Jazz...in strange places

Liveblogging lunch: EMP apple crumble

2008-11-18T13:01:00.000-05:00

Liveblogging lunch: EMP chocolate parpardelle with venison

2008-11-18T12:33:00.000-05:00

Liveblogging lunch: EMP poached egg over autumn mushrooms

2008-11-18T12:21:00.000-05:00

Liveblogging lunch: Eleven Madison Park

2008-11-18T11:59:00.000-05:00

congrats to craig

2008-11-18T01:57:00.000-05:00

so my friend craig who'd bagged that job trying to clean up its food rep over at one if by land, two if by sea (a new york institution) just left.

for a job at one of the most famous restaurants in the city, le cirque.

one if by land was tough because the food was just so subpar to begin with. he had a lot of work to do and was still constricted by the fact that people who liked food knew to avoid it like the plague. he couldn't get any appreciation and also had few reviews because of the style of cooking there and because it was primarily a place out-of-towners went to get engaged.

picholine was where he really shined though terrance got almost 100% of the recognition for craig's work.

so hopefully this will be a much better fit. also, i was disappointed to see he wasn't in the running for eater.com's hottest chef contest. dude is cute. and he has an australian accent! can you beat that?! also, he's pretty much taken anyhow so back off single ladies...

george michael, pomegranates, improv

2008-11-17T20:27:00.000-05:00

so the weird dreams are still coming. this time i was going all these places but i was obsessed with pomegranates. granted, i'd just purchased one at the store, but man! i must have wanted it badly if i couldn't stop dreaming about picking seeds out of one.

i got a super good deal at whole foods. i'm reluctant to post about it because next thing you know, someone from their media dept will have sent a memo out nationwide about how to NOT do this thing that someone did that enabled me to get a shitload of free food. yeah, i'm totally not telling this story. e-mail me if you want to hear about it. it involves kale.

having a super fancy lunch at my favorite restaurant tomorrow. nyc is having a bit of a recession-inspired restaurant week so that means three courses for $24.00 baby! whoooo hoooo!

the one consistent thing about my commute each morning is that i will have to listen to some dumb fuck's music all the way to times square. sometimes that person is 2 feet from me, sometimes they're a good 12 feet away with their earbuds just blasting and barely in their ears. usually this music is loud and rappy or sometimes latiny with lots of horns. today? today was careless whisper by george michael, my first known crush. guy listening to it was a pudgy-ish latino buisness-looking dude in his late 30's. it was the first time i didn't mind having to hear someone else's music on the train down.

i am completely obsessed with this stunt by the improv everywhere gang. the looks on these people's faces is just so priceless.

i mean, i really love barack and michelle. i pretty much always have. they gave this interview once where she talked about how barack dragged his feet on marriage. that he'd said, "yeah, i didn't place a whole lot of weight on the institution of marriage for myself" or something similarly intellectualized. and then comes michelle, "yeah, well if you think i'm going to wait around, you've got another thing coming. if you want to keep me, i better see a ring." she's so real. and he's so wonky in an absent-minded professor kind of way. this here is another example of that.

Snowing inside the Time Warner center

2008-11-16T18:50:00.000-05:00

Chicken soup, fresh garlic bread, nero d'avola

2008-11-15T22:28:00.000-05:00

mtvu, recount

2008-11-14T01:40:00.000-05:00

so biden chief of staff ron klain was played by kevin spacey in the HBO movie Recount. a few weeks ago my law school hosted this film forum and ron was there to talk about the film post-screening. it was actually fairly interesting. BUT the most annoying person in the world was sitting next to me. she came in 20 minutes late. opened candy wrappers the whole time. so trashy. and to add insult to injury, bitch asks a question once they open it to the floor. and by question i mean she opened up with something that went like this: "hi, my name is nadine johnson and i teach at john jay. i didn't watch this movie when it showed on hbo because i thought it looked boring but it was actually kind of interesting. well, my question is: why did the bush people sue?"

so if you don't mind, i'm going to give a bit of a shout out here.

hey, nadine! how ya doing. first off, when you ask a question, nobody wants to hear you talk about yourself. you're really not that important. second, when you ask a question, maybe have it be a smart question. not a question that was explicitly answered in the film (bush camp filed to bring the case to federal court). but oh! maybe you missed that part because you were 20 minutes late! oh, and you know what is also rude? taking flash photography with your ghetto camera when people are obviously trying to have a civilized discussion. it's distracting.

i went to the MTVu Woodie awards this week. a friend called with a last minute VIP pass which means we got to hang out on the upper level and eat (excellent fries and buffalo chicken satay) and get free drinks and basically had permission to not give a shit about watching the show. vampire weekend performed, as did santogold but don't even ask if i knew who any of the other bands were. ithaca college did get some award for their music radio station. holla! someone in our group actually said, "hey! i have them in my ipod!" when some bad called "all time low" performed. he pulled it up to prove that he had two whole albums from them. right above that? amy grant. right below them? belinda carlisle. and yes, he was gay.

julie has a quinceanera tonight. the 16th anniversary of her quinceanera. it reminds me of the time i was asked to be a "bridesmaid" or something in a girl's quinceanera in high school. it was a girl that i had a single class with and talked to her maybe twice in my life. at the time, i thought she was crazy and weird. looking back, i think of how sad it was she had no other friends to stand up with her on her big day.

brother, hot water, unemployed people

2008-11-13T01:18:00.001-05:00

so my lame brother finally got an iphone, which means he's back in world of the living for me. kid doesn't have internet at his house and works in an auto shop painting cars all day. he's just not a person that you can communicate with easily. but now he has no excuse not to e-mail me back or to return my phone calls! mwah-ha-ha-ha!!

someone actually told me i had an evil laugh the other day. who was it? OH, i remember. MY BROTHER. also, he told his girlfriend lisa that i called her jenny and kept saying out loud in her presence, "i can' believe you forgot lisa's name. she has no problem remembering yours!" in my own defense, i've never met this girl. my brother has had like 15 long-term relationships and lives with every girlfriend he has. the only ones i remember are the one he married and the one white one that i actually spent a ton of time with while they were together and even after they'd broken up. the only thing i know about lisa is that she sent me a birthday card when i didn't even know she existed. it said, "happy birthday jasmine! i can't wait to meet you!" and three words were misspelled. brightest crayon, she is not. so i called my brother (it had his address as the return address) and said, "so, you have a new girlfriend. and you're living together already?" "yeah." "okay! sounds great!" and that is the extent of my knowledge of ken and his current girlfriend. so NO, i couldn't remember her name. SUE ME. also, he dropped some heavy thing on his foot and broke his toe and ripped the nail bed out and a nail may never grow back and he was kind enough to send me a picture of the bloody mess. i thought it would be a good thing to have my brother back in my life but right now, i'm not so sure.

i've been having some major problems with my management company. they keep "not fixing" our boiler and so we pretty much never have hot water. and so the last time it happened i sent an all-caps e-mail that read, "WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM? DO YOUR FUCKING JOB!" which, granted, wasn't polite but i'm really tired of needing to shower and waking up to ice water from every faucet. thank god for showers at the gym but really, this is unacceptable. since i sent that one e-mail, i've gotten no less than 4 e-mails from different people at my management company telling me not to use foul language. and i have since sent another three e-mails to the effect of, "there is no hot water again." and STILL received responses that read, "i will not respond if you continue to use such language." which is annoying and prompted this response from me:

"wow adam, is it difficult for you to be that melodramatic? re-reading through my e-mail i think the worst word i used was "damn". so sorry to offend your VERY delicate sensibilities. i'd thought this was a PG conversation but i seem to have wounded you.

OR you're trying to make things seem worse from your end than they really are.

i didn't realize that you were such a fragile thing."

this is my life. swearing at and sending emails dripping with faux-concern and sarcasm to total strangers. i rarely lose my temper but these people may cause me to lose my mind. before i take the fuckers to court i'm gonna try to sic "7 on your side" on their asses. people need to learn not to fuck with me. i am not nice.

i have 5 friends who recently lost their jobs. my project will be over soon and i'll be unemployed. this world sucks now for an awful lot of people. and we're like upper middle class people and it's still sucky. i shudder to think about what it's like for those on a lower rung. basically, BHO needs to get his ass in office to start working this shiz out. i mean it!

have been having weirdly bad dreams. in one i killed my friends ted and katie. i think it's due to the article i was reading in the new yorker about psychopaths and all the killing they do. i think they're related because in my dream, i killed them just because. and then i acted that nothing was wrong with it. very psychopathic behavior. then i had another dream where i had a tote with my computer and 1K in cash in it and that i left it out on some picnic table at this gigantic party and was totally, completely, flabbergasted when someone took my bag. it was distressing. but in the dream i was kind of like, "oh well, i needed a new computer anyhow." which i do. now i'm secretly wishing mine gets stolen because i couldn't justify purchasing a new one now otherwise.

off my game

2008-11-12T01:51:00.000-05:00

working weekends totally throws me off my game. every day feels like it should be a friday now because my body SWEARS that it should have had a weekend by now.

i work right near bryant park and have seen so many cute guys walking around with skates down there. i'm thinking i should make skating my new "lunch go-to" activity.

for that commenter who left a novella in the comments re: blacks voting for prop 8, see here. so it wasn't just blacks. latinos helped. but the jews? the jews are okay with teh gays.

went to some party at BCBG where the proceeds of all sales went to help people in malawi. nice concept but nobody was buying a damn thing. also, the gift totes (khaki faux-worn-out bags that, i suppose, were meant to resemble a bag you'd use if you were hanging out in an impoverished country?) were pretty lame. all that aside, plenty of celebrities there. graham bunn from the bachelorette was there! first, his whole angle on the show was that he was a basketball player. dude is petite. but then again, it was European basketball which is so second class as far as those things go. also, isn't bunn the cutest last name ever? it evokes all good things. bunnies, honey buns, hot cross buns, classic hair styles. so anyway, he was twee, but handsome and his date was hot even though her boobs looked all sorts of unnatural.

afterwards we went to this CRAZY chinese place. no ambiance to speak of but a friend really loves it. he's blind though so he has no idea what this hole looks like and i find that funny. we all took a few minutes to examine the menu and were told we were "bad decision makers!" and so as he was chastising us, he's also telling us what we'll have. pushy! yet hilarious! and just before our food came out he comes over to yell, "food about ready to come out! get ready! you not ready!" as he's whipping our napkins from the table and putting them on our laps. and the food was weird. it tasted good but looked really heinous. the meat looked like it had been reconstituted 10 times and we were left with fake wormy-looking chicken and pork. again, the blind friend is lucky he doesn't have to look at the food he's ingesting. while emily and i couldn't decide whether we wanted a bottle of wine or just glasses he yelled, "bottle!" and ran off before we could tell him if we'd wanted otherwise and then before half the bottle was consumed they're coming by to yell, "we closed! bye bye!" which they did about 3 times as we chugged a terrible pinot grigio. so basically, it was an experience.

WTF world? it's only wednesday?

My tailor replaced the tags when he re-lined my coat. Awesome.

2008-11-11T22:44:00.000-05:00

Glow of the chimichurri truck on a fall evening

2008-11-10T20:34:00.000-05:00

ode andrew sullivan

2008-11-10T01:31:00.000-05:00

i suppose it started with palin. i hadn't been reading andrew sullivan past what he'd write which would then be linked by matthew yglesias or ezra klein or something. from what i gather, he used to be considered a conservative blogger. but conservatism has morphed into something that most people don't seem to recognize.

what sullivan is, is a man with a brain who uses that brain to think. period. he's a guy who, whatever his conservative leanings, has mind enough to consider some world beyond the partisan pandering spit out by the likes of malkin. and so i'm not sure for how long he's disapproved of bush and his administration. at what point he "saw the light" but dude when nuts on sarah palin. and i thank him for it. she was, and is, an uneducated, inexperienced, compulsive-lying, disaster. and though i've always had my opinions against gay republicans ("what business do they have being republicans? talk about voting against your own self-interest!"), i haven't known him since before he was speaking in favor of my candidate and against the GOP ticket.

on top of the fact that he's a beautiful writer, i most appreciate the thoughtfulness of his posts which also a fair amount of sensitivity. he's not just an analyst. he's a guy with feelings and he lets his readers glimpse that on a regular basis.

all of this is an introduction to the fact that this post on prop 8 is what kept me from having a total breakdown on tuesday night. as elated as i was about obama's win, i knew it was coming. the approval of prop 8 was a bit of an unexpected result. i have some family there and as an attorney i've spent a lot of time reading 9th circuit cases. all of that has forced into me a belief that california is a wildly progressive/liberal state. and yet, the voters dealt a blow to me that i felt deeply. to the point where i'm still so upset that i tear up at the thought of it. and i'm not even gay (though having some 30 close gay friends may influence my opinions when it comes to gay rights).

and he continues today with his soothing voice and actually, a prescient email from a reader:

One, mildly Oakeshotian, point I don't think is being made enough: one of the pleasures of the week is that it holds out the promise of not having to be obsessed with politics. It is unnatural, it seems to me, to have to care passionately every day about the workings of the central government: only in totalitarian societies, where a knock on the door may come at any time, or in authoritarian ones, where each sneeze of the King has to be analyzed for its potential consequence, does there exist a need to keep the government of the country forever in the forefront of your mind.

One of the blessings of liberal democracy, in theory, is that we delegate the common fate to the most able , intelligent and motivated people among us, and, though we keep an eye on them and make them subject to recall and revision, we can cede our trust to them to do a more or less decent and able job most of the time. We trust them. For the first time in years, we can say now: the government is in the hands of skillful people with a sense of the real; we can live the live sin front of our eyes without worrying that some horror is happening behind our backs. It would be a mistake, I think, for us all to carry on past the election and into the New Year with the same level of obsessive attention that this year, and the years before, have forced on us. Good government gives us back our lives.

Amen to that my friend. Amen to that.

and my weekend went where?

2008-11-09T16:39:00.001-05:00

working weekends = poop.

stopped in to visit the gays yesterday. we watched dirty dancing. when was the last time you saw that movie? for me, it had been probably close to 10 years. it's a really freaking good movie. and baby isn't as ugly as i remember her being. and patrick swayze? DAMN. that man is FINE. and so skinny! except for his tanned broad shoulders. and kelly bishop has not aged at all in 20 years. we all got to yell out the line, "Me? I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you." and maybe, just maybe, a few of us crawled along the floor during that "oh loverboy!" song. and then, just to up the gay ante, we watched enchanted.

there's nothing like being girly with "the ladies."

speaking of good-looking men, check out alexi giannoulias. when i was at barack obama headquarters in chicago this tall glass of water was walking around introducing himself to us, thanking us for being there. though i'm a chicago native, in the past year i've really let go of my chicago trib scanning (too many blogs to read! print media is dead to me! and i only used to keep up so that i had fodder with which to argue with my grandparents) so i had no idea who this guy was. i could tell he was early 30's. he thanked me, i shook his hand said, "sure. no problem" and that was the end of it.

i got back to kate's house and said, "some guy was at headquarters. he was tan, and young and hottish and i think he might have been an elected off---" she cut in, "oh my god. you met alexi gianpopulopulous or whatever his name is! jazz, you need to marry him so that you can move back home and hang out with me when i have babies!! Eeeeeeeeee!!!!!" that woman always finds a way to bring every. single. conversation. back to me leaving new york.

turns out dude is the illinois state treasurer. how's that for ambitious? also, he's buddies with barack and they play ball together. that's kind of amazing for 20 different reasons. also amazing? the bit about him that i just read from the newsweek post-election manifesto:

Obama has always been fiercely competitive and not above stacking his team with the best players. This led to at least one loud argument on the court with his friend Alexi Giannoulias, the Illinois state treasurer, in the tense days before the Iowa caucuses. Obama had loaded his team with Love and some other hot shots, and Giannoulias's team was losing badly. "So I got mad and started yelling at him—'I want to win too!' " recalled Giannoulias. "And it got under his skin." Obama responded, with rare heat, "I don't care who I play with. I'll play with anybody! You want to switch teams? We can switch teams if you want!" Giannoulias declined, out of pique more than anything, he recalled. "And then he just gave me this smile," Giannoulias said, mimicking Obama's signature smile, teeth flashing, eyes crinkled, chin slightly tucked in, a surprising gleam of warmth, guaranteed to disarm.

ah, boys. can't live with 'em, etc.

so my shitty slumlord management company who shuts off our heat and hot water several times each week throughout the whole winter? we're actually going to sue the jerks. tenant meeting tonight. had been resorting to sending profanity-laced e-mails to them asking what the fuck their problem was. hope my neighbors don't get upset that i didn't instigate the suit sooner seeing as i'm an attorney and all. i just didn't want to be the one to try to organize it all. also, i don't have much time for it. but hopefully we're on the road to having hot water for 7 consecutive days! huzzah!

working all weekend: boring

2008-11-08T01:16:00.000-05:00

so a few people have e-mailed or commented to say they couldn't tell cadiz and i apart in this here audio.

when in doubt: i'm the one laughing, sighing, or pulling the classic jasmine: laughing and then sighing loudly. i'm also the one saying "like" or "whatever" a million times. i'm the WORST!

i have a happy shoe story. once upon a time a fair princess stopped into the Juicy store on Bleeker with her gays. it was there she laid her eyes upon a pair of perfect flats. "do you have a 6.5 in these?" "the only ones we have left in the store at the moment are the ones on this mannequin. let me check what size they are. oh! they're a 6.5! it's fate!" and lo, it was. they were the comfiest flats that had ever graced her feet. "but how much are these flats?" she asked. "$225. and they're the leather ones which never go on sale." so the princess left, dejected. but she made a note in her trusty iphone of the make/model of the shoe so she could keep an eye out for them on ebay. well, when the princess was in chicago this past weekend she visited the most beauteous playland of all called "nordstrom rack." and it was within the walls of this magical place, the rack, that she saw them. price? $80. she bought them and lived happily ever after. or until she finds another pair of overpriced shoes to lust over. the end!

speaking of magical places, i had a shopping spree at target. part of me wishes we had one in the city. the other part of me realizes that it would be even more run-down and understocked than the ones in brooklyn and the bronx. but i got so many clothes and shoes there and spent $109.

i saw a guy on the train reading an even older issue of the new yorker than i was. and i found myself judging him for it. which makes me hypocritical. but also, makes me think i'd like to find a man who has the discipline to finish a nyer on time.

i saw a small jewish girl approach a big gangsta looking (sports jersey, jeans crotch hanging near his ankles) guy in the times square subway station today. i thought, "oh, do they know each other?" and then i see her take a gatorade bottle from him and yell thanks at him behind her shoulder as she walked on. she actually stopped a stranger to have him open a bottle for her. it thought it was funny. but then i thought, "damn, i'd be so embarrassed if i had to stop someone to get a bottle opened for me. i'd feel so weak." but i suppose feeling weak is a small price to pay for re-hydration.

good news! kinda! i have a sauna! in my very own apt! and by sauna, i really mean my roommate's room who has her heating unit on so high that she walks around in boyshorts and a tank top all night. if my electric bill goes up so much as $5 we're going to have to talk.

made me tear up this morning

2008-11-07T01:08:00.000-05:00

thanks ezra...

obama rally part II: in which you hear my squeaky nasally voice

2008-11-06T05:51:00.000-05:00

so cadiz had the idea that we do a little audio post since she, jon and i.

i'm the one who had to point out that my feet hurt even though i was wearing "comfy shoes" and not heels.

i really really hate the sound of my voice. and say "like" which i normally make a conscious effort not to do. also, i was tired and delirious. and i had to take a catnap before my car to the airport was going to pick me up 2 hours later at the ungodly hour of 4:30.

my favorite part is the beginning where jon talks about he can cut that part out. had he not offered, we would have started over. but we didn't. it makes me laugh.

so listen here if you so desire.

the rally

2008-11-05T06:24:00.000-05:00

i'm not even sure i have words for what happened tuesday night.

on the pure logistics/physicality: a lot of standing. and waiting. and just an enormous amount of people. a few security checks and, thank god, a metal detector. it was warm. like, walk-around-in-a-tee-shirt-and-nothing-else warm. in chicago! what alternate universe is this?! and my feet were killing me even though i was wearing comfy gym shoes. and we were thirsty but didn't have water because we'd never have found a porta potty. i got a text that he was underperforming inVA which made me feel sick to my stomach. i had visions of it all unraveling: "but if he doesn't in VA he won't win PA!" ad infinitum. i was happy for the metal detectors because i'm constantly afraid that someone is going to try to hurt him. and once he won PA i knew it was over.

then CNN called it. lots of hugs. part of me probably would have collapsed in a crying fit if i'd had room enough to fall down. my head down, my hands to my face, all i could do was shake my head in disbelief as the tears welled up. but it was a strange feeling. i'd been a huge believer in this guy since his convention speech. there was just never a single doubt in my mind that he was the most skilled politician in a century. i never doubted his temperament or his judgment. i've absolutely always known he was going to pull this out so while i was shocked, i just wasn't, at all. and so i was also relieved but not, because i wasn't ever really worried. i can honestly say i have never been so sure of anything my entire life.

so what followed was a lot of waiting. mccain's acceptance speech came more quickly than i expected and was also more graceful. can't say the same for his audience but he and palin made them that way. if his supporters are assholes he has nobody but himself to blame. feet still hurting. "signed, sealed, delivered" started playing. "sweet home chicago" another couple songs i don't remember. a prayer. the pledge of allegiance. a TERRIBLE rendition of the star spangled banner in which the singer couldn't even remember all the fucking words. was she drunk? feet still hurting. obama arrives. pain in feet disappear. he looks beat down. i don't blame him. it's like, "hey, let me tirelessly work for years to attain what amounts to a huge pile of steaming shit that i now have to make into a sparkly unicorn."

i need to re-watch the speech. though it was loud and clear, my mind was in a million places. i was on my tippy toes to get pictures of him at the podium over the heads of some tall people in front of us. parts of it were things i'd heard a million times before. and part of me just didn't think any words would represent that moment. not even words from obama.

leaving was a crazy experience. every street for close to a mile was closed. people danced and sang in the middle of the streets and there were so many people. it felt like the new york city blackout all over again. a city stopped dead in its tracks, taken over by pedestrians. joyful, tearful, liberal pedestrians all wearing obama gear. it was a utopia.

but now the real stuff starts. can someone so smart with such good decision-making skills even fix this? i'm happy that he talked about how this mess may not even be fixed in a term because that shiz is true. so for those expecting a savior, he's not. but he's our best chance of getting out of this mess in one piece. if such a thing is even possible.

and to cap of the 6 most surreal hours of my life, i get to the airport, plop down right in front of the chek-in counter, and double-take the guy sitting to my right. holy shit! david remnick! holy shit!

so damn weird. i wanted to ask where he'd been last night (probably in the VIP pen with oprah). i wanted to ask what the deal was with the blacks killing civil rights legislation for a minority group (i shed another tear for prop 8 this morning). i wanted to ask if ben mcgrath was single because not only is he my favorite writer at the new yorker, he's also young enough to be a bachelor. but it was early. i didn't have my wits about me. and i had bed head. and i was also in the new york mode of barely acknowledging celebrities because fawning over them makes you look silly and uncool. as if me fawning over the editor of a magazine not titled vogue doesnt already make me silly and uncool in and of itself. i am a HUGE dork. not sure why i pretend to be otherwise sometimes.

photos coming soon.

OMFG! David Remnick sitting next to me at airport!

2008-11-05T06:20:00.001-05:00

I said, "you're David remnick!"

His response, "yes, I am." followed by a face that read, "I'm sorry,
do I know you?"

"sorry, you don't know me. I'm jasmine. I love your magazine."

"happy to hear it!"

This has been one he'll of a crazy weekend. Will post rally photos asap.

Sent from my iPhone

I'm in! Obama rally!!

2008-11-04T20:48:00.000-05:00

Clusterfuck waiting to get through the metal detector

2008-11-04T19:34:00.000-05:00

The new love of my life: a tall glass of water named Glenn. He looked like Harry Connick Jr.

2008-11-04T16:23:00.000-05:00

Loser who has been sitting here for hours and not helping

2008-11-04T14:40:00.001-05:00

HQ! Fired up!

2008-11-04T14:22:00.001-05:00