Opened a membership at Video Free Brooklyn, a couple blocks north of Smith & Vine. Same weird stand-offishness. Are the younger generation of Smith St. merchants allergic to bike gloves? Do I still smell like Greenpoint?

By contrast, I got a much-needed haircut at an Italian barber shop on Smith near Union the other day. I think it was called Sal’s. It was dusty-looking, with dull striped awnings and a barber pole in the window. The barber — I assume it was Sal — was sweet and funny in a way that completely compensated for the dullness of his scissors (I could hear that dull-scissor sound). We talked about the rising cost of electricity, the rising cost of fuel, and rising credit card interest rates. Each injustice elicited a fresh cry of “Madonn’!,” until Sal started coughing, and excused himself to sip from a plastic cup of clear liquid at the corner of the counter. When he returned, I smelled alcohol: grappa. We talked about the pollen. “Madonn’!” As often in this situation, I wished I could remember how to speak Italian, a language that flees my tongue when I need it as reliably as butts in when what I could really use is Spanish. Then again, as @gregfelice pointed out in an episode of the Emily & Greg episode of Feed Me Show, Brooklyn Italian is a dialect of its own.

Madonn’!

Good haircut, FWIW.