Bits by Keith A.

This past weekend, we're wandering around Dumbo — that neighborhood that takes place between and beneath the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges and seems comprised almost entirely of organic food marts and upscale designer baby clothes boutiques.

I was in the mood for a hot dog and beer, which is only a healthy meal when compared to my previous idea of a meal of ultra-rich chocolate. But there were surprisingly few hot dog vendors about the place, and in stark contrast to my own neighborhood, no guys wandering around offering to sell you a Corona for a buck fifty. However, while walking up Jay Street, I suddenly caught a whiff of…is that…is that taco? Yes it is. More»

I have not, traditionally, gone out and done very much on St. Patrick's Day. For a while, this was because I stopped drinking (oh, so many days wasted on sobriety). And for a while, this was because I was going through a cranky phase and didn't want to combat drunken masses crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in a New York pub. These are no longer concerns for me. As for temperance, I have returned to my Scotch-Irish roots. And as for drunken crowds crammed into pubs, I have discovered that I actually enjoy the convivial revelry of such a gathering.

So in the year 2007, I decided it was time to go out and have fun on St. Patty's Day, even if my Irish ancestors were Protestants. England shipped my Scottish ancestors to the Americas as slaves, and I still rooted for them during the world Cup, so I'm over things, even if others are still fighting over Cromwell.

But somehow, I ended up celebrating the first half of St. Patty's sitting in tapas bar Las Ramblas. Nothing says Ireland quite like tapas and white berry pomegranate sangria... More»

The Mutter Museum, nestled inside a perfectly noble-looking old academic building, is a gloriously jumbled collection of medical specimens exhibiting the dizzying number of horrible things that can go wrong with the human body... More»

We were in the greater Baltimore area to visit the American Dime Museum, an example of and homage to the old dime museums and sideshow displays that were a staple of traveling carnivals and circuses during the late 19th and early 20th century.

For a mere dime, dupes and rubes could file through a museum of the strange and curious and marvel at everything from a two-headed calf to a mermaid from Fiji... More»