Bluejake

As I may have mentioned, the unfortunate collapse of OVEN has left me with a little bit of time on my hands. I've been using this period of unemployment to explore my many creative and idle interests, including, but not limited to, photography, urban reconaissance and cheese. An excellent example of the sort of pretty weak photography I practice can be found at the left, a product of a recent trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. As their site makes clear, this weekend is the Cherry Blossom Festival, which I usually find too crowded, but which some say is not to be missed.

Most of this week was rainy and otherwise ill weathered, so I had a great deal of time to spend indoors. I ended up watching this week's episode of Anthony Bourdain's show ("A Cooks Tour", Tuesday at 10:30pm on the Food Network). There was a segment on Murray's Cheese Shop on Bleecker Street that I found pretty interesting. One of the many curses passed down my forebears is a hereditary intolerance to all milk products, and since, like all people, I desire what I cannot easily have, I watched with some attention. As it happens, another of the curses passed on by my family is a willful self-destructive streak, so Thursday afternoon found me down at Murray's buying fifty dollars worth of cheese. I called up everyone and invited them over- people in this town just love cheese. It was a big success- I recommend the Shelbourne Cheddar and the high-end Blue Cheese. Surprisingly, very little acute stomach pain resulted- which is not to say none.

Beyond adventures in cheese and a lot of time looking for work, not to much else is going on. I found time to read Rich Cohen's The Avengers after I finished The Long Goodbye (book #46/48). It seemed to go well with all the current events regarding Israel. Currently I'm working on The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis (book #47/48)- it may be responsible for the slightly garrolous tone of this entry. I was reading it on the subway on the way up to Columbia on Tuesday, and a sweet lady leaned over and told me that he was her favorite author. High praise indeed.

More to come.

Personal