Super dupper Easter eye candy, but not ...

I think I saw the most beautiful woman in the world as I walked through the West Village --- someone named Gisele (no curly horns that I could see). I wouldn't have known who she was, but about half a block up the street there was this gay guy gazing toward her. As I walked by, he said, "Do you recognize them?"

"No. Do I have to?"

"That's Tom Brady and Gisele."

"Sorry," I said, not recognizing either name. "I avoid popular culture like a plague."

He looked very disappointed. Apparently, Tom Brady is quarterback for the Patriots and Gisele is the "Most Beautiful Woman in the World", according to Esquire. I know this because several blocks later the cover of Esquire was shining in a shop window. There was Gisele and beside her picture was the caption, "Most Beautiful Woman in the World."

To tell you the truth, when I saw her she just looked like a somewhat haggard -- but well-kempt -- mom with her husband trying to load a family into a minivan on Easter morning. I'm still gonna claim the sighting. I'm gonna trust a gay man to recognize a swarthy 6-foot 4-inch quarterback and a super model. Besides, what are the odds there'd be a married doppelganger?

A sad thing happened at lunch today

Yatagan raised its falafel price to $2.50. It hit me like a fist as I crossed MacDougal Street.


It is still the best falafel I've tasted in the city, but with the price gap closed I'm free to try others.

Even with the culinary freedom this creates, my heart is broken.

But, it does relive the time pressure Wally has been under.

I don't do the "Spot-a-Celebrity Freakout"

"OMG! I just saw ..."

Whatever. They are just people, doing a thing to make a living. I don't want an autograph. I don't want an audience with them. I don't want anything from them, except for them to get outta my way*.

Usually.

There are a few of exceptions (in no particular order):

Winona Ryder (I confessed this years ago in a weekly newspaper column)
Hillary Swank (You read it hear first)
Kurt Vonnegut (he's dead, but I'd still love to bump into him on the street)
and
The Dali Lama (He's sooooo cute. Doncha just wanna take him home? OMG!)

Those are in no particular order.

In very particular order, there's just one celebrity on top of my "OMG!" list, light years from the crowd.

Janeane Garofalo. She's got it all. No shit. ALL.

OMG!

And guess who I saw in the Village yesterday!?!?!

OMG! Oh-My-BigGee-odd!

Janeane Garofalo -- stridin', talkin' gesturin' -- just like Janeane Garofalo. That sounds kinda ridiculous when typed out, but it isn't a given. Daryl Hannah, for example, required a double take. "Is that? Maybe? Yes."

Not Ms. Garofalo. Straight up, no doubt about it. In the flesh. Right there. Yessiree. Wow. OMG ...

The best thing about this casual brush with celebrity has to be that I didn't falter, trip, exclaim, get arrested, run into anything or even wobble. But I had a really good day.

Thanks, Ms. Garofalo.

And thanks Trader Joe's ... where I found a pretty decent $3 bottle of wine about 30 minutes later. Coincidence? I think not.





* Back in my first stay in New York City, I lived for a while off Union Square. I ran into Andy Warhol ... twice. Knocked him over. Come on! What the hell? Get outta my way, Andy. "I'm walkin' here!"

Let’s talk Yataganese

I don’t give a tinker’s dam who you are, if you come to New York City and fail to avail yourself of the best value in falafel sandwich the world has ever known, I will show my disapproval by spanking the loved one of your choice with a weapon from the list below.*

Yatagan, a sweatbox on MacDougal Street just off Bleeker Street, is THE $2 falafel place. It was $2 in 1982 and it is still $2. The nearest competitor, just up MacDougal toward Washington Square, weighs in at $2.50. Anywhere else in town, you are gonna pay $3.50 to $5.

Yatagan, which as near as I can tell never closes, also offers a full compliment of other Greeky fare … gyros, baba ganoush, hummus, etc.

If you’re still not sold, how about this: Bill Cosby is also a fan (his picture hangs on the wall if you dare to go into the “dining area”, five tables at the back of the joint heated to a steady grease-smeared 100 degrees year around).

Or, this: You get to watch sweaty little men (seriously, they are really short) peel slices of dripping mushmeat off a rotating spit.

Or this: You will be connecting to a long and steady history of beats, bohemians, Bob Dylanites and beggars who have marched through on their way to oblivion.

Personally, it’s the fried chickpea sandwiches that keep me coming back.

*Spanking implements list: a retro slogan t-shirt striped off the back of a Williamsburg hipster, a dirty 99-cent store fork, a sliderule, four standard playing cards taped together, a partially inflated bicycle innertube, a peanut-butter filled latex glove, or Wally (This one requires an appointment. He’s a busy guy.).

Geometry matters, or it should

I strolled past Father Demo Square on Bleeker Street and Sixth Avenue yesterday and all of the sudden it hit me like a belly full of bad fish.

Father Demo Square is a triangle.

Walking through Greenwich Village

Yesterday was a rainout, so I stayed in and did some must-do work, but today the highs are expected in the mid-70s, the sun is out and the air is scrubbed. It’s time for a walkabout.

This morning I decided the thing to do was wander across town from the Lower East Side to Tribeca then up Greenwich Street, into the West Village until I hit Bleeker Street. Then I wanted to go East to the end of Bleeker.

I got to Bleeker and Morton before I got to sidetracked – not easy when wandering is all about sidetracks. On Bleeker, between Morton and Leroy (a short block), there is a butcher shop, a cheese shop, a fish market and a bakery.

I grabbed a loaf of sourdough from Amy’s Bakery, meandered to Sixth Avenue and sat across Father Demo Park from a bad opera singer filling the air with trills and scales. People are free to follow suggestions from the mad squirrels in their heads here, apparently. “Don’t mind the pain you cause your neighbors, lady. Trill on!”

It was ok, though, because visions of E.F. Schumacher danced in my head.

Small really is beautiful, even in a big town.