Just Hanging Around. A friend of mine used to call December "It's a Wonderful Month," because of the constant showings of that Jimmy Stewart Kristmas Klassic, which I do love, I must admit. But for my money, the best holiday movie is A Christmas Story. Just as an inordinate number of people seem to love the Mickey Rourke/popcorn box in the theater scene in Diner (while ignoring all that is wonderful about that film), I find that most people focus too much attention on the flagpole bit in A Christmas Story, when there is so much else to adore about this movie. I can never get enough of the cinematic glance in the beleaguered grade-school teacher's drawer, full of chattering teeth and slingshots. I always identify heavily with Randy, who can't get up when he falls down because of all the snow apparel his mother forces him to wear (don't get me started on the boots I had to wear with plastic bread wrappers) and I adore the part when they go to the department store. Say what you will, going to the mall to see Santa just can't compare with going to a big-city department store that is all dressed up for Christmas.
I get a similar feeling when I walk by the windows of Caravansary. Paul, the very friendly owner of this West Village fixture (for 20-plus years), does marvelous window displays, with toy moving tramways and spinning carousels. Inside, more delights await, such as miniature (we're talking tiny) snow globes with little snowmen or red-spotted toadstools inside, or old-fashioned china animals that would be perfect for a little girl's dresser top.
The main reason to stop in, though, is his huge selection of tree ornaments. They range from simple to fanciful, small to oversize, from Aladdin on his magic carpet to mermaids to a replica of a Popsicle or a Cracker Jack box, all sparkly and completely over the top. If you are going to a tree-trimming party, this should be your first stop: you can get something for under the Christmas tree and something for the top of the Christmas tree.
Mary Karam
This Ain't No White Christmas! Rudy Ray Moore (Norton Records)
Merry XXXmas. "It was the night before Christmas and all through the house/Everybody felt shitty, even the mouse/Mom was at the whorehouse, and you know Dad was smokin' grass/And I just settled down for a good ol' piece of hot ass..."
So it's Christmas or Chanukah. You've just devoured a huge dinner, and everybody's slumped around the place in a greasy-faced torpor. You could all just drift off and let the party dwindle to a whimpering end as the stereo repeats Bing Crosby or "Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel" for the umpteenth time.
Or you could fire up the bong, slip This Ain't No White Christmas! into the stereo and laugh along to one of the raunchiest jokers ever.
Norton has rereleased Rudy Ray Moore's 1971 Christmas LP as a CD with bonus tracks. Moore, aka the Dolemite, sings a little, recites a little blue poetry, joshes around with a live audience a lot and tells X-rated joke after X-rated joke after X-rated joke. This is the Chitlin Circuit's erogenous zone. The Dolemite makes Redd Foxx's bluest work sound like Sunday sermons. There's his dick- and pussy-filled version of "The Night Before Christmas," wherein a horny Santa "filled our stockings with reefers, pretzels and beer/and a big old long rubber dick for my brother the queer." There's the self-explanatory "Eatin' Pussy." There's the classic "Brother Rapp's Dream," a tale of "a cock-lovin' man who died and thought he went to Heaven instead of Hell" recited to a funky wah-wahed backup, where every angel has "a beautiful ass" and St. Peter says, "Go on, knock yo-self out."
Sound advice. But maybe wait till the in-laws and their kids go home.
John Strausbaugh
Meade Telescopes [www.meade.com](http://www.meade.com)
Venus in Furs. Key West, late December 1989, I watched the phases of Venus through a telescope mounted on the balcony of my then-boyfriend's uncle's apartment. While my then-boyfriend and the uncle's boyfriend were blase about the whole thing (they bent down and took one look through the eyepiece, and went back inside to mix drinks and get ready for the night) I was on the balcony for the remainder of the week watching Venus?which to the naked eye looks like a shocking white star, and when magnified, becomes a seed pearl, subject to sun and shadow like everything else.
This was my first attempt at being interested in anything astronomical. Actually, it was my first attempt at being interested in anything past the tip of my nose. Today, I can easily point to Orion and Mars, and since I now live outside of the city haze, a telescope is on my wish list.
A good telescope for an amateur isn't too too expensive. The Meade ETX-70AT, through Amazon.com, is $299.99 (tripod included), and portable (less than a foot-and-a-half tall), and is outfitted with Meade's Autostar tracking system, which allows for completely automatic location of more than 1400 celestial objects in its database. Venus is included in the database, but she's so close by she makes my Key West amateur astronomy with the gay uncle seem positively small-time. With the ETX-70AT, Jupiter's cloud belts and the divisions in Saturn's rings are viewable in splendid detail. In fact, all the planets, moons, constellations and nebulae within our solar system are within reach, except for Pluto. The ETX-70AT is also good for "terrestrial observing," which makes this telescope a fine birdwatcher's tool or also ideal for viewing, say, the phases of someone's bedroom transvestitism in the farthest reaches of Nassau County.
Jessica Willis
Luxury Edibles [www.petrossian.com](http://www.petrossian.com)
No One's Watching, So Splurge. One October evening during the '91 recession, six of us had a lavish dinner at Petrossian on 58th St. It was an odd occasion: one of the fellows at the table, 31 at the time, had a doctor's appointment the next day to check on his cholesterol. Fearing the worst, given his genetic history, he decided to have one last fatty meal should the blood tests dictate a nuts & berries diet. We ate lots of caviar, foie gras, rare beef and vegetables drenched in rich sauces, washed down with several bottles of champagne.
He didn't return to Petrossian for a long time after that night, as his cholesterol count was charted at a whopping 290?an alarming number for someone so young and thin.
In any case, log on to Petrossian's website and you'll find a number of semi-affordable gift items for friends or relatives who refuse to let terrorism dampen their high-roller tastes. For example, a 125g tin of Ossetra caviar goes for $330; two pounds of smoked sturgeon will set you back $90; a 25g jar of truffles is a mere $100; and a 50-piece box of French chocolates can be had for $69. Any of these goodies would be a snazzy addition to a grand holiday meal.
Russ Smith
Psychedelic States Midnight Records 263 W. 23rd St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.) 675-2768 [www.swiftsite.com/gearfab](http://www.swiftsite.com/gearfab)
All I Want for Christmas Is a Blown Mind. The folks at Gear Fab Records, an indie label based in Orlando, have embarked upon what is surely one of the most significant, monumental and generally laudable cultural projects of our time. Dedicated to psychedelic music from 1965-1972, Gear Fab has begun a series called Psychedelic States that aims to document, state by fucking state, the incredible musical fertility of the era. Starting at home, with not one, not two, but three volumes of Floridian psychedelia, they've recently moved on to Georgia. And you know what? There's hardly a dud in all those sides (nearly 30 tunes per disc!).
"Xcedrin Headache #69" by Mouse & the Boys, "Up in My Mind" by the Spontaneous Generation, "My Brother, the Man," by We the People?the list of shoulda-been hits goes on and on. The people at Gear Fab emphasize that these are all authorized recordings, many of which are almost totally unknown and/or unreleased. They also tell you what town each band was from. Here's to their hooking up with some high school or college students and for-credit internships so as to expedite this mighty undertaking. These compilations (available on vinyl or CD) are that rare gift appropriate for both boomers and youngsters, so long as the latter can live with the sneaking suspicion that, despite our superior pot, the old folks may truly have had the better deal they keep blathering on about.
Eva Neuberg
Soho Sanctuary Gift Certificate [www.sohosanctuary.com](http://www.sohosanctuary.com)
Gift-Giving for Dummies. Face it?you're kind of a dilwad. You want to give your gal something nice for the holidays, but the idea of stepping foot in a department store fills you with unimaginable horror. What are you gonna do, buy some perfume from one of those perfume counters? Or a dress? What size? Or are you gonna do the same thing you did last year and get her that video game you'd been wanting?
Dilwad.
You want to get something nice, something that doesn't put the fear into you and something she'll actually like? Then do this?get her a gift certificate for a few hours of pampering at the Soho Sanctuary spa, and she'll be very happy.
No more fumbling red-faced in the lingerie department, no more cold stares when she opens up that novelty coffee mug you saw at the Rite Aid. The people at Soho make it all very simple. You go to the website, go to the "Gift Giving Guide" section and they're all lined up for you. Facials, massages, steam baths, foot rubs, various body treatments of all sorts, arranged and rearranged under several different names. The names may be a little fruity, and you might be embarrassed to say them aloud, but again, it's over in a second.
Mind you, these don't exactly come cheap?the packages run from $200-$500?but ask yourself?do you want to make your gal happy? Then don't worry about the damn money.
The gift certificates usually arrive within a few short days (so you can do it almost at the last minute should you need to), they come in a nice envelope, with a nice card you can write on, together with a description of everything she's going to get.
It's just a nice thing to do, is all. Trust me on this one.
Jim Knipfel
Scottish Terrier Motherwell Scottish Terriers 3 Sagamore Rd. Parsippany, NJ 07054 973-227-1871 [motherwl@optonline.net](mailto:motherwl@optonline.net)
Fa La La La La. Model American Barney Bush has not fled to an undisclosed location, instead spending most of his time at the White House and embarking on a pattern of high visibility. He has steadfastly flown on Marine One on a weekly basis. When pressed, he admits it's "rough," but he's kept up with his usual activities, doggedly going about his normal life. He's neither stockpiled Cipro nor bought a gas mask. He stood firmly behind our President when he said there would be "...no negotiation... C'mon Barney." And, as always, Barney is friendly to the press. The New Jersey-born Bush, at one time a member of Christie Todd's inner circle, cuts a dashing figure; First Lady Laura Bush likens him "to those automatic shoeshine machines with big bristles on both ends."
If you know someone who needs a dose of stalwartness at his house, contact Motherwell Scottish Terriers in Parsippany to obtain an actual relative of Barney's. Or, if bloodline's not an issue, try searching by region and breed at www.petfinder.org to adopt. "Doobie" was available from Small Dog Rescue in Princeton at this writing.
Lane Lipton
Children's Gifts The Green Onion 274 Smith St. (betw. Sackett & DeGraw Sts.) Brooklyn 718-246-2804
Stuff with Which to Swaddle Them. A Greenspan-level financial visionary: that's what the entrepreneur who thought of opening a children's store in Carroll Gardens must be. Selling kids' merchandise on Smith St.? It's almost as stupid as peddling aquavit to lumberjacks, Kalashnikovs to Pashtuns or pornography to Ruthenians. You ever been in Carroll Gardens? The neighborhood has become a sort of bourgeois bohemian birthing pen, to which thirtysomething women of a certain privileged American stratum retire to participate in an exquisitely studied and self-actualizing variety of childbirth.
(Actually, forget the children's store. The smart investment would seem to be in a private kindergarten, to service the war-babies who in a few years will start to spill over from that Montessori scheme on Court St. This is what you do: rent a storefront, slather the walls in primary colors, graffiti the doors with quotations from Rigoberta Menchu, William Sloane Coffin and that creep who invented the orgone box, make the kids touch each other a whole bunch, ruthlessly expel the ones who draw pictures of men smoking cigarettes during crayon period and let 'er rip. You'll be huge. You'll soon be wearing the neighborhood's phattest fleece jacket, driving the biggest, deffest old Volvo and scoring the biggest number of granny-spectacled assistant editors who resemble Roz Chast cartoons.)
Anyway, the Green Onion is the store into which I stumbled recently to scope out some clothes for a relative's infant girl, and I don't know what more to say about it. You live in Brooklyn, and you need a gift for somebody's small Chelsea, Dylan, Montana, Skyler, Wystan, Mick, Perpetua or John-Bull Hurricane, then this cheerful establishment is where you go. They sell the wee trousers, the Cheerios Animal Play Books, the nondenominational literature concerning airplanes and choo-choos, the li'l starter carrying cases rendered of soft vinyl so that whomever you give it to won't brain her little brother, the Maisy stuff, the sweaters, the dromedaries, the mousies. Ten minutes, you're in, you're out. Enough.
Andrey Slivka
Yankees Menorah J. Levine Co. 5 W. 30th St. (betw. 5th Ave. & B'way) 695-6888 [ www.levinejudaica.com](http://www.levinejudaica.com)
Nun, Gimel, Hay, Shin, Jeter. I was Catholic until second grade, when my Irish gramma died, releasing my father from his holy obligation too. But I still remember back then, especially the holiday duties. Everything was so solemn. I don't recall ever seeing the baby Jesus, lying in a manger in swaddling clothes emblazoned with a New York Knicks logo.
Leave it to the people whose holiday miracle is not a virgin birth but having their oil last a little longer than usual, the people who gave us Henny Youngman, Leo Rosten and stuffed derma, to inject some levity into the season. Thus: the $19.95 New York Yankees menorah at J. Levine. Nu, God did a mitzvah for the Diamondbacks this year, but there's still reason to have the Yanks be part of your Chanukah celebrations. Show your continued admiration by displaying this festive candelabrum, made of wood and painted in Yankee blue, with "Y-A-N-K-E-E-E-S" spelled out on the holders, plus a little baseball painted on day eight. The Joe Torre candle?the shamash?sits up top.
When J. Levine bills itself as "The Ultimate Judaica Store," they're not kidding. They offer tons of books for all ages, including "atlases" of Jewish history; CDs and cassettes; mezuzahs and statues and artwork and games; toys, tchotchkes, dreidels and kosher Bazooka bubblegum. If you are a rich man, there's a lovely, exquisitely detailed Fiddler on the Roof chess set ($300) that goys will like too. And menorahs everywhere. Last year they had Mets menorahs, but this year, well... But you can order them, and other teams. There are fancier menorahs, and kids' menorahs (one featuring the Rugrats) and, most appropriate this year, an NYC version with the Statue of Liberty and Empire, Brooklyn Bridge, Broadway, subway and a taxi. And the beloved WTC. Sure, we had a bad year, but our friends should suffer too?
Lisa Kearns
Suede Handbag Cole Haan 620 5th Ave. (50th St.) 765-9747
Accessory Accessory. On a six-mile roundtrip walk to East Hampton, behind her shades, Miss Michelle wants to know, "What did you write about last?"
"I wrote about you dragging us all over Aix to every one of their hundred frickin' bakeries to find a frickin' cream puff that they don't make there."
Without a trace of apology, she recalls the day. "Oh yeah."
Changing that subject, she tells me a former cheerleader we know shared with one and all that her new husband had a "tiny wienie." Why'd she go on a fourth date, much less marry the guy?
After her engagement she'd told me she was a "new" girl. A scant few hours after hearing that revelation, I witnessed her smoking a controlled substance, drinking Hawaiian Punch and Ketel One's, smooching with one guy on a couch, dancing with another on a table (and landing quite gracefully when it broke) at 3 a.m. in the three-jacuzzied penthouse suite of some guys we'd met (they'd tricked me, saying they were from Bay Ridge so I'd know they were all right, but they were really from Boston). I could discern no difference from the "old" girl. The phone had rung. It was the people in the next room; not complaining about the racket, just asking if they could come over.
The next morning, post-coffee, New Girl and I weren't worse for wear, but the Ketel cocktails hadn't loosened their grip on Barb. As we pulled past a quaint historic street over a canal, she croaked, "Stop. Stop the car," and stumbled out to throw her head over the side of the bridge. New Girl glanced into her rearview mirror and squealed with horror. "A family!" Sure enough, fresh from their colonial self-led walking tour, round- and sunny-faced, sneakered and socked, disposable cameraed?A Family. Came bouncing up to the bridge on a collision course with our cleavage-exposing, bedheaded, ralphing heroine. New Girl and I slid off the seats screaming giggles while youngster Allison, jaw slightly dropped, stared at us in disgust and admonished, "Poor Barb!" She slammed the door on us on her way to hold Barb's hair.
Poor Barb? What about me? She's making me laugh so hard my stomach hurts. And rubbing away the tears streaming down my face, that can't be good for your skin. As they got back in the car I straightened up in time to solemnly blurt, "Barb, I didn't laugh."
The first shop we come across in East Hampton is Cole Haan. Within, a rich mulberry suede bucket handbag with chocolate trim and tortoise-colored hardware ($270). Puts me in mind of a with-it schoolteacher circa 1972. I leave without it since I don't need it. But lo these many months later, they still have it at Rock Center. Salesguy makes sure I look at the interior: "I know you girls like these inner pockets." Does she need it? No. Does she want it? Oh yes.
Lane Lipton
Exotic Sodas
No Coke, Just Sidral Mundet. Even though we are living in America at its most patriotic, where ads above urinals beg us to Trust in God and to Stand United, we can break the new rules once in a while. And as unpatriotic as this sounds, some people are not big fans of Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew Red Menace (or whatever they call that crap), or any of the other chemically altered flavored carbonated beverages produced right here in the good ol' USA. Out in Queens, you can drink a different imported soda each day for a year, so there's really no excuse for slaking down Coke after Coke after Coke. Be adventurous this gift-giving season! And original! Come out to 46th St. on the 7 train and explore the supermarkets and ethnic groceries of this compact, diverse neighborhood a few stops from Grand Central Terminal.
Present to one of your buddies Camlica, the Turkish 7-Up, which has vanilla overtones and comes in cute little glass bottles. It can be found at Sunny Grocery, a block north of Queens Blvd. at 46th St. and 43rd Ave., along with various Central European mineral waters. Wrap up a six-pack of Seagram's Egyptian-made tangerine or lemon-lime sodas from El-Shattir, a few blocks west at 43rd St. And for a comprehensive selection of Central and South American sodas, check out the Associated Supermarket on Greenpoint Ave. and 44th St. There you'll find Inca Kola, a fruity high-octane brew from Peru; Country Club Frambuesa, a light raspberry soda hailing from the Dominican Republic; and Sidral Mundet, a Mexican apple soda made from real juice. There you can also buy Paso de los Toros, fragrant tonic water imported from Argentina: that'll make a nice gift when coupled with a bottle of high-quality gin.
If you're in Brooklyn, around the vicinity of Fulton St., look for Ting, the Jamaican grapefruit drink, or for Jamaican ginger beer, which will complement your New Year's after you swear off Seagram's and Schweppes' wimpy ginger-esque ales.
Paul Leschen
Princess Dresses Betsey Johnson 138 Wooster St. (betw. Houston & Prince Sts.) 995-5048
Gimme Eastern Trimmin' Where Women Are Women. At a family fete, instead of saying hello Lisa said, "Is that a Betsey Johnson?" Oh yes it was. After this spate of medicating ourselves with comfort food, dresses that flatter while hiding some sins are in demand, at least by me. And Ms. Johnson can provide festive frocks to fit that bill. A very pregnant sales associate wearing one of their stretchy numbers elicited a gushing, "You look so adorable in that!"
Make a careful choice as selections run to the Jo Anne Worley. A viable dress-up-able/dress-down-able option is of 64 percent acetate, 26 percent polyamide and 10 percent elastane. Thank God for modern chemistry; the result is supple, soft and velvety. A hippie print of pink ribbons and red roses on a brown background, it has a princess neckline, 3/4-sleeves, shirred bust, lace trim and gauze insets at the hem ($244, style R27319). Pudge never looked so good.
For a svelter princess, a party dress that is sweet is an embroidered, sheer, mauvey-pink midi with cutaway short sleeves, matching slip and a V-neck ($287, style R92619R). It's hemmed with plenty of glassy jewel-beading to shimmer around her lower leg. Not all sizes are on the floor; the copacetic sales staff will find what you need or order from another store if they're out of stock.
Lane Lipton
New York Exposed (Harry N. Abrams, 320 pages, $39.95)
A New Yorkshire Pudding. New York Exposed ($39.95) is an attractive, beautifully produced collection of 320 photographs selected from the Daily News archive of more than six million images (many accessible online at www.dailynewspix.com). Edited by Shawn O'Sullivan, with an introduction by Pete Hamill and captions by Richard Slovak, it is pungently flavored with tabloid imagery and well worth the price.
Tabloid photography molded the dark, cynical, somehow romantic vision of urban life?which meant New York life?made famous by film noir. And New York's leading tabloid was the Daily News. Joseph Medill Patterson, its founder, aimed for a working-class mass market, drawn by short, crisp stories, comics and photographs?lots of photographs. Patterson felt photography was journalism in itself, communicating facts and truth by image without the opacity of words.
On June 26, 1919, Patterson's dream child became reality. He knew what would work: pictures of girls and crimes and disasters, instructing his people to "make it snappy, make it local, make it news." By March 1926, the paper's daily circulation was over a million. At its height, it would be over 2.4 million.
A Daily News photographer became a shooter only after years of apprenticeship as copyboy, courier and darkroom assistant. He was "streetwise, quick on his feet, and throughout knowledgeable of what his camera and darkroom could do."
A few of the images in New York Exposed are famous in themselves. Tom Howard's bizarre snap of Ruth Snyder's hot squat, when the murderess involuntarily jerked her head as the executioner flipped the switch and the electric current passed through her body, is far more famous than it ought to be. Knowing cameras were forbidden in the death chamber, Howard strapped one to his ankle, hidden by his trousers, with a cable release running up his pants leg, through a hole in his pocket, to the bulb, which contained the trigger. When the executioner pulled the switch, Howard hitched up his trouser cuff to clear the lens and pushed the release. The blurry result ran on the front page under the headline "DEAD!" This was horrifying in the 20s, and it moved many to oppose the death penalty.
One or two are amateur jobs: Fred Hanson, a pantryman, snapped a shot on the deck of the sinking steamer SS Vestris a few minutes before she went down; nearly every face is turned away from the photographer, or blurred, except one young steward, his face white with fear and strain: it is an incredibly great photograph.
Some images are unexpected, such as a huge Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden. Others are surprising and powerful: a shot of the supposedly glamorous criminal Jack "Legs" Diamond, all but one eye and a cap obscured by a cop's shoulder, screams with calculated violence and animal fear.
It's all here, the images we now recall from history books, from our childhood, from our own memories of city life over the last few decades. The book is worth the price: it only sharpens our desire to see more of these great photographs.
William Bryk
View Camera