[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: February 22, 2016]
I have a very clear memory of coming down with a bronchial illness ten years ago. You see, it happened during a movie. And oh, believe me, there was plenty of time.
In fact, I saw two new(ish) movies in February 2006, and certainly Steve Coogan's Tristram Shandy was the funnier.
The movie is Der Ister, and it clocks in 189 minutes. Ample time for a healthy person to fall victim to illness (arguably almost enough time to recover). But I wasn't going to miss it, a poetic and philosophical exploration of Martin Heidegger's writing on Friedrich Hölderlin, set in the context of a long, slow, beautifully shot trip upstream along the Danube, from the Black Sea to its source in the Black Forest. Europe gorgeous, Europe ugly, and insights into the darker parts of its heart; the trip interspersed with commentary from three philosophers: Bernard Stieglitz, incisive and clear; Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, incisive too, but seemingly held together by nicotine; and Jean-Luc Nancy, allusive, harder to follow. It finishes with Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, director of Hitler: A Film from Germany.
That was the event of the week, anyway, along with my ensuing sickness, but I did eat a few things. I got to Brasserie Ruhlmann, that French fantasia on Rockefeller Plaza, after a reception for the Munch show at MoMA. Saucisse a l'ail aux lentilles, pot-au-feu, café liégeois: all very classic. I ate lamb bhuna after Tristram Shandy at Angon on East 6th. I seared a duck breast in butter at home and served it with mushroom-onion quinoa.
Finally, dinner at Le Miu, an Avenue A fusion spot, with boasted--unavailingly--some kind of Nobu pedigree:
Fried oysters, caviars, sauce gribiche
Sea urchin, soy gel
King crab fried rice
Sushi, sashimi
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