One quick reminder ... Remember that part of the fun is following the links and I have provided lots of interesting leads for you.  They do not necessarily go to the obvious sites.

Just before going to press, some significant news arrived that takes precedence over my normal musings, which will be found below.  At our quarterly staff meeting on Friday, June 29, there were some major announcements regarding the staff of Church Publishing Inc.

First, Frank Hemlin, Senior VP and Publisher, shocked everyone by announcing his retirement, effective January 1, 2002.  He feels that his goals have been accomplished and he has a well-oiled team.  He will not be replaced.

Second, the IT Editor to whom I have been reporting is moving into another unit of the Group and I will take her position.  There are some minor changes, most due to her depth of knowledge of databases versus my linguistic and theological skills.

In my new job, I will be the editor of the Episcopal Clerical Directory while also being involved in editorial and marketing projects.  It is a dream come true.  And, yes, I get an office.

Bryan and I saw AI, the Stanley Kubrick project realized by Steven Spielberg.  Terrible.  My personal view is that Kubrick really lost it in the last decade of his life; there really was no way to go with this “vision” particularly in the hands of Spielberg.  A least they still make coffee the old-fashioned plunger method.

Also, Bryan shares these thoughts with you:  “Stop the flappin’ … Make it happen.”

Next season on the Sopranos … Vinnie Vienna Fingers, Tony Rigatoni

BTW, the web site for Bryan’s father’s engineering business is inberg-miller

The dreams of Mr. Timothy McVeigh came to an end on Monday morning, June 11 on the Feast of St. Barnabas.  What dreams did he have for his future?  Probably the same as all of us until we get caught up in some untenable position or another.  And what of the god that he would supposedly meet?  Perhaps a loving god who stretches out its loving arms to embrace the weary souls of those who have come to rest as opposed to the finger-shaking “bad grandmother” who is the finger of justification.  We so want a god that is based on our image of ourselves instead of the other way around.

I too had dreams.  Then taken away.  Then tentatively given back.  Will I be found out by the private investigators?  Or will I find out from them that I am the long-lost king of an ancient monarchy?  And where are there those ancient monarchies and do I really want to leave my comfortable, one-bedroom brick-walled, fire-placed, balconied apartment in the East Village for some monsoon drenched hell-hole five-thousand miles away?

On a Saturday night in June, we had dinner at Radio Perfecto on Avenue B.  A year ago, there was no way that you could just walk up to that restaurant at 9 pm on a Saturday and expect to find a table.  Much less a table in the garden.  But time has passed and the lines now form outside other new restaurants. 

Certainly the food there has remained good; the relatively straightforward menu specializes in a home-cooked chicken prepared in different ways and there is a full bar.  The garden itself is perfect as it abuts one of the small city gardens that are found around the East Village adding to its beauty.  The prices are also quite moderate.

Here are some other restaurants in the East Village who have been around for awhile, where the lines have grown smaller but the food is still good:

Mie, on Second Avenue near Twelfth Street, for Japanese food since 1964.  While NYU students wait for an hour outside Iso, a block away, and where the “cool” American waiters mangle the pronunciation of the dishes, one can almost always get a table here, where Mr. Suzuki has been preparing fresh fish dishes for almost thirty years and where you will always feel like family.

Speaking of family, for old-fashioned Italian, check out Lanza’s, on First Avenue between Tenth and Eleventh Streets; the family which has operated the restaurant since 1894 leased the name to the Sal Anthony group a couple of years ago which has raised the quality of the food immensely.

Zito’s, another family Italian and famous for its bakery, is up a block and features huge portions for cheap prices.  They have just opened a branch in the West Village.

From West to East (Village, that is), Tanti Baci, a restaurant that Bryan and I willing walk to (163 West 10th Street, at the corner of Seventh), has just opened a branch at 513 East 6th Street between Avenues A and B.  In this case, go to the original as the new location has an extremely loud decibel level in accordance with the latest “hip” restaurants.  Did you know that Joni Mitchell celebrated her birthday at the original in 1996?

Our final recommendation for Italian is Brunetta’s, on the same block as Lanza’s.  For awhile they have been quite lackluster, and even an incredible back garden (which reminds me of my grandmother’s old home in Newark NJ) couldn’t bring us back.  But one night Bryan and I took my colleague Sean Scheller there and had incredible food.  Everything was spot on and the prices are great.

For Chinese, Mee Noodle Shop is an East Village tradition; even Allen Ginsburg was a regular.  They are on the corner of First Avenue and 13th Street.

Finally, could I talk about restaurants in the area without mentioning our regular watering hole, Pangea, which just celebrated their 15th anniversary?  They were originally in another location and then moved to their current one under their old name La Spaghetteria (you may remember Bryan and I eating there at the beginning of our relationship).  The food is still amazingly consistent, due to Stephen, who is one of the two owners along with our crazy Cuban friend, Arnoldo.

My grandmother lived to be almost a hundred years old, being born just at the end of the nineteenth century.  Not long before she passed on, she was asked about the most significant invention of the twentieth century.  Of all the things she could have named, she felt the most important was aspirin.  Not cars, not electricity, not communication advances.  Aspirin.  As a child, she had suffered from headaches (a family tradition, it seems) and the introduction of aspirin changed her life.  Without it, she could not have enjoyed nor appreciated any of the other advances.  So aspirin it was.

I guess I just don’t understand it.  Continuing the tradition of intros and outros without any melody or vocal, the latest trance cd in the Renaissance series, mixed by Dave Seaman, was rather boring and just seemed to go on and on.  Does one need to be doing ecstasy or another drug to keep from noticing that there isn’t even one hook here?  Even the track by Moby tends to become annoying in its embrace of the lackluster, and I was more than willing to like his piece.  Of course, others may feel differently.

Next up, the Crouch End Festival Chorus: Philip Glass — Songs From Liquid Days.  I have redacted a review from singers.com:

“Three Songs” was commissioned to commemorate the 350th Anniversary of Quebec in 1984 and features the setting of words by Leonard Cohen, Raymond Levesque, and Octavio Paz to the original a cappella score by Glass.

This will put you in the mood for the new and very choral interpretations of “Songs From Liquid Days” which feature lyrics by Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Paul Simon, and Suzanne Vega.  While the six songs each stand alone, as a body of work the impact is much more powerful.

An additional treat to be discovered in this recording is the solo work Willis Morgan and Najma Akhtar who is an exceptionally popular singer in Britain.  She uses traditional North Asian musical forms as a basis for her song stylizations.  [She was also the vocalist in Led Zeppelin’s “Unledded.”]

The Crouch End Festival Chorus was founded in 1984 by David Temple and John Gregson who met while singing in the London Philharmonic Choir.  Producer/arranger Jeremy Marchant sought to arrange the works with the Chorus, substituting vocal for the orchestral parts in earlier arrangements.  Working with Philip Glass provided significant guidance in keeping the feel of the arrangements true to the original scores.

This month we are recommending the five radio stations of the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corportation:

There Are Some Men, by Philip Glass & Leonard Cohen

There are some men
who should have mountains
to bear their names through time.
Grave markers are not high enough or green
and sons go far away to lose the fist
their father’s hand will always seem

I had a friend he lived and died
in mighty silence and with dignity
left no book son or lover to mourn.
Nor is this a mourning song
but only a naming of this mountain
on which I walk
fragrant, dark and softly white
under the pale of mist
I name the mountain after him.

Adelante!

Take me home

Remind me of what Tony was talking about last month

Take me to August