Athom Café

Broadway, which stretches through Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant, is a place of Mexican food, fried chicken, pizza joints, and Dunkin’ Donuts stores. But tucked between the Myrtle-Broadway and Kosciusko Street J train stops is an exception: Athom Café, a tiny, unassuming French pâtisserie that serves up the most delicious and well-priced baguettes, omelettes, and salads, all made to order by the affable French man who owns and runs the place, as well as croissants and pastries. Athom opened earlier this year, and while it doesn’t look like much from the outside, inside it’s quaint, cosy, and nicely lit. The meals are made with harmonious ingredients of the highest quality, and the pastries could not be lighter and fresher. Last week, I had my favorite baguette: salmon, brie, and tomato, served with a side of perfectly-dressed salad greens. My friend rates the omelette with fontina, caramelized onions, and red peppers, with grilled potatoes on the side. I find the freshly-squeezed pink grapefruit juice too sour for my liking, but the warm chocolate croissant is the best I’ve ever tasted. This café is a winner.

1096 Broadway (between Dodworth St and Dekalb Ave)
Brooklyn, NY 11221

Athom Café

Russ and Daughters

Russ and Daughters has been around since 1914. This tiny shop in the Lower East Side has been run by four generations of the Russ family, and specializes in delicacies of the highest quality. On the left side of the shop, you’ll find dozens of varieties of smoked salmon, smoked fish, cream cheese, and condiments, ready to be made into a tasty snack on the spot or taken away for later. I ordered a bagel topped with Norwegian smoked salmon, green olive cream cheese, red onions, and tomato ($8.45). Next to me, a New Yorker passionate about his fish was ordering Scottish smoked salmon for a dinner party. He cried out when the fishmonger began to thinly-slice the fillet before him. “No, no, no! Stop! Stop!” Alarmed, I bent my knees and peered through the glass cabinet at the fish on the counter. What was wrong? Taking a deep breath, the man explained, as calmly as he could, that the slices were not in sync with the grain of the salmon. “The way you’re doing it will get the job done,” he said, “but it won’t look pretty.” On the right side of the shop, I ordered some of my favorite snacks: a dark chocolate-covered pretzel (sweet and salty…divine) and a quarter-pound of  dried pears and peaches (fresh, plump, and juicy, with just the right amount of tartness). I had to hold back from also ordering artichokes, prunes, black and red liquorice, and a dark chocolate-covered raspberry jelly. With my snacks safely tucked away in my bag, I walked towards Bleecker Street in a trance, enjoying the dreaminess of the salmon bagel melting in my mouth. And, not content with that hit of Russ and Daughters, I returned later in the day for a lox and dill cream cheese bagel ($3.45)—fabulous.

179 East Houston Street
New York, NY 10002

Russ and Daughters

Life on the Street

Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street, curated by the Sesame Workshop, is on until 21 February 2010 at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library. A treat for Sesame Street fans like me, the exhibition explores the show’s history through original book illustrations, photographs, scripts, sheet music, and, of course, muppets.

The concept for Sesame Street was conceived in 1966 when very little educational and entertaining television programming existed for children. (There’s a beautiful black and white photograph of a group of children participating in focus group testing before the show was launched; a nearby slideshow simulated diversions.) It was co-creator Joan Cooney’s idea to include attention-grabbing commercials throughout the show to help teach children about numbers and letters. Sesame Street premiered on 10 November 1969 and, now in its 40th season, is the long-running children’s program on American television.

The library’s foyer cases display a selection of muppets and puppets, on loan from Jim Henson collections, including Bert, Ernie, Elmo, Cookie Monster, Grover, Prairie Dawn, and Sherlock Hemlock. There’s also information about the characters’ histories. Roosevelt Franklin, for example, a popular pink-faced, black-haired puppet who loved to sing, skat, and rhyme at elementary school, was “discontinued” after seven seasons (1969-1976) because his rambunctiousness was seen by some to reinforce disruptive behavior.

Also on display are original illustrations for books, puzzles, calendars, flash cards, and other Sesame Street products, from the 1970s to the present. I was particularly impressed with Mike Pantuso’s thickly-painted gouache illustrations for Food! by Cookie Monster (Random House, 2002), which is significantly different in style to other Sesame Street books.

The exhibition highlights Sesame Street productions from around the world through some stunning photographs. There’s a blue monster talking to three South African girls on a swing (Takalani Sesame was launched in 2000 and has achieved great success with HIV education in sub-Saharan Africa); purple muppet Filfil with a young girl dancing in front of some pyramids in Egypt’s Alam Simsim, which focuses on encouraging  girls to learn and contribute to society; and a blue muppet surrounded by children in a shanty town in India’s Galli Galli Sim Sim, which started in 2006.  My favorite photograph comes from Mexico’s Plaza Sésamo—it’s of Abelardo, Big Bird’s fluorescent green, pink, and orange parrot cousin, as goalkeeper in a game of outdoor soccer with a group of Mexican children.

Other gems on display include food props (eggs, sandwiches, milk, and other foods with faces); an original, scribbled-on script for the episode dealing with the death of Mr Hooper, which aired on Thanksgiving in 1983; and a black and white photograph of puppeteers Frank Oz (Grover, Cookie Monster, and Bert) and Carroll Spinney (Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch) consulting on a script circa 1975.

This exhibition is a fantastic celebration of the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street, and my only complaint is that not all photographs are dated.

Illustration from "Food! by Cookie Monster"

West Side Story – 12 Nov 2009

The Broadway production of West Side Story, now playing at the Palace Theatre, is electric; the story of Tony and Maria, torn by their opposing ethnic groups, is timeless, and Bernstein’s score has an enduring freshness and vitality. The production has sparked controversy because some of the Puerto Rican characters’ lines are delivered in Spanish; this technique does add authenticity, but my literal mind was sometimes frustrated by not being able to comprehend the exact meaning of passages. Josefina Scaglione shone as the radiant, charming, sweet Maria; her singing was clear and crisp and subtle in dynamics, and her duets with Tony—“Tonight”,  “One Hand, One Heart”, and “Somewhere”—were captivating. The sets are simple and effective—an imposing steel bridge backdrop nicely sets the scene under the highway. The highlights of the production, for me, were the “Dance at the Gym” mambo (fantastically energetic and well-choreographed) and “America”, with its brilliant, infectious lyrics by Sondheim. I never tire of hearing the Shark girls praise the virtues of America (“I like to be in America, Okay by me in America, Everything free in America”) while the boys offer a more cautious outlook (“Everywhere grime in America, Organized crime in America, Terrible time in America”).

Palace Theatre
1564 Broadway
New York NY 10036

West Side Story

Live from the NYPL – 9 Nov 2009

Wes Anderson (director and co-writer of Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) and Noah Baumbach (writer and director of Margot at the Wedding, The Squid and the Whale) last night conversed about their new film Fantastic Mr. Fox, an animated adaptation of the Roald Dahl book, at LIVE from the NYPL (New York Public Library). It was entertaining to watch these colleagues and close friends talk about things they’ve talked about many times before, and ask each other questions they knew the answers to. Noah: “Wes, why don’t you tell the audience about how Fantastic Mr. Fox was one of the first books you had as a child, one that was always on your bookshelf”. Wes: “Yes, that’s one of the things I’ve been saying in interviews, and it’s very possibly true”. They recounted the process of making the film through plenty of entertaining anecdotes. When the animators couldn’t achieve the right expressions and movements in the animals, Wes would give direction by making a quick video of himself. He admitted, “it’s embarrassing to email videos of myself acting out animals…in the morning…in my pajamas…to a large group of people in London.” Fantastic Mr. Fox opens on Friday.

Wes Anderson

Room in Brooklyn

I like the fact that I have my very own room in Brooklyn, à la Edward Hopper’s Room in Brooklyn (1932)—but, alas, rather than a wooden rocking chair, it features a hard plastic chair courtesy of the sidewalk. The room faces away from Manhattan, and is a stumble from the big, former Pfizer factory.  The New York Times gave an accurate description of this slightly shabby patch of Brooklyn in 2007, just before the factory closed: “If this area on the Williamsburg-Bedford-Stuyvesant border is not quite Pfizerville, it still may be the closest thing to a factory town in this largely postindustrial city. For 158 years, the Pfizer company has presided over this remote-feeling stretch of Brooklyn, a windswept, big-sky place sliced like a pie by broad, angling streets: first as industrial magnet, then as big brother-benefactor.” A highlight of the neighborhood, which also borders Bushwick, is Fat Albert Warehouse, a low-budget department store which seems to have everything I could ever need, at a price between 99c and $9.99. Items that can be acquired for 99c include tea towels, shoe polish, pillowcases, and sets of eight plastic coat hangers…nice.

Hopper's Room in Brooklyn (1932)

Print Fair window-shopping

The 2009 International Fine Print Dealers Association Print Fair is on until 8 November 2009 at the historic Park Avenue Armory, an amazing late nineteenth-century building with a massive, arched main hall that is much like a grand European train station shed. The fair features prints of works from all periods, exhibited by over 80 art dealers. If I could have purchased three prints, they would have been:

1) Wilhelm Laage’s Sur la plage (1906), a simple woodcut impression, on grey paper, of a cloaked and hatted woman standing on the beach. $2,000.

2) Andy Warhol’s Happy Butterfly Day (1955), a hand-colored offset lithograph buzzing with cheerful pink, orange, and yellow butterflies. $20,000.

3) Edvard Munch’s Death in the Sickroom (1895), which depicts family members—seated, standing, pacing, praying—dealing with tragedy in the room. $140,000.

Happy Butterfly Day

Watteau to Degas

Watteau to Degas: French Drawings from the Frits Lugt Collection is on at The Frick Collection until 10 January 2010. Frederik Johannes Lugt (1884–1970) was a Dutch art connoisseur and collector, and the exhibition presents sixty-four delicate eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French pencil, watercolor, gouache, pastel, and chalk works from his collection. Magnifying glasses are provided so you can examine the detail of these fine pieces. I was enchanted by Léon Bonvin’s The Plain of Vaugirard (1856), which beautifully depicts a desolate field with a sweeping, bright sky, all captured simply in black chalk. In Swans on the Lake of the Bois de Boulogne (1885), Berthe Morisot portrays swans reflected on the water with just a few pastel strokes (I overheard a gallery attendant remark that she didn’t see any beauty in this picture, which  might have been “done by a three-year-old”). I also liked Charles-Joseph Natoire’s View of San Giovanni e Paolo in Rome (1757), a nicely-composed grey-washed work showing people and horses in the town. And François-Marius Granet’s View of Mont Sainte-Victoire from the Terrace of Malvalat (1844?) is a spectacular watercolor featuring a pot of bright yellow flowers sitting on a sun-drenched ledge overlooking the valley. This exhibition celebrates the beauty of simplicity, and is definitely worth seeing.

Bonvin's The Plain of Vaugirard (1856)

At the laundromat

I can’t get enough of my local laundromat. I find it kind of therapeutic, and I attribute this to a number of factors: the cosy temperature; the clean, fresh smell; the gentle hum of heavy-duty washers and dryers; the murmur of the two televisions at low volume (Animal Planet is always on one of them); the jangle of coins being dispensed and inserted; the colorfulness of the vending centre, where you can buy washing powder (I am pleased with my $1 packet of Tide), lollies, and snacks; and the lazy comings and goings of customers. And all this activity takes place under the watchful eye of the manager, who comes to the rescue (albeit slowly) in the unlikely event of a machine malfunction. It’s like a little community—the customers are polite to each other, excusing themselves as they roll past with their laundry carts, and help out newcomers struggling with unfamiliar technology. Everyone perhaps feels equal, united in not being owners of washing machines.

The laundromat

New York Philharmonic – 30 Oct 2009

The New York Philharmonic’s concert at Avery Fisher Hall on Friday night opened with the beauty and brilliance of Beethoven’s Egmont overture. The orchestra moved effortlessly through the ebbs and flows of the music, from the dramatic and deep opening bars to the swelling, melodic themes, which built to a thrilling conclusion and engulfed the audience. Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor was wonderful, but marred by the extended symphony of coughing from the audience between the first and second movements; the soloist Emanuel Ax made a good-humored hushing gesture indicating that it was time to be quiet. (I cannot stand coughing for the sake of coughing between movements; unfortunately, this problem is rife.) Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story performed by the New York Philharmonic could never be anything but spectacular. Masterful music played by a masterful orchestra. ‘Somewhere’ was beautiful and lyrical, and the ‘Mambo’ was explosive; the percussionists sounded amazing, especially the drum kit player, as did the string, brass, and woodwind sections. The complex rhythms were produced with precision, and the power of the whole sound was impressive. Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat, Suite No. 2, concluded the concert. The orchestra already seems to have formed a strong rapport with new music director and conductor Alan Gilbert, who brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm to the stage.

Alan Gilbert