I wrote once before in a [post] about the meanings of smoke that I was then in the midst of an attempt to quit — using nicotine patches. That attempt failed. Within days of ceasing use of the patches I was back on the butts. I suppose the patches work for some but, for me, they simply shifted the source of nicotine from smoke to the patch and — even at the lowest available dose — once the patch was discontinued my body still needed a source of the 7mg or so of nicotine it expected daily. It occurred to me that the goal should not be nicotine replacement but nicotine reduction through slow titration — dose reduction — to a point where quitting would be relatively easy. Commercial products, produced at only a few dose levels would not do it.

I was smoking about a half pack of Camel Ultra-lights (approx. 0.4 mg nicotine per cigarette according to [this] FTC source) at the time I began the reduction project = 4 mg. of nicotine per day. Irony – my “normal” daily dose was already about half of what the lowest level of patch provided. No wonder I didn’t quit using the patch — it was actually making me more dependent on nicotine. My goal was to slowly reduce the number of cigarettes I smoked each day until I was down to just 3 or 4 per day — assuming that at a daily dose of only 1 to 2 mg. of nicotine, my dependency would be mostly psychological rather than physiological and easier to quit. I gave myself no time limit and did not rush the process, coaching myself that since it took me a long time to become a half-pack a day smoker it should take awhile to comfortably get back to being a 3 or 4 cigarette a day smoker.

It took a few months to get down to my target of 3 to 4 cigarettes a day (one for each of the major triggers: morning coffee and after meals). And, just as I was debating about how to actually go about quitting, Providence intervened: I got food poisoning from eating a bad hot dog last July 4th. I was sick as a dog for days and, of course, could not smoke at all. After the fourth day it dawned on me that I was completely free of nicotine dependence — since it only takes 4 days to completely get through nicotine withdrawal. Had there been any side effects of the final withdrawal (e.g., stomach cramps, constipation, headaches, etc.) they were completely masked by the far more severe symptoms of food poisoning. I realized I need never smoke another cigarette — I was free.

People have asked me if I found it difficult to quit smoking — and are surprised when I say “no”. The method I hit on — slow reduction of dose dependence and then just wait to get sick (hopefully nothing as dire as food poisoning) so you can get through withdrawal with any symptoms masked by the illness — was really pretty easy. Interestingly, I have also never experienced any cravings since I quit. There were a few behavioral triggers that made me think of smoking sometimes (the strongest: dealing with work stress, which I had adapted to by relying on smoke breaks that got me away from the office for a few blessed minutes…) but they were eventually extinguished.

The takeaway: nicotine is an addiction, but a fairly manageable one using standard dose titration methods and reliance on “masking symptoms” of any transient illness that can help you through the final 4-day withdrawal.

• The Semiotics of Smoke
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• Born Too Late…

I know I should probably want to hate this image and everything it represents, but I can’t because it’s so damned perfect. Frankly, I admire the commitment that BB shows — in the midst of a near-Depression, with the raging rabble verily at the gates of the compound! — to a lifestyle and an ideal that seems quaintly antique in a culture that paves over its history and sells out its future for a quick buck.

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t!

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Busted! Martha and Co. strolling away from the knishery on Thanksgiving afternoon. And, no, she doesn’t have the power to melt faces. I did that…

I like to flatter myself that I’m a savvy little rat — after all, I was a mere stripling when I gave God himself the heave ho — no small accomplishment in a house full of Irish Catholics. And, yet, I am occasionally surprisingly susceptible to matters of faith in more prosaic matters. Like most people, I tend to believe what I’m told — even by people I don’t personally know, at all. Especially when they live in my television.

Artist’s rendering.

I had my faith thrown in my face on Thanksgiving Day. I stayed in the city this year and my friend Frank and I made plans to see a movie and eat Chinese. Around four in the afternoon I made my way to the Sunshine cinema on the Lower East Side and, arriving ahead of my friend, decided to stop into Yonah Shimmel’s Knishery next door to the theater to get a cup of borscht. I walked into the small restaurant and was immediately met with the image of Martha Stewart sitting at a table with her daughter Alexis and some guy. It was surprising enough seeing her in such a place but seeing her there at dinner time on Thanksgiving Day was nothing less than stunning. It was like running into Santa Claus at the movies on Christmas Eve. My first impulse was to whip out my camera and document it but thought better of pissing her off (she has done time in the slammer, after all). So I quietly paid for my soup and posted myself outside the restaurant where I snapped the shot of her walking away that appears above.

Journalistic truthiness: Mythical Martha’s Thanksgiving.

My friend was more than stunned when he saw her — he was pissed. As he rightly pointed out, at that exact moment women all over the country were breaking their backs trying to live up to the image of homespun perfection that Stewart trades on — going so far as to publish a calendar in each issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine that purports to map out the daily activities of the domestic diva. I suggested that maybe she avoids cooking on Thanksgiving precisely because she does so much the rest of the year, but realized as I said it how hollow the apology sounded. The faith shattering truth was unavoidable: if she doesn’t cook on Thanksgiving, for God’s sake, then there’s no reason to believe any of it.

As tempting as it would be to castigate Stewart it really wouldn’t be fair — she’s just taking advantage of a need we have to project our desire for perfection onto idols. Her magazine is a dream book for women (and men) who desire a home life that is… impeccable. Whether attainable or not is another story. This was brought home poignantly when I paged through the copy of the magazine that I took the calendar image above from. Nestled among the photographs of delectable dishes and clever home designs was an ad for an anti-depressant drug. It was jarring to see — as jarring as seeing Martha chilling over a knish on the Lower East Side on Thanksgiving Day. But similarly enlightening, too.

• The House around the Corner
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• Fashion Conciousness

I was walking down Hudson Street, past the magazine store that’s between 12th and Jane, and was literally stopped in my tracks by espying, out of the corner of my little eye, the magazine cover depicted above in the window of the store. Though a fruitcake of longstanding, I am not particularly susceptible to many of the commonplace obsessions of my tribe — including fashion and supermodels — with one notable exception. Even an atheistic rat bows before an icon as formidable as Linda Evangelista. The defining quality of an idol is pure inviolable existence by regard and Evangelista, her face perfect and perfectly plastic, commands our attention — it is impossible to be near her image and not notice it.

Click to zoom

And this cover image is a minor miracle. For its annual art issue, W Magazine asked art world wiseguy, Maurizio Cattelan to use Evangelista as his canvas for a photo spread. Many of the images he made — including one of her as the Madonna — are visually fun and more or less interesting (if a bit obvious). But the cover shot is a tour de force. In one shot, taken outside NYU in Washington Square, Cattelan distills the world of the day into one hilarious snarky frame. A soldier, perhaps home from Iraq, walks past a black Obama stand-in and, in the middle of it all, a distraught socialite stares vacantly into the distance and silently holds her plaint/protest. By putting such a blatantly sarcastic and ironic tableau on its cover, Cattelan reminds us — in the midst of a collapsed economy — of the essentially elitist, detached and mocking nature of fashion. In the picture, Evangelista wears $1.5 million in real diamonds… and they’re merely decoration. Brilliant. Bravo to Cattelan and the ballsy W editors.

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One of the joys of adulthood is inventing playful ways of masking vices as virtues, for example: I tell myself that I can avoid going to the gym (again) by taking a very long walk – it’s more mentally stimulating and better for my heart to boot! The fact that the very long walk will terminate at my favorite restaurant in Chinatown, where I will consume 10x the calories that I burned walking – see, that’s the playful part. Here’s another example: I crave pancakes like Kirstie Alley craves… well, pancakes, probably. Steaming hot buttermilk pancakes soaked in butter and real maple syrup is a simply perfect food – but one I shouldn’t indulge too often. Or should I? I happen to live in a city with 34 thousand restaurants – many of which serve breakfast. I also happen to have a blog (…see where this is going?) It is my responsibility to my loyal readers – nay, my duty –  to hunt down the best pancakes in New York City, eat them and report on it here. And so I shall.

The first stop on my flapjack odyssey took me to Pershing Square – an odd little venue wedged into the underside of a trestle outside the main entrance of Grand Central Station. On the strength of another blogger’s glowing revue on one of the foodie blogs, which referred to the pancakes at Pershing Square as “the best” in the city, I forded a river of tourists one early Sunday morning to take a window seat and sample what they had to offer.

Being a purist of the old school I ordered the plain buttermilk variety – a pristine palette, unsullied by complicating fruit – upon which to asses the chef’s skills and they arrived in short order and steaming hot. Good sign. But they arrived without butter. I chalked that up to the frantic pace of the restaurant and the clearly harried waiter. But now I suspect it was by design, that the butter was loaded into the batter. As you can see from the photo, the platter arrived looking close to perfect: an ideal serving size of three cakes each about 5 inches in diameter, not too thin or too thick and browned just enough to provide the toasty caramelized flavor we love without tasting burned. I’m partial to thinner pancakes – they stack better and aren’t as “cakey” in your mouth as thick ones can be – but there was something odd about the mouth feel of these cakes. I literally gagged on the first mouthful — it got stuck in my throat — and I had to wash it down with hot coffee. They tasted good but felt gummy, though they were cooked through, and I suspect it was because of too much fat in the batter. Buzz kill. The pure maple syrup accompanying the cakes was not warmed just room temperature – but at least not cold out of the fridge. The blueberry and strawberry garnish was pretty but irrelevant.

I’m not sure how someone could consider these pancakes to be the best in the city – but I’ll allow that maybe they were having an off day at Pershing Square. However considering that they weren’t cheap ($12 for 3 cakes), I’m not sure I’d be willing to front them the money for another try.

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• End of The World
• Thinking of Mom

I made a pilgrimage this afternoon to the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue to see something special: a draft of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson’s hand. For a moment I resisted the impulse to go, arguing with myself over the value of totems when what really matters are the ideas, not the artifacts, blah blah blah. Thankfully I lost that argument with myself. Totems and artifacts are important – they bind us to the particulars of abstract ideas and history; they allow us to imaginatively jump across the expanse of time and connect directly with the humanity of our ancestors. They help remind us that history, of even the most momentous variety, is made by people.

The documents, two sheets of paper or perhaps parchment, filled on both sides with Jefferson’s incredibly compact handwriting, were amazing to observe. Unfortunately these were not early drafts – there were no scratch outs or arrows indicating where sections should be moved. That would have been wonderful to see, a window into his mind as a writer, but what we have is invaluable. This draft, prepared by Jefferson for handoff to the Continental Congress, contains the famous condemnation of slavery that was later excised in order to guarantee sign off by some of the Southern states.

The way the documents were presented – standing up in glass cases that allowed viewers to read them from a distance of about 12 inches – one could imagine peering over Jefferson’s shoulder as he took painstaking care to prepare a flawless copy. There were things that were amusing and touching about the way he prepared the document. Though a draft, he took care to embellish the manuscript by hand drawing the kind of large type a printer would use to call out “United States of America”. He clearly wanted to convey the importance of what he was doing.

I spent awhile pouring over the papers, noting the particular style of his handwriting – the way he made his d’s and his t’s, how he used punctuation and, I admit, trying in vain to see of I could catch him using a semi-colon incorrectly (I could not). It was great fun. But what struck me as more moving than witnessing the document itself was observing a grandfather and his grandson (pictured above) discussing it and what it meant. As the older man recited the well known chronology of American independence the young man stared intently at the handwritten words on the page. Watching them I remembered the first rush of recognition I experienced when, as a teenager, it dawned on me for the first time that all the history I’d been taught in school, all the characters whose images and names were carved into stone pediments – the country itself – was the invention of men and women of flesh and blood, frail and courageous and imperfect and full of hope. When that moment of recognition comes it’s a wonderful thing.

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Like many, I was a fan who lost the faith and left the fold as his behavior and appearance became ever more bizarre. It was painful to watch someone who had touched us with an extraordinary talent drifting into apparent madness and, perhaps, criminality. So I was startled – and grateful – to hear something this evening during the first rush of memorials on the news that made me rethink what I thought I knew about him. None other than stalwart Sue Simmons – a blowsy fixture of local TV news in New York City – speaking unscripted about Jackson said (I’m paraphrasing), “he tried to become a character – neither black nor white, male nor female, young nor old – that would appeal to all people, who he hoped would follow him as he tried to make the world a better place.” I had never heard this before and it made him make sense for the first time. More than that, it made him seem almost tragically heroic. But not a hero. Any grandiose motivations pale into delusion when we consider the bad things he may have done. Sadly, that will be his epitaph as much as his music.

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East Village, NYC 2/10/2008 2:49pm.

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• Boomtown goes bust

Watching the initial [response] of craigslist owner Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster to the shitstorm that erupted following the arrest of the “Craigslist Killer" (who used the site’s prostitution ads to connect with his victims) was remarkable. Cloistered away in their little Silicon Valley bubble they clearly hadn’t a clue about how to manage the scrutiny of meatspace media and ambitious law enforcement officials looking to score. At first they refused flatly to make changes to the way they did business, falling back on the Web 2.0 mantra that the craigslist community would police itself (after all, users provide the content for free, why shouldn’t they also provide the editing for free?). Then, when it became clear that Newmark & Co. were heading to court and maybe to jail on fraud charges, they acquiesced and agreed to change the way they manage listings for adult services – including hiring additional staff to screen out illegal material.

But at least one AG is not satisfied and has threatened to initiate criminal action against craigslist if they don’t remove even more objectionable material from their site by this Friday. Today, Buckmaster [responded] to the Attorney General of South Carolina in a blog post (of course) and just when I thought they couldn’t be more clueless about how to handle this PR disaster he surprised me. Instead of doing what any mature company would do in the face of aggressive policing (think Microsoft and the European Commission…), i.e., aiming to get the moral high ground by swiftly agreeing to meet or exceed demands for cleaning up their sites, Buckmaster demands an apology from the Attorney General, challenges the AG to prosecute South Carolina newspapers that also run off-color ads (and suggesting that he won’t because of cynical self-interest) and offers what I’ll call the “me-too” defense: craigslist shouldn’t be singled out for abetting indecency because all the other kids in the playground are doing it too! The PR trainwreck thunders on.

Sensing that this has the potential to tame the Web 2.0 golden goose that drives so much revenue with so little managerial oversight and cost, some of the New Media machers are weighing in with support: Mike Arrington at [TechCrunch] urges Buckmaster to “Stand firm. Don’t back down. In fact, just turn off the South Carolina site entirely and ban IPs from that state. Forever. And if they press criminal charges, fight it with everything you have.” Then, with a little less bravado, “And if you do end up in jail, don’t worry. I promise to visit at least once a month, even though it will be in South Carolina.”

New Media gadfly Jeff Jarvis takes time out from dancing on the graves of newspaper journalists to [offer], “And so, once again, the internet becomes a threat to the control and power of an elite and they are exploiting craiglist – and the murderer who used it – to reassert their control. But it has the marks of a witchhunt.” Jarvis doesn’t seem to get that the “elite” is law enforcement and the issue is violations of local decency laws. Minor matter.

Perhaps one of Buckmaster’s friends (does he have friends?) could suggest that he take some of that huge profit he makes from the site and hire a decent flack. And a lawyer.

• South Carolina Dems elect McCain
• NYT to Google: “That was AMAZING, give me a cigarette!”
• Google Cedes Enterprise to Microsoft

© Paramount Pictures

"Yo, Dad, can I borrow the keys to the Enterprise?" Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Kirk (Chris Pine) aim to fill some big shoes.

At one point during the new Star Trek movie it occurred to me that perhaps the most amazing thing about it was the fact that I was seeing it at all. Forty years after the original TV series went off the air and thirty years after the first film version was released here I was again watching the redoubtable starship Enterprise fly across another screen. It was interesting, though, to note how the starship was represented here compared to its first big screen appearance back in 1979. Back then, before Hollywood had hit on the formula for milking a property to death, it had taken ten years to sort out the production path for the theatrical version. When it finally appeared it was practically a religious experience for faithful fans who had invested so much in the characters and ideas from the series. One of their rewards came in their first view of the Enterprise after the ten year drought: director Robert Wise spent a full five minutes of screen time displaying the new ship, the camera caressing every detail of the model starship with clear fetishistic delight. In the new film by director JJ Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman there is no such doting on the venerable spaceship; views of the Enterprise are for the most part reduced to establishing shots taken from a great distance in space or extreme close ups of firing weapons. Similarly, internal shots are restricted to scenes filmed on a stark overlit bridge or brief scenes in an engineering section that consists oddly of industrial-looking hydraulic tubes and steel scaffolding. The Enterprise, itself a major presence throughout the Star Trek saga, is here relegated to mere backdrop, a somewhat haphazardly designed set upon which the interpersonal dramas of the main characters play out.

I think that’s significant because it indicates where the priorities for the film makers lie and what they do and don’t understand about a cultural inheritance of which they are the latest custodians.

For the three of you who haven’t seen it yet, the new Star Trek is a “reboot” of the whole kit and kaboodle that has developed over the past 40 years. An origin story about how the characters Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy, Uhura, Scotty, Sulu and Chekov came to be part of the seminal storyline. It takes us, in just over two hour’s time, from the birth of James T. Kirk to his installation – with all stalwart comrades in tow – at the helm of the Enterprise as they face down their first big challenge: a Romulan meanie named Nero (Eric Bana), who has traveled back in time to wreak vengeance on the Federation – particularly on Vulcan. With so much plot to cover in such a compressed time some things are bound to suffer and story coherence would be one. Some reviewers have expressed bafflement at the villain’s motivation and a major fault of the movie is that it is never clearly explained until a brief speech more than halfway through the film just why any of it is happening. I knew from the start only because a friend shared a comic book “prequel” that explained the backstory (thanks Carl). One gets the sense that a lot more movie was filmed but left on the cutting room floor. I was struck by how little actual screen time the main antagonist had – a disappointing waste of Bana, who is a good actor.

But, truth be told, the whole angry Romulan premise is what Hitchcock called a “MacGuffin” – the plot device used to further the main story which, here, is the coming of age of James Kirk and Spock and how they came to be who they are. It must’ve killed the filmmakers that the title Star Trek – The Next Generation was already claimed because that’s exactly what this is: an attempt to reanimate a moribund franchise, populated by senior citizens, for a new generation of moviegoers who weren’t even born when the original series was on the air. And that requires starting fresh with a cast of (very) young actors who will – if all goes according to plan — carry the sequels forward for the next 10 or 20 years.

As a result, we’re presented with a preposterous set up wherein the fresh-faced and eager Starfleet cadets (at one point Chekov discloses that he is only 17!) are given the responsibility of running the fleet’s premier starship as it faces the grave alien challenge. Uh… okay. But the challenges to these nubile heroes don’t come only from outside the ship – there’s no shortage of interpersonal drama taking place on the venerable starship that at times makes it feel like The Hills in Outer Space. Much has been made of an internecine love triangle that is utterly implausible (are you telling me that a civilization advanced enough to have perfected trans-warp space travel hasn’t figured out that it’s bad news to be dating your co-workers?), but the real drama is between Kirk and Spock, who start out as enemies but – as with any good love story – are able to channel their passion into a bond that (the producers hope) will be eternal. Ah, young love!

The success of the actors and their characterizations vary a lot. Chris Pine seems to have prepared for his role as Kirk by watching one or two James Dean movies. He plays Kirk with a chip on his shoulder and spends a good part of the movie daring people like Spock to knock it off. The anti-hero who comes into his own in a time of crisis is in itself a hoary trope, tailor made for young actors trying to show their chops. Watching Pine, we long for early Shatner who, despite his well-known quirks, was an accomplished actor capable of subtlety and nuance (as evidence I refer you [here]). Zachary Quinto on the other hand was born to play Spock and brings an already mature talent to the role. Karl Urban is wonderful as Dr. McCoy, serving up wry comedy and intelligence along with the trademark lines we’ve come to expect (“Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor not a physicist!” brought down the house). British comedian Simon Pegg gets in some good licks as a feisty Scotty and Anton Yelchin as Chekov is adorable. Zoe Saldana is a serious disappointment. Her Uhura is hot and has attitude to spare but one thing she is not is professional. We barely see her do any work and her role on the ship seems primarily to be a point of romantic contention for the male leads. Nichelle Nichols’ calmly professional Uhura was (pardon the pun) light years more progressive. Watching the travesty they made of Uhura made me feel sorry for little girls in the audience.

Aside from implausible situations and bizarre character construction, the film is a collection of missed opportunities (one of the worst is the hamfisted screw up of a meeting between young and old Spock that the time-warp plot device affords – what might have been a classic scene becomes a mere setup for a joke). Director JJ Abrams has stated many times that he was not a fan of Star Trek and that’s obvious – he clearly doesn’t get the qualities of the series that made it last so long: characters and ideas. But he doesn’t really have to get it I suppose. His job was to get new faces in front of the audience in an entertaining way and he succeeds. However, if the owners of the property hope for it to live long and prosper (sorry, couldn’t resist…)  they need to remember what made it thrive for 40 years and not sell the next generation short.

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