Razor sharp

You REALLY don't want to mess with our cat.

Upon reflection

Sumeet's eye is excellent; these are just two snaps (with an Instagram filter applied, I think) near his office.

The Information

I had something of a hard time hanging with the entirety of James Gleick's The Information (one-line Janet Maslin review, extracted from the Times: "The Information is to the nature, history, and significance of data what the beach is to sand.").That said, the book's final paragraph is a thing of real beauty:

The library will endure; it is the universe. As for us, everything has not been written; we are not turning into phantoms. We walk the corridors, searching the shelves and rearranging them, looking for lines of meaning amid leagues of cacophony and incoherence, reading the history of the past and of the future, collecting our thoughts and collecting the thoughts of others, and every so often glimpsing mirrors, in which we may recognize creatures of the information.

Perhaps this is indecipherable denuded of the context of the 500-odd page tome, but I found it striking. Lots of provocative ideas and little bits of history and culture; tons to unpack and meditate on.

On the block

Most street fairs, at least in Astoria, are fairly standard: whether you're on 36th Avenue or Ditmars, you can bet you'll see mozzarepas, cheap sheet sets, and Time Warner guys trying to sell you on cable. Was there a time when these were a bit more distinct, a better reflection of neighborhood culture? Perhaps, but it seems those days are long gone.

The Japan Block Fair held today was a break from the norm; yes, there were those comforting sweet corn cakes stuffed with mozzarella, but there was also a short stretch of Broadway devoted to Japanese food, crafts, and culture. Very cool; if only it had been a bit bigger! It looks like there will be another such event later this summer in Manhattan -- I could be wrong, but I think this site suggests that on August 21 there'll be vendors and performances around 44th St. and Madison Ave. You should go!

Then it was newspapers, now it's Twitter

From The American Language, on how newspaper writing and design has shaped language use:

'The headline,' said the late E. P. Mitchell, for many years editor of the New York Sun, 'is more influential than a hundred chairs of rhetoric in the shaping of future English speech. There is no livelier perception than in the newspaper offices of the incalculable havoc being wreaked upon the language by the absurd circumstance that only so many millimeters of type can go into so many millimeters' width of column. Try it yourself and you will understand why the fraudulent use of so many compact but misused verbs, nouns and adjectives is being imposed on the coming generation. In its worst aspect, headline English is the yellow peril of the language.' 'This,' says G. K. Chesterton, 'is one of the evils produced by that passion for compression and compact information which possesses so many ingenious minds in America. Everybody can see how an entirely new system of grammar, syntax, and even language has been invented to fit the brevity of headlines. Such brevity, so far from being the soul of wit, is even the death of meaning; and certainly the death of logic.'

Fun game: substitute "Twitter" for "headline" -- you can see how their arguments would extend into our millennium. What will be the next technology to drag our language through the gutter?!

Americanisms new and old

I'm turning, again, to H.L. Mencken's The American Language; it's so dense and packed with information that I find it hard to progress more than a few pages without starting to track down some of the source material to learn more (today's diversion: an 1841 edition of the Congressional Globe on Google Books, which offers "A glance at some of the characteristic coinages of the time").

My copy, a fourth edition reprinted in 1937 that I found at Argosy Books, was perhaps the best-spent $11 I've doled out in the past year. It's a great reminder that so-called corruptions of English, American or otherwise, have been fretted over for decades; for example, Mencken notes:

A great rage for extending the vocabulary by the use of suffixes seized upon the corn-fed etymologists, and they produced a formidable new vocabulary, in -ize, -ate, -ify, -acy, -ous and -ment. Such inventions as to concertize, to questionize, retiracy, savagerous, coatee (a sort of diminutive for coat) and citified appeared in the popular vocabulary and even got into more or less respectable usage.

Suddenly, systematize doesn't seem quite so egregious. But don't worry -- the BBC is still cataloging our linguistic sins; here's 50 irksome turns of phrase that grate across the pond. Maybe they can just make a list of things we are allowed to say?

Pip pip old chap!

If you giggle over one picture of a dog in a hat today, make it this one from the archives of the Kennel Club in the United Kingdom (image from the Statham Cook collection, via Flavorwire). And, if you are so lucky as to be in London, you can see more vintage dog photography (from the 1850s to the 1950s) at the Kennel Club Art Gallery -- I'll have to settle for outfitting my mom's Plott hound when I visit her in Oregon next month.

It's true, I do (also: Astoria books!)

This post is participating in the Astoria Blog Carnival, hosted by We Heart Astoria.

I almost don't know what to say; I just want to join in the merriment. Two years and 13 days ago, we moved to Astoria (or, rather, the border of Astoria and Long Island City, but who's really counting?); about a month ago, we signed another two-year lease, and we couldn't be happier. I find nothing more satisfying than setting out, camera in hand, and snaking through the streets; here's to many more such "adventures," even if they are rather pedestrian and unremarkable, in the coming months.

Since I read a lot of books, I figured I'd highlight a few Queens-centric stories I've recently enjoyed.

The Ask, Sam Lipsyte

In the Times, Lydia Millet writes, "A witty paean to white-collar loserdom in the fund-raising racket, “The Ask” describes a crisis in the life of one Milo Burke, a deeply cynical academic development officer, earnest binger on doughnuts, avid consumer of Internet porn, and devoted father and husband. Detailing the meltdown of Milo’s career and marriage, “The Ask” takes place in an exhausted and passive institutional workplace ..." It's a commentary on modern New York, an interesting illustration of life for those of us who are making it, so to speak, but still not living off Central Park and hob-nobbing at Cipriani.

Lipsyte explains Astoria thusly:

I'd take long walks in the neighborhood. We lived in Astoria, Queens, as close to our jobs in Manhattan as we could afford. One afternoon I made a mission for myself: stamps for the latest bills (I'd ask for American flags, stick them on upside down in protest against our nation's foreign and domestic policies), paper towels, and -- as a special treat to celebrate the acceleration of my fatal spiral -- a small sack of overpriced cashews from the Greek market.

I'd cure my solipsistic hysteria with a noonday jaunt. Sights and smells. Schoolkids in parochial plaids. Grizzled men grilling meat. The deaf woman handing out flyers for the nail salon, or the other deaf woman with swollen hands and a headscarf who hawked medical thrillers in front of the drugstore.

This was a kind and bountiful neighborhood: the Korean grocery, the Mexican taqueria, the Italian butcher shop, the Albanian cafe, the Arab newsstand, the Czech beer garden, everybody living in provisional harmony, keeping their hateful thoughts to themselves, except maybe a few of the Czechs.

Witty, wry, and a great read; The Ask was one of my favorite books in 2010.

I also indulged in a bit of noir, including the following from the successful Akashic Noir franchise.

Queens Noir, Robert Knightly, editor

The Kim Sykes piece, "Arrivederci, Aldo," is set in Long Island City, on the Silvercup lot. In "Only The Strong Survive," by Mary Byrne, she describes Astoria:

"In no time at all I reached Broadway, with its crowds and traffic and fruit displays. I liked it better here. This was home. Men on the sidewalk spoke Chinese and Slav and Arabic into cell phones. Visit Queens and see the world."

In the final Astoria-based piece, "Last Stop, Ditmars," by Tori Carrington, the author describes the Greek population in the area:

I sat back in the booth, considering her where she had taken the seat across from me. I'd also known what she was going to say because I knew her. And had known her husband. Mihalis Abramopoulos had owned and operated the Acropolis Diner on Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria, Queens, for the past thirty years. Ever since he'd come over from Greece in the early '70s. Not unlike many of Astoria's Greek population that had been trying to escape military coups and martial law and were looking for a safe environment in which to raise their kids. Hey, my parents had done it in the '60s, before the colonels had stages a military junta in Greece and taken over control of a country that was still trying to get its shit together after the civil war. I'd been seventeen at the time, but I'm told I still speak like I'd just arrived on the last plane over the Atlantic.

Interesting! Our landlord is Greek; there are lush, old grapevines in our backyard, which I've long admired, but I'm always reluctant to ask about his origins, and his family's origins. Perhaps for someday soon.

I should also plug Marcy Dermansky's Bad Marie, which is not set in Astoria, but is an un-put-down-able tale about a lady, named Marie, who is BAD. Dermansky lives in the neighborhood, and she is a fun follow on Twitter. She taught me that Harissa, on 30th Ave., has great food (Balthazar pastries!), and it's been a staple ever since. Cheers!

If you're in Astoria and you're looking for a good bookstore, I'm a big fan of Seaburn, on Broadway and 34th St. The thrift stores, particularly the Salvation Army and Goodwill, can also be great (low-cost!) sources for your summer reads.

(By the by, I aspire to one day write half as well as these folks. Perhaps a yarn set in the Salvation Army on Steinway, an absolute must if you like people watching.)

Today, at the farmer's market

We headed again to the greenmarket at Socrates Sculpture Park (8 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Saturday until mid-November); this afternoon looks like it will be perfect for a barbecue. The boys got smoked duck breast, but I mooned over the beautiful garlic, lovely new carrots, and lush heads of lettuce. We looked out over the water, then watched the Saturday morning open-air yoga class for a bit, and adjourned home.

Explosions in the sky

Last night, for the first time in the four years we've been in the city, we decided to watch the Fourth of July fireworks. They were dazzling, in their way, but they still unnerve me; I'm not one for loud noises, even on a good day, and these were, as one would expect, loud. Give me a sparkler, a Pop-It, even one of those little charcoal snakes, any day.