poetry, food and new york

John Ashbery is on Goodreads! So cool.

The other night I wasted some time making a podcast of myself reading several poems by James Tate. Then I screwed up the audio mix in Audacity by neglecting to switch the one-channel audio track to stereo, so I was only coming through in the left channel. This is why you should always use headphones. For some reason, I wasn’t. The ironic thing is that I’m going to Atlanta this week to teach high-school kids how to use Audacity, among other things. Anyway, I’m going to attempt to repair the damage as best I can and post the MP3 soon.

Tyler Cowen: “Just think how much you are saving: what’s really scarce in life is your time and the mere willingness to get up and go. Just do it.” What I love is that this comes at the end of a post urging you to eat Chinese and Indian food in New York. Cowen’s advice about the best food in DC is just one reason to read his blog. Another is his indefatigable enthusiasm for exploring his city and others, and how this comes through in his reviews, though very subtly so.

I was recently doing some eating, and other things, in New York, on a family trip for Louisa’s spring break, but now is not the time to go into much detail (and if not now, I fear never, or not very soon, for I have much to do). But I will mention that I ate at Babbo and was quite impressed. I had bavette, a thin kind of pasta, with cardoons, which I’d never before encountered, as well as a delicious roasted vegetable salad and a few desserts, including a killer maple cheesecake. Definitely one of the benefits of traveling with my parents is eating at expensive restaurants I might never visit otherwise.