· Visual Newsmap ("an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator"... astoundingly cool) [marumushi.com via boingboing]
· Theo Epstein's Florida frat house, Phi Sign-a Playa ("Jed Hoyer was sleeping at 2 in the morning so we opened his door, yelled 'fire' and got him with the fire extinguisher. That was pretty good.") [Boston Globe via blubox]
· Choire Sicha, Loathsome New Yorker (it was inevitable) [ChoireSicha.com]
· Noted photoblogger seeks temporary downtown commercial space (help these worthy souls out—karma, baby) [Craigslist]

We shall take this opportunity to wish celebrated personage Jonathan Van Gieson fair entry into the fourth decade of his life, and to congratulate him on his pretty new website, which, truth be told, makes us tingle just a bit.
· With 30 Comes Vague Changes [JVG.com]
· JVG: Suddenly 30 [Book of Ages]

Walking across the Manhattan Bridge yesterday, we looked down at a dazzling field of green. Astroturf, of course, but that's not the point. With the Yanks opening in Japan tomorrow, we type this on the eve of the 2004 baseball season, perhaps the most anticipated in our 30-odd years on this planet, especially for those of us loyal to the boys in Red. Feeling oddly put off by the Post calling the Sox over the Yanks in today's edition, we're seeking our soothsaying from other observers, obscure and strange.
· Seventh Inning Scratch [Maxim Online] Our boy Dobrow, a lifelong Yanks fan, also picks the Sox first. Most peculiar.
· The Passion of the Major League Baseball Preview [Black Table] Leitch, too. Oh, you people.
· SoxFan's 2004 Predictions, Abridged, No Commentary [YanksFan vs. SoxFan] Hope springs eternal, indeed.
· The Hot Corner [Blubox] No predictions, but it's got a great beat.

Today's Metropolitan Diary strays into foreign water, daring to taste life below 42nd Street:

Friends recently took my girlfriend and me to one of the fine new restaurants on the Lower East Side to celebrate our birthdays, which fall a couple of weeks apart. After a fantastic dinner, including some decadent desserts, we decided to work off the evening's calories by exploring the neighborhood we'd heard so much about.

New-to-the-market West Village apartment listing at Elliman.com tickles our inner storyteller:

The perfect West Village pre-war apartment. Blinding southern light bathes this Jane Street jewel. So special, so perfect- with a wood burning fireplace too!!! The Exposed brick makes you want to right a novel, a brand new gourmet kitchen makes you think you should write a cookbook instead. Sky-high ceiling heights, fabulous wood floors, and a winged floorplan complete the picture. This is the "real deal" West Village apartment you have been waiting for... see for yourself- TODAY!

· The Morning After: an in-depth Amanda Hesser analysis [FelixSalmon.com]
· On the road in Des Moines: Dare Diablo's tour blog [DareDiablo.com]
· Lindsayism's colorful/motion-full new digs [Lindsayism.com]
· The Death of a Room-Mate: Tony Meilandt [BarlowFriendz]

Baffled by the giant street signs that have sprouted across Houston in recent weeks? Fear not—DOT commissioner Iris Weinshall explains how they work (using, of all places, Brooklyn as an example):

"Currently, a driver proceeds along Eastern Parkway, and, before the driver approaches the Eastern Parkway and Washington Avenue intersection, the driver clearly sees a sign that reads 'Washington Avenue.' These signs give the driver a sense of where they are, and a driver does not have to look for conventional street signs on the side of the intersection."

Actual, honest-to-goodness field report on the Cargo Messenger Purse: "I've been using mine as a lunch bag (it holds 2 Diet Cokes, a tangerine, two fruit roll-ups and a small Tupperware container quite nicely)." Meantime, the kids at Best Week Ever dissect it ("I don't think purses for men will do very well"), though none with quite the panache of Mr. Sicha ("All you're doing is riding on the coattails of the fashion-forward gays without actually having to have sex with other men").
· Cargo Bag [Lots of Co.]
· Your Free Gift for Being a Metrosexual [VH1's Best Week Ever]
· Letter from the Editor: The Cargo Manpurse [Gawker]

Although much ink has been spilled concerning the first issue of new men's shopping magazine Cargo, many reviewers have missed the bigger story. Last week, we arrived home and popped open our mailbox to find, packaged smartly in white plastic, our premium for subscribing to the magazine: a branded Cargo Messenger Bag. Herewith, our review.

Initial Take: Sporting a sleek black-on-black palette augmented with the Cargo logo and yellow reflective strip, Cargo: The Messenger Bag makes an all-around pleasing first impression. Such an impression, in fact, that one is inclined to wonder anew: just what are guys supposed to use messenger bags for, anyways? Cargo: The Magazine, alas, does not offer us an answer to this question in issue No. 1 (although, in an interview with FoxNews, Cargo style director Bruce Pask sagely notes, "I think men would have a hard time holding a mint-colored messenger bag." No worries here, Bruce!) But, relying on our extensive experience riding New York City subways, we can now reveal that messenger bags for men serve the primary purpose of toting well-reviewed literature to and from jobs in midtown Manhattan.

Usage Report: So, how does Cargo: TMB fare in this regard? Despite the poor tactile quality of the plastic lining (one tester likened it to "a used sandwich bag"), we initially were won over by the whole package. The Cargo Messenger Bag, measuring a stately 13"x10"x3", swallowed even the weightiest in postmodern fiction—without flinching.


Comparative Report: Unfortunately, when compared to a similarly styled messenger bag from competitor Manhattan Portage, Cargo's freshman offering withers. In lab tests, we managed to fit the entire Cargo messenger bag, plus three (3) important hardcover literary works, into the Manhattan Portage bag—with room to spare. In a five blades world, it seems Cargo is left offering a mere three blades and a (yellow reflective) strip.

Conclusion: It was only when we abandoned the laboratory and slung the Cargo messenger bag over our broad shoulders that we realized what it is that some clever associate publisher at Conde Nast is trying to get us to wear.

A purse.


In next week's column, we'll report back on our experience wearing the Cargo Messenger Purse around town, with to-the-second detail on how long it took for us to get beaten to a pulp. Until then, go forth and consume!
· Subscribe to Cargo and get this FREE GIFT as our thank you! [buysub.com]
· Spring Turns Up the Color [FoxNews]

· Go south, young hipsters: Post annoints Chinatown as new hot real estate district ("I think most of the people you see moving here are your young urban-hipster types, people without a lot of money. Artists, musicians, that sort of person.") [NY Post via ebway]
· Rivington synagogue has seen better days [The Villager]
· Here's a list of LESers donating to the presidential campaign (helloooooo, Nicholas Butterworth!) [thanks, JH]

With Rem Koolhaas all the rage this week, we're reminded of something. Browsing the newsstand before departure to Europe several weeks back, we stumbled upon issue one of Wallpaper Navigator, a new semi-whenever magazine that promises a "fast-track guide to the world's most exciting cities." And what was the first city profiled in the very first issue? Berlin! Huzzah, we thought, snapping it up.

Now, the mag's premise is appealing—a quick guide to a handful of the newest and trendiest hotels, restaurants and bars, mixed with a quick dose of the newest and trendiest things to see, and the presentation is predictably slick. Even the recommendations bore out. Harder to stomach, however, was the Koolhaas worship in re: his new Dutch Embassy, apparently the greatest architectural breakthrough since the keystone. In entirely separate captioning, the mag opines:

· "There are plenty of new jewels—in particular, Rem Koolhaas's new Dutch Embassy and Frank Gehry's DG Bank."
· "Built by design superstar Rem Koolhaas... the riverside eight-storey glass cube was well worth the wait."
· "BERLIN WALL MEMORIAL: It might not, strictly speaking, be among our our architectural favorites—give us Rem Koolhaas's Dutch Embassy any time..."

Things have quieted down at Blog of Ages, but the intrepid team of JA, JVG and yours truly has been busy behind the scenes working on the next book in the Book of Ages series, due out this October from Crown.

For the purposes of differentiation with its 30-something brethren in the marketplace, this tome—chronicling the landmark age of 40—boasts a "catchier" title. The cover has also been "juiced," taking on a pale yellow aura, "funny" taglines, and even several exclamation points. Hinting at their excitement, Amazon has taken the unprecendented step of CAPITALIZING THE AUTHOR NAMES on the book's order page. In light of these developments, we suggest pre-ordering now so you don't face the disappointment of waiting for your copy this fall because everyone is backordered. Thank you.
· The Big 40: Are You Ready to Face... The Best Age Ever? [Amazon.com]

Hilarious, excellent news: Mark Cuban now has a weblog. As one might expect, he's wasting no time eviscerating the sports media. (By the by, the site's another nice coup for Weblogs Inc., lacking only the self-congratulatory Calacanis post.)
· Blog Maverick [blogmaverick.com via Jeff Jarvis]

In this week's New Yorker, towards the end of his review of James Traub's new book about Times Square, Adam Gopnik coins a phrase that succinctly captures something at the core of New York City's soul:

The big buildings and bright lights are there in the new Times Square, but the weird stores are not. By weird stores one means not simply small stores, mom-and-pop operations, but stores in which a peculiar and even obsessive entrepreneur caters to a peculiar and even an obsessive taste. (Art galleries and modestly ambitious restaurants are weird stores by definition. It’s why they still feel very New York.) If the big buildings and the bright signs reflect the city’s vitality and density, weird stores refract it; they imply that the city is so varied that someone can make a mundane living from one tiny obsessive thing....

In New York, we suffer from a Tragedy of the Uncommons: weird things make the city worth living in, but though each individual wants them, no one individual wants to pay to keep them going. Times Square, as so often in the past, is responding, in typically heightened form, to the general state of the city: the loss of retail variety troubles us everywhere, as a new trinity of monotony—Starbucks, Duane Reade, and the Washington Mutual Bank—appears to dominate every block. We just feel it more on Broadway.

· Subway systems of the world, presented on the same scale [Fake is the New Real via Cool Hunting]
· Onfolio, new browser-based web research tool [Onfolio via Searchblog]
· JVG's quest for the perfect sentence continues apace ("Perhaps the act of trying to create the perfect sentence prevents me from doing so. Perhaps I simply must relax and let it flow. Perhaps I have written the perfect sentence already and unwittingly sent it to somone else.") [JVG.com]
· Construction getting underway at 11 Spring St. [Gawker]
· Jen Bekman Gallery turns 1 today (Congrats!) [Jen Bekman]

New York Magazine's Best of New York issue hits the stands today. One glimmer of hope: in food and drink, the LES garners only four awards this year, down from five in 2003. Regardless, as a public service, we present our annual roundup (with suggested alternate titles) of neighborhood spots to avoid at all costs over the next 30 days as the uptowners sweep in for a quick dose of whatever it is they think NYMag is selling:

· Place to Impress a Foodie: Apizz (alt: Place to come to realization that some things just shouldn't ever be cooked in a wood-fired oven)
· Best Dessert: Apple Cider Donut: Hearth (alt: Best place to kick a foodie's ass—swing a foot, you'll hit one)
· Best Ice Cream: Il Laboratorio Del Gelato (alt: Best place to contemplate murderous rampage against tour groups massing at nearby Tenement Museum)
· Best Tasting Menu: Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar (alt: Best place for your girlfriend to splash out in your absence while you're watching a Red Sox-Yankees playoff game, curse her to hell)
· Best Dive Bars: Mars Bar and Milano's (alt: Best evidence New York editors are hopelessly stuck in 1996)
· Best Garage Rock: Niagra (alt: Best evidence New York editors are way too drunk to be allowed near a computer keyboard)
· Best Brunch with Parents: Prune (alt: Best place to terrify your non-foodie parents)
· Best Late Night Drinking: Schiller's (alt: Best 3pm drinking—weekdays)
· Best Place to see a Local Band's First Gig: Sin-e (alt: Best place to see a local music blogger's vomit)
· Best Inventive Dish: WD-50 (alt: Best place to recapture that fleeting feeling of Clinton Street cool, ca. 2001, and dream about the not-so-distant day when the LES has fallen completely off the mainstream media radar, leaving us ignored, but joyous, dancing under azur skies, oh yes)

I've never visited a city as photogenic as Berlin, March 2004. I'd passed through on my way to Eastern Europe in 1993, but failed to appreciate then how many of the city's architectural heights had been encased in the Soviet zone following World War II—then entombed by The Wall from 1961 to 1989. It's as though Paris' right bank enjoyed no upkeep for 50 years, then was opened up to young architects to play with. The results are unexpected and spectacular. And so, two photo galleries: Berlin: 19 by Day and Berlin: 19 by Night. (If you've got time for only one, go with the night.)

A few highlights and oddly LES-related sites:
· Berlin's answer to The Octopus
· The temporary Comme Des Garcons store
· Milk and Honey Taken Far Far Away
· Berlin equivalent of Orchard above Delancey
· Illegal communist-era speakeasy Five Goats
· Strolling the Berlin Wall

· Berlin: 19 By Day [LS.com]
· Berlin: 19 By Night [LS.com]

We were going to summarize all the dramas we missed while away, but we decided to grab lunch instead. One indulgence: last week's Manhattan User's Guide 10 Great Things About New York included a list contributed from the LS.com headquarters (plus nice contributions from Rosecrans and Andrew TMN, Remy NewYorkish, David Lightningfield, Ari ENY, Amy AmyLangfield and Jen Gothamist). The list even inspired some chipper reader mail:

Just amazing that you *seem* to be moaning here "Eating alone in Amsterdam tonight at the wonderful French restaurant Cafe Roux, the likes of which can barely sustain itself anymore in NYC..." about the restaurant scene in new york and yet the best you can recommend to others is chipolte! If you are stupid enough to live in a place where you pay 4 times the rent for 1/5 space and still just eat at places you could enjoy anywhere more power to you... but shilling for such places in MUG and then bemoaning the trouble "wonderful" places have had is clueless.

Back from a week away, 250-odd unread emails is par for the course. But now, we face the wrath of 850-odd unread blog posts in NetNewsWire Lite. To avoid this hell yourself, we recommend skipping Kinja and all its associated hype when it launches one of these days. Readers, friends, you've been warned.

Back in NYC after a long weekend in Berlin. Amazing architecture and design. Bars in old East Berlin crafted from, respectively, a high-end hair salon, an old airline office, an illegal communist-era dive. Great people. Photos to come; prepare to eat your heart out, Slower.

Line of the weekend, from a clerk at the temporary Comme des Garcons store: "It's been all New York City kids here this week." Why? "I don't know—why don't you ask the New York Times?" [cue manic laughter...]
· It's the Chic and the Dead [NYTimes by way of Australia]

Pulling into the Ostbahnhof on Friday night, I noted the base requirement for our stay in Berlin: that Lutes introduce us to the best bar we'd ever seen. Off the train, wandering the halls of the station, we run into him in a connecting passage. Greetings exchanged. Then: "I don't know what kind of a mood you guys are in, or whether you need to get food," he said, "but if you're game, I'd like to take you to what I consider to be the greatest bar in the world."

Gonna be a good weekend.

Travel creates narrative. Eating alone in Amsterdam tonight at the wonderful French restaurant Cafe Roux, the likes of which can barely sustain itself anymore in NYC, I realized my menu should have read thusly: Appetizer: beurre avec des ris de veau et des escargots (butter with sweetbreads and snails); Main course: canard a noyé vivant en beurre (duck drowned alive in butter).

As a dining companion, I brought along Neal Stephenson's novel Quicksilver. Partway through the meal, in a wonderful bit of serendipity that travel always manages to encourage, I hit the part where Jack and Eliza arrive in Amsterdam, ca. 1688:

Once Jack had a few hours to adjust to peculiarity of Amsterdam's buildings, its water-streets, the people's aggressive cleanliness, their barking language, and their inability to settle on this or that Church, he understood the place.

Indeed. A day of wandering reminds me that this is a city that can be documented but not captured in photographs; the effect is one of near-perfect completeness, not individual monument. Late in the afternoon, I walked past the hotel/hovel where we spent New Year's Eve 1998. As I type, I check my email, and there's one from Matt:

That hotel is emblazoned in my mind -- probably until I die. Never forget the view from across the building, seeing those girls dancing. That was such a beautiful moment. Everything that was in front of me, the beauty that a drunk romantic knows exists, but isn't there at all -- only in the life he lives that he can not see and the friends he has that he forgets to look at.

This drunk romantic, older but not wiser, types on, listening on his iPod to music bought for this trip: Will Oldham's Seafarers Music, the "instrumental soundtrack for a documentary shot in Rotterdam about four hard-living, multi-national seafarers." Like that too long-ago moment on a hotel balcony half a world away (though right now, half a block away), it's beautiful. And just somehow right.

Sole disappointment so far: KLM. Forget whatever allure you once assigned to European carriers; I'd rather be flying JetBlue. Rubber chicken, rude service, and -- to quote Stephenson again, even though this itinerary will not carry us to France -- "He smelled Paris half a day before he saw it."

Further updates as events warrant. Or as they don't.
· Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson [Amazon.com]
· Will Oldham: Seafarers Music [Insound]

Posting will be slow to nonexistent until late next week as we decamp the country for a fortnight. We bid ye well.

· The "Name Our Restaurant" people choose a name: Chickpea ("As a way of thanking everyone for their great submissions, we're giving away free falafel sandwiches all day on Monday, March 1 (9 AM - 12 AM, one per customer) to the community. So please come join us for a meal, on us (23 3rd Ave between St. Mark's Place and 9th Street) and take a look at the new restaurant.") [Name-Our-Restaurant.com; thanks, SD]
· Octopus Mania: BlueJake on the trail of the graffiti du moment (plus part II) [BlueJake.com]
· All's well that ends well: Felix Salmon says FreshDirect now delivering to all of Eastern Rivington St.