Sunday blog: The Beatles (well, a couple of them) sing "What's The New Mary Jane?"

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A few years ago I decided I needed a complete set of the Beatles on CD, so I scoured eBay, and found a Ukrainian who was offering just that for sale. I paid my USD$110 and held my breath.

 

 

After about four months, just at the point when I was picturing some anonymous Yuri or Boris frolicking with my money on the banks of the Dneister and laughing at my gullibility, I received a very suspicious-looking parcel, wrapped in brown paper and ugly twine (I wish I'd kept it, it looked incredibly illicit) with a whole boatload of nicely-packaged Ukrainian CDs in it, with every note from every Beatles album, and a whole bunch of other music included besides. It was the Ultimate Deluxe Bootleg Black-Market Package, including album art and lots of studio recordings that I'd never heard before.

 

 

Here, from those highly suspect Ukrainian CDs, is a song I bet you've never heard. It's called “What's The New Mary Jane?” It was recorded by John, and George, and Yoko, and Mal Evans, while sitting on the floor during the taping of the White Album. They were incredibly high, in case you can't tell. The song very nearly made it onto the album, too.

 

 

I like it.

 

 

What a shame Mary Jane had a pain at the party!

 

28_What's_the_New_Mary_Jane.m4a Listen on Posterous

 

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Stop eating so much sugar and fat!

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We crave fat. When we eat it, our bodies produce something called endocannabinoids, which resemble the active ingredient in marijuana. And that makes you want to eat more fat.

 

 

We were born to be hunter-gatherers, as my student/assistant Noah reminded me the other day. (He's taking pre-med classes, and is also a varsity football player, so he knows his stuff.) The closer we keep to the Original Human Diet – complex carbohydrates, proteins – the more naturally our body responds to them.  (Noah claims he eats nothing but oatmeal and brown rice and chicken.  I have seen him eat chocolate, however.  Hmm.)  With unlimited access to fat and sugar . . . well, unpleasant things happen, like obesity, and diabetes, and fatty liver. We were not intended to have quite this much sucrose in a given day. As for fat – well, it was pretty scarce back on the savanna when our ancestors were chasing gazelles. Grandma and Grandpa Australopithecus gobbled it all up as soon as they found it, and their bodies taught them to crave more.

 

 

And we, their descendents, still crave it.

 

 

My Polish grandmother used to eat lard on bread. “Lard is rich people's food,” my mother said.

 

 

Yikes.

 

 

I've never gone quite that far, but I recall buying a dozen Dunkin' Donuts in one of those big pink-and-orange boxes, and eating all twelve while on the phone. (This was back in my plump-and-pleasant days, naturally.)

 

 

Nowadays I'm skinny and agile, and if any gazelles come past, I will lope after them and run them down.

 

 

Anyway: eat less fat. And sugar. They'll kill you.

 

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The Brown / Trinity Playwrights Repertory Theater, 2011

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Last weekend Partner and I attended the third and final production of this year's Brown / Trinity Playwrights' Rep. Every summer for the past six years, this mini-festival has produced three brand new plays and presented them serially and – as a grand finale on the last day – as a three-play marathon. (And God bless Lowry Marshall for bringing this to fruition.)

 

 

We have seen some real winners. We were in one of the first audiences to see “Boom,” which was last year the most-produced play in America. Some years ago we saw a screamingly funny play called “Chicken Grease Is Nasty Business!,” about love and marriage and friends and a Southern chicken restaurant, and I laughed harder than at pretty much anything else I've ever seen in the theater. We have seen plays about police dogs, and video games, and a musical based on Turgenev's “Fathers and Sons.” Another favorite was a musical called “Torah! Torah! Torah!,” about a bar mitzvah gone wrong, with some really good songs, and featuring Mr. Peanut.

 

 

A few duds, too. One of the worst was last year: I won't name it, it should rest in peace. I will only say that, unless you're Chazz Palmintieri or Patrick Stewart or Hal Holbrook or Lily Tomlin, you shouldn't attempt a one-person show. Enough said.

 

 

This year:

 

 

“She's Not There.” The description was unpromising: a couple whose lives are “upended by a new person in their lives.” Sound like a lot of movies you've seen? It started out in familiar territory: a couple in their 30s, comfortable but not ecstatically happy; the man meets a younger woman who lives in their apartment building, and -

 

 

But it built from there. The dialogue was fresh and witty. The three characters try making friends, ignoring one another, eviscerating one another. At the end of the day, things aren't quite the way you thought they would be.

 

 

But it was too long. Also, there was a gimmick (whether specified by the playwright I don't know), in which the scene-changes were done by “hipster movers,” who made minimal changes to the set and did little hipster dance moves. Funny the first couple of times; tedious for the rest of the evening.

 

 

 

“The Killing of Michael X: A New Film By Celia Weston.” This was loads of fun: it integrated a lot of film into the stage action. It was dreamlike and surreal at times, and almost everyone played at least two parts, but (and this is always a good sign) we never felt lost. We kept learning more and more about the characters, and it got funner and funner as we got higher and higher in the stratosphere. I have never laughed so hard while watching someone about to have her leg amputated with a buzzsaw.

 

 

On the downside: it was too hip. Too much in-joke chatter about movies, especially Godard's “Breathless” - and if you haven't seen “Breathless,” you really have no idea what they're talking about. But this is a minor cavil. The play was generally excellent.

 

 

Finally: “My New Best Friend.” Technically, it was the best play of the three. Absolutely brilliant staging: when characters are talking on the phone to one another, they stand, they face one another across the stage, they pace and circle one another. The minimal set décor is torn apart and assembled several times. The dialogue is very witty and sharp.

 

 

But – and here's the thing – the play is, among other things, about the dichotomy between New York and California. The New York-based characters are all smart and practical and a little rueful; the California-based characters are self-absorbed, silly, vain. “It reminded me of Woody Allen,” Partner said later, and he was absolutely right.

 

 

But you know what? We saw it first.

 

 

You might see it in local theater, or on Broadway, or maybe as a movie.

 

 

But we saw it first!

 

 

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Jury duty

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I have been a registered voter since 1976. I have lived in Rhode Island most of that time. And, in all that time, I have never been called for jury duty.

 

 

Until now.

 

 

The Providence County Courthouse is a 1930s pile that literally climbs up the side of College Hill; you can enter on the South Main Street side right across from the Providence River, get in the elevator, ride up five floors, and leave the building on the Benefit Street side, halfway up the hill. The elevators are ancient and full of fancy brass fixtures, and I expected to find little elevator operators with funny caps inside.

 

 

We straggled in, all 135 of us, and presented our summonses, and were given little JUROR nametags.

 

 

And they put us in a room and let us sit.

 

 

Luckily I have been alive for over fifty years and have learned a few things, so I brought lots of reading material. I felt dreadful for the guy next to me, who just kept turning his Juror Manual over and over again forlornly.

 

 

The jury-control people (or whatever they call themselves) talked at us for a while, and took us into a courtroom, which looked for all the world like an old New England church, with pews and reading-stands and everything, and the Rhode Island state seal instead of a crucifix. We were shown a video called “JURY DUTY: WHY ME?”, which reassured us that we would not be asked embarrassing questions, and that we would be released again as soon as possible, and that we would not serve on more than one trial, and that we might not have to do anything at all.

 

 

Then a judge popped out, very cheerful, to jolly us on. “Listen,” she said. “This is Rhode Island. If you get on a, let's say, trial about an automobile accident, and you find out where it happened, it will probably occur to you, 'I could just drive by there and take a look at it!' Don't do it. You're not an investigator. Don't research anything. Don't ask around. Don't Google anything.”

 

 

We got sworn in, and we went back to our room. By now we were all old friends.

 

 

But it was still horribly dull.

 

 

They gave us a mid-morning field trip to the downstairs coffee shop, run by a cheerful balding man who made the food and his blind wife who ran the cash register. “Golden toast!” he'd sing out. “Hot and delicious, from the Providence Superior Court, straight to you!” It took forever to get served, but believe me, it was a diversion, and we all badly needed diversion.

 

 

They sent us home at noontime; four cases were pending, but all were on the verge of settlement.

 

 

Second day: more of the same. I did my Financial Times crossword puzzle, and listened to another guy's really dull stories (well, actually, a few of his stories were okay).

 

 

And then, at noon the second day, they released us.

 

 

And now I'm done, for three years.

 

 

Such fun!

 

 

I'm a little sorry we didn't get to serve, though.

 

 

I heard there's a really neat murder trial coming up soon.

 

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Dissecting dinner before it dissects you

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Partner and I ate at Outback Steakhouse on Sunday. I don't care if you think this is bourgeois or not; the food is excellent, and reasonably priced, and I get a kick out of pretending that Tex-Mex food is really Australian grub.

 

 

Partner was feeling his inner cowboy and ordered a whole mess of ribs. I was more ladylike, and ordered the Outback Special: a nice little steak and a bunch of king-crab legs. My plate, when it arrived, looked like a prop from science-fiction movie, piled high with nightmarish alien body parts. Partner grinned and handed me a shiny metal thing that looked like an instrument of torture. “Get crackin',” he said.

 

 

I do not mind this too much – I'm a farm boy, I grew up eating with my hands and a pocket knife – but I like it better when someone does the operating for me. I'm messy, for one thing. I was a regular geyser of melted butter and little bits of crabshell the other night; they probably had to call Stanley Steemer to clean the booth after I got done.

 

 

My friend Apollonia doesn't like to dissect things at the table either. “Crab?” she said. “When they give you that stupid hammer and pliers? That's for chumps. Somebody should be able to smash up your crab for you, back in the kitchen.”

 

 

Littleneck clams and oysters I can handle easily; they're tedious, but they taste good. Mussels I adore, especially with garlic and tomato, and lots of bread to sop up the fragrant broth. Lobster I like okay, but only if someone has already dismantled the monster and put the meat in a nice little dish for me, with maybe some cracker crumbs on top.

 

 

And, well, speaking of mussels: usually hereabouts they give you Prince Edward Island mussels, which are small but succulent. Back in June, however, while we were on Cape Cod, I ordered a bowl of mussels marinara. They arrived in something like a tureen; each mussel-shell was the size of a souvenir ashtray, and the mussels themselves – while very good – were, um, big. And maybe a little gelatinous. The flavor was terrific, but the texture . . . um.

 

 

And, long ago while in Puerto Rico, I ordered a nice paella which promised a nice selection of mariscos. Ay yi yi! Along with the expected fish and conch, here was a tiny starfish. And over there: the most darling baby octopus, about the size of your thumb!

 

 

Never let it be said that I don't clean my plate, however.

 

 

Starfish: a little chewy. Not much flavor.

 

 

Octopus: bright, fishy, interesting.

 

 

But did it have to be a baby?

 

 

Its mother is probably still out there somewhere, looking for me.

 

 

So it's probably a good idea for me to keep my hammer and pliers handy . . .

 

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Captain America

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I mostly knew Captain America from his bad 1960s cartoon show, and he always left me a little cold. He could run and jump and punch, and he had that damned shield, but his costume was beyond dorkitude. I don't recall any individual episodes, but I still remember the theme song:

 

 

When Captain American throws his mighty shield,

All those who chose to oppose the shield must yield . . .

 

 

(There's an echo of T. S. Eliot's “Ash Wednesday” in that last line, but I digress.)

 

 

Well, Partner and I saw the new “Captain America” movie on Sunday, and I have maybe a little more respect for Cap now.

 

 

First of all, it's beautifully filmed. It's mostly shot in an elusive sepia, the color of old newspapers piled in the attic, to remind you that this is the 1940s, and the fights and battle scenes are very beautifully delineated. (We saw in in 2-D, which I don't think spoiled any of the effects; naturally Cap chucks his shield right in your face a couple of times, and there are a few explosions which I'm sure would have been spectacular in 3-D. But we didn't feel that we'd missed anything of importance.) But the final impression of the cinematography – and I think this is intentional – is of a very very very prolonged flashback.

 

 

So: we meet young Steve Rogers (Chris Evans, morphed down to the size of Gollum, or maybe Dobby the Elf). Steve is patriotic and kind and brave and sweet and asthmatic and anemic, and he has big sweet vulnerable eyes, and he aches to be a hero. We meet Stanley Tucci as Steve's mentor / kindly uncle / father figure; Tommy Lee Jones (who reminds me of a big talking piece of leather) as Steve's commanding officer, who basically reprises every role he's played over the past twenty years; and some skirt (Hayley Atwell) playing a tough cute scientist who provides the necessary love interest.

 

 

A few injections and Vita-Rays later, little Steve turns into gigantic Steve, and is provided with a seemingly endless supply of tight white t-shirts. (Evidently the machine that makes your muscles bigger also oils you up. Also, it's okay to leave your pants on during the transformation, because they change size automatically, right along with you.)

 

 

Big brawny Steve becomes a salesman for War Bonds; he sings and dances, he's featured in comic books, kids love him. (Get it?) And he is dismally unhappy, and dissatisfied.

 

 

Finally, however, he meets the villain of his dreams. Hugo Weaving plays Johann Schmidt, and if you don't know Johann's secret – and his comic-book monicker – I ain't gonna tell you. I loved Hugo's irritable / vaguely constipated Elrond in “The Lord of the Rings,” and his Agent Smith in the Matrix movies was wonderfully creepy. He's equally good here, as a smug uberNazi with an Odin complex.

 

 

There are a kajillion tie-ins with other recent Marvel movies: a dash of “Thor,” lots of “Iron Man,” and maybe even an echo of “The Hulk.” And we get a brief look-ahead to the Grand Unification: the Avengers movie promised next year.

 

 

And at the end of the movie -

 

 

Oh, come now. Who do you think I am? I wouldn't do that to you.

 

 

[Evil chuckle.]

 

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Produce in season

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Walking through the produce department in Eastside Marketplace the other evening was a delight.

 

 

It smelled like a country garden at dawn. Strawberries. Cherries. The warm musty smell of ripe tomatoes-on-the-vine.

 

 

These are the pleasures of “produce in season.”

 

 

I remember the Marche Central in Tunis, where we only got stuff in season. Of course, when you're in North Africa, seasons are longer, but you learn to appreciate what you've got, while you have it. Bananas we had maybe three days a year, when a shipment arrived from the Ivory Coast, and they were precious. (I remember walking down the street in Tunis after living there for a couple of years, and seeing a banana peel! And suddenly breaking into a sprint, running to the market, to see if there were any bananas left!)

 

 

And delicate morels, and sweet fresh reddish figs, and little soft pears that tasted like candy . . .

 

 

Sigh.

 

 

I saw a woman the other evening at Eastside Marketplace pick up a honeydew melon in one meaty claw and holler at a produce guy: “How can you tell if this thing is any good?”

 

 

I wanted to say: Smell it, you idiot!

 

 

 

You see how disconnected people have become with nature? She thought a melon was like a box of cereal, and had a “best by” date printed on it.

 

 

It never occurred to her that she was holding a big greenish seed-pod in her hand, bred to be big and juicy and fragrant . . .

 

 

Ah.

 

 

Coming soon: canteloupe!

 

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Sunday blog: The late Amy Winehouse sings "Rehab"

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I had a different song planned for today, but when the sad news of Amy Winehouse's death came around yesterday, I wanted to do a little tribute to her.

 

 

She was 27. Others who died at 27: Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain.

 

 

As of this writing, cause of death is still unknown. But I think we all have a pretty good idea of what might have happened.

 

 

I love this song: I love Amy's whiskey voice, and the chimes, and the horn section, and the quiet backup group that comes in on “No no no,” and the strings that creep in so stealthily at the end.

 

 

They tried to make me go to rehab; I said No no no . . .

 

Amy_Winehouse_-_Rehab.mp3 Listen on Posterous

 

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Spoiler alert!

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“I was watching 'Lord of the Rings' last night,” Apollonia told me not long ago. “And don't get me wrong, it's wonderful. But twelve hours! And then I was lying in bed and thinking about it. And all of a sudden I thought: Why couldn't one of the eagles just have taken the ring and dropped it into Mount Doom? Wouldn't it have been simpler?” She grimaced. “And then I realized that I have no imagination. I could never have written that story.”

 

 

“The goal is not the point of the story,” I said. “The journey is the point of the story.”

 

 

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I thought the point of the story was getting rid of the stupid ring.”

 

 

“Well,” I said, “now you know why I always read the last page of a book first. I can't stand suspense. I want to get it over with.”

 

 

She recoiled, as if I'd told her something truly horrible, like “Robert Pattinson and Tilda Swinton are actually the same person,” or “'Twilight' was actually co-written by Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann.” “How can you do that?” she squealed. “It goes against nature.”

 

 

“That's me all over,” I beamed. “Against nature.”

 

 

Seriously, I can't stand suspense. I like mystification and puzzles, but I noticed a long time ago that most dramatic situations end up having unsatisfactory conclusions at the end of the day. Remember “Twin Peaks”? I loved it. But then the writers thought that they actually had to explain what was going on, and everything fell apart. Ditto “The X-Files.”

 

 

 

Speaking of “The X-Files”: I was talking to my student assistant Noah the other day about the show. He's never seen it, but he loves fantasy and science fiction and crime drama, and is planning to stream the whole series on Netflix. (These kids these days and their technology!) “There was this terrific sexual tension between Mulder and Sculley on the show,” I said. “And they never really resolved it, until -”

 

 

He covered his ears with his hands. “Lalalala!” he screamed. “Don't tell me! I don't want to know!”

 

 

See? Another one. Just like Apollonia.   

 

 

 

But sometimes I find an innocent victim.

 

 

Years ago, I was attending a Film Society event at Brown, and the girl taking money at the door had the Penguin edition of “Sense and Sensibility” lying on the desk in front of her as she made change for people. (This was back in the 1980s, before every single Jane Austen novel was made into a film.) “Enjoying it?” I said, nodding at the book.

 

 

“I really am,” she said earnestly. “She writes so well. And, you know, I'm only about halfway through, and I really don't know what's going to happen. I assume they're both going to get married, but - ”

 

 

“Elinor marries Edward,” I said smoothly, “and Marianne marries Colonel Brandon.”

 

 

I have never forgotten the incredulity on her face. “Why did you tell me that - ”

 

 

But it was too late; I'd escaped.

 

 

This is one more thing I will have to account for on the Day of Judgment.

 

 

I'm against nature, remember?

 

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Harry Potter and the slam-bang finale

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Finally, after all these years, it's over.

 

 

And this final movie, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two,” is the best of the lot.

 

 

All of the young actors know exactly what they're doing now. (It's been ten years, so they'd better.) It's wonderful to see Emma Watson as a calm and very confident young woman; Rupert Grint isn't goofy anymore, but stalwart and funny and sort of cute if you squint at him the right way; and dear Matthew Lewis as Neville Longbottom, the Wimpy Kid of Gryffindor, has matured beyond all recognition, and is now handsome and brave and pretty much the tallest kid in his class.

 

 

Daniel Radcliffe. Okay. He's excellent. But he's a place-holder. He's you, you see? He's your foothold in the story. You're supposed to identify with Harry, so they couldn't really cast anyone really dramatically distinctive in the role – not a funny redhead like Grint, not a zombie albino like the mutant who plays Draco Malfoy. Radcliffe is perfect in this regard, sort of like Elijah Wood over in “The Lord of the Rings”: he's got an interesting face and a pleasing personality, but he mostly reacts to stuff. Picture him in your mind. You're seeing him looking at something and reacting to it, aren't you? And that's perfect. I foresee a long and successful career for Mister Radcliffe, and more power to him.

 

 

The older actors – you know, the entire British acting community over the age of thirty – really only need to show up in costume. But it's wonderful to see Maggie Smith's deadly serious face when she's wand-to-wand with her adversary, and later to see her irrepressible giggle when she casts a spell that she's always wanted to cast. Nice to see Emma Thompson with her thick spectacles on; nice to see Julie Walters growling like a mother tiger, fighting with the terrifyingly insane-looking and insane-acting Helena Bonham Carter.

 

 

Hope I didn't spoil the movie for you with those glimpses.

 

 

But I didn't, did I?

 

 

And, see, that's the thing. There are no spoilers here. You've either read the book, in which case you know what's gonna happen, or you haven't, which means that – well, you pretty much know how it has to end, right? (Hint: don't get that Death Eater tattoo just yet.)

 

 

The cinematography is beautiful. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie with night scenes in which I could actually make out what was going on. (We saw it in 3D, and there are a few worthwhile effects – some of the spells, some of the pyrotechnics. But, kids, save your three dollars. You really won't miss a thing if you don't see it in 3D.)

 

 

The movie actually improves upon the book in a few places; it omits some of the tedious flashback stuff, and straightens out a few of the more roundabout plotlines. And maybe things don't happen quite like the book in a few places – but wouldn't it be a bore if they did?

 

 

And I am so effing grateful to see the bloody quidditch stadium burn down. Because – you know what? - I think quidditch is stupid.

 

 

But this movie is not stupid. It is really grave and beautiful and solemn.

 

 

And a lot of fun to watch.

 

 

So. Imperio! See this movie!

 

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Shula's 347 Grill, Providence, Rhode Island

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For a long time, Providence had only one steakhouse: the Capital Grille. It was expensive and very deluxe; I've only ever had dinner there once, for a colleague's farewell party, and I felt like an orphan foundling at a Presidential dinner. The service was immaculate, the food excellent, the ambiance old-school: lots of wood paneling and wine bottles and waiters who shimmered up out of nowhere.

 

 

Now high-end steakhouses have popped up everywhere. Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Fred & Steve's Steakhouse, up at Twin River. Fleming's, which Partner and I visit every few months, and which has given us some really tremendous meals.

 

 

And we finally hit Shula's 347 Grill on Independence Day.

 

 

We felt like trying something new, and I happened to have a gift certificate, and we had nothing else to do. We got there around 2:00 p.m., and there was – literally – no one else in the place. We had a server named Milton, who was perfect in that old-fashioned steakhouse way: very attentive without overdoing it and without intruding. We had appetizers and burgers, so we can't speak to the high-end steak menu, but I can tell you that we had an excellent meal.

 

 

Partner's big problem with the place, of course, had to do with the founder. “So,” I said, “Shula was a football player.”

 

 

Partner grimaced. “Coach,” he said. “Miami Dolphins. He won a couple of Super Bowls in the 1970s. Big deal.” (Partner is a New England Patriots fan.)

 

 

I pointed over to the entryway, where two huge metallic football-shaped trophies stood. “I assume those are Super Bowl trophies?”

 

 

He glanced over disdainfully. “Replicas.”

 

 

“Maybe, when you win the Super Bowl, they give you as many trophies as you want,” I said.

 

 

Partner grunted. “Bill Belichick won three Super Bowl trophies.”

 

 

“Well, he should open a nice restaurant too,” I said. “All the waiters could wear hoodies. And when you compliment the waitstaff, they can say: 'I can't take credit. It was a team effort.'”

 

 

Partner grunted again.

 

 

Well, it was an excellent meal, despite the fact that we were surrounded by photos of Don Shula shaking hands with celebrities I didn't recognize.

 

 

As we were leaving, I spotted one last photo on the wall: Shula shaking the hand of Bill Belichick. I called Partner over to see it. Belichick had signed it, and written a long note to Shula on the photo.

 

 

And he signed it: Bill Belichick, SB 36 / 38 / 39 champions.

 

 

One more Super Bowl than Shula won, see?

 

 

Bill Belichick is a shady bitch!

 

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The world is coming to an end, you stupidheads!

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A report was recently released on the health of the seas.

 

 

Here's a quick summary: it ain't good.

 

 

Marine species are dying. The chemical composition of the sea is itself changing. There is reason to believe that we are in the first phases of the sixth great extinction in the Earth's history, and that we – human beings – are responsible for it.

 

 

There are so many man-made disasters, big and small. A recent episode of Halogen's “Angry Planet” gave us the death of the Aral Sea and Chernobyl, in one brief half-hour program. Oh, and just for laughs, there's a lab on an island in the Aral Sea where the Soviet government stockpiled – and weaponized! - things like bubonic plague and anthrax. Except that it's not an island anymore; the drying of the Aral Sea (see above photo) has connected the island to the mainland. Rats and mice and vermin in general are probably carrying bits and pieces of all those deadly things to land.

 

 

Charming.

 

 

I'm always pleased to bring you news of the apocalypse. One of these times, it's bound to be true.

 

 

And it's always best to be prepared.

 

 

So put your crash helmet on, buckle your seat belt, and start screaming now.

 

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Imaginary hometowns

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In Italo Calvino's novel “Invisible Cities,” Marco Polo describes imaginary places to the Emperor of China. They are wonderful, and impossible.

 

 

This is at least partly because they do not exist.

 

 

Okay, Italo Calvino. How about this?

 

 

The town my mother was born in no longer exists. The town my father was born in never existed. And the town I grew up in doesn't quite exist.

 

 

I will elaborate.

 

 

Bayne, Washington, where my mother was born, was a “railroad town,” with “houses” built for the railroad workers. When we took our yearly trip up to visit Grandma, Mom would point over into a field of yellowed grass and say: “I was born over there!” And all I could see were some burnt-out shacks lost in the trees and weeds. It still shows up on a few maps, but there's really nothing there.

 

 

Glade, Washington, where my father was born, was a fiction: just a name that my grandparents chose to call their farm in rural Klickitat County, Washington in the early decades of the Twentieth Century. Dad was born in the Glade in January 1914. The weather was very cold. Grandma felt her water break (it was at least her third birth) and told Grandpa to hitch up the buckboard to take her into town to have her child. He took a long time about doing it, so Grandma (I'm quoting her, by the way) “mixed herself up a hot toddy to keep the cold away.”

 

 

By the time Grandpa got back in the house, Grandma was drunk on the kitchen floor, giving birth to Dad. She didn't quite know what to do with the umbilical cord; she knew it was supposed to be tied off, so she tried to loop Dad around and through it, as if tying a shoe.

 

 

They never quite made it into town. But Dad got born anyway, right there in the house, in “Glade, Washington,” which you will never find on any map. There's a Glade Cemetery, with a few markers. I dare you to find it.

 

 

As for me, I grew up in Venersborg, Washington. It's on the side of Spotted Deer Mountain, in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. It's not a real city or town; Wikipedia calls it a “census-designated place,” which sounds about right. Mom and Dad are buried in Venersborg Cemetery over by Finn Hill, and it's always the first place Partner and I go when we visit the Northwest. Sometimes, when I'm very nostalgic, we drive all the way up the hill to look (from a distance) at the house I grew up in. It's been remodeled, and it's different now.

 

 

But it's still there.

 

 

Children: be proud of your imaginary heritage!

 

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North African food: Chakchouka

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Writing about North African food a few weeks ago made me hungry.

 

 

So I made chakchouka. And it was delicious.

 

 

Here's my speeded-up American version of the Tunisian recipe:

 

 

• Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a saute pan.

• Add chopped sweet peppers, onion, tomato, etc.: about two or three cups' worth. Also some garlic. Also some salt and pepper. Also something hot: a can of chopped green chilies, a finely diced jalapeno pepper, or (if you have some) a teaspoon of Tunisian harissa. (Actually, Partner and I have been using Ro-Tel tomatoes lately, and I have to say that they're pretty good, so you could add a can of those.)  Lacking any of the above, add a tablespoon or so of goyishe hot sauce.

• Saute the above for about five minutes, until the onions are translucent.

• Add about a cup of storebought marinara sauce, or a small can of tomato sauce, and allow to cook for about another five minutes.

• Now: carefully break three eggs into the simmering sauce. Don't mix them in; just let them insinuate themselves into the mixture.

• Reduce the heat, cover, and let the eggs poach in the vegetable/sauce mixture for about ten minutes. Check from time to time for over/undercooking. Spoon a little of the sauce onto the eggs. Try not to break the yolks, but it's okay if you do.

• Prepare and eat a green salad while you're waiting for the eggs to poach. (This is a very civilized recipe; it allows you to dine while cooking.)

• When the eggs are cooked, serve your chakchouka piping hot, with a fresh loaf of French or Italian bread for dunking.  (In North Africa, the bread is actually the eating utensil.)

   

 

See how nice?

 

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Sunday blog: The Roches sing "Moonswept"

 

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I have loved the Roches for a long time. There are three of them, if you don't know their theme song: Maggie and Terre and Suzzy. They performed together for a while in the 1980s and into the 1990s, then broke up, and have since reunited. They have a knack for writing and singing songs that make me laugh, and others that make me cry.

 

 

Their 2007 “Moonswept” album has a couple of things that (right on cue) make me cry.

 

 

The title song is the best on the album, I think. It is about the way things used to be, and about relationships, and shared memories, and growing older.

 

 

Or maybe it's about the burnt heart of a small witch.

 

 

Doesn't matter. It's just one of the songs that pretty much always makes me cry.

 

 

With us, its isness was obvious

And the ones that followed, they knew of it too;

But the broomstick fell behind the moon . . .

 

04_Moonswept.m4a Listen on Posterous

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Getting old with Sara Teasdale

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Partner and I have lots of interesting retirement schemes. Most of them rely on non-traditional methods, like keno and Powerball.

 

 

One plan is that I win big on "Jeopardy!," the TV game show. I've auditioned four times. I have high hopes.

 

 

But I didn't get called for an audition this year.

 

 

I know I did poorly on the online test. I used my laptop, which was a mistake; I skipped over a couple of questions just because the keyboard was balky.

 

 

But I can't blame it entirely on my laptop. The truth is that my memory is deteriorating very rapidly.

 

 

Once, not long ago, I was encyclopedic. I knew who was in what movie, and who wrote what, and what characters were in what books, and what year who did what. I was unstoppable. The other night, however, I was watching "Jeopardy!" while on the treadmill in the health club, and presumably my blood was pumping to all relevant sections of my brain, but my recall was patchy at best.

 

 

It happens, they say, with age.

 

 

You know the Sara Teasdale poem about climbing the hill?

 

 

I must have passed the crest a while ago,

And now I am going down -

Strange to have crossed the crest and not to know,

But the brambles were always catching the hem of my gown.

 

 

All the morning I thought how proud I should be

To stand there straight as a queen,

Wrapped in the wind and the sun, with the world under me -

But the air was dull, there was little I could have seen.

 

 

It was nearly level along the beaten track,

And the brambles caught in my gown;

But it's no use now to think of turning back,

The rest of the way will be only going down.

 

 

Sigh.

 

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Irish castles

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When Partner and I went to Ireland in 2007, we saw (and clambered through) no less than three castles in our seven short days there:

 

 

• King John's Castle in Limerick. Early 13^th century, honeycombed with tiny staircases and wee little low-ceilinged rooms. (People were evidently mighty small in King John's day.) Lots of dungeons, of course; you can never have enough dungeons. And a nice young handsome well-muscled Irishman was forging coins down in the Mint, and made both of us a Limerick shilling on the spot, for a couple of euros.

• Cahir Castle, in Carrick-on-Suir. We passed through Carrick en route to Cashel, and had a couple of hours to kill, and – well, wasn't there a castle right over there? Cahir Castle is lovely. Mostly 15^th - 16^th century, with a few earlier bits. A nice big rack of Irish elk antlers on the hunting lodge wall. (The Irish elk was a monstrously big fellow, with antlers the size of the average modern playground jungle gym, who got hunted to extinction.) The castle has iron gates, and a big ugly iron eagle on one of the parapets. We had a wonderful time tromping around on around the ramparts and looking down on the town of Carrick, which is itself a charming little Irish town. (Here's a tip, though: we made the mistake of eating in an Italian restaurant there. Do not make the same mistake we made.)

• Cashel. The Rock of Cashel is something out of Tolkien: a gigantic crag in the middle of the green valleys of Tipperary. A castle – actually a whole bunch of castles, built over centuries – guard the top of it. We wandered through them, and saw St. Patrick's Cross, and I picked a shamrock from the grass. (But, frankly, the Rock looks better from a distance; close up, the buildings are in desperately bad shape – the guide told us that one of the chapels was full of poisonous mold. )

   

 

One last tip: if you go to Ireland, you will do well to stay off the beaten path. The little towns are really the best. I'd never heard of Carrick before we went to Ireland, and I ended up having a lovely time there.

 

 

Just don't go to the Italian restaurant down the street from the castle.

 

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RuPaul's Drag U., season two

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Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch recently said that summer television is a) not gay enough and b) suffers from a RuPaul deficiency.

 

 

That all changed on Monday, June 20, 2011.

 

 

When “RuPaul's Drag U.” premiered last summer, I was prepared to sneer it off the airwaves. I liked Drag Race very much, but the “Drag U.” concept – having drag queens give makeovers to straight women – was too much. Add to that the conceit that this was a “university,” with “faculty” (actually, Ru pronounces it “falcuty”), and “deans” and “draguation” (!).

 

 

But the show won me over instantly. It was – surprise! - goodhearted. It reminds me of the old “Queen For A Day” show, on which tearful housewives told their stories in return for washers and dryers and blenders. But the real prize on “Drag U.” is self-esteem. The women dress up in Marilyn Monroe wigs and sequined frocks, and they do kindergarten-level lipsynch in front of a supportive audience, and you watch them realize that this is fun.

 

 

The first show of the second season was wonderful. The contestants arrived looking tired, uncertain, and bedraggled, and ended the show looking fabulous.

 

 

They're retooled the show a bit since last year. It's sillier and has more stupid jokes. But it has a lot more Lady Bunny, for which I praise all the Drag Gods. And, as I was watching the wrap-up of the first show of the season, it suddenly hit me that Ru (in his most elegant suit-and-tie drag) was wearing a white suit with a pastel Hawaiian print, with a lilac shirt and an iridescent lime-green tie.

 

 

He looked wonderful.

 

 

And isn't that the point?

 

 

It's only a shame that there can only be one winner.

 

 

Ru: can't you figure out a way for everybody to win?

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Mount St. Helens

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The other evening, I was eavesdropping on the science program Partner was watching in the bedroom. “The biggest volcanic eruption in North America in a hundred years,” the narrator said. “It was once a perfect cone-shaped volcano.”

 

 

Ah. Yes. I know the one.

 

 

I grew up with Mount St. Helens almost always on the horizon. Our house was on the wrong side of the hill from it, but you didn't have to go far to get a pretty spectacular view of it. For most of my school years, it sat right outside my classroom window. St. Helens was perfect. It was always snow-capped (in the 1960s and 1970s it seldom lost much snow, even in the summer), and it had the most perfectly graceful shape.

 

 

The Native Americans (so I'm told) had a story about St. Helens and the other big volcanic peaks in the area. St. Helens was the daughter of Mount Rainier; she was fought over by two suitors, Mount Adams and Mount Hood. The fight was violent enough to destroy the Bridge of the Gods that spanned the Columbia River. (Evidently Mount Adams won, because Adams and St. Helens are right next to each other now, with Hood glaring at them from across the river.)

 

 

St. Helens was mostly invisible in the winter, hidden by clouds. In summer it was like a nice big scoop of ice cream on the horizon. It was refreshing to look at, and strangely demure.

 

 

And then one morning in 1980 Mount St. Helens went WHOOMP.

 

 

I'd been living in Rhode Island for a couple of years by that time, but I was in touch with my family. To be fair, everyone out there had lots of warning. My mother had told me that the whole mountain was swelling up; you could plainly see the huge lump in the side of the mountain from Interstate 5, thirty miles away. And if my mother could see it, it had to be pretty evident to everyone.

 

 

The authorities tried to evacuate the area. They really didn't foresee the real problem, though: huge floods and mudflows which swamped the Toutle and Cowlitz Rivers, washing people away.

 

 

We never dreamed it’d blow up.

 

 

Now, thirty years later, when I visit my old hometown, I look northeast and see a sulky misshapen blue-white lump, half-hidden in mist, with a big bite taken out of one side.

 

 

The things we remember from childhood are all taken away from us, one by one.

 

 

Gautama was right: all things pass away.

 

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I am Ganesha, the remover of obstacles

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Kids love to play superhero games, like: If you were a superhero, who would you be?

 

 

Well, speaking for myself, I wouldn't want to be any of them.  They have to wear tights and capes and things and fly around and save people.  What a nuisance!.  It would be more fun, I think, to be maybe an Egyptian or Indian or Chinese deity: you'd get to wear a lot of jewelry, in addition to dancing and playing the flute and riding your peacock and smiting people.

 

 

So let's rephrase the question: If you were a mythological character – any mythological character – who would you be?

 

 

No question for me. I would be Ganesha.

 

 

Dear elephant-headed Ganesha, the Lord of Beginnings and Remover of Obstacles.

 

 

I remember when I was in grade school, I couldn't open my locker. I was in tears. Mister Glass, the tall crewcutted threatening-looking assistant principal, approached me, asked me in clipped tones for my combination, and in short order opened my locker for me, while I watched, slack-jawed.

 

 

But apparently, he passed some magical power to me. And, ever since, I've found that I can pull off the same trick.

 

 

Can't open a package? Just let me! Door sticking? Doesn't stick when I open it! Computer isn't acting right? Gee, it's fine when I use it!

 

 

It is little short of miraculous. Correction: I am little short of miraculous.

 

 

The other day at work, a co-worker came to see if I had the key to a locked closet. “No,” I said. “That's padlocked, and they never gave me the key for it. But you never know.”

 

 

I rose from my desk, secure in my power, and glided down the hallway, with him (awestruck) in my wake. We got to the closet, and I touched the padlock -

 

 

And it lifted away. It wasn't even locked.

 

 

I am Ganesha, the remover of obstacles.

 

 

Pray to me at the beginning of your endeavors, and I will bless them.

 

 

I am also partial to sweets, so the occasional box of chocolates, or even a Snickers bar, couldn't hurt.

 

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Losing my senses

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Partner asked me recently: “Do you find that you prefer strong flavors more than you used to?”

 

 

“Absolutely,” I said. “I kind of figured that it was because I'm losing my sense of taste, the way I'm losing my eyesight and hearing.”

 

 

He nodded and looked sad.

 

 

I looked it up online, and sure enough, the sense of taste fades with age. Women begin losing taste acuity in the forties, men in their fifties. Also, the taste buds begin to shrink.

 

 

The first two flavors that fade away are sweet and salty. (Yes, that makes sense. Candy and pastry are less appealing to me now. And Partner salts his food like a fiend.) The ability to taste sour and bitter is more long-lasting. No information about umami.

 

 

It's a shame to have to leave the world of the senses behind.

 

 

Enjoy the subtlety of shadows and soft music and crème de Chantilly while you can, kids.

 

 

In one of my favorite novels, Graham Greene's “Travels With My Aunt,” someone offers elderly aunt Augusta some chocolate. She looks at it sadly. “I used to love chocolate,” she says. “I am getting old.”

 

 

Now I understand what she means.

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