"Fewer Americans signed contracts to purchase previously owned homes in February as limited inventory and access to credit held back a more robust recovery in housing." —Are $950,000 fixers and impossible lending standards and the need for quarter-million down payments with no-contingency bidding-war offers possibly slowing the current idiotic real estate frenzy? Perhaps! But here is a proven fact: Whenever people are acting super stupid-crazy about any market, it is wise to stay the hell away from said market.

Photo by Jeremiahsb.

Two statements heard on the KQED Forum show's "Restaurant Roundup" segment, just now, that might trigger a response from you, the restaurant diner:

• "San Francisco starts the restaurant trends, and New York grows them."
• "New York has twice* the population, but San Francisco has the better restaurants."

* Yes we know that's not at all true; the NYC metropolitan area has 19 million people; the Bay Area has 4.5 million people.

Photo by Orbakhopper.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit suddenly resigned this morning, which is a very big shock to the people who follow this kind of thing. But how does this affect you, the Citi consumer account holder? You still have to pay your credit card bills, sorry.

I recently moved to New York for the summer, and last night I had my first introduction to the literary parties here at the Authors Guild Centennial Gala, held at the Edison Ballroom in Midtown. There were about 500 people there, and the event was officially black tie, though the publicist told me any party dress would do. I coat-checked a cardigan. Since moving here, I've had some questions about how lit life works in New York. Questions like, can you do this without being part of a “scene,” and how much of this involves posturing? etc. As the night progressed, I discovered that however awkward you appear, people will [...]

You saw these homes with secrets, right? Hidden doors and even rooms! Don't they remind you of a recurring dream you've had for years? I know, ha ha, "those dreams are about a secret extra vagina" or something but actually I think living in New York for ten years makes the subconscious way literal in terms of real estate.

"Marlene Dietrich once said that if she heard an American man rave about a meal, she knew he must have eaten a steak," says A Treasury of Great Recipes. Published in 1965, the book was written by Vincent and Mary Price (yes, that Vincent Price, or that one, maybe you remember). Price drops the quote in a section on great New York restaurants. And it’s not just the American men who thought this (though more on that below): restaurant critic Ruth Reichl in a 1994 steakhouse round-up wrote, “But there is one thing I have no doubt about: steak is a New York tradition, and when I [...]

4th #millionqueries: far future scifi. begins with rhetorical question (and protag. waking up.) Pass.

— Jennifer Udden (@suddenlyjen) January 23, 2013

10th #millionqueries: literary fiction, story of abuse, obv personal subject but writing doesn't draw me in, nice pass.

— Jennifer Udden (@suddenlyjen) January 23, 2013

Watching Jennifer Udden, a literary agent at Donald Maass, live-tweet her slush pile reading today may upset and offend some people. But it's fascinating AND educational! No seriously, take some notes.

Today's Odor: Hot mothballs in a manure fire. Gentle kisses of body odor stained carpet.

— Gowanus Canal (@Gowanus_Daily) November 20, 2012

"It is the nasal equivalent of white noise, researchers report today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Just as white noise is a mixture of many different sound frequencies and white light is a mixture of many different wavelengths, olfactory white is a mixture of many different smelly compounds." —Hoping that the Gowanus Canal's "Today's Odor" is the newly discovered "olfactory white" soon.

This past Sunday, a crowd of about 200 gathered outside the entrance to a faded-looking building at 7th Street and Columbia in Hudson, New York. They were there for a first public peek at what will be Marina Abramovic's Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art. The building—brick, columned, with "Community Tennis" lettered across its front—seems a long way from what the architectural renderings depict for the future museum, which is a sleek "interactive building" seemingly encased in glass. (The project is led by architects Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas.) The institute is projected to open in mid-2014; for now, this open house would give Abramovic the chance to [...]

Right now an exhibit called "Richteriana" is on exhibit at Postmasters, a gallery located in West Chelsea. As the title suggests, the exhibit is by no means a straight-up reification of Richter's status as a father of conceptualist painting. Nor, however, is it a disavowal of his significance. Instead it's something much more interesting: an attempt to look at the different forces—the buyers and sellers, critics and academics and museums—that establish the "worth" of an artist.

Sell the story of an artist, and you might just sell a painting too. The particular stories that have cultivated Richter’s status as Germany’s most heralded living artist now occasion Richter paintings to [...]

I've actively avoided reading a lot of the recent news articles and blog posts about the spate of controversies, both trumped-up and real, that have lately befallen the yoga industry. By actively I mean: people send me links to these and I refuse to read them. This is part of a self-awareness practice rooted in Sutra 2.16, which is usually translated along these lines: "The suffering which is yet to come may be avoided." Of all 196 this is probably the Sutra I think about most often. Are you getting the sense yet that, when it comes to yoga, I'm not exactly an unbiased outside observer?

If you're free TONIGHT (and if you happen to live in New York City; sorry in advance, everyone else!), you can head over to the CUNY Graduate Center at 7p.m. to hear esteemed writers Joan Acocella, Rivka Galchen, Alex Ross and David Samuels talk about something called "long-form journalism." Never heard of it, but it sounds fascinating.

Outside Denny’s Steak Pub, in the Kensington neighborhood of Brooklyn, steps from the Church Avenue F stop, a would-be customer, wearing a Yankees T-shirt and a bit of a haunted look, shuffled back and forth, focused on the scratch-off lottery tickets that trailed behind him like exhaust. He ducked his head in every once in a while: “Six dollars!” His buddy called out, “Don’t come in,” and Scratcher nodded sadly, and waited for his pal on the sidewalk. “You’re still 86ed,” the bartender added, not unkindly. Scratcher was still a regular; he just wasn’t allowed to come in to this particular old man bar this particular afternoon.

Does the modest increase in gun regulation proposed by the White House today seem too crazy to comprehend? Here is how quickly big things can change: In the not so long ago era of Bill Clinton's second term and "Friends," when the Drudge Report was what the old people already had as their home page, you could still smoke almost anywhere in California. Restaurants, bars, concert venues, the beach, outside elementary schools. And then the No Smoking laws came to pass, and despite threats of violence by rednecks, within a few months it was all over. Short-lived protests like the "private clubs" that some Central Valley truck stops [...]

Did you get your Hurricane Sandy mementos yet? A whimsical "I survived Hurricane Sandy" mousepad is one of many excellent ideas floating around, post-storm, and we have gathered a few others you might want to implement immediately:

1. Marathon contestants are welcome, but during the run they must wear BabyBjörns filled with supplies to be delivered door-to-door along the route.
2. Outlawed giant soda cups can be used to scoop dead baby rats from your drinking water.

The first in a month-long series on the people and peculiarities of where we're from.

If you live in Brooklyn and have any kind of affinity for animals, the odds are fair that you’ve heard about Sean Casey. He operates his shelter—Sean Casey Animal Rescue (or SCAR)—out of a cramped storefront in Windsor Terrace. The no-kill shelter takes in around 150 animals per month, providing a service that too often can’t be served by official agencies. Stop by the shop and you'll see gerbils, hamsters and domesticated rats, lizards of all possible description, as well as chattering parakeets, lonely-looking cats and, lumbering freely along the floor at comically low [...]

Audrey Ellis grew up on a fruit farm in western New York dreaming of being a dancer. She moved to Brooklyn five years ago after graduating from Goucher College with a degree in dance and philosophy, and joined a dance company while also working as a freelance instructor. She enjoyed the cycle of performing and teaching, performing and teaching, but something was missing. Enter the farm. A few years back, Ellis and her friend Sarah Capua formed a dance company called A+S Works and decided to host a weekend-long dance festival on Ellis' family's land. The first event was a success, as was the second, and so the festival [...]