Alex and Eric in Los Angeles

How does one, let alone a Christian, respond to the incredible suffering that’s going on in Myanmar and China? This has been on my mind of late, especially w/r/t the kingdom of God that I profess is here now and will come in fullness sometime soon. One of my favorite websites is Debunking Christianity. It’s run by former ministers who at some point stopped believing in this stuff (whether or not they were ever “true Christians” or merely “false converts” is a long theological discussion for some other time). In any case, a blogger linked to a much too brief email dialogue between Bart Ehrman and N.T. Wright. What I found particularly interesting was what Ehrman had to say about the kingdom of God in light of suffering in the world:

“But leave aside the question of whether it is sensible to think the kingdom really, actually, is ever going to come. How does one see it manifest in Jesus? In fact, it is not simply in his “obedience” (and suffering), as you intimate. I think you are reading the Gospels through the lens of Paul, rather than reading the narratives of the Gospels themselves. For the Synoptics, for example, the Kingdom is manifest in Jesus’ life and work: in the kingdom there will be no disease, no demons, and no death. Jesus manifests this kingdom in the meantime: he heals the sick, he casts out demons, and he raises the dead. This was not a message about some vague power of God breaking in at some period thousands of years hence. It was God breaking in now (in anticipation of its imminent appearance in power).

And is he? This I think is where we differ in a major way. In my view there is nothing to suggest that the Kingdom has arrived, even provisionally, in the coming of Jesus, in the way the Gospels themselves think (that in his coming the sick are healed, the demons cast out, and the dead raised). There are no fewer sick, demon-possessed, or dying now than before the appearance of Jesus (and his obedience and death). There are no fewer people born with horrible birth defects. There are no fewer lepers, blind, and lame. The multitudes are not being fed. The storms are not being stilled (think Katrina, for example).

Quite the contrary, the world goes on as it ever did. The writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not expect this (nor did Paul). They saw the kingdom arriving with Jesus’ ministry, they saw his death and resurrection as the beginning of the end, and they expected the end to come in their lifetime – when God would overthrow the forces of evil and set up a kingdom in which there would be no more pain, misery, or suffering. Our actual history stands at odds with their expectation, our world of genocides, AIDs, malaria, unclean drinking water, leprosy, birth defects, hurricanes, Columbian mudslides that kill 30,000, Pakistan earthquakes that kill 50,000, Indian Ocean tsunamis that kill 300,000, and on and on and on.

I wish Jesus had brought the Kingdom. But the human race struggles along its not so merry way, with all its pain, misery, and suffering – biblically based hopefulness notwithstanding – world without end.”

Whoa. Now, how does a Christian respond to this?

LOVE
ALEX

Trader Joe’s has finally come through! Last night, after work, I did some massive grocery shopping and much to my delight, in the dry pasta and rice aisle, I found a quarter shelf filled with packages of bucatini, my favorite all time pasta noodle. It’s basically a thin straw. Incredible bite, incredible carrier of sauce. I first experienced the mouth-feel of said noodle at Esca back in 2001: bucatini in a parsley sea urchin cream sauce.

This morning, I got up at 5:30 to go to the gym and make my pseudo all’amatriciana sauce before work. For lunch I will eat my favorite pasta noodle. It’s gonna be a great day.

LOVE
ALEX

Ma’ams and Brohams,
Greetings from atop the self-reflection deck. Peering through the eyehole, I look back towards yesterday and the yesterdays prior. April flew by with unimaginably ferocious velocity, wings flapping with hummingbird speed. And here we are, in May, jacarandas in full bloom, sweaterless nights returned. There’s a thousand things I could tell you, but most I’d rather share in person. Food adventures left and right. Aiming to shoot a new short film in July - “Goodnight Motorcycle King”, but aside from saving some money to go towards it, haven’t gotten my act together on that front.

In a couple of weeks, I fly with Paul to Montreal (my first time there, and in fact, in Canada) and taste the wondrous constructions of Martin Picard at Au Pied de Cochon. We’ll also be trying Joe Beef. And Schwartz’s, of course. The codename for this trip: Operation Poutine.

While everything seems pretty great these days, I turn 30 towards the end of August. And while I haven’t accomplished everything I thought I would by 30, I’ve got about 4 months to do that. So on that note, wish me luck. Much love, Eric

Read this about the Flickr phenomenon in the Sunday Times Mag this week.  First time in a long time that something got my blood going a bit.  Apparently, there’s a Flickr vernacular of over-saturated high dynamic contrast picture-making that’s all about popping your eyeballs out.  Folks who troll Flickr like it I guess when their eyeballs pop out.  One of the Flickr superstar photographers is this Icelandic hack named Guoleifsdottir.  Here’s what the writer ends with,

“On Flickr, Cartier-Bresson is no Guoleifsdottir.  Maybe it’s no surprise, then, that when a prankster posted a Cartier-Bresson photo of a cyclist passing a spiral staircase, passing the photo off as his own, a mob of commenters shouted it down, crying for it to be deleted.  ‘When everything is blurred you cannot convey the motion of the bicylist,’ one commenter carped.  ‘Why is the staircase ’soft’?  Camera shake?’ wrote another.  ‘Gray, blurry, small, odd crop,’ someone concluded.  That seemed to be the final word.”

Some friends lament the death of journalism; I shake my head at the decline of good taste and aesthetic acuity.  There is such a thing as truth, even within the purview of something as seemingly subjective as art or beauty.  Most pictures are noise.  That’s fine.  But to not recognize something astounding like that picture as something more is unacceptable.  Moreover, it’s unreasonable.  (And I don’t even dig Cartier-Bresson.)

LOVE
ALEX

OK, so I’ve been delinquent about posting on this here blog. Apologies. The past month I’ve been busy working on my script, tutoring kids, going to awesome sporting events, doing post-sound on KV’s thesis, screaming at my shitty fantasy baseball team, etc. etc. I promise to get back into the swing of things soon.

So, it’s the end of April and I’ve caught pathetically few movies at the movies. Looking at my calendar, I see I’ve seen 23 movies in the theater. Weak! The best film out right now is something I caught last year: Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON. It’s playing in one fucking theater — one! — in Los Angeles: the Royal out in West LA. The state of foreign film distribution here is awful and doesn’t seem like it’ll get any better. If there’s one thing I can recommend folks pay money and check out, it is RED BALLOON.

LOVE
ALEX

“Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future?
But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.”

What would happen to me if I did not belong to BUTTOCKS ABSCESS? (for those not in the know, that’s the name — coined by ARoss — of the fantasy league I’m in with a bunch of other normal, healthy, responsible dudes).

LOVE
ALEX

Meatloaf, at one point during his 1992 comeback virtuoisic tour de dorce I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That), sings, “Some nights you’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before or will again”.   That kind of describes Thursday night. Kind of.

QB and I started the evening at Sushi Gen in Honda Plaza in Little Tokyo.  A young woman approached us while we waited outside for our table, inviting us to check out the new bar in the plaza - Tapas and Wine Bar C. A new bar in Little Tokyo that I didn’t know about? Yeah, of course we’ll try it. Post-meal, QB and I walk a few storefronts down in the strip mall, and walk into a bar that to my knowledge is pretty unique to Little Tokyo. Walking in, the manager explained to us that after 9pm, there is a 30 dollar charge to drink there (if you’re not having dinner). THIRTY DOLLARS? They explain with this, we get snacks and a free glass of wine. This does not sound like a good deal. But… we go for it. The interior of this place is hard to describe, especially because I’m writing this a few days after going (they’ve invited me back to take photos). Comfy upscale lounge-bar, with lots of red fabric for seat covers. Wine racks are the walls of the bar. My only issue with the design was that there’s 3 large flat-screen TV’s playing loops computer generated abstract graphics. I’m stuck staring at a monitor all day at work, so when I go out, I love to not see a television. That said, there’s a reason the giant tv’s were there… and it’s a good one. So, QB and I are sitting there, and our server, a friendly young woman in a french maid outfit, rolls out a cart, carrying our two glasses of red wine and a platter of amuse-bouche type snacks. The only other customers soon leave, so it’s just me, QB, the maid, and the manager, chatting it up. They tell us we have to come back and try the food (the chef apparently worked in the kitchens of both Spago and Chinois. No, I didn’t ask what station/brigade title). We start talking about restaurants. Our maid it turns out is a foodie, and we discuss the demise of L’Orangerie to make room for a Nobu when there’s already a Matsuhisa down the street. I talk Mishima beef with her, and she’s impressed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishima_beef - It was once an Iron Chef special ingredient. I also saw marbled examples of it in person at a butcher shop Kyoto last April. Anyway, it comes up in discussion that the maid is also a singer. But she says she won’t sing unless me or QB sings. SINGS? Oh, that’s why there are enormous plasmas affixed to the walls. This place is a bar / tapas restaurant / karaoke lounge. CUT TO:

I’m standing there in the mostly empty room (it got busier as we were leaving), and the music kicks in, and I’m dancing through the bar with a wireless microphone, singing George Michael’s “Faith”. I nail it, I mean, as much as I could with my nasal voice. The maid and manager are impressed, or at least claim to be. Our maid launches into a perfect rendition of Dolly Parton’s/Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” as she stares me down. Appropriately enough, as one should do when sung this song by a pretty woman who looks like she stepped out of a manga, I blush. We chat some more with the manager Jazz, who says I should bring RC Cola next time, and she’ll pour me Royal Royal Crown Crowns.

Is 30 dollars excessive as a cover fee for this bar? Yes. Of course. That said, the staff was incredibly friendly and it sure is a relaxed place to have a drink. And if you like being served your cocktails by a girl dressed in an outfit that screams Akihabara and/or Naughty Halloween, this just might be the place for you. Throughout Japan last year, we’d sometimes have to pay to drink at a bar (Golden Gai area in Tokyo, Pontocho in Kyoto), but it always seemed to hover around 10 dollars. Which is fine. Maybe Tapas and Wine Bar C will adjust the price in the weeks ahead. It’s open 7 days a week. If you want to roll with me when I take pictures and try the food for Report #2, please give me a shout.

Happy weekend, Eric

Tapas and Wine Bar C
428 E. 2nd. St., Los Angeles, CA, 90012
(213) 628-8877

Hours
Sunday: 6pm - 2am
Monday: 6pm - 2am
Tuesday: 6pm - 2am
Wednesday: 6pm - 2am
Thursday: 6pm - 2am
Friday: 6pm - 2am
Saturday: 6pm - 2am

Vantage point from our first seats

Vantage point from our second seats

Dear Baseball,

Please let the Mets make the playoffs this season.  Please let me become interested in the Dodgers.  Please let Buttocks Abscess — the fantasy baseball league I’m in with a bunch of CU, SC, and Los Feliz jokers — NOT suck all my free time.

LOVE
ALEX

After a few days in Vegas for work, I flew to New York and stayed with my family for a few days.

Thursday 3/13, I took the train from Connecticut into the city. No bags, no ipod. Just my wallet and cellphone and clothes. Traveling light.

The first place I went was Russ & Daughters. While most people swoon over the Gaspé nova there (which I love), there’s something great about the Wild Western Nova (shown here atop bagel). Seemingly less oily than other popular novas, the Wild Western Nova at Russ and Daughters - http://www.russanddaughters.com - is exquisite, the gentle flavor is just lovely. I know with overharvesting, wild fish populations worldwide are plummeting, but man, it’s tough to feel guilty after enjoying something so great. After my snack, I wandered around the lower East Side and Chinatown. Saw the reopened Dumpling House on Eldridge, signless yet bustling, another one of those NY Chinatown spots where you can get 5 fried dumplings for a dollar. The one I frequented 2001-2004 before my move westward was Fried Dumpling on Mosco, a dump where 2 dollars got you a coke, a fried pork bun, and 5 fried pork dumplings. That’s quite the 2 dollar lunch. All these places offer soy sauce and sriracha as the 2 sauces for your dumplings. I didn’t have time to stop for a dumpling because I was moving on.   I went to Allen and Delancey to meet CR, GG and E-Hals. It was E-Hals’s birthday!  Go to http://www.allenanddelancey.net/menu.html if you’re curious.  Allen/Delancey is one of the darkest restaurants I’ve ever eaten at.  A long bar in front with a warm cozy room in the back.  Good food there.  Sadly my cameraphone couldn’t handle taking photos in the dim environs, so all I have to go on are my memories.   The dish that stood out most to me was the rabbit terrine, not so much for the terrine itself, but for the violet mustard it was served with, a mustard of gentle flavor that coupled nicely with the well-seasoned terrine.  The bone marrow was served out-of-bone.  I was boozing a tad heavily (bourbon!) so can’t describe what made the scallops at Allen/Delancey so excellent.  I never swoon for scallops but these nicely seared examples were great, as were the ones I had a few weeks back at Providence.  The standout dish at Providence was the scrambled eggs and sea urchin, but that’s a story for another time.  After Allen/Delancey, we 4 merrily set out for dinner #2.   

New York was so cold I’d bought a hat.   This is a photo taken as we journeyed from Allen&Delancey towards Tailor.   http://www.tailornyc.com/  Again, I don’t have photographic evidence of Tailor, but only my memories…  Looking at the Tailor menu, it’s really hard to see how some of these dishes will work.   While WD-50 still feels a little bit like half-lesson/half-meal, Tailor is much warmer.  For a restaurant with so much hype, Sam Mason’s Tailor delivers good to great dishes; brilliant food that still comforts and delights the eaters; rather than confound them.   The sweetbreads were very good, but nothing new; I likely missed the citrus sauce they were served with.   The foie gras with peanut butter is a thick slice of foie gras terrine, with a thin layer of peanut butter, wrapped around it.   While rich in flavor, it’s not dense, and the peanut butter is only an accent.  The pork belly with miso butterscotch was my fav of the night.   I wish I could remember every dish we had, but I was tired/inebriated.  Speaking of which, the mixed drinks at Tailor are ahead of the curve, redefining the libation landscape in New York. Seriously.  Traditional cocktails updated with flavor infused sodas (Smoked Coke!  Hibiscus 7-up) and unusual ingredients.  There’s a great bar in the basement of the restaurant, serving all of these kickass drinks, as well as some of the dishes from the menu as bar food.  Tailor is great, and I can’t wait to return in the near future.   The superb delight of the evening however was mostly due to getting to celebrate a great friend’s birthday with fine drink, fancy grub and laughter. Also, Ms. Double-S was downstairs in the bar with her crew, so got to chat with her, albeit briefly. I jumped in a cab late and headed to my sister’s apartment, where she let me crash on her sofa.   The decor of her apartment clearly shows that despite being 4 years my junior, she is much more of a grownup than I am going to be anytime soon.  I fell asleep reading Jeffrey Steingarten’s piece on Toro.  Yes, I dreamt.

On Friday morning, I woke up, and called the awesome/amazing K-Tong. We met up at Barney Greengrass for bagels and nova/lox. We then headed to the Museum of Natural History, where I failed to take photos. In fact, in NYC, I didn’t have a camera with me, so most of the following photos are courtesy of K-Tong. After the museum, we headed to the Time Warner center so I could try the TKO (Thomas Keller Oreo) at Bouchon Bakery. Imagine not an oreo, but what the ideal oreo would be. The cookies themselves in flavor. reminded me most of Nabisco’s Chocolate Wafers (the ones commonly used for icebox cake). If only all oreos could be lifted towards the sublime, the transcendent. My chocolate allergy didn’t stop me. This was an adventure. After the Time Warner Center, we headed across the street to the new Blue Ribbon.

Bone Marrow served with toasted brioche/challah. HOLY DELICIOUS. K-Tong and I thought we were ordering a marrow skewer the chef had specially made a few weeks back, but this was not a disappointment in the least. The sweetness of egg bread worked so well with the luxurious wallop that marrow presents, creamy salty decadence itself. Why have I always been so accepting of regular crusty bread to partner with my marrow? Never again. This I loved.  Challah is King.

Sumptuous bacon at Blue Ribbon. Thick, eh? A story from my youth, I came home from a sleepover, raving about how I had eaten the most wonderful thing ever and we needed to start eating it at home. My mom asked what it was, and I said, “Bacon”. She said, “We don’t eat bacon in this house.” Not that we kept kosher, but my love of bacon (following my love of ham and swiss on wonderbread with mayo) threw my Mom off a tad. Why’d her son have a Darien Connecticut Episcopalian’s palate? - We left Blue Ribbon, and stopped quickly at Daisy May’s, so I could introduce K-Tong to the out-of-the-ballpark splendor of their pulled pork sandwich. She was in agreement that this was some splendid q.

After passing time at a strange bar, we went to Fatty Crab, meeting up with Kirsch for dinner. This is a photo of the watermelon pickle and crispy pork salad. I approve. I have no photos of the pork buns but remember loving them.

Good bird! Look at the vein in Kirsch’s forearm! He looks pumped, eh? Sadly, I was too intimidated to arm wrestle.

Malay Fish Fry. I ate most of it before stopping to take a picture. The rice beneath the fish was impossible to stop eating. After dinner and a nice walk, I caught the train back to Connecticut, in the same clothes I’d been wearing the day before. A transient foodie isn’t the worst thing to be. On Monday, I returned to the city for my flight back to Los Angeles. Before my flight back, I met up with K-Tong, Professor B, and Big Tze for lunch at Momofuku Ssam Bar.

Steak Ssam. Meat wrapped up in lettuce. I could eat that every meal. But probably shouldn’t.

Side dishes. Sriracha’d plate. Housemade pickles. Simple sprout salad. Roasted cauliflower.

Side dishes. 2nd photo.

Banh Mi. 3 terrines. Definitely great. Yes, I know that veal head is involved. Too delicious to be bothered. Offal ain’t awful. It’s lunch!

Every restaurant should serve pork buns this good. Fatty Crab’s are pretty close to being as excellent as these. Pork Belly Futures? Hopefully in my future. After lunch, K-Tong and I walked around a little (Otafuku for me to have a quick takoyaki fix, then we peeked our head into the Black Hound bakery. I sampled the carrot cake and it was heavenly; I may order my 30th birthday cake from this place, it was that good). - www.blackhoundny.com/

A very happy Eric en-route to the airport.

I return to NYC in 3 weeks to rock the Pesach.  And yes, I think I know where I want to eat when I return.  And no, I don’t consider pizza to be leavened bread so the rules of Passover won’t break my stride. 

- Eric

I realize it’ll be back to dislike & disbelief in a few minutes. But for now, I’m just delighting in the shared affection between two like-minded personalities.

- Eric