What Ringo Said

Some interesting research findings here, but you still have to chuckle a little at the punchline: 'The consistent message of these studies is that friends make your life better'.

Where would we be without science?

Dr. Bruni, I Presume

I'm starting to think more and more about the things I'm gonna do when I get back to New York. I always used to talk about the Queens food safaris I was going to undertake, for example, but never got around to it; now I'm gonna get serious (assuming I can afford to eat three months from now...). First on my list, I think, will be the (apparently very reasonably priced) Chinese restaurants in 'Flu-Shing', Queens. Or maybe I should look for Italy in the Bronx. Brooklyn Based has a really useful guide to daytripping in the other, other Chinatown: Sunset Park. Or one can visit Little Mexico--without ever leaving Sunset Park!

The End of the End of Ideology Thesis

This ought to be interesting to read the next time I'm teaching Daniel Bell or Fukuyama.

Gran Turismo, Indeed

The East side is definitely where the action is; it seems everyone is arty and fashionable (like SoHo or something), and every little shitty bar and cafe has a beautifully designed sign and incredible identity work (menus, signage, interior design). A lot of the town is newly built, and there is a ton of construction going on.

This observation, by a filmmaker friend-in-law who spent a few weeks in Berlin in 2001 shooting spots for Gran Turismo 3, aptly recalls something that's always struck me about the city. Berlin is a magnet for artists and creative types, and the city has been reaping the benefits of such magnetism for a while now. Moreover, when I first came there in 1998, the appeal seemed to be Continent-wide; more and more, however, it seems to be world-wide. I'm no artworld-insider, but it's easy to get the impression that, whether you're a local Prenzlwichsler or an Osaka-born installation artist, Berlin is your new capital.

Over the years, people have asked me for advice about what to do and where to go while in Berlin, and I've provided suggestions to the extent that I'm able (given the pace of change in Berlin, advice from someone who's no longer living there is bound to be of limited value). But I've gotten tired of composing long emails on the subject and then being unable to find them for the next traveling slacker looking for guidance. So here's an attempt at some disordered, but at least revisable, suggestions (if you don't find the Berlin I found, relax: one Berlin-based correspondent now goes so far as to claim that Munich is where it's at...):

Stay with friends. If you don't have friends in Berlin, stay with my friends, if they'll have you. (It's worked before.) If they won't, or you're too shy, or we don't know each other well enough for me to be able to vouch for you, here's some advice about what do on a super-posh or just-posh budget. (I'm not sure if I've already been to the riverside Club der Visionaere mentioned in that article, but I'm definitely going next time, and putting Berlin's Summer 2008 hit in my headphones.) If you're sub-posh, try this piece on hostels. I'm no sophisticate when it comes to fine dining in the middle of Mitteleuropa, but I could prolly put together an exhaustive Google Map on the subject of chowhounding. Being lazy, however, I'll refer you to this New York Times piece. And this one, for chow-blood hounds.

East Is East, West Is West

In my heart, I'm a Prenzlberger, but people have been trying to beat the drum for West Berlin for the last ten years. Kreuzberg is, of course, still agreeably boho; every few years, however, I come across someone claiming that quieter quartiers like Charlottenburg or Schoeneberg are making the move from bourgeois to 'BoBo'.

Beautiful Beemers

Got to make it back to NYC for this before it closes! The Calder 3.0 CSL above is my new DreamCar.

(Best part of this article: Chris Bangle is described as the *departing* chief of design.)

Good Bank-Bad Bank

Alan Blinder talks about the downsides to nationalizing the banks.

Bobby Jindal to Deliver Riposte for GOP on Tuesday

Will this be a decisive step on Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal's path to 2012 contender-dom? In an almost deathwish-y way, I had hoped McCain would choose Jindal (young, gifted, and brown--sound familiar?) as his running mate; but John Heilemann reports that the Louisiana Governor had pulled his own name out of 'fear of being tangled up in a plainly doomstruck campaign'.

Well, in any event, Sarah Palin seemed to have made it out none the worse for (ahem) wear.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

USA Swimming publicly reprimanded Phelps, who won eight medals at the Beijing Games, temporarily withdrawing its financial support to him and barring him from competition through early May. Phelps receives a monthly stipend of $1,750 from the organization. The national and world championships will be held in the summer.

“We decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and hero,” the organization said in a statement.-- the New York Times, 6 February 2009.

Well, I for one am glad that USA Swimming has taken this stance. Without that reprimand, hundreds of thousands of kids might one day grow up and ... smoke pot? Well, that would surely be the end of the world.

Death of a Salesman

Somehow this makes me sad, all the way down in North Carolina. I think I may have only seen him once or twice, but to me he was New York's great instance of that glorious figure: the English Eccentric. Thankfully, a Times blogger got hold of some video of Joe Ades in action. R.I.P.

It's Official

Animal Collective are officially my Favorite Band at the moment.  It's been unofficially true since I saw them in late 2004:  their show that night was one of the best I've ever seen, and it was the perfect way to celebrate my successful dissertation defense earlier that day.  But this song seals the deal, and represents the first time I've even come close to tears of joy:

It's not as if I haven't been deluged by great music lately.  I lived inside of that Grizzly Bear album for a couple of months this fall; after that, I practically married the mathro-pop of Dirty Projectors--an understandable desire, if you've ever seen their bassist and second guitarist ('eerily corn-fed', as a Pitchfork reviewer had it).  And while I'm at it, their album's been out for a while, but have you ever heard Battles' 'Rainbow' song?  Gives me those old 'Peaches en Regalia' warm fuzzies.  (Check out this hilarious vid a fan did for another of their songs.)  It's a deluge, I tell you:  just a few weeks ago, one of my neighbors in Bushwick handed me a DVD he'd just put out; one song, nine remixes, and I still can't seem to stop listening!  But AC is still my official fave.