Pala and the Moth

For years I've been looking for a passable vegan pizza in New York. So many vegan pizzas, almost all barely edible. Well, my search is over. Yesterday I had a pizza not just passable, but probably the best pizza I've ever had. Pala Pizza on the Lower East Side. Expensive but delicious, this is not a vegan restaurant but has an entire vegan menu.

I also went to The Moth, in which people go up on stage and tell stories. You can listen to some on the website. It was very cool, and makes me want to try my hand at it.

Bond Street and the High Line

I've said before that I think modernist architecture is a blight on the world, replacing all the beautiful buildings that created centuries of amazing cities with boring heartless glass boxes. But I've also said that I found a marked exception on the High Line. And this weekend, I found another on Bond Street.

For non-NYers, the High line is a park built on a former elevated railroad track, and I couldn't have dreamed of how cool a long and narrow park could be. This past week I visited the newly-opened second stretch of the High Line, and I am continually impressed with how they took the same basic idea -- a narrow path among wild-growing plants -- and make each stretch a little different. Along one stretch, the weeds grow tall and thick on either side ("the thicket") and you almost feel isolated from the city, sliding through what could almost be a wooded area away from the city. In another section, the path rises above the level of the railway, so that you are walking as if through the canopy of these tall weeds. And along the way, more modernist buildings interesting enough that I like them. Really, the only downside of this really special park is the neighborhood, which until it slowly gets transformed into a modernist paradise continues to look over ugly tire shops and warehouses.

My new discovery, this weekend, was Bond Street, a cobblestone block right in the middle of the city, half old crumbling buildings and half brand-new modernist buildings. The modernist buildings, though, are all really cool. Most striking is 40 Bond Street, which looks ugly in pictures, but striking in person. Here's a bit of its post-modern ground-floor. If you want by, go through the entrance. You'll see a hallway that reminds me of Star Trek TNG, and the squiggly exterior extending as carvings in the wood paneling.

Other buildings include the very 3D, layered facade which give the windows a hive-like feel, and one with windows that angle out towards the street.

Discovering new cool things in the city is one of my favorite things. Go New York!

Bros before hoes?

I had a disagreement with a friend about the relationship between friends and relationships. To me, friends are really important, but romantic relationships are so special that they are paramount. If a friend cancelled on me for a boyfriend or girlfriend, I would totally understand. I would be less understanding if my girlfriend cancelled on me for a friend. I would hope it was something pretty important.

My friend had the opposite view. Relationships are nice, but they are secondary to friends. Basically, "Bros before hoes." I have, of course, heard this expression before, but always with bafflement. Of course it's the other way around! I interpreted this as being a way guys try to be macho and trivialize women as mere toys. But my friend does not fit this interpretation.

What do you think?

Fat Cat

I am going to Israel this weekend. I will be there for my birthday. I guess I'll celebrate when I get back.

Last night I went to Fat Cat for the first time. This place isn't fancy, but it's great! Ping-pong, shuffleboard, pool, board games, and live jazz. I played Scrabble.

(I also had squirrels take peanuts out of my hand. If you do this, be careful, they can scratch and bite!)

Also earlier this week I had a fight with a friend. Well, she was mad at me and I tried to show her it was all a misunderstanding. While I never prefer a fight, do you think small doses of drama do add some spice to life?

Happy Lag BaOmer

Today was La BaOmer! I couldn't get the city license for a bonfire, but I could make s'mores at home. And using quality dark chocolate and fancy vegan flavored marshmallows, this was by far the best s'mores I've had in my life. So good!

I also just learned about the NYC Pillow Fight in April. Missed it this year, but next...

Don't look back in anger

Saturday I went to a new vegetarian restaurant, Annam Brahma, way out in Jamaica Hills, Queens. It was pretty weak, the kind of vegetarian restaurant you might get out in middle America where there's no competition. But it appeared to be run by a cult of Americans wearing saris who followed a leader who I apparently shouldn't have called "that guy" when pointing to his shrine. So, that was interesting.

At night I went to my friend's birthday for karaoke at Keats. Take that, Oasis!

I'm having so much fun.

Poetry Slam and Behavioral Economics

Highlights from this week included a poetry slam at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in Losaida, where I served as judge. Many people don't know that Losaida, the traditionally Hispanic part of the Lower East Side, got its name from attempts to pronounce the name of that neighborhood with a Spanish accent. Not knowing the proper scale, I started off by giving this amazing guy Harry Baker a 7 for his poem on prime numbers and love called 59, which was a mistake since he was extraordinary, so everyone else got a very low score from me, and as such every score got booed.

Also had a book club meeting on a book that received thumbs up all around: Predictably Irrational. In this book, Dan Ariely talks about studies in which people consistently, like clockwork, do the irrational thing. He hopes that by realizing the problem, we can take steps to correct for it, but it's just as true that we can take advantage of this irrational behavior in others -- marketing people are doing it to you all the time. After each chapter, I wanted to write an essay about how to use this information to advance one's cause, and I restarted blogging in order to get into the habit so that I actually would, so the book is both the subject of and cause of this post.

Last night was my first night without plans -- or more precisely, when I had plans but didn't go. It was a needed break, but also the worst day in weeks. My life is great. In ways I haven't explained, it's a new philosophy of life for me, one which in my head I refer to as philosophy K, and if I step back and consider it, it's a pretty scary one. But when I don't look at the big picture, I am happy, and hell seems so very far away.

New stuff I did and took pictures of

A few other thing I did this week, selected by dint of my having happened to take a picture:

Tried a new fruit: the Pepino Melon. It is, unfortunately, tasteless.

I visited Madison Square Park, typically home to some unusual art or another. Usually I find the art, well, strange, interesting, but for the first time I really liked this giant distended head.

By the park was an area for outdoor food vendors, but unlike the usual nonsense, these were all high end and almost all veg-friendly. I tried my first tamale (eh) and also hot a Vietnamese hot dog (interesting).

I joined a friend for an art exhibit at a gallery in the Lower East Side of very sexually explicit and grotesque art. They also did a multimedia dance with a story about temptation and sin (in which, as far as I could tell, the sinner ran off with the devil and lived happily ever after?). They were very talented, and the whole thing seemed very artsy and avant-guard, which I liked.

I also caught a filming of Access Hollywood. I was in the background for part of it, though I have no idea if the camera caught me. I think the last time I was on film as a mere spectator was on Crossfire, way back.

This is all just the tip of the iceberg! New York is so much fun!

Cowgirls, Baths, Epistrophe, Peasant

Every day seems packed full for me! I am having so much fun...

Let's start with Sunday, just to start somewhere, or I'll never get anything down. Some highlights included a visit to the new vegan Cowgirl's Baking & Burrito Company, which has gotten mixed reviews, but which I really enjoyed. I got a chorizo burrito, a Patty Cline sandwich, and a coffee nut cupcake, and all three were very yummy. It's not fancy or subtle food by any stretch, I almost want to say it isn't restaurant food at all. It's something I imagine a mom might put together for her kids. However, the mom did a pretty good job, and I enjoyed every bite.

Across the street from that was the Russian and Turkish Baths. I think it's cool that it exists, thought I didn't use the baths. I almost expected fancy turkish Tiles and ornate Russian woodwork, but it seemed to look a lot like a locker room.

In the evening, in headed to Nolita for the nice Epistrophy Cafe. I hung out with a friend at the nice Epistrophy Cafe. I shot the breeze with some Italian tourists at the nice Epistrophy Cafe. I drank some water at the nice Epistrophy Cafe.

Then we headed to Peasant Wine Bar. Walking down the stairs and through a large wood-and-rusted-metal cottage-like door was cool already, but the inside was just gorgeous. It really felt like being in another world, a rustic European cottage. It was truly special. (Unfortunately, there are no vegan options.)

Post-its

Cute post-it ideas. Fruit!

Or, sushi!

Cats

Two time-wasting but cute links (thanks to Ariella):

Cute Roulette
Nyan Cat

Enjoy!

Taking advantage of the nice weather

I had a lovely weekend with my friend Maya, including a beautiful walk through central park..

and a visit to the orchid show at the New York botanical garden, which was really stunning...

The grounds of the garden were also beautiful...

(That "Go Take A Hike" trail mix I'm eating is like ambrosia, by the way.)




And there was lots of deliciousness along the way, including my first visit to Cafe Blossom, where the look was really nice and the brunch was really good. Thumbs up!

Take your pain medicine

Recent lesson: if you have acute pain (break a leg, stub your toe), do what you want; the pain will go away after things heal. But if you have chronic pain (lasting more than a week or two), take pain medicine!

Apparently, your brain pathways change due to longer-term pain so that you continue feeling pain even after everything is healed. We're talking forever, it becomes a non-physical issue that can't be cured. So don't let those pathways form, take your Tylenol!

Harmless stereotypes

While truly insulting stereotypes have become socially unacceptable, a lot of other stereotypes are considered harmless, or even considered true. Are they harmless, or do they have an effect on people deeper than we might think? A study by Shih, Pittinsky, and Ambady is revealing.

The stereotype is that Asians are good at math, and that women are poor at math, so would a study of Asian women be able to identify the influence of these learned associations?

Half the Asian women volunteers were asked questions that elicited considering their gender (like "do you live in a co-ed dorm?") and the other half were asked questions that elicited considering their race (like "what language do you speak at home?). They were then given a math test, and those primed to focus on their race performed better than those primed to focus on their gender.

Awareness of the stereotypes people have made them true. It's clear that propagating stereotypes really does change people. It's not harmless.

Stumbling Upon Happiness

I recently read the book Stumbling On Happiness, not a book about how to be happy, but about all the psychological reasons we're really very bad at predicting what will make us happy.

Our basic method of predicting our own happiness is to imagine ourselves in a situation, and imagine how happy it would make us. But not only does this technique lead to predictions far off the mark, our memories of how happy something made us match our predictions far more closely than how happy we really were -- so that we don't even learn from our mistakes.

So, what should we do about it? The book doesn't go into that, with one exception that I will share with you now, but be pre-warned that studies show you are probably too dumb to listen. Think you're not? Let's see...

In a study, a bunch of people, called "reporters", were fed potato chips, and told to write down how happy the snack made them. Several other groups of volunteers were fed different snacks: some were given pretzels, some crackers, some melba toast, etc. Half of these volunteers were told that tomorrow they would be given potato chips and were asked to predict how happy the chips would make them. The next day when they were given potato chips, they found their happiness quite a bit higher than they'd predicted. Perhaps you're not surprised -- potato chips seem less delicious when you're full on snacks than when you're not, and people are very bad at accounting for and adjusting for whatever's going on in the present in how they imagine the future. (It's like the rule: don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry!)

The other half were each given one randomly chosen reporter's description of how happy chips had made her, but were not told what the snack would be. They didn't know it would be chips. They were asked to predict how happy they unnamed snack tomorrow would make them, based on one random person's report. Their predictions matched their experience much better than the group who knew they'd be eating chips.

What's the moral? Asking someone who's actually in the situation is much more accurate than using your imagination and memory to judge how happy something will make you -- even a randomly chosen person. Sounds simple, but here's the catch:

Some volunteers in the study were told of these results, and were then given a choice: be told what the snack would be, or be given a random reporter's report. Even though they knew the results, they still preferred to decide based on knowing the snack. And you probably will too. Even though you know that asking a random person will be more accurate than being your own judge, you just can't help but think you are more unique than you really are, and that some fellow's opinion tells you little about how you will react to the same thing. You really feel that your own judgement, based on memories and imagination, are more reliable than someone else's report, even if the facts show otherwise, and you can't help but tell yourself, "That may be true for other people, but I'm different..." It may be related to why the vast majority of people believe that they are better than average.

Ok, so tell me. Was I right? Are you too dumb to listen to this lesson in happiness?