City Belt

POEM: BUT FOR THE GRACE OF ...

Tucked in the lower corner,
the headline told the ostensible story,
“Former professor, to call girl,
then suicide, police say.”

Untold, unsung, are the thousands like Brandy,
those less picturesque,
less resonant to media,
as untold as the untellable millions
endangered by her passing.

In the battle against AIDS, against the virus that slays
through sex, drugs and their seductions,
Brandy was a brilliant coming star
who married bright ideas, research savvy, caring,
passion, and impatience —
all needed, all in short supply.

BUT I DIGEST ... NORTH JERSEY VIETNAMESE SHOWDOWN

Round Three: Can Jersey City’s Pho Thang Long Match Little Saigon?
By Kimberly Kaye

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After a brief and informative hiatus spent pitting you dedicated foodies against one another, we return to the North Jersey Vietnamese Showdown (a big thank you to all the “So You Think You Know Food” challengers who not only impressed me with your food knowledge but with your delicious humor as well -- the winner of a free meal at Jersey City’s Taqueria will be announced in the next column).

We bring to you this week a battle featuring last week’s champion, Montclair’s Little Saigon (who trumped Bloomfield’s Binh Duong with a knockout combination of great food and killer service), and New Jersey titleholder Pho Thang Long of Jersey City (recently featured in NJ Monthly’s 2007 Best Cheap Eats issue). I was amped about this fight and had high expectations for Pho Thang Long – it takes a solid restaurant to put out notably good food at even more notably low prices, and in an area as densely populated with great cheap eats as Jersey City you’ve got to be good to stand out, right? Well, mostly.

BOOK REVIEW: FROM SUBMARINES TO SUBURBS

Henthorn's look back can help us look ahead
By Greg Strid

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From Submarines to Suburbs: Selling a Better America, 1939–1959 | By Cynthia Lee Henthorn

In From Submarines to Suburbs, Cynthia Henthorn delivers a thorough examination of the visual and rhetorical messages that large commercial enterprises fed the American public in the twenty-year period encompassing the preparation and conflict phases of World War II and the transition to the Cold War era. From Submarines to Suburbs offers not only a history of the use of print media advertising from the early stages of World War II to the postwar rise of the military-industrial complex, it also details the ideological battle that existed between proponents of the free market and liberal reformers, a conflict which is still with us today. Filled with illustrations and examples of the connection between advertising rhetoric and the road to a permanent militarization of America, this work sheds unique and critical light on the present, as America finds itself knee-deep in another war without end. The message that we are spreading American values of democracy—cleansing the world of liberty’s (and the free market's) opponents— is trumpeted through every available media, both old and new.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: BROMELIAD

20 second exposure, nice warm tones that suit our mood today, with the windows open and breeze-filled thoughts of spring. Taken by Pat Marella.

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POEM: 111 FIRST ST. HAIKU

Formerly art house
Oh-so-modern Rem Koolhaus
And now we've "arrived?"

- Jon Whiten

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BUT I DIGEST ... SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW FOOD?

Here’s a chance to prove it (and win a prize too!)
By Kimberly Kaye

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Though I’m sure all of you are waiting with bated breath for another installment of the North Jersey Vietnamese Showdown, even I can only read about summer rolls and beef soup so many times in a row before I completely shut down and nuke a package of Easy-Mac’n’Cheez in retaliation. So I’d like to offer a bit of an intermission this week - call this the sorbet palate cleanser in between courses – before we proceed on to crown our champion.

I recently came across a phenomenally amusing (and yes, even educational) article in the January 1935 issue of Vanity Fair.  Penned by Elizabeth D. Hart, it is a simple quiz for housewives and distinguished gentlemen alike entitled "How much do you know about food?" A combination of (now) outdated food statistics, tasting trivia and culinary history, the lengthy quiz demands something of its readers that the restaurant industry rarely requires of many “foodies” now – know your addiction, and know it well.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: SNOW

This photo was taken at Van Vorst Park in Jersey City by Flickr's Lugo Lounge.

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POEM: LITTLE-SKY COUNTRY

I live in the little-sky country,
where buildings shadow the setting moon,
and Orion spends his nightly frolics
skipping behind trees, bushes,
and the house next door.

We see him only dimly
through second-hand mall-lights
reflecting off organic clouds
excreted by the makers of wonder drugs
to cure the cancers
that fill this land.

Yet on a winter morn,
fetching the daily news
from snow drifts,
a glimpse of Vega or Mercury
brings scintillating tears
of nostalgic love
above my desiccated nostrils
and pluming breath.

-- Sam Friedman

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YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS: FLAMING FIRE'S WHEN THE HIGH BELL RINGS

By Tris McCall

Listen: "High Bell"

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From: JC. I think so, anyway. Their MySpace page identifies them as a Brooklyn band, but they call themselves a Jersey City collective. A few years ago, you couldn’t turn on WFMU without hearing a cut from Songs From The Shining Temple, which is weird, because WFMU is a free-form station. Their commitment to Flaming Fire is the closest thing to local interest that the station has probably ever taken. Shining Temple was released through Perhapstransparent, which is still the best indie-rock label in Jersey City history. Brian Wilson, the drummer from American Watercolor Movement, plays on half of these tracks; the great Brian Dewan, who isn’t a New Jerseyan but is a pretty constant presence on this side of the river, is listed as a bandmember. The Hambrechts – singers Patrick and Kate – feel like envoys from that old-style “weird” Hudson County aesthetic that is rapidly disappearing. I associate it with Hand-Mad, Pier Platters, the font on the menu at Maxwell's, certain studios at 111 First Street, and the Hard Grove Café before the renovation.

MOTUS IMAGO: GRBAVICA

Bosnian film looks at the ravages of war through the life of one family
By Nightdreamer

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Grbavica is a neighborhood composed of little houses, "decorated" with holes on their walls from bullets or bombs, in an all-wounded, all-silent and already forgotten post-war Sarajevo, in Bosnia-Herzegovinia.

Grbavica is also the winner of the 2006 Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, and a praiseworthily baptism of fire for the Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic, making one wonder how her next movie will be. "The land of my dreams," the subtitle of the film, is the traumatized relationship between a mother, Esma, and her teenager daughter, Sara, which is based on a fundamental lie about Sara’s father. We, as spectators, witness the painful catharsis of these two characters and the installment of truth.