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Native Korean Rock and the Fishnets COME DROWN WITH US
Native Korean Rock is a side project of mine comprised of a body of love songs written over the last two years, to be performed with a motley crew of NYC natives. Expect high drama, high stakes in two intimate performances.Does Native Korean Rock have anything to do with Yeah Yeah Yeahs? NO
Are these the leaked demos of years ago? NO
Tickets available July 18 at 12pm EST via ticketweb.com
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Living Mysore
Hey everybody,Here's a link to an article I wrote for an online Yoga magazine:
http://livingmysorejournal.blogspot.com/
Mine is the 10th one down.
I am very honored to be a part of this magazine as it is a great service to the yoga community and run by truly great and inspiring people.
Check out the rest of the site at livingmysore.com
Mysore is the name of the city in India where Ashtanga, the style of yoga discussed here, calls home. The primary shala (school) run by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, the Guru to Ashtanga students, is located there. When Ashtanga students are ready to take the 'next step' in their practice they make the pilgrimage to Mysore, often months at a time. This website is dedicated to those students going through that experience. For a great blog from a dedicated yogi check out http://mysoremusings.blogspot.com/ The writing is smart, witty, insightful, and often times very funny.
Brian
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Pizza Worthy of Consideration
Last week my sister and I picked a day and decided to spend the afternoon together. Though we both live in the same city and see each other regularly for family stuff, it's rare that we get in some quality time. Our chosen activity for the day was an eating adventure in south Brooklyn to sample some very New York and very delicious 'good eats.' The main destination was Di Fara's, reputably the best pizza parlor in NYC, making it potentially the best pizzeria in the country, or even the world. Acclaim for Di Fara's is widespread, being lauded everywhere from foodie websites (Chowhound in particular) to the New York Times. From those that have been lucky enough to try a slice there are stories equating the experience to that of being touched by a saint: sublime, divine, and blissful are frequent adjectives. There are holy cities such as Kyoto, Jerusalem, Istanbul, and Rome, to name just a few; it seems like Di Fara's in Midwood Brooklyn should be added to the list.
The pizza certainly lives up to expectations. It is truly beyond any other pizza I have ever had. And not that it's gourmet pizza or anything like that. It's still classic Neapolitan thin-crust NY style pizza as you know and want it. It's just that the man that makes it is gifted at what he does. Domenico De Marco is the proprietor and sole pizza maker at Di Fara. He's had the shop since about '64 and allows only himself the responsibility of turning out the pies. That's pretty remarkable when you think about it: six days a week, ten hours a day for over 40 years and he's the only one making the pizza. He knows what he was put on Earth to do and it's his job to fulfill that mission and bring the message to the people.
So, the pizza. What makes it so good? First and foremost, the man knows his ingredients and how to prepare them. Di Fara's offers a cheese-y slice and Dom has his secret combination of quality cheeses, each with unique and complimentary flavors and textures; three to four different varieties go on to one pie. The dough has a strong earthy character, the kind you want from good bread that connects you to that element of nature. The sauce is generally light with a nice mild tang and lumpy chunks of tomato scattered throughout. Each pie is finished with a drizzle of olive oil, fresh basil snipped with scissors right from the bunch, and grated Parmigiano-reggiano. The pie is assembled and expertly prepared by Dom, as he reaches barehanded into the hot oven and with perfect timing innately knows when to rotate it around and eventually take out the new born masterpiece. Each bite is an appreciation of these ingredients and of the craftsmanship with which they are assembled. As the teeth bite down through the contrasting textures of dough-sauce-cheese, the flavors of each unfold, and I find myself sitting on a pizza cloud floating up to pizza heaven. Hey, is that...
But, for me, what makes the pizza truly outstanding and worthy of genius status is its inconsistencies and 'imperfections.' A Di Fara's pie is not uniform all around. It's just the opposite. The crust is slightly burnt and darker on one side but cooked at a more moderate temperature on another; the cheese is more concentrated in some places and more spread out in others; on one side, the cheese would be cooked slightly longer than the other; the dough is thinner here and more dense there; large chunks of tomatoes poking through in some spots are absent everywhere else; the basil is scattered about. This results in contrasts in texture: some parts are gentle, soft, and moist and others are chewy, tough, and dry; flavors range from sweet and mild to bitter and fiery.
Each bite of Di Fara's pizza revealed a new experience. Each bite was a new sensation, a new taste, a new combination of texture and flavor. Each bite was totally unique and varied greatly depending from what side of the pizza one was eating. I never knew such depth and range was possible with pizza. As an example, I can describe a slice from top to bottom, from the tip that was taken from the center of the pie to the crust at the outer edge: the tip, as being from the center, is the softest part of the slice; the dough is generally stretched thinner in this section and made somewhat moist with the oil and concentration of cheese. Here the slice is almost falling apart; the salty sweet white dreaminess of the cheese and fragility of the dough are its dominant characteristics. As I work my way up and get to the middle, the crust starts to have more integrity and reveal more of its chewiness. The balance between crust and cheese begins to even and I can taste more of the specific flavor and richness of the combined cheeses. Closer to the crust, the flavor of the dough comes out, finally competing with that of the cheese. This is also were the chunks of tomato have been hiding, adding even more aspects of change to this progressive experience. The experience finally culminates with the crust, the dry dough that forms the backbone of the pie, the frame for the cheeses, olive oil, basil, and tomatoes, the taste of the earth on top of which all of these other elements sit and act out their parts. And no two bites of crust are the same! There's the smoky bitter charred parts and then the mellow humble golden parts. It's these purposeful inconsistencies around the pie and the way the slice changes from top to bottom that really make it brilliant and unlike any other pizza. This man that makes them is truly an artist, presenting possibilities and imparting vision where once there was only a bland yellow hue.
Di Fara's is located in a predominantly orthodox Jewish community in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. And like the Jewish ethos there, the pizza chooses to reflect the richness and depth of its history and experiences. It's not uniform or one-dimensional. It is brazen (unashamed) about its willingness to display the variety of its character. Each bite tells a different story.
My eating adventure with my sister carried on to the nearby Ostrovitsky Bakery where we got rainbow cookies and a chocolate danish, and then to the truly fantastic summertime treat (some of the best people watching and an amazing summertime outdoor evening hangout!) in Bensonhurst, L&B Spumoni Gardens, where we each got small cups of rainbow spumoni. In the words of my sister, our day was, "Gastronomical!" Definitely some great quality time indeed.
1. Me, my Sister, and Pizza
2. Pizza (it's a little shiny, it could use a touch up)
3. Me and Pizza
4. on an earlier visit, Dom applying the finishing touches, anointing the Pizza
5. view of the Brooklyn Bridge from inside the car as we drive back, eastbound on the BQE
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drums and drones, live!
Pics from a concert on 5/31 performing my 'drums and drones' music. The first three are by photographer Kotaro Okada, vivayoushine.com. The last pic is by my sister.
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Crown of Thorns
"Thanks for nothing!"...was how Lydia Lunch ended her set Friday, the 13th of June, with Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. TJATJ were a part of New York's No Wave scene during the late seventies (thank you, historical categorizations) and, despite their brief existence and relatively minimal output (roughly a dozen songs), they've made a lasting impression, changing the sound of Punk to come, as pioneers of minimalist noise-ist anti-punk Punk. So much so that they belong in the history books. And now they do. The reason for the show, and the one-night-only reforming of the group, was to celebrate the release of Thurston Moore's and Byron Coley's new book, No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980. I was psyched as I've been a huge fan of TJATJ for a while and their music is some of my favorite. After the concert I thought, "if I hadn't already been familiar with the music, my life would be changed forever."
Their performance, and Lydia's in particular, was much like how I feel about their recorded music: like someone pushing a bruise, a tender sore spot, jabbing a weakness and it hurts but it needs to hurt more. If it's hurting but you can still function properly then it's not hurting enough. Inverting weakness, shame, pain- turning it into strength, pride, pleasure. I rejoice in the process. Why would I smile at such a thing, or feel such a kinship with something so ugly? There is plenty of art out there that makes me cringe but that's it; I do not rejoice in its negativity. Yet I rejoice in the negativity of Lydia Lunch and her Jerks. Is it the blues? I feel pleasure in the process of expressing plain as it is in the blues. Lydia pushes your bruise, and she does it with every ounce of her soul. I was surprised by the focused intensity of her performance and the perfection she demanded of those playing with her, Jim Sclavunous, this time around on drums, and Thurston Moore, as an honorary Jerk, on bass. All of the noise and wildness is severely controlled and precise; I was amazed by what a great guitar player she is, and she was playing her parts pretty much EXACTLY how they were on the recordings- those bending distorted slide melodies were proven to be essential parts and not something random- an amazing feat considering how blurred and wild they sound. The sound of chaos is channeled and used as a device. It must be purposeful and direct for it to be effective; the performers need to have full control and no softness is allowed; otherwise it's useless and the listener/audience has the opportunity to slip from its grasp; that must not happen. That is Lydia's blues- it is all of weakness, shame, and pain inverted and thrust onto you and I'm doing it from the bottom of my soul and you better not f*** with me or I'll f****** kill you (said in the spirit of Lydia Lunch as she would). That's why I felt she made the band play songs again when they messed up a little during the set; these songs are her blood and they need to be because they need to be. There is no room for personal deviation from the part, the part is stripped down to it's barest elements: austere and astringent, it is focused and to the point, direct, nothing else, and nothing to distract, I'm looking at you and telling you this and nothing else. The ramshackle militaristic anti-groove takes away any swing or toe tapping and leaves you suspended, hanging, and out to dry, naked with no clothes. It's scary to live in a world that's stripped down to the point that all you have is one thing on which to survive. Who am I when I have nothing and how am I to survive with just me? You've got to go through that pain and know what it feels like to come out the other side. "Thanks for nothing!" She doesn't need you.
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