I recently got a brief e-mail from Jack Kimball where "had" was the subject heading. The body of the e-mail managed to elaborate with "any pizza lately?" Jack was clearly pointing out to me, kind reader, that I've been neglectful of you since early May when I rode out to Coney Island, mostly to ride the bumper cars. Was that entry even pizza related? I can only hope that it was, and I'm not going to pause here to go and have a peek.

The truth of the matter is that I've had pizza many times, and that I've been terribly remiss in telling you about it. I've been meaning to sit down and write out my thoughts on the various pizzerias that I've ducked into, although some I've already discussed and some I'm sure I'll return to in the future. Those that may not fall in either of those two categories will just have to suffer the loss I suppose. No great loss for you though I suppose, being that they can't have been so good that not writing about them hasn't yet seen me tearing at my clothes and wailing in the middle of the street. Which is fortunate because that would be a gruesome scene to say the least. Since my last entry I've eaten pizza

here,	here,	here,

here	and here.

I took those photographs with the intention of putting in some sort of entry, but never really got around to it. My mother would resent it if she knew I'd written it, but I'm afraid that I've inherited a quality of hers that I've had to spend considerable time battling. I have a tendency to throw myself whole-heartedly into projects and plans only to wander away from them and onto something I can obsess about with equal fervor. If you happen to know my mother, and when confronted with this seems to indicate that she doesn't know what it is that I could be thinking about, ask her about the quilt that she was going to have finished for my 18th birthday. (Oh bitter, bitter man!) This tendency has led me to become something of a jack of all trades, I'd like to think, however. I can make a nice cheesecake, sew a little, do a little dry wall, even write a poem or two when pressed. My point here is that this BLOG—awful name that—is actually in perpetual risk of being dropped by the wayside or tucked away in some drawer. I don't know quite what I can tell you about this reader, other than that if there is some lag in my putting forth a new entry, and you would like to see further writing on my degustation of pizza and other exploits as such then you should provide a friendly nod or nudge as Monsieur Kimball has been kind enough to do.

I think it was last Thursday, and that already puts it far enough behind being that today is the following Monday, and it'll be well beyond midnight by the time I actually manage to post this, but I've been occupied with house cleaning and the like. (A man's got to go to the movies you know.) I had the urge of course to sit down that very evening and compose my entry, but I was in the delightful company of a lovely young lady and so was unable, having eaten, to return to my home so I could dash this off. Plus I was on my way to the movies, which, as I've already established, is something of a necessity in my life, and so that couldn't really be put off either.

I was going to see the Cohen brothers' O Brother Where Art Thou?, which I'd actually seen before, at a movie theater when it came out. And I figured that since I'd not eaten dinner as yet, and probably wouldn't have another chance to do so until after the movie was over, I'd stop at one of my favorite pizza joints in Brooklyn Heights. (For the record, this happens to be my only favorite pizza joint in Brooklyn Heights, so perhaps I should have thrown a comma in there somewhere.)

Let me be clear about something so as to avoid confusion. I was heading to see O Brother Where Art Thou? out of doors, in Fulton Ferry Landing Park, just North of the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. They've been having a film series there this Summer that is loosely Brooklyn-themed (John Turturro, who is in the film, lives in Brooklyn) and it's a great place to see a film. The park is also spectacular, but you'll have to head down there on your own if you want to know more. There's no pizzeria there.

Okay, so I was riding my bike over to the park and I decided I would stop at Fascati Pizza (80 Henry St., btwn. Orange & Pineapple Streets, I kid you not). I've been going to Fascati Pizza for a while now, although I used to make my way over there on a more regular basis. Fascati is about half a block from what used to be one of the greatest movie-going bargains in New York. On Mondays & Tuesdays you could go to the nearby Brooklyn Heights Twin (now the Heights Pavilion or some crap like that) for $3.50. All shows. All day Monday & Tuesday. Eventually it got bumped up to $4.00, but it was still a bargain. And I'm not just talking about movies that have been out for two months and are already on their way to video, I'm talking about first run films and even some good indie films. While not an indie film by a long shot, I saw Independence Day (the movie about the alien invasion of Earth) on opening night there, for $4.00! It brought a whole different scale to appreciating movies. There was how good the movie would have been if it had been $10.00, and how good it was for $4.00. ("Mothers of America/let your kids go to the movies!")

Anyway, that theater is, as I've mentioned, now in someone else's hands, and they're not offering any deals like that anymore. Now they whack you for whatever the going rate is and frown at you from behind the glass in the ticket booth the whole time. So I don't find myself going to that theater all that much anymore. And so I don't find the occasion to make it over to Fascati much either.

In fact, the last time I can remember going there was more than a year ago (I'm sure I've been there since, I just can't remember) when I was battling my landlord over rent I'd withheld because I'd not had heat for the first Winter and a half that I'd lived in my apartment and the court broke for lunch. It was a bit of a schlep from housing court, but not so bad, and besides I wanted to get the hell away from housing court and go some place that I might find to be more of a comfort to me. My schmuck of a lawyer (I hadn't realized yet just how much of an incompetent this bozo was) somehow ended up attaching himself and so off we went. But then this jackass, if you can believe it, pulls out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the pizzeria! Mind you, I hadn't gotten quite the grip I have on my New-York-bred paranoia that has me believing that any time there's the slightest sort of rule-breaking (NO OUTSIDE FOOD) that all hell is going to break loose and that johnny law is going to come stomping down with both feet that I may or may not have now, so this was putting me into a minor tizzy. But I tried to keep a cool head, we're sitting at a table in the back (there really is no back in that place, it's just one long counter with tables in between it and the wall about twenty feet away, we were just closer to the bathroom and farther from the register than any other table) and I'm having the special. Now if you didn't think that this guy was a jackass for pulling out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a pizzeria, then further knowledge about the special might change your mind. The special, which is available all day long at Fascati, is two slices and a soda for $4.00. That might not seem like any great shakes to those of you joining us from out-of-town, but here in NY I'm paying $2 for a decent slice of pizza, which, at the risk of ruining any surprise ending for you folks (there is no surprise endingsurprise!) I'll tell you Fascati is definitely serving up. Okay, so now you know that the special is a great deal (oh, did I mention that the soda is a can of soda, not just a fountain soda, and they give it to you with a cup full of ice without your ever even asking?) But one thing you certainly didn't know is that I'm paying this schmuck almost four times what I make per hour. So why couldn't schmucky get up and have himself a couple of slices of pizza? Lactose intolerant? Vegan? Nope. Nope. I asked. (And for the record, none of the bitter bile that may now be apparent in among these words was present at the time. I still thought that he was a great lawyer then, full of optimistic predictions about my case. However, since he managed to convince me to reject the original settlement my landlord offered so I could haul my ass back into court only to end up settling for less than I could have the first go round, my attitude towards him has been slightly modified.)

Let's take a better look at the full picture I have of Fascati here. Like I said, I rode my bike to Fascati on my way to the park. I was wearing my helmet and didn't bother to lock the bike up and was all sweaty and it was a nice night so I just decided to eat my pizza al fresco. That big window you see in the front of the place is actually open about a foot or so on the bottom and so they can slide you your pizza and your soda under the window and you can eat it right there. I had the special, which should come as no surprise to anyone who's read this far (God love you children!). Fascati pizza rarely fails me, if ever. The only difficulty you might run into here is going to be that it's often served up a little too hot as they're selling the pizza as fast as they can pull it out of the oven. This was the case with the two slices that came my way, and since I was running a little late I made the fool mistake that I'll probably continue to make for the rest of my life of trying to eat a hot slice of pizza rather than waiting for it to cool down. The forward palette of my mouth was burned for a couple days and even now I wonder if it's not still a little tender. The pizza at Fascati is of the thinner variety. The crust is thin and light and the sauce and cheese are on in a good layer, but aren't piled high in the way that you'll find on some other pizzeria's slices. The flavor of these slices is usually not moving overwhelmingly in any one direction, be it of the cheese or the sauce. The flavor is salty enough, which I prefer, but not overwhelmingly so. A very pleasant, light slice, which is also quite satisfyingly filling, making for something of a pizza conundrum I suppose.

I had my camera with me in my bag and so I decided that I'd take a couple of few shots of the pizzeria before I left, just in case I should actually find myself getting off my duff and writing down a few notes about the place. I found though that from the curb I still wasn't able to get one shot of the place that had the whole exterior in a single frame. So I took a few pictures, starting with the top of the facade, figuring that I'd slap them together in Photoshop later. After I'd taken the three photos that make up the top to bottom of the composite that you see, I heard the young woman on the right say to the older woman (her mother?) "He could at least ask permission." I was a little surprised by this, because I hadn't really thought about the fact that they were in my picture. But I turned the camera ninety degrees so I could get that last shot and snapped the photo. Then the older woman spoke up.

"You can't just take people's pictures without asking," she said rather grumpily with a thick West Indian accent.

I didn't really reply in a way that I'm terribly proud of. I don't do so well when challenged, which is why I think I replied with a very slight chuckle to myself (the statement seemed kind of silly in light of my having just disproved it) "Actually, you can."

"What?" she wanted to know. I had spoken at a volume somewhere between under my breath and loud enough for her to hear me.

"Actually, you can." I said, this time louder and clearer with no chuckle. But then also, "I really didn't mean to offend you, I was really more interested in taking a picture of the pizzeria than I was in taking a picture of you."

To which she replied "Tsck pssss," as she turned her back to me.

And I got on my bike and rode away, not really certain about whether or not I'd done something wrong by taking her picture without asking her first. It occurred to me though, that in all likelihood she was being filmed by the pizzeria's security cameras the entire time she was standing there at the counter as I had. That her photograph had probably been taken numerous times without anyone ever asking her permission that very day. That this happens to almost all of us, all the time, especially in urban settings. Do we own our own images? Should people have to ask permission before taking our pictures?

Some months ago my cousin Leslie came to visit me from London, Ontario. For those of you who don't know Canada very well, London is a small city/large town about two hours outside of Toronto. Life there is certainly somewhat "nicer" there than it is here, and when Leslie, an avid shutterbug, and I were walking around New York we came upon a homeless man asleep on the sidewalk or in a doorway, completely bundled up. Neither of us even realized at first that this was a person, and I pointed this out to Leslie. Not as something to stop and stare at, but as something that was profoundly sad and also telling about life and poverty in New York. Leslie asked me if I thought it would be alright to take a photograph. Thinking it over for a moment though, I told her that I thought it would be best if she didn't. Something about her doing so would have seemed exploitative to me. Why is this the case? Did I think that Leslie's interest in this man was touristic in some fashion? If she had been doing an entire series of documentary photographs about homelessness in New York I might have felt different. Why?

I'm not sure how this all works in, but just yesterday I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at closing time, and all the guards were directing people towards the exits. There was a man leaving at about the same pace as my friend and I were and he was making an effort to photograph the guards. One guard even tried to duck out of his photo. "Sir, you're not allowed to take pictures of the guards," one of the guards told him. I asked the photographer why he wanted to photograph the guards and he told me that at that moment the guards embody different qualities than they do the entire rest of the day. The rest of the day they were bored, but at that moment they wanted to get everyone out of the museum, and they embodied a police-like authority, and he wanted to capture that in their faces.

How will this issue or our feelings about it change when cameras that are unnoticeable/undetectable (already camera will fit into the arm of a pair of glasses frames) become commonplace, so that I can photograph everyone simply by tugging on my ear, as Mork from Ork used to do in Mork & Mindy, and produce a small polaroid by sticking out my tongue?