I have to wonder if there’s another Dumpling War brewing.

There’s a coffee truck that stations itself, each and every day, a few hundred meters away from my office on Wall Street. It’s bright orange, it blasts music from within the truck, their logo looks like a splash of coffee, and they make an OK iced mocha. It’s called “Love Coffee.”

For anyone who has spent any time around Astor place, all but the last characteristic should sound strangely familiar. Mud also has all of those things, except they make a *mean* iced mocha.

I am a huge Mud fan, and really disapointed that an unoriginal entrepreneur decided to earn some quick cash by encroaching on Mud’s popularity. They probably figure, between the tourists and the suits, who will know the difference?

I guess they forgot that suits are all too familiar with intellectual property.

The Whitney Museum is currently featuring a video projection/film by Sadie Benning entilted “Pause Play.”  You enter a large, darkened room with others standing, some sitting, against the walls.  If you brave the dark open space you may be rewarded with an empty, square ottoman to sit on.

The projection is a series of drawings set to music.

Overall the piece vacillates back and forth between the ordinary, the entertaining, and the tragic.  We see scenes of urban malaise: dilapidated buildings and barren landscapes.

There is an interesting interlude at a local bar, “Ze Bar.”  The night seems to progress in several stages.  First, there is the introduction: Play Pause: Ze Bar Early On

Then, the drowning one’s sorrows: Ze Bar Blues

Finally, there is ebullient celebration as the night gets older and the music at “Ze Bar” gets faster:  Pause Play: At Ze Bar
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UPDATE!  See the end of this post for a coupon from the Seamlessweb folks

One of the best things about my first job in finance was that if you stayed after 7:30PM, you could order up to $25 worth of food from seamlessweb on the company’s dime.

I began using it from home as well, enabling my already bad stay-at-home inclinations.  Yes, it’s New York and yes, you couldn’t hit every restaurant even if you went to a new one for every meal, but what outsiders don’t realize is that New Yorkers spend almost their entire LIVES eating out.

New Yorkers have Breakfast on the go, Lunch outside the office somewhere, and Dinner with friends, dates and colleagues.  All of this adds up to a constant stream of restaurant visits.  After so much eating on the go, ordering in  starts to have a certain charm about it.  It’s irregular, it’s a treat, it’s deliciously isolating. It’s a nice break from our typical frenetic and highly social pace.  It has exactly as much charm, in fact, as . . . Read more »