Archive for June, 2008
Junk Bonds
Carol Whelan, a nurse, sits on her couch in her cramped, middle-class Cape home in Lindenhurst, occupied by a laughing parrot, two dogs and a monkey. She shakes her head sadly. “The truth is,” she says, “I’m getting tired of going to so many funerals of young people.”
Long Highland
They had all the proof they needed that they were fighting a real war.
Recently, two detectives from the Nassau County narcotics/vice squad went for a quick bite at a county line area bagel store. Both are seasoned veterans, having fought the darker side of suburban life for some years.
Arguing The Classics
In their most recent cover story, the staff of Entertainment Weekly released their lists of what they termed “The New Classics”: works of art created over the last 25 years that “deserv[e] recognition as classic.” These lists were understandably ambitious. They were also (and also understandably) incomplete, and as such, the magazine opened itself up to nitpickers like yours truly. As it happens, EW’s list of The New Classic albums is so incomplete that picking it apart is almost impossible: Every time a glaring omission is noted, three or four other glaring omissions make themselves apparent. I have no problem with EW’s choice of No. 1 album — Prince’s Purple Rain — but right after that, things get weird. So, rather than quibble over what is where on their list (Green Day at No. 6? Amy Winehouse at No. 9?? Interpol at No. 25???), I’m simply going to mention a bunch of albums that deserve to be on any list of “The New Classics,” but are absent from this one.
A Pizza Coal-ition
Is there a zoning law in Nassau and Suffolk that a shopping center must have a pizzeria to open? In the last few years the newest trend, coal-fired pizza, reviving the earliest method of baking pizza, has swept the Island. It all started at Lombardi’s on Spring Street in Manhattan in 1905, spread to John’s in Greenwich Village, next to Totonno in Brooklyn, then to Patsy’s in East Harlem, and the rest is pizza history. There are now branches of Patsy’s and Totonnos throughout Manhattan and Grimaldi’s places-Patsy changed the name of his pizzerias to Grimaldi’s-all over Arizona, no less. What makes a coal oven-baked pizza special is the smoky taste imparted by the coal-stoked oven and the charred crust from the intense 800-degree heat. A good coal-fired pizza should be crisp and well done, with a crunchy crust and a center that doesn’t get soggy from the sauce.
Diffusing Illegal Interview Questions
A friend’s son recently told me about an interview he went on in which the interviewer asked him the origin of his last name. The question caught my attention because it is actually characterized as a potentially discriminatory interview question, one that could by construed as prejudicial. However, as in many interviews, questions such as this are typically asked in innocence by an untrained interviewer. Ignorance of what questions are proper or how information could unintentionally be used by an employer in a discriminatory way is not so uncommon.
Sister Christian
It has obviously been a long time since I walked the halls of a Catholic school. While I am sure that things are probably very similar, even Catholic schools could not ignore the importance of the Internet. But one thing I am certain of: They don’t have the nuns that we did. No way.
