allen's blog

Cucumbers selling like hotcakes

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 15:02:59 -0400

It's all good in this Aug 2, 2006 piece from the New Kerala newspaper in Goa, India, but the highlight is the fifth graf:

Cucumber feast in Goan church to beget children

By Devraj, Velha (Goa) : In a unique tradition, the origins of which remain unknown, thousands of childless couples offer cucumbers at a fourth century church in Goa, in the hope of being blessed with a child.

Welcome to St. Anne's Church in Velha, located around 15 kilometres southeast of Panjim.

New Yorker Grill Cover

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 17:08:58 -0400

For those who have asked and those who, like me, wondered: I just spoke to the great Bruce McCall, and, sadly, he said that no, he did not base this week's New Yorker cover on my Times article about outrageously jumbo backyard grills. Like me, he caught a glimpse of one of these stainless-steel monsters and was inspired. He drew. I wrote.

Greetings from Buenos Aires

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 13:59:06 -0500

Despite what you may think after seeing it, it is not true that I fled here to escape attention resulting from my appearance on #1 Single, the Lisa Loeb reality show on E! No, I'm here doing some writing and recreating in the South American summer. Wouldn't you be if you could?

That said, I don’t really speak Spanish which is a problem for sure. But the embarrassment at being unable to state my needs to shopkeepers and others (“ Donde esta casa de Peepee? and “A SMALL cerveza? Mas no grande?”) is driving me to delve into a Spanish-English dictionary and actually learn some of this language which obviously I should have learned more of a long time ago. No time like the present though since the present is all we have! I’ve learned how to properly pronounce the name of the English language daily newspaper, which seems so simple: Buenos Aires Herald (published since 1876). You’ll get nothing but puzzled looks from Newstand ladies if you don’t say it like this: Bwehnuuus AYYREEES Eh-rahhhhhhllllduh.” I do like this little newspaper. It’s got the latest on the big paper mill dispute with Uruguay (which is another South American country. Buenos Aires is in Argentina where Gabriella Sabatini, Manu Ginobli and Evita are from.)

I Appear in NYU Suicides Documentary

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 11:20:15 -0400

My editorializing here and in the newspapers about the NYU suicides and, particularly, the university's appalling attempts to treat them as a public relations crisis and not human tragedies, earned me a place in the new documentary, titled NYU Suicides.

I have not yet seen the film and do not know what part of my interview was used. I was interviewed last year by Adario Strange, the writer and director, a former editor of The Source. For much more information on the suicides, start here: http://www.allensalkin.com/node/view/294

A coo-blah conny blog

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 10:53:37 -0400

Cherry red ceiling with veiny streaks of black
A heathered band of white, thin and weak, a mealy ring around the upper edge
Then the veins take black blood and burst down on the walls, gummy where the paintings hang
Dried asparagus husks on the floor, chopped and hard, balance-ruining, catching
under heels and rolling, odor of vegetables having flowered up and offered themselves for eating and then used in this brainy way,

A Very Bloggy Blog About an old bicycle

Thu, 26 May 2005 17:02:26 -0400

A month is too long between entries, so I will say this: I dreamt of my old Ross banana seat bicycle last night. It was a gold-yellow color and I had it for like eight years or more and I loved it dearly. Towards the end, I did want a 10-speed, which I finally got, a Panasonic model if you can believe that. My Dad got a deal. Sigh. Well, whatever. Moving on.
In the dream my old Ross was back and I was tearfully happy.

Pax House Page

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 09:27:37 -0400

My residence at 2311 LeConte in Berkeley stretched from 1985-1989 -- and sort of into 1991 if you include occasional sleepings on the third floor. Now that a decade and a half have slipped past (not unpleasantly), some of those friends with whom I'd lost touch have begun coming back into touch. The internet helps.

The house itself, designed by by Julia Morgan, is no longer a sort of hippy co-op. It's now (SEE UPDATE FROM 7-31-06 IN COMMENTS BELOW -- THE COVENANTS SEEM TO HAVE SOLD IT) home to a Christian-fellowship thing. They call the place "Covenant House." Here's the website: http://lecontecovenanthouse.org/index.html . It seems to be more of real estate scam than anything now: There are more than 40 people living there, each paying $900-a-month, not including meals. Still, the Web site calls the house "A work of God here in Berkeley."And I think that is accurate. But for me, part of letting God work on and through me involved home-brewed beer, screaming ERIKA!!! over and over (it was funny, really), and answering the telephone (510-540-9078) on the 87th ring every time. And cooking breakfast for dinner. Chocolate chip pancakes are for anytime.

Speedos

Fri, 25 Mar 2005 10:41:40 -0500

Speedos will soon be/(slash) ARE back in fashion. Like, AMC Pacers and Gremlins before them, they have long been considered so deeply ugly that there is no way for them to go but around the other side to being a reason to live, to celebrate the triumph of mistake/underdogism/spirit-of-an-age-gone-madcaply-haywire. Speedos are back. Better start doing crunches.

As my mother once told my brother, who wore a speedo because he was on the swim team and was being taunted by tennis-playing thugs for the tight suit, them saying "Speedos make your balls show:" ...

Midtown Office Friday Afternoon: I can hear the cupcakes calling me

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:02:11 -0500

In the spirit of relying on my far-flung correspondents, I bestow this report filed by a toiler in a Midtown tower:

There are cupcakes in the office. Everyone keeps walking by and yelling: "Woooooow"! Food excites people.

One other thing I've observed: If food is laid out in an office, people are incapable of taking something off the plate without talking abou it: "um, what's this?" "Oh, who did this?" "this is so evil!" stuff like that

Dispatch From Green Beer Day

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 14:18:13 -0500

A special AllenSalkin dot com correspondent in Oxford Ohio reports the following:

I'm sitting by the window by Kofenya to watch the festivus! Not too ugly yet. I am eating a bagel with green cream cheese. Do you think this is some kind of jewish/irish convergence?

Historically, green beer day occurs at Miami University the Thursday before spring break. Connected tangentially to St. Patrick's day, the event consists of local bars serving green beer starting as early as 6:00 am.

Regarding Hunter S Thompson: Two Sentences

Mon, 21 Feb 2005 18:30:39 -0500

He didn't want to lose control. Despite how it seemed, he never had wanted to.

Another Note on NYU and its Suicide Problem

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 08:18:30 -0500

Is there any doubt that when it comes to the suicides and potential suicides of its students, NYU cares more about Public Relations than anything else? Note two paragraphs from today's NY Times piece on what universities nationwide are doing to cope with student mental health problems:

"The recent forced withdrawal of a freshman at N.Y.U. was front-page news in the student newspaper, Washington Square News. The student, Sue Schaller, told the paper that although she had been briefly hospitalized for depression and suicidal thoughts, she felt much better when she returned to campus and wanted to stay in school, but that the university would not let her.

Small Victory By Asha Dornfest

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 15:09:29 -0400

Here is a lovely memory written by a former member of "my" softball team at UC Berkeley:

I was never the LAST person picked for the dodgeball team. But I was consistently in the bottom 25 percent. I came to dread the weekly match officiated by our solid stump of a PE teacher. Heart thumping, eyes on the blacktop, a humiliating seepage of blood coloring my cheeks, I waited to be called on by the team captain -- a quick, wiry girl whose freckled, eight-year old innocence hid her ruthless appetite for victory. Eventually I was chosen, but not before much sighing and

The Writer's Cut: Long-Haired Ballplayers

Thu, 14 Oct 2004 01:42:04 -0400

I am very happy with the version of my story about the new trend for American pro athletes to grow their hair long which appeared in the past Sunday's New York Times. But space considerations (they sold lots of ads on my page) required some last minute trimming, and some quite funny bits didn't make it into print. So if anyone is interested, here's a very slightly longer version with some of the funniest parts restored -- you won't want to miss the lyrics to the song "I Wish I Was Mike Ricci's Girl."

Again NYU Suicide

Wed, 15 Sep 2004 16:14:59 -0400

How is it that the very first quote from NYU spokesman John Beckman contained in the New York Times account of the seventh suicide in a year at the school contains the same kind of deny-first/sympathy-and-sadness-second construction that all of his other quotes about all the other suicides have contained? John, advice: FIRST EXPRESS THE UNIVERSITY'S SADNESS, THEN SECOND DO YOUR DIRTY DEFEND-THE-UNIVERSITY AND SPIN THE DEATHS PR WORK.