Tag Archives: nick and choose

Nick & Choose 16: Pumpkin

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Published Oct. 7, 2009

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Get Pumped
Nick bites into fall’s favorite flavor

The menu is the new Farmer’s Almanac. When crates of clementines appear, it’s time to bundle up. When you’re dodging yet another volley of asparagus spears, the sweaters can head for storage. Used to be, sticking a wet finger in the air would tell you how the winds were changing. Now you just have to stick out your tongue.

No flavor marks a season more than pumpkin, a squash that has squeezed its way into everything from cheesecake to cocktails. But does the taste of a filthy, rigid warty fruit enhance these products? It was time to gorge.

My first stop was Starbucks for a pumpkin-spice latte, an endeavor that was doomed from the start. I drink coffee like a masochist, with each sip delivering a delicious jolt of pain and the chance to dirty-talk my java under my breath. Lattes are usually tepid, and while the pumpkin flavor in this one started sweet, there was an oddly salty finish. As one coworker remarked, “That would stay with me all day, in a bad way.”

If I was going to regret drinking something, it might as well get me drunk. So I moved to beer, perhaps the most popular and heterogeneous sector of pumpkin-flavored products. My friends Chris and SooAe—who’ve embraced adulthood more openly than the rest of my maturity-challenged pals—had thrown a dinner party. I didn’t attend, but the following morning I leapt out of my racecar bed to help them finish the booze.

We began with seven different beers, an array of glasses and one snooty observation: There’s no pumpkin in the bouquet. Chris decided Fisherman’s Pumpkin Stout has the aroma of coffee milk. Huffing the Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale, SooAe decreed, “This smells like Crabtree & Evelyn.”

The reasoning is the seasoning, and when picking a pumpkin beer, what you should look for isn’t accuracy in flavor, but ingredients that best match your preference in pumpkin pie. If you like brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg, try Dogfish Head Punkin Ale. If you abhor flavor of any kind, try Blue Moon’s Harvest Moon. But congrats to Shipyard’s Pumpkinhead, this year’s winner of the Best Seasonal Vehicle for Inebriation Award.

Testing my pie theory, I went to Toscanini’s, where, due to pumpkin’s popularity, the flavor had sold out. “I’m obsessed with it,” said Alicia, behind the counter. “Fall and pumpkin go hand-in-hand.”

“But what we really want is pumpkin pie, right?”

She answered with an immediate, almost conspiratorial “yes.”

The girl at Lyndell’s Bakery was equally obsessed with their equally sold-out pumpkin cupcakes. “Last night, people were buying them four at time,” she explained, as her enthusiasm for their quality quickly clouded her acumen for salesmanship. “Because they’re like the pumpkin muffins at Dunkin’ Donuts. Have you had those? Oh my God, I live for them.”

On a return visit, I found that while the flavor could easily be carrot cake, Lyndell’s version does win points for presentation, with thick orange frosting, striations of green icing and a candy stem. Much like with the beer, inaccuracy in flavor didn’t hinder my guzzling.

In the end, the most faithful, and tasty, presentation was pumpkin soup from Da Vinci’s, which was the one thing I ingested that contained discernible pumpkin. Roasted and seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, the soup also included pancetta, allowing you to not only dust off the stock phrase “everything’s better with bacon,” but raise it to previously unfathomable levels of foodie pomposity.

Pumpkin is a tricky fruit. You can’t just pick one up and take a bite. But then again, you don’t see rhubarb lattes around, and unlike pumpkin, that ingredient is never going to win a pie popularity contest. Maybe it’s the color, maybe it’s that they make great lanterns. But I suspect we love pumpkins because they’re an excellent medium for cinnamon, cloves and allspice. Just stock up the cupboard, and you’ll have the flavors of fall year-round.

Nick & Choose 15: Trapeze

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Published September 9, 2009

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Living the High Life
Nick learns how to swing.

No one goes to the circus for the clowns. They’re more creepy than amusing. And no one goes to see the elephants. Maybe in the radio days, when an elephant up close was impressive, but now it’s just a sad, seven-ton beast in a headdress.

The true draw: the trapeze. It has acrobatics and finesse, but more than anything, there’s the scandalous, titillating prospect that you might see someone die.

Heights hold a natural yet terrifying attraction. After all, who hasn’t toed the edge of a precipice and, just briefly, entertained a crazy notion. What’s legitimately shocking is you’ll be doing exactly that within the first 20 minutes of your visit to Trapeze School New York’s local branch.

Located inside the Jordan’s Furniture in Reading, TSNY emphasizes safety, but definitely takes a push-you-into-the-pool approach to instruction. After some brief guidelines, you’re up on a 24-foot platform with no time to pause and wonder “How’d that guy at the front desk get that scar on his head?” That’s good, because on my first routine I swung upside down by my knees and dismounted with a back flip, which felt like trying to learn math and having the teacher skip counting in favor of calculus.

Trapeze seems like a simple combination of goals: Appear graceful and survive. But you soon discover some surprising revelations.

The stuff that looks hard is easy, and the stuff that looks easy is hard. I’ve never done a back flip in my life, but it’s simply a way to seem cool while falling. Just hanging on, though, can be a literal pain, as centrifugal force stomps your hands like an action movie villain. And while you’re concentrating on seemingly important tasks like looping your legs around the bar, things you hadn’t considered, like when to make your initial jump, are the crucial elements to maintaining a rhythm.

Trapeze school isn’t aerobically tiring, but elicits strong physical reactions. My feet don’t often sweat, but I was soon glad to have chalk to rub on appendages other than my hands. It takes a few skipped showers for me to build up B.O., but after two hours, I had a definite musk. Each series of swings is a burst of adrenaline, and for all its intoxicating benefits, adrenaline is a sweat-and-stink-inducing hormone.

With a few passes under my belt, I started to relax and focus on circumstances somehow more absurd than trapezing above the lobby of a furniture emporium. Like how I ended up in line behind a guy who went to circus camp in fifth grade. He was making me look bad. Also in the complaints department were the liquid fireworks, a fountain and light show that gave the proceedings an admittedly badass background. But while circus boy flew to a soundtrack featuring the music from Superman or Chariots of Fire, my turns always coincided with heart-thumping numbers like Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World.”

In my final two runs, instead of a normal dismount, I was supposed to hang by my knees, arch my back, stretch out my hands and be caught by an instructor swinging on an adjacent trapeze. Success hinged on the simple act of presenting my partner with “sevens,” or firm, open palms with thumbs extended.

My opening run was majestic. I seamlessly tied together my moves, arched my back and then…put out my hands like a lady awaiting a kiss from an upside-down suitor. “Sevens!” I heard as I fluttered down to the netting.

It was courageous of me to sacrifice a turn in order to prove the importance of sevens to my classmates, and after each one succeeded, I ended the day with a triumphant run of my own. As I bounced off the mat, I realized that my life needs more exuberant fist pumps. But unless I really get into ottomans, it’s probably my last one in a furniture store.

Nick & Choose 14: Horoscope

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Published August 12, 2009

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Constellation Prize
Nick greets the dawning of four days of Aquarius

I put too much stock in my psychic abilities. If I catch myself thinking, “Whatever happened to Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds?” and then I later see him playing a barbarian in a Capital One ad, I feel like I’ve somehow conjured him into existence.

With such far-reaching powers as the ability to get D-list actors work, I’ve never held much faith in the clairvoyance of others. Tarot cards, tea leaves, Magic 8 Balls, there are too many options, and they can’t all be right. When I was a kid, a palm reader at a county fair told me I was a good boy, and if I didn’t use drugs, I’d turn out fine. Thanks for nothing, lady.

Deciding to further explore soothsaying, I consulted Eugenia Last’s Astrological Forecast in The Globe, because if you can’t find valuable guidance next to Doonesbury, really, where can you turn? I gave Eugenia four days.

Monday: “Good things will come from an unexpected source. A friend will be there to back you if you need help and encourage you to follow through with your plans.”

Nothing good arrived, which proved the forecast both inaccurate and depressing, but my friend John did come over to help me in my plan to install an air conditioner. Of course pieces were missing, so there was no real follow-through. It seems even though a friend came to my aid, the universe (and Sears) was still there to screw me. And now I have a wobbly window unit one unlucky nudge away from plummeting to the sidewalk. Hopefully my future doesn’t hold involuntary manslaughter charges. Horoscope accuracy (out of 5): 2.5.

Tuesday: “Someone you thought you knew well will let you down.”

Do I have good friends or bad, horoscope? Make up your mind.

That night my friend Adam and I lucked into luxury box seats at Fenway, and as Adam savored our 6-2 lead and his fourth Heineken, he said, “I hope this game goes into extra innings.” Of course we blew the lead and ending up
losing in the 11th, but I already knew that would happen. The man is a military-grade jinx—but apparently better at predicting the future than Eugenia Last. Accuracy: 1.

Wednesday: “Be honest about what you did and didn’t contribute or you may be questioned or put in an awkward position.”

It’s date night, and a time when I would rather pour the soup du jour down my pants than be forthright, so bring on the awkwardness!

Nothing. After a few jokes and some lively repartee about mass homicide and organ donation, I came across as charming as always. Dodged another of your feeble bullets, zodiac. Accuracy: 0.

Thursday: “You can open doors that have been closed in the past.”

Giving my horoscope one last chance, I made a concerted effort and decided to call a friend I hadn’t spoken to in a while. In life, our paths often diverge, but “because my horoscope told me to” is as good a contrivance as any to rope someone back in.

Turns out she’d just been thinking about me. Eerie. A friend had given her some of my writing, and she’d actually read it. Ego stroke! Sure, her horoscope said nothing about needless, inconvenient phone calls, but she handled it all with patience and humor. Isn’t that just like a Capricorn? Accuracy: 4.

I didn’t need a test to prove that horoscopes are just speculation, but I was surprised to discover they do hold some practicality. It’s like reading a vague journal entry hours before you actually live the day. Checking the script keeps you engaged. Taking the advice can push you outside your normal comfort zone. Perhaps best read, a horoscope is less a prophecy and more a friendly suggestion for the road ahead. Because having all the answers is no way to live.

Nick & Choose 13: French TV

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Published June 2009

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Lost in Translation
Nick ruins your reputation

How would you describe yourself? No question packs more pressure per column inch. After you’ve stalled with the basics like age and alma mater, it’s difficult to come up with an honest answer beyond, “I’m the type of person who hates you for asking.”

Defining yourself as a Bostonian is even harder. It’s like saying you live in the year 2009. Like time, place shapes your character in ways impossible to accurately quantify. But that’s what I had to do.

A French travel program, Échappées Belles, emailed the office looking to learn about—and shoot a day in the life of—”the true Bostonian.” It took some badgering, but after making sure it wasn’t a prank show, I agreed. So a month later, two French women knocked on my door, ready to witness the supernova of titillation that is my Bostonian life… at 8 am… on a Monday. You know, when the city is just alive with possibilities.

Right away we started with a small lie, and the pressure to honestly represent all of you lessened a bit. In front of a camera the size of a RPG-7, I lazed on the couch watching SportsCenter, as men regardless of locale are wont to do, when the interviewer asked me about the Red Sox (i.e., the prism through which the entire world now sees Bostonians.) I explained that sure, I like the team, but after years of intense fandom, I was finding it harder to stoke my enthusiasm. But I was missing the point. What she wanted was a shot of me watching the Sox. So I flipped to the previous game’s replay, a mind-numbing spectacle that most fans don’t watch and, in the Internet age, is pretty useless. It’s like watching a History Channel special on what your mom had for lunch. Evidently, I was just there to give them all I could offer, and they’d spackle in the rest.

Next was a short tour around my neighborhood, where we settled in the Paul Revere mall as I desperately tried to sound intelligent by explaining Revere’s disproportionate amount of fame, and other topics I had Wikipedia’d the day before. Unfortunately, they bought it and asked me to stammer my way through the history of Sam Adams and… that other guy. Seen through the eyes of a tourist, I guess we do play up the Revolutionary War connection. So I suppose the question of whether we still hate the British was understandable. “There’s no animosity, besides them being bad tippers,” I explained, before adding, “but apparently we saved YOUR asses in World War II.” I was on fire.

From there it was a walk through the Common, where I was forced to admit I didn’t know how George Washington died, and we got some lovely footage of a terrier taking a dump. At The Improper office, the conversation turned to, “Who is the typical Bostonian?” (I guess I wasn’t filling the bill.) I explained that ideally we’re a hardworking and intellectually curious people exceedingly proud of our past, and both in love with, and sometimes frustrated by, our current cultural standing. We know we’re not the biggest, but we’ll take on all comers. And the sweat we put into our pursuits is often tempered by beer. (I may have started projecting.)

Appropriately enough, our afternoon stop was Drink, where I sipped on a cocktail named after a fictional French whore and loosened up enough to start bragging. We have a lot to be proud of, from our stance on marijuana to our legalization of gay marriage. As the hubris and alcohol went to my head, I relaxed enough to hit the men’s room without turning my mike off.

The day ended on the Charles at Restaurant Dante, which provided a beatific visual ending and fitting analogy. Obviously Boston isn’t the inferno, but it can be hellish to play tour guide, let alone to be asked to represent your people. But I pulled no punches in detailing our greatness, which I think any local would do. Because although I don’t define myself as a true Bostonian, I’m proud to play one on TV.

Nick & Choose 11: Figure Drawing

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Published April 29, 2009

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Sketchy Character
Burlesque life drawing isn’t as easy as you’d think.

On Easter Sunday, while many of you dined with your families and reflected on your blessings, I sat in the back of a dingy bar, drinking and ogling a topless woman, a sweaty hand stuffed into my pocket, groping for a fistful of singles.

It was Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School Burlesque Life Drawing, and in contrast to the name, the afternoon was the most wholesome time I’ve ever spent with half-naked women. Founded in Brooklyn in 2005, Dr. Sketchy’s has spread worldwide, with 60 branches in cities like Cape Town, Bogotá, and on a couple weekends per month, Allston. On a small stage in the back of a club, cheerful drag kings and queens pose in corsets or pasties. Should anyone walk in for a lazy Sunday pint, they’re in for a shock. But on this particular Sunday, the sketchiest thing they saw was me.

Sketchy reason No. 1: I went alone. It was Easter, and all my friends were busy or just didn’t feel like helping. So while two people at a burlesque drawing class is a fun afternoon, one guy arriving solo for some Sunday boobage is a sign of a life gone wrong.

Sketchy reason No. 2: It was windy, and when I arrived my hair resembled a toupee salvaged from a storm drain. I’m generally unkempt in the first place, but now I looked like a man who enjoys the feel of a good trench coat, mumbling to himself and living in a van.

Sketchy reason No. 3: I can’t draw. Not a lick. Actually being able to produce something of artistic merit would have helped tone down my shadiness. Also: I didn’t even bring paper. Never even occured to me. So in I walked looking like a serial glue sniffer with no intention of doing anything but staring at bare flesh.

Thankfully, it’s a friendly crowd at Dr. Sketchy’s, and an older woman drinking a Scotch on the rocks gave me all the paper I needed. Nearly 20 people filtered in during the proceedings, from a group of women with cigar boxes full of supplies to a young man in the back who casually tossed off drawings I’m incapable of creating even in dreams where I have talent.

The session began with one-minute sketches, as a woman named “Johnny Blazes” slowly stripped out of her men’s clothing. One minute isn’t enough time to do more than a rudimentary outline, which I excelled at, but the allotments soon ratchet up to two, five and ultimately 20 minutes. Twenty minutes is a long friggin’ time when you can’t draw anything resembling the human form.

Scooting further into the corner, I decided to try different techniques, like only drawing negative space. When Johnny and a woman in mossy pasties named “M. Hanora” staged a 10-minute “surreal garden party,” I scribbled out a patch of lead and drew with my eraser. When M. posed with a plunger on her butt, I went for firm, straight lines and ended up with a fetching little image I call “Woman With Plunger on Her Butt.” Finally, I just took to drawing details, like the felt and googly-eyed face Johnny had glued to her underwear, until I realized I had spent 10 minutes glaring at her crotch. I just couldn’t help looking shifty.

There’s a fair amount of interaction during the session, as Johnny tells the story of how she broke a molar on a pita chip and familiar faces nod greetings while passing the tip bucket. The pervasive atmosphere is just good, clean fun. The comfortable crowd of regulars is simply happy for the creative exercise and the chance to show off the level of detail they achieved on M.’s booby tassels. I, on the other hand, hid my sheets like they held nuclear codes and quickly shuffled out the door. As the afternoon proved, I have no talent for drawing. But I have a gift for being sketchy.

Nick & Choose 9: Salsa

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Published March 4, 2009

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Lord of the Dance
Is it getting sexy in here, or is it just me?

My mother fancies me as a dancer. She’s exceedingly proud of all her handsome, genius son has accomplished, but were I to win a Pulitzer, I know that at the reception, she’d be disappointed if I didn’t ask Joyce Carol Oates for a waltz.

I don’t know what created the illusion. Perhaps it’s because my sister has the coordination of a newborn mare with Jell-O hooves, and simply walking without stumbling makes me Gene Kelly in comparison. To her, I have a talent that must be shared. Once, in college, I made the mistake of mentioning that my friend Geoff had signed up for a dance class. It didn’t matter that Geoff was a lazy goof and just scrambling for a phys-ed credit. She chose to see Geoff as debonair, and that I was just squandering my gifts, and over the course of the next month, she constantly reminded me of all the girls she was sure Geoff was scoring. (It was very uncomfortable.)

Now, at weddings, I’m prodded to hit the floor with the older ladies. She’s like my pimp, and I’m some impressionable youth in tap shoes she found at the bus station. I know that somewhere in her mind, there plays a bizarre version of Dirty Dancing where I embrace my love for twirling and no one puts her baby in a corner.

Thing is, I like dancing. I can usually find the rhythm, I don’t dance with my thumbs up and I hardly ever bite my lower lip. But I wouldn’t say I actually know how. So after a recommendation from a friend, I went to An Tua Nua, where on Wednesday nights, $20 gets you all the salsa you could want and a little bit more than I could handle.

A trio of lessons began at 7, as did the quick destruction of my confidence. It’s uncomfortable arriving solo to an activity that requires a partner, and that feeling only grew when the beginners gathered. There were five of us. Being a loner creep does have advantages though, as it forces the instructor to dance with you and thus accelerate your education.

My first lesson was perhaps salsa’s most important: Men lead and women just have to look pretty. It sounds sexist, but it’s a tough job, as no matter the number of missteps, ladies have to act like they’re dancing with virility incarnate. Since I danced predominately with the instructor, I was amazing.

My second lesson was more biomechanical. Salsa is about tight, small steps, and I tend to walk like I’m constantly stepping over things. Years ago, a track coach taught me that speed equals stride length plus stride frequency, and I apply that knowledge in my everyday life. It’s another example of the failings of my mind, as I’ve met a lot of wise people, and the tossed-off instructions from a sport I didn’t even particularly like are what stick. But through sheer willpower—and pretending my feet were chained together—I managed to shorten my steps, and the directions I actually wanted to learn began to sink in.

Sports actually began to help in the second hour, as we moved onto casino rueda, which is like salsa square dancing. “But like sexy square dancing, not that square dancing isn’t sexy,” corrected one of the organizers. There’s a lot of pivoting, and my muscle memories from basketball began to surface. There’s also a lot of stomping, and the timing and footwork reminded me of my high-jumping days. Of course, the wear and tear of both those activities have left my right ankle with what my orthopedist charitably labeled “incompetent ligaments,” and as the third hour rolled around, my foot was flopping like a dying fish. But like a sexy dying fish.

Hour three was a return to basic steps, but these lessons were led by Johnny and Kelly, two mariposas del sexy who opened class by shaking, strutting and gyrating on stage, their hips swinging like wrecking balls aimed at the foundation of my ego. By 9 pm, the room was full and the experience level had risen, but thankfully, every veteran in a fly collar was counterbalanced with an unrhythmic rookie.

The wheat once again separated from the chaff, my fellow beginners and I regrouped into a larger circle. Now, with the basics down cold, I could pull my focus away from my feet and observe the group at large. Salsa night is an amazing sociological study and an event where desperately trying to be graceful becomes an allegory for the clumsiness of romance. Some fight to lead, others are happy to follow. Women are either looking for their men to dance or men to dance with, and men are just seeking affirmation. At the end of the hour, my last partner looked up and declared me the best of the circle. With three hours of salsa left, but grateful for the chance to leave on a high note, I grabbed my coat and floated home.

I had fun with salsa and even went to Masa to try it again the following night—with a partner no less. But to be honest, the lessons really weren’t about me. I had a different woman I was looking to impress.

That Saturday I met my mother for lunch, and after discussing one of my recent social faux pas, I strategically played my dance card. “Well that cheers my right up,” she said, rising slightly in her seat. “You know, if you liked salsa, I’m sure there’s lots of other dance classes around town you could take.”