when i was a kid, fellow southern californians were obsessed with The Big One—it was not only inevitable, it was immediately imminent—and i remember kicking some nerf product across our semi-bricked patio in the late eighties, thinking well, this is how the world ends, and picturing the chasm. it came again when bush the first declared war on iraq and i expected my fellow kids to walk out of school in protest (no one walked out of school). i return rather a lot to the morning my college roommate's mother called to alert her and me to what had happened in new york city, two weeks after i started writing here, almost two decades ago. san francisco was convinced it was the next target (after the world trade center and the pentagon, one strikes the golden gate bridge, of course). roommate and i drove from russian hill down to market and passed a cafe because it was the only storefront that had opened its grate: "WE STILL HAVE EGGS," a maitre'd called to no one as a newscast blared behind him, "EGGS!"
[msnbc is running ads for erection pills and annuities]
my dad and i walked around the central park reservoir a couple of times this afternoon; we talked about cognitive dissonance, how we don't think we've become more centrist over the years, and how a lot of the people i encounter on social media are probably too young to have vivid memories of bush v. gore. he offered that he thinks my stepsister, once focused on a single issue, is now woke. ("woke" is new in our conversations; he refers to "the twitters." in return, i introduced shit the bed.)
maudlin and anxious, i insisted on a few extra awkward hugs before joe went to sleep tonight. i then settled back into our expansive couch.
Showing posts with label san francisco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label san francisco. Show all posts
05.09.14
CONSUMED: A PARTIAL LIST.
the few (play). joe and i saw samuel d. hunter's the whale at playwrights horizons two winters ago; we both loved it, joe to such a degree that i've been able to convince him to see all sorts of things in the intervening years (thanks, playwrights horizons!). he was all for making a night of hunter's the few, also directed by davis mccallum and now at rattlestick, an even smaller theater down in the village (a note on our tickets instructed us to use the restroom before arriving, as their only one was onstage*). the two plays are clearly blood relations: the whale centers on an online writing teacher who annihilates intimacy with his morbid obesity, and the few is a once-lyrical newspaper established to assure long-haul truckers they are seen and heard (now kept alive by an IV drip of their personal ads). writing can connect us, sure, but it's also just another way for us to lie to each other. the whale is more successful because it concentrates its anguish so effectively in one character, i think, but the few hits some of the same eerie notes—and, if we're being honest, i could look at dane laffrey's ultranaturalistic set design all day. i wish my dear jen had been in the house to geek out over grimy walls and idaho refrigerator magnets with me.
gracias madre (restaurant). my sister was kind enough to allow us to admire her newborn daughter for the better part of a week last month and to make a big old family reservation for organic/local/vegan mexican food when we were in san francisco. as when i worked at the spca hospital a few blocks away c. 2002, gracias madre's corner of the mission isn't...especially...not...sketchy, but the restaurant itself is so wholesome (our long table had a drawerful of earnest doodled notes from patrons to other patrons**) that i stopped reminiscing about crack pipe sightings almost immediately. i was also distracted by gracias madre's respectable guacamole and craft beer list, though to be fair, if you're in california and can't do those things right you should probably go to canada. other dishes ranged from marvelous (a well-spiced quesadilla with sweet potato and caramelized onion) to stand-up (pozole) to mystifying (a "queso fundido" of bread crumbs, cashews, and cauliflower). i'd love to be able to say gracias madre's kitchen is holding its own in the neighborhood, but that neighborhood makes most of the best mexican food i've ever eaten; let's say that i respect what they're doing and hope their game gets tighter. team veg has an awfully shallow bench.
little failure (book). in a world of my making gary shteyngart would have a catlike nine lives and a memoir for each. in the experimental short story i lack the attention span to write, young gary shteyngart happens upon the young fictional characters of donna tartt's the goldfinch and just beats the snot out of them. we are all of us in this world, though, and i can but say that little failure (failurchka, as shteyngart's mother calls him) is a dense and self-aware and heartbreaking memoir, and that i now feel even weirder about peeking into shteyngart's closets when joe and i were thinking about buying his apartment (i am still grateful for the faux-molding trick we borrowed for our bedroom a few months later). little asthmatic igor (gary was an anagram-ish attempt to avoid ridicule) moved with his parents from leningrad to new york in 1979; little failure offers (literal and figurative) snapshots of his early years in russia (when his grandmother bribed him with cheese to write lenin and his magical goose, a first 'novel'), scenes of extended agony at hebrew school in queens (he spoke no english and relied on sympathetic local jews for secondhand clothes), and a recipe for the funny-guy persona he cooks up to survive adolescence and adulthood. i tend to pass over memoirs in favor of biographies, but shteyngart has me reconsidering that reflex: little failure is fucking great.
mother (restaurant). our week of niece-admiration in northern california concluded with another thoughtfully-planned vegetable-based meal, this time at a buzztastic place in downtown sacramento. given how reverentially our hosts spoke about its chef, michael thiemann (formerly of ella), i figured we'd wait for a table for hours,*** but we were seated and convinced to order the ten-course chef's-choice menu in no time (in sacramento a ten-course chef's-choice menu rings in at $25 per person; WELL DONE, SACRAMENTO). our table promptly became a kaleidoscope of sexy meatlessness: chicken-fried trumpet mushrooms with buffalo sauce, deconstructed portobello poutine with a luxurious kimchi-based gravy and wildflowers, smoked baby carrots, fresh pasta with ramps and crisp fiddleheads...i should have been taking notes. thiemann isn't a vegetarian; he just gives his main ingredients the same respect he'd give an animal protein, and he has the advantage of a palate that's accustomed to animal proteins' depth of flavor. i couldn't tell you what an authentic poutine gravy tastes like, but he can, and my non-vegetarian folks loved his food as hard as i did. look this place up on your next joan-didion-themed road trip.
pliny the elder (beer). i hunt for things for a living, and in my spare time i hunts the things even more enthusiastically. pliny's sole east coast distributor is down in philadelphia, and it's scarce enough in southern california that an announcement that pliny the younger (its seasonal cousin) is on tap somewhere in los angeles generates an instant three-hour hipster queue.**** i wandered into a specialty grocer's at the san francisco ferry building when i was out west in february and found a1 PLINY PER PERSON! SOLD OUT sign on an empty refrigerator case. we revisited said case on this trip an hour before the next shipment was due—i am smooth like that—and stocked up after a leisurely lunch. it probably goes without saying that pliny wasn't nearly as exciting to drink as it was to hunt (i actually preferred blind pig, another russian river IPA with a more complex finish), but in a craft landscape where most celebrated microbrews are either octuple imperial stouts with ABVs that could send you straight into a coma or so hoppy they present like asparagus pee, it's awfully nice when a brewmaster exercises some restraint. this is a well-balanced imperial IPA: evergreen but not aggressively resinous, citrusy in a sophisticated rather than a cheapie-witbier way. while i will always love fraoch (a weird scottish ale brewed with heather and bog myrtle) more than i love other beers, i salute this one.
the realistic joneses (play). tip of the hat to esb for turning our biannual bicoastal cocktail night into an evening at the theater; we met up in hell's kitchen for a drink and a show the night after joe and i saw the few, so i was basically the fanciest girl in new york last weekend. those are weird shows to see back to back, though: will eno's writing is as stylized as hunter's is naturalistic, and it took me a few scenes to get used to his big-name cast's quippity-quipping. it's weirdly affecting absurdism, though, and michael c. hall in particular did an unexpectedly fine job of layering little gut-twists into his non sequiturs (i have yet to watch six feet under and know him primarily from dexter, a show i watched mainly because DVDs of the first three seasons materialized like pop-culture dust bunnies in our credenza). the simple plot provides comfortable digs for the non sequiturs: hall's character and his wife (marisa tomei) move to a small town and befriend their neighbors (tracy letts and toni collette). both husbands suffer from a rare, mysterious disorder that seems to complicate relationships and make conversations more exotic; both wives struggle as partners and as wearers of awkward summer-casual clothing. these pairings reminded my companions of edward albee's marriages; i'm still new to this non-shakespeare stuff and know albee primarily from a cross-stitched quote ("You have lovely breasts.") in the first new york apartment joe and i sublet, so i will simply trust them.
der samurai (film). this year's tribeca film festival revels were squashed into a single weekend, thanks to our trip to california; i try to get to at least a couple of foreign horror movies, but this year's small-town-east-german-cop-and-dress-wearing-samurai story was an only child. the screening was free for crew members, so half a dozen of the guys i'd worked with over the past few days turned up for (and hated) the movie; joe said he quite liked it and strove mightily not to fall asleep halfway through (he failed). too bad for him! till kleinert spoke in the subsequent Q&A of wanting to plant his feet in germany and make the sort of film most directors would decamp to america for; i loved that he decided to go weird and dreamy and grand-guignol in a market that doesn't yet know what to do with him. appropriately, der samurai is all about repression and release: a straightforward treatment of a young officer protecting his village from a wolf mutates into a violently romantic dreamscape in which conventional locals are "corks;" sometimes self-actualization means sabering people like champagne bottles, i guess, and you have to just submit to a tender interpretive dance with a terrifying man in a gore-spattered white gown. the movie ends up feeling like david lynch's entry in the eurovision song contest (the joyful final scene fades out to the ark's "it takes a fool to remain sane"). since joe missed so much of it we should probably see it again.
something must break (film). seating tribeca audiences is surprisingly intense: filmmakers underestimate their entourages, all-access-badgeholders descend en masse without warning, random squirrelly people lie and steal each other's seats. in my second shift this year a documentary's subject, a softspoken old art forger who donates his creations to unsuspecting museum curators, went AWOL an hour before showtime and was discovered at the last minute in a restaurant around the corner. writer/directors never show up on time with their collaborators and take the worst seats in the house, but ester martin bergsmark did; loading the house for something must break was such a breeze that i got to stay and watch the film, which was the highlight of my festival. saga becker plays sebastian, a young punk in stockholm who's fallen for andreas (performance artist iggy malmborg), who is not gay (sebastian: "neither am i.") but tells sebastian, "you're so beautiful i want to vomit." that's an understatement, really: becker's almost frighteningly lovely, like kristen stewart if she gave up and decided to be charismatic. their love scenes are somehow both graphic and chaste, and their love story's set to impeccable don't-speak-to-me-stay-with-me swedish electroclash (appropriate for a film named for a joy division song; a detractor called it a "moody soundtrack-album in search of a movie"). for this one i wish i'd had my costume-designer sister with me; she'd love how ellie, the identity sebastian initially suggests with strands of pearls, begins to become herself in pieces like a shoplifted dress. duck into this if it comes your way. it's unforgettable.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 how do you feel about vegan "cheese"?
02 what's the best memoir you've ever read?
03 do you think merpeople have to wash with special soap before they perform in aquariums with live fish?
04 where would one go on a joan-didion-themed road trip?
05 have you had either of the plinys? do they live up to the hype for you?
06 where in our sublet would you guess the edward albee quote was hanging?
07 how do you feel about swedish music?
*everyone else ignored this note and formed a twenty-idiot line for the head anyway, so the play started fifteen minutes late. i'd have been cooler about that if i hadn't just housed my dinner like a fugitive in order to get to my seat on time.
**and a graphic designer's business card.
***happily, there was a weird merpeople bar across the street.
****i would love to mock those hipsters, but i waited several pre-dawn hours on an east side sidewalk for the comme des garçons x h&m collection a few years ago.
the few (play). joe and i saw samuel d. hunter's the whale at playwrights horizons two winters ago; we both loved it, joe to such a degree that i've been able to convince him to see all sorts of things in the intervening years (thanks, playwrights horizons!). he was all for making a night of hunter's the few, also directed by davis mccallum and now at rattlestick, an even smaller theater down in the village (a note on our tickets instructed us to use the restroom before arriving, as their only one was onstage*). the two plays are clearly blood relations: the whale centers on an online writing teacher who annihilates intimacy with his morbid obesity, and the few is a once-lyrical newspaper established to assure long-haul truckers they are seen and heard (now kept alive by an IV drip of their personal ads). writing can connect us, sure, but it's also just another way for us to lie to each other. the whale is more successful because it concentrates its anguish so effectively in one character, i think, but the few hits some of the same eerie notes—and, if we're being honest, i could look at dane laffrey's ultranaturalistic set design all day. i wish my dear jen had been in the house to geek out over grimy walls and idaho refrigerator magnets with me.
gracias madre (restaurant). my sister was kind enough to allow us to admire her newborn daughter for the better part of a week last month and to make a big old family reservation for organic/local/vegan mexican food when we were in san francisco. as when i worked at the spca hospital a few blocks away c. 2002, gracias madre's corner of the mission isn't...especially...not...sketchy, but the restaurant itself is so wholesome (our long table had a drawerful of earnest doodled notes from patrons to other patrons**) that i stopped reminiscing about crack pipe sightings almost immediately. i was also distracted by gracias madre's respectable guacamole and craft beer list, though to be fair, if you're in california and can't do those things right you should probably go to canada. other dishes ranged from marvelous (a well-spiced quesadilla with sweet potato and caramelized onion) to stand-up (pozole) to mystifying (a "queso fundido" of bread crumbs, cashews, and cauliflower). i'd love to be able to say gracias madre's kitchen is holding its own in the neighborhood, but that neighborhood makes most of the best mexican food i've ever eaten; let's say that i respect what they're doing and hope their game gets tighter. team veg has an awfully shallow bench.
little failure (book). in a world of my making gary shteyngart would have a catlike nine lives and a memoir for each. in the experimental short story i lack the attention span to write, young gary shteyngart happens upon the young fictional characters of donna tartt's the goldfinch and just beats the snot out of them. we are all of us in this world, though, and i can but say that little failure (failurchka, as shteyngart's mother calls him) is a dense and self-aware and heartbreaking memoir, and that i now feel even weirder about peeking into shteyngart's closets when joe and i were thinking about buying his apartment (i am still grateful for the faux-molding trick we borrowed for our bedroom a few months later). little asthmatic igor (gary was an anagram-ish attempt to avoid ridicule) moved with his parents from leningrad to new york in 1979; little failure offers (literal and figurative) snapshots of his early years in russia (when his grandmother bribed him with cheese to write lenin and his magical goose, a first 'novel'), scenes of extended agony at hebrew school in queens (he spoke no english and relied on sympathetic local jews for secondhand clothes), and a recipe for the funny-guy persona he cooks up to survive adolescence and adulthood. i tend to pass over memoirs in favor of biographies, but shteyngart has me reconsidering that reflex: little failure is fucking great.
mother (restaurant). our week of niece-admiration in northern california concluded with another thoughtfully-planned vegetable-based meal, this time at a buzztastic place in downtown sacramento. given how reverentially our hosts spoke about its chef, michael thiemann (formerly of ella), i figured we'd wait for a table for hours,*** but we were seated and convinced to order the ten-course chef's-choice menu in no time (in sacramento a ten-course chef's-choice menu rings in at $25 per person; WELL DONE, SACRAMENTO). our table promptly became a kaleidoscope of sexy meatlessness: chicken-fried trumpet mushrooms with buffalo sauce, deconstructed portobello poutine with a luxurious kimchi-based gravy and wildflowers, smoked baby carrots, fresh pasta with ramps and crisp fiddleheads...i should have been taking notes. thiemann isn't a vegetarian; he just gives his main ingredients the same respect he'd give an animal protein, and he has the advantage of a palate that's accustomed to animal proteins' depth of flavor. i couldn't tell you what an authentic poutine gravy tastes like, but he can, and my non-vegetarian folks loved his food as hard as i did. look this place up on your next joan-didion-themed road trip.
pliny the elder (beer). i hunt for things for a living, and in my spare time i hunts the things even more enthusiastically. pliny's sole east coast distributor is down in philadelphia, and it's scarce enough in southern california that an announcement that pliny the younger (its seasonal cousin) is on tap somewhere in los angeles generates an instant three-hour hipster queue.**** i wandered into a specialty grocer's at the san francisco ferry building when i was out west in february and found a
the realistic joneses (play). tip of the hat to esb for turning our biannual bicoastal cocktail night into an evening at the theater; we met up in hell's kitchen for a drink and a show the night after joe and i saw the few, so i was basically the fanciest girl in new york last weekend. those are weird shows to see back to back, though: will eno's writing is as stylized as hunter's is naturalistic, and it took me a few scenes to get used to his big-name cast's quippity-quipping. it's weirdly affecting absurdism, though, and michael c. hall in particular did an unexpectedly fine job of layering little gut-twists into his non sequiturs (i have yet to watch six feet under and know him primarily from dexter, a show i watched mainly because DVDs of the first three seasons materialized like pop-culture dust bunnies in our credenza). the simple plot provides comfortable digs for the non sequiturs: hall's character and his wife (marisa tomei) move to a small town and befriend their neighbors (tracy letts and toni collette). both husbands suffer from a rare, mysterious disorder that seems to complicate relationships and make conversations more exotic; both wives struggle as partners and as wearers of awkward summer-casual clothing. these pairings reminded my companions of edward albee's marriages; i'm still new to this non-shakespeare stuff and know albee primarily from a cross-stitched quote ("You have lovely breasts.") in the first new york apartment joe and i sublet, so i will simply trust them.
der samurai (film). this year's tribeca film festival revels were squashed into a single weekend, thanks to our trip to california; i try to get to at least a couple of foreign horror movies, but this year's small-town-east-german-cop-and-dress-wearing-samurai story was an only child. the screening was free for crew members, so half a dozen of the guys i'd worked with over the past few days turned up for (and hated) the movie; joe said he quite liked it and strove mightily not to fall asleep halfway through (he failed). too bad for him! till kleinert spoke in the subsequent Q&A of wanting to plant his feet in germany and make the sort of film most directors would decamp to america for; i loved that he decided to go weird and dreamy and grand-guignol in a market that doesn't yet know what to do with him. appropriately, der samurai is all about repression and release: a straightforward treatment of a young officer protecting his village from a wolf mutates into a violently romantic dreamscape in which conventional locals are "corks;" sometimes self-actualization means sabering people like champagne bottles, i guess, and you have to just submit to a tender interpretive dance with a terrifying man in a gore-spattered white gown. the movie ends up feeling like david lynch's entry in the eurovision song contest (the joyful final scene fades out to the ark's "it takes a fool to remain sane"). since joe missed so much of it we should probably see it again.
something must break (film). seating tribeca audiences is surprisingly intense: filmmakers underestimate their entourages, all-access-badgeholders descend en masse without warning, random squirrelly people lie and steal each other's seats. in my second shift this year a documentary's subject, a softspoken old art forger who donates his creations to unsuspecting museum curators, went AWOL an hour before showtime and was discovered at the last minute in a restaurant around the corner. writer/directors never show up on time with their collaborators and take the worst seats in the house, but ester martin bergsmark did; loading the house for something must break was such a breeze that i got to stay and watch the film, which was the highlight of my festival. saga becker plays sebastian, a young punk in stockholm who's fallen for andreas (performance artist iggy malmborg), who is not gay (sebastian: "neither am i.") but tells sebastian, "you're so beautiful i want to vomit." that's an understatement, really: becker's almost frighteningly lovely, like kristen stewart if she gave up and decided to be charismatic. their love scenes are somehow both graphic and chaste, and their love story's set to impeccable don't-speak-to-me-stay-with-me swedish electroclash (appropriate for a film named for a joy division song; a detractor called it a "moody soundtrack-album in search of a movie"). for this one i wish i'd had my costume-designer sister with me; she'd love how ellie, the identity sebastian initially suggests with strands of pearls, begins to become herself in pieces like a shoplifted dress. duck into this if it comes your way. it's unforgettable.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 how do you feel about vegan "cheese"?
02 what's the best memoir you've ever read?
03 do you think merpeople have to wash with special soap before they perform in aquariums with live fish?
04 where would one go on a joan-didion-themed road trip?
05 have you had either of the plinys? do they live up to the hype for you?
06 where in our sublet would you guess the edward albee quote was hanging?
07 how do you feel about swedish music?
*everyone else ignored this note and formed a twenty-idiot line for the head anyway, so the play started fifteen minutes late. i'd have been cooler about that if i hadn't just housed my dinner like a fugitive in order to get to my seat on time.
**and a graphic designer's business card.
***happily, there was a weird merpeople bar across the street.
****i would love to mock those hipsters, but i waited several pre-dawn hours on an east side sidewalk for the comme des garçons x h&m collection a few years ago.
08.10.10
THUNDERTOME: ROUND 21
SURVIVOR: tree of smoke (denis johnson)*
CHALLENGER: last night in twisted river (john irving)
here's the thing: while research has proven that at any given time there is at least one person reading a prayer for owen meany on every bus in san francisco** and i lived in that city for three years, john irving and i didn't cross paths until 2005, when until i find you rose like a cloud of fruit flies from the book pile at work. i was thrilled: hey, an author i've been meaning to read! also, this one's apparently about tattoos! also also, free book!
it was not good. it wasn't awful, but i was in no danger of needing to venture deeper into the irving oeuvre. however, i happened upon an orphaned copy of last night in twisted river (irving's most recent novel, published last october) a few weeks ago. i'd just finished david mitchell's delirious tokyo novel and was feeling relaxed and big-hearted: what's a second chance for a well-loved novelist in the grand scheme of things?
internet, one should never be relaxed and big-hearted (about john irving novels). this twelfth novel in particular is said to be one of his most personal, as its main character is a writer (who attends, hey hey, the same boarding school, college, and writing program irving did), its omniscient narrator loves to talk about process, and irving says as much in his weirdly defensive afterword; if this shambling thing is what he really is all about, i think i dislike him both as a writer and a person.
objection the first: irving's women are poorly integrated plot devices and/or blank agents of his main character's sexual development, and he generates them with all the panache of a mid-'80s computer role-playing game (i can picture the pull-down menus: build, sexual quirks, alignment). irving's stand-in, daniel baciagalupo, lives in a new hampshire logging town after his mother (slight, polyamorous, True Neutral) gets drunk and drowns in the titular river; a decade later, he finds injun jane (morbidly obese, two-timing, Lawful Neutral) atop his father and, thinking she's a bear, brains her with a frying pan; he then carries on affairs with his aunt (slight, rapacious, Chaotic Neutral) and his female cousins (so lazily described that i can't piece together three characterizations for them), spies on his father's next lover (obese, passive, Lawful Good), fantasizes for decades about "lady sky," a random woman (amazonian, depilated, Chaotic Good) who parachutes nude into pig shit at a party he attends outside iowa city. i think i'd rather read john updike on women; he won't be appearing on the cover of ms. any time soon either, but his creepiness feels downright considerate beside the insult of irving's drive-by descriptions.
objection the second: despite his stated interest in writing about writing, irving doesn't appear especially invested in the details of his fiction writer's development. daniel's primary talent is his ability to churn out "fictional" treatments of his own shortcomings; he makes millions by novelizing injun jane's murder, his cousin's impregnation and subsequent abortion, his neglected infant son's endangerment, and so on ("[a]ll writers must know how to distance themselves, to detach themselves from this and that emotional moment, and [daniel] could do this--even at twelve." congratulations, daniel! you're a sociopath!). we know he's good because...well, because irving's narrator tells us so. a treatment of his abortion novel wins the 2000 academy award for best adapted screenplay and everything (as irving's jack burns does in 1999 in until i find you, and as irving himself did for the cider house rules in 1999, and sometimes i fantasized about putting the book down and standing on my head until consciousness was a memory of a memory).
objection the third: irving's pseudo-homeric epithets (danny's father is always the limping cook, the mother of his child is always the callahan whore, six-pack pam is always, well, six-pack pam), he's not constrained by meter (does he feel constrained by anything at this point?), and he hardly needs a mnemonic to transmit his story (though that would be a great punishment, to force him to chant one of his novels), and epic poetry this isn't:
THUNDERTOME: ROUND 21
SURVIVOR: tree of smoke (denis johnson)*
CHALLENGER: last night in twisted river (john irving)
here's the thing: while research has proven that at any given time there is at least one person reading a prayer for owen meany on every bus in san francisco** and i lived in that city for three years, john irving and i didn't cross paths until 2005, when until i find you rose like a cloud of fruit flies from the book pile at work. i was thrilled: hey, an author i've been meaning to read! also, this one's apparently about tattoos! also also, free book!
it was not good. it wasn't awful, but i was in no danger of needing to venture deeper into the irving oeuvre. however, i happened upon an orphaned copy of last night in twisted river (irving's most recent novel, published last october) a few weeks ago. i'd just finished david mitchell's delirious tokyo novel and was feeling relaxed and big-hearted: what's a second chance for a well-loved novelist in the grand scheme of things?
internet, one should never be relaxed and big-hearted (about john irving novels). this twelfth novel in particular is said to be one of his most personal, as its main character is a writer (who attends, hey hey, the same boarding school, college, and writing program irving did), its omniscient narrator loves to talk about process, and irving says as much in his weirdly defensive afterword; if this shambling thing is what he really is all about, i think i dislike him both as a writer and a person.
objection the first: irving's women are poorly integrated plot devices and/or blank agents of his main character's sexual development, and he generates them with all the panache of a mid-'80s computer role-playing game (i can picture the pull-down menus: build, sexual quirks, alignment). irving's stand-in, daniel baciagalupo, lives in a new hampshire logging town after his mother (slight, polyamorous, True Neutral) gets drunk and drowns in the titular river; a decade later, he finds injun jane (morbidly obese, two-timing, Lawful Neutral) atop his father and, thinking she's a bear, brains her with a frying pan; he then carries on affairs with his aunt (slight, rapacious, Chaotic Neutral) and his female cousins (so lazily described that i can't piece together three characterizations for them), spies on his father's next lover (obese, passive, Lawful Good), fantasizes for decades about "lady sky," a random woman (amazonian, depilated, Chaotic Good) who parachutes nude into pig shit at a party he attends outside iowa city. i think i'd rather read john updike on women; he won't be appearing on the cover of ms. any time soon either, but his creepiness feels downright considerate beside the insult of irving's drive-by descriptions.
objection the second: despite his stated interest in writing about writing, irving doesn't appear especially invested in the details of his fiction writer's development. daniel's primary talent is his ability to churn out "fictional" treatments of his own shortcomings; he makes millions by novelizing injun jane's murder, his cousin's impregnation and subsequent abortion, his neglected infant son's endangerment, and so on ("[a]ll writers must know how to distance themselves, to detach themselves from this and that emotional moment, and [daniel] could do this--even at twelve." congratulations, daniel! you're a sociopath!). we know he's good because...well, because irving's narrator tells us so. a treatment of his abortion novel wins the 2000 academy award for best adapted screenplay and everything (as irving's jack burns does in 1999 in until i find you, and as irving himself did for the cider house rules in 1999, and sometimes i fantasized about putting the book down and standing on my head until consciousness was a memory of a memory).
objection the third: irving's pseudo-homeric epithets (danny's father is always the limping cook, the mother of his child is always the callahan whore, six-pack pam is always, well, six-pack pam), he's not constrained by meter (does he feel constrained by anything at this point?), and he hardly needs a mnemonic to transmit his story (though that would be a great punishment, to force him to chant one of his novels), and epic poetry this isn't:
As for the river, it just kept moving, as rivers do--as rivers do. Under the logs, the body of the young Canadian moved with the river, which jostled him to and fro--to and fro. If, at this moment in time, Twisted River also appeared restless, even impatient, maybe the river itself wanted the boy's body to move on, too--move on, too.i could have set the book down against the wall, reader, the blood would have rushed to my head with a roar, and sweet darkness would have supplanted the bizarro-heroic couplets - i considered it frequently.
VICTOR: while i'm tempted to say that i'd like to see johnson face irving in person, the latter was a wrestler and the former was a heroin addict; it mightn't be pretty. let's say instead that in thundertome, at least, tree of smoke freckles the arena with last night in twisted river.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 which irving novels, if any, have you read? which, if any, did you like?
02 do you find it annoying that irving can't stop talking about screenplay oscars?
03 what would your homeric epithet be?
04 what am i missing about john irving? i like you, and some of you like him, and - help me.
*previous battle here.
**it's true! right before moving here i saw three at once.
06.15.10
weekend project the second was rehabbing a frame for the hand-printed ac newman poster i bought from nate duval at last year's renegade craft fair (and rolled up and hid in assorted closets for the next year). last sunday i finally bought an old 18"x24" piece (with glass! i like to fix things, but i did not want to forage for and/or cut glass) from a garrulous woman in brooklyn who spent fifteen minutes telling me about the cats in her barn. i might need to start lint rolling a bit more carefully before i leave the house.
the frame's main selling point was its dimensions, since the gesso was webbed with cracks and the joins weren't especially tight. i added new d-rings and hanging cable, sanded down the front a bit, gave the whole thing two coats of white paint, and finished it with polyurethane. you'll have to imagine the original finish, which was what i'll call "disconsolate umber."
it was blustery last week, so the frame took on airborne bits of the lower east side as it dried out on the balcony, which is alright with me. i sentimentalized the bubbles under the "boys don't cry" sticker on my volkswagen back in san francisco the same way; clinically smooth surfaces are nice and all, but i got to drive around with little pockets of the mission c. 2001 on my bumper. when one is in town one amuses oneself.
weekend project the second was rehabbing a frame for the hand-printed ac newman poster i bought from nate duval at last year's renegade craft fair (and rolled up and hid in assorted closets for the next year). last sunday i finally bought an old 18"x24" piece (with glass! i like to fix things, but i did not want to forage for and/or cut glass) from a garrulous woman in brooklyn who spent fifteen minutes telling me about the cats in her barn. i might need to start lint rolling a bit more carefully before i leave the house.
the frame's main selling point was its dimensions, since the gesso was webbed with cracks and the joins weren't especially tight. i added new d-rings and hanging cable, sanded down the front a bit, gave the whole thing two coats of white paint, and finished it with polyurethane. you'll have to imagine the original finish, which was what i'll call "disconsolate umber."
it was blustery last week, so the frame took on airborne bits of the lower east side as it dried out on the balcony, which is alright with me. i sentimentalized the bubbles under the "boys don't cry" sticker on my volkswagen back in san francisco the same way; clinically smooth surfaces are nice and all, but i got to drive around with little pockets of the mission c. 2001 on my bumper. when one is in town one amuses oneself.
05.19.10
THUNDERTOME: ROUND 16
SURVIVOR: let the great world spin (colum mccann)*
CHALLENGER: further tales of the city (armistead maupin)
now that i've finished my third volume, these things of the city...are making my soul tired. my emotional commitment to armistead maupin follows a sine wave, i think: tales of the city's dishy jokes left me cold, more tales of the city won me over with its weird coming-out-and-cannibalism (different characters, mind you) two-fer, and further tales of the city - the last collection for which there's a corresponding showtime movie - squanders the goodwill of the international community, or the outgoing administration's surplus, or...it's tired and confused, my soul. this imagery, for one thing.
i tiptoed around most of the big plot points in tales of the city and more tales of the city, but it's hard to talk about this book without going ahead and saying that it's mostly about jim jones (not the rapper, the cult leader). maupin has been praised for incorporating local happenings in his series, and he could hardly ignore the subject: jones's temple moved its headquarters to san francisco for a number of years, mayor george moscone named jones chairman of the san francisco housing commission(!), and, well, the jonestown massacre happened just four years before the further tales columns were collected and released. that said, i feel distinctly strange about an alternate reality jim jones story line (in further tales, he doesn't die in guyana with 900 of his followers; after a double dies in his place, he has plastic surgery, moves into a shack in a rhododendron dell in golden gate park, and trains chipmunks**) being part of a story that's occasionally packaged with a condom (that's the showtime movie and it's a french dvd, but still). too weird.
VICTOR: let the great world spin. your three-volume zerg rush was ineffective, maupin! the irish are defended!
THUNDERTOME: ROUND 16
SURVIVOR: let the great world spin (colum mccann)*
CHALLENGER: further tales of the city (armistead maupin)
now that i've finished my third volume, these things of the city...are making my soul tired. my emotional commitment to armistead maupin follows a sine wave, i think: tales of the city's dishy jokes left me cold, more tales of the city won me over with its weird coming-out-and-cannibalism (different characters, mind you) two-fer, and further tales of the city - the last collection for which there's a corresponding showtime movie - squanders the goodwill of the international community, or the outgoing administration's surplus, or...it's tired and confused, my soul. this imagery, for one thing.
i tiptoed around most of the big plot points in tales of the city and more tales of the city, but it's hard to talk about this book without going ahead and saying that it's mostly about jim jones (not the rapper, the cult leader). maupin has been praised for incorporating local happenings in his series, and he could hardly ignore the subject: jones's temple moved its headquarters to san francisco for a number of years, mayor george moscone named jones chairman of the san francisco housing commission(!), and, well, the jonestown massacre happened just four years before the further tales columns were collected and released. that said, i feel distinctly strange about an alternate reality jim jones story line (in further tales, he doesn't die in guyana with 900 of his followers; after a double dies in his place, he has plastic surgery, moves into a shack in a rhododendron dell in golden gate park, and trains chipmunks**) being part of a story that's occasionally packaged with a condom (that's the showtime movie and it's a french dvd, but still). too weird.
VICTOR: let the great world spin. your three-volume zerg rush was ineffective, maupin! the irish are defended!
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 had you ever heard of jim jones the rapper?
02 could you approve of a quasi-comic novel about jim jones?
03 have you ever been to golden gate park? what did you do there?
*previous battle here.
05.12.10
THUNDERTOME: ROUND 15
SURVIVOR: let the great world spin (colum mccann)*
CHALLENGER: more tales of the city (armistead maupin)
we meet again, maupin! i tried to relax and give this series a chance to take hold, and it worked: much as i pawed through the twilight series in the course of something like a fortnight (ten days of which were spent waiting for breaking dawn to come out), i've gone all junior high on the second collection of maupin's columns,the city after next more tales of the city. maupin's writing reads a bit like stephenie meyer's, in a sense; he doesn't stuff paragraphs with adjectives as enthusiastically she does, thank goodness (a meyer passage at its best/worst is like those hickory farms sausages that bleed cheese), but he knows his way around a cliffhanger, and his plots are propulsive in a similar way.
more tales of the city is both soapier than its predecessor - its twists include a quasi-secret scandinavian sex change operation, the acapulco debut of an amnesia victim named burke** who vomits every time he sees a rose, and the improper use of medical waste*** - and more serious: the chapter in which michael tolliver comes out to his conservative parents is really lovely, and the relationship that develops between him and jon the gynecologist is, in all seriousness, quite affecting. following it in a mainstream daily newspaper must have been incredibly meaningful for gay (and straight) readers, even though its fellow plots are rather silly. an unexpected development, that: the flourishes and coincidences that have endeared maupin to me also problematize his serious content's emotional impact. i should be cutting him some slack there, maybe: it seems that most people don't let dickensian coincidences, for example, spoil their appreciation of dickensian pathos. at the end of the day, my only real beef with the flourishes is that in the very best one, when mary ann vomits from the catwalk eight stories above the congregation at grace cathedral, she's still able to get out of the building without being stopped ("[t]he people below hardly knew what hit them.") reader, the barfed-upon know exactly what hits them.
VICTOR: let the great world spin. much as i love episcopalian cannibal cults, mccann remains the emotional heavy.
THUNDERTOME: ROUND 15
SURVIVOR: let the great world spin (colum mccann)*
CHALLENGER: more tales of the city (armistead maupin)
we meet again, maupin! i tried to relax and give this series a chance to take hold, and it worked: much as i pawed through the twilight series in the course of something like a fortnight (ten days of which were spent waiting for breaking dawn to come out), i've gone all junior high on the second collection of maupin's columns,
more tales of the city is both soapier than its predecessor - its twists include a quasi-secret scandinavian sex change operation, the acapulco debut of an amnesia victim named burke** who vomits every time he sees a rose, and the improper use of medical waste*** - and more serious: the chapter in which michael tolliver comes out to his conservative parents is really lovely, and the relationship that develops between him and jon the gynecologist is, in all seriousness, quite affecting. following it in a mainstream daily newspaper must have been incredibly meaningful for gay (and straight) readers, even though its fellow plots are rather silly. an unexpected development, that: the flourishes and coincidences that have endeared maupin to me also problematize his serious content's emotional impact. i should be cutting him some slack there, maybe: it seems that most people don't let dickensian coincidences, for example, spoil their appreciation of dickensian pathos. at the end of the day, my only real beef with the flourishes is that in the very best one, when mary ann vomits from the catwalk eight stories above the congregation at grace cathedral, she's still able to get out of the building without being stopped ("[t]he people below hardly knew what hit them.") reader, the barfed-upon know exactly what hits them.
VICTOR: let the great world spin. much as i love episcopalian cannibal cults, mccann remains the emotional heavy.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 are you a fan of sudsy drama?
02 do dickensian coincidences bother you?
03 has anyone ever barfed on you? come, let's heal together.
*previous battle here.
**burke is one of modern melodrama's most distinguished names, you see.
***that one's especially majestic.
05.10.10
THUNDERTOME: ROUND 14
SURVIVOR: let the great world spin (colum mccann)*
CHALLENGER: tales of the city (armistead maupin)
like the hound of the baskervilles (which appeared monthly in the strand beginning in 1901) and the pickwick papers (produced in installments, like all of dickens's subsequent novels, with advertisements and illustrations), maupin's "tales of the city" crept into the world bit by bit; first published in the san francisco chronicle, it seems to have appeared there daily for a few years before hopping over to the san francisco examiner. unlike those stories (and more like sex and the city, apartment 3-G, or three's company), it follows a handful of twenty- and thirtysomethings (and their eccentric landlady) as they collide with each other, various bay area types, and illicit substances.** the main characters live at 28 barbary lane, a leafy corner of san francisco's russian hill based on macondray lane (a five minute walk up the hill from our old place on green street c. 2000-2003, as it happens). they are fond of one-liners and steam baths. they have a lot of polyester and a lot of sex. their adventures are unapologetically soapy and usually about four pages long, which makes sense, given that they were published daily in a newspaper.
i'm told that maupin's stories and characters are wildly popular; they became a celebrated miniseries,*** are in the process of becoming a musical, and tend to be covered with breathless quotes (michael tolliver, one of maupin's main characters, "is arguably one of the most widely loved characters in contemporary fiction," per a number of reviewers). how did i miss this? is it that i'm of another generation? comparatively prudish? a big old SF hater?
i think that last part is the clincher, actually. i've never been in love with san francisco, but seven considerably happier years elsewhere have gotten me to the point where i very nearly wish it ill. maupin's "tales of the city" is a love letter to the bay area in the same way people say carrie bradshaw's real love affair is with new york city (blech),**** and loving maupin's san francisco seems to entail loving marijuana, dancing, and free love. reader, i have no patience for any of those things - and it would be safest for all of us for me to skip speaking of hippies. little bits of maupin's city are also part of mine - the marina safeway, bless it, is still a weird pickup scene, and there will always be something magical about the rooftops in russian hill and the swensen's at hyde and union (it's the only one that still makes its own ice cream, you know) - but i have trouble loving its denizens (though i should note that i agree completely with their sexual politics). i'm giving this maupin experiment time to take, mind you - i picked up the first three novels in a single thrift store visit, so michael tolliver might still end up meaning something to me. for now, let's call tales of the city high-spirited sudsiness.
VICTOR: let the great world spin. mccann has reach, and tales isn't nimble these days.
THUNDERTOME: ROUND 14
SURVIVOR: let the great world spin (colum mccann)*
CHALLENGER: tales of the city (armistead maupin)
like the hound of the baskervilles (which appeared monthly in the strand beginning in 1901) and the pickwick papers (produced in installments, like all of dickens's subsequent novels, with advertisements and illustrations), maupin's "tales of the city" crept into the world bit by bit; first published in the san francisco chronicle, it seems to have appeared there daily for a few years before hopping over to the san francisco examiner. unlike those stories (and more like sex and the city, apartment 3-G, or three's company), it follows a handful of twenty- and thirtysomethings (and their eccentric landlady) as they collide with each other, various bay area types, and illicit substances.** the main characters live at 28 barbary lane, a leafy corner of san francisco's russian hill based on macondray lane (a five minute walk up the hill from our old place on green street c. 2000-2003, as it happens). they are fond of one-liners and steam baths. they have a lot of polyester and a lot of sex. their adventures are unapologetically soapy and usually about four pages long, which makes sense, given that they were published daily in a newspaper.
i'm told that maupin's stories and characters are wildly popular; they became a celebrated miniseries,*** are in the process of becoming a musical, and tend to be covered with breathless quotes (michael tolliver, one of maupin's main characters, "is arguably one of the most widely loved characters in contemporary fiction," per a number of reviewers). how did i miss this? is it that i'm of another generation? comparatively prudish? a big old SF hater?
i think that last part is the clincher, actually. i've never been in love with san francisco, but seven considerably happier years elsewhere have gotten me to the point where i very nearly wish it ill. maupin's "tales of the city" is a love letter to the bay area in the same way people say carrie bradshaw's real love affair is with new york city (blech),**** and loving maupin's san francisco seems to entail loving marijuana, dancing, and free love. reader, i have no patience for any of those things - and it would be safest for all of us for me to skip speaking of hippies. little bits of maupin's city are also part of mine - the marina safeway, bless it, is still a weird pickup scene, and there will always be something magical about the rooftops in russian hill and the swensen's at hyde and union (it's the only one that still makes its own ice cream, you know) - but i have trouble loving its denizens (though i should note that i agree completely with their sexual politics). i'm giving this maupin experiment time to take, mind you - i picked up the first three novels in a single thrift store visit, so michael tolliver might still end up meaning something to me. for now, let's call tales of the city high-spirited sudsiness.
VICTOR: let the great world spin. mccann has reach, and tales isn't nimble these days.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 how do you feel about san francisco?
02 are you able to appreciate art which celebrates things you don't especially like?
03 what's the druggiest book you've ever read?
04 can you recommend a good free standing air conditioner? that's not especially literary, but since you're here and all.
*previous battle here.
**emphasis on the substances; it's been a few years since i last read burroughs, but i think these kids might out-drug him.
***which, full disclosure, starred my beloved ex-boss's sister.
****i was helping drive a carful of bread across the city for a friend's event last year when my co-volunteer spied the public library and went, "oh, those stairs always make me think of when carrie and big got married!" no context, just carrie and big. weird.
02.17.10
THUNDERTOME: ROUND 6
SURVIVOR: chronic city (jonathan lethem)*
CHALLENGER: the spellmans strike again (lisa lutz)
i spotted a couple of lisa lutz's spellman files "comic crime" novels on our friend amos's (minimalist, largely nonfiction) bookshelf this past new year's eve. what's a thirty-year-old attorney doing with books about a wacky lady detective? "they're fun," he said, "and i like reading about san francisco." he's right: lutz has a fine ear for banter,** and her characters (a dysfunctional family of private eyes and the northern californians they harass) are entertaining, if not always emotionally plausible.*** (as lutz put it in an interview, "If my book gets someone through a dreadful plane ride, then I've done my job.") lutz and her girl sleuth, isabel, enjoy numbering and transcribing things even more than i do: in this fourth and final spellman-installment alone, she catalogues (and often tapes) family camping trips, (men who will be) ex-boyfriends, stakeouts, phone calls from florida, "mandatory lawyer dates," "lost wednesdays," and so on. the repetition is pretty charming, except when isabel flogs the three previous novels in the footnotes (as either a literary or a marketing tool, clunk). it's also useful, for while i've yet to bring one of lutz's books on a plane (i've read three in all; i think i missed revenge of the spellmans, the previous installment), they're stop-and-start subway commute magic, and i'm consistently pleased when they turn up among our pre-publication reader's proofs at the office. lutz doesn't quite nail the private eye's final walk into the sunset (totally possible in a tragicomic setting, a la veronica mars), but she's got her walk and her talk well in hand.
VICTOR: chronic city. i'd rather have a beer with lutz, but lethem's is the title i'd rather have in hardcover.
THUNDERTOME: ROUND 6
SURVIVOR: chronic city (jonathan lethem)*
CHALLENGER: the spellmans strike again (lisa lutz)
i spotted a couple of lisa lutz's spellman files "comic crime" novels on our friend amos's (minimalist, largely nonfiction) bookshelf this past new year's eve. what's a thirty-year-old attorney doing with books about a wacky lady detective? "they're fun," he said, "and i like reading about san francisco." he's right: lutz has a fine ear for banter,** and her characters (a dysfunctional family of private eyes and the northern californians they harass) are entertaining, if not always emotionally plausible.*** (as lutz put it in an interview, "If my book gets someone through a dreadful plane ride, then I've done my job.") lutz and her girl sleuth, isabel, enjoy numbering and transcribing things even more than i do: in this fourth and final spellman-installment alone, she catalogues (and often tapes) family camping trips, (men who will be) ex-boyfriends, stakeouts, phone calls from florida, "mandatory lawyer dates," "lost wednesdays," and so on. the repetition is pretty charming, except when isabel flogs the three previous novels in the footnotes (as either a literary or a marketing tool, clunk). it's also useful, for while i've yet to bring one of lutz's books on a plane (i've read three in all; i think i missed revenge of the spellmans, the previous installment), they're stop-and-start subway commute magic, and i'm consistently pleased when they turn up among our pre-publication reader's proofs at the office. lutz doesn't quite nail the private eye's final walk into the sunset (totally possible in a tragicomic setting, a la veronica mars), but she's got her walk and her talk well in hand.
VICTOR: chronic city. i'd rather have a beer with lutz, but lethem's is the title i'd rather have in hardcover.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 seriously, though. would you drink coffee and eat pineapple at the same time?
02 what was your last in-flight read?
03 isabel mentions doctor who often and passionately enough that i feel like i should see what she's going on about. are you a fan? what am i missing?
*previous battle here.
**her dialogue is quite solid as a general proposition, actually: lutz was a screenwriter (albeit a thwarted one) in a previous professional life, and it shows.
***or gustatorially plausible: at one point, they sat around consuming coffee and fresh pineapple together. it pains me to think about how unholy that would taste.
07.17.08
the dirty dozen, part three: the latest issue of the ladymag is dead and you, dozen, you are next
07 my friend meg, a sort-of newcomer to san francisco, asked me about "adorable yet affordable" restaurants in russian hill (the neighborhood where joe and i lived for three years) yesterday afternoon. oddly, i had nothing for her:* we didn't do a lot of dining out close to home, and we also lived in SF at the height of dot com weirdness and flux ('00-'03): a lot of things that existed back then are long gone now, even in our slowest-to-change old 'hood. i'm not especially helpful with recommendations here in new york, either, come to think of it: only a handful of restaurants in hell's kitchen get my seal of approval. is it that proximity breeds contempt?** that i'm extra-conservative when local cred is at stake? that when we bother to get up from the couch, we go far, far away to make the most of inertia? is this problem familiar to you?
08 speaking of food that is awesome, i am frequently disparaged for recommending and/or preparing things that are too spicy for most people toenjoy eat. the feedback that fire burns out the other flavors in my chili is particularly hurtful; i can still taste everything else, thank you. i asked the internets to exonerate me, but science flavors the bland, at least on this point: researchers have found that capsaicin decreases sensitivity to sweetness, bitterness, and umami (the element of taste triggered by MSG). that said, sensitivity to sourness and saltiness aren't affected, and everyone knows those are the two best elements of taste, anyway. also, capsaicin prevents cancer, has anti-inflammatory properties, increases metabolic activity, and makes you a better lover. you can take or leave my chili; i'm just saying.
09 after returning to salon's broadsheet blog to re-read a horrifying post on pre-wedding dieting (one fifth of the women in a fitness survey said they'd postpone their wedding if they hadn't met their weight goal in time; more than half of the women in a cornell study said they'd use "extreme dieting methods" to lose weight), i hopped to a new post on a love song for ladies' rooms from the wall street journal online:
the dirty dozen, part three: the latest issue of the ladymag is dead and you, dozen, you are next
07 my friend meg, a sort-of newcomer to san francisco, asked me about "adorable yet affordable" restaurants in russian hill (the neighborhood where joe and i lived for three years) yesterday afternoon. oddly, i had nothing for her:* we didn't do a lot of dining out close to home, and we also lived in SF at the height of dot com weirdness and flux ('00-'03): a lot of things that existed back then are long gone now, even in our slowest-to-change old 'hood. i'm not especially helpful with recommendations here in new york, either, come to think of it: only a handful of restaurants in hell's kitchen get my seal of approval. is it that proximity breeds contempt?** that i'm extra-conservative when local cred is at stake? that when we bother to get up from the couch, we go far, far away to make the most of inertia? is this problem familiar to you?
08 speaking of food that is awesome, i am frequently disparaged for recommending and/or preparing things that are too spicy for most people to
09 after returning to salon's broadsheet blog to re-read a horrifying post on pre-wedding dieting (one fifth of the women in a fitness survey said they'd postpone their wedding if they hadn't met their weight goal in time; more than half of the women in a cornell study said they'd use "extreme dieting methods" to lose weight), i hopped to a new post on a love song for ladies' rooms from the wall street journal online:
[L}adies' room banter is an endless source of wisdom and comfort. My ladies' room crowd includes a fashion maven, a globetrotter who knows every good cheap restaurant in Paris, Berkeley and Hong Kong, a marriage counselor, several cancer survivors and a bevy of super-moms. They've guided me about how to survive pre-school interviews and college tours and which internist to choose in my health-care plan. They've advised me about where to get the best cocktail dress, haircut and beach house that won't break my budget. The time I've saved shopping, searching for doctors and worrying about my daughter because of advice gleaned in my office ladies' room has added up to months of work for my company and saved me from numerous multitask meltdowns.the WSJ piece feels wildly outdated to me: i have the occasional significant conversation with my boss in the loo, but that's because we coincide there more than anywhere else (she's almost never at her desk). my office chats graphically all over the place all the time, which could be because we're one big ladies' room; i think the candor is more generational than gender-based, though. then again, i've been in situations like this one for most of my working life: how would i know?
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 do you find yourselves resenting strangers at the gym, internets? if so, what are their crimes?
02 spices: proof that the universe is fond of us, or brutish dish-killers?
03 is the ladies' room a special, special place?
*i of course thought of something just now, though. go to nick's crispy tacos (a nightclub that turns into a taco shack during the day), meg! draped velvet and cholula, together at last!
**lord knows i'm hard on The Canadian Whimperer, a frighteningly hairy old regular at our gym who cranks his treadmill too high and grips the heart rate sensors like his life will end if he lets go.
04.23.08
the dirty dozen, continued: california roll
04 as i twittered when we first got down to san francisco last tuesday, joe found us the cutest little flophouse in the bay area: hotel tomo, a best western ($110/night!) in japantown that's been given a japanese pop / video game makeover (wii gaming suites and afternoon sake socials! a giant robot SF hoodie vending machine in the lobby!). i don't think we were tomo's target market (japanese tourists, i think: a card in the lobby suggested we check out "undiscovered gems" like...lombard street), but i can't be sure: there was some sort of urban outfitters corporate convention winding up as we checked in. either way, i adored the heisuke kitazawa murals on our walls, the lobby screens that appeared to play spirited away on a constant loop, and dear god, the "do not disturb" signs.
even our stealth portrait was cute.
05 ever seen the episode of seinfeld in which kramer's trying to figure out how to cost-effectively transport recyclable bottles to a state where the redemption value is higher? used clothing from san francisco agitates me that way. there's an impeccably curated vintage tee place in los angeles that charges $35 and more* for the kind of shirts joe and i routinely find for next to nothing at thrift stores in the bay area. those finds are predictable in out-of-the-way places like woodland (a sacramento suburb), where hipster shoppers are few and far between, but they're mystifying on valencia street (the safer and more yuppily populated end of the mission), where it took me fifteen minutes to decide whether or not i really needed an orange windbreaker covered with patches from oklahoma ladies' indoor archery tournaments (the answer is obviously and always yes). then i realized it was only going to cost $3 - we were in a vintage-by-the-pound store - and i had to stifle a maniacal laugh. i should have bought an extra suitcase and filled it right there.
06 at pica's suggestion, we MUNI'ed with her and paul up to the de young museum in golden gate park (still under construction when we lived in town - the museum, not, er, the park). i can see why bajillionaires get married there: art and artifacts aside, it's easily the swankiest mega-gallery i've ever seen (ultra high quality hardwood floors, extremely complicated lighting design, a tower that overlooks the whole city). northern california has a very specific way of doing back-to-basics luxury that new york institutions like the new moma have a hard time out-sassing. it's sort of like how women on the west coast aren't as well dressed as manhattan women are, but they're more basically physically attractive. does that make sense? i think it has something to do with avocado. but the de young also has site-specific commissions from art darlings like andy goldsworthy and gerhard richter, so it's like a nymphet who just found out about comme des garçons. fair? not at all. but i'll ogle it anyway.
the dirty dozen, continued: california roll
04 as i twittered when we first got down to san francisco last tuesday, joe found us the cutest little flophouse in the bay area: hotel tomo, a best western ($110/night!) in japantown that's been given a japanese pop / video game makeover (wii gaming suites and afternoon sake socials! a giant robot SF hoodie vending machine in the lobby!). i don't think we were tomo's target market (japanese tourists, i think: a card in the lobby suggested we check out "undiscovered gems" like...lombard street), but i can't be sure: there was some sort of urban outfitters corporate convention winding up as we checked in. either way, i adored the heisuke kitazawa murals on our walls, the lobby screens that appeared to play spirited away on a constant loop, and dear god, the "do not disturb" signs.
even our stealth portrait was cute.
05 ever seen the episode of seinfeld in which kramer's trying to figure out how to cost-effectively transport recyclable bottles to a state where the redemption value is higher? used clothing from san francisco agitates me that way. there's an impeccably curated vintage tee place in los angeles that charges $35 and more* for the kind of shirts joe and i routinely find for next to nothing at thrift stores in the bay area. those finds are predictable in out-of-the-way places like woodland (a sacramento suburb), where hipster shoppers are few and far between, but they're mystifying on valencia street (the safer and more yuppily populated end of the mission), where it took me fifteen minutes to decide whether or not i really needed an orange windbreaker covered with patches from oklahoma ladies' indoor archery tournaments (the answer is obviously and always yes). then i realized it was only going to cost $3 - we were in a vintage-by-the-pound store - and i had to stifle a maniacal laugh. i should have bought an extra suitcase and filled it right there.
06 at pica's suggestion, we MUNI'ed with her and paul up to the de young museum in golden gate park (still under construction when we lived in town - the museum, not, er, the park). i can see why bajillionaires get married there: art and artifacts aside, it's easily the swankiest mega-gallery i've ever seen (ultra high quality hardwood floors, extremely complicated lighting design, a tower that overlooks the whole city). northern california has a very specific way of doing back-to-basics luxury that new york institutions like the new moma have a hard time out-sassing. it's sort of like how women on the west coast aren't as well dressed as manhattan women are, but they're more basically physically attractive. does that make sense? i think it has something to do with avocado. but the de young also has site-specific commissions from art darlings like andy goldsworthy and gerhard richter, so it's like a nymphet who just found out about comme des garçons. fair? not at all. but i'll ogle it anyway.
*i screamed in rage when i first saw those prices, but we each ended up buying something there.
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