DEDUCTIBLE JUNKETS
The Toy Trade New York City. It's an insomniac's dream and an urbanite's Eden. It's a universe unto itself, where lofty skyscrapers defy gravity, the streets belong to maniacal cabbies, every corner is ruled by a territorial pretzel vendor, and law and order have been supplanted by attitude and chaos.
But if you follow these two rules, all will be well. Number One: Never wander – walk briskly, head high, with a copy of The New York Observer folded under your arm. You don't want to be mistaken for one of the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. Number Two: Caffeine is good.
To start, fortify yourself with a double espresso at Caffe Reggio in the West Village. Then take on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but leave enough time to view the collection of cookware upstairs at Zabar's. Warm your hands on a steaming bag of roasted chestnuts in Central Park, take a pilgrimage to Little Rickie's mecca of kitsch, ingest arty cinema at the Film Forum and lox at Russ & Daughters – not necessarily in that order.
Hear the hilarious Friday-night poetry slam at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and join the tourists beneath the stars atop the Empire State Building. Suck on the blow torch at Panna II or one of the other Indian dives along East Sixth Street, and witness the high-octane attitude of the city's hipsters at the trendy Global 33. Get kicked out of the Guggenheim for roller skating down the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed spiral gallery, then coast down to the museum's second location in SoHo and across to Zoe for a decadent dessert. Bowl a strike at sunrise at Whitestone Lanes in northern Queens, indulge in a hot and chewy sesame at the nearest H & H Bagels, and tipple a cosmo or two at the Tenth Street Lounge, a minimalist industrial-meets-Euro-monastery bar in the East Village.
At Pisces, slurp down a plate of garlicky mussels or go watch the live sharks at Julian's Famous Pool Room in Union Square. View dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History, racing rats on Wall Street, and night owls sipping sexy cocktails on the patio at the Bowery Bar.
For the ride of your life, hail a cab in midtown at rush hour, then settle your nerves in the East Village at Fez, a Moroccan-flavored nightclub with a smoking Thursday-night jazz lineup. Discover the medieval calm of the Cloisters in northern Manhattan or the multimedia energy of Williamsburg, a funky Brooklyn community that's filled with cool galleries and renegade parties. Just hop on a Brooklyn-bound L train and get off at North Seventh Street.
Explore more east of the East River: Atlantic Avenue, in Brooklyn Heights, is lined with Arab shops and restaurants. Pick up a slab of French feta at El Asmar and some fresh-baked pitas and spinach pies at Damascus Bread and Pastry next door. Walk (briskly, remember?) down to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade for a Yassir Arafat picnic with a Woody Allen view. Ahhh … the Manhattan skyline, the Big Apple, the City That Never Sleeps … do you need another espresso yet?
Jessie Scanlon
The Current Roundup (see Wired 3.12) January 6-7 Low Res Film and Video Festival; New York. � January 18-28 Sundance Film Festival; Park City, Utah. � January 29-February 1 ComNet '96; Washington, DC. � February 1-6 World Economic Forum; Davos, Switzerland. � February 9-12 MILIA 1996; Cannes, France.
February 12-14 MicroNeuro 96, Fifth International Conference on Microelectronics for Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems; Lausanne, Switzerland You won't find any fuzzy tools at your local Ace Hardware. But this event – the only international forum devoted to neural and fuzzy hardware systems – offers papers, tutorials, and working demos to tune up your knowledge of digital and bio-inspired systems, interface issues, and hardware applications. Registration: approximately US$370 (SwF450). Contact: +41 (21) 693 6635, fax +41 (21) 693 5263, e-mail mn96@di.epfl.ch, on the Web at http://diwww.epfl.ch/w3mantra/mn96.html.
February 12-19 The American International Toy Fair; New York
This trade-show version of The Nutcracker includes more than 1,500 exhibitors from around the world showing tricycles and trains, videogames and action figures. But the fair is open to toy industry reps and the press only: kids not allowed; batteries not included. For more information about the Toy Manufacturers of America, contact: +1 (212) 675 1141.
February 21-23 Imagina'96; Monte Carlo This annual celebration of computer graphics, special effects, digital animation, and video projects will leave you amazed and inspired. The 1996 Prix Pixel-INA winners will be announced at the closing ceremony. Registration: �5,619 (US$1,147) or �2,834 (US$578) for students. Contact: +33 (93) 15 93 94, fax +33 (93) 15 93 95, on the Web at http://www.ina.fr/INA/Imagina/96/Info/.
February 21-24 Tedsell; Monterey, California This event brings together thinkers from the technology, entertainment, and design professions to plan our commercial future – a market space of goods, services, and information from which the middleman will have vanished. A bevy of speakers, including William Hearst III, president of @Home and Jonathan Seybold of Seybold Seminars will address 10 scenarios of the future of commerce. Registration: US$2,000. Contact: +1 (401) 848 2299, fax +1 (401) 848 2599, on the Web at http://www.ted.com.
March 9-12 South by Southwest Multimedia Festival; Austin, Texas What began in this hotbed a decade ago as the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference has become a 10-day-long mecca of new music, film, and multimedia. Frolic in the demo playroom or jus' sit back and listen to the fabulous speakers who would never even be considered by the organizers of Comdex. Registration for the festival: US$195 through January 15, $225 through February 12, or $250 walk-up; platinum pass to all three events: $600 through February 1, $700 walk-up. Contact: +1 (512) 467 7979, fax +1 (512) 451 0754, e-mail 72662.2465@compuserve.com.
Out on the Range
March 24-28 IEEE Infocom '96; San Francisco. 15th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies. Contact: infocom@cs .ucdavis.edu, on the Web at http://ortega.cs.ucdavis.edu/~infocom.html.
March 27-30 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy; Cambridge, Massachusetts. Contact: e-mail cfp96-info@mit.edu. � March 29 First International Virtual Conference on Mad Science; London, England. Contact: +44 (171) 815 7442, on the Web at http://www.scism.sbu.ac.uk /cios/paul/MadScience/.
Got a good junket? E-mail junkets@Wired.com.
Big Apple pies of appreciation to Alex Frankel, Steven Overman, Paul Donald, Daniel Carter, Jesse Freund, and Shauna Sampson.
