One of the reasons I became what people call a "food writer" was my clam-broth baptism in the behemoth, much-mourned Brooklyn restaurant called Lundy's. That fish palace on Sheepshead Bay coalesced a constellation of 20th-century American values: collective melting-pot festivity (it seated more than 3000), the promise of local unpolluted cornucopia, institutionalized racism (underpaid all-black staff), and working-class strife (a bloody strike).
My personal attachment, however, was identical to that of many Brooklyn-Jewish contemporaries: beaten biscuits hot enough to melt the icy butter-pat, sandy clams, salty bisque -- and a first view of fat, glistening lobster and its pillowy reward inside.
My father, who beamed to see his two boys join him in the pleasures of the table, had one signature selfishness (that I knew of, anyway): Lundy's lobster was his, only his. Mom didn't really enjoy it the way he did, and it was out of bounds -- as was most everything a la carte -- for Leslie and me.
Yes, Leslie. He hated his name, always said that I was the one who should have been Leslie. Sweet.
Still, for me, growing up meant ordering anything I wanted -- and paying for it myself. Of course, I never did the latter when I was a restaurant critic.
Anyway, once we brought Grandma. Mary Weinstein -- Mary? Is that a Jewish name? -- kept a kosher home, but my father, the black-sheep favorite of seven, had a trick. He began months before telling her that there was a special Weinstein dietary "dispensation" for lobster. He worked it, and worked it. Just for Weinsteins, he said, grinning his used-car salesman grin. Just for us.
"Here, Mom," and he lifted a chunk of his trayfe fra diavolo on his fork to her mouth.
Can you imagine the expression of warring impulses on her face? I watched my white-haired grandma sink in luxurious defeat. Her darling Hashel could do that every time.
If they had had websites named "Renegade Kosher" then, "Weinstein" would have been a constant keyword.
So what drew out this piece of delicate nostalgia? I was recently asked to eat and rate the kosher offerings at the insultingly expensive Citi Field and Yankee Stadium by the folks at the Forward. Results? I hope you're a Mets fan, or at least can pretend for just those few hours that I'm your dad and allow yourself an online, adoptive, baseball-park "Weinstein dispensation."
Happy 4th of July,
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That sinkless, mob-owned, wretched bar was is where our Greenwich Village forebears could meet, flirt, and actually dance. New York police, many on the take, had the upper hand.
Yes, dear readers, the boys and girls exploded that night and a number of nights after. Part of their neighborhood, and part of a whole city, joined them. Soon, a Gay Liberation Front formed, tired of the brave but docile and mostly ineffective efforts that preceded it.Was Judy's death the straw that broke this miserable camel's back?
Some say yes, some no. Writer, critic and gay maven David Ehrenstein emailed me to say that "Judy's passing was 'in the air,' " and one of the "Stonewall kids" named Tommy who was there confirmed that to him. Others, noted in my piece for Obit Magazine out today, completely disagree.
As you can read in my salute to Judy and Stonewall, I think the truth, by its very nature fugitive, is somewhere in between. Both riveting spirits reward another look.
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"I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader," says Adam Lambert -- remember him? -- as he comes out in the new Rolling Stone. Quelle, quelle surprise, but congratulations nonetheless.
Yet comments like that are as boilerplate as the mag itself.
Dear Adam: Popular culcha has long ago rendered any such division into schmaltz.
In case you have or anyone has any doubts about that, check out the quite subversive 1952 Disney cartoon short called Lambert the Sheepish Lion. See any parallels, sweetie? The gay-positive metaphors?
Oh, yes, the charming, witty voiceover is immediately familiar as that of the sterling Sterling Holloway -- who, by the way, introduced the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart standard "I'll Take Manhattan" in their very first tandem outing, a series of '20s romps called Garrick Gaieties. Holloway's raspy light tenor, what some have termed a near falsetto, was his calling card. Later, he collected modern art. His admiring bios include the boilerplate "Never married."
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About
Jeff Weinstein I've been an editor of arts coverage at New York's Soho Weekly News (1977-79); of visual arts and architecture criticism and much else at the Village Voice (1981-95, with a stint as managing editor of Artforum); of the fine arts at the Philadelphia Inquirer (1997-2006); of arts and culture at Bloomberg News (2006-07). I am also a writer.... more
Recent and past writing On life-friendly Obit Mag, a slideshow essay about the late, undervalued photographer Helen Levitt and another about photos of Sufi memorials shot by Lisa Ross, as well as a podcast. Also on Obit, a shoutout to the real Harvey Milk, just as the movie appeared. I'm writing about art for Metro-NY, which requires a Nathanael West (Nathan Weinstein) telegraphic style; here's a "long" review of the Walker Evans postcard show at New York's Met Museum. Click for information about my book Learning To Eat, and for a decent portion of a recently published essay, "Gay Etiquette." more
Contact me Click here to send me an email... more
Blogroll
More a saltstick than a roll, but 10 for the moment:
Obit
Ehrensteinland
Artopia
Matthew Gallaway
David Lida
ARTicles
There's a Queer in My Soup
Young and Foodish
C-Monster
Pam Rosenthal
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AJ Blogs
AJBlogCentral | rssculture
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
rock culture approximately
Laura Collins-Hughes on arts, culture and coverage
Richard Kessler on arts education
Douglas McLennan's blog
Dalouge Smith advocates for the Arts
Art from the American Outback
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
No genre is the new genre
David Jays on theatre and dance
Paul Levy measures the Angles
Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture
John Rockwell on the arts
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
dance
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
media
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Martha Bayles on Film...
classical music
Fresh ideas on building arts communities
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
Bruce Brubaker on all things Piano
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
publishing
Jerome Weeks on Books
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
theatre
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
visual
Public Art, Public Space
Regina Hackett takes her Art To Go
John Perreault's art diary
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
