Monster Smash

My Smash Book (challenge no. 26) is close to bursting. With only a few pages left to fill, it's crazy to look back at all the bits and pieces that landed a coveted gluey spot. Here are my latest:

Storm gloom + Hurricat + our marionette costumes.

Photo from Wicker Park, Chicago + some textural framing.

Squirrels go to Chicago for a week, then San Francisco.

Card from the Clift Hotel in San Francisco.

And also, just because, here are some haunting phone shots I took earlier today after venturing out into the city. Happy Halloween:

Subway stairs to nowhere. 

Con Edison trying their damnest.

Union Square Park got slapped around some.

Spoiled Fruit-ball!

Fallen awning.

Batteries and flashlights for sale on the street (Lower East Side). 

Fallen gas station sign (at 2nd Avenue and 1st Street).

More people than I've ever seen making their way across the Williamsburg Bridge.

No One Likes You, Sandy

I was on a two-week business trip (so my challenge posts were already lacking), arriving home just in time to welcome Sandy with un-open arms.

Not until I started seeing some of these images throughout yesterday, last night, and this morning did I realize just how lucky we were to have power and no flooding:

 Many of the subways have been affected. MTA is saying they're down "until further notice."

Alphabet City, Manhattan 

 Manhattan without power.

 Dumbo, Brooklyn (southwest of us)

A double rainbow the morning after the storm. Pretty unbelievable.

Ab-uh-sin-ee-an

This past Sunday I attended my 7th religious service for challenge no. 29: Abyssinian Baptist Church in the heart of Harlem. It just might be one of my favorites.

Abyssinian (which I can now finally pronounce) was founded in 1808 and has a powerful lineage and palpable pride emanating from its members, who will describe themselves as a "fourth generation Abyssinian" or "descendant of (famous member)."

I had been putting this particular service off because I knew there was always a line to get in (it's considered a major tourist attraction). I showed up around 9:00 and there was already a line for the 11:00 service. Abyssinian lets its members fill the church and then gives the remaining seats to the visitors. The rules were made clear: No flip-flops, no bare shoulders, no sports attire, no pictures on the inside, and no leaving before its over. I witnessed many angry camera-toting tourists being turned away. 

The gospel music was, of course, amazing. No surprises there. That's one of the main reasons for the line wrapped around the block two hours before the service.

On this particular morning the church was observing Pastor's Memorial Sunday, honoring the former pastors of the church, who reigned like kings in their tenure and are still the most highly regarded aspect of the church, with the exception of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The sermon was delivered by a guest Reverend, Sharon Williams.

Rev. Williams was electric, booming, her arms working in sync with her voice, punctuating those particularly passionate points. I was captivated by her. She commanded that room with her presence, her humor (she was damn funny), her honesty. No word passed through her lips that she didn't believe in with every ounce of her being.

Her sermon revolved around the idea of AUTHORITY:

It is the nature of authority which makes it a matter of contention because people want to fight over who has it. Authority is not power. Authority is the right to USE power. When Jesus came and started healing and performing miracles, the question was not whether he COULD do those things but who AUTHORIZED him to do those things. Who gave him the right to use such power?

Well, God. Obviously.

The authority in which Jesus stands is the mark of the nails on his resurrected body. The authority in which Christians stand is the mark of the nails on our resurrected bodies. A Christian stands in authority to comfort those afflicted by sin and afflict those comfortable with sin.

Near the end of the sermon, she said this: I AM NOT SCARED OF ANYTHING ANYMORE.

As I wallowed in the silence that followed, I realize that this statement was one of the most powerful statements I've ever heard. I've never heard anyone say those words and mean it more than Rev. Williams meant it. Can you imagine the freedom she must feel, not being afraid? It radiated from her. I was all the way up in the balcony and I could see it in her expression.

And at that moment she inspired me to somehow remove all the fear from my life. Now I just have to figure out how.

Cupcake Extravaganza Part 3

More cupcakes. Pretty sure I'm halfway to diabetes by now. Away we go:

 Day 11 (Jan 17, 2012): The Vegan Lemon Coconut cupcake from Lifethyme Natural Market

Featuring custom-made dessert plates inspired by this Eddie Izzard bit. I really enjoyed the burst of lemony flavor in this cupcake. The cake was a little boring and I could have done without the chewy coconut on top, but after so many chocolate and cream cheese cupcakes, lemon was quite refreshing.

 Day 12 (January 18, 2012): The Vegan Boston Cream Pie cupcake from Lifethyme Natural Market

Meh. I was expecting more. This ended up just being a tiny bit of cream in the middle of some dry, bland cake.

Day 13 (January 19, 2012): The Vegan Pumpkin cupcake from Lifethyme Natural Market

Cream cheese icing was light and flavorful, but the cake part was a little too dense.




Day 14 (January 20, 2012): The Peach Cobbler cupcake from Molly's Cupcakes

Everything you would want a cupcake called Peach Cobbler to be. Icing was whipped-cream-like (in fact, it might have been straight-up whipped cream), and the cake was moist and peachy. LOVE. Also would like to note that Molly's has the cutest interior of all the cupcake joints I've visited. Their bar seats look like swings; there's a wall of board games and an overall sense of whimsy.

Day 15 (January 21, 2012): The Cake Batter cupcake from Molly's Cupcakes

Another winner from Molly's. I had to get past the superfluous blue frosting to get to the amazingness inside. You guessed it: CAKE BATTER. Smother anything with cake batter and I'd probably eat it.

Day 16 (January 22, 2012): The Casablanca cupcake from Sweet Revenge

I had such high expectations for this one. Here's how it was described on the menu: a pistachio cardamom cake with rosewater buttercream. I was pretty excited. Then I took a bite. The cake itself had no pistachio or cardamom flavor whatsoever, although there were bits of actual pistachios mixed in, and it was too muffin-like in texture. The rosewater icing was nice and I could definitely pick up hints of rose, but it was WAY too sweet. Instant-stomach-ache sweet.

Cupcake Extravaganza Part 4 will be coming at the end of this week. If you're wondering if I'm getting sick of eating cupcakes, the answer is YES. Sorry, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. But I am having fun on my little cupcake crawl through New York City. I'm becoming quite the expert.

Cupcake Extravaganza Part 2

Ten cupcakes down, nineteen to go. (For those of you just joining, I was challenged with eating 29 cupcakes in 29 days). Here are the last seven cupcakes that made their way into my belly. Just warning you that this probably counts as cupcake porn.

Day 4 (Jan 10, 2012): The Elvis cupcake from Crumbs

Anyone who has ever been to Crumbs in NYC knows that their cupcakes are ridiculously huge, almost to the point of being offensive. But they do not lack in interesting flavors. I loved the peanut butter, marshmallow, banana combination in this cupcake. It was a little too dense and rich, but I enjoyed it.

Day 5 (Jan 11, 2012): The White Chocolate Blueberry cupcake from Crumbs

Another from Crumbs. Just as dense, just as rich, just as offensively huge. But I love blueberry, and this cupcake didn't disappoint. It was like a blueberry muffin that got all dressed up and put on extra frosting for a big night out.

Day 6 (Jan 12, 2012): The Pistachio cupcake from Pinisi Cafe & Bakery

My top cupcake out of the first six. Clearly. I was down to one bite before I realized that I needed to take a picture. Perfect icing-to-cake ratio, a good size, simple and well done.

Day 7 (Jan 13, 2012): The Carrot cupcake from Pinisi Cafe & Bakery

Another from Pinisi. Can't go wrong with carrot cake and cream cheese frosting. 

Day 8 (Jan 14, 2012): The Red Velvet cupcake from Pinisi Cafe & Bakery

Third cupcake from Pinisi. A nice touch with the red velvet crumbly topping. Otherwise pretty straightforward.

Day 9 (Jan 15, 2012): The Vegan Black Bottom cupcake from Cocoa V (Blossom)

I had no idea what "black bottom" meant, but now I know it means "awesome." It's like they injected a cupcake with cream cheese cookie dough. Pretty incredible. Absolutely decadent.

Day 10 (Jan 16, 2012): The Vegan Chocolate Cupcake from Cocoa V (Blossom)

Hands down my favorite cupcake so far on this sugary journey. I know I said that about the pistachio cupcake above, but this one gets an extra point for being vegan and another point for presentation. I don't know what they make this icing out of, but I would like to cover myself in it. If you're vegan, this cupcake should be in your mouth right now.

May the Cupcake Extravaganza Begin

Challenge #3 (eat 29 cupcakes in 29 days) involves extra time at the gym. But I don't care. Because I have an excuse to eat a bunch of cupcakes. Or is it a gaggle of cupcakes? A murder of cupcakes? That has a nice ring to it.

Here are my first three victims:

Day 1 (Jan 7, 2012): The Brownie cupcake from BabyCakes

 Day 2 (Jan 8, 2012): The Pumpkin Maple cupcake from BabyCakes

 Day 3 (Jan 9, 2012): The Red Velvet cupcake from La Delice Pastry Shop

So, BabyCakes. A well-known (sometimes worshiped) bakery among vegans. I myself have been known to let out a squeal or two at the thought of going down for a visit. It's a dairy-free, gluten-free, animal-parts-free, pirate-free bakery on the Lower East Side. And I hope the vegan police don't knock down my door when I say the following: Their cupcakes are kind of overrated. Okay, a lot overrated. I mean, they're decent, but I've had better. That being said, their cookies and biscuits and other baked goods are amazing. But let's focus on the cupcakes.

The icing on cupcakes #1 and #2 wasn't bad, but it leaves a weird film on the tongue. Like I'm eating putty. The cake part of the brownie cupcake tasted like a brownie. It was yummy. The pumpkin cake was good, but not great. Maybe it was just that they weren't too terribly fresh. Or maybe I just have extra-high expectations for my beloved BabyCakes.

My third cupcake was from a bakery just two blocks from my apartment, La Delice Pastry Shop, a no-frills, traditional establishment. Nothing fancy. But their red velvet cupcake was my favorite of the three so far. At first I scoffed at the amount of icing, but once I tasted it I was grateful for the generous portion. And surprise! There was jelly in the middle of the cake. Odd, but hey, I'll welcome a little unprecedented jelly. Made it more like a red velvet jelly doughnut cupcake. There are vegetables in jelly, right?

Moving forward on my cupcake journey, any recommendations around the NYC area are welcome. I still have 26 cupcakes to eat. Poor me.

I'm Going to Help a Kid Read Good

I have officially landed on a program for challenge #21 (make a difference in a child's life without monetary contribution). After being rejected from the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, blasting their Facebook page with expletives and punching a few random kids just for good measure, I knew I still wanted that one-on-one opportunity to work with a child and turn them into a tiny confident goal-oriented genius.

Then I found Reading Partners. This program has been around for ten years but only recently came to the New York City area. Their goal is simple: Help kids read better. Being a writer of words, I'd prefer if people could read them. This program felt like a perfect match.

This week I attend my shadow session, where I will learn the ins and outs of the program and how a typical lesson goes down. Then I will be paired up with an elementary school student on the Lower East Side, meeting with him or her once a week for at least one full semester. The best part is, they provide you with the lesson plan and all the materials, so all I have to bring is my upbeat personality (working on that one) and philanthropic spirit.

Here is how I'm hoping the semester will progress:

 

And by the end of the semester they better be at least halfway through Game of Thrones.

**Reading Partners accepts donations, if you feel so inclined.**

茶の湯 (The Way of Tea)

I have utmost respect for Japanese culture. The way that nature, poetry and tea are infused into their way of life is beautiful. A different kind of powerful. I see a calmness in the Japanese culture. Patience. Respect. Harmony. Purity. Those values that we aren't so quick to value here.

Last Saturday I had my first Japanese tea ceremony lesson (per challenge #17) at the Urasenke Chanoyu Center on the Upper East Side of Manhattan:

I wish I could have taken a picture of the interior garden. It was spectacular. Silent. I was instantly mesmerized.  

My teacher, Greg*, was friendly, well-spoken, patient, and able to cover a lot of material in two hours. The amount of information I retained can only be attributed to his great instruction.

The first thing I learned was that every. single. thing. in a traditional tea ceremony has a purpose or meaning or a particular structure. The way you remove your shoes. The way you open the door to the tea room. They way you enter the tea room. The way you place the tea bowl in front of the guest. The way you fold the Kaishi (a Japanese style mini napkin; see picture below). Even the foot you use to take a step has to be a particular foot depending on the direction you are headed. And no, this is not how they drink tea every time they drink tea. These ceremonies take place on special occasions, such as when someone is returning home, or leaving, or for a graduation, etc.

The tea rooms are impeccable, the tatami mats soft underneath your feet. I felt myself slow down and my senses heighten.

People who want to master the Way of Tea -- chanoyu (茶の湯) or chadō (茶道) in Japanese -- study for decades, if not an entire lifetime. What I learned in two hours was merely the tip of the tip of the iceberg. But still, I feel like I learned a lot. Will I be performing my own tea ceremony anytime soon? I would hate to disrespect the Japanese by hosting what would probably be the most deplorable tea ceremony in history, but I am hoping that by the end of my 29th year I will know enough to give it a beginner's go. What makes things more difficult is that even the guests must have a knowledge of how to attend a ceremony, so part of my challenge will be teaching a few of my friends the steps. And of course I must obtain the proper equipment. This challenge includes shopping? I'm in.

I'll also need to obtain a (cough) guide book (cough).

For more on this topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_tea_ceremony. 

*Name not changed to protect privacy. What? We're you expected a teacher of the Japanese way of tea to be Japanese? Settle down.

Big Sister

To be honest, when I received the "make a difference in a child's life without throwing money at them" challenge, my mind immediately went to a swift good deed that I could do in one day and knock off my list. But that's not much of a challenge. So after some quality time with Internet, I made my decision to apply to be a Big.

As in, a big sister in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program of NYC. The commitment is pretty substantial (two times a month for at least a year), but it's a chance to spend time with one kid who got dealt some crappy life cards and establish a positive relationship that will stick with them for the rest of their life.

I submitted my application online and exchanged some emails with one of the representatives. I was already beginning to imagine the things I could do with my little sister around NYC. After a few weeks of waiting, I finally received an answer:

Damn. Back to square one with this challenge. If anyone has any recommendations for programs where I can help a kid one-on-one, feel free to share.