In another lane: This father desires blueberry muffins for breakfast and meatball subs for lunch, followed by a long nap on the couch under my dog-eared hardcover edition of Selwyn Raab’s “Five Families.” Carnitas for dinner, please: braised all afternoon, then blasted crisp in the broiler, to serve with warm tortillas, chopped onion and cilantro, avocado salsa and limes.
Now, it’s nothing to do with proofing a dough or simmering a Bolognese, but a million years ago I wanted to write an article for New York Press about a vast collection of heroin packets that the folk historian Clayton Patterson had gathered in binders at his studio on the Lower East Side, documenting the breadth of the neighborhood’s drug trade. But Paul Sheehan scooped me in The New Yorker, with a vivid accounting of his collection of crack vials, and my story died on the vine.
My old boss John Strausbaugh is now out with a collaboration with Clayton, “Offbeats: Lower East Side Portraits,” that chronicles life on the Loisada over the past 40 years through the stories of neighborhood characters — “visionaries, artists, misfits and criminals.” You should check it out.
Take some time with the winners of the 2022 BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition, in The Atlantic. It’s best viewed on your desktop, fullscreen.
In case you missed it (I did!), there’s a new Slough House novel out from Mick Herron, “Bad Actors.” I’m in.
Finally, here’s a poem from Ada Limon to take us into the weekend, “Banished Wonders.” Enjoy that, and I will see you on Sunday.
