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Editor:
John Rambow |
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Assistant Editor:
Hunter Walker |
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Blogger:
Alisa Gould-Simon |
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Editor-at-Large:
Chris Mohney |
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Hunter, Alisa, and I have been posting from a front table at that hoary blogger watering hole, Schiller's, and some of us have been drinking — I won't tell you who. What I can say is that it's been a great two months, in large part because I entered a site left in such great shape by its current editor-at-large, and one with such dedicated and witty writers and contributors installed.
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". . . walking through Williamsburg several years ago, I was stopped in my tracks by the haunting face of a young girl peering out at me from within a doorframe. Pasted on a door was a beautifully detailed woodcut print I would later learn had been crafted by the street artist Swoon. Down the street, I discovered what looked like a cover of a tawdry pulp fiction novel stenciled on some wooden scaffolding by a collective known as Faile . . . from that moment on, I was hooked. With a little patience, you too can develop a street art habit."
Hungry for Paris
"Le Grand Véfour. Maxim's. La Table de Joël Robuchon. None of these venerated restaurants are on Alexander Lobrano's list of the 102 best in Paris. And that's one of the reasons I love his new paperback Hungry for Paris: The Ultimate Guide to the City's 102 Best Restaurants. Lobrano, the European correspondent for Gourmet magazine, has lived here and written about food for 22 years, so he's qualified to call those behemoths overrated. Which establishments do hit the mark?"
"Continental Airlines Inc. said Sunday it would not pursue a combination with another carrier right away, a surprising move after weeks of growing speculation that it would join with United Airlines to create the world's biggest airline."
". . . the popular conception of the travel writer is a myth. We do not run around the world with limitless corporate credit cards getting free spa packages and business-class upgrades. How does it happen?" Gridskipper writer Andrew Evans explains how the sausage gets made, along with good tips on getting the best travel guide for your needs. (gorriti/flickr)
"On Wednesday, Germans [marked] their own contribution to the history of beer, the Reinheitsgebot, or purity law, which strictly regulated the price and ingredients of beer at the start of the 16th century. . . . The vast majority of German breweries — there are around 1,300 of them — say they adhere to the original Reinheitsgebot. This helps with marketing, but it tends to be not quite true: Breweries now use yeast, an ingredient not found in beer production prior to Louis Pasteur's 19th century discovery of the function of microorganisms in the process of fermentation." (a4gpa/flickr)
"Given the Islamic dress code, how do Persian prostitutes signal their trade? Location, location, location . . . in contemporary Iran, the holy city of Qom is known (unofficially) as a place of "both pilgrimage and pleasure." There, prostitutes wearing veils and even chadors mill about temples or sit together in public courtyards where men can inspect them. Sometimes a male go-between offers "introductions," at which point the prostitutes pull aside their headgear so the potential client can get a glimpse, but the whole process is fairly subtle. For an outsider, it's difficult to pick a street girl out of a crowd."
This Friday and Saturday, the annual Found Footage Festival will be held at New York's Anthology Film Archives. One highlight, at least for me, will be the 17 videos about sexual harassment in the workplace — these have been edited down to 3 minutes of the best bits. If only I'd seem it just a few weeks earlier — we could have all avoided so much unpleasantness in the secretarial pool. After the jump, the festival's official trailer.
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DC Taxis Getting New Pricing Scheme
Washington, D.C., is moving forward with its plan to require meters in all taxicabs by June 1, with the month of May given over to warnings for those who haven't yet installed them. From June, cab pricing will no longer be determined by the current system, made up of 22 concentric zones, but instead with a more straightforward distance method. The initial cost will be $3, plus $0.25 for each sixth of a mile driven; each additional rider will cost $1.50. What will May be like, with the potential for two systems to be operating at the same time? Confusing. [WaPo; non-DC meter: aleksejs.busarovs/flickr]
Last week the Washington City Paper came out with its annual Best of, with a multitude of categories both essential (Best Burger, Best Bikini Wax, Best Place to Have Your Mom Buy You Slacks) and arbitrary (Best Front Desk Operators, Best Remnant of the Liberal Media, Best Wonk). Some highlights after the jump. (Holzer sculpture: afagen/flickr)
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As you'd expect, we get lots and lots of random mail through our tipsline. We like almost all of it, even if we don't always have time to write back. But since it is our special happy day, I thought I'd put down a few words that drive me up the wall. Please don't send these words to us anymore. If you must use them, please use asterisks. For instance: cur***. See, that wasn't so hard, was it? After the jump, a surprisingly short list of Words (and Phrases!) to Avoid. 
Idiot Toys ("Tech Reviews for the Bored") is working on a competition for the most "Expensive Kit Kats." His current contender is from EasyJet, "where the budget airline was sneakily subsiding its rock-bottom prices by charging poor women [and men, presumably] a quid [$2] for a standard four-finger f***ing Kit Kat." The bile-filled comments that follow are all entertaining, although not all of them are on topic. If you're curious, Airlinemeals.net has pix of Kit Kats and loads of other EasyComestibles, including one breakfast of wrapped EasyStuff that somehow ended up costing £26. Isn't that more than the price of many tickets?
It's the accompanying slideshow that really makes Details' list of the Best Barbecue in America come alive. My first choice to make a visit out of this plenty would probably be Chicago's Lem's, which has no less an expert than Ed Levine's approval. (agilitynut/flickr)
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