Monthly Archives: March 2010

Seated Nude, by Richard Diebenkorn (1966)

Guru, the vocal half of Gang Starr, suffered a heart attack over the weekend. I’ve heard that he is in a coma. Earlier today, DJ Premier tweeted that Guru had surgery and is doing okay. I don’t know any details but Guru’s monotoned delivery is legendary for Hip Hop fans of a certain vintage.

Here’s hoping he’s going to pull through.

I didn’t like fennel until I had a shaved fennel salad at Frank, an Italian jernt in the East Village about ten years ago. Since then, I’ve learned to love fennel, even if it isn’t shaved thin. Still, that’s my favorite way to prepare it: so fresh and so clean (clean).

Dig this yummy recipe from Pen and Fork, an excellent food blog.

When this tune came out there just wasn’t anything else that sounded like it. I remember listening to it on the bus as my high school baseball team drove to away games. Twenty years later, it stands as one of the great Hip Hop singles. Gotta love that 808 drum machine.

28 Going Back To Cali

Dig how Kid Koala flipped the horn intro into this classic turntablist routine:

It’s still cold here in New York City but the position of the sun changes each day, letting us know that the spring is near. The air is starting to smell different too. I haven’t had baseball or the Yankees on my mind too tough this winter; I’ve actively tried to keep my distance, if you can do such a thing updating a blog four, five times a day (even if a majority of those posts are not related to baseball).

I’m suffering from a case of information overload–from tweets and blogs and newspaper columns and hot stove shows on TV–and I’ve taken a step back so that I don’t become completely numb. I want to keep my senses sharp, which isn’t always easy after seven-and-a-half years of blogging about living in New York and rooting for the Yankees.

But this morning, I got excited for the season. What got me is a photograph of Mariano Rivera in a New York Times article by Ben Shpigel. It is the classic Rivera pose, his upper body perfectly aligned as he threw a pitch, his teeth showing.

We’ve talked about the need to appreciate Rivera’s greatness a lot over the years because we know isn’t going to last forever. We’re in bonus time with Rivera now–every performance is gravy. Looking at this picture reminded me how fortunate we are to root for him and the Yankees.

Oh, yeah. I’m ready.

Seated Woman, by Willem de Kooning (1940)

Yesterday, Pete Hamill reviewed the new Willie Mays biography for the New York Times Book Review. It is a sentimental piece that made me wince more than a few times. Today, I read a response to Hamill’s essay by Joe Posnanski. Good stuff by Pos.

[Painting by Will Johnson]

Albert Brooks meets Albert King…Who knew the blues could be this funny?

13 Englishman-German-Jew Blues

From Albert Brooks’ classic out-of-print comedy album, A Star is Bought.

Funny what words make you hungry. Like “nooks” for example. Remember the commercials for Thomas’ English Muffins always talked about “nooks and crannies“? It never occured to me that this was Madison Avenue at work. Who didn’t like a “nook” or a “cranny”?

My uncle Fred made me dinner a few times when I was a kid. He is a painter and a neat, orderly guy. Those were special occasions at his apartment. I felt so grown-up. His wife, my dad’s sister, Beice was out for some reason and it was just the two of us. He toasted english muffins the way they looked on TV, perfectly even–at my house, the edges always burned. Then, he spread a thin layer of mustard on both sides and folded few slices of Genoa Salami inbetween. Some peperoncini on the side.

We set our sandwiches on a tray and watched the Yankees on WPIX in his art studio. It’s a vague but savory and happy memory, and to this day I make salami sandwiches on english muffins and think of my uncle, whom I love very much.

This update is powered by . . . an all-star performance of  “In the Midnight Hour”

• Joel Sherman warns of the major contracts of the aging Yankee core.
• Ramiro Pena realizes he won’t be playing short on a regular basis anytime soon.
• Brian Cashman, on Robby Cano:

“He’s already one of the premier guys in the game, but that’s the only thing separating him from taking it to a whole other level,” Brian Cashman said. “If he can be more selective at the plate, he could have a Hall of Fame-type career.”

Since Cano debuted in 2005, his .306 average ranks 13th among all active players and fourth among all American Leaguers who have played at least 700 games, trailing only Ichiro Suzuki (.328), Derek Jeter (.322) and Michael Young (.313).

“He’s still young,” Cashman said. “He really has a chance to make a name for himself that would last forever. That’s the type of hitting talent he has.”

Mark Teixeira, who watched Cano from across the field for four years, didn’t gain an appreciation for just how good the 27-year-old is until last season.

“He has so much talent, it would be easy for him to say, ‘I’m going to let my talent play and I’ll have a decent year,'” Teixeira said. “But he wants to be one of the best – and he can be.”

(more…)