In no particular order:

The first truly satisfying episode of Top Chef this season aired last night. Pouty, self-styled intellectual gets sent home, goofball gets the win, Eurotrash gets slapped around, and some of the food made me hungry.

Today’s lunch: Pesto Chicken salad wrap from deli on 43rd, supposed to have tomato, cucumber and avocado. But once I check it back at the office, I find universal green. Where are my tomatoes? Wrap is passable without them, but still. Banana provides some solace, eaten with multivitamin.

Said banana was bought at Grace Building news agent’s (nervous greedy checking tells me that the Mega Jackpot for tomorrow is 40 million, too low for me to play) along with the latest New York Review of Books. Julian Bell writes on Watteau

Thus I am reminded of the death of John Updike; It says something about my LJ friends list that the passing of Eartha Kitt garnered far more notice; I certainly felt a deeper regret when I heard she died. Updike remains for me one of those indigestible lumps of American culture that always seems to be standing in the way of some other, more interesting activity. I think his art criticism to be sensible and well made, but reading his novels was an experience that I found similar to having to watch sports on TV with my dad. There was clear evidence that the activity mattered to many people, but I could never work up the enthusiasm for it.

Here is a fascinating post on the authority of cultural institutions in the current web climate.

And that white stuff that fell from the sky over Brooklyn a couple of days ago? This picture is what it looks like this morning.