Things are Fishy on Staten Island

And I don't just mean the stench of the Fresh Kills Landfill!

Today is Groundhog Day (insert movie reference here). I watched the live coverage of Staten Island Chuck on NY1 this morning. Long-time B&E readers may remember previous mentions of Staten Island Chuck. He's New York's answer to Punxsutawney Phil, the notorious weather-predicting groundhog of Pennsylvania.

NY1 reports that in the past 29 February 2nds, Staten Island Chuck has been right 22 times, giving Chuck a better record than Phil over the same period.

Well, I had some observations of today's live coverage that makes me think the whole thing is rigged somehow.

First of all, on a separate but related matter, Staten Island Chuck might be a real dick. Last year he took a chunk out of Mayor Bloomberg's finger. This year Mayor Mike wore super-thick work gloves that I think were made of dragon hide.

Anyway, they tried to lure Chuck out, and we (the TV audience) waited. We waited quite some time. That groundhog wouldn't fucking come out. Finally, some brave mayoral aide (without gloves) reached into Chuck's little hut and yanked him out, handing him to the mayor, who nearly dropped him.

Chuck got fat.

And I'm sorry, but Mayor Mike didn't confer with Staten Island Chuck at all before announcing that Chuck didn't see his shadow.

Anyone watching could tell you that Chuck didn't want to come out of his hovel because he saw nothing BUT shadow. He was freaked the fuck out. And fat.

Meanwhile, in Punxsutawney, Phil saw his shadow. I didn't watch any live coverage, but Phil looked svelte (possibly starved, if you believe PETA, who would prefer that Phil be a robot), and a dude with a funny hat and Rollie Fingers mustache listened carefully to what Phil had to say.

I think I figured out what's going on. In Punxsutawney, they genuinely listen to what Phil has to say about the weather. He sees his shadow; he doesn't see his shadow. They trust Phil.

Staten Island is the most suspect of the five boroughs of New York City. Even people who live there don't really know what goes on there. I don't know if the whole Staten Island Chuck experience is bankrolled by the mob or what, but I have a feeling that the weather prediction is more about the number-runners and money-changers than the goddamned weather.

And it wouldn't surprise me one bit if somehow Mayor Mike is in on the fix. I don't know if he's consulting Poor Richard's Almanack or what, but I do know that he didn't bother to consult with that fat, angry groundhog.

It's suspect, B&E readers. It's fucking suspect.

It's a Giant Toy Train Set! Made of Plants!

The missus and I took a trip to the New York Botanical Garden last weekend. Somehow we'd never been. I've been wanting to go see the annual Holiday Train Show for years, and we finally got our act together and got tickets for the final weekend.

There are a lot of families at the Botanical Garden. Especially unhappy ones, it seems. On a tram tour of the garden, we were joined in our row by a man with an empty stroller. He spent a whole lot of time yelling at his wife and kids, who were in another tram car. He was ordering them to sit down, commanding his wife to get control. He was a seriously miserable bastard. But that's okay because he was making up for it by causing misery in the whole family.

Even so, it was worth the crowds and the misery to check out the cityscape and toy trains. The cityscape is made completely of vegetation. It's wacky. And awesome.

And I bet you know what that means for you, B&E readers! That's right: PHOTOS!

This is a real train! In Queens!

Pretty, right?

This is a toy train! In the Bronx!

Cute, right?

Here are some skyscrapers! Based on the ones in midtown!

Cool, right?

This is a mini Yankee Stadium! Like the one in the Bronx!

Where the fuck are the Mets, right?

This is the Brooklyn Bridge! Brooklyn Bridge! Brooklyn Bridge!

Brooklyn Bridge, right?

This is the Guggenheim! From Men in Black! And The International!

Frank Lloyd, Wright?

Gosh, it was all very impressive! We may even go back again next year! Good idea, right?

Steal This New Year's Resolution

Hey, B&E readers! Do you remember how at the end of the aughts (aka the Jack Bauer years, aka the 9/11 years, aka the fuck-the-public years, aka etc.) the United States government totally gave like billions of dollars to the very institutions that caused the financial crisis and then those institutions went right back to behaving exactly how they wanted? Yeah, that was a good time.

In general I'm not the biggest fan of New Year's as a holiday. I think I've said before that my birthday always feels like more of a well-defined marker for looking back on the year and setting some goals and doing all that other reflective stuff (yay, reflectors!) people do when they want to assess the general state of their lives.

So yeah... New Year's resolutions... I don't really make 'em. And although the Huffington Post is touting this as a New Year's resolution, I just think it's a Very Good Thing To Do.

It's called Move Your Money. And it makes a lot of sense to me. Read the essay and watch the movie (Look! It's a Wonderful Life!). The moral argument is pretty clear.

The missus and I are putting our money into a credit union. The missus has kept the minimum amount of money in there for a bunch of years, just so that she wouldn't lose her standing as a member. She never really knew why, but it just didn't seem like a good idea to give it up. How fortuitous!

When I first moved to Sunnyside, I put my money in Greenpoint Bank. I did it mostly because it was on the corner. Greenpoint was a large-ish community bank. It got eaten by a larger community/regional bank, North Fork, which had barely changed the signs before it got gobbled up by Capital One. Capital One isn't exactly the beast that Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan/Chase all are, but it's close, and I certainly can no longer call it a community bank.

My biggest concern about moving into the credit union was convenience. Do they have online banking services, cash cards, etc? Yes. They do. And yes, a community bank or credit union is insured by the FDIC, which means if the bank or credit union fails, the government still guarantees your deposits up to $250,000.

The only thing that will change in our everyday lives is that our credit union's ATMs are somewhat less ubiquitous. And most of their ATMs are located within McDonald's restaurants. I haven't been inside a McDonald's in New York for more than a decade, I would guess. So that'll be weird.

It'll probably be a month-long process to change everything over. I'll need to fill out a new direct deposit slip at my job; we'll need to reorganize all the bills that come out automatically, etc., etc., but a little bit of footwork (particularly footwork largely being done by the missus) seems worth it.

The fact is, our tiny amount of money doesn't make much difference to a bank that doles out millions of dollars in bonuses to the employees that screw us hardest. But it could make a difference if large amounts of people get involved. I mean, those monsters will always have the big corporate accounts, but then they'll be taking all those risks with corporate money instead of our meager savings.

Plus, those big banks wouldn't spend so much time and money advertising for our business if they didn't need a whole lot of us.

But meanwhile, our meager savings can actually make a real difference at a community bank or a credit union that, say, serves your neighbors.

Best of all, I feel like it's the most satisfying way to give the finger to the financial institutions that have fucked us right in the ear. The finger in exchange for getting fucked in the ear isn't much, but it's a start.

The HuffPo article doesn't (yet) discuss credit unions. Credit unions have different rules regarding disclosure that I admit I don't completely understand. But you can read more about them here. And I think we can invite a few locals to ours, if you're not already qualified to join it.

I need to give credit (unions) where credit (unions) is due. It was the missus who fully engaged with the idea and explored options. I sat by, shouted out a few concerns, which she mostly shouted down, while taking care of the logistics.

Thanks and Happy New Year, missus. You are, as always, tremendous.

And Happy New Year to my six faithful readers. You are the best readers in the world.

Happy New Year, B&E Readers

I hope that all six of you have a happy and healthy 2010. On this side of things, I hope to get back into updating the B&E site with more frequency - more like the beginning of 2009 than the end of it. We shall see how that goes.

In the meantime, I'm offering you this link from the New York Times. See those two bald people in the photo? Neither of them are me.

That Wacky Frank Lloyd Wright

I've now been back from my Wisconsin sabbatical for three weeks, and today's post is one that I've been meaning to write for, oh, three-plus weeks.

Less than a half hour from my cabin-with-the-geese was Frank Lloyd Wright's home, office, and school - Taliesin. That's Welsh for "eyebrow" or something, because you see, he built on the "brow" of a hill, not the top of one. Of course, as it expanded, it pretty much spread over the top of the hill.

It's an interesting, crazy-looking place, that's for sure.

I knew little about Frank Lloyd Wright before the trip, which is a little embarrassing when you consider that I'm still paying off my undergraduate degree. Seems like I should have had an opportunity or two to study his importance in the architecture field. Or hell, through my study of drama, it seems I should have known about the grisly mass murder that took place at Taliesin. Alas... that was news to me.

Anyway, Taliesin was Frank's place to experiment. He had no client to satisfy but himself, so he just kept adding to it. Frank wasn't also much of an engineer, so he didn't give much thought to how adding to the place affected such trifling matters as the foundation and support beams. And Taliesin, like many of Frank's homes, communes with nature, and nature, you see, likes to take over.

So Taliesin is falling apart and is sort of a shithole.

Here's a buttress holding up a support wall:

Peeling paint and cracks in the walls are totally common.

I guess one sacrifices a certain amount of practicality for beauty.

Frank Lloyd Wright is like the Manolo Blahnik of architects.

The biggest surprise is that from the outside, it looks like a big house. The inside, however, is nearly claustrophobia-inducing. He created cramped spaces to keep people moving into the areas where he wanted people. Maybe it was that we were a part of a tour group, but the big spaces didn't seem all that big either, actually. Maybe it's that Frank was a wee man.

Visitors aren't allowed to take photos of the inside, so this is all you get. We put booties on our shoes in the foyer, which had a ceiling so low, I could have jumped up and bumped my head. I didn't, though.

Aren't the booties cute?

I realize that it sounds like I'm complaining about the whole Taliesin experience, but the truth is it's a fascinating place and worth checking out, should you ever find yourself in this particular part of rural Wisconsin.

The walkway was built so that Frank's third wife could commune with the birdies.

The grounds are just beautiful, with the rolling hills, and occasional farmed patches.

We really wanted to wander the grounds, but das ist verboten. Our $47 only granted us access to the house itself.

At nearly $50 a ticket, you'd think there'd be plenty of money to do the restoration needed. I think the problem might be that it's an incredibly high-maintenance building, i.e. it's in a state of constant restoration.

A few "senior fellows" still live at Taliesin. These are people who studied with Frank himself and went on to some level of achievement within the community. Definitions for what that means stayed vague. But it's a program that will die out soon. The last of the senior fellows are in their 80s and 90s. We did actually see one them. He was really fucking old. It doesn't actually seem like a good place for an old person to live. The house is drafty as hell, and the uneven terrain would be a bitch to get around, particularly in winter. But hey, I'm not a senior fellow, so what do I know about what they want out of the experience.

All in all, a crazy, fascinating time. My sister actually treated me to the price because I was on an austerity budget while living in the middle of nowhere with no income, and a $47 admission price doesn't quite fit into the category of "austere." So thanks, big sis. It was a grand thing to do with you.

.,;:-!?<>()'[]{}&/\"

Happy National Punctuation Day, B&E readers! (You even get an exclamation point for that one.)

To honor this important day, and as long as we're talking about exclamation points, I quote from the Eats, Shoots, and Leaves daily tear-off calendar. Believe it or not, there is someone at my office who's even geekier than I am. It's hers. But she shares highlights with me. Because I'm a geek.

Everyone knows the exclamation mark - or exclamation point, as it is known in America. It comes at the end of a sentence, is unignorable and hopelessly heavy-handed, and is known in the newspaper world as a screamer, a gasper, a startler or (sorry) a dog's cock.

So out of respect for this national holiday, I hope you'll lay off the dog's cock.

Thanks for reading.

Whew. I'm Now Combobulated.

My radio silence over the past few days can be explained by two simple words: Family Reunion! Wisconsin never had a chance...

Unfortunately, my camera died while the missus and I were in Scotland (I used my mother-in-law's camera for most of the trip), so I don't have documentation of any of the activities. But really there was only one moment in which I really regretted not having the sucker...

At the airport in Milwaukee, the missus and I went through security, and when we made it through, we noticed a sign: Recombobulation Area. It was not handwritten. It was a metal sign like all of the other signs around the airport. Someone designed, approved, and ordered this sign.

Discombobulated doesn't actually mean "not combobulated." Like uncouth, it is simply a word that sounds negative but isn't.

No doubt, you can become discombobulated going through security - removing of belts and shoes, getting felt up by security... These things can be discombobulating. No doubt.

But once discombobulated, I'm afraid you can't just become recombobulated so that you're back to being in the normal state of combobulation.

On the other hand, I really like the word recombobulated. So I sort of hope it catches on.

Well done, you combobulated Wisconsinites with your recombobulation signs to discombobulate travelers.

My Late Spring Vacation - Better Food

In fairness to Scotland, I shouldn't let my last food post be the only real statement about the culinary arts in the country. We did eat some delicious food, too. I mean, come on, look at this gorgeous classic of British cuisine...

Not just fish & chips, but fish, chips, & peas!

And let's face some facts, B&E readers. The British invented the proper breakfast.

This is the Scottish breakfast at the Glengorm Castle hotel. Soak it in, readers. That's an egg, some mushrooms, a tomato, and three kinds of meat: bacon, sausage, and black pudding. It's made with blood. Mm... breakfast blood...

Here's the Scottish breakfast at the Bellacroy Hotel on the Isle of Mull. I got it without the black pudding, because it also included baked beans. Baked beans!

That's also a little thing they call a potato scone. Delicious!

Desserts are another particular specialty of the Scottish people.

That's sticky toffee pudding from the Caledonian Hotel in Fort Augustus (located on Loch Ness). If you have this option on the menu at any Scottish restaurant, get it. Just get it. Don't ask questions. Get it. Even at mediocre restaurants, it tends to be good. At good restaurants, it like God Himself dancing in your mouth.

The Caledonian also served up this delicious concoction, called a pavlova, which is a sort of meringue type of thing with strawberries and kiwi.

Tasty!

Not to be outdone, the missus' family prepared a delicious meal that ended with the best of all puddings.

That's stewed rhubarb, strawberries, ice cream, and the toffee sauce (one of the missus' cousins works at the Caledonian Hotel and knows how to make it proper).

Then here are a few other delicious treats...

That's salmon with smoked salmon on top. Those green things are actually fried and colored salmon tentacles. No, really. Seriously. I would never lie to you.

This is a smoked venison and melon appetizer.

I love smoked venison.

Those last two are both also from the Caledonian Hotel (where I also got the haggis).

We came upon this window display while walking in Edinburgh...

I still can't believe we didn't actually go back there to eat. Next time, B&E readers. Next time.

My Late Spring Vacation - Nasty Food

I've already shown some of the masterpieces of our culinary experience in Scotland, specifically the haggis and the Taste of Mull Platter for Two.

What's generally terrific about the food in Scotland is that it's legendarily crappy. So when you have a good meal (or even more rarely a healthy meal), it's a genuine surprise, and your experience is all the more pleasant for the hey-didn't-expect-that factor.

Typically, the food comes out looking something like this...

It's hard to fuck up a sausage roll and chips, although the ketchup (or "tomahto sauce" as they like to call it) was sorta blah.

The other food came out looking even worse...

That's "prawn Marie Rose" on top, and I have no idea why they call it that, or indeed what it even is. I also have no idea what inspired the missus to order it.

Her dad ordered the "tuna mayonnaise" version of the potato that the missus ordered. He was equally disappointed.

That's tuna salad on a baked potato. Some might call it a tattie. I call it nasty.

The restaurant was appropriately named...

I guess we really should've had low expectations.

My Late Spring Vacation - Bruise the Willow

The missus and I actually planned this trip to Scotland to coincide with the missus' mother's 70th birthday. We (mostly she and her brother) planned a surprise party, complete with food, drink, a ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) band, dancing, and sordid people from her dark, dark past.

We rented a hall...

Put together some decorations...

And had tables and tables of food and drink...

It was really a lot of food.

A ceilidh is a Scottish dance party. The band consisted of three members: a guitarist, a fiddler, and a piper (mostly Irish pipes in this case, although he did break out the bagpipes toward the end).

The sign was made by my sister-in-law, by the way, and is the name of the missus' mother, not the name of the band.

Most ceilidh bands have a caller, in this case the fiddler, who talks you through the dance steps for the particular dance ahead of time. Most dances are actually pretty simple and repetitive, so even if you struggle in the beginning, by the end you feel like an expert.

Most dances are also joyful and celebratory, and therefore exhausting. After a particularly rousing number called The Flying Scotsman I had pretty well soaked my shirt completely through and was about three minutes from a stroke. We feel fairly certain the band made up this particular dance as a means of seeing up the skirts of many ladies as they spun around in the air.

Strip the Willow is a popular Scottish dance, and the band ended our ceilidh with a rousing version that worked in everyone in attendance. Men and women line up across from one another down the length of the entire hall. Like so...


Then you (in American group dancing vernacular) swing-your-partner-round-and-round, swing away from your partner to the next person in line (of the opposite gender), swing them round-and-round, come back to your partner and swing round-and-round, and then down the line accordingly. When the whole party is in on the action, it's a long line and a whole lotta swinging of your partners round and round.

Some people get rather into the swinging round-and-round, and Strip the Willow is not without its dangers.

Um... This is the missus' arm, four full days after the party, still not recovered from the overzealous Strip the Willow dancers.

But if that's not a sign of fun dancing, I don't know what is!

My Late Spring Vacation - Isle of Mull

Whenever the missus and I visit Scotland, it's largely a family visit. With family in Edinburgh and the Highlands (and a lovely family to boot), this isn't exactly a problem for a tourist such as myself.

But on this trip, we carved out a few days on the Isle of Mull for the two of us. Mull is one of the Western Isles, which are, as you might guess, a series of islands off the Western coast. They're all rugged and dramatic and beautiful and shit.

To get to Mull, one takes the ferry from Oban. If you're American, you've possibly only heard of Oban because a whiskey comes from there. It's a port town. And apparently, they're the seafood capital of Scotland.

We challenged this claim with some smoked salmon and oysters.

We weren't disappointed. So although it felt like an audacious claim, we couldn't disprove it during our hour in Oban.

It's a 45-minute ferry ride from Oban to Craignure on Mull, and as you approach, you get a pretty nice view of Duart Castle.

The Scots know drama. Cliff-side castle? Come on, people.

Mull was the splurging portion of our trip, so we stayed at Glengorm Castle.

Glengorm was built in the 1850s, so it's not the classic Scottish castle experience, but that means it's comfortable! It's a very nice place and comes with a beautiful estate, good for walking (Americans call it hiking). It came with lots of green space, sheep, and views.

It also came with some standing stones.

They are curious indeed.

For dinner that evening, we went into Mull's biggest town, Tobermory. If you're American, you've possibly only heard of Tobermory because a whiskey comes from there. But perhaps you've seen photos of the town, too, because it's a colorful port town in Scotland, often featured in calendars, etc.

It's cute. We took a chance on a restaurant and had a decidedly mediocre meal. We'll skip that part.

The next day was our outdoor day, so it was a little unfortunate that it was one of the few drizzly, cool days we had. But that didn't ruin the fun. We drove to the Ulva ferry terminal (a generous term - there's no terminal, and the ferry across to Ulva is just a small motor boat). A slightly larger boat picked up a group of us for an excursion to the Treshnish Isles and Staffa.

The Treshnish Isles are uninhabited (by people) and the home to a large puffin colony. So this particular excursion company offers what they call "Puffin Therapy" tours. Lie on the ground near the puffin burrows, and you'll find yourself within three feet of puffins.

You figure out pretty quickly why it's called Puffin Therapy. You can't help but feel happy when you're so close to these tiny, social birds. They actually rather like the human presence because we protect them from their natural predators, especially seagulls. So they come out in droves when the tours show up.

They swim, fly, and burrow. Is there anything puffins can't do?

Ah, puffins...

Here are lots of people looking at puffins.

Even with the group, though, you could really feel like you were getting good one-on-one time with the puffins.

Look! Flora and puffins!

Yes, there are many more photos of puffins, B&E readers, but they'll be doled out over time.

From the Treshnish Islands, we headed to Staffa, with its dramatic lava formations and Fingal's Cave, which once inspired Mendelssohn to write an overture. Natural, hexagonal shapes serve as steps to the cave. Staffa's companion is Giant's Causeway, across the sea in Ireland.

Here's Staffa from the sea...

Here's the inside of Fingal's Cave looking particularly like a hand-colored postcard from the 1950s.

And then this is from inside looking out.

Then, this is a crazy formation coming out of the sea.

And finally, a shot of some people standing above the cave on the cliff-side.

After a long day in the drizzle, we headed to that night's hotel, the Bellacroy, the oldest on Mull, where we also felt like we deserved a fine meal.

All local goodness, from left to right: crabs, langoustines, smoked salmon over arugula (out of view under the langoustines), cheddar, chicken liver pate, rare beef (with mustard sauce), venison (with a sauce we couldn't identify, and it was better without), and mutton with chutney, served with unseen oatcakes and roll and salads. They called this "The Taste of Mull Platter for Two." Yes. Outstanding.

On our final day in Mull, we walked and drove around the northern half of the island. And we had some spectacular weather.

In Calgary (the one in Canada is named for the one on Mull), we went to a gorgeous beach. Only lunatics swim in the freezing-ass water, but it's pretty amazing.

We also discovered that Calgary has some art going on. In the woods above the beach, there's an Art Walk Through the Woods. Here's one of the sculptures.

Mull features a fair number of windblown trees, and we came upon this particularly dramatic example.

Mull also has all of these dead boats around the island. I sort of think they add to the beauty of the island.

We took the scenic route back to the ferry (not that there's an unscenic route).

A full time on Mull, I must say.

The thing is, we have to go back to Mull. We didn't even see the southern half of the island, which is bigger. I could spend the rest of my life going to Scotland - or perhaps even living there - and I just don't think I'll get to see all of it that I want to see.