Gay marriage in Rhode Island

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Wonderful news! The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations has become the tenth state of the Union to legalize gay marriage!

It’s a great day. It’s not a universally great day, of course; the federal government still doesn’t recognize gay marriage, which means we’re still in the turbulent state-by-state era in which interracial couples used to live. (Imagine: it used to be illegal for black people to marry white people, and states – well, hmm, Southern states – could still forbid it. Imagine!)

Will Partner and I marry? I don’t know. Largely it will depend on whether the pros outweigh the cons. Will it have tax advantages? Maybe yes, maybe no. Will it guarantee us the right to visit one another in the hospital when we’re sick? Almost certainly yes. (This is a big plus, because we’re both getting older.) What about the rights to inheritance, and to determine what happens when either of us passes away? (Another big plus, and I don’t need to remind you once again that we’re getting older.) And if it isn't confirmed by Federal law, the whole thing can still be thrown out the window.

But don't worry. If we decide to get married, I’ll be sure to announce it well in advance.

And I warn you that I expect very lavish wedding gifts.

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Movie review: "The Loved One" (1965)

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TCM featured “The Loved One” recently. The novel (by Evelyn Waugh) was strange enough, but the movie is stranger still. It was billed as “the motion picture with something to offend everyone.” Listen to this cast list: Milton Berle, Rod Steiger, Robert Morse, John Gielgud, Jonathan Winters, Liberace, Robert Morley, Tab Hunter.

Summary: an innocent young English poet-wannabe (Morse) comes to America in the 1960s to visit (and sponge upon) his successful uncle (the fey John Gielgud), who’s working in the movie industry. Uncle is fired from his studio and commits suicide. Nephew has nothing to fall back upon, and goes into the pet-cemetery business. His girlfriend (Anjanette Comer), who happens to be an embalmer at a high-class cemetery –

Well, you should really see the movie. It’s too funny and odd and outrageous.

Waugh’s novel is bitter enough, but the movie is far darker. It’s a bitter movie about the movie industry and the artificiality of Hollywood. Americans are shown to be shallow and stupid, but the British colony in Hollywood (led by the insufferably stuffy Robert Morley, an actor who plays “prime ministers and butlers”) is portrayed just as badly.

And the moral is: human beings are a bad lot. Bring on the replacements.

(Postscript: I couldn’t help counting up the name of gay actors in the cast: Gielgud, Liberace, Tab Hunter, Roddy MacDowell. It was a pleasure seeing them all together here. I hope they all got together after filming, and had a drink and a good laugh.)

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Saving the rhinos

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“I know how to save the rhinos,” my co-worker Apollonia announced at lunch the other day. “Really. It amazes me that no one has thought of this before.”

“Enlighten us,” I said.

She eyed me balefully. “You’ll think this is stupid, I know. But hear me out. People are killing rhinos because they want their horns, right? The greatest threat to rhinos is human beings, because they want their horns. So we corral all the rhinos, and tranquilize them, and remove their horns. Then there’s no reason for the poachers to kill them.”

I didn’t respond right away. Finally I covered my nose with my hand and said: “Ow!”

She scowled. “It wouldn’t hurt them. A rhino horn is made of keratin. It’s like a fingernail. They don’t need it.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s obvious.”

“What if it’s necessary to life as a rhino? What if –“

“Oh, they don’t use it for anything. They prance around, and jab one another with it.”

“Maybe,” I said, “girl rhinos judge boy rhinos by their horns. Maybe girl rhinos won’t be interested in boy rhinos anymore if the boy rhinos don’t have horns.”

“You,” Apollonia declared, “have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I ignored the obvious ridiculousness of this statement. “Okay,” I said. “So now what?”

“So,” Apollonia said, eyes glittering, “we need to put the idea out there. On the Internet.”

“Geez,” I said. “I don’t know anything about the Internet. How would we do a thing like that? Unless you want me to write about it in my blog, and use your real name - ”

“No!” she shrieked. “Don’t you dare!”

So there you are, kids.

Of course, there are also groups like rhinoconservation.org, which address the issue more directly.

But think about dear Apollonia’s idea.

Not very good, is it?

But her heart is in the right place.

Go visit rhinoconservation.org, and see what you think.

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Movie review: "Star Trek Into Darkness"

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I was nine years old and in the fifth grade when the first “Star Trek” series began on TV. It was a bit late – ten o’clock, I think – but, for some reason, my parents allowed me watch it. I was hypnotized. I remember especially the “Cat’s Paw” episode, with Korob and Sylvia, which first aired just before Halloween 1967:

I’ve never been  the same since.

I’ve seen most of the various TV series, and most of the movies. I didn’t care much for “Next Generation,” but I did love “Deep Space Nine.” “Voyager” I flirted with, but we never fell in love. “Enterprise” I didn’t connect with at all, though I think Scott Bakula is very hot.

The movies have mostly been disappointments. The first one was much looked forward to – I remember yelling “Beam me up!” in the theater lobby, which everyone thought was very funny – but it was really pretty terrible. “Wrath of Khan” was a good movie, as was the one with the whales – what was it? – “The Voyage Home.” Most of the “Next Generation” movies were completely forgettable. The movie before this one, “Star Trek” with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, was actually pretty good, although it seemed to indicate that we were moving  into, ahem, an alternate timeline, in which things didn’t happen the way they did in the original TV show or the first few movies.

Anyway: so here we are, on our second movie! Chris Pine (Kirk) and Zachary Quinto (Spock) are still both very cute. (The director likes to let the camera dwell on Chris’s pretty eyes for minutes at a time. I admit that his eyes are very special.) Spock is still in a relationship with Uhura (Zoe Saldana), and they’re spatting this time around, which is also cute. Scotty (Simon Pegg), Sulu (John Cho) and McCoy (Karl Urban) create a solid old-fashioned connection to the original series, funny and serious at the same time, and all three of them give terrific performances.

But, unfortunately, all of the above excellent performers are saddled with a sub-standard plot.

Benedict Cumberbatch is the villain, and he’s very good at being a villain, because he has that voice, and that slightly-inhuman face. But the plot is all things blowing up, and maybe the Klingons will attack us, and maybe there are bad guys within StarFleet!

Yeah, mm-hmm. We’ve done this before. About a million times.

There is a ton of stuff in this movie for the fans (which non-fans will not even notice): tribbles, a mention of Harry Mudd, the appearance of Carol Marcus. The producers made a big deal of not revealing the movie’s plot in advance, and I’ll play along. I will say this: Cumberbatch is playing a villain named John Harrison, but John Harrison is not his real name.

I went to this film as a Star Trek fan always does, hoping for a really good movie.

I came away thinking: “Oh, well. Chris Pine is cute, so it wasn’t a total loss.”

Well, anyway, I have high hopes for next weekend’s “Man of Steel.”

And if it turns out to be terrible: well, at least Henry Cavill’s very cute.

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The art of the tummler

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Partner and I were down on Cape Cod a few weeks ago, and we ate at our favorite restaurant, Captain Parker’s in West Yarmouth. The bar is always crowded with locals (always a good sign), and the dining room is always crowded with tourists like us (also a good sign), and the seafood is excellent.

I recognized our waiter on sight, as he’s waited on us before. He was a big cheerful guy, who worked the room like an expert; he chatted us up, wanted to know if we were golfers (which flattered us both, as we’re not golfers by a long shot); he got involved in a long conversation at a neighboring table about a recent Red Sox game; he jollied up the nearby birthday-party table by wanting to know where everyone was from, and pretended to know terrible stories about people from those towns.

He was, in short, a tummler.

From Dictionary.com:

tummler [toom-ler]: noun

1.     A male entertainer as formerly employed by resorts in the Catskill Mountains, who combined the duties of a comedian, activities director, and master of ceremonies, and whose responsibility was to keep the guests amused throughout their stay.

2.     Any lively, prankish, or mischievous man.

Origin: 1930-35 Yiddish tumler, one who makes a racket.

Many of the comedians of my childhood – Milton Berle, Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye, Phil Silvers – worked as tummlers early in their careers. Most of the big Catskills resorts have closed down since those days, of course. But the personality type (see definition #2 above) will go on forever.

Our friend at Captain Parker’s is a good tummler: friendly, amiable, and with a excellent sense of when to stop.

Some tummlers, however, do not have this nice awareness of their role. They think of themselves as the lives of the party, and end up being – well – obnoxious.

I think we all know a few of these. They’re noisy, and they never let up.

We like an occasional dose of Jerry Lewis or Milton Berle. We don’t want to live with them.

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For Sunday: the Kinks sing "Village Green Preservation Society"

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This song goes out dedicated to two of my friends:

-         Joanne, in Connecticut, who (literally) introduced me to the Kinks one dark evening in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1978;

-         Oma, in England, who actually lives in an English cottage.

All together now:

We are the Village Green Preservation Society,

God save Donald Duck, vaudeville, and Variety.

We are the Desperate Dan Appreciation Society,

God save strawberry jam and all its different varieties.

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Death on the Internet

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A co-worker and dear friend – let’s call her Lily – passed away about two years ago. At the time of her decease, she had all of five Facebook friends, of whom I was one.

She used to fret over her Facebook status constantly. She hated the fact that Facebook presented her as both a graduate of Harvard and Simmons. “Why doesn’t it always show Harvard first?” she asked me.

“It’s Facebook,” I said. “It addresses itself to the person looking at it. It may think I care more about Simmons than Harvard, and it’ll show me Simmons first.”

She looked murderous. “There’s got to be a way to fix this.”

Well, if you’re on Facebook, you know that there are very few ways to outfox Facebook.

Anyway, as I said, she passed away. I did not delete her from my Facebook friends, because I like seeing her name come up on my “friends” list. (Three of my seventy Facebook friends are deceased. I refuse to delete them. I like seeing their faces and names on the list. It allows me to pretend that they’re still alive.)

And then, the other day, I saw the following in my Facebook news feed:

LILY posted (five hours ago): I'm on the 6th day of Raspberry ultra drops and have lost 7lbs already, it's insane! the first 3 days alone I lost over 2lbs. it really is amazing... you gotta check it out!

Dear me. Evidently someone hacked poor Lily’s Facebook account (which was, of course, never deactivated), and is using it to promote Raspberry Ultra Drops, whatever the hell they are.

This is pretty funny, since (as I said) Lily had all of five Facebook friends, and I’m sure all of us were startled to see Lily posting on Facebook from beyond the grave.

But it made me think of George Carlin’s old joke: “If you die while you’re on hold, will the little light on the telephone stop blinking?”

We all have dozens of Internet identities and membership and accounts. What happens to them when we die?  Should I notify Facebook that Lily’s account has been hacked? If I do, will they do anything about it?

And what will your survivors do when you pass away, and suddenly six months later you come back from the dead on Facebook with news about a new weight-loss plan?

Probably it’s worth thinking about.

I love thinking about Lily, floating around in the afterlife, incensed about her Facebook account being hacked. Lily was the soul of propriety.

But I suspect that, wherever she is right now, she’s pretty calm about it.

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White trash cookery

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I’ve always known that I’m white trash. It’s a simple calculation: I’m one-half early Twentieth Century European immigrant, one-half American mongrel.

And we White Trash folk know what we like to eat.

And it’s nasty.

Here are a few menu ideas:

-         Make a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Or, better yet, store brand. Now add some Velveeta. Or, if you’re really white trash, some Cheese Whiz.

-         You know what’s better than a peanut butter sandwich? A peanut butter sandwich with a slice of bologna on it.

-         Or bananas.

-         Frozen pizza is always better with some ketchup on it.

-         Almost everything is better with crushed potato chips on top.

-         And you know what’s good with everything? Mayonnaise.

But the best recipe of all was given on Saturday Night Live in 1991, when Roseanne Barr portrayed a White Trash mother spontaneously inventing the tuna noodle casserole.

I paraphrase:

“Go next door and borrow some noodles. And then go to the store and get a can of cream of mushroom soup. Don’t get Campbell’s! Get Food Club! It’s cheaper! And I think there’s a can of tuna under my bed. Cook it all together. And don’t forget to save some for me, you little bastard.”

Bon appetit.

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Men's clothing, and magic, and psychometry

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Partner and I went recently to the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, to see a show about men’s clothing.

Shows likes this – fabric, clothing – usually bore the hell out of me. But this one was amusing, and really memorable. They had one of Mark Twain’s shirts. They had one of Andy Warhol’s terrible shaggy white wigs. They had a dapper trim little tux that had belonged to Fred Astaire, and a very small dress suit belonging to Truman Capote circa 1970. They had a Harris Tweed suit that might or might not have belonged to one of the British royals in the early 20^th century.

I was amused and really gratified to see these things. These were garments worn by famous people, and –

Well, and what? Why does that make them special?

Not long ago, a scientist on television showed how people impute mystical properties to things owned by famous people. He showed a group of people a fountain pen that he said had belonged to Albert Einstein, and asked if they wanted to see and hold it, and they all handled it reverently. Then he showed them a sweatshirt and told them it had belonged to Jeffrey Dahmer the serial killer, and asked them if they’d like to handle it or try it on. No one wanted to touch it.

He lied in both cases. The pen didn’t belong to Einstein, and the shirt didn’t belong to Dahmer.

But I understand implicitly what those people felt. We feel instinctively that objects take on the properties and personalities of their possessors. There are even psychics who claim that they have the skill of psychometry: the ability to read the histories of objects and their owners.

I own a Jean Cocteau lithograph – a portrait of Erik Satie – which was once owned by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. I like to think that I can feel the personalities of all three when I look at it: Cocteau’s imagination and drive, Satie’s whimsy and purity, Shostakovich’s dark humor and power.

I probably can’t feel any such thing.

But I like to think I can.

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Movie review: "42nd Street"

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I think about movies a lot. Well, of course I do: I’m a gay man over fifty. And sometimes I wonder: Is there really such a thing as “the best movie”?

It would need to be Practically Perfect In Every Way: acting, direction, cinematography, dialogue. It would need a cleverly-constructed plot that ends satisfactorily. It would need to leave you feeling profoundly moved – amused, charmed, thoughtful – so that, a week later, you’d still be thinking about it.

As it turns out, there are a number of movies like this (for me, anyway). So: is it “Annie Hall”? “Casablanca”? “Duck Soup”? “The Maltese Falcon”? “Godfather Part II”? “The Lion in Winter?”

I can’t do more than make a list of ten or fifteen that fit all the above criteria: dynamite acting, beautiful direction, a crackerjack plot, sharp dialogue. All of the above fit the bill.

And so does “42^nd Street.”

This is a gem from 1933, and it’s easily the best “hey, let’s put on a show!” movie ever made. In short: it’s the Depression, and two amusingly morose Broadway producers are putting together a Broadway show. They hire the mercurially brilliant director Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter), and the charming leading lady Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels). Dorothy sprains her ankle right before opening night. What will become of the show? Well, thank goodness there’s a plucky young chorus girl (Ruby Keeler) who can take over the part . . .

This sounds corny, but you can’t imagine how much fun it is until you’ve seen it. The dialogue – from eighty years ago – crackles with wit. (My favorite: the chorus performs an awful musical number, and the director screams in agony for them to stop. The musical director runs up front. “Didn’t you like it?” he asks. “Yes!” Warner Baxter screams. “I’ve loved it since 1905!”) The portrayals make me laugh, especially Ginger Rogers and Una Merkel as two sassy chorus girls, Ned Sparks as Morose Producer #1, and Guy Kibbee as a plump millionaire who likes to pat chorus girls on the bum. (The movie was pre-Code. Follow this link if you don’t know what that means. In short, for the rest of you: it means that the moviemakes could do pretty much what they felt like doing without censorship.)

This movie has some of the best musical numbers ever staged. Some of them are staged, remarkably enough, as practice numbers: you’re seeing them as if they’re being practiced for the Big Show. Naturally, you don’t see them in full costume and with full choreography until late in the movie, and then you see the genius of Busby Berkeley in full flower: the naughty hilarity of “Shuffle Off to Buffalo,” and the huge (and strangely moving) New York panorama of the title number.

And at the end, we see Warner Baxter the director on the sidewalk listening to departing audience members  talking about the show. They loved it! But why does the director get all the credit? It’s the leading lady that makes the show . . .

It’s a perfect ending.

It’s a perfect movie.

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Fisher cats

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Fisher cats are Mustelidae, like weasels and minks. They are the size of small dogs, and they have sharp vicious teeth. They are loners except in the spring, when they form packs.

And they are, apparently, all over Rhode Island.

The east side of Providence is now on Fisher Cat Alert. Here’s an email I received from a local source:

A neighbor just told me that there was a small pack of Fisher Cats out on our street (Everett Avenue) last night around 10 pm. They hissed at her. Also she saw a larger pack of them outside Waterman Grille a few nights ago. The manager has to go out to get them so people could get to their cars. She told me she heard that a woman walking her dog after dark on the blvd recently was approached by the pack and when they approached her dog she kicked at them. She ended up getting her foot mangled. I don't know if the police are aware of this but these animals are dangerous to small pets and their owners.

Before now, I was wary of skunks (which you can smell a mile away), and possums (one hissed at me once, a few years ago, from a neighbor’s doorstep, in the twilight), and raccoons.

But fisher cats?

What next? Siberian tigers?

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How lovely the violin

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My father played the violin!

Yes, indeed: farmboy though he was, he had a violin, and he took mail-order lessons. I inherited Dad’s violin, and the stack of 1920s mail-order lesson plans he learned from.

I never heard my father play. But I went through his old lessons, and I learned basic fingering at least. I never learned to play well, but I could probably still scratch out Frere Jacques or My Country ‘Tis of Thee.

Charming!

I should really take it up again.

On the other hand: there is nothing in the world worse than a beginner violinist. No, strike that: there’s nothing in the world worse than living in the vicinity of a beginner violinist. The screeching and squawking, if you’ve never heard it, is unearthly. And it just goes on and on.

Maybe, for Partner’s sake and the sake of all our neighbors, I will leave the violin alone, and take up something quieter.

Maybe needlework.

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For Sunday: Cab Calloway sings "Minnie the Moocher"

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Here’s another Fleischer cartoon from the Betty Boop collection: the great Cab Calloway as Koko the Clown, singing “Minnie the Moocher.”

She was the roughest toughest frail

But Minnie had a heart ‘bout as big as a whale.

Hi-de hi-de hi-de hi!

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What makes me not a Buddhist

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Alfred North Whitehead said that Buddhism is not so much a religion as a philosophy. Here is its root teaching, the Four Noble Truths:

-         Life is suffering.

-         Suffering is caused by desire.

-         To stop suffering, you must cut off desire.

-         Desire can be cut off by following Buddhism’s Noble Eightfold Path: right intention, right resolve, right speech, right livelihood, right action, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation.

Notice there’s nothing about god here, or creation, or the fate of the soul, or life after death. There is only the nature of our life here, now.

Different schools of Buddhism have emphasized different aspects of the path. The Theravada emphasizes individual renunciation and monasticism. Mahayana believers say that we all need to help one another toward enlightenment. There is the Vajrayana of Tibet and Mongolia, which invokes the aid of spirits and gods, which are – after all – manifestations of our own minds. There is also Zen, whose practitioners defeat their own minds and end by living in the moment perfectly.

I love reading about Buddhism. I have a large collection of Buddhist texts: the Sutras, ancient and modern explanatory texts, collections of koans, translations of Tibetan scriptures. I can quote them endlessly, and I sound very wise and mysterious when I do.

But I’m a fraud.

A Bhutanese monk named Dzongsar Jamyang Khentse wrote a book a few years ago entitled “What Makes You Not A Buddhist.” He explains in great detail that Buddhism is not vegetarianism, or non-violence, or a method of interior decoration or flower arrangement. It is a way of life, a way of thought.

Well, sometimes I’m a Buddhist and sometimes I’m not.

I am sincerely sick and tired of the Wheel of Life and Death. I long for Nirvana, which is not extinction, and which is not not extinction. (See, I’ve read the Heart Sutra.)

But there is a special Buddhist condemnation for people like me, who read and quote, but who don’t follow the path. I paraphrase the following story (which I believe I read in “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones”:

In a monastery there was a monk named Bright Star. He was the most learned, and had read the most books of study and teaching, and the other monks were in awe of his erudition.

One day suddenly he died.

A few weeks later, the abbot saw a stirring in the garden outside his window. It was the spirit of Bright Star, moaning and suffering, begging for release from his punishment.

I understand. Reading is not Buddhism. Learning is not Buddhism.

But I’ve had glimmerings of understanding – what the Japanese call “kensho,” the lesser enlightenment. You know? Those quick moments in which you almost understand how the universe really works.

So maybe there is still hope for me.

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Eat like your ancestors

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I received a coupon recently for a product called “Suzie’s Puff Cakes.” They look like rice cakes, but they’re made of spelt.

Yes, spelt.

There’s been a vogue for rare and unusual grains recently. If they’re “ancient” – some primitive holdover from the pre-wheat era – so much the better. Spelt is one of these: not a parent or grandparent of modern wheat, but more like its maiden aunt. It’s still grown in Central Europe, and there’s a growing market for it.

As there is for teff (a cereal grass grown in Ethiopia) and quinoa (the seed of a goosefoot relative, from South America), and amaranth (the seeds of a lovely Mexican plant), and Khorasan wheat (which has been patented as “Kamut”).

What do they taste like? Well, try them. They’re all pretty much okay, they won’t shock you. (Quinoa disappoints me a little; it has an odd flavor which, frankly, needs to be covered up.)

But they have the charm of being uncommon and a little strange.

And isn’t it fun to eat something your ancestors might have eaten?

Coming soon: cooking with samphire!

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Reading the signs

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Sometimes I mock superstitious people for their credulity. It’s all very silly, isn’t it, all this hokum?

Oh dear. I’m such a hypocrite.

I myself have about a million little superstitions. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I used to walk to work, and I always noticed playing cards in the streets. (I never see these anymore. What’s happened? Don’t people play cards anymore?) Playing cards match up with Tarot cards, and I used to tell my dailyfortune by the cards I saw. The nine of hearts foretold a very good day; the ten of spades meant a very bad day. And so on.

Now it’s finding change in the street. I’ve decided that finding money is a good omen. A penny will do; a nickel is better, or a dime, naturally. Some days I find handfuls of change (Providence is installing more parking meters, and people seem to throw change around in all directions). Once in a while I find folding money. Those are special days.

(Why do I do this? Why do any of us do this? Simple: we look for meaning in the world. We believe instinctively that everything is linked to everything else.)

(Not very logical, right? But very human.)

Not long ago, I was anticipating a pretty awful day. I walked to work as normal, hoping to find (at least) a penny in the street. But I found nothing.

Then, suddenly, on a wire fence, I saw a huge crow. It cawed, and suddenly something dark moved in the tree above, and I saw another.

Two crows.

Ah.

One crow sorrow, two crows joy;

Three crows a girl, and four crows a boy.

Five crows silver, six crows gold;

Seven crows a secret never to be told.

I can’t even remember where I learned that rhyme, but it cheered me. Two crows joy. An omen!

And then, a few moments later, I found a nickel in the street.

And you know what? The day turned out to be pretty good after all.

(The world is a mysterious place. Anything is possible.)

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Neanderthal DNA

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23andMe.com, the online DNA-analysis company, came back to us with information on our Neanderthal descent. Mine is 2.6 percent; Partner's is 2.8 percent.

There’s been lots of disagreement about our Neanderthal cousins. They were shorter than us and almost certainly stronger, with heavy brow ridges, and maybe larger brains. But Homo sapiens sapienssomehow swamped them, and now they’re gone.

Except that our H. sapiens sapiens ancestors (evidently) interbred with them.

The Neanderthal genome has been recovered from fossils and compared to the modern human genome. Result: most people of European and Asian descent have at least one percent Neanderthal DNA; some have as much as four percent. (People of pure African descent have none at all, or nearly none.)

It’s fun to think about our caveman ancestry. I even bought the t-shirts that 23andMe offered, with a cute Fred Flintstone-type caveman depicted on them, and Partner’s and my respective percentages printed alongside.

But maybe I’m proud of my Homo sapiens sapiensancestry too. Maybe I’m proud of all my ancestors, unicellular and multicellular, mammalian and primate. They all had one thing in common: they reproduced, and their offspring lived long enough to reproduce also.

I have not had children in my lifetime, and almost certainly never will. My genome (such as it is) will be lost. But hopefully my nephews and nieces will manage to carry on the odd and unique messages in our family DNA.

I feel like a caveman, thinking about a future I won’t share.

But maybe – just maybe – some fragment of my family inheritance will survive in that future.

Here’s hoping.

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(American) Chinese food

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I’m not Chinese, but I’m an American. So naturally I eat Chinese food. But maybe not the way Chinese people eat Chinese food.

Pretty much my first exposure to Chinese food was in Spokane in the mid-1970s, while I was in college. It was a revelation. Big platters of food! Family style! Egg rolls!

Well, it was middle-of-the road American Chinese food, naturally. Some of the dishes had Chinese names – “moo goo gai pan,” naturally – but most of them were perfectly Americanized.

But it was good. No: it was delicious.

Then I came to Providence, and learned about all kinds of exotic specialties, like Ants in a Tree, and Happy Family.

Then I visited my mother in rural Washington state, and she was very excited to take me to the new Chinese place in her little town.

Oh my god. Everything had brown gravy on it. The fried rice was dripping with grease. The menu was beyond stereotypical: egg foo young, chop suey, chow mein. It was edible but revolting. I was rude enough to let my mother know that this was swill, and she was furious that I didn’t like her beloved (and, to her, delicious) “Chinese food.”

Well, I am much older now. She was right, of course. What’s authentic, really? American-style Chinese food is certainly not what they eat in China. It’s interesting, and it can be very good, but it’s not really Chinese food.

There are all kinds of local (meaning: American) variants. Here in southern New England, someone invented the chow mein sandwich (which is just what it sounds like, with lots of gravy, so the bread gets good and soaked). Also, in a lot of old-fashioned New England Chinese restaurants, you get bread and butter before your meal.

Partner and I were in his home town, a suburb of Boston, a while back. We visited a Chinese restaurant there – China Moon – which had been around since Partner’s childhood. It’s traditional American-Chinese. They still have subgum on the menu! And everything else!

The first time I had their food, I didn’t like it at all. It wasn’t what I expected. The sweet and sour had candied fruit in it!

But I’ve come around. It’s just one more American version of Chinese food.

And their hot-and-sour soup is superb.

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