NYC’s best off-the-menu items from an Eater
NYC’s best off-the-menu items from an Eater contest. The winning entry? Spaghetti Bolognese at Peter Luger.
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kottke.org posts about nyc
Thomas Keller’s Per Se is getting rid
Thomas Keller’s Per Se is getting rid of tipping, opting for a 20% flat rate for service to be split between the entire staff.
Dan Barber on the embraced chaos of
Dan Barber on the embraced chaos of working in David Bouley’s kitchen. Barber, who runs the excellent Blue Hill, contributed this essay to the new book, Don’t Try This at Home (eGullet chatter).
Post-it Notes are used as pixels to
Post-it Notes are used as pixels to make huge images in this Bergdorf-Goodman window display.
Big exhibition of Lee Friedlander’s photography at
Big exhibition of Lee Friedlander’s photography at the MoMA until the end of August. It’s interesting to see the influence Friedlander’s work has had on some of the photobloggers I follow.
Ice Cream Factory smackdown in Chinatown
Ice Cream Factory smackdown in Chinatown. Same owners or will an ice cream war consume Chinatown?
Cezanne and Pissarro at the MoMA
Cezanne and Pissarro at the MoMA. “Working in tandem or with each other in mind, Cezanne and Pissarro formulated a distinctly modern art, simultaneously self-confident and self-critical.”
Joel Robuchon to open Atelier restaurant in
Joel Robuchon to open Atelier restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel in New York next spring.
1880s Brooklyn brownstone has swastika patterns as
1880s Brooklyn brownstone has swastika patterns as part of the wood flooring. “We turned to the landlord guy and said, ‘You haven’t fixed this?!?!’ He suggested that we could just put furniture over them. All four, in every room. And then he told us that there had been a number of Jews who’d looked at the place and ‘seemed really bothered by it.’”
Mock-up photos of the “East Village” retail
Mock-up photos of the “East Village” retail complex planned for Las Vegas. There’s even a displaced meatpacking district and Washington Square arch.
A citizen’s guide to refusing NYC subway searches
A citizen’s guide to refusing NYC subway searches. “As innocent citizens become increasingly accustomed to being searched by the police, politicians and police agencies are empowered to further expand the number of places where all are considered guilty until proven innocent.”
NYC taxi agency approves the use of
NYC taxi agency approves the use of hybrid cars as taxis. Downside: the hybrids have less leg room than the vast Crown Vic.
Eater is a new NYC food/restaurant blog
Eater is a new NYC food/restaurant blog. Looks a bit too gossipy for my taste, but that’s me.
Ugh, riders on the NYC subway are
Ugh, riders on the NYC subway are going to have their bags randomly searched by the NYPD. “People who do not submit to a search will be allowed to leave, but will not be permitted into the subway station.” What the fuck?!?
Slideshow of historic photography from the archives
Slideshow of historic photography from the archives of ICP and the George Eastman Collection. Lots of photos from both collections are set to be available online in 2006 at photomuse.org.
The folks at Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack
The folks at Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack go above and beyond the call of duty. When a birthday party shows up after an erroneously posted closing time, the manager has food sent over for them from the kitchen at Eleven Madison Park. Amazing service.
The Semi-Permanent design conference takes place in NYC 9/9-9/10
The Semi-Permanent design conference takes place in NYC 9/9-9/10.
FontHunt is a typographic scavenger hunt taking
FontHunt is a typographic scavenger hunt taking place in NYC the week of July 21. Doesn’t get much geekier (or cooler) than this, folks.
Couple fires their nanny because they were
Couple fires their nanny because they were uncomfortable about her blog and then write about it in the NY Times. And the nanny fires back on her blog.
Duccio’s Madonna and Child
The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently purchased a painting called Madonna and Child by Duccio di Buoninsegna. The Met paid $50 million for the early Renaissance piece, more than they’ve paid for any single acquisition to date. The New Yorker has the story of how they came to own the last Duccio in private hands. In the article, Calvin Tomkins explains the reason for the painting’s importance:
Small as it is, the painting has a powerful presence. It captures the eye from a distance, and commands, up close, something like complete attention. Holding the Christ child in her left arm, the Virgin looks beyond him with melancholy tenderness, while the child reaches out a tiny hand to brush aside her veil. Centuries of Byzantine rigidity and impersonal, hieratic forms are also brushed aside in this intimate gesture. We are at the beginning of what we think of as Western art; elements of the Byzantine style still linger—in the gold background, the Virgin’s boneless and elongated fingers, and the child’s unchildlike features—but the colors of their clothing are so miraculously preserved, and the sense of human interaction is so convincing, that the two figures seem to exist in a real space, and in real time. Candle burn marks on the frame, which is original, testify to the picture’s use as a private devotional image. It is dated circa 1300.
I had the good fortune to stumble across the Duccio at the Met a few weeks ago (I was there for the Diane Arbus exhibition and passed it by accident on the way to another part of the musuem). What struck me at the time was a certain oddity of the piece…almost like it wasn’t what they’d said it was but magical all the same. I know Jack about art[1], but after reading more about Madonna and Child, it probably seemed odd to me because it’s a transitional piece, not quite Renaissance but not quite Byzantine either. The piece is a thin slice of a phase transition that had barely begun, a moment frozen from when the artists of the day were collectively working out how a Renaissance painting would eventually differ from earlier European styles and represent the wider cultural changes then occurring. Marco Grassi writes in The New Criteron:
More importantly, the artist places the Virgin at a slight angle to the viewer, behind a fictive parapet. She gazes away from the Child into the distance while He playfully grasps at Her veil. One must realize that every aspect of this composition represents a departure from pre-existing convention. With these subtle changes, Duccio consciously developed an image of sublime tenderness and poignant humanity, almost a visual echo of the spiritual renewal that St. Francis of Assisi had wrought only a few decades earlier.
More more on Duccio, check out his biography on Wikipedia and some collections of his work (1, 2, 3), including other Duccio representations of the Virgin and Child),
[1] I wish I’d taken an art history class in college, but my 18-yo self wasn’t that interested.
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