Handbill Handout

Following a downer of a post, some good news. We won after all. This is from the WFMU home page: "We Made It! Thanks to all our 2008 marathon pledgers, as well as those people who pledged to JM in the AM's belated marathon finale last week, WFMU has now exceeded our 50th Anniversary Fundraising goal by over $158,000! We are continually astonished by the enthusiasm, generosity and kindness of our listeners.....Thanks again for keeping WFMU alive and well! "

I really wanted to believe Staten Island Chuck . I wanted an early spring. It is, I suppose another sign that I’m getting older. I used to really enjoy the winter time. I liked snow. I liked the stillness and shimmering beauty a good blizzard brought. Of course, we don’t really have those in New York anymore. Winter is now a raw, rainy knife to the bone marrow. It’s slick and inconvenient and sickness-inducing and uncomfortable. A cheerless gray slog, especially once the holiday season is done. I had hoped to leave it behind this weekend as we went to the Union Square Greenmarket armed with spring recipes for pea dishes, ramp dishes and asparagus dishes. Forget it. None of that was in evidence at the lone produce purveyor that decided to show up on Saturday. It was still a depressing array of all root veg, all the time. The bison vendor was still selling hot broth (under salted but not terrible). Dogs were still bundled in winter coats. It won’t go away. Then again, it’s p...

Yes it’s true . I can honestly say I’ ve never eaten an Egg McMuffin . Never even tried one. Long time readers may recall my antipathy toward eggs which some would say disqualifies me from being a true gourmand, whatever the hell that is. That’s all right with me. I’m just a guy who likes food. The passing of Mr. Egg McMuffin reminded me that Easter has just passed for most Christian denominations. I had a bit of a different upbringing around that holiday since my family wasn ’t particularly religious and my dad usually got some time off around then so many Easter mornings were spent in campgrounds. The possibilities of hiding eggs on a campsite are infinitely expanded over to those in a house so it was possible for parents to keep kids occupied for much longer than they would be at home while they had a second cup of Maxwell House and another Kent while trying to orient the rabbit ears on the crummy black and white TV we dragged with us on every trip. When we weren ’t camping on Eas...

I was wandering through a street fair on a residential street on the North Side of Chicago, somewhere in Wrigleyville or close by. There were lots of good food stands, people having yard sales, and kids and dogs playing in the street. I had less than a day in town on a layover, and I decided to try to give a friend a call to meet up but my cell phone wouldn ’t work. Since it was a newer model with a Qwerty-style keyboard, I tried to text and found that the damn thing wouldn ’t turn on. Instead, I decided to head for the roundhouse that I’d be bunking in for part of the 18 hours I’d be in town. It was getting cloudy anyway and I didn ’t feel like getting caught in the rain. I got to the roundhouse and walked in without knocking. Down a long flight of wooden stairs in a giant, domed room filled with furniture covered in sheets there were six beds, a couple occupied. One of the occupants greeted me and I felt like I knew who it was though I couldn ’t see the face. Someone else cam...

Curling season is winding down for another year so it’s time to reflect on what’s past and what I still want to do in the few years that I intend to continue playing the game: I want to curl in Canada, preferably at the PEI Summer Spud. The City of Ottawa might be fun too but the level of curling there is way over my head and it's men's curling. I'd rather curl with the Mrs. up north. I would love to curl in Europe, preferably at a less-competitive/more drinking bonspiel. I want to get one more member of my family to try the sport so at some point I can enter a bonspiel or play in the club’s Saturday night league as a family unit. I’d like to extend my “curling footprint” in the US; the furthest I’ve gone to curl is Knoxville. I want to go watch the Brier live and in person, though I guess that can happen after I stop playing. I want to get 10 years under my belt at the PCC Stone so I can get my mug and retire! I think that’s about it. What I want to know from anyone wh...

That’s this season’s Montreal Canadiens slogan , and you could almost believe it. Every game is sold out, the atmosphere is always electric, and the television networks (particularly the French language channels) are filled with coverage. So of course it made total sense when we went to La Cage Aux Sports in the Bell Centre on Saturday night after the Habs shootout win over the Bruins and found not a single television showing the late Hockey Night In Canada game. Montreal, it’s quite a city of contradictions, isn ’t it? HBO’s Boxing After Dark was the viewing of choice accompanied by loud, throbbing dance music. I had forgotten what a weird place Montreal could be. Is there really that much of a boxing crowd in Montreal that putting that on in a sports bar in the arena of the most storied team in hockey history makes any kind of sense? Or were they just trying to drive out the hockey crowd so they could go home? The funny thing was is the fights were pretty darn good, so good ...

One of the defining characteristics of America is that there’s so much of it. You can drive hours in any direction and still be in it, and here in the early 21st century there’s a numbing sameness to just about every place outside of the oldest parts of the oldest cities. If you live in New York City you can leave town in any direction on an Interstate and drive for hours on a treadmill of strip malled suburbia Any direction but North that is. Strike out from the city about 9am and fight your way through New Jersey traffic up to the New York State thruway northbound and by noon you can be in the stunning Adirondacks traveling one of the most scenic roads on the planet. Keep going and by 3pm you can find yourself in a place totally alien to your fellow Americans. A place that is always my first or last stop when I visit the city that for me is home but not home, the city I can always visit but never live. The city is Montreal, and the place is Marche Atwater . It’s a smell that ge...