sat under a half mast mcdonald's flag
I got a quick one here for ya. We haven’t been doing much the past couple of weeks, but we have a buncha stuff coming up, so bear with me if this week’s is mid. How’s your week going? I didn’t know I could make it until the end of the workday on Friday this week. Is everyone else fighting for their life at work this week? It doesn’t help that it’s STILL so hot outside!!! I just can’t bear another 80º day. I think today’s the last of it though. It’s supposed to be in the 60s and 70s in the 10-day forecast and I finally am starting to feel alive. The way this is literally me:
🥞 Commerce Inn in the West Village - Omg… I don’t know WHAT took us so long to find our way to Commerce Inn but here we are. Commerce Inn is a tavern-style restaurant that is basically Stissing House but in the context of an old carriage house on Commerce Street.
I’ve talked before about how I really don’t fuck with breakfast as a concept, but this pancake, bacon, and egg combo plate really has me doubting if I’m ever actually right about anything at all.
Alex got the farmer’s plate, which included eggs, a hearty slice of multigrain toast, mashed peas, hashed potatoes, and pork sausage. I’m not being dramatic when I say the sausage was something that people write poetry about. The combination of the rustic and charming interior and the INCREDIBLY chic uniforms the staff was wearing had me spellbound the entire meal—so much so that we are going again this weekend to try their dinner menu. :)
🔪 Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) directed by Robert Benton - I wasn’t in a good mood on Saturday. I thought that this movie was a comedy and would cheer me up. I thought it was going to be a father-and-son comedy where the mother gets a job, and the father loses his job and has to stay home with their child. I fucked up!!!!
It’s a divorce movie that basically shoves a knife in your chest, twists, pushes deeper, twists again, and then pushes one final time before leaving you. It’s another movie where there are no good guys or bad guys, and you feel bad for everyone involved. It kinda gives somewhat of a gross “men’s rights” taste in your mouth, but maybe I’m just overanalyzing it?? Anyway, I was sobbing from the beginning to the end, and I think it’s a perfect movie to welcome the falltime in NYC. Plus, all of Ted Kramer should be on everyone’s moldboard for fall fits:
🍻 Manning Fireworks by MJ Lenderman - We needed this. It was one of my most anticipated albums this year, and damn, it didn’t disappoint. MJ’s lyricism feels overly civilian and accessible, with an obligatory pop reference in basically every track on this album. His voice and instrumentation are twangy and sounds plucked from 90s rock radio. Listening to the album feels like the equivalent of eating leftover, cold, grilled hotdogs refrigerated from the day before using sandwich bread as a bun—nostalgic, endearing, honest, and comical.
🥯 Apollo Bagels in the East Village - I thought we didn’t need another overhyped bagel place. I was fine never going... Then, on Monday, I saw Allison Roman proclaim it’s the best bagel she’s ever had. Specifically, it was the best she’s ever had in New York, Connecticut, and California. Which left me with no choice but to go…
There’s always a long line that looks like it would take over an hour to get a bagel (which I would never do). I went early on Wednesday morning on my walk home from the farmers market and was able to walk in and order without waiting. When I got home and took a bite, I had to catch myself on the kitchen counter. I saw visions of paradise—the perfect ratio of cream cheese to bagel, the ideal ratio of fluffy interior to crunchy exterior, the exact right amount of fresh dill, drizzled with olive oil, and topped with salt & pepper.
The photo doesn’t do it justice, and I’m over talking about it, but it really was a spiritual experience eating this bagel.
👨⚖️ My Cousin Vinny (1992), directed by Jonathan Lynn - We watched this on Sunday night with a large cheese pizza to make up for the comedy we didn’t get with Kramer vs. Kramer. Both are part of Criterion’s “Courtroom Dramas” series, and it’s hilarious that the two movies could be in a similar genre—although it is another movie with an under 5’5” short king who eats tf out of every outfit he’s in.
It’s a courtroom dramedy about two boys who get wrongly accused of shooting a gas station attendant, and they call one of their Brooklyn cousins, who’s kinda a lawyer, to represent them in a Southern court. The movie plays the hand you think it will play but in a way that can keep your attention throughout. In a landscape of terrible money-grab sequels that didn’t need to exist, I dream of a My Cousin Vinny 2.
🇮🇹 The Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy - I think this is my second or third time talking bout San Gennaro in this (how many years have I been writing this stupid thing?), and I’m still as excited about it as I was the first time we went. I love being squished together, walking with other people, and spending $15 on an almost hot meatball that’s been sitting out for hours. It may sound like I’m being sarcastic, but I’m being so deadass. It ends on Sunday, and I want to go one last time to add unnecessary stress to my weekend.
And finally, there isn’t a funnier video on YouTube than this, and I watch it once a week -
I was shopping in a store on Orchard Street the other day, and while in the fitting room, I heard the man who whistles and cleans the windows of some of the restaurants on our street whistling and cleaning the windows inside the store I was in. I immediately ran out of the fitting room to ask him if he was the same man who cleans the windows on Clinton and his face lit up. I really loved the interaction of telling him how much I love his whistling and how much of a difference it makes in my day when I can hear him from my desk.
Alright, that’s it.
Love you.
Have a great weekend!