Toby's Public House: The Public of South Slope, Brooklyn

I biked past Toby's Public House on the way home from the Y the other day - I know, how stereotypically Brooklyn am I? Stay with me, though, because it's really exciting to find great places in the South Slope and Sunset Park. There are quite a few new places cropping up, rendering the gentrification visible.

So I tried Toby's Public House, which is altogether charming. It's a very New York/East Coast style bar, with exposed brick, brass fittings on the bar with the mirrored mantle, and lots of long wooden tables. Above the bar, individual biersteins with numbers written on the bottoms in grease-pencil hang on hooks, reachable with the bartenders hook. This is a place for locals, which, if you didn't get that from the biersteins, you would have figured it out when the bartender and the waitresses knew many of the patrons by name. The whole place had a very intimate vibe, from the open space to the open kitchen area where you can watch the cooks preparing your pizza and tossing it into the coal oven in the corner.

We ate and drank - justified by the fact that we have to really sample this place, right?

The manicotti appetizer:

I didn't manage to get pictures of the other courses because they disappeared so quickly: the arugula & parmesan salad, the coal oven Del Macellaio pizza, and tiramisu. All delicious: especially the pizza and the tiramisu, oh the tiramisu!

Highly recommend, & can't wait to go back.
Check out their website and menu here.
6th Ave @ 21st Street, South Slope, Bklyn, NY

Strains of the Old and the New: the NMAI in DC

The above panel is displayed in the entryway to the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in Washington DC. From this first indication, the visitor realizes that the museum will point to a more holistic understanding of culture. I've read a bit of the criticism and controversy about the museum, from the embarrassing displays of racism and blatant ignorance, to concerns about the museum's claim to representing indigenous cultures of an entire hemisphere, a rather extensive mandate. The museum has symbolic significance with its location on the National Mall, which is of paramount importance to long marginalized Native cultures.


From the more traditional displays of beadwork to explanations of hybridized celebrations like Dia de Los Muertos, the museum's display and structure begins on the fourth floor after visitors enter through a cavernous lobby that is structurally beautiful, with concentric circles on the ceiling - it's reminiscent of the Guggenheim. I was directed to start on the 4th floor and work my way down. The fourth floor contains the "Our Universes" and "Our Peoples" exhibitions. These focus on the living cultures in the Western hemisphere today.



The displays are structured to highlight the contributions of community curators, including portraits and video, and focusing on individual tribes. The overall result is that visitors understand that Native Americans are diverse, with different languages and traditions in various tribes that live in many parts of the hemisphere, and that they are alive today. Notably, many of the portraits and videos feature Native Americans wearing everyday clothes - the museum does not give the visitor easy, Orientalizing pictures of Native Americans wearing beads and headdresses and other visual clues that blur temporal boundaries, allowing Native Americans to be isolated and held in the past and prevented from being contemporary. Simultaneously, the museum does present historical traditions and artifacts from native communities' history, attempting to show Native Americans as contemporary contributors drawing from centuries of history, community, and artistic traditions.


The displays are beautiful and sleek, and I found the view from reverse equally beautiful, with the shadows of the objects shining through the linen screens and the glass in geometric constellations. Representation is always through a glass, darkly.

Displays of objects are shown with seeming binaries: guns (instruments of dispossession and resistance), bibles (dispossession and resilience) and treaties (dispossession and survival) are shown as both instruments employed against Native Americans in the Americas, but also utilized by Native Americans creatively and aggressively in their own right. These dichotomies are not proposed as strict binaries that are unresolvable, but to show the complex social results of acts meant to affect certain consequences but indubitably and inevitably caused others. This graceful and simultaneous duality reminds me of the work of Saba Mahmood, who argues in The Politics of Piety that resistance is not the only form of agency. Her critical intervention here is to give voice, agency, and nuance to the complexities of individual acts in a postcolonial setting. We must be aware that the story is never just one or two sides, but multiple, and look for the nuances of intersecting realities and potentialities.



A community will always make something their own, including these Bibles which were translated into many languages and decorated according to individual bands' aesthetic traditions. The arrowheads displayed (see below) were also arranged in a visually interesting and challenging way - rather than being seen as implements of death and destruction, they are arranged in curving waves to resemble the ocean. Taken from afar, they look like swarms of birds, swirling eddies of water, or Hokusai's The Wave. We are pushed to see familiar objects in new contexts that uncover their beauty.




On the third floor, the exhibition "Our Lives" included several alcoves examining the lives and recent histories of several specific tribes. This included the Yakama Nation in Washington, to which my cousin Arthur belongs.



The museum thus far had focused on quotidian objects from the histories of several bands, as well as representative artifacts from the history of European intervention and colonization of the Americas. Now, with this theoretical grounding, I continued in to the contemporary art exhibition. The exhibition "Vantage Point" showcases the museum's acquisitions of contemporary Native American art. I particularly enjoyed Marie Watt's In the Garden (Corn, Beans, Squash), a warm pink patchwork of wool pieces in geometric shapes tumbling through the center of the piece. I enjoy art incorporating textiles, such as the work of Ghada Amer. Lorenzo Clayton's Richard's 3rd Hand #16 also caught my eye with his deft usage of muted earth tones and the piece's incorporation of furniture. Nadia Myre's series Indian Act blends text with craft, using white beads to replace letters on a page of text, choosing to highlight the smallness of these letters by surrounding the white beads with red. This color inversion too is striking - white beads in a red background, covering or juxtaposed next to black letters on a white page.

The exhibition also included skate art, showing the deck with graffiti-like pop art. It struck me as a shame that this deck would face the ground and not be seen.

The exhibition "Up Where We Belong" focused on the little-lauded but often well-known contributions of Native Americans to popular music, from the blues (Mildred Bailey, Oscar Pettiford) to Link Wray, Redbone & Buffy Sainte-Marie. It was interesting to see the evolution of music in the United States, and have the contributions of Native Americans highlighted. This is another example of the museum's foregrounding of Native Americans' contemporary contributions.


As I walked back to the train station to return to NY, I noticed the inscription above Union Station. While I agree with the quotation's insight that traveling requires and inspires a certain knowledge, the first part of the comment shows the ubiquitous, treacherous nature of colonialism. It still, literally, shines down upon us, in our nation's capital - the behavior is inscribed in our monuments, watching over us on a daily basis. We are far from free of this dangerous mentality. Which is why the NMAI is necessary, the way it is. The institution shouldn't have to argue that Native Americans are still alive - shouldn't have to represent everyone. But for now, that's the reality, and the museums gracefully straddles its compromises.

Coming Up on October

"October is the month for painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall, so the year near its setting. October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight." -

Thoreau, "Autumnal Tints"

Another year is closing, we are forewarned by the crisp breeze, the leaves, the squash, the apples, the pumpkins...Parker Palmer writes that times of deep rest are necessary for us, but there is so much to accomplish before that deep rest can set in, so much I'm trying to build that must be finished, metaphorically and physically, before winter sets in.

Lots of Delicious Things

Somewhere near Herald Square, I met Korean BBQ.





OB (pronounced obi) beer from the Oriental Brewery. YES.

Thanks, Katharine & Chris!

On the Road Again: Upstate NY

Before the weather got so humid that we couldn't leave the house without a fine misting of sweat, we made it out of the city. We didn't know at the time it was going to be our last trip out before fall officially fell. Striking up northwest, we aimed for High Point State Park, in New Jersey. It contains a part of the Appalachian Trail. It was a lovely hike, up over High Point (the highest "mountain" in NJ - East Coast mountains are different than West Coast mountains. I maintain the West Coast alone has 'real' mountains). We climbed the ridge, a sudden quick ascent with a lovely tree cover, hiked across the bouldered ridge, and then half skidded, half fell, and kind of rockclimbed (without gear) down the other side - on the "trail," it must be said - to the lake. We turned around at the lake, feeling a little cheated by the fact that there's a road for cars, campers and boats to come in without working themselves over the ridge like we did.


Back in the car, we headed back into New York state towards the Catskills. Driving along the gorgeous, winding Delaware, we stopped to see an early bridge by John Roebling, the German-born engineer who, later in his career, designed the Brooklyn Bridge. The bridge was beautiful, beautiful enough that E managed to lose his wallet in the parking lot.

Of course, we didn't realize we were short some identification and purchasing power until we made it to our B & B, the Pura Vida outside of Bethel, NY.

The B&B was off an alley, on a creek, with a lovely hammock - peaceful. We were a little thrown by the teenagers who were staffing the place in the owner's absence, who despite their sweetness made us feel like babysitters. The TV and internet, which were "for guests" to use "any time" were always dominated by them, and we had to ask them to get off the phone to use it to call out (no cell reception!) to cancel all of E's cards. They had no recommendations for dinner either, so E and I tried a bbq place with horrible food (if driving through Bethel, do not put any south in your mouth!) but a lovely view of the lake. When we got home, they asked where we had been, and upon hearing, said, "Oh that place is awful." Well, it's why we asked you before we left, but ... ok...still some lessons about hospitality to be learned here. Not feeling comfortable watching bad Lifetime TV with the teenage boys and their lady dates, E and I went upstairs and hid out, taking a luxurious bath in the great bathtub and then playing Trivial Pursuit. To the place's credit, the owner did upgrade us for free as her other guests hadn't made it. We thank her for that! Our privacy upstairs was much needed, as the teenagers got into a shouting fight shortly after 11p and we were thankful to have a locked door and some stairs between us & them.


Sunday was not as gorgeous as Saturday, but lovely in a mournful, autumnal way. After our teen hosts made us breakfast of eggs and about 30 pieces of toast, we went driving through the Beaverkill Valley in the Catskills, and made it one third of a soggy hike around Alder Lake before turning back (too many piles of bear poop means there are bears nearby)!

Alder Lake has an abandoned mansion on its shores.

We finished the day off with a lovely meal and a drink at the Dancing Cat Saloon. Our waitress was cheery and positive, and we enjoyed the rustic, quirky atmosphere as well as the sandwiches and healthy pub food made on local Flour Power Bakery bread!

The Dancing Cat Saloon in Bethel was the best food we had in the area. I highly recommend it; if you're ever in the area, stop by - the waitress is charming, the food healthy and delicious, and the live music vibrates the wood floor so you can feel the beat in your feet.

Experiments in Cooking: White Bean Chili with Jalapeno Bulgur

Yes. Real Simple, again.

Lots of delicious ingredients.



My coworker who was heading out of town gave me her leftover jalapenos (among other delicious vegetables). So, I found this recipe: handy since we bought organic bulgur up in the Catskills (more on that coming soon). The bulgur is cooked almost all the way, with the jalapeno, lemon juice, and garlic added at the last minute.






Aside from the jalapenos, this is a moderately spicy menu anyway. We used up all the bulgur into two servings, but have about two servings remaining of the chili - so this recipe makes 1/2 the bulgur needed. It's really healthy, takes about half an hour, and is a spicy twist on regular chili. We'll definitely make this again as we head into winter and the hibernating season!

I Dream (Read) of Africa, Part 2

My Africa book streak has continued, and I finally picked up Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. I enjoyed her writing early this year in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, but hadn't ventured into her fiction. Poisonwood is gripping, from start to finish; I eagerly devoured it. At first, I felt a little nervous about Kingsolver's ability to maintain 5 distinct voices and narrators throughout the the novel (after all, my version is 649 pages long). My fears were unfounded: the girls and Orleanna are all fully delineated, believable, consistent, lifelike...when the parrot Methusaleh is released and dies, I felt the weight of the book's prophecy and tone. The simple, perfect parable of caging an animal, raising it domesticated, and then releasing it into the wild portrays the evils of colonialism so perfectly. The deliberate, malicious thoughtlessness in this act, along with that inherent in colonialism, reminded me of the US' current situation in Iraq. US forces toppled Saddam, who didn't much take care of his own country anyway, ran the country into the ground while exploiting its resources and playing factions of the population off one another for our gain - and now we are just going to leave. We haven't learned our lessons as a nation. There are still naysayers, just as the Prices record Americans at home not understanding the CIA's role in Mobutu's reign. We are unwilling to believe our own complicity. There is no accountability for cleaning up one's own messes. There is no peace love and equality - just exploitation of other people.

Kingsolver's book resonated with me in other ways, aside from validating my master's classes on the horrors of colonialism and, well, neo-colonialism and imperialism. Leah speaks to marriage as well, speaking of hers to Anatole: "Our union has been difficult for both of us in the long run, but what union isn't? Marriage is one long fit of compromise, deep and wide. There is always one agenda swallowing another, one squeaky wheel crying out. But hasn't our life together meant more to the world than either of us could have meant alone?" I think this is a lovely summation of the goal of marriage, one I aspire to. It's not that I couldn't survive without Emile. But I am better for being with him.

I found the character of Adah so compelling, and I admit to being drawn to her over the other girls, even though I think others would place me closer to Leah. After everything, she admits,"The power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes." Injuries - not failures - a much kinder way to frame our attempts and lives.