Jeremy Strong and Dallas Bagels

The week in stuff I read

This week is over, and I don’t understand how that’s possible. I recall it starting off seeing Daniel Day-Lewis dressing up like a dirtbag uncle named Lenny who sells weed and doesn’t pay his child support on time. Still, I honestly can’t recall much else that stood out besides one very good lunch at Emilio's Ballato with a very motley crew including New York Nico, Premium Pete, Jamal from Village Revival Records, Kareem, and (no relation) Wayne Diamond. I definitely had the lowest number of Instagram followers at the table but somehow I got to do my first lunch at Emilio’s, a place I’ve had a few great dinners at, but never thought I’d end up going to at 1 in the afternoon on a Wednesday. Someday, when I do my map of the best chicken parm in the city, Emilio’s will be one of the first ones I add. If I had to rank it, I’d say it’s in the top three in the whole city. The thing is the size of a damn wagon wheel, so I decided against it for lunch since I didn’t want to take a nap, and I went with the linguine. I like a nice lunch pasta. I don’t do it often, but when I do, I feel like I can run a damn marathon.

It was a real “Rules of Three” kinda week with Martin Amis, Kenneth Anger, and then Tina Turner passing. I’m a big fan of all three of those people, and normally when people I respected but didn’t know pass on, I do tend to dwell on it, what they accomplished, and what their work meant to me. Anger was pushing a hundred, so I think he had a pretty good go at it. The thing with Tina that I landed on was that I was a child when she had her career resurgence in the 1980s, and I can recall in my little mind thinking “Now that’s a star” and she was in her mid-40s…and she just kept going. There’s so much to respect when you think about her life and career, but I think her genius talent and incredible beauty aside, Tina Turner was a testament to it never being over until you say it is.

As for Martin Amis, I’ve been a fan of his ever since I read Money. I think it’s one of the best novels to come out during my lifetime, and I’ve read so much of his work that I don’t think I could come up with a proper appreciation without spinning in circles. Thankfully, there are more than a few floating around out there.

Read: “Martin Amis Let His Readers in on the Joke” by Erin Somers at The New Republic

Look, I have no real beef with Dallas. I’ve been there twice and I found it…interesting. Basically the worst parts of Texas culture but in the best way possible? That’s why I found this article interesting, about how it’s “the new Dubai” because expensive restaurants like Komodo and Salt Bae’s steakhouse (lol) are opening up down there. The first thing that pops out is how right off the bat, the Major Food Groups representation is noticeable with the mention of a Sadelle’s opening up at an open-air shopping center down there, then three paragraphs down there’s a Carbone mention. There’s also talk of what could come in the future. Possibly a Polo Bar and Keith McNally might even be eying the city. There’s a lot of New York, but also Chicago down there with a Maple & Ash opening up in the future now that the hospitality group that owns that place has established itself in Dallas. I’ve been to Maple & Ash a few times and the food is good, but I always walk away thinking the vibe is even richer than the food. It’s ostentatious on a level I find silly, including what I recall was a silver-plated Champagne Tommy gun that they shoot into the mouths of guests. Either way, I’m generally a fan of some of the places mentioned in the piece, but I also know every single one of the establishments that are looking to open up shop in Dallas are spots that people in other cities generally tend to go to in order to be seen and not so much eat, and I don’t really want to know how dark a facsimile of that in Dallas must be.

Read: “For Diners With Deep Pockets, Dallas Is the New Dubai” by Priya Krishna for the New York Times

A real “We could have had a bad bitch” sort of article at Hellgate about how the city was looking to invest in squash courts, but then pickleball just started popping up everywhere.

Read: “They Tried to Make Squash Happen. Then Pickleball Arrived” by Aaron Short at Hell Gate

Finally, I leave you with that picture of me and Wayne Diamond that Nico took. My hope is that the Safdies will see it and ask us to do a sequel to Uncut Gems.

While I’m waiting for Josh and Benny to call, I’ll also be pondering the end of Succession. What will happen? Will Cousin Greg somehow end up at the top? Will Shiv kill one of her brothers? Will Tom pack it up and move back to Minnesota? Likely none of those things will happen, but something we can all count on is that the cast belongs in the conversation with the all-time best HBO shows like The Sopranos and The Wire, and that a big part of that is Jeremy Strong is a wild man. You probably recall the 2021 New Yorker profile that made some people hate him, but also made others (me) say “Jeremy Strong is a damn legend!”

On his podcast, Bowen Yang talked about another moment that he experienced with Strong that, in my mind, only adds to the living myth that is the man who plays Kendall Roy.

Read: “Jeremy Strong’s ‘Succession’ Method Acting Was So Intense That He’d Practice Asking Strangers Where the Bathroom Was” at Variety