#BL

As I write these words I am calm, enjoying a slice of pizza from Stella’s, a slice joint on West 17th Street and Ninth Avenue. Where a slice costs $2.75. Where a four minute in-the-door-out-the-door turnaround is the norm. Where one can get an absolutely competent New York Slice, with somewhat sweet crust, soft but not doughy; tangy red sauce; and fresh muzz.  The ubiquity of this type of place is one of the great luxuries of being a New Yorker.

Stella’s is one block east of Artichoke Basille’s, where today I was, briefly, not calm. I first tried to get a slice there, at Artichoke, as it is a block closer to my office. But there was no pizza to be had at Artichoke, because at 12:05 PM, they were still ten minutes away from their first pie of the day coming out of the oven. Given the overlapping occasions of #pizzaweek, my post-Beard shakes, and this being my sixteenth consecutive disappointing experience with aforementioned marquee pizzeria, some long-harbored thoughts on Artichoke Basille’s Pizza to share.

Let’s together agree on what Artichoke is. It’s like Shake Shack, really, if instead of perfect burgers, Shake Shack’s headline offering was huge piles of melted butter and cream on tasteless crackers. If instead of it being a pitch-perfect, living vision of the future of fast food, it was a bunch of cash cows satisfied with minting money as fast as they can, eager to turn their brand into a theme park, quietly waiting for their ridiculous house of hype to cave in on itself and hoping they make boat-money before it does. It’s no different from Shake Shack, except for the fact that instead of a $4.50 burger, there’s a $5 slice of pizza. 

Indeed, Artichoke is Shake Shack insomuch people are willing to wait on massive lines for three to five minutes of gustatory bliss. Although — sorry one more point of comparison — at Shake Shack there is a payoff and at Artichoke the only post-game emotion is the empty feeling that you have gotten a little fatter for no good reason.

Actually, the Staten Island slice, featuring muzz, ricotta, onions and meatball, is good. It’s fantastic, frankly. Once, just one gloriously anomolistic time, in a very many visits was it on offer, though. The rest of the time, it’s the same six-pound butter crackers or a margarita slice, which is good except for the horrendous and burnt crust and long wait and better slice around the corner, or a white slice, which at $5 is about double the price of its counterparts at any other pizza place in the city (see, for example, the aforementioned Stella’s).

So, look, here’s the thing. If you disagree with what’s being said here, you need to take a good long hard look at yourself. You do not know pizza like you think you do. That’s sad, but fixable. Go to Ben’s, have a $3 slice, call me and tell me I’m wrong. I DARE YOU. What, exactly, is virtuous about a slice of pizza that is the size of a legal size file folder? If you got caught on the buzz train four years ago and waited on the line on 14th back in the day and had to convince yourself that it was worth it and have been telling yourself ever since that you weren’t wrong in the first place, I forgive you. What was was was was.  But, people, you are killing me. I am killing myself. There is a better slice joint one block in every direction. Pleasegod, let this stop.

*Your being in agreement with this posting is recommended.

So, what is widely considered to be the best of four versions of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” sold at auction last night in New York at Sotheby’s for $119,922,500, making it the most expensive piece of art work ever sold at auction. When it comes up in conversation tonight, this weekend, talk smart:

1. Love it or hate it or don’t particularly care, “The Scream” is among the most recognizable images ever put to canvas (cardboard, actually). Still, that doesn’t fully explain why the hammer price was so high. It is partly based on the fact that of the four versions of the work that exist, it is the only one privately held. The other three — two oils and a pastel — are held in permanent collections at the National Gallery Oslo (oil) and at the Munch Museum (oil, pastel), also in Oslo.

2. Plus, this version, dated to 1895, is considered the best of the four. It is the only one that is in a hand-painted frame with an inscription from Munch, describing his inspiration for the piece. The inscription reads, “I felt the great Scream in nature.”

3. Via Time: Mark Winter, director of Munch Experts, told the Guardian, “It is the crown jewel of the four but you really need a national budget to buy it. And not the budget of a small country, either.” Tobias Meyer, the Sotheby’s auctioneer, told Reuters the bidder got a good deal. “It’s worth every penny that the collector paid.”

4. In absolute dollars, “The Scream” unseats former record holder, Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” (1932), which sold at Christie’s in 2010 for $106.5M. Here is a handy guide to the top ten most expensive works of art sold at auction, updated with “The Scream.”

5. But, actually, in dollars adjusted for CPI inflation, “The Scream” doesn’t come close to van Gogh’s “Portrait of Dr. Gachet.” In adjusted today-dollars it sold for $146.5M in 1990 (it actually sold for $82.5M).

6. There were seven bidders on “The Scream” and the auction lasted 12 minutes. The winning bidder bid anonymously via telephone.

7. Technically, the hammer price was $107M (watch the video). $120M includes a buyer’s premium. Typically, the auction house takes 25% of the first $50,000; 20% of the first $1M; and 12% of the rest. For a sale of this size, the seller likely negotiated with the auction house to get some of this premium. But, do the math: the buyer’s premium for this sale was 12%, and you can safely assume Sotheby’s pocketed at least $10M.

8. The seller was Petter Olsen, whose father was a friend of Munch’s.

9. Somewhere between fascinating and inconceivable (except for jaded art world insiders in the crowd) is the fact that the anonymous buyer of “The Scream” does not get reproduction rights alongside the painting. Like many artists, Munch’s core intellectual property — the images, not the paintings depicting the images — is policed by the Artists Rights Society (VAGA is a competitor). It’s simple copyright law, though at a particular price point one looks for the rules to bend. Nope. A museum wishing to reproduce images for use in, say, a book celebrating an exhibit celebrating the life of Picasso has to negotiate the rights to reproduce the images with ARS.

10. The most expensive piece of art ever traded, that we know of, was Paul Cezanne’s “The Card Players,” which went in a private sale to the Royal Family of Qatar for an estimated $250M.

My father, scarred by formative years of disappointment loving the Brooklyn Dodgers, made sure I was raised rooting for the franchise that continually beat them. In the old Yankee Stadium we had seats in Bx 601, first, upstairs; then we moved downstairs to the box next to the players’ wives’ section, where we sat until the stadium closed. The rule was nonnegotiable: we stay until Sinatra starts singing “Start Spreading the News,” no exceptions.

Bat day, cap day, radio day, batting glove day. There were years when the promotions were, actually, occasionally great, because 20,000 units would more than cover everyone in attendance. In fact, my first paying job was at the Stadium, where I transcribed post-game manager interviews for the media. John Candelaria, Jack Clark, Steve Balboni, Winfield’s pasture years, Donny Baseball’s batting title. Donny Baseball’s chronic back pain. Then, the 15th inning versus Seattle. Charlie Hayes in foul territory. Boggs’s lap on the NYPD horse. 2003 ALCS. Jeter’s speech after the final out of the 2008 season. In lean times and good times these are my boys.

But things at the new Yankee Stadium are not as they should be. The team is now being run by Hal and Hank Steinbrenner, George’s sons, who aren’t especially good at being baseball fans. It’s a somewhat well known fact that in the early- and mid-1990s, when during The Boss’ last lucid years he had to consider his successor, he was disappointed in his children for not being more interested in the game. Barbara Kopple’s excellent new documentary, “House of Steinbrenner,” isn’t encouraging either. It portrays Hal as reluctant, at best, and perhaps even bitter that he’s now the managing partner of the New York Yankees. “Someone had to do it,” he says. 

He and his older brother, Hank, took over management of the team in 2008, and the slow decline in the quality of the franchise times up with their ascent. The New Yankee Stadium is exactly what $1.5 billion can buy in a new sports complex—open concession areas, high definition screens, incredibly comfortable luxury seating options, consistently good sight lines. And infinitely sterile. Ads appear on every conceivable surface and around every turn. When a Yankee steals a base the “Gotta Go to Mo’s,” Modell’s theme song plays to mark the occasion. When we lost Bob Sheppard, the greatest public address announcer in the history of sports, Hank and Hal replaced him with a football guy. Sheppard announced Giants games for many years, yes, but that is not to say football and baseball announcers are interchangeable.  Football guys are calling ephemeral conditions of the game. At Yankee Stadium, every at bat is a hitter standing in the doorway of history. That is the gravitas of the New York Yankees, and it is something that George understood in myriad ways we only now realize we took for granted.

Don’t think so? Consider the feel that comes over the new ballpark when Bob Sheppard, via recording, announces Derek Jeter. “Now batting for the Yankees, the shortstop, number two, Derek Jeter. Number two.”

Meanwhile, elsewhere at the new Yankee Stadium, Top Chef runners-up prepare “special” dishes for Legends Suites ticket holders, who when they’re not spending $750 per ticket can now buy officially licensed his and her Yankees perfumes, “fragranced products [that] epitomize the winning style of one of baseball’s greatest teams,” promises an official website. How classy, considering the best on offer for the large majority of fans is a Hard Rock Cafe. (Did you know there was a Hard Rock Cafe attached to the stadium? Try the burger. Or don’t. They have a much better one at CitiField.)

The new stadium will never be as loud, because the decks aren’t stacked so tightly on top of one another. But here’s a small bit of good news. If yon can stand a stadium run by the head of ad sales, first row seats — first row seats! — behind the visitors dugout can be had for many games day-of. They are great seats and even at $300 per, everyone should take advantage of the Yankees’ consummate pricing ineptitude and sit there once. But, you can decide whether this is reason for alarm, considering the last time these seats were so accessible was in the deep dark years of the late 80s.

Admittedly, maybe I’m having a reaction to the new ballpark’s utter lack of patina. In the tunnels of the old Yankee Stadium, you could run your fingers down the wall and feel a dozen layers of blue high-gloss Benjamin Moore on top of each other on the cinder-blocks. Maybe in time the new stadium will show its own layers of paint. But it’s going to get worse before it gets better (UPDATE: , and nothing illustrates the fragility of the team like this devastating loss of Mariano).  You may or may not believe this team will get us to the post-season. It depends on your enthusiasm for yet another tour for Andy Pettitte, really. But, Rivera will retire and Jeter isn’t far behind him and then we’ll be left with an aging and colossally disappointing Alex Rodriquez and whatever high-priced talent Hank and Hal acquire between now an then and a ballpark that won’t be so new or shiny anymore.

The best news is that this isn’t going to be fun, or as immensely profitable as is the present, so at some point in the next five years the Steinbrenners will lose interest and take their $3-5 billion and run. Which is going to be the best thing that happens to the Yankees since their pops bought the team.

OVERVIEW
Though the gentleman’s responsibilities with regard to his physique are not seasonally specific, the summer months do tend to betray the state of his physical affairs as other seasons don’t. As such, it is productive at this time to review some useful guidelines.

I. THE RULE OF PARITY
The gentleman should maintain himself at the level he has established for the ladies he receives. If he expects to be living in a world of high-8s and 9s, he had better be at the gym himself. It is decidedly inappropriate to expect otherwise. In fact, the gentleman who acts without an understanding of this rule is somewhat of a tragedy.

II. THE RULE OF SPOUSAL PARITY
In the event the gentleman is in an advanced state of domestication, he should be aware that the rule of parity holds. In fact, it is during these summer months that he should be most aware of the rule and must make real and true judgements about his financial and emotional cumulative achievements before concluding that his dismissal of the Rule of Parity is a sensible tack.

III. ON THE GENTLEMAN’S KEEPING ON OF HIS SHIRT
A month such as August does make way somewhat for the gentleman to be shirtless, or otherwise in a public state of semi-dress. He should be aware, however, that the following are the only acceptable opportunities for him to be without a shirt:

1. A significant body of water is clearly visible (the “SBOW” rule) and it is not being used primarily as a prop, such as at a cocktail party. An example of an insignificant body of water is a kiddie pool.

2. He has been in sight of a significant body of water in the last 90 seconds and expects to return to same or equal body of water with matching haste.

3. He is in his bedroom or another bedroom to which he has gained admittance.

4. He is in a men’s locker room.

5. He is in a working out situation and removal of his shirt will improve his overall appearance, such as if the gentleman has sweated fully through his shirt and he is comfortable with what is underneath.

Gentleman with prodigious chest or back hair will want to take great pains to err on the side of conservatism in this regard. Further, there is the matter of shorts, which, insomuch as they setup a state of semi-dress, is relevant here. Day light hours only for them — and assuming no other guidelines, such as IV below, are disregarded in the process of wearing them.

IV. BATHING SUITS THAT ARE EXPLAINED AS “EUROPEAN STYLE” OR AGE-INAPPROPRIATE BATHING SUITS
Non.

V. IN LIGHT OF ALL THIS, QUICK FIXES
Especially as compared to the lady, and on a percentage basis only, the gentleman can, actually, make significant changes to his physical entry with some amount of speed. Juice cleanses, trainers, and carb bans are all fair game, especially in combination, though the gentleman should give himself 45 days at a minimum to execute. However, here are some behaviors that are not to be employed:

1. Any dinner table declaration of any kind that he is cleansing. The cleanse is to be done in private and should the gentleman be cleansing for three days, for example, he will clear his schedule for three days.

2. Any gym-type activity in street clothes, in a matter of showing off his progress. Ie. office push-up contests.

3. Whining about in-progress quick-fixing.

*Part I, perhaps

In lieu of one of those New Contact Info emails, let’s try this. You can now find me at IAC, 555 West 18th Street, NY 10011, (212) 524-8729, ben dot leventhal at connectedventures dot com. If you’re using the 212 cell or my gmail or the 205 East mailing address, those coordinates haven’t changed. NBC has asked me to let them handle any inquiries regarding The Feast, which is reasonable. Can’t tell you too much about this new project so far because, among other things, it doesn’t as yet have a name. Talk soon.