Thursday, June 04, 2009

I don't know how New York hot dogs can still cost only a dollar.

Walking to and from the Javits Center last week, I passed quite a few food vendor carts. Karen Olson and I even had a pretty good lunch from one, on Saturday: I had sausage and peppers, she had a very messy chicken gyro.

But I realized, as I walked back to the subway one evening, that the price of a New York City hot dog from a cart has not risen for at least 20 years. They cost a dollar when I was in college; they cost a dollar now. How is this possible?

The more I think about this, the more I realize that I probably don't want the answer. But I'll throw it out there anyway, for you to discuss amongst yourselves.

Happy birthday to my old friend - er - NOT so old friend, Tom Ehrenfeld, and many happy returns.

Today's summer reading recommendation: Carol O'Connell, BONE BY BONE. A fantastic old-fashioned Gothic novel, set in a northern California town so small and remote that it doesn't have decent cell phone coverage. Former Army warrant officer Oren Hobbs returns home after a 20-year-absence, to find that his long-missing younger brother may be coming home as well -- in pieces, bone by bone, left on the front porch. The atmosphere and the characters are so wonderful that a couple of big plot holes don't make a bit of difference. In fact, I wish someone would turn these characters into a TV series.

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