Tag Archives: death

Popcorn, Mon Amour

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popcorn cart

"Better make that a double; I'm going to see Die Hard: With a Vengeance."

I was sitting in a darkened theatre on Saturday, munching handfuls of popcorn, when suddenly the entire tradition of movie popcorn struck me as absurd. In Brooklyn, so much as whispering through a movie would probably get me punched in the face, but I am allowed to eat the loudest, smelliest snack possible a mere two feet from another patron’s head, and no one is allowed to say anything. I think this revelation was spurred mostly by the fact that we were watching the dismal and quiet French film Amour (spoiler alert: unhappy beginning, unhappy middle, unhappy ending, followed by me extacting a sworn statement from Jason that he would never smother me with a pillow, diapers or no), but even so, I couldn’t help but consider the weirdly powerful love affair between celluloid and popcorn. After all, potato chips and corn chips and pretzels have the same salty-oily-crunch factor, and though those snacks are more popular in virtually every other venue (including the realm of house cats), cinemas are the domain of popcorn alone.

Apparently, like any number of romantic pairings, the match between popcorn and movies began because both parties were in the right place at the right time. The portable popcorn popper and the nickelodeon were bright young things together in the late 19th century, and it didn’t take long for popcorn vendors to start parking their carts outside the theatres to take advantage of the crowds. Later, the popcorn moved inside to boost theatre profits during the depression. Not even war could tear the two asunder: sugar was rationed during World War II, so candy disappeared from concession stands, but the War Department gave the official go-ahead to theatres to continue to serve popcorn. Continue reading →

Turkey Bones and the March of Time

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McSorley’s Old Ale House, in the East Village, is not my favorite bar. The service is inevitably surly, the place is always in-your-face packed with tourists and frat boys, the smell is a bit on the musky side, and the weird little half-pints of beer only come in two varieties (brace yourself, Llalan), dark and light. They didn’t even let women in the front door until they were forced to do so in 1970. Basically, if the bar itself was a person, I probably wouldn’t like him much.

bones, pre-dusting

A photo of the bones, pre-dusting, from the New York Times

But I can’t help but hanker for an occasional trip to McSorley’s. Established (or at least allegedly established) in 1854, it’s one of the few places where you can still feel how old of a place Manhattan really is. If you could manage to elbow your way to a table and order up one of their cheese plates (The cheddar—so sharp! The onion—so raw! The mustard—so spicy!), you’d have a perfect vantage point of some weird artifacts of Old New York, like photos of long-gone drinking club members and antique fireman helmets and turkey wish bones hanging above the bar covered in decades of dust. You could eye those bones and, depending upon the story you chose to believe, think about the quirky bar owner who’d collected them or the WWI doughboys who never made it back from Europe to take them down. And, a little tipsy, you could have deep thoughts about death and decay and the long slog of time and wash it all down with a gulp of light. You could have, that is, until the health department stepped in last year. Continue reading →