telescreen.org

I'm glad I don't remember much of the '70s. 

Fortunately, we have cultural artifacts and the attendant commentary thereupon to light our way.

(Link ganked from Czeltic Girl, who would look fetching, I'm sure, in one of those lime-green plaid terrycloth numbers.)

There's an interesting article in the Times today about Jerry Thomas, the original bartender:

As he wandered, he picked up on the latest developments in the art, inventing new cocktails and building a serious following for his particular blend of craftsmanship and showmanship, epitomized in his signature drink, the Blue Blazer, a pyrotechnic showpiece in which an arc of flame passed back and forth between two mixing glasses. At the Occidental, Thomas was earning $100 a week, more than the vice president of the United States. When he died, in 1885, newspapers all over the country observed his passing in substantial obituaries.

I'm looking forward to reading David Wondrich's biography of Thomas -- Wondrich is a great writer on all things cocktailian.  (By the by, I'd link to Esquire's bio page, but their website blows.  Here's Wondrich's column archive instead.)

Correction in today's Times:

An article on Monday about the goals and priorities of Adm. Mike Mullen, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, misidentified a country where American troops have been serving lengthy deployments. It is Iraq, not Iran.

Oopsie.

I'm back (and playing catch-up:  man oh man, do I get too much e-mail.  Did Delta really need to e-mail me six times in two weeks -- for things unrelated to my trip?) 

B. and I had two great weeks in Southern France (and a brief sojourn to Italy) with my parents.  We spent the first week in the NE corner of Provence, with Jausiers as our homebase, driving tons of high mountain passes and taking trips to Barcelonnette, Briançon, Embrun, Allos, the scenic narrow-gauge train from Digne-les-Bains to Nice, and more.

After we checked out of our timeshare in Jausiers, we headed down to the Cote d'Azur by way of a small festival in the smaller town of Guillames -- we ate artisanal cheese, admired the flocks of sheep for sale, listened to the local festival band, and successfully resisted the urge to take home a cowbell as a souvenir.

Our second week was spent with Vence as our homebase; we visited the Cours Saleya market in Nice, drove the eye-popping corniche roads between Nice and Monaco, went to some interesting museums, explored photogenic villages, and generally had a good time.  On the way back, B. and I had a couple hours in Paris (it would've been longer, but a French rail-workers' strike -- which seems omnipresent just about every time I go -- limited what we could do), where we visited Sainte-Chapelle and had some Berthillon ice cream before heading back to JFK.

Lots of pics TK up on the Flickr page, by the way, but I'm warning you the backlog is hyoooge.

Oh, and incidentally, Errol Morris has published the third part of his absolutely fascinating exploration of the veracity of a couple of photographs taken in Crimea (Part 1, Part 2).  Check it out; it's incredible.  Or, rather, it strikes me as very credible indeed.  (as reported on earlier here.)

Antibes waterfront and castle:

Back soon.

A couple of shots of Nice, in the Cours Saleya market and from the Quai des Etats-Unis:

A Giacometti, at the Fondation Maeght in St. Paul-de-Vence:

A couple views of sunset at Lac Serre-Ponçon:

The other day, we took a detour into Italy (we're pretty close to the Italian border), where we visited Alba, which was having a white truffle festival at the time, and had several glasses of Barolo, the local wine.

Here's where it comes from:

We had lunch in Briançon, a nice little hill town with old walls and other fortifications surrounding it. Here's the view from the parking lot:

Lots of mountain passes here. This is the Col d'Izoard.

Outside our balcony in Jausiers, France.

Expect blogging to be a little sparse for a while; I'm on the road and will say hi when I can.  À bientôt!

Diabolical.

I recently discovered that none other than Dick Cavett has a blog on the Times' website.  Very cool choice of bloggers. 

Inspired by what I found there, I trawled the Web for Cavettiana and found some goodies:

• a critical appreciation of Cavett by Clive James;
• Cavett on "Charlie Rose" in 2001 (Cavett's and Rose's interviews are often compared.  I couldn't disagree more:  while both are cerebral, Cavett is far less serious -- even puckish);
• Orson Welles reversing things and interviewing Cavett; and
• a whole bunch of great Cavett clips on YouTube.

(By the way, Errol Morris has a blog there too!  Do go and check out his utterly fascinating post (Part One, Part Two -- Part Three is forthcoming) on photography in the Crimea.)

From the Times (London variety), here's a frightening story about a possible chemical attack in central London.

With recipes.

Larry Craig, besides being a flip-flopper (as in his rescinding his promise to resign) evidently needs some fact-checking in his press releases: 

• "I am innocent of the charges against me."  Actually, no, he's not.  He is not innocent, because he pleaded guilty and was therefore convicted.  (From the judge's order yesterday, quoting Craig himself:  "I understand that the court will not accept a plea of guilty from anyone who claims to be innocent"; "I now make no claim that I am innocent of the charge to which I am now pleading guilty"; "understanding the above I am now entering my plea of guilty freely and voluntarily.")
• Moreover, there are no charges currently against Craig.  Those were resolved when Craig was convicted and sentenced.
• "I have accumulated seniority and important committee assignments that are valuable to Idaho. . .A replacement would be highly unlikely to obtain these posts."  Actually, Craig was stripped of his committee assignments.

I'd mention that perhaps Craig's office is looking for someone to vet the press releases, but it seems unkind to point readers toward a job opening at a company that's not likely to be around too long.

Holy crap.  The sun rose in the west, the Pope is Jewish, and JonMC made the Style section of last Sunday's New York Times.

(Go update yer blog now, willya?)

Pose, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

While I was shooting pictures on 57th Street a while back, this guy came up to me and asked me for a dollar. I told him that I didn't have anything. He replied "Well, will you take my picture?" I said of course, he struck this pose, and this was the result.

Right after I clicked the shutter, he smiled, thanked me, and went on his way.  Didn't even ask for a copy of the picture.

I love this city.

now THIS is why I love Letterman:

He famously told Rolling Stone that he's not in this game to attack people:

"I don't want to be perceived as an asshole who just says, 'Line 'em up, bring 'em in and let me make fun of them.' They spend weeks booking people on the show, and then they leave in tears, and I think, 'What the fuck was that all about?' We spend two weeks getting somebody, and in eight minutes they're out of here sobbing. I think, 'Yeah, another job well done.'"

But, clearly, targets of opportunity present themselves.  Every now and then, you can just tell that Letterman gets sick of the vacuous plug-this-plug-that celebrity syncophant game (not that he was ever terribly interested in that at any rate, but plainly the pot boils over occasionally) and he just decides to throw caution to the winds, and this is the kind of TV (good TV, incidentally) that results.

Jon Stewart does something similar:  if you're booked on the Daily Show, you have to be able to hold your own.  Because if you're vapid or uninteresting or can't make conversation, Stewart will cut your head off so fast and with such a sharp blade that you won't realize it until you get up to leave and notice your cranium in your lap.  The big difference between his approach and Letterman's is that Letterman just doesn't care if the victim notices or not. 

And look at that viciously perfect timing -- softball, softball, hi-how're-you-doing, softball, WHAM!