NEWS & COLUMNS

Best Shoe Repair
Continental Shoe Repair
2 Barclay St. (B’way)
349-6878

Sole Man. Some years ago, we attended a recital at Carnegie Hall. At the intermission, we strolled into the lobby. We passed a strikingly handsome, dignified older gentleman in black tie, knowledgeably discussing the performance with several people. We recognized Sal Iacone, who is as fine an artist in leather as the pianist was at the keyboard. In the seconds before he broke off his conversation to shake our hand, we realized he had been appraising the pianist as a fellow craftsman–for the integrity and skill shown in his work.

Sal is a professional shoemaker by birth as well as training, as he was raised in the family cobbler’s shop back in Italy. He began running the Continental Shoe Repair shop on Barclay St., directly across from the Woolworth Bldg., in 1977.

That is when we met him. We began working downtown around that time. We often wandered about the City Hall area, probably because we were fascinated by local history even then, and stumbled on Sal’s shop. We realized our black oxfords from Brooks Brothers needed new heels. We walked in. The air was rich with the scents of leathers and glues. A tall, kindly man with the unshakable dignity of a Roman senator stood behind the counter. We asked if he could fix our heels. He asked us to take off the shoes. He glanced at them, then his hands began examining them, the fingers pressing the soles and uppers, caressing the stitching and gluing. He looked up.

"You need new heels and taps on the heels and toes," he said. "You should also come back in another month or so, because the soles will wear out by then." Then he smiled. "You have good shoes," he said. "We can work with them."

Sal repairs most things made of leather, with the patience and skill born of art and love for one’s craft. He has been repairing our shoes and our briefcase–a gift from the unsinkable west-side activist Maggi Peyton–for nearly 24 years. We highly recommend him as an artist and an honest man.

We were last there before Sept. 11. The shop is west of Broadway, in the area that is still closed off by the police. Sal isn’t answering his telephone. We hope he is well and that he can reopen soon.

Best Mexican Cowboy Boots
Zapateria Mexico
4505 5th Ave. (betw. 45th & 46th Sts.)
Brooklyn, 718-851-4074
88-07 Roosevelt Ave. (88th St.)
Queens, 718-899-1742

¡Viva Zapateria! The other day we were riding through Brooklyn in a car blasting corridos–those rollicking, accordion-driven, heartwarming tales of the greatest drug traffickers ever to cross the Mexico-U.S. border–and we thought, we need some gear to go with this tape. Zapateria Mexico is the place for fantastic cowboy boots with beautiful geometric, vaguely psychedelic embroidered patterns. Full-sized boots, half-height bootlets, high-heeled boots for the ladies, they’ve got them all. In good-looking leather, ostrich (or a convincing facsimile thereof) and, best of all, snakeskin. Regular ol’ snakeskin, and–the piece de resistance–snakeskin with the heads of the snakes still attached, one on each boot and another on the matching belt if you care to acquire it. If we ever walk into a bar and see someone wearing these snakeheads, much as we prefer live snakes, we’re gonna have to buy him or her a drink or two in salute.

Best Source of Guns ’n’ Ammo
Vermont

And Let Slip the Woodchucks of War. What with Rudy probably leaving office and no credible replacement in sight, an underpaid police force and the impending release (from the federal prison system alone) of some 600,000 felons jailed during the Crack Wars, it might be time for the average law-abiding citizen to start thinking about a gun.

If you are filthy stinking rich and have friends in high places, you can get a carry permit in NYC with ease. Having none of those qualifiers, we prefer to do our shopping in Vermont. Guns are cheap and plentiful in the Green Mountain State, and all we had to do was bring the subject up in a bar to gain access to a wide variety of reliable weaponry, from the incomparable Mossberg shotgun line to some very fine concealed-carry handguns of various calibers. We aren’t recommending that anyone violate the law; however, should you be inclined to take personal responsibility for the well-being of yourself and your loved ones in the perilous times ahead, you’d be well advised to head for Vermont to make your purchase. The scenery’s very nice as well.

Best Neurosurgery
NYU Medical Center
530 1st Ave. (32nd St.)
263-7300

We Can Still Think, Therefore We Are. We went to the eye doctor last January thinking we needed new glasses for the blurred vision and loss of color perception in one eye. We were wrong. The eye doctor was suspicious and sent us for an MRI. Turns out what we needed wasn’t glasses but brain surgery to fix the pituitary tumor that the MRI found. We made an appointment to see the brain surgeon at NYU. Before we went, we boned up on the pituitary and its possible ills. We learned that it’s the master gland, located right behind the eyeballs and that it hangs by a stalk from the base of the brain like a lightbulb from the ceiling. Its secretions tell the thyroid, adrenal glands and reproductive organs what hormones to make and how much. The pituitary’s a player–other organs return the pituitary’s phone calls right away. When there are "masses" on the gland, those masses don’t spontaneously dissolve, hence the brain surgeon.

The first thing you learn when talking to neurosurgeons is that they aren’t shy about telling you the nasty details of their work. Our guy pops the MRI pictures into his lightboard, looks them over and dives right into the problem.

There are two ways to approach a pituitary tumor, he says: endoscopic surgery or a craniotomy. The endoscopic approach requires only an overnight hospital stay and is generally painless and quick and wonderfully effective. Unfortunately, our mass, the size of a dime, is clinging to the stalk, and that location makes us ineligible for endoscopy. We’re getting the craniotomy. The surgeon then delivers the PowerPoint version of the procedure we would have a week later.

Craniotomies start with a 9-inch incision across the scalp, slicing from the top midpoint of the head down the right side to the front of the ear. Interestingly, they don’t shave your whole head for the procedure. Instead the surgeons cut a neat little path about half an inch wide through your hair. If you’re not bald, the hair will regrow to cover the scar. Once the incision is made, they peel back the scalp like the skin of a banana to expose the skull. Using a drill, they burr little holes in the skull. The doctors then take what looks like a piece of wire to saw through the skull plates, surgically connecting the dots. They remove a chunk of skull about the size of a small salad plate from the right side of the head.

With the brain now exposed, the surgeon cuts an X through the dura, the brain’s tough enclosing membrane, to get to the brain proper. They push the frontal lobe out of the way and literally lift the brain using brain retractors to get at the pituitary lying underneath. The surgical journey from first anesthesia to arrival at the pituitary takes about two and a half hours.

The pituitary lives in a crowded neighborhood. The bean-sized gland is situated in the optic chiasm, the place in the brain where the optic nerves cross. The optic chiasm is smack-dab close to the carotid arteries. And to make it even more challenging for the surgeon, the whole gridlocked area–pituitary, arteries, optic nerves–are all jammed into a playing field about one inch long. One false move with the knife could mean severed optic nerves or, worse, a nick in the carotid artery.

As he’s describing the surgery, he also provides a truth-in-advertising counterpoint of things that can go wrong. In addition to the surgical risks you would run with an ordinary nose job, there are some other brain-specific problems that can occur: strokes, blood clots, seizures, bleeding, infection, incomplete resection and more. The operation is 94 percent effective, he says, leaving a 6 percent chance of the unthinkably catastrophic to occur.

After about two hours of actual snipping and draining, the tumor is gone for good. They cauterize the bleeding and then douse the whole area with something to prevent seizures. After they’re sure their handiwork is secure, they back out. They put the brain back in place, reposition the frontal lobe, sew up the dura and bolt that chunk of skull back into place using titanium screws. The whole thing takes seven hours.

What you want in a brain surgeon–and what NYU’s team provides–is a guy who won’t get the yips and start banging into arteries or snipping optic nerves or poking your hippocampus with a scalpel. You also don’t want him fooling around with the parts of the brain that help you do things like walk, talk, eat, breathe and remember.

We had the actual surgery and everything went perfectly, due in no small part to the incredible nursing staff on the 12th floor Neurosurgery ICU. Recovery time is fairly slow inasmuch as one is coming back from a fractured skull and a scrambled personal chemistry. There were some headaches and insomnia but recovery was otherwise uneventful. And the eyesight? Blur is gone and we can see colors perfectly again.

As brain tumors go, this one went, thanks to the fine skills of the neurosurgical staff at the NYU Medical Center. If you’re planning on a brain tumor in the near future, don’t mess with second best. NYU is the place to go.

Best Place for Oxtails & Chickien
M&F Fish & Meat Market, Inc.,
240 Canal St. (Mulberry St.)
406-1945

Best Place to Buy a See-Through Wedding Dress
Gaelyn Designs
155 E. 2nd St. (Ave. A)
614-6998

Here Comes the Groom! We’re getting married in a transparent, yellow-tinted, latex body glove that shows off everything from our tan lines to our waxed snatch. We want to feel like a warrior princess, we want to flaunt our shapely self and parade down the aisle past 350 guests with our breasts pressed against see-through rubber and our legs flashing under clear latex ruffles. And Gaelyn Designs is going to help us out–show us pictures of the see-through wedding dress they’ve made, talk to us about the one we want, and even let us try on latex pants and corsets when we stop by the shop. They’ll polish our rubber-clad body and whip a bicycle inner tube into a slick, clear gown in time for our big day. They’re so sweet and eager to please, we think if we ask nicely they might even throw in a neck corset and a bottle of body polish.

Best Venue for a Preteen Birthday Party
Lazer Park
163 W. 46th St. (B’way)
398-3060, www.lazerpark.com

Wherever Children Go, We’ll Follow. We’ve been to a number of birthday parties at Lazer Park, including two for our own boys, and if the hi-tech gadgetry is beyond our ken, you ought to see the faces of the kids as they race from arcade games to simulated spaceship rides to the dark room where Lazer Tag campaigns are waged.

Read this description and tell us it won’t delight any boy or girl who hasn’t yet reached puberty: "Grab your Light Phasers, slip on your special body armor, and get ready to do battle in the world’s most incredible lazer tag arena. Up to 20 warriors per team stalk each other in a futuristic environment of mind-boggling mazes shrouded in fantastic fog swirls, darting lazer lights and the kind of adrenaline-rush music you need to keep blasting...and to keep you alive!"

After the kids have collected tickets from the games and cashed them in, after the Lazer Tag flight of imagination, a superb staff troops them into a private room for a meal–pizza, McDonald’s or other fast food of your choice–and then the birthday cake. It’s a two-hour escape from reality, for the kids as well as parents, where everyone’s smiling on their brother and getting together right now.

Yes, it’s a long way from pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, but if you accept that your children will never really get The Honeymooners (at least until they study the classic sitcom in college) and prefer Rocket Power or Sponge Bob, then Lazer Park’s the place to go.

Best Wine Store Deal
Union Square Wines & Spirits
33 Union Square W. (betw. 16th &17th Sts.)
675-8100

Cheaper by the Dozen. That’s Our Excuse and We’re Sticking to It. Can we be real New York Press about this and air a complaint first? What is up with the rude, bored, barely-ESL chicks Union Square Wines hires to stand behind the checkout counter and give stupid face to its customers? Everybody else who works there, the proprietors et al., are so professional, so polite, so knowledgeable. Why do they have this terrible penchant for hiring ill-tempered, uneducated, gum-snapping girls to work the registers? Not to go all yuppistical and classist on you, but you go into a sort of upscale wine store like this, you spend some time trading snooty vintner names with the professionals, you come to the counter ready to drop some serious platinum... You don’t expect deli counter attitude, okay? It’s sooo a setup for a scene from American Psycho. Hire somebody nice, okay? Spend a dollar more an hour, and train them to be polite to the customer. Is it so much to ask?

Okay. Thanks for your attention. Here’s your award:

We buy wine at Union Square because we drink French whites and Italian reds and they’re good with both. Every wine shop in the world can do French whites, but it’s criminal how few, even in wopaholic New York City, know Italian reds. In a Socialist nation we’d require them all to acquire some sort of Italian Reds license before they’d be permitted to unlock the front door. At Union Square it’s not all just Chiantis and Brunellos, the choice is wide and excellent. They’re always coming up with great new finds, and delight in introducing them to their customers at very favorable prices. They keep the dearly priced old faves–the Brunellos, etc.–in stock as well. We wish they’d get a little more hip to rosato, but maybe that’s a matter of personal taste.

So we go, and we browse, and we fill up our cart with a dozen bottles. Never less. Because if you buy a case, Union Square delivers. And better still, they give you a 15 percent discount. That’s darn decent of them, and we’ll drink to that. Twelve times.

Best Overreaching by a Barbershop
Dandie
100 Stanton St. (betw. Orchard & Ludlow Sts.)
598-4490

Tip Not Included. Dandie is a Stanton St. hair salon of recent vintage, the existence of which poses a kind of absurd relief to its immediate surroundings, like the grocery across the street where every morning a man in a white coat named Hector fastens pig carcasses to meat hooks and then stocks the shelves with Clamato Tomato Cocktail and Goya Potted Meat. While the tonsorial artistes who comprise Dandie’s staff are the sort of gaunt, sallow, slit-eyed, fauxhawk-sporting and in-need-of-a-scrubbing, proto-punk-fops-on-a-three-day-smack-jones one really wouldn’t care to have waving scissors or any other sharp-edged utensil in the region of one’s head, just two doors down there’s a Dominican barbershop named Tropical Unisex. At Tropical Unisex a quite excellent guy’s ’do, shaped exactly to order by a professional with more years of haircutting experience than the Dandie coiffeur has years living, costs $12.

So what is it, then, that sets the Dandie buzz apart from the Tropical Unisex buzz? Why an additional $75, of course.

Best Brooklyn Vet
Animal Kind Veterinary Hospital
365 7th Ave. (betw. 10th & 11th Sts.)
718-832-3899

He Can Talk to the Animals. We’ve heard this from more than one person, and we’ve experienced it ourselves. The doctors and technicians at Animal Kind are miracle workers. In our case, we brought in a cat on the brink of death–and the staff there told us as much. They made no promises, they were very straightforward, they explained everything they were doing every step along the way. And at every step, they warned us that we could lose him at any time. It was that serious. And two weeks later, we brought that damn cat back home, where he’s still healthy and happy today, having made a full recovery.

It was something nobody expected to happen, but they did it anyway.

There are a lot of things that make Animal Kind different from most vets you’ll encounter in the city. The people are nice, and clearly love what they’re doing. They keep owners regularly updated on their pet’s condition. Most importantly, however, they allow you into the examination rooms with your pet–and encourage you to visit if your pet, God forbid, has to stay over.

We were in the ICU every day, and no one batted an eye. The people on staff knew us, knew the case, and helped out however they could. They realize how important things like that are, for the pet’s recovery as well as the owner’s sanity.

Most everyone we know has a horror story to tell about mistreatment at the hands of a vet–but for all the time we spent at Animal Kind, and all the people we know who go there, we’ve heard nothing but warm praise. That in itself is amazing.

No, they can’t save every single animal that comes in, nor can they keep Fang alive forever. But what they can do is make the worst hours of a pet owner’s life as peaceful and comforting as possible.

Best Italian Food Products
Russo’s Mozzarella & Pasta
363 7th Ave. (betw. 10th & 11th Sts.)
Brooklyn, 718-369-2874

Mozzarella Story. Used to be a copy shop occupying this South Slope space, wherein you could find a couple of aging beatniks, who on occasion were known to busy themselves with a desultory variety of labor, amidst a perpetual atmospheric sepia tobacco haze. Their dingy copy joint was an appropriate landmark for an as-yet unredeemed neighborhood. That is, 7th Ave. on the other side of 9th St., back then still a district of shabby tenements, oozing diners and Fenians in undershirts.

Well, the neighborhood’s changed over the last couple years, hasn’t it? Half a decade and a whole new world, and dig the wine shops, the good restaurants, the boutiques. In fact, if the Fed wanted to study the circulation through the economy of overpriced baby-t’s, hipster jeans, two-years-out-of-Wellesley-and-we’re-still-bohemian babydoll dresses or curios from precious emporia, it would do well to send its economists here.

And when they show up, they might well find us in Russo’s, which moved into the old copy-shop premises a couple years back, to the delight of locals. Yessir. It would be hard to overestimate the quality of the stuff the guys at this little establishment first make, and then sell: pastas that they churn out all day in the back room (try, especially, the lemon-pepper variety) and in which you can taste that eggy freshness that characterizes the best noodles; flavorful sauces (the puttanesca rules); newly stuffed sausages that look vital and clean; and huge balls of meltingly new mozzarella, which undulate in their bins under the counter glass, pure and white as Alaska.

There is, as hippies have always insisted, something reassuring about knowing who’s making your food, and where they’re making it. Much of ours these days is made by the guys who hang out behind the counter at Russo’s, and we’re not complaining.

Bonus: Russo’s sells bottles of San Pellegrino water for a mere $1.49. That’s a steal, chump. Who says Brooklyn isn’t still a bargain?

Best Way to get a Private Girls’ School Student to Serve Hors d’Oeuvres at your Next Party
The Barnard Bartending Agency
854-4650

College Kids Who Really Know How to Party. Cross-breeding New York chic with Northampton political savvy, the ladies of Barnard may already seem the perfect addition to your next party. But, in the spirit of female entrepreneurship, many of them are available to serve your guests as well. The student-managed and -staffed Barnard Bartending Agency charges $18 dollars an hour, $20-$25 for holidays, plus cab fare home. These bartenders arrive at your home wearing bowties, will help prepare appetizers, serve beer and wash dishes. They are, of course, trained to make martinis, are informed about wines and know which sides to pour and clear from, too.

Best Travel Agent
Kadesh Travel
908-754-4449;
e-mail: Info@kadeshtravel.com

Smart Planning. We’re not afraid to fly.

We don’t mind getting to airline terminals earlier.

We have mild sympathy for the pacifists who’re singing "Where Have All the Skycaps Gone?"

We believe that major U.S. airports have been too lax in security standards for years. It’s similar to–although far more dangerous than–voting precincts on Election Day: Why do you think political corruption is more rampant in urban areas? Because of the volume of citizens, as well as a lackadaisical workforce. That’s why people we know were able to vote for Al Gore three times in New York City last year. Similarly, while in Caribbean airports, say, each ticketed passenger is thoroughly looked over, at Newark, JFK, O’Hare, Logan and LAX, just to name a few, it’s relatively easy to get anything on board the plane, and customs–as long as you’re relatively sober and take off the shades–is a joke.

Like most Americans, we’ll be happy to undergo stringent scrutiny if that’ll prevent murderers from sitting across the aisle from us on a flight.

We oppose a mass bailout of the airline industry, however, since once you start putting corporations on the dole, when will it stop? If American or Continental goes out of business, their fleets won’t melt: at an auction some other company will buy the planes and air travel will continue. A small handout is acceptable in the wake of a week’s lost business following Sept. 11, but nothing more. A huge government grant/loan program to the major carriers will only lead others to the White House gates: insurance companies, restaurants, automakers, media conglomerates, any entity, in fact, that lost money during this tragedy.

The United States is not a socialist country, much to the chagrin of the exceedingly wealthy owners of The New York Times, which issued this editorial edict on Sept. 25: "Congress has acted admirably to help the troubled airlines. But it should also make a commitment to improve passenger rail. Amtrak, which receives about 1 percent of all federal transportation spending, needs an immediate infusion of cash to beef up security throughout its system and to accelerate much-needed capital improvements along the Northeast corridor, where its fast trains are hampered by antique infrastructure."

Oh, and Congress, while you’re at it, Amtrak conductors would also like pastrami sandwiches from Katz’s each day at noon. Courtesy of the taxpayers and the "lockbox," of course.

And, while we’re at it, the U.S. Postal Service, a national embarrassment, ought to be privatized immediately. Yes, many employees will lose jobs, and it’ll be hard for them to find other positions that pay a full-time salary for about 15 hours of work a week, but the Times is badly in need of factcheckers, competent caption writers, arts critics and op-ed columnists. Surely the slug who fiddles with your package at the local post office for about half an hour would be an upgrade from pampered "journalists" like Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, Adam Clymer, Paul Krugman, Richard Berke, Clyde Haberman, Murray Chass, Buster Olney, Gail Collins and David Sanger.

But back to the topic listed above. Don’t know about you, but we’re not a proponent of online airline ticket purchases: who needs to give out credit card information in an increasingly dangerous Internet world? That’s why we do all our business with Kadesh Travel, a full-service operation of the old school. One phone call and you can find the best discounts of the week; recommendations for hotels from a staff that’s traveled all over the world; plans for safaris, European bicycling tours or Arizona spa packages; and the best spots for a skiing holiday.

In addition, should problems arise at the airport or your hotel, a call to Marv Kadesh will get him on the line to the proper official to make things right.

Don’t fool around with goofy Internet sites and try to make your travel plans from scratch. You’ll get burned, just like all the amateur day-traders 18 months ago who thought they were financial wizards when in reality they were on a delusional honeymoon to Las Vegas that ended up in Watts.

Kadesh Travel is a quality company. Join their roster of repeat customers.

Best Internet Service with a Terrible Business Plan
kozmo.com

Chapter11.com. We were early and avid kozmo users. For the customer, kozmo was a great idea. You went online, picked a video or DVD you wanted to see that night, maybe ordered some munchies to go along with it, and blam it was all delivered to your door "faster than Chinese food," as a friend of ours put it. In a better world they would’ve thrown a blunt in there as a lagniappe, but anyway, it was the answer to a lazy person’s prayers. Next day you dropped your movie off at one of many conveniently located drop-boxes. A wonderful alternative to dealing with the myriad hassles and disappointments of video stores.

Problem was, as a business kozmo was just another Internet venture that was built to fail. It cost them too much to service each transaction. A business that spends $2 to service a $1 transaction is, by definition, going down eventually, no matter how Jeff Bezos or the guys at Salon play with numbers. It wasn’t that long before you could see the signs that kozmo was stumbling, as what had originally been a marvel of convenience inexorably became more and more of a pain in the ass. They started to build in additional costs and restrictions, then those drop-boxes got scarce, then suspicious billing errors–always in kozmo’s favor somehow–became routine. We stuck with kozmo until the bitter end last spring, but by then we were using it far less often or cheerily and we can’t say we were all that sorry to see it go. We switched to Netflix (see its award), which seems a much more viable business proposition, and have been a lot happier.

Best Place to Buy a Smart, Stylish Engagement Gift
Jillery
88 E. 10th St. (betw. 3rd & 4th Aves.)
674-9405

Drink to Me Only with Thine Jillerys. You can buy all sorts of gifts here, for baby showers and housewarmings, but if we need a wedding or engagement gift that is going to stand out amid the crepemakers and blenders, we head to Jillery. Jill Fagin makes unique cocktail glasses wrapped with aluminum and colorful glass beads. You can get them with a heart or a spiral on the side, and you can even choose the color of the beads. Another one of her bestsellers that would make a perfect gift for any postmodern couple just starting out is her asymmetrical martini glasses with zigzag stems, outlined in her customary silver aluminum.

Best Candy Shop
Sweet Banana Candy Store
112 9th Ave. (betw. 17th & 18th Sts.)
255-0673

I Needs the Vanilla-Flavored Tootsie Rolls–Bad. Is there any stretch of Manhattan still as trashy as 9th Ave.? The blocks are like a reservation for every piece of street scuzz that scurried away during the Giuliani years. We wouldn’t be surprised to see the last of the squeegee men plying their trade on a 9th Ave. corner. The avenue is a good way of keeping any nostalgia for previous administrations at bay…except for one shop that preserves a classic glimpse of old-time lowlife living.

If you need some foil-wrapped French chocolates or fat-free yogurt, there’re plenty of brightly lit stores now clamoring for your business. But for those seeking a sleazier vibe, there’s only the Sweet Banana Candy Store. It’s just another grimy bodega along a grimy street, with a walk-up window that long ago became boarded up by its own clutter. The dirty interior has a small selection of magazines and the usual rack of Utz potato chips, plus a smattering of sodas and a plastic case with candy bars. The real find is sitting on top of the ice-cream freezer, where clear lucite containers hold a mix of both common and weird candies. There’s the usual small-change standbys, like miniature York Peppermint Patties and Charleston Chews. But the Sweet Banana also has a supplier who keeps them stocked full of ancient obscurities like Long Boys (primarily in coconut, but often banana) and fruit-flavored Tootsie Rolls. It’s also a reliable source for Manhattan rarities like Chick-O-Sticks and giant cherry-flavored Lemon Heads. The Sweet Banana was also the only place in Manhattan we found those excellent orange-cream lollipops the Tootsie Roll company rolled out half-heartedly a couple of years ago.

But it’s more than just candies that makes a shrine out of the Sweet Banana. There’s also that 9th Ave. setting for maximum candy-store squalor. There’s always some dirty old guy in a snazzy suit outside the shop, even in 90-degree weather. There’s usually a swarthy guy who has his feet attached to his knees, looking like he’s ready to assist Rondo Hatton in some nefarious plot. They’re typical of the types usually loitering around, watching the parade of misshapen cretins who stroll past and add to the piles of litter that regularly accumulate outside the shop’s entrance. Simply put, the Sweet Banana is the only NYC candy shop that still makes "candy shop" a term full of sinister meaning. It’s the kind of candy shop where you’d pull up your collar before entering, wanting to feel the quick sweet surge of some sugar as an appetizer for that grownup candy that feeds your brain and veins. There’s no kind of criminal activity going on inside the Sweet Banana that we know of, and the losers outside are probably equally harmless. But there’s still that squalor that we can only hope the Sweet Banana keeps perpetuating in its own oblivious way.

Best Party Cakes
Black Hound
170 2nd Ave. (betw. 10th & 11th Sts.)
979-9505

We Ain’t Nuthin’ If Not Hounddogs. Cupcake Cafe dominated the cake-baking awards in the last few "Best of" issues, but this year we’re switching allegiance to the East Village’s fancier, schmancier Black Hound–at least for fancy-schmancy party cakes. Hardly a state secret, Black Hound has been delighting sweets lovers since 1988 with its extremely classy, boutiquey approach to baked goods, chocolates and party favors. We’ll let others rave about the boxes of chocolate truffles and the cookies and such. We’ll just rave about the cakes.

You want to make a big impression with the cake at your next party, you’ll want to check out the extremely stylin’ variety of cakes at Black Hound. They’re not only delicious but gorgeously presented. There’s chocolate hazelnut, the grownup "Almond Apricot Grand Marnier" cake, the fanciful and more kid-ready "Busy Bee" (layers of chocolate butter cake, chocolate mousse and almond cake, decorated with marzipan bees), German chocolate, a black and white cake, a "Poppyseed Raspberry Lemon" and several more. The cliche about cakes this pretty is that they "look too good to eat," but you won’t let that stop you.

You can order from Black Hound’s website (www.blackhound.com) and they’ll deliver your cake to you. But it’s awfully pleasant to walk into the shop–it’s like a Wayback Machine trip to an old-fashioned candy store/bake shop–so we prefer to go, browse, place our order and come back to pick it up (and maybe a few truffles for our troubles) on the appointed day. It’s also significantly cheaper than going the online/delivery route: a huge, fabulously rich, 9-inch-wide by 6-inch-high party cake will cost you $33 in-store, more like $45 delivered.

Best Expensive Hair Salon|
Privé
310 W. Broadway (betw. Canal & Grand Sts.)
274-8888

Why Split Hairs? Everyone wants to know where we get our hair cut. Everyone wants to know where we get our hair colored–perfect, buttery-blonde streaks for summer, glints of silver and gold in our natural dark for fall. We tell them Privé–the salon on the first floor of the Soho Grand–and recommend, particularly, stylist Susanna and colorists Zoe and Emilie. Everyone asks about the price. A haircut is about $100. A cut and color, with proper tips, comes to about $300. Everyone balks. It’s too bad, because most of the people who ask about our hair need help. Either they are still trying to look like Jennifer Aniston, or they have those awful pencil-thin blonde streaks, or that unfortunate I-live-in-Boston-and-it’s-1992 eggplant red. We figure they are paying someone about $150-$200 to make them look like that. For just $100 more, they could actually look good. If we are nice enough to tell you about Privé, and you ignore our advice that you get yourself there, immediately, well, you are just a fool.

Best Auto Rental
New York Rent-A-Car
www.nyrac.com
799-1100

Auto-Fellation. It has been our experience that automobile rental agencies generally fall somewhere between the airlines and the post office when it comes to customer service, so imagine our surprise when the good folks at New York Rent-A-Car actually treated us as if our business was important to them. A nice selection of well-maintained vehicles, competitive rates and, most important, an old-fashioned Eisenhower-era attitude toward serving the customer’s needs make New York Rent-A-Car the "Best of Manhattan" in the car rental business. Eighteen locations, too.

Best Brooklyn Office Supplies
Park Slope Office Furniture & Equipment Co.
405 5th Ave. (betw. 7th & 8th Sts.)
718-965-1515

Solid Necessities. A yellow-lit, no-nonsense room on the seedy edge of Park Slope in which you’ll efficiently score the various components of your deep home-office infrastructure. Just a couple weeks ago, for example, we acquired a fine specimen of a Soviet bureaucratic-beige filing cabinet, which we expect to find useful not only for storing our papers, but also for tipping over and using as a barrier when the feds finally breach our door and barge in with attack dogs, riot visors and sputtering MAC-10s.

But you’ll find more than morally serious furniture at P.S. Office. You’ll also find the tangentials. The reams of white printer paper, the boxes stacked full of legal-sized file folders, the crates plumped up with manila envelopes sufficient to supply an army, or at least an army’s worth of mailing clerks. And obviously you’ll also find the usual fun back-to-class stuff: the legal pads, the uniball pens, the markers (it’s the red ones, we recall from Sunday school, that pack the meanest buzz), the steno pads, the fountain pens, the looseleaf folders, the paperclips, the staples, the pencil sharpeners, the ink-jet cartridges, those little round sticky bastards with which the third-grader reinforces the holes on his binder paper–and so on. In other words, all the tools for the performance of intellectual labor. The help’s right there on the spot, too: you’re in and out in 15 friendly minutes, tops, and within a day or so the smiling fellows with the delivery van are at your door.

Best Wig Shop
Barry Hendrickson’s Bitz-n-Pieces
1841 Broadway, #201 (60th St.)
397-0711

Head Wigs at Any Inch. The minute we walk out the door in a wig, we feel as though the world is watching us. That sense of being on display is a kind of nirvana to inveterate wig-wearers–for whom heaven floats above a Starbucks on 60th St. and Broadway.

Barry Hendrickson’s Bitz-n-Pieces is a chrome and glass showroom of Kubrick-like limpidity. Signed headshots of Barry’s illustrious patrons hang in a gallery above white leatherette banquettes: Raquel Welch, whose photograph most of the world recognizes as the international symbol for "woman in wig," leads the pantheon, followed by such man-maned greats as Lena Horne, Milton Berle, Iman, RuPaul and Carly Simon.

Like Simon, many of Barry Hendrickson’s customers have undergone chemotherapy; they purchase wigs to get them through the growing-out stage following treatment. The 1970s afro party wig, the Technicolor bob, the mellow blonde squaw and the classic fright wig are largely absent here: this is a realm where more traditional styles like the Dyan Cannon shag, the Nicole Kidman cascade and the Valerie Perrine top-of-the-head ponytail reign. None of these, by the way, seems the least bit flamboyant in the va-va-voom milieu of the wig world.

Fittings are discreetly carried out in a mirrored back room by a team of stylists who will also cut and style your wig to order. Courtesy second fittings, plus cleaning and restyling services, are also available. Prices range from $200 to $3000 and wigs are made from both synthetic fibers and human hair. Sure, they’re pricey, but you’re worth it and, as Hendrickson points out in a seven-page brochure, "Every day is a great hair day when you own a wig!"

Best Internet Service
Netflix
www.netflix.com

Mail-Order Movies. Like eBay and Google, this is simply a superior Web product, both in concept and in execution. Netflix has replaced our video store. For $20 a month we get an unlimited slew of DVDs–the faster we watch them, the faster we get sent more.

Here’s how it works: we went to the Netflix website and created a queue of movies we wanted to see, selecting from a list of more than 10,000 DVDs (VHS tapes are available as well, but the selection is paltry). Netflix sent us the first three movies from our prioritized list within four days. Each one came in a little paper sleeve, and when we were done watching it, we sent it back (postage prepaid) to Netflix. As soon as they picked it up, they sent us the next DVD on our list. That’s it. For $20 a month, no late fees. This summer we caught up on all the terrific movies we’d missed over the past few years: Requiem for a Dream, Being John Malkovich, Natural Born Killers, Arachnophobia, The Pillow Book and Meet the Parents. We watched them all at our own pace, sometimes in multiple installments when we were interrupted by work, sex or nights out on the town, knowing that we could keep each movie forever if it took that long to watch it. (Our only complaint is that we got sent the bonus disc of Gladiator material instead of the actual movie.)

Until true, cheap video on demand arrives, our Netflix account will stay open and we’ll partake of the classic DVDs now being released: The Godfather, Citizen Kane and, what the hell, even Snow White.

Best Acting Class for Non-Actors
Upright Citizens Brigade
161 W. 22nd St. (betw. 6th & 7th Aves.)
366-9176

Yes, and… An astronomer friend of ours is fond of saying that at any point in time there exist no more than six real actors in the entire world. Everyone else, he avers, is full of shit.

A tad extreme? Sure, but we appreciate the way his little hardass aperçu flatters the art with tough love. Let’s face it: acting, when you void it of craft vagaries and nepotism and the Moloch of celebrity, requires otherwordly smarts and raw, almost biological aptitude–the stuff the university types still call genius. It’s precisely because so few actors, successful or otherwise, are in possession of genius, hereafter downsized to "talent," that acting gets such a bad rap.

Last winter, with all this in mind and following the dilettantish urge that will most certainly spell our ultimate ruin, we decided to take our first-ever acting class. But we didn’t care to consign our Saturday mornings to one of those barrel-hipped alcoholic queens in white Capezios who rubs his gin-abdomen and showers you with spittle as he screams, "What’s your motivation?" This is acting for non-actors, you see. There were limits to our dedication; we wanted to have fun.

Anyway, around that time a friend urged us to check out a show at Upright Citizens Brigade. We did and found some of the performances of their intermediate-level comedy troupe smart and funny. Yet something about the audience response smacked too much of the Angelika pep-rally experience–all those wry, knowing guffaws given up to mediocre content. But so what, we thought. Everyone onstage seemed to be having a blast and there really were some great moments.

So we signed up for the 8-week, three-hour beginner course ($300) taught by senior UCB members. The course itself was designed to teach "The Harold," a type of long-form sketch improvisation that was invented by Del Close, the acting teacher beloved of every coked-up Second City comic genius this side of John Belushi. Now, allowing that improv and acting occupy quite different realms of the thespian universe (and that improv has some scary connotations of its own, to be sure), we were downright blown away by how awesome this Harold thing is. It operates on some truly admirable and, dare we say, universal artistic first-principles: discovering the game between characters, playing characters honestly, playing a scene to the top of one’s intelligence, existing onstage primarily as a fellow actor, forgoing the cheap/easy laugh and reaching for the uncommon, failing huge and developing a group mind. Proceeding from those basic tenets our class of mostly beginners learned how to create two-person scenes using that improv-familiar word/phrase callout suggestion as starter material. It was fun to see individual styles develop of their own and to witness the group evolving into its own little organism. It was also psychically diminishing in a way to have to assume a character role in a thumb-snap, make it real and let it be funny while not trying to make it be funny.

We say diminishing because it’s here where the genius/talent thing reenters the picture: one or two people were naturals at this stuff. Most had to sweat, but made it work. And a few, which is where we fell in, came up wanting most of the time. Sure, we didn’t always fuck things up. Just enough that we’ll pause before our next Keanu Reeves dis (and if you want to call that newfound respect, go ahead). Anyway, we’re done with our acting experiment for now, but we attend shows at UCB from time to time. We’re not surprised to find evidence there of an actual scene–one that’s competitive in what seems like a healthy sort of way, supportive, even experimental and abuzz with the knowledge of its own potential. Now it’s on to the piano…