiful soccer, with flair, not like boring machines, like the Panzers.

David Beckham seems to be a very nice guy, despite the fact that he married a Spice Girl. Not only did he provide a most spectacular, laws-of-physics-defying goal, (puking his guts thereafter on the field), but I saw him go to the Ecuatorian goalie after the match and embrace him with genuine respect and affection. A handshake would have sufficed; I was moved by his gesture.
A very different situation from that of the horrifying Holland-Portugal game. a) That Russian referee is a disaster and should not be allowed to handle games anymore, ever. It was not the first time he screwed up. b) The game was a disgrace of anger and filth. c) The Portuguese were dirty, disgusting and utterly unsportsmanlike so I'm hoping with all my might that the English crush them to bits. To pequenhos bitinhos de bacalao.

A conspiracy theory

Even before I read James Surowiecki's account of how corrupt FIFA is in this week's New Yorker, just from watching some of the referees I have started to come up with the not too farfetched possibility that maybe some referees may be rigging the game in favor of certain teams. I have no evidence to support this except what goes on in my very busy mind. But, for mysterious reasons, the referees in the 2 last US Team games were clearly trying to hurt the Americans. Their calls were blatantly mistaken, and today, a call for a nonexistent penalty vs the US took away the chance for the team to go to the next round. What have the US done to merit such transparent unfairness is anybody's guess.
By the way, this is not to be read as some kind of excuse for losing teams. I'm speaking of incontrovertible hideous calls that seem like pure evil. And the US is not the only victim.
Today, for instance, I learned that the next cup will take place in South Africa, so my Holmesian powers of deduction lead me to believe that perhaps African teams like Ghana, may be getting a hand from FIFA, so they can create excitement for the next venue. Because another thing that always happens is that the host country team, no matter how mediocre, always ends up making it closer to the finals, or even winning the cup. I can't believe that's purely because of home turf enthusiasm.
The referee who called one of the German games tried, in my view, to influence the game in favor of the Germans. They don't need any help, those Panzers, but maybe someone lends them a little invisible hand to make it easier to win in their home turf.
Now, I know you are thinking I'm nuts, but my capacity for cynicism is boundless. As boundless as the FIFA and the Olympic Committee leaders' capacity for graft. All I'm saying is that FIFA would like certain things to happen in certain ways. Not necessarily to give the cup to a particular team, but for certain teams to make it to the next rounds, and face each other, etc. Perhaps it's in the interest of FIFA that a team of million-dollar earning stars advance to the finals, rather than some little country that could, like Ecuador or Trinidad. Even though the teams with stars can do it perfectly well on their own. Obviously.
But just think about how much money is involved.

On the town

Your aging Enchilada went on a night out on the town the likes of which she hadn't seen in quite a while, since she has been leading a relatively monastic existence in the service of this blog (not).

The evening started at the NY Public Library, with a sold-out talk by Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain and Bill Buford, all of them charmingly shilling their new books about cooking. It was a lot of fun, because they all are smart and sassy and articulate. Bourdain was a great moderator, and very funny. I love the way Buford writes about food in the New Yorker. He is delightful. And Molto Mario is intense and immense. A crowd of psyched New York foodies, by the way, is something to behold.

All those mentions of lard and duck fat made me hungry. We tried having dinner at Virgil's BBQ. I thought that at 8:30 pm it would be relatively free of tourists (who I assumed would be sitting their asses down at the overpriced Broadway show of their choice). I was mistaken. It was a mob in there, so we ended up at Ollie's, a marvel of slow but inexorable decline and a temple of Chinese greasy goop. However, a high point of the evening was that Wallace Shawn was waiting for a table at Virgil's (who knew?), looking very dapper in a black sweater and I told him that I love his play "Aunt Dan and Lemon". He beamed me a huge smile of surprise and relief that I wasn't bothering him about The Princess Bride.

So after unspeakably greasy and salty beef with broccoli and shrimp fried rice, we went down to Passersby, on W15st. The patrons at that early hour in the evening looked like a convention of golfers and CPAs from across the river, so we bolted and, to our surprise, voluntarily and with no one pointing a gun at our heads, walked south towards the much dreaded Meatpacking District, which was packed with the meat of many a ditz and a slut and B&Tunnelers and skeezy guys.
I remembered a friend told me about a place with a lovely patio, and sure enough we found it on Little W12, an oasis of calm and slightly better taste where we paid 16 buckaroos for a shot of Patron Gold (OUCH). It is armed robbery, but it is a testament to good tequila that it seemed worth the price. My companion observed that I was paying about two bucks a sip.
Then we met with lovely people from out of town who are here for the BDA conference (I don't know what that stands for exactly, but they are all motion graphics designers and animators).
We crossed the street to try (without begging. I wait behind no velvet rope for more than 5 minutes) to get into Buddha Bar, where a small gaggle of supplicants was attempting to arouse the compassion of two humongous bouncers. One of my friends, a natural charmer, spoke to the bouncer, said we were from MTV, technically not totally a lie, and too long a story to explain here. Bouncer asked for a business card. Card was produced, showing not MTV but a very cool animation studio. Upon which the bouncer said, and I quote: "Give me a hug". Turns out that the two human armored vehicles who guard the Buddha Bar love animation, so they were super sweet to us thereafter.
Buddha Bar is a striking looking place, populated by a lot of Ashlee Simpson and Paris lookalikes and the fat ugly rich obnoxious guys who buy them drinks. The second shot of the night must have cost twice as much there. I tried it chilled, but I hate when they serve you tequila in a tumbler. Hate it. Tequila is served in a shot glass called a caballito. I learned that chilled tequila is good for when you need endurance. The music at Buddha Bar was eurotrashy but borderline decent.
For some reason we went back to Passersby where we ran into a bunch of lovely friends. By then the golfers had decamped for other pastures. The music was a good mix of funk and punk. We proceeded to close the place down near 4 am. Today I woke up with a horrid cigarrette hangover (but not the other kind) and a black mood due to lack of sleep.
But I loved every minute of it, mainly because I kept threatening to go home all night long.

Miss Manners

I basically enjoyed New York Magazine guide to manners in New York, despite the fact that they felt compelled to make a joke of everything, thus undermining their own sound advice. Here are some urban etiquette do's and don'ts that may not have appeared in the magazine and that usually give me a conniption:

• Tourists: LEARN TO WALK. Don't hog the sidewalks, don't walk three deep, don't saunter staring up at the cornices of buildings as if you were taking a stroll in a park. The biggest mode of transportation in New York are people's legs and you are the equivalent of a 90 year-old driver in a Cadillac (in Miami). I have a friend that thinks that sidewalks should observe the same rules of traffic as two lane roads; that is, people going in one direction walk on the right and people going in the other walk on the left. Move it or get out of the way.

• Cab drivers or other drivers who HONK should be executed on the spot. I can't stress this enough.

• So do people who urinate on the street. One night I found a particularly subhuman specimen of the B&T crowd peeing liberally right at my doorway.
I said: "Do I pee in front of your house?" He said: "I thought this was an office building". Oh, okay.

• Another night, I found a couple fornicating (doggie style) in full view near my building. This is not nice.

• Women: learn to use the bathroom quickly (and wipe your disgusting sprinkles from the seat when you are done). What the hell takes so long to pee? Are you having a child in there?

• Homeless people who rummage through garbage should have the courtesy to put the garbage back where they found it.

• If you come out of a bar at 3 am, don't scream like a banshee or laugh at decibel levels loud enough to wake up an entire neighborhood. Or I'll come and get you. (I have a fantasy that I own a long range firearm, such as sharpshooters use and I get trigger happy with people like you).

• Cars whose alarms start blasting unprovoked should be thrown into the East River. People who blast reggaeton or the equivalent with ear splitting bass boosters should be thrown into the East River together with their cars.

• Always remember to say hello, please and thank you.

Everyman

I just finished reading Everyman by Phillip Roth. It took me two days because I couldn't put it down.
All I could think of is, I want to write like Phillip Roth when I grow up. God, or whoever is in charge of these things, let me write such precise, incisive and graceful sentences one day.
The book is about death and decay. Lots of it. It is a short, keenly observed lament on the miseries of age, infirmity and the fear of death, and it is moving without being sentimental and very magnificently written. I'm still reeling trying to imagine in my head the structure of the book, because it flows as easily as water in a stream, yet it is not linear and far from simple.
I loved Everyman because it seems genuinely committed to its outrage. Also, because it makes a forceful statement about living without God and not doing too badly. The protagonist is simply a secular man who has chosen to be secular, and never for a moment does he wonder if he needs the company or assistance of God at the end of his life. This is a powerful antidote to the endlessly annoying God-fever that is racking this country. There is no implication that this man would be better off believing and for that, I'm forever grateful to Phillip Roth. Give him the Nobel prize already.

On the other hand, I don't know what possessed me to buy the latest book by Kazuo Ishiguro, a horrible, sloppy, disturbing, artless book about a future where human clones are made to donate their bodies to other humans. I hated that book so much that I gave it to the Salvation Army because I didn't want it in my house. I hated it so much I can't even remember the title.
The problem is that is is written in the voice of one of the clones and Ishiguro has chosen to make that person as interesting as a lamp, so the writing plods along painfully and there is nothing human or insightful to be learned.

I'm also reading Conversations with Billy Wilder by Cameron Crowe, who proves himself a charming and insightful interviewer of one of the greatest writer-directors that ever lived and a prickly, funny man. I'm still trying to recover from the shock of hearing Billy Wilder say that Forrest Gump was one of his favorite movies and that Tom Cruise is a great actor, but I ascribe it to the fact that he was 91 at the time and although he's feisty and witty as ever, he must have been losing it in that department.
The book is full of fun gossip and many fascinating observations about the nature of the filmmaking and screenwriting process. It is wonderful. And it has lots of pictures.

So as you can see, I have not been completely lobotomized by soccer yet.