dead in its soul
Yeah ever since I left it hasn't been the same.
I think the magazine is right, though this is purely a function of discussions with friends who work internationally. I wouldn't have said the same ten years ago.
Paris was the capital of the 19th century? I thought that was London.
London was the capital of the 18th century.
Jesus Christ, we're in worse shape than I thought.
What about London makes it seem "alive with possiblity" to you? I've never been there, and I don't even know what it's like except that the subway stops at various evocatively-named places that used to be out in the country, hence "World's End". Also that as of 1996, several Londoners I worked with were astonished by the idea of spray cheese, which speaks well of the city.
I suppose maybe if people start thinking NY is dead inside, some of the tourists and annoying young people who move to NY for the ten years between college and children may go away. Which would be great!
It's completely soulless here. Nothing at all going on.
I had sort of a "U.S. capital of the decade" idea floating around in my head for a while. San Francisco was capital of the 60s, New York was capital of the 70s, Los Angeles was capital of the 80s, and Seattle was capital of the 90s.
Just another example of the liberal media aiding the terrorists.
8: And I believe Houston will be considered to be the capital of the 00s. Worst decade ever!
I have lived and worked in all three. New York, of course, will always be home, and New York and London are two cities "separated by a common language;" but Paris is the place I would choose if the wingnuts and fundies drive me outa here. Thankfully, I still have a "Carte de Sejour" if it ever came to that.
Of the cities I have lived and worked in, I believe Pittsburgh has a better chance of being the capital of the coming century than Wilkes-Barre does.
Well, certainly if you go by most expensive, London has NYC beat. But NYC has better weather. And more Brits.
annoying young people who move to NY for the ten years between college and children may go away
hey!
8: Which would make one of Houston (Enron, GWB, lapdancing, oil), Washington DC (military-government/Homeland Security), or Baghdad (work it out for yourself..) the capital of the 00s?
Seriously, if London is the capital of our times, they suck. It's expensive and run by fartswaggling property-boom boomers obsessed with surveillance, who refuse to pay the taxes needed to maintain the infrastructure. And it's ugly.
I dunno, three years in England were enough to sicken me of the place. London has always been more annoying than fascinating to me, and the art and music scenes were massively overrated. As for expense, it beats out New York which is pretty impressive. I still visit to spend time with my old friends, but it's stricken from my list of cities that I would live in.
But they are getting a lot more financial business, and becoming the place for international IPOs and some of the most lucrative OTC trading, which will always help make a place a "global center" of some form. What does the magazine cite as some evidence of London's new prominence?
Dude, Beijing is the capitol of the 21st century.
14: Well, our times do indeed suck, so I guess it's plausible then.
Beijing is the capitol of the 21st century.
Beijing is a delightful modern edifice, but Shanghai and Dubai are being built at far more furious and creative rates.
Yeah, that was a big bait-and-switch. The last line of the article reveals the true hot spot.
13: Sorry, and I'm really very fond of those people. I just get irked with the comparative visibility of you guys compared to people who actually live here long term -- it's a city, not a developmental stage. (There's an incomprehensible and offputting city slogan: "NYC: We're not your chrysalis.")
I will not concede my adopted hometown's place as capital of the world, but having visited London a number of time (by not in many years, sadly), I agree with the proposition that it is an incredible, vibrant and exciting city. Maybe London and NYC could have joint custody of the capital or the world title.
I agree with you, LB, that those people you speak of are the same people I hate, but let us be specific about people who move here and do not work, specifically to drift around clubs all night. Not me and Mike, right?
And you have to admit, the WASPy types who move here from New England towns to have babies who they only see at the afternoon Mommy-Baby-Singalong are pretty intolerable, too.
Hey wow, I didn't even read the article. I was just saying Beijing because it just seemed like an obvious truth.
Is it because we are not letting any dark skinned people come into our country so our restaurants are suffering?
I was in London this past summer and was in heaven with all of the Indian restaurants.
Also, I don't think the mandarins of the CCP will let Beijing be eclipsed by either Shanghai or Hong Kong, and Dubai will collapse when the oil runs out.
the mandarins of the CCP
racist.
Annoying young people who move to NY for the ten years between college and children may go away
There are about 50,000 of them in Portland OR already.
It seems unlikely to me that Bejing would be the world capital (in the sense of city which people* want to congregate in) until fairly late this century.
*Where people mean sort of high flown cultural elites.
23: Can I not specifically hate you or Mike, but still extend my annoyance to the employed? It's the attitude that NYC is a ton of fun as a place to be young and hip and frolicsome, but as soon as you grow up and have a serious life, you move out to someplace with a lawn. People who get married and suddenly realize that it makes so much more sense to live in suburban Minnesota annoy me. (And of course the very wealthy annoy me regardless of where they live.)
17: The PC word is "clementines".
Isn't Beijing already eclipsed by Shanghai? I mean, I've lived in both and while I adored Beijing, Shanghai...Shanghai is amazing. Beijing is boring--boring in a lovely, grid-patterned, blue-hilled way, but boring. Plus the food in Shanghai is SO much better than the food in Beijing.
I'm a bit puzzled by "Paris was the capital of the 19th century".
Hello? London? Ruled a third of the world? Biggest financial markets on earth? Dominated international trade?
Paris got occupied twice in the 19th century. You can't tell me a real World Capital lets that happen to itself.
I've actually only spent 3 days in Beijing and one night in Shanghai, so I don't really know what I'm talking about.
Y'all are missing a fantastic broadcast, by the way. You could tune in now, but the significance of everything you hear would be different from what it would have been had you been listening all along, because you've missed the Old Wainds track, which basically set up everything that comes for the next two hours.
19: I'm with Shanghai too. It already vastly overshadows Beijing from a development standpoint, and there's a good line-up of Politiburo members who came out of Shanghai's local party who will help it stay ahead.
The lineup of reasons for London being celebrated seemed pretty ridiculous though. The immigration issue is partly American stupidity following 9/11 (it's also hitting our universities to some extent) and the rest is EU expansion (England was one of only three old members who allowed free labor movement out of the 10 new members). The finance issue is partly Sarbannes-Oxley and partly pure catch-up (no one can remain that far ahead forever). As for the skyscraper building, I think Chicago has them both beat given that I can think of three 80+ story buildings going up in the next two years alone, plus a handful of 50-70 office and commercial developments. Shanghai crushes them both on that angle too. The arts revival seemed overblown, especially in the music scene that I'm more familiar with.
Blargh.
I'm actually going back to China this summer, but we'll spend most of our time in the Three Gorges region and around Kunming.
Old Wainds? Isn't that a folk-black metal band?
By the way, Goteborg was the death metal capital of the 20th century, but I think NYC is going to be the death metal capital of the 21st century.
Look, China lovers, surely part of what makes a city the "capital of the world" is that people from all over the world live there. I know there are plenty of ex-pats in Shanghai, but it's not the same as NY or London, right?
People who get married and suddenly realize that it makes so much more sense to live in suburban Minnesota annoy me.
That one seems to be visible in every big city, but the freedom to move anywhere, not just the suburbs of that city, may be more common in NYC.
I've always felt very lucky that my wife group up in the city. Therefore my desire to live in a city wasn't running up against my partner's uncertainty whether raising kids there was desirable or even possible.
Ned: I don't hear much folk in their music, but I only have the one album.
"group" s/b "grew up."
I seem to be a much more aural reader and writer than I would have supposed.
34: You should certainly go to Shanghai. (Although I'm sure it's much more congested than when I lived there in the nineties). It's not so much of a tourist place as Beijing, since most of the old stuff was destroyed in the cultural revolution, but if you're interested in experiencing the city as itself, it's a great place.
In some ways, I'm more suited to Beijing because it's a bit stodgy and bookish and wonky, but if I were to go back to China I'd want to go back to Shanghai.
The best time to go to Beijing is in the winter, because all the tourist stuff will be uncrowded and yet even the most summery things (like the, er, Summer Palace) will still be stunning and beautiful.
Me too --- I type as if I were taking dictation from myself; I have to go back and correct soundalikes all the time. I don't understand this at all.
Yeah, London doesn't get to have it back. But if this thread has gone on this long without anyone making a pitch for Los Angeles, I don't know that I can really summon the gumption now.
"L.A. -- content to reign in our own minds, without colonizing yours, except through our stupendous output of cultural product."
12 is awesome.
40: Not yet. But people from all over the world tend to follow the money from all over the world, right? That's why London and New York became what they became. Seeing as China is a coming economic power and holder of the "workshop of the world" title, Shanghai's not a completely implausible candidate, maybe sooner than one might think.
47: Oh sure, you might attract people interested in getting jobs, but the real test of a world capital is whether little Lohan clones come to vomit on your public transport.
I dunno. Nobody wants to learn Chinese.
the real test of a world capital is whether little Lohan clones come to vomit on your public transport.
Wait, so Venice was the capital of the 19th century?
Shanghai is pretty obvious, and has the potential to be crazy enough to temper the effects of the government.
What about another of the fast-growth countries - Bombay or Rio?
43, 45 - me too - but only with typing, not handwriting. Weird.
I grew up in London, and loved it. Used to go into totwn most weekends and pity people who lived in places like Derby. Then went to Oxford and spent 3 years thinking about how good it would be to live in London properly again, but I moved back to Oxford after about 6 months. People are far too unpleasant in big cities. I'm very happy here now in my 100,000 population town, even if it is a nondescript place like Derby that I never thought I'd live.
I *do* like being less than half an hour on the train to London though. And I like that kids under 11 are free on the Tube. And that they made the museums free again.
totwn? I meant "town", not some Welsh place.
People who get married and suddenly realize that it makes so much more sense to live in suburban Minnesota annoy me.
But who wants their kids to go to an inner-city school?
Not a problem -- most schools in New York aren't.
the real test of a world capital is whether little Lohan clones come to vomit on your public transport.
Is that what we are talking about? Then why should I care? I thought we were talking about political and economic power, which is much more interesting.
48: the real test of a world capital is whether little Lohan clones come to vomit on your public transport.
I thought the first test was over-educated bohemians vomiting on your public transport. Don't most of us know at least a few people who've done that in Shanghai?
49: English is harder to learn than almost any other language by most accounts. Not that Cantonese or Mandarin are easy to learn, mind you, but if London and New York can overcome that kind of barrier so can Shanghai.
And of course from London you can be in continental Europe in a couple of hours. We went over on the Eurotunnel (drive your car onto a train) at the weekend, shopped and stayed near Dunkirk on Saturday night and spent Sunday in Ypres and Bruges. You can do it as a day trip too, we had a great time last summer at the aquarium in Boulogne.
Also, I am quite pleased to live in my current village of 10,000 people.
What about another of the fast-growth countries - Bombay or Rio?
"Brazil is the country of the future... and it always will be."
from London you can be in continental Europe in a couple of hours
Right, which is why the California cities are out.
54: Yeah, the public magnets here are pretty impressive, but other than that, it's shitty public or expensive private. And even the expensive privates don't have anything like the kind of education you get in a Midwestern public school, especially in the sciences. It's a real dilemma.
Hee, I said "expensive privates."
Apparently Beijing has a music scene.
There are a couple of public schools in NYC that have been taken over by force by PTAs who ask that anyone who could afford private school, but chooses public for political reasons, donates a few thousand a year, which the PTA uses to build up school resources. This would be cool, if it weren't for the fact that these schools, then, become overwhelmingly white and just as socially competitive as the nastiest private.
We've been talking about this in another thread, but plenty of the shitty public schools aren't actually shitty.
I'm imagining the joint custody battle between New York and London.
"You can have Tuesday evenings and weekends."
"What about spring break?"
"I don't want the damn college kids here."
"Me neither. Hey---Shanghai, you wanna babysit?"
People who get married and suddenly realize that it makes so much more sense to live in suburban Minnesota annoy me.
This makes me giggle, as my little sister may be poised to do exactly that; work in New York for five or ten years, then go buy a house in our hometown near my mom. For all of the kids coming to NYC from smaller towns, their idea of marriage and children is a house with a backyard, and I'm sure you can find that in New York somewhere, but you could buy about 6 of my parents' house for that price, and midwest thriftiness dies hard.
re: 57
That's not true as far as I know. My wife learned English as an adult (or near adult) and says English is really quite easy -- in terms of getting the core grammar and pronunciation down. All the irregularities are annoying but they don't get in the way of most communication.
She's since tried to learn Spanish and French and is pretty adamant that English is definitely easier than the latter and no harder than the former.
it's shitty public or expensive private
I realize that people like me are exactly the people LizardBreath reserves the right to hate, but there are very good public schools (and houses with lawns, too) in the New York City are, but just not in Manhattan. I live about a mile and a half outside the city limits. And I suspect it takes me about the same time to communte to my office in Manhattan from here that it would take LizardBreath to commute from her apartment in northern Manhatten to my office. It really is not necessary to move to Minnesota.
66: Maybe my only experience is with public school kids from Brooklyn and Queens, which get the least of city funding. Public schools in Manhattan get the most.
46: In L.A. we're too busy looking in mirrors to think about places like Lundon or New Yark.
64: Although I assume your astonishment was merely sark, I will concur that Beijing has a music scene. I preferred what was going on in the mid-late-nineties to what's going on today, though--more local and less imitative of international trend. (Back before Beijing sold out in other words).
71: In Ventura, we think that London and New York are both fabulous, world-class cities, and that all this ranking stuff is ludicrous.
Frowner, you do me an injustice; I was neither astonished nor sarky. I merely wanted to introduce the article into the conversation—to stage an intervention, if you will.
It really is not necessary to move to Minnesota.
...if you're a partner at a law firm.
That was actually kind of what I meant--that you were pretending to be astonished in order to introduce the topic. I didn't have too much to add (since I haven't heard any music in Beijing since 2002) though.
Although I sure wish I could go back. I wish I could have stayed. I wish I was riding my trusty Flying Pigeon up the ringroad on a brisk fall day just for the sheer love of the bicycling. Even in 2002, Beijing was just the best city for riding your bike. City riding here in the US just doesn't compare.
That's not about music, though.
...if you're a partner at a law firm.
I likely make less than LizardBreath, but putting that to one side, it is true that a school teacher could not afford my house, but there are school teachers, civil servants etc. who live in my town. The schools in Flushing, where we lived for a number of years, are not bad (although not nealy as good as the ones where I live now), and it is filled with middle income--and below--families. As expensive as the New York City area is to live, all sorts of people live here.
My suspicion is that M/lls is posting as Frowner.
My vote is for Berlin, on the ground that it seems like every painter, video artist and writer from eastern and western Europe, the States, Asia, or the Middle East, goes to live there for at least a couple of years in their late 20s or early 30s. Cheap drugs, cheap studio space, lots of artists -- it's like a big (grim, cold) post-MFA party.
Calais is probably the worst hell-hole along the English Channel. Nevertheless, it is midway between London and Paris, has five Burghers, and at least one burger joint. That should satisfy most Amelicans.
68: English is really quite easy -- in terms of getting the core grammar and pronunciation down.
In learning most languages, the core grammar and pronunciation tends to be the easiest step. (Sez a man who unlistenably butchers French pronunciation and grammar, but I was better when I used it more.) It's not really that hard to learn the basic sounds and grammar of Mandarin or Cantonese, either -- in fact both are grammatically simpler and more consistent than English. The main barrier is tones, but that isn't a hard concept to get used to with a little practice.
ESL is a fair-sized industry here and it's unusual to hear anyone call learning English "easy" per se. I've known learners to attest that English is a grammatically not as easy as you'd think (huge numbers of irregular verbs and plurals and an unusual case system, for instance), and phonologically unusual enough that it's harder for non-native speakers to sound native in it than it is in, say, a Romance language (which I completely believe).
But sure, maybe "hardest language" isn't entirely fair, and also maybe the linguistic environment you come from makes a difference. (Many learners in ESL programmes here are Asian or African.) And I'm sure even English spelling doesn't compare with learning to write in Chinese. But I don't buy that at least spoken English is all that much easier to learn than Cantonese or Mandarin.
Was Frowner in China? Jeez, here I've been repressing my ability to bore people unto violence with China anecdotes, and now people don't even believe I've been. I can act gauche and provincial while still having travelled, you know.
I taught (badly) in Shanghai in 1996-97 and (well) in Beijing (2001-2002). I've only travelled on the coast, though.
New York is refreshing after London - this could be in part because Manhattan is much more efficient as a city structure: it's a huge sponge and stuff just flows in and out and around. Also, there seems to be an enormous amount of fruit consumed in New York each day - the pavements are sticky with it. New York puts you in mind of sea freight and global footprints: I've noticed that its container ports are actually visible from in town.
London has complexity, though. A lot of this is a dull pointless complexity - almost the entire south of the city, for instance. But where it works, and when you're in the mood, it keeps you interested. There aren't the clear cut distinctions of New York's islands: I feel this gives those of us with fewer resources a chance to hack out a way of operating. It's still possible to build houses here, for instance. I've also discovered that it's a great place to cycle around: the bike increases your range without isolating you from the patches you're passing through.
Out and out negatives: too few independent traders; too many Starbuckses; the proposed KPF-designed curlicue tower; empty-headed tourists.
Positives: the weather is as benign as it gets. Ten days of rain a year; hardly ever freezes; hardly ever roasts. OK, it's often a bit cloudy.
Why no Tokyo comparison? Seems apt.
I don't know if this is true, or just an impression I've gotten (I'm thoroughly monolingual, so it's a secondhand impression) but I've got the sense that English is easier to learn in the sense that butchered English is more comprehensible to an English speaker than butchered versions of most other languages -- someone can get from zero to successful, if comic, communication more easily in English.
English is too irregular for some ... just like our political life.
Augh! Not the "some languages are easier to learn than others" argument!
Everyone arguing about this needs to read this book.
78: Yeah, I had friends who were a junior professor at Seaton Hall and a researcher at Hunter, and they owned a place in Inwood. It's possible to live in NYC on middle-class salaries, if you know where to look (and don't "need" a yard).
77: Heh, I don't know if Beijing will still be that good for bike riding. My ex wouldn't even jog around her place in Shanghai because she'd end up coughing out gray after a good workout.
A lot of countries used to be amazing for bike riding. I remember what Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City used to be like in 93-96, when the only traffic was vast hordes of bicycles moving in slow unison. That doesn't really make for a world-class city though, or even much of a middle-class. Once motorbikes become affordable, the streets of most developing cities tend to go through a period of suicidal danger for pedestrians (which I'm sure must be where Beijing is now).
The contention that English is harder to learn than most other languages amuses me because this summer I was the only person among those who got together after the last day of class who maintained that English wasn't easier to learn than other languages, something all the French and Swiss, and a few of the Americans, were claiming.
86
Yeah, my impression is that that's true.
re: 82
"it's harder for non-native speakers to sound native in it"
That's not a fair test re: English. Especially British English, where we can tell what kind of meal you like, where you grew up and your father's income to 3 decimal places from your pronunciation ... you'll NEVER sound native.
Put it this way, I've been learning Czech in an informal and non-systematic way for about 5 years. I can just about be sure that I pronounce the number 4 correctly, most of the time.
I get the impression that for Europeans, English really is quite easy. Getting really good at it is really hard -- but acquiring basic competence is not.*
* fwiw, I have done an ESL course -- my English language degree included an ESL teaching component.
Now Amsterdam, that is a great city for bicycling.
Jeez, here I've been repressing my ability to bore people unto violence with China anecdotes, and now people don't even believe I've been.
Frowner, I'm afraid you fell victim to a running gag, in the original incarnation of which M/tch M/lls pretends to have lived in China and everyone else pretends to be surprised.
Surely part of the "English is easy to learn" thing has to do with the fact that English is pretty omnipresent, at least in Europe.
91: I wonder, though, when people say that Beijing is bad for bicycling. People were saying that back in 2002 when I was last there, and yet I liked biking just fine. But then I like city riding a lot in that sort of mud-and-speeding-between-cars way. Also, I tend to ride at a middling pace--certainly if you're a serious workout-cyclist the pollution would be pretty miserable.
Hey, cut the crap about Minnesota. we don't want your kind here anyway.
95: Well, I'm sort of a natural victim of running gags, so good enough.
98 Never could understand what this love affair with Minnesota was all aboot.
The basic thesis of the relevant article in Josh's 89 is "Some languages have harder spelling, or more difficult sounds, or more complicated grammar, or more involved forms of address -- but they are not all the same languages for each." IOW there's no rigorous way to determine what language is "hardest" to learn, a completely fair point.
I can buy that English is reasonably easy for Europeans specifically, since it's a European language and the continent is heavily and regularly exposed to it anyway.
Minnesota, in fact, is a nice place. And I say that as someone who hates cold, and hates the midwest.
35: It was a good show, trying out my new headphones. Listening kept me working at my desk, which is a good thing.
Calais is probably the worst hell-hole along the English Channel. Nevertheless, it is midway between London and Paris, has five Burghers, and at least one burger joint.
And a huge warehouse called "BOOZERS: The Spirit of Calais".
46: LA isn't a "city" - it's a sprawling aggregate of cities, each with its own core identity and idiosyncratic ego problems. [And, as an author once observed, it "goes on and on, long after it has made its point."]
I've lived in New York and spent time in London whilst living in Cambridge,. I'm voting for London, just on the basis of Camden Lock Market and better cheese.
re: 102
The basic thesis may well be true -- that there's no 'objectively hardest language' considered in the abstract.
But it's nonsensical from the point of view of actual language learners since we all start from a particular place in the set of available languages.
There just ARE languages that are going to be easier for me to learn as a native English speaker or as a speaker of Scots -- so French, Dutch or German are all going to be relatively easy although each will be different in different ways.
[You make the same point for Europeans in general]
Just in the same way that it's likely that for speakers of a Bantu language such as Swahili that another Bantu language like Shona is going to be easier to learn than Mandarin Chinese.
101: Well, Minnesota is the only state in the union where you can reliably get a beg when you buy your baagels, never mind a decent glass of pop.
Well, Okay, Minn. Minn does have the Decathlon Club, or at least it did last time I was there. The food was good. No doo't aboo't it.
107: Right, absolutely, but bringing it back to the "Shanghai, capital of the world" thing and whether enough people will voluntarily inflict Chinese on themselves, "the world" we're talking about isn't primarily made up of native English speakers. So whether native English speakers are going to be at a particular disadvantage learning Mandarin or Cantonese isn't really the main issue -- the point is that for the general pool of people likely to be drawn to Shanghai, learning Chinese isn't likely enough to be a greater barrier than learning English for it to make much of a difference.
re: 100
Sure, but I wasn't making that point. Strong economic incentives are always going to over-ride linguistic disincentives.
I was just responding to the claim above that English was particularly hard.
7: I was planning to come down to NY next week. Should I not bother?
Unless you're planning to have drinks with us. Then you can come, but otherwise, keep out.
Minnesota is a place where B can get laid. Talk about super nice people.
106: I disagree. There are some technical details that recommend your position: Los Angeles County comprises 88 cities plus a few tracts of unincorporated County land; the megalopolis that stretches from Ventura County to northern San Diego County includes a few hundred more. There is a condition of simultaneous isolation and commonality that describes much of Southern Californian existence. But it's more interesting to me to wonder how Los Angeles changes what it means to be a city than to suggest that there is some Platonic city which L.A. falls far short of.
I love the quote though -- who's it from?
"Unless you're planning to have drinks with us. "
I invite everyone to have drinks with me tonight starting around 7:15 p.m. EST. I'll be in Richmond in my house, but feel free to drink wherever you are.
I knew that Dubai had no oil and thus was turning itself into the City of London of the Middle East, but until just the other day I wasn't aware that it was legally part of the City of London. No joke, the Dubai International Financial Centre is governed by English law and has a British barrister running it.
This guy doesn't seem to have had a very nice time in Minnesota.
108: Argh. It's gotten to the point where I, a MN native, do whatever I can to avoid saying "bagel." As hard as I try, I can't seem to say it in a way that won't get me laughed at by easterners. I know that's something I should be able to live with, but it gets old after a while. Fortunately they don't care about that stuff as much here on the west coast.
Seriously, though: Is there any way to gracefully handle being laughed at for the way you talk?
113: Yes, yes, I will drink. With you all.
I was just responding to the claim above that English was particularly hard.
Again, hard for *whom*?
121: Woohoo! Comment or email with when you're available.
115: commonality Near as I can tell, the commonality is there is no good way to get from here to there in L.A. no matter where here and there are. I now fully understand the term "geographically undesirable" as applied to dating.
The diversity still boggles even after 12 years. Going from one end of Pico Blvd to the other is an exercise in mental border-crossings.
So the New Yorker has just discovered what Dr. Johnson and Roger Miller knew all along.
According to Dr. J. I'm a walking corpse: No amount of money nor any number of wild horses would get me back to London. Ever. If Vienna is too staid, whats with Barcelona? Now there really is a city worth living in.
120: Well, I'd try to rise above, myself--maybe a polite little laugh. Besides, picking on people for how they speak (as opposed to giving them shit in a basically friendly way) is really crass and childish, so you can look down on the people who do it.
And people who don't understand how pleasant Minnesota is--let 'em miss out. We don't want the place to get all crowded after all, especially not by smart-ass coastal types.
118: Well, I wish that fellow's bad time was specific to Minnesota, but it seems like it could have happened in most states, sadly.
As others have pointed out, 21 happens in every big city, not just New York. But I'm betting that few regions' expat populations can top the whininess of the Bay Area's. Waaaah, this place has no seasons! Waaah, the pizza here sucks! Waaah, I am too a local -- I've lived here for almost five years! Waah, I live in the Sunset and haven't seen the sun for two months! Waaah, waah, waaah, shut up, shut up, STFU ALREADY. No one put a gun to your head to move here, so if it's so awful, please get out.
Anyone who complains that the pizza in the Bay Area sucks is deluded and should be pitied.
That'd be "everyone who lives in the Bay Area who's from Illinois." What with all of the UIUC people in the local tech industry, I can't even count the number of conversations I've been witness to about which local pizza is the least pale imitation of the One True Pizza. Gaah.
Liverpool had a better claim to be capital of the 19th century than London.
Also, I vote for Dubai as capital of the '00s. Even Halliburton is in on the action!
I've read 89 and it seemed to be mostly full of rebuttles to remarkably stupid opinions. But the rebuttles themselves left me with the feeling that they were mostly lying, but felt it was ok because they were disabusing me of far worse lies.
"Rebuttle" is such a funny word.
125: I'll second Barcelona from the arts and culinary perspective, for sure.
129: Hehe, my high school has probably accounted for several of those whiners. We have an alumni association out in California because so many move to Silicon Valley after logging time at UIUC and other comp sci schools.
re: 133
I assume because the word is rebuttal? [/me suspects some kind of complicated double-en-pedant joke is going on here]
I think it was Dr Johnson who said "a man who is tired of London is a cunt". It all got bowdlerised in the biography, of course.
re: 136
I don't mind London, apart from all the fucking Londoners (of course).
Relating to the education thread and 134, I'll say that the people who I met in college who went to IMSA were far far dorkier than the people I've met in the SFBA who went to IMSA.
I should clarify -- all the incomers (Welsh, Scots, Polish, Bangladeshi, whatever) are fine. Yer actual Londoners can fuck off ...
Even if the initial butt fails, the rebuttal usually does the trick.
132: These arguments are very stereotyped. Language Log (site) and Language Hat (site) frequently pitch in.
129: So many people are so discouragingly provincial. The problem is that if you are from one of the capitals of the world, the fact that society encourages you to call yourself cosmopolitan prevents you from seeing your provinciality.
Why can't we all be ok with different people in different places doing different things, and some of those different things having different pluses and minuses? That is, I can appreciate a Chicago style pizza, but I also love the crazy garlic and sun-dried tomato concoctions they make at Arizmendi--here in the Sunset, where it is raining today, which I don't mind.
ttaM, as I've pointed out, "Wales" and the "Welsh" are as mythical as that stupid dragon on those fake flags.
138: IMSA? I begged my parents to let me apply! Begged and begged! I thought it sounded like a dream, and a couple of my friends were going. But I couldn't--because my parents didn't want me to be away from home. And you're right, it was a tremendous dorkiness-incubator.
Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear?
Minneapolis has some good pizza. It's by no means Chicago-like, though. Thick and bready it is, as befits our rather doughy population.
another wonderful Johnson quote:
"truly the noblest prospect that a Scotsman ever sees is the road that leads him to go and fuck himself."
I actually had pie and mash with jellied eels for lunch today - to be honest that is more of an East London thing than North London but I felt terribly authentic.
Walking round Camden Market I also noticed that the shopkeepers have started selling Fly Agaric to try and resurrect their lucrative mushroom trade now that the psilocybin loophole has been closed. This is pretty much bound to not end up well.
This is a good book on the history of popular languages:
One of the interesting things is that languages tend to spread based on the ease of picking up the new language. If one country conquers another country and the conquering country has a similar language to the conquered country, then it is likely that the conquered country will switch. If the languages are not similar then it is too much of a pain in the ass to pick up the new language.
Hawaiian wood rose. Morning glory seeds. Kava. Qat. Toluene. Ether. Entrepreneurs will always find a way.
Morning glory seeds. [...] Ether.
Memories...
I'm very impressed by anyone who can get to an interestingly altered state with kava -- the most I ever got was numb lips. (It makes a great sore-throat gargle, though -- the topical anaesthetic effect lasts a surprisingly long time.)
I was always too scared to do any drugs at all in high school or college. Somehow until about age 20 I was convinced that the drug laws applied to me and my friends, rather than just to poor people.
ether all that ever did was make me dizzy. I returned the previously liberated can to the high school chem lab after a few tries. Etherbreath lingers, tho'.
IMO if kids are still into it they're being culturally impoverished.
I was always too scared to do any drugs at all in high school or college.
And now you're heading to a far more credentialed (and probably better-paying) adulthood than me. There might be a lesson in there somewhere.
There might be a lesson in there somewhere.
Funny, I can't remember what it is.
Minneapolis has some good pizza. It's by no means Chicago-like, though. Thick and bready it is, as befits our rather doughy population.
Maybe that's what those shits at Pizz'a Chicago in Palo Alto have modeled their foul product on. It certainly bears precious little resemblence to actual Chicago-style pizza.
But Apo is happier.
Kava is supposed to just be a mellow social buzz, not a high, people tell me.
Somewhere recently someone switched from booze to kava for health reasons. Apparently that was a fatal move -- kava is hard on the liver too.
Health cautionary:
138: What college were you at? UIUC and Caltech seemed to pull all our biggest dorks (though UIUC really just got a massive flood of people). Kids who went to MIT were surprisingly normal, considering, probably because they seemed to accept all the smart and well-adjusted asian girls in any given class.
This could differ depending on what years they graduated, I was at IMSA from 2000-2002.
152: There might be a lesson in there somewhere.
Yeah, but is there any negative effects?
156: CMU. Didn't have the grades for MIT, even though I was a double legacy!
re: 145
Yes, one of the greatest Scottish inventions was that scheme whereby alcoholics and winos can get a free bus-pass to allow them to travel to London.
158: Oh yeah, computer science school, that one pulled some very nerdy kids. Shame you didn't get to join the party, as I can easily think of several dozen people who didn't deserve your place in each year.
What did your older sisters/brothers think of it?
154: Well, it could just be foul in its own right. Minnesota pizza is perfectly enjoyable as long as you think of it as not-really-pizza-in-the-classical-sense and enjoy it as a bready, cheesy vegetable thing.
But then, people define Chicago-style pizza in several ways, so I'm never really sure whether the pizza I ate in youth was in fact Chicago-style even when in the mighty metropolis itself. It wasn't super thin-crusted, even though it wasn't as thick as the stuff 'round here.
re: UIUC & the One True Pizza
I presume you mean Chicago, because Champaign & Urbana had shitty pizza. I've never lived in Chicago, but I'm a huge fan of Lou Melnatti's pies. Mmmm.
Malnati's. Yeah, that's pretty much what you might call the median norm for Chicago style pizza (and it's very good). Some places go thicker and stuff their pizza (like Carmen's or Uno) and of course thinner isn't actually pizza, but an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.
I miss Chicago stuffed pizza. It's not pizza, or even much like pizza, but it's good.
The original Malnati's, in Lincolnwood, is close enough for pickup and is our pizza of choice. Apparently he and Ike Sewell developed the style at Pizzeria Uno in the late forties. I'm told it doesn't travel well, but I've never tried it elsewhere.
158: What year did you graduate? I knew some folks who were at CMU in the early- to mid-'90s.
Did you all like the version at the Medici? It's been years since I ordered anything but one of the burgers on black bread there.
Minnesota pizza is quite enjoyable if you think of it as "not really pizza, thank God!"
Every job I ever had we had pizza at all the formal and informal gatherings. May I never see one again.
The original Malnati's, in Lincolnwood
I used to go here for lunch. Butter crust, baby.
The Medici had pizza? I had no idea.
And for non-stuffed pizza, Chicago style is far too thick. Pizza crust should be thin and crisp, almost crackerlike.
What were you doing the was close enough for lunch?
Pizza crust should be thin and crisp, almost crackerlike.
I refer you to the title of the post, LB.
Burgers on black bread? Weird.
And for non-stuffed pizza, Chicago style is far too thick.
Are you saying something other than "for non-Chicago-style pizza, Chicago-style is far too thick" here?
What were you doing the was close enough for lunch?
Working at Skil-Bosch on Peterson. Manly!
157: Oh man, that's one of my very favorite Ali G interviews ever.
Pizza crust should be as it is at Una Pizza Napoletana on 12th at 1st Ave. It should not be cooked longer than 100 seconds, at 900 degrees F or above. Parts of it should be blistered and crisp, but the center should remain floppy. Batali overcrisps.
Doctrinaire martinet AWB might be interested in this.
170: Yeah, it had pizza. I tended to get the Pizza Margherita. It was pretty good.
It occurs to me from the comments that perhaps we mean different things by "Minnesota pizza"...indeed, I may mean specifically "Minneapolis pizza" or even "hippie Minneapolis pizza". Based on a dense, homemade crust (sometimes but not always whole wheat, anywhere from 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch thick), Minneapolis hippie pizza has a tomato-y rather than a tomato-paste-y sause, typically not strongly spiced. It is topped with a fairly thick layer of cheese and vegetables. Loathesomely, it sometimes has rosemary pieces in it. Over all, it's a wholesome-tasting pizza that's lower on the cheese than most of what I've eaten around Chicago.
I want some nice delicious thin-crust Central-Italian-style pizza right now.
Black bread or Kaiser, forever. Did you even eat there?
Skil-Bosch on Peterson: My neighborhood; I live just back from Devon & Western. And I'm going home now.
The pizza at the place on North near Western that text recommended, Piece I think it was called, was good thin-crust.
I've read it. It is pretty correct. Next time you're in NYC, Ben, we have to go to Una Pizza. You're exactly the kind of person that would appreciate their obsessive attention to detail.
Wait, make that North near Milwaukee. There was another place that opened up near North and Western not long before I moved away that also had good pizza.
S/lv/na would know, but she's in Egypt now, for another week, I think.
176: I thought I knew how to spend money--yeah, I sure like that there fancy thin cooked-in-a-super-hot-oven pizza, but the price! Also sometimes they cook it such that the middle is not floppy but wet.
For some reason, the place with this kind of pizza nearest my home offers all this glop on top--if it's going to be cooked for mere seconds at a million degrees, you can't have a pile of meats and vegetables and stuff on top, this just obscures the crust. And you certainly can't have ridiculous white sauces and things on it, yuck!
From my brief career as a pizza doughmaker, I have to say that it's all about the yeast, and letting the dough rise just the right amount.
I was in London just lately, and certainly fewer than half the people I passed conversing on the street were speaking English. More in St. John's Wood, fewer along Marylebone High Street.
This whole thing about world capitals, though, is silly. Where are the people with (a) imperial pretensions and (b) the military might to back them up? Not in NYC: not now, and not any time after WWII.
I still don't understand why they call shreds of Thai chicken on a flat crust "pizza". Or carnitas and salsa on a flat crust with melted jack cheese. Or anything else that isn't composed strictly of a crust covered in basil-and-garlic dominated tomato sauce with mozzarella and sometimes meat that falls into the pepperoni/Italian sausage/chopped beef family. [Or for you vegetarians, 'shrooms, onion and bell pepper.] I do not want foodstuffs from around the world passed off as "pizza" just because they're lying on a flat crust. /rant
Are you saying something other than "for non-Chicago-style pizza, Chicago-style is far too thick" here?
Isn't there a distinction between stuffed pizza -- the almost lasagna-like dish available only AFAIK in Chicago, and 'Chicago-style' regular pizza, which just means that it has an annoyingly thick, bready crust? I thought those were two completely different dishes, not points on a continuum.
160: Both parents, not siblings. They liked it, but were less inclined to send money after I didn't get in. CMU worked out, though. I'm not sure I deserved my place there, but who am I to judge?
166: 1998.
187: Totally, Frowner. Una Pizza only serves four pizzas, each with some combination of just mozz, tomatoes, red sauce, garlic, and basil. Franny's (near me in Brooklyn) is famous for having really incredibly inventive pizzas with all kinds of odd ingredients, but it means they simply can't compete in crust. It's a trade-off.
My ex, Max, used to try to make pizza at home. He became obsessed with trying to fool the thermostat of his oven so he could get it hotter than it should legally be. We did all kinds of experiments with ingredients, figuring out that the most you can really get cooked on a pizza are teeny-tiny dices of peppers and onions, and thin slices of cremini mushrooms.
Oh, god, I haven't had good pizza in a long time, which, now that I'm a huge pizza snob, means I haven't had pizza at all in like six months.
Isn't there a distinction between stuffed pizza -- the almost lasagna-like dish available only AFAIK in Chicago, and 'Chicago-style' regular pizza, which just means that it has an annoyingly thick, bready crust
The distinction is that one of them is what I, and everyone I know from Chicago, mean by "Chicago-style pizza", and the other is a disgusting abomination, and is what, IME, people who have never eaten pizza in Chicago mean by "Chicago-style pizza".
You have eaten pizza in Chicago, so I assume that you're just making a propaganda effort on behalf of your New York origins.
192: That is, Max used to say that pizza was his white whale, and he fully expected to be found dead, as an unrecognizable cinder.
Wikipedia on Chicago style pizza (haven't read it; don't know if it's right).
Burgers on black bread? Weird.
Barney's in SF and the East Bay has a burger on black bread, with sauteed mushrooms and sour cream. It's excellent.
I see the "stuffed" just refers to the top layer of dough at some places. I would recognize that article's "deep dish" as chicago-style, but it's not what LB seemed to be describing.
I am going to go do laundry now, so as not to get into a rant about the insularity of Murrican schools when it comes to teaching furrin languages. My son's high school only taught Spanish and French by the time he got there, and French was on its way out. Given that nearly a half of the students already spoke Spanish, this struck me as laziness. [The Offspring picked up more Spanish from his buddies than in class.]
Admittedly, my high school catered to a multicultural population, but we had French, Spanish, Latin, Russian, German and Italian available, with other language lessons arrangeable through the local university. And, yeah, I grew up in a family where being a polyglot was the norm, so I'm probably warped on the subject - but, sheesh...
182: Yeah, Piece is a good Italian-style pizza, but now there's a place called Spacca Napoli that's truly obsessed with authentic old-school pizza cooked in scorching wood ovens. Really delicious stuff (AWB, is that the sort of stuff you're talking about?).
I remember Bertucci's used to be really good back when they had some places in the Chicago suburbs about a decade ago, but my experiences at current Boston and Washington DC locations were pale imitations of the magnificent thin crusts and caramelized onion rolls of old.
191: Your parents went to IMSA? I thought it only started in 1986! Did they get busy immediately following graduation or is there some other IMSA than the one in Aurora, Ill?
Looking at that, I don't think I ever had deep-dish in Chicago -- it sounds pretty much like the stuffed pizza I liked. The non-stuffed pizza I had in Chicago was soft and bready in a foul kind of way.
re: 188
Incidentally, it was very nice to meet you while you were here, Charley.
Based on a dense, homemade crust (sometimes but not always whole wheat, anywhere from 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch thick), Minneapolis hippie pizza has a tomato-y rather than a tomato-paste-y sause, typically not strongly spiced.
Frowner, I'm sorry, but yuck.
The best NY pizza I ever had was in a restaurant in Brooklyn where the waiter made fun of my accent, because I didn't pronounce water "wooder".
Yes, JAC. Napoli-style pizza is so so good. It's been ages since I had some. I have to go think about something else now.
I don't really understand pizza snobbery, now that I think about it. The great thing about pizza is that it meets such various cultural expectations--stodgy hippie bread with cheese here in the land of stodgy Northern Europeans, fancy crisp things, chokingly-full-of-cheese things, peculiar things with tomato and carmelized pineapple. There is, I submit, pizza that fails to meet its own standard--too greasy, too damp, too tough, etc--but I maintain that there are many rubrics for correct pizza production.
I do think those "pizza" things you encounter here at receptions--cold bread crust, some kind of cold cheese spread, raw vegetables on top--are more disgusting than words can describe, though, but I choose to believe that the founding principle of pizza is that it is all baked together.
re: 198
I think at my school the only languages available to 'higher' level (i.e. the qualification you'd need for university entrance in that subject) were French, Spanish and German (oh and Latin too, but that doesn't really count).
You could also do Russian, I believe (I took a few 'taster' classes) but only for 2 years. There may have been some introductory level provision for Gaelic, but I don't remember.
And just in the interest of telling all the dull little details, I don't actually like deep dish cheese pizza. It's just an inch and a half of melted cheese, people! Isn't that kind of gross?
I maintain that there are many rubrics for correct pizza production
Someone who just described bad communist pizza would say that.
But stuffed spinach pizza is great. It's not pizza, but it's wonderful.
Maybe I'll try and make some this weekend. Pizza dough, cast iron skillet... how hard could it be?
199: Both my parents went to MIT, not IMSA. Although I didn't realize IMSA was that new.
207: Mao said that the revolution is not a dinner party, but he was wrong. The revolution is precisely a dinner party, and you'll eat bad communist pizza til you puke, or it's off to the gulag with you. Maybe off to the gulag with you anyway.
The pizza I've had in Italian places in Glasgow has always had a very thin base and is cooked for a short time. Always with some tomato and basil topping (although some variations available).
There's also the 'calzone' pizza -- no idea how authentically italian that is, but it's folded and stuffed.
I don't know how authentically Italian calzones are either, but they're very common in the States.
The pizza crust in Sicily reminded me of naan.
re: 213
yeah, there's a place in oxford (an excellent Italian pizza/trattoria sort of place) where the pizza base is quite 'nan-like'.
There's also the 'calzone' pizza -- no idea how authentically italian that is, but it's folded and stuffed.
I never thought of that as a subset of "pizza", but I guess it's very similar to "stuffed pizza".
My favorite pizza is from Grotto Pizza. They have several locations in northeastern PA and the coastal regions of Delaware. It's thin and the cheese has a unique flavor, and the tomato sauce is sparse. Anyone familiar with it?
If one is lucky enough to live in a place where one can get naan, one can make little imitation pizzas with it and some fancy yuppie cheese and some fresh basil.
I presume you mean Chicago, because Champaign & Urbana had shitty pizza.
Nope. Not one of the pizza whiners was actually from Chicago; maybe one or two were from the 'burbs. Most of them were from binky towns downstate, but that did not stop them from having loudly-expressed opinions on what made a proper pizza.
Why can't we all be ok with different people in different places doing different things, and some of those different things having different pluses and minuses?
Amen, brother. I'm as provincial as they come when it comes to regional snobbery, but I moved out of state for a while in part to fight that tendency -- and while I was there, I appreciated the things that were better (yes! better!) about my adopted home and (for the most part) had the good grace to keep my trap shut about the things I didn't like. I wish more of the people who have moved to MY home would try to do the same.
"Authentic" food is yet another example of the political inserting itself into spheres of life where it's not needed or wanted. "How they do it in in Chicago" isn't the question, "Is this dish visually/texturaly/tastily appealing" is. Regional appelations, likewise.
206: It's just an inch and a half of melted cheese, people!
How strange that someone could say this as though it were a bad thing.
219: See, I just can't eat a pound of melted cheese at a sitting. This isn't for health reasons, since there are heavy, oily things (like many kinds of Indian food) that I readily hoover up. But I feel awful if I have any significant quantity of a really stuffed stuffed pizza.
219: She's just pissed off that it takes up some of the room that could otherwise be used by the half-inch of pepperoni and sausage.
But I feel awful if I have any significant quantity of a really stuffed stuffed pizza.
That's why you only have a slice or two.
If by "she" you mean me, you'll have to change it to read "half inch of mushroom, onion and olive". I'm not against cheese, here--I am deeply partial to dairy generally--but a big wodge of melted cheese with a tiny smear of tomato paste on top isn't how I like it.
222: See, even a slice is too much, unless it's under half an inch thick. I'm sorry, Unfoggers, I....I just can't. I was born like this, and it's tormented me all my life.
Why don't you just admit you hate pizza and let us make fun of you for that?
225: So you want me to "admit" to an untrue allegation for the good of the collective? Didn't Koestler write something about this?
Who's the commie now, Ogged? I like pizza just fine.
Frowner, it's easy. You like something you call pizza, and you dislike something that is pizza.
a big wodge of melted cheese with a tiny smear of tomato paste on top isn't how I like it
I like pizza just fine.
I too prefer the pizza of the greater thinness. Thin crust, not overly weighed down with toppings, cooked, preferably, at outrageously high temperatures. Mm.
228: I dare say that many and many an actual Italian person would feel just as I do about huge slabs of cheese and a smear of flavorless tomato paste. And if you can disregard Italian opinion on what makes a pizza a pizza, why then I can also disregard you and your flavorless helpings of mediocre mozzarella. Cultural relativism all round, thankyouvermuch.
If pizza-eating losers just stay out of God's country everyone will be happier. LB, I'm sending several dozen middle-class New Yorkers who've been hanging around grumbling about Minnesota pizza back to you.
I'll clear out some space in the storage locker, and call Arturo's for a couple of pies.
231: huge slabs of cheese and a smear of flavorless tomato paste
Sorry, there's just one thing I really have to correct. Properly made Chicago-style pizza has sauteed tomatoes on top along with the more pastey stuff, the larger tomato chunks should be about the size of a hummingbird's head. It's a thick and hearty sauce that easily stands up to the cheese. I can understand criticisms that the Chicago-style deep dish is overdone, but the flavor balance is unimpeachable.
The best Chicago pizza is Lou Malnati's. Hurray for whoever introduced that upthread! The best pizza in the world is at DeLorenzo's on Hudson Street in Trenton, New Jersey. (The DeLorenzo's on Hamilton Street is great but not the best. Cousins.) The best pizza after that is in New Haven on Wooster Street: Pepe's, The Spot, Sally's. After that I hear some places in New York are all right and then you have to go to Italy.
Los Angeles has pizza that approaches the upper limit of adequate. I love ya, El Lay, but you haven't figured out pizza. (california pizza is another animal entirely, and can be exceptionally tasty.)
This is making me really hungry.
I won't say a word about the pickled-herring / rutabaga / Swedish meatball pizza.
236: There's probably a kebab pizza somewhere with just those ingredients.
192:
We did all kinds of experiments with ingredients, figuring out that the most you can really get cooked on a pizza are teeny-tiny dices of peppers and onions, and thin slices of cremini mushrooms.
Nah. You have to partially cook the dough (crust) separately a bit first if you have a conventional oven. Then take it out and add the toppings. It's not that hard, but that said: yeah, for home cooking, thinner crusts are better. And non-tomato based pizzas are better.
Unless y'all just want a mouth full of goo.
Quiche is the same way: partially cook the crust first, take it out and cool, add the fillings, stick it back in the oven.
238: isn't that just why you want a pizza/bread stone?
I'm back in the 'hood, after my drive home. On the Tri-State, I-294, I looked into O'Hare and saw the new AirBus. It's huge.
233: is a "hummingbird's head" really the most apt size-comparison you could make, there?
241: The size of a non-enlarged prostate?
Decapitating hummingbirds is what Real Americans do for fun, you decadent coastal elites.
I've had calzone in Italy. Admittedly it was probably in Florence or Siena, so it may have just been there for the tourists.
If one is lucky enough to live in a place where one can get naan
I'm not sure I can walk into many of my local shops and NOT be able to buy naan!
If I stand on the corner of my street, fewer than half the people walking past will be talking English. There's a school opposite the corner (4-11 year olds - my eldest is there this term, though I don't think she's planning on going back after Easter) and there are dozens of nationalities represented there.
I went to see Will Self doing a reading/talk tonight, and in the Q&A some American bloke asked him to compare and contrast London and New York (he'd obviously been reading the same magazine as ogged today) - Self said that he'd walked to New York and that whilst the walk from his house in South London to Heathrow had been lovely - most of it off-road, by rivers, sylvan glades, ring-collared parakeets, etc - the bit from JFK to Manhattan was fucking horrible. So there.
I also live in a place where naan is very common—Devon Avenue, Chicago—but in this country such places are few and far between.
England is certainly far better for walking, in general, than the US.
(The same may be true for the rest of the UK; I wouldn't know.)
the bit from JFK to Manhattan was fucking horrible
I do not dispute that much of the US is not hospitible to walkers, still, while it is a long way, I think one could have a nice walk from JFK to Manhattan. Just west of JFK is a large nature preserve that is very pretty. The walk along the shore by the Belt Parkway would be nice on a spring day. You could cut north before the Verazano Bridge and go through some nice neighborhoods, including Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights before walking across the Brooklyn Bridge--which is impressive.
Isn't JFK to Manhattan 30 miles or something? Wouldn't you be well advised to fly out of Newark instead (never mind the wisdom of walking there...)?
More like 10. Not quite as close as Newark, but much more walkable.
La Guardia, of course, is much closer than either.
I liked the pizza place I found in Inverness.
90 -- was your friend at Seton Hall? Because that is in South Orange, NJ, not NYC.
Oh wait nemmine, I'm confused.
I do like American tv though. (Especially combined with the wonders of teh internets.) We've been overdosing on Prison Break recently.
225, 226: I hate pizza, you bastards.
Yeah, whatever. I just put a chicken in the oven that's got fennel and lemon thyme stuffed under its skin. Pizza is what you get when you're too fucking tired to cook and you're bored with Chinese.
Or when your wife the lovely rfts decides to make some from scratch.
Or when your 4 1/2 year old decides that what she needs to celebrate her exact 4 and a half birthday (which was yesterday in my time zone, today still in others) is Nutella sandwiches and pizza.
My lovely wife rfts hasn't decided to do that in a while.
Maybe you should have a talk with her.
Then you should trade your lovely wife rfts in for a working model, perhaps asking yourself, "Am I right? Am I wrong?"
Let me agree with B. this once. Pizza is the default emergency takeout food for when for some reason (for example, marginal mental illness or subaddictive drug abuse) you can't manage real food.
People who profess to like pizza, or who talk about how one kind of pizza is "better" than the others, normally have suffered from these marginal problems for so long that pizza tastes "good" to them.
I wonder if Garrison Keillor likes pizza.
Keillor isn't Norwegian, you know. He's a descendant of Canadian Loyalists who hated America.
When my dad was a kid his family was once traveling and stopped to eat at an Italian restaurant in a small town in Colorado. They ordered spaghetti but the server brought them pizza by mistake; it was the first time they'd seen it, and it took them a while to figure out what it was. They decided to try it instead of sending it back, but they didn't like it.
Pizza is the default emergency takeout food for when for some reason (for example, marginal mental illness or subaddictive drug abuse) you can't manage real food.
No no no. While I understand this, no.
You have not made for yourself: large size good-quality wheat pita bread brushed with a small amount of good-quality olive oil, sprinkled with minced walnuts, minced fresh garlic and fresh basil (this being poor man's pesto, in essence); with a few thin slices of good-quality tomatoes on top, and fresh grated parmesan and some mozzarella. Throw some kalamata olives on there if you must, some thinly-sliced red onions, even some chopped raw yellow squash, under the cheese. Bake for all of 15 minutes.
This will get you laid, if you share it. Make two.
John's not very concerned about getting laid.
How does it differ from wealthy man's pesto?
Oh I get it -- walnuts 'steada pignoli.
Pizza, relationships, mental illness, addiction: there are no coincidences.
This will get you laid, if you share it. Make two.
But then you aren't sharing.
Or you could share one, and keep the other for yourself.
Yeah, share both of them. One's not enough, you'll be fighting over it.
Realize these are thin pizzas, sort of snack-like. Light enough to leave room for activity.
One's not enough, you'll be fighting over it.
I'm not seeing the problem.
I'm not seeing the problem.
Okay, well, teo gets it: share one and keep the other for yourself. It's for lunch tomorrow.
Leave the other on the counter and wait coolly for the hesitant remark: "Um, do you think, um, well, I wouldn't mind ..."
Go from there where you will.
Mollusc-eroticism is unavoidable, but pizzas aren't molluscs.
Makes four 8-10" very thin pizzas
3 3/4 c. mixed white and whole wheat flour (I like half-and-half King Arthur all-purpose, which is almost as high in protein as many other brands' bread flour, and the KA "white" whole wheat)
1 t. instant dry yeast (the kind that says it's for bread machines works fine for this)
2 t. kosher salt
2 t. sugar (slightly heretical, I know)
2 t. olive oil
1 2/3 c. tepid water
See below about when and how to preheat the oven.
This makes quite a wet dough. I would find it hard to knead by hand. Put the dry ingredients, including the yeast, in the bowl of your stand mixer, with the bread hook in place, and start it up on low. Pour the oil into the water and then add the mixture gradually. Turn the machine up to mediumish and knead 10 minutes.
Divide the dough into 4 balls. At this point I usually wrap them up tightly in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer. If you do this, transfer the number you want to the fridge on the morning of your final baking. If you want to go directly to baking, you should have started the oven about half an hour before you started the dough.
Have a baking stone or layer of unglazed tiles on the bottom rack of your oven, and no other racks in the way. Prehat the oven to 500° F. Let stone go on heating up in there for a full hour. In the meantime, pull the dough out of the fridge onto the counter, still in its wrapper, to warm to room temp.
Flour your work surface. Flatten ball of dough into a disk and streeeeettch it out as thin as it will go. You might even want to roll it out with a well-floured rolling pin. Get it really, really thin. Loosen with a knife or a dough scraper, drape it over your hands and forearms, and transfer either to a pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal, or a piece of parchment paper on a peel or rimless cookie sheet.
Now it's time to dress the pizza before it goes in the oven.
Basic version: Take a teaspoon of olive oile mixed with minced garlic and a nice fat pinch of salt. Brush it over the dough, leaving a 1" margin at the edge. Then evenly cover the same area with just 1/4 cup of pureed tomato. This makes a very light coat. Top with some fresh basil leaves and about 5 slices of fresh mozzarella -- it will spread out as it cooks.
Transfer pizza to the baking stone, parchment and all if applicable. Cook 7 minutes and remove with your peel or cookie sheet. Add freshly ground pepper. Cut and enjoy.
If you can get your oven hotter than 500 degrees, hooray for you! Some nice variations on that basic pie include a light sprinkling of onions or shallots that you have already sliced thin and sauteed gently and thoroughly to the point of caramelization, or similarly precooked mushrooms. Peppery greens like arugula go well in place of the basil, or heaped on top of the pizza after it comes out of the oven, so that the residual heat wilts them.
Arugula on pizza, put on after it's out of the often as rfts describes, is delicious.
I've been known to put closely chopped kale on pizza, but again, the thin pita-pizza I described, and under the cheese, so that it wilts somewhat, or browns/crisps where it peeks out.
It may take a special palate for that; some find kale unpalatable no matter what. Leaf-eater, and all that.
Still. It provides toothiness, and air, against the potential soggy. Power.
Does anybody know anything about some band called Pere Ubu? Should I bother to see them this Easter? A friend just told me, unhelpfully, that he "cannot describe their music because it has spilled all over the table like Kool-Aid. Only The Residents are as odd as Pere Ubu"
201: My sentiments exactly. How'd you like the Luminox? I am sorry to live in a country where such a thing is sadly not possible.
Some of the best thin crust pizza can be found in Chicago. Piece, it was either on Damen or North. I think they said it was New Haven style, so go figure.
And the Med was good. The garbage pizza.
Does anybody know anything about some band called Pere Ubu?
They were a huge deal in the 70s and 80s. I don't know much about the new album but I have no doubt they're worth seeing.
I agree with your friend, 287. I would feel odd about seeing any band that hit its creative peak 27 years ago and which is synonymous with its frontman and therefore has had numerous barely-overlapping lineups over the years, but I'm sure it'll be an interesting experience, more so than some such bands.
But here's something I haven't said already, and hasn't already been mentioned on the thread: there's a place in the East Village that has the nan-type pizza crust. I think there are only one or two places in the Manhattan with that type of oven--there's a safety issue or something. It might be called Jon's. We should all go eat there presently.
And the capital of the world is Newark. Thread over.
No, you're confused. Newark is the world's most pedestrian-friendly airport.
I'm mostly just a lurker, but can I do a mini threadjack for some advice? I just got an e-mail from some doctor guy my mom is trying to set me up with. The e-mail address is from gmail; but his name shows up as "Namey Name, M.D." Do people really tack their degrees onto their names for the purposes of e-mail? I mean, I guess Bitch PhD does, but that's different, right? Is this guy just a total tool?
The e-mail is not that skillfully written, although he does capitalize properly, and there are no misspellings. FIW
299: If it's from his office account, I guess that wouldn't seem too weird.
I have the Rocket from the Tombs reunion album, and it's okay but pretty unmemorable. The stuff Laughner did as Pere Ubu may hold up better (although I would guess that RftT's stuff would be better live).
It's a gmail account, doesn't that foreclose the likelihood that it's his work account?
299: Wait, did you just call me a total tool?
303: No, no, I made a special exception for you! I.e., "that's different".
Pine nuts aren't more expensive than walnuts, are they? Besides, you toast half of them with a little salt and olive oil and use the other half fresh and the pesto is sooo much better. I can't really see that happening with walnuts. I could be wrong, but I don't really like walnuts. So there's that.
302: Not necessarily -- if it's a small practice, they might not have their own domain etc. I sometimes interact with lawyers who use aol or earthlink for work.
I'm not saying I'd want to see my daughter dating any of them, or anything.
Why don't you just date Kotsko, Junior Mint? And what kind of doctor is he?
Different in that the doctorate is philosophical rather than medical; otherwise, quite similar.
307: If only he would have me, Ogged. I don't know what kind of doctor he is. He wrote about three sentences in his introdutory e-mail, and one of them was to ask me about my own graduate school and degree. Actually, I hate him already, and I just want affirmation.
I'm sure Kotsko would have you, and remember, I made up a statistic that something like 1/4 of doctors are psychopaths, so avoid avoid avoid.
294:
I agree with your friend, 287. I would feel odd about seeing any band that hit its creative peak 27 years ago and which is synonymous with its frontman and therefore has had numerous barely-overlapping lineups over the years, but I'm sure it'll be an interesting experience, more so than some such bands.
Sorry to quote at length, I gotta go to bed.
Actually the friend who made that remark about Pere Ubu was, I think, recommending them.
And. He's a Fall fan.
I've found that I don't like the Fall much. I tried.
It's hard, you know, when you have a dear friend who's enamored of a certain style set, or whatever it is, and you don't trust his musical judgment. I should say: don't share his judgment.
Yes, you should go see Pere Ubu.
Apo, fuck you.
I'd just decided not to.
Pere Ubu have nothing in common with the Fall other than being formed thirty or so years ago and being synonymous with a charismatic yet opaque and unhealthy frontman.
It's true, Pere Ubu sounds nothing like The Fall. I saw them open for the Pixies way back in my college days, and they put on by far the better show of the two.
I was there more to see them than The Pixies, though.
("them" being Pere Ubu, not The Fall)
I apologize to Apostropher for the overly emphatic disturbance.
I do.
I dunno why this is bothering me so much. I'm pressured to go to see these bands I think I don't really like very much. That's all. It's contrary to the music I do like. I can barely understand the language of these people who talk about their music; they can barely understand what I listen to.
No worries, I took no offense. To be fair, there are a lot of people who would just find Pere Ubu annoying. You may be one of them.
Pine nuts are good, and so are walnuts. Why hate?
You could put some campari powder on your pizza.
321: That I might find their music annoying, yes, just my thought.
322:
What I listen to is too complicated, or inchoate, to explain at this time. Probably like anyone else.
Right now I like Piano Magic. (Band, or ensemble, name, and the name is not descriptive of their music.)
But I also just like Bruce Cockburn, Leo Kottke, Greg Brown, and various instrumentalists on that order. I tend to like 12-string and spanish guitar.
I like King Crimson, though I haven't been able to listen to their recent stuff for about a year; they're a little painful lately, like a trip about to go bad.
That should give a sense? I consider it to be all over the map.
But I also just like Bruce Cockburn, Leo Kottke, Greg Brown, and various instrumentalists on that order.
You should listen to Rick Bishop's albums Salvador Kali and Fingering the Devil, and Steffen Basho-Junghans, and Beck playing a harmonium.
Hey, lots of stuff on Kning Disk sounds pretty good!
OH and Janet Feder has an awesome album with Fred Frith out called Ironic Universe. Janet Feder is way good.
This is a nice comp. As is the recent one that came out for Peter Walker (called A Raga for Peter Walker).
ben, I think you're sending links to things that require me to have a high-speed internet connection. I do not.
It sorta sucks. I like this conversation with you. So I'll mark this thread, and I'll go over to some place where I can check these things out. Don't be surprised if it takes me a while.
And you should check out Piano Magic, here, I'm too tired to embed html,
re: 288
Luminox was merely OK. It looked great when I came out of work on Thursday and when it was quiet and everything was lit up. I was impressed.
But when we actually chose to go [on saturday] it was incredibly windy and so busy it was pretty claustrophobic. Crowds plus extreme proximity to fire being whipped into random shapes by high winds is not really that much fun.
Some of those flickr photos are great and really capture how it looked -- I took some myself but on slide film, so still not seen how they turned out.
326: Yeah, Pere Ubu isn't really like any of what you cite -- they range more from proto-punk to experimental post-rock (it's the latter that probably prompted your friend to compare them to The Residents).
Chris Cutler played with Pere Ubu. 'nuff said.
Incidentally, it was a real bummer to fail to meet you while you were here, Charley.
"OH and Janet Feder has an awesome album with Fred Frith out called Ironic Universe"
I have in my email archives a post from 1999 from a contemporary of Fred's at Cambridge. Graphically and plausibly, and hilariously suggesting that Fred desperately wanted to be an avant-garde pop star but lacked the talent and the imagination and looked non-stop for shortcuts to fame.
331 -- It wasn't too crowded Friday. And not as windy, if the weather in Oxford on Saturday night was anything like it was in London.
335 -- My sentiments as well. There's always a next time . . .
Frowner's on crack with her love for hippy Minnesota pizza (I'm presuming you mean Pizza Luce, Frowner). There are about 7 different styles of pizza available here, you just need to know where to order from. My favorite is of the 900-degree woodfire oven, super authentic italian ingredients variety.
Our point is that pizza is crap, Chopper.
CharleyCarp doesnt want his daughter to date lawyers?!?!?! The outrage!
Charley (here's my Luminox photos) ...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/85361107@N00/sets/72157600015791959/
I had nothing to add to the pizza discussion until now:
A Welshman has had a slice of ham and pineapple pizza tattooed on the back of his head. Colin Helsby's tattoo took three hours to complete and features three types of ham, chunks of pineapple and strands of cheese dripping down his neck. The 45-year-old had the tattoo to raise cash for a cystic fibrosis charity and to celebrate the opening of his new business - a takeaway pizza shop.
Picture at the link, naturally.
"A Welshman"? Clearly that story isn't credible.
