Joan Didion (via troubled)
Clay likes Los Angeles. Sarah likes New York City. They also like each other.
Here are the many, many things they want to show each other in their respective cities.
Wait, what is this?
Quite simply, I was in love with New York. I do not mean “love” in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again. I remember walking across Sixty-second Street one twilight that first spring, or the second spring, they were all alike for a while. I was late to meet someone but I stopped at Lexington Avenue and bought a peach and stood on the corner eating it and knew that I had come out out of the West and reached the mirage. I could taste the peach and feel the soft air blowing from a subway grating on my legs and I could smell lilac and garbage and expensive perfume and I knew that it would cost something sooner or later – because I did not belong there, did not come from there – but when you are twenty-two or twenty-three, you figure that later you will have a high emotional balance, and be able to pay whatever it costs. I still believed in possibilities then, still had the sense, so peculiar to New York, that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month.
Irish Hunger Memorial - 290 Vesey St at North End Ave - NY
Oh yikes, who wants to walk through a little garden that memorializes the Irish Potato Famine?? If you love quiet little corners of NYC that are absolutely gorgeous like me, then you do! Battery Park City has a few places that I always forget about until I stumble upon them and think “oh yeah, this is beautiful! I should come here more often!” and then forget about for another couple months. The Irish Hunger Memorial is absolutely beautiful and recreates a 19th-century Irish cottage and garden surrounding it. It’s a beautiful place to reflect, or walk hand in hand with someone or to just stop in and get away from the hustle of the city for a bit.
Matthew Specktor: Why Don’t They Drop the Bomb on L.A.? (Canteen)
I lived in New York long enough to love it with every fiber of my being, but also to find its high self-regard and blinkered parochialism patently ridiculous. I’d argue that the culture of L.A., assuming there has ever been such a thing, has changed as well. […] Yep, L.A. is no more Gomorrah than anyplace else in the country, and maybe a bit less so than New York. But the fact is, I’m ecstatic about this place, enraptured by its landscapes and its light, its literary—yeah, literary—aliveness; its weather and its hikes, all the stupid lifestyle stuff that invites an insulting smugness; as well as its restaurants, its coffee, and all the other accessories too particular to mention. I’m in love with the Los Angeles Review of Books and with my friends, many of whom are also writers. I’m being general here for a reason. To start waxing specifically about this place—Olvera Street! Dodger Stadium!—is to slip instantly into a kind of defensiveness. I’m enthralled by Los Angeles because it’s ugly and problematic and lovely; because the bomb has already fallen on it, to some extent, and all I can do is pick my way through the ruins.
Well, it’s not my turn, but I felt like the last post may have necessitated a response. P.S. Regarding the previous post…if you can’t find a 40 in Los Angeles, you are doing it wrong.
> >A WONDERFUL ESSAY BY MATTHEW SPECKTOR ON WRITING IN LOS ANGELES
Highly recommended.
[via Canteen]
WHY NEW YORK IS BETTER THAN LA
NY:
This one time I wanted to buy some 40s so I could get real drunk with my buddy Tonyz and we didn’t have a lot of money back in those days and we only ate fishsticks and drank 40s so we went down to the corner bodega in Flatbush Brooklyn where we lived and went to the back where they had the 40s in the fridge but when we got where the 40s were supposed to be there was just this huge bloody skinned goat hanging in there among all the other beverages and the 40s were all set all over the floor like someone had just run in and been like “YO I GOT THIS FUCKING BLOODY GOAT I NEED YOU TO HIDE IT IN THE FRIDGE REAL QUICK I’LL BE BACK LATER” and then they scrambled to the back and took out the 40s and put them all haphazardly all over the floor where they were getting warm and this bloody goat hung in there among the lunch meats and freezer pops and Tonyz and I came along and stumbled across it and were all like “WTF dude?” and the guy was like “I’m not giving you a discount on those 40s they’re still good” and we bought two each anyway even though they were warm and went back to our place and drank them and the guy was right they were still good and did their job real well and we came back like two hours later and the goat was totally gone and everything was put back and we never saw or spoke of it again and to this day I am convinced that there was some shady voodoo mystical shit going on behind the scenes of that place and we narrowly escaped being eaten alive by one of the Elder Ones Who Walk Between The Stars so often written about in the HP Lovecraft books.
LA:
This one time I stumbled down to the convenience store a block away from my house looking for 40s and I asked the cashier “hey, do you guys have 40s?” and the guy was all like “Naw bro, we don’t carry that shit.”
THE END.
It’s my turn to update and I’ve been meaning to, but very busy! I will soon! In the meantime, I’m glad to add this argument to this tumblr. - Sarah
![Zankou Chicken - 5065 W Sunset Blvd, 90027 (multiple locations) - LA
So you want the best Mediterranean-style chicken you’ve ever had. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to go Zankou on Sunset (yeah, there are other locations, but you’re a intelligent individual, so you’re going to go to the Sunset one.) You’re gonna look at the menu, mull over your choices, maybe look at the shawerma. Then you’re going to do the right thing and order a whole goddamn chicken, just for yourself.
You’re going to get the plate option, with your fresh hommus, your baked-this-morning pita bread, your garlic sauce, your pickled tomatoes. You’re ready. You’re going to take this Everest of food home, and you’re going to put on a movie. Something you’ve been wanting to watch, but don’t need to study intently. You’re going to tear at this chicken with your bare hands, forgoing utensils in exchange for speed. You’re going to spend two hours picking at it, getting every succulent piece of chicken off the bones. Finally, you’re going to lean back on your couch, hand resting upon your gorged stomach, and breath deeply. And then you’re going to wish you had more.
That’s what you’re gonna do.
Photo Credits: [1] [2] [3]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_loc8or0VUJ1qg4q91o1_1280.jpg)
Zankou Chicken - 5065 W Sunset Blvd, 90027 (multiple locations) - LA
So you want the best Mediterranean-style chicken you’ve ever had. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to go Zankou on Sunset (yeah, there are other locations, but you’re a intelligent individual, so you’re going to go to the Sunset one.) You’re gonna look at the menu, mull over your choices, maybe look at the shawerma. Then you’re going to do the right thing and order a whole goddamn chicken, just for yourself.
You’re going to get the plate option, with your fresh hommus, your baked-this-morning pita bread, your garlic sauce, your pickled tomatoes. You’re ready. You’re going to take this Everest of food home, and you’re going to put on a movie. Something you’ve been wanting to watch, but don’t need to study intently. You’re going to tear at this chicken with your bare hands, forgoing utensils in exchange for speed. You’re going to spend two hours picking at it, getting every succulent piece of chicken off the bones. Finally, you’re going to lean back on your couch, hand resting upon your gorged stomach, and breath deeply. And then you’re going to wish you had more.
That’s what you’re gonna do.
High Line Park (Part 2!) - Gansvoort to 30th street in Manhattan, west of 10th ave. - NY
Happy 4th of July weekend!! The two best things about the 4th of July weekend in New York:
1. Fireworks are great!
2. Everybody leaves town!
Being in New York when only half of the 8 million residents are there is amazing. It’s a great time to take walks, explore neighborhoods that are normally stuffed with people (like the normally unbearable Times Square) and be leisurely for once. What a perfect time to check out the new leg of the High Line Park, which just opened! It’s lovely and hip and a great place to read a book or walk and chat with friends or go on a date, and there is a new beer garden under the 30th street entrance. There’s also some weird adult playground there now, and it’s really fun! Also, food trucks (by the entrances)! You can’t go wrong!!
New York Gay Marriage Bill Passes
CONCESSION POST
A proper LA post will be coming soon, but we have to concede that NY is beating us in a pretty important category tonight. Let’s catch up, California!
Wafels & Dinges - New York
New York is peppered with all kinds of fantastic (and a few not so fantastic) food trucks, and Wafels & Dinges is one of the best to stumble upon. I’m not the type of foodie who follows their favorite food trucks on twitter so I can know where there are at all times like a clingy lover; I like stumbling upon them as I’m wandering around New York, as if someone has left a gift for me to find in the middle of the city. And what a gift indeed! The menu touts delicious sweet and savory waffle options (bacon or pulled pork waffle, anyone?), as well as dinges, which are toppings. Or deliciouses, as they’re known in some circles. Probably.
Click here to find out where the food truck is this week, or check out their twitter.
Chili Addiction - 408 N. La Cienega Blvd, 90048
Chili holds a weird spot on most restaurants’ menu. Lots of places offer it, but their chili usually feels like an afterthought; a late comer to the party, who was invited so last-minute that it didn’t have a chance to spruce up; presentable, but certainly not noteworthy.
Chili Addiction does not have this problem. Over 70 varieties of chili are on rotation, from mouth boiling recipes to boardwalk, chili dog fare. And you can get any of it in a bowl, or in a number of other configurations. There is plenty to try it on, including hot dogs, sausages, and burgers, all of which have vegan options. And the fries! Convert them to chili fries or get them on the side, I don’t care, just make sure you try the sweet potato or truffle fries.
The last time I went here, I ordered a bowl of chili, a chili dog, and truffle fries. In retrospect, I should have gotten the fries as chili fries, just so I could try three chilis instead of two. Learn from my mistakes!
Frying Pan - Pier 66 (W. 26th st. at the Hudson River) - NY
It’s a spring/early summer Friday in New York, which means it’s nice out but the air is not yet thick with humidity. Here are my top priorities:
- Get outside
- Drink with friends
- Listen to music sometimes
- Be on a boat
Frying Pan is your one stop shop for all these things. It’s a boat that used to be at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay until it was salvaged to turn into what all good boats become when they die: an outdoor bar with a decent burger overlooking the Hudson River (perfect for sunsets) in one of the best cities in the world.
