Tom & Alissa

Recommended.
Film
• Babel - it was superbly acted and very heartfelt. I haven’t seen Amores Perros or 21 Grams, but this was a thought-provoking exposition of communication and misunderstanding and perhaps even a veiled call to just listen sometimes.
• Wonder Boys - my first time around. Pure fun.

Food
• The brunch at Miracle Grill, at 2nd Street and 7th Ave in Park Slope. Despite a missing corn chowder order, the food was great.
• We had carrot-apple-cream-cheese muffins from Blue Sky on the way to church on Sunday and they were the perfect combination of soft and textured and warm and yum.
• Crif Dogs, in the East Village, which we had on the way to Tara Leigh’s show last night.

Speaking of Tara Leigh, we did indeed go to the show last night, after which we nabbed a copy of her book and new CD (Here’s to Hindsight). We met up with her and her friend Jane afterwards for burgers at this place on 3rd Ave below St. Marks. I can never remember the name of the place, but the burgers are great and the hot chocolate is seventy-five cents. Good times.

I started reading the book on the train this morning, and I’m loving it. Having grown up in a somewhat similar environment (pretty darn conservative, but in love & grace), I’m identifying with it a lot. And of course, who wouldn’t love reading TLC’s life story? I can get all kinds of dirt on her this way. And I haven’t gotten that far yet, but apparently Tom (yes, our own dear Tom) gets a mention. We are so rockin’ famous.

Somehow, Fidel Castro manages to provide a good amount of blog fodder for me. I saw him on the big CNN TVs yesterday saying something to the effect of “my enemies have prematurely reported my death”. Sounds like someone’s been reading Mark Twain.