Market Watch

Today was a classic! The sun brought out thousands, thus it was fortuitous that I started my L’Etoile foraging early.

The Madison market succeeds for many reasons. One is that it is scenically located around the Capitol and there are enough stalls to make it worth your while to go downtown. And, the farmers are there themselves, with the commitment and earnestness that displays their passion for their work. Felix, the renegade Swiss businessman started making goat feta a couple of years back. This week he is introducing his goat milk ice cream – it’s fantastic, worthy of his enthusiasm and that’s saying a lot. Rainbow’s End herb growers are giving us lime thyme – if you taste it, you get an immediate bite of lime followed by the savor of thyme. Blue Valley’s asparagus is exceptionally flavorful and they are so proud of it. They have an old woman who has been trimming it for them for years – she shows up each year and reclaims the cutting blades. Kim from JehnAire Farms has a handful of recipes to distribute along with her chickens. Anne at Fantome speaks of her young goats as if they were her kids. Yes, okay, that was lame, but if you talk to the farmers, it is like that: each has a story and a new idea for the season ahead.

By comparison, I read recently that the Green Market in New York is floundering. The sellers show up with cigarettes dangling from their mouths, knowing nothing of the foods they are attempting to sell. Discarded produce rots at the side. The visual impact is strong. You don’t enjoy being there. It is just another grocery store without a roof.

Today’s sunshine added new light and glimmer to the foods.
The jars of honey had a jeweled amber glow:


sunny honey 

Even the radishes looked sunbeamy bright:


bright radishes 

And the gourds danced in buoyant celebration:


dancing gourds 

Of course, the flowers now are extraordinary. I am limiting photos here, but it is hard because the colors are just so intense that you want to preserve them forever:


blue and purple 


poppies 

For one seller, there could never be enough displays of flowers:


hairstyle of the day 

…Though the colors are everywhere in the Market, not only in the blooms. The sheeps’ milk camembert rounds look milky white against the blue basket:


blue and white 

What’s new this week? The strawberries are now appearing in numerous places, and for the first time, I see the baby potatoes:


dozens of new babies 

Back at L’Etoile, the bakers can hardly keep pace with the lines outside. Here, Olga is putting the finishing touch on the sweet apple croissants:


the final step 

Outside, the drummers bang out the happy rhythm of the day:


energy 

And an off-the-square vendor lures buyers to invest in Madison-like clothes for the young:


peace 

It really is a brilliant day. I did not mind making 6 trips around the Square with the L’Etoile wagon. I could have done a dozen more.

Chanson

Nostalgic yet progressive. Diverse, creative and multicultural. Gipsy jazz and musette. Rich in poetry, satire, drama and emotion. The example of Edith Piaf. Born and raised in the cafes and music halls of France. These are words used to describe French chanson. The best compilation I’ve come across thus far is in the Putumayo recording entitled “French Café.”

I am listening to it constantly. Interspersed with a reader’s recommendation of Martina McBride’s “How Far” – an extremely sad song for me, for the lyrics alone. I should add a Polish retro recording, like “Yellow Calendars,” by Szczepanik (so, you Americans out there, how do you pronounce THAT, huh?) and also “the Peace of the Prarie” (only one reader could possibly get the inclusion of this) but my cup at this point runneth over.

Trains, Trams and Automobiles (Nostalgia run, part 3; what’s with me this week??)

I walked along the railroad tracks today and predictably, they reminded me of how much I love things associated with trains.

My grandparents’ home, secluded in a northeastern Polish village, was accessible from Warsaw for many years only by train and even then you still had a hike of about an hour from the train station to their house. (Is a one room shack with no attendant on duty most of the time really a train station anyway?) I didn’t mind. Even as kid, I liked the ride and I liked the hike. Every once in a while, when we had more luggage than reasonably could be carried, my grandfather would get a farmer to come to the station with his horse and farm wagon and take us home. Such comforting smells! From grease spilt on tracks to horse manure and scratchy wool blankets, I liked it all.

As I grew older, my parents made friends with a man who had a car, and once or twice he would drive us to the village. I groaned on those occasions – maybe because his car was an old VW bug, and there were four of us plus him, the driver, that would have to fit into the ratty old machine, along with assorted bags and containers of foods. And since car travel was so rare for me, inevitably we’d have to make stops so that I could settle my young, inexperienced stomach at the side of the road, to the disgusted eye-roll of my sister, who somehow held her food better during car trips. This was reason enough to favor a train over the automobile.

Oh, but those great, powerful trains with their steam locomotives! When we were young and reckless, we’d go with friends to the tracks and place coins before an oncoming train. The flattened result was worthless, of course, but it was cool to compare the oddly shaped shards of metal that the train left behind.

But the biggest form of bravery was to stand on the wooden train bridge that spanned the river at the same time that a train was passing through. Technically, there was enough room for the train and for pedestrians, but the bridge was old and it shook violently as the train moved along. The terrifying rumble was something you could never quite get used to, but feeling myself to be a spunky kid, I had to be up there with the rest, shaking along with the rattling bridge, defiant, invincible.

It is interesting then, that the city trams, which cross Warsaw at the modest speeds of 25 – 30 mph scared me more than the country trains. Perhaps all city kids had a healthy dose of fear instilled in them by their parents, for trams killed far more pedestrians than trains ever could. And, on top of this, trams were crowded. One of my earliest memories has me riding in a tram with my mother, squeezed tightly among dozens and dozens of others. “We’re getting off now,” I remember her saying. But I lost her hand and to me it seemed at that moment that I had lost the world or at least my place in it. Amazingly, the tram spit me out onto the platform with a host of others, like a rejected sardine who had to be let go because the tin could hold no more – spit! –I’m out, lying there on the tram stop, crying, crying for my lost mother who finds me quickly enough and groans at my soiled coat. God, I hated those trams!

Madison’s trains are more of a nuisance than a big factor in anyone’s life. They slow down traffic on the rare occasion that they pass through the city. Still, they get my fondness vote. I can’t look at a train and not like it and I can’t walk along a track without thinking back to the years of squished coins on railroad tracks.

Nostalgia run, part 2

A curious reader asked about the Polish first grade experience. A photo is worth a thousand words in this case. Here we are, in the first month of my first year in school. It’s 1959, I’m six, the rest are seven and the teacher looks to be not quite 30 as she ‘teaches’ 40+ kids to recognize words in a book. “Point to the word “las”!” she instructs, and we all point. (The young man in the first row is either cheating, or checking on the intelligence of the braided lass behind him.)



Such disciplined kids we were, with nothing to distract us from the task at hand: bare walls, navy uniforms (white collars had to be changed daily), and badges indicating the school number. No badge stitched on that morning? No entry into the building. The blog author, btw, is recognized by the arrow. The band on the arm signifies “monitor” status. We took turns being monitors – keeping order during recess, etc. I’m sure I was quite effective against all those kids with pent up energies.

God, reading lessons were boring!

Test your smartness against my stupidity, part 2

Am I the only one who read this at first (and second and third) glance to say “New! No Low-carb Options!” ? I know, I know, there is indeed an “&” in there, but when you’re driving by, does it throw itself at you*? No it does not. At least not at those with less than average intelligence which is, Prairie Home Companion notwithstanding, 50% of the population.


Madsion road sign 

*Comments about my distance vision are inappropriate. And they’re misguided as I have perfect distance vision, hence the fallback option of low intelligence, though it can’t be too low since when my very intelligent Polish friends and I were playing “guess the next symbol,” the answer did indeed throw itself at me. A stroke of luck perhaps.
Here’s the game, for the Mensa types out there: what symbol should come next in the following sequence?

what's next in this sequence? 

Rosie in the Morning, Rosie in the Afternoon

For as long as I have lived up Old Sauk hill, I have passed Rosie* in the morning as she helps cross school children to the other side of the street. I asked her today how long she’s been doing this and she said “40 years!” Amazing.

She has a smile and a wave for me each time I drive by – the same smile and wave that she gives to virtually anyone who may be in a half-familiar car. Of course, she knows me not at all by my face, but by my old truck (excuse me, sore subject: van]. But she has a smile and a wave even as I’m walking. And a pat on the back for the little kid traipsing off to school. Why can’t everyone be that friendly? [The crossing guard on Gammon, by Jefferson Middle School banged my car once with her stop sign because she thought I had pulled out too soon. Rosie would have never done that!]

*Technical update: not all photos are uploaded under the nifty but more cumbersome new Blogger system. No hand appears over the photo? No logo underneath the photo? That's a sign that I'm shortcutting to my old method of posting and you cannot thus get any enlargement. Shucks, right?

Nursery School and the Law

The side stairwell in the Dane County Court House smells like my state-run nursery school did back in post-war Poland. No one here can confirm this because I am 100% certain no one in Madison ever was within ten miles of my Polish preschool, especially during the 1950s. But it is true. When I worked on cases with my law students, I’d pause in the stairwell and breathe deeply to allow myself a reel back to the old times. I’m sure others thought me to be unfit, needing to pause and catch my breath every ten steps like some chain-smoking 90-year old, but I did it nonetheless.

The two years at my nursery school are a half-pleasant memory because when I was old enough to attend (4), I could finally move from the village where I lived with my grandparents, to the Warsaw apartment where my adored mother (and father, but I hardly noticed) resided. And the preschool wasn’t too bad. I had a little cubby with a picture of a little black African boy over it. I am sure it came from some horribly racist story that we listened to, but I liked him anyway, he looked after my outdoor shoes and coat and was much more imposing than the red mushroom over the cubby next to mine.

[Here is a photo of me in the nursery school. My mother had said over and over that morning: “don’t forget to comb your hair, DO NOT forget to comb your hair!” and so I remembered to comb my hair, but I forgot to take off my black flannel outdoor pants on that cold cold winter day and since the kid-teacher ration was I’m sure something like 40 to 1, no one seemed to notice, hence my odd attire.]



I liked my teacher, too, and I sucked up mercilessly, making sure that I was in place to grab her hand for park walks, transferring all my love and affection onto her during the day before I could have my adored mother in the evening again.

When I ‘graduated’ to the next level of preschool and lost my prize teacher, I fussed so much that my mother finally pulled me from nursery school and enrolled me in regular school even though I was too young. My mother is a forceful woman and usually gets her way in these matters. There began my odd educational climb, during which my parents placed me in random grades they believed were suited for me, regardless of what the Ministry of Education or any principal would tell them. By the time I finished high school in Poland, I was three years ahead of my peers and I had gaping holes in my schooling, knowing little of the history and literature that my classmates had spent time learning. No matter, my parents had lost interest by then in the education project and anyway, I made up for my rush through schools by having the most protracted university climb of anyone I know. I meandered my way through colleges and graduate schools between the years 1969 and 1987 when I finally did finish my last degree – that of the JD – which then, of course, lead me to the court house with the stairwell that smells like my old Polish nursery school.

Iris mania

I am continuing with my efforts to learn more about the tricks and gimmicks available to me for blogging purposes. Blogger has new photoblogging systems in place and this post is merely an attempt to take a photo from this week and run it through their program. There's a nice new feature: the reader may now click on the photo and enlarge the image -- a great option for the otherwise eye-squinting reader, or one who wants to study the minute details of a fried grasshopper, for example (see Nagano post last month).

It's the season for irises and these, against the ripples of a pond are reason enough to launch a new photo post.


Madison irises 

One Bicycle

I went for a walk last night. I roamed the streets of the neighborhood – something that I don’t often do since it is basically a suburb and I find suburbs very boring to walk in.

Inevitably, I passed the public elementary school. John Muir Elementary. It is only a block away. My daughters, grown and living elsewhere now, both went there and though my work was at the Law School, much of my off-hours energy went to the school. I was the PTO pres for two years running, I lobbied hard for capital improvements before the school board. I set up and produced with the kids a school newspaper for 5 years running (do you know what cut and paste layout was like before computers??). One May 10 years ago, when I was very very sick, the school teachers, staff, parents basically offered to take care of my family, because I could not do it myself.

Then, suddenly, it ended. My youngest child graduated from fifth grade and our attention focused on the next stage and the next cycle of people, events.

Life is that abrupt. Nothing lasts. People come and go. I am born in Poland. I live in the States. My mother lives in Berkeley, my father lives in Warsaw. I live in the Midwest, my daughters live on the East Coast. I have life-long to-die-for friends in Warsaw, Singapore, Madison, Minnesota, Texas, Arizona. All once were but a few steps away and now so many are accessible only by use of more complicated technology.

I mention this because for me, the last week of May has almost always been (coincidentally?) the period of tough and often unexpected changes. And I mean more than just adjustments in the blog template. The turn of the calendar, from May to June has had a penchant for drama, and I mean drama: illness, death, police brutality (in Poland), relationships beginning, ending, all have had their end-of-May moment.

So I suppose I should be grateful to have survived this year’s crisis-prone season. A knock here, a bruise there, but still tripping along.

And last night? Last night as I walked, now at the end of this period of high velocity, I saw one lonely bicycle standing forgotten outside the school building. One lonely bicycle. Let it be reclaimed, I thought. It should be at home, safe, protected from the elements.

Aren’t Reunions Supposed to be an Occasion for Partying-the-Night-Away?

So how do you explain this email that came to me today:

Please join us at the Annual "All Alumni/ae and Teachers Reunion"
June 18, 2004
6:00 - 8:00 PM
UNIS Manhattan, Third Floor Library
Kindly RSVP by June 11th to alumni@unis.org

I am a UNIS (United Nations International School) alum. A great many of us are spread now all over the world. I live in the Midwest, but a former classmate may well be receiving this same email in Cairo or Helsinki. Would they book a flight and travel (even from the Midwest) to a two-hour reception at the school library, for Pete’s sake? How fun can that event be? And how many can fit in between stacks of children’s books? They can’t be anticipating a huge turn-out. Wonder why…

Happy Blogbirthday!

Six months ago** to the day ‘Ocean’ was born. And here it is, with a new look* and a bouquet of irises fresh from the Market to commemorate the day.

I have loved the rigor of posting frequently. I have been inspired by the posts and comments of others. I have fretted through dry spells and rushed, pushing aside anything in my way, just to post while an idea felt hot (or at least lukewarm).

A few days back I said I would revisit the slant of the content and assess where it is that I am heading. My decision is to keep it loose and uncommitted. I have no introductory description and I want to keep it that way. There are no links, there isn’t even a blogroll. That may change in the future, but for now, I like the clean and simple look. Uncomplicated. Because everything else about each day is so horrendously confusing, that visiting this blog should offer relief from clutter. It’s an invitation to browse, rather than dart the courser.

And ultimately, if it’s not in some way entertaining, then it doesn’t deserve the reader’s time. That, then remains the goal. For the next six days. Maybe six months. Maybe longer?

*The blog is forever indebted to F for his patience and suffering yesterday as he helped this technologically challenged blogger redecorate ‘Ocean’ (“no! no! too bright! Tone down that yellow!....oh, that’s way too mustardy, how about a touch lighter? Can’t you change the link color? The nickname? The size of the font?” on and on and on..).

**UPDATE: Even though it has been said that students decide on law school because they can't do math or science, that was NOT MY reason for selecting the legal profession. Indeed, after a rigorous Calculus program at my Polish high school, I went on to become an Econometrics major. I have no idea why, then, I could not count well enough to recognize that January 2 - June 2 is five months and not, as stated here, six. Happy five-month-birthday anyway.

A Morning Without Rain?

Could it be? No thunder? No need for buckets to catch the overflow? No wet two-foot-tall grass in the back yard? Could it be? We are done with the deluge?

On my way to work I stop at the Centennial Gardens to celebrate the end of the wettest May on record (in Madison). The peonies are terrific.



So are the irises.





But wait, this yellow gem is pictured against the background of the pond. That would be yellow against the blue waters. Why isn’t the background blue? What color is the sky anyway? Looking up I see this.-->

I wont celebrate the end of The Rains until we’ve gone through an entire day without so much as a drop of water from above.

Why Are the EU Parliamentary Elections a Lackluster Event?

According to today’s IHT (here), many think that the candidates are ill-suited to the job and so they inspire little political passion among the voters. Ill-suited? In what way?

"It doesn't attract the right people," Crum said of the Parliament. "There are a number of people who get a seat in Parliament who simply shouldn't be there. They lack qualifications and only add noise and disruption."

Candidates in the coming elections include a sprinkling of nonpolitical personalities: an Estonian supermodel, Carmen Kass; a Slovak ice hockey star, Peter Stastny; the race car driver, Krzysztof Holowczyc; and the pornography star, Katerina Bochinckova, also known as Dolly Buster.

Wait, this is a concern to voters? Just goes to show how much more tolerant Americans are of their candidate’s diverse backgrounds and past lives. You learn on the job, don’t you?

Test Your Smartness Against My Stupidity

I heard on NPR that the last widow of a Civil War (Confederate) soldier died yesterday. Hmm. That seemed remarkable. Wasn’t the Civil War in the early 1860s? How old was this woman anyway?

A fine example of how quickly your mind can warp as you drive along same old, same old streets, engaged in passive listening. Of course, she was 'only' in her 90s. She had married the guy when she was just 21; he was then 81. Figures (on so many levels).

Today is THE day

Yes, it is June 1st. Yes, a new blog is being born. Yes it still looks like the old blog. June 1st ends at midnight tonight, doesn’t it? I WILL USE EVERY LAST MINUTE OF THE DAY TO MAKE IT HAPPEN!

THIS MORNING IT RAINED

There must be good things that come with all this rain, there must be! I took a walk to Owen Woods soon after YET ANOTHER torrential morning downpour. Owen Woods are close to where I live (5 minute walk from my house), but I need the right mindset to venture out there. It is a brooding kind of forest…



…though it opens up onto lovely prairie fields, the one place where the omnipresent phlox are very welcome…



But all that rain! After five minutes, the wind unleashed water from wet leaves, leaving me looking like I had a very unfortunate experience in the bathroom or at the very least spent a productive morning chasing my shadow through the sprinkler.

Still, there must be something worth reveling in as a result of the rains.
Sure enough, a slightly modified by me sign says it all:



…Because if you look at all the wet puddles around you, you will see this:



...and this:



and this:



When I was a kid at my grandparents’ place in the Polish village, I’d go out after heavy rains and look for puddles to bike through, just for that spray of muddy wetness (especially onto mean mortal enemies passing at the side). And always, always we’d take baskets into the forests in search of mushrooms (Poles are obsessively committed to sautéing, frying and generally cooking with mushrooms). My walk today didn’t bring me any closer to what I’d put in a frying pan, but these were certainly pretty to look at. -->

But I have to say, the singular beauty of wet things notwithstanding, I HAVE HAD IT WITH THE RAIN!! Even the pine trees look depressed with all that moisture weighing them down.

A GAGGLE OF BLOGGERS

Say there are four people: A, B, C and F. (Not to be confused with the grading chart. A, B and C are stand-in names put forth by blogger F - see post here - with or without great awareness of his own brilliance as they do indeed correspond to the first initials of last names, forcing me, therefore, to resort to the failing mark ‘F’ as a label for him, at it corresponds to his own name).

Say A knows B and C, B knows A and C, F knows C, but only C knows A, B and F. Though all do read each others’ blogs religiously (corresponding to blogs A, B, C and F). What power to have been the only one in possession of knowledge about all, the translator of blog innuendo, the purveyor of important information (‘yes, his RV does come with a patio large enough to hold a set of patio furniture’ and ‘no, she does NOT have DM posters up and down her office walls’ and ‘she does indeed blog her way through faculty meetings’)!

To be privy to insider-information is, of course, something that many long for and some are now sitting in jail for and I must admit I enjoyed the elevated status that it accorded me for a short period of time (while I can’t say that such insider information was in great demand, I would occasionally be able to show off with an off-hand, person-in-the-know type comment here and there).

All that is in the past. Last night’s dinner brought together all four and any remaining curiosities (Q: ‘is his face really as round as the drawing implies?’) were clarified and put to rest (A: ‘No.’). I must now step down and rejoin the peanut gallery, switch from first class to sardine economy, tear up my ‘informer’ business cards, lose all privilege and become one of the populace.

A ROSE IS A ROSE

A climbing rose bush (which technically is a misnomer because roses never truly ‘climb’) can make a yard come alive so quickly! So why not just stick these devils in every nook to give life and color to bleak landscapes? Because, like everything else in the growing world (people included) it is an unpredictable little thing. A little disturbance and it will falter, wither and die.

Some, though, are (like humans) hardy and tough and they can stand up to the frost and the animals and the poor soil and the drought and the negligent gardener. It’s good to surround yourself with resilient types (flowers and people) if only because they free up your time to deal with the truly needy among us. Or, for the needy growth spurts of typically hardy plants (or people).

A SAD BLOGGER MOOD; IF YOU WANNA BE HAPPY, SKIP THIS POST.

There are two very real reasons why I cannot get myself to write a chipper post:

1. The pernicious rain did not creep up the un-solarium floor. It did not flood the basement. But it did crack the roof and is currently flooding the house from above. As it’s a holiday week-end, all we can do is run with buckets. Unless someone has a more clever idea?

2. I had been talking to a friend about an article that I’d read on Friday about alternative medicine. It was suggested that I blog about it, though I put it off for a while, what with the rain and the market and all sundry issues.

The study attempted to document how Americans are increasingly turning to alternative medicine for relief from life’s aches and pains. It was a curious study in that it listed a number of “holistic remedies” that I would not myself have thought to include under the rubric of alternative medicine: “prayer,” for example. If you pray for relief, is it really that you regard this as the equivalent to (or a replacement for) popping a pill with medicinal properties? It doesn’t take much to imagine that many pray for any number of convoluted reasons, perhaps too complicated to untangle for the purposes of a simple survey.

Or, another curiosity: “yoga.” A friend asked me to go with her to a yoga class this coming Wednesday. I balked: why invest an hour and a half to stretching? (Truthfully I balked because she is almost 20 years younger than I and the idea of us stretching together was … disheartening.) Ultimately she prevailed and so we’re set to go Wednesday. Which means I probably wont have time for my regular gym and/or walking. There’s only so much time one can invest in body repair in the course of a day. But are any of these “alternative healing?” I didn’t think so. I never hum meditatively when I walk or run, I do not focus on finding an inner sanctum, nor do I seek to eradicate poisons that that have seized control of my body.

But then, yesterday, something terribly sad happened and suddenly writing about all this became hugely more complicated.

I received an email from a very good friend who lives across the ocean. And I am hoping that he does not mind that I include just a fragment of his message. He writes:

My father passed away on the 30th of April, three weeks short of his 83 birthday, 59 years to the day after he was liberated from the Dachau concentration camp…But there is a more tragic side of this story. As I have told you my parents have been Christian Scientists for the last 15 years. Never went to see a doctor (except when my mother broke her leg), did not take any medicines and did not ever want to talk about their health. They believed in spiritual healing, God's ever-present love and harmony. Material world is an illusion. Mind not just over but instead of matter. Beautiful ideas and they do work - as I have witnessed several times. But perhaps not always...

You can tell where this is heading. The old man died even though he should have, could have lived. Here, prayer was indeed used as an alternative form of healing. And it became not an addition to, but a substitute for scientifically-driven medicine.

Perhaps one of the problems is that we have created this dichotomy of ‘alternative’ and ‘conventional.’ We now know that many of the alternative forms ought to have been studied and incorporated into conventional practice, but for any number of economic, social and political reasons they had been pushed to the side. Yoga may well be on that list. Certainly herbs and other non-conventional therapies have medicinal benefits that have been ignored for years. To me, alternative thus simply comes to mean “scientifically untested.”

But insofar as science cannot run tests for all illness and every permutation of every therapy, there appears good reason to try untested cures especially under desperate conditions. This would include conventional medicines used in unconventional ways (who would have thought, for example, that aspirin may decrease the likelihood of breast cancer?). My mother pops some ten or more non-conventional pills every day. She is strong as a horse for her age. She swears by her various remedies, though she also has another ten or so conventional medicines that she takes. She is a walking pill machine.

It becomes complicated when spiritual matters enter into the equation. Science is only now beginning to investigate the relationship between spiritual well-being and the likelihood of healing (the most recent research that I’ve come across does not support a link between positive thoughts and healing: cancer patients who had a better, more hopeful outlook about their prognosis were NOT more likely to overcome their illness; and, those that could not improve their outlook, were doubly burdened by their depression and their guilt for not overcoming their depression).

So, here I am, on this wet, drippy day, thinking about all this and feeling terribly sad for my friend who is so unhappy. And for the roof that is leaking. These two issues are not at the same level of sadness, to be sure, but they coincide to make me want to go out and do some brisk walking right now. Not for spiritual healing purposes, but to distract myself from the realities that are before me.

MONSOON SEASON?

My secret other life shivered through the deluge, then took on a rosy glow from the ovens.

...And it rained and rained and rained. And then it really rained. And then it poured. The wind and rain together caused temperatures to plummet. It was not a fun day to be L’Etoile’s forager, nor was it fun to be a farmer at the Market.

But the colors of the flowers looked so vibrant, even under the gray skies of the day.



The list of foods needed for the restaurant was woefully large on this wet Market day. 8 pounds of sauté spinach, 3 pounds of soup spinach and 6 pounds of salad spinach. 30 pounds of asparagus. 3 pounds of angelica, 2 pounds of tarragon. Cheeses: camembert, Fantome goat (Dane County’s biggest goat advocate is back!), nutty Swiss. 11 quarts of strawberries (pictured here: only Jordan Produce has them because they are lucky enough to have a southern-facing slope), 10 pounds of pea pods, edible flowers, on and on and on. And anything else that is new and exciting. It took five trips around the square (plus one with Odessa) to get it done. In the pouring rain.

But without misery there is no appreciation for the little things: like a hot oven. Odessa asked me to stay on to do some cooking and food prepping and I happily agreed. Toasting fresh breadcrumbs in the oven suddenly brought forth delicious moments of warmth. Typically it is an tedious task because you have to stoop (never bend!) and check for doneness too often. Today? Bliss. So warm!

When I last cooked for L’Etoile (a couple of years back) I had graduated from being a line-cook to being up there with the chef types, hence I now have my own coat. (Though technically, in the hierarchy of the restaurant, there is only one chef and we know who SHE is; to get her attention, you need only call out “Chef!” and it’s clear who is being summoned.)




And a l’Etoile cap, of course. It’s good to be wearing them again.


The most fun thing to make this afternoon? Fennel pesto with Stravecchio cheese. The most tedious? Nothing, even chopping up the spinach and the shallots was a good. To work with the hands, to allow my mind to focus on the task before me, at the same time that I could take in the steady work of my fellow cooks is pretty much equivalent for me to a day at the spa.

Tired now, but in a good way. And the glow from the ovens is still with me.

THE BLOG AS AN EDUCATIONAL TOOL

Still searching around and testing out different blog functions, I came across this piece of advice today from someone who is perhaps the business traveler par excellence (he spends, I'm told, some 40 nights per year at home; the story was in today's IHT) and so I thought I'd share it with the blogworld of travelers to educate and inform: never, ever leave those little plastic key cards in hotel rooms or other public places after you've checked out. You THINK they are all about entering your hotel room. In reality, most have encrypted information on you as well, including your credit card number.* The advice is to return them to the front desk at check-out.

*I do have to wonder, though, how many potential thieves know this AND are able to access the info AND indeed do make use of that ability, or are even on the prowl for left-behind keys. It seems remote to me, at about the same level of remoteness as someone entering a friends' house I guess. Last year he told me to stop by their place and pick up something while they were away. I protested that I didn't have the key. He answered "Neither do I, I just don't typically lock the door.**"

** Or, the same level of remoteness as having a would-be thief now search for information on my past and present friends after having read this post and having thus found out that one of these people may indeed leave the door unlocked upon occasion. Hmmm. That suddenly doesn't seem that remote. Okay then, that story about the friend and the key? Completely fabricated.

AND IN THE MEANTIME, THE MAGIC OF EARLY MORNING SUNSHINE TAKES HOLD

...of the branches of the tree outside my office window.

How can one not like being up at the wee hours of the morning?

BLOG MARGINALIA

I have noticed recently that political blog posts, while interesting, are far less provocative than the comments they inspire. Often a discussion (argument) ensues between the poster and an anonymous reader* and the third party, the reader, watches it unfold, tempted to jump in, yet also fascinated by the discourse itself-- a private argument voyeurism of sorts, for it has the appearance of being private, on the margins, accessible only to the committed, the motivated, the impassioned (or the bored).

In one recent round, a reader had responded to Ann’s blog post on the “blatantly partisan blogosphere” thus:

Isn't there really only one kind of centrist, the ideological centrist?

The ideological centrist is one whose beliefs are not driven by a core ideology that being equality vs. liberty. The ideological centrist is more concerned with practical results and will disregard the the liberty vs. equality debate. The centrist, however, will always have an ideological enemy because you can't have both liberty and equality. You will always either have more of one and less of the other.

How could one resist this provocation? For in creating this dichotomy, the Anonymous poster has both taken the steam out of the centrist position by equating it with an extreme pragmatism it doesn’t deserve (Ann’s rebuttal) and expunged the possibility of creating economic or social justice (I assume the Commentator meant economic, but this was not specified) without trampling on personal freedom (to spend? to function without government?) – at which point I had to jump in, of course, because, in my view, categorical pronouncements of this nature have to be discouraged even if they appear only on the margins of a blog post.

And all this is taking place on the side, while the happy blog reader reads on, unaware, looking for the next post, the next quirky blogger observation.

Still, I hold to my previous post’s declaration: I don’t want a “Comment” function here! I am not even sure yet how politicized this blog will be in the future. June 1st – the date for blog transformations – is fast approaching and I have done nothing, NOTHING to puff up the blog sails and head toward the changes that I am determined to make.

* I, too, dislike profoundly the new Blogger comment format which encourages anonymous posts; even I prefer to simply post an anonymous comment (and have done so on numerous blogs) than to go through more elaborate posting procedures called forth by Blogger. As a result, the reader never know whether the anonymous commentator is a new voice or an old voice saying new things. Annoying!

WINING AND DINING MYSELF

Since, for one reason or another, I have not had a regular dinner since Saturday, I decided last night to treat myself to a normal evening meal. I went somewhere where I'd not been before, though I certainly know the dining space from its previous restaurant incarnations.

Inside, the transformation to this more trendy-feeling dining room was completely successful. As for the food? I asked them to modify an appetizer – cut out the meats and concentrate on the Napa cabbage, cilantro and sprouts and they did, charged me half the price of the original and produced and exceptional, spicy and substantial appetizer (for $4.95). From the main menu I wanted something ‘standard,’ what anyone would order on a typical night. I opted for the Kung Pao shrimp with brown basmati rice and got a huge dish that was loaded with a fresh spinach sauté and monster (and not overcooked! yes!!) shrimp, priced at $8.95. The wines – their house glass of Chardonnay was under $5. So, an ample meal with fresh ingredients and good use of spices at $20 (before tip). Can you guess where*? P.S. For those who like trendy drinks, I hear their ginger-infused martini is cool – and I thought the bar ambience itself was quite nice.

*Lacking a “Comments” section (I know, I know, I've had many comments about the lack of 'Comments.' My own comment on that? 'Je refuse.') forces me to make up potential reader responses:
(Anonymous): It must be Big Bowl?
(NC): No, not Big Bowl, though there are definite similarities.

(From the East Coast): You’re not in Madison anymore! I’ve been to Madison – there is no good Asian or pan-Asian restaurant in the entire town.
(NC): You East Coast people are all the same. You think things never change here. Just because Imperial Gardens has a menu that looks remarkably identical to the menu I first encountered there some 20+ years ago, does not mean that ALL Asian restaurants are going to follow in its wake.

(A FoodFight Enthusiast): We are better than Lettuce Entertain You! We’ve got Firefly!
(NC): A biased but accurate answer. I am a card-carrying Lettuce Entertain You once-frequent diner and a fan of what they did to the Chicago dining scene (they pumped money into restaurants that they thought could revamp and produce a hefty loyal following and it worked). I am happy that Madison is benefiting from a similar entrepreneurial dining spirit.

ME, INTERESTED IN NUMBERS??

Or: what I found this morning in a paper that I never otherwise read: numbers, numbers everywhere!

It's rare that I am sitting in a coffee shop early in the morning reading the Wisconsin State Journal, but today was just such a day. I was in my office early today. So early, as a matter of fact, that I witnessed this sunrise out my window (forgive the slant, I am, after all, on a hill):

It is imperative to fill yourself with something that'll really knock your eyes open on such mornings and so I headed to Starbucks for a strong shot of espresso (but greatly diluted by milk so who am I kidding). There I picked up a paper tossed aside by someone else. I am generally dismissive of this paper, taking a position of haughty superiority, perhaps, in flaunting my commitment to the NYT or WashPost or the IHT instead.

But today I actually learned something from our local rag. There were a number of articles that threw out numbers and they were not uninteresting numbers. I'll give you four examples (directly quoting from the paper)of stories that piqued my curiosity, in the order that they appeared in the paper:

1. Only 63% of 4 year college students earn a college degree within 6 years (this is in the entire US)... At UW Madison, the 6 year graduation rate for white students is 76.9%, compared to 52.1% for minorities... America is almost unique among industrialized countries in failing [in recent years] to improve its graduation rate. [Reasons for failure to complete college here: lack of academic preparedness, lack of personal attention given by colleges to the needs of students, and the need to quit and go home to get a job and care for families.]

2. Two-thirds of divorces after age 40 are initiated by wives. The survey found that women over age 40 seemed more aware of problems in their marriage while men were more likely to be caught off-guard by their divorces. 26% of men said they 'never saw it coming' compared with 14% of women.

3. Immigrants who come to the U.S. [that would be me!] live an average of 3 years longer than people born here [oh no, I don't want to usurp the bounty and use it to my own advantage!]. A growing body of evidence indicates the life span difference reflects both immigrants' innate vitality and their reluctance to embrace Americans' drive-through, drive-everywhere mentality (bold added).

4. This year's top 10 finalists (in the 16th annual National Geographic Bee) were all boys. Bo Sun of Ladysmith WI was among them. [N.b. I would say that the winning Q wasn't that hard compared to all Qs preceding it. The Q: Peshawar, in Pakistan, has had strategic importance for centuries because of its location near what historic pass? A: Khyber Pass. Comment: Forgive me for sounding provincial, but do we even know of any other Pass in that area?]

I would have missed all this had I only done a computer scan of my standard press. Of course, I am not going to mention the other stories, the ones that make me convinced that I can never really like the Journal. Let's just give it one moment of glory and not look critically beyond these few interesting pieces.

WHY SOME BLOG IN THE BATHROOM and other abstruse observations on a hobby

Rarely have I wanted to parrot a blogger's comments as much as I did Ann's today on the NYT article that gives extensive if rather narrow and banal comments on bloggers who like to blog. I wont say a word more. Read her analysis of the article and just assume it could easily have been mine as well.

Passion for anything -- including work, family, love, food, travel, literature, bird-watching -- anything at all, always irritates the passionless.

MORE IRRELEVANT NOTES FROM AN IRRLEVANT DAY

That row of breakfast rolls from today’s breakfast in the previous post? That may have been the highlight of the day. No, wait, I have to do better than that. Other highlights:

- Sitting in a coffee shop and grading exams, I looked up to notice that a colleague was sitting at the table next to mine doing exactly the same thing. It was a good reason to stop grading and start distracting each other. I think she was better at the grading while I was better at the distracting.

- I went to the bank to withdraw all the money and fly off to some distant destination. It just seemed the clever thing to do, an investment in a worry-free existence. Ah, to travel, to see the world and let the rest toil and fret about small things like bills and tuitions and other trivialities. But on the way, I got side-tracked by this sign (on the right here). I happen to know that this particular Fest makes one of my distant readers very happy and so I stood there and contemplated the unfairness of life. Here I am, happy not to be consuming anything from the Brat Fest, while there she is, far away, wanting so much to bite into that greasy little sausage from the Fest grill. By the time I finished with these profound reflections, the bank was closed and so I could not run anywhere at all.

- Because I was being so good about grading, I rewarded myself with not only the delicious junk breakfast but also a delicious junk dinner: MANY handfuls of nuts, a bowl of soup (that part was healthy) and a huge piece of cinnamon something or other. I am also thinking that a further desert is in order. After all, coffee shops have limited menu offerings. If there are only desserts here, what can I do, right?

- A friend sent e-photos of a baby just born to one of my former students. The baby looked like -- a real newborn. There is something predictably newborn-like about freshly born babies. There's little else you can add to that description, unless they also have a huge mass of hair or an usual feature or an odd number of toes.

- I do believe the rest of America is currently watching American Idol. The build up has been tremendous. I know some of the people who voted. To them, I say this: I hope that if you can only have the results fall your way in one election in the next six months that it wont be the elections leading to the selection of the American Idol.

A PUZZLER AND A TEMPTATION

An early office visit revealed this outside (my window is large and beautiful and looks out on Bascom Mall):

What the heck? Cows on campus? An athletic event? What?





A breakfast break from grading put me in sight of these sweet little things.
<--

The up-side: it reminds me of wonderful vacation breakfasts. I mean, it’s not the type of stuff one has on a daily basis. Still, a reward for grading is in order, right?

The down-side: this is no way to start a ‘healthy eating’ day! After a breakfast of this sort, what does one do, go to Noodles for lunch, like this blogger?

EMAIL CAN BE A GOOD THING!

Something I learned today: The blogging lawyer from St. Croix, V.I. wrote the following in an email that responded to an earlier post of mine:

We don't wear tropical shirts or sandals to court, but we DO wear them to the office (I have, in fact, worn sandy flip-flops to work). Most attorneys I know have one suit jacket that they keep in their office for court appearances and that's the extent of their formal, "lawyer" wardrobe.

Comment: I would enjoy wearing sandy flip-flops to work.

Another thing that I learned today: Nuts do not a dinner make.

Comment: if you forget to eat dinner by 9, you should not think that nuts will be a good alternative. You should make or get dinner after you remember.

Yet another thing I learned today: Even when you think your sister is not reading your blog, she may be reading your blog. One of the nice emails I got today came from her and in it she wrote:
“Your travel descriptions were great. You should be doing this for a living -- get paid to travel and write about it.” I include this quote not for any other reason but because I think it was a genuinely sweet thing for her to say and because it can serve as a lesson (see comment).

Comment: I should learn not to make assumptions, jump to conclusions and do all those other awful things one does in the absence of information. I should learn this and I WILL learn this. I PROMISE!!

And one more thing that I learned today: Online translations are amusing in their worthlessness. My new friend in Japan, Masahiko, who speaks almost no English, periodically writes in Japanese and then submits his note to an ‘automatic Net translator.’ Here are portions of his email from today:

Nina looks forward to meeting it by mail from now though it is lonely
because it came back to America.

Do your best, and come to Japan again in the next year though Nina is
thought work to become hard after the return, too.

Be relieved because both Kazumi and I are cheering it up.

Well, it mails it again.

I can only guess what my reply translated to in Japanese.

QUIZ: GIVERNY, OR NINA'S GARDEN YESTERDAY?

Too easy? I know, I know, it's not the one flower, it's the entirety that counts. Still, this is one heck of a pretty little columbine.

SECRETIVE

You’re darn right, Tonya, I cling to my private thoughts with true survivor-of-political-dictatorship (that it was communist is irrelevant) paranoia and out of a desperate need for guarded secrecy to ensure self-preservation (see Tonya’s blog here)! Of course I do! You never know, YOU NEVER KNOW who will stab your back today let alone tomorrow. I say ‘favorite this’ or ‘boo-hiss on that’ and it’ll make its way to the slimy hands of some holed-in bureaucrat who is then going to make sure that every employer, politician, and neighbor is aware of my proclivities and inclinations.

Same goes for friends, colleagues, students, loved ones. You tell them what you like or don’t like and you are liable to be smeared, ridiculed, maligned, taken apart limb by limb and given over to the dogs the next day. (I checked the closet and underneath the bed before I wrote that. YOU NEVER KNOW. That I am under the grip of acute paranoia can be evidenced by the fact that I have not moved more than two feet from my spot of 8 hours ago. I just don’t trust the next room, the corridor, they seem full of mechanical contraptions and eerie ghost like-shadows, waiting to NAB me.)

Saying the wrong thing is the biggest fear of anyone raised in troubled times, political and personal, and I belong to that group, yes I do and so no one, NO ONE will ever know what my favorite movie** is. Ever.*

*I was emboldened to mention movies that ruled my life at age 15, 16 and 18 (see Sunday post). That was risky enough. The fallout is just beginning to be felt.
**I also do agree that Blogger is but another marketer of Friendster-like connections. (btw, who are the Olson twins?)

WAKE UP, BEAR, IT’S CHRISTMAS!

So went the children’s story (I’m talking about VERY SMALL children) about a bear, who, because of hibernation, almost slept through the holiday. It is an irrelevant little book, with not much of a story line and, as I recall, rather straightforward illustrations.

But the title, for some reason, has stayed with me over the years. It pops up in my mind when I am walking through a day in a stupor brought on by little sleep and who knows what else and I think I need a jolt. Coffee is the substance of first choice, but to get to coffee, one must first arise and move toward a coffee container. And so there must be some motivation.

The book title, bizarrely enough, flashes in my head and there I have it! That jolt, that needed reminder that there is a day through which one must move in some state of alertness. Christmas or not, there is a day out there.

It’s strange what drivel and nonsense come back to either haunt us or help us in moments when the day seems too confusing and never-ending.

HAS THIS BLOG BECOME A RUNNING COMMENTARY ON CROISSANTS, CREEKS AND CULVERTS?

A friend and fellow blogger asked today why I had not posted a single word about my legal work in Japan. This is not the first time I got asked this question. It’s as if the ‘law’ has completely exited from this blog so that it can no longer even hold the title of ‘blawg.’ It cannot be called a bpoliticlog either. What happened?? Has the unbearable lightness of being me pulverized all ideas of any substance? Or at least pushed them aside into a complete state of dormancy? Have I entered into some kind of partnership with mr. Irrelevance and ms. Trivia?

As I said earlier, I am rethinking what this blog should be about. In Japan I was spending quite a lot of time on the non-work postings and it was impossible to imagine that anyone would want to read even more text than I had already included.

But that was then. Perhaps this week-end I’ll take a stab at creating some blogorder and in so doing I’ll allow space for the blawg that is within me. Perhaps I can then revisit this other side of my travels to Japan. Perhaps. Patience, patience, we have many a calm day before us.

WINE SNOBS AND DINNER PRICES

A blogger (here) mentioned an extreme episode of wine snobbery that she experienced while eating at L’Etoile.

It breaks my heart when that happens! (Not literally, but you get the point – I so dislike wine snobbery.) It is no secret to those who know me that I do like wine. I especially like it when it is made by a small family-run operation, from grapes grown on small strips of land. Why? Because while others are imagining pears, lemons, minerals, woodsiness, etc on the palate while sipping wine, I am imagining the hard work, the care, the love that went into the making of it. You cannot be a small producer and not love your work because it is so very tough and extremely unpredictable in its result. One grower told me that he was happy that he had little kids, otherwise for sure he would have committed suicide in years when everything in wine-making failed him.

Wines should never break anyone’s budget. There are so many good inexpensive wines out there! Less than $10 per bottle, yes, of course – so many interesting, enjoyable bottles that complement meals and can be had for small prices. The ones that top $30 per bottle are already over the top – to be enjoyed by those who truly do not know where to lay down their cash. I always think that we in this country are such impatient fools, spending huge sums on wines that have been aged because we are used to instant gratification. Elsewhere, if people truly love the complexity of older, more expensive wines, they buy them young (and cheap) and put them away for a requisite number of years, to be enjoyed later.

Restaurant wines drive me insane: the mark up is two to three times the cost of the wine. Again, this is so unique to our way of dining. Elsewhere, the basic table wine is often the price of bottled water. And no waiter should ever, EVER even bat an eye if you ask for an inexpensive ‘house wine.’ Of course, this category of wine does not exist at l’Etoile… Sigh… L’Etoile’s prices all around are steep. If it’s any consolation, the restaurant doesn’t get fat on its dinner service. The cost of ingredients and the labor-intensive work makes each dish prohibitively pricey to prepare. L’Etoile makes up deficits incurred during slow days by selling croissants at the Market Café!

ISLAND PEOPLE

In one day I had two encounters with island law types. I received an email from the author of this blog, based in St. Croix of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and I had lunch with a friend who spent a year with her husband studying and practicing law in Palau. I’m told that in Palau, there is indeed a law of the indigenous people, supplemented by random suggestive rather than binding case and statutory law from the States. I would assume that in the Virgin Islands the primary law IS the U.S. law.

But what’s it like to be an attorney on the islands? Do people walk to court with sand in their sandals? Do they wear breezy, patterned shirts with palm trees on them? Am I creating images that not only stereotype, but also demonstrate my complete ignorance about island life?

More importantly, how did these law people find such interesting places to apply to for jobs, while my biggest venture into the world Out There after law school was to send inquiry letters to Milwaukee firms? I think I missed the boat on that one. Literally.

WHERE TO EAT IN MADISON?

A friend and fellow blogger succumbed to the “favorites” list mania (posting on the topic here, responding to a call for favorites here). In spite of my dire warnings about favoring this or that (see post below), he rolled forth with a listing of top three restaurants (in three separate categories), overall bottom five as well, and explanations justifying placement. Now, as a self-proclaimed foodie, I am going to say that his lists are not bad. Perhaps his rant against Mickey’s is a little odd given his favoring of Hubbard’s, but still, one can forgive – it is a trivial error.

But let’s go back to the top of the top. Where in that little pile is Harvest? I mean, granted, who am I to squabble about the virtues of the place where I choose to lay down my wimpy talents, but still, assuming l’Etoile rules, where, after that, is Harvest?

As for chains, please scratch Macaroni Grill and replace it with Big Bowl. For sure!

Finally, my own personal announcement of the bravery award: that my pal should think he can continue to live, work, and eat and not bear the wrath of not listing Chautara attests to his strong moral fiber and unwillingness to succumb to the PC trend of including it on all lists favoring anything at all in Madison, including ‘favorite place to encounter other favorite place aficionados.’ For this alone, one should trust his listings and give him the reigns to freely expound on the subject of food henceforth. [Though, in all fairness, anyone writing on the topic should right away explain what they do and do not eat. I happen to know that this particular blogger is a semi-vegetarian. Irrelevant? Not really: I may not myself put Smoky’s on a top anything list, but it certainly explains why this blogger blows Smoky’s off without so much as a wink. I have yet to meet anyone who would rank Smoky’s as a superior eating place based on its caraway-laden cottage cheese side-dish, or its iceberg lettuce salad alone, but those who eat beef do swear by the place.]

LEARNED HAND AND GUIDO CALABRESI’S WIFE ARE NOTED AT YALE GRADUATION WHILE THE BUSH FAMILY LAYS LOW

Today marks the first day of the graduation ceremonies on the Yale campus. I understand that every effort was made to keep politics away from the podium. President Bush, though in New Haven, is not going to make an appearance at any of the ceremonial events. His graduating daughter, too, skipped the speeches today.

…And so she failed to hear filmmaker Ken Burns say the following (this from the AP):

Without mentioning Bush by name, Burns drew parallels between today's political leaders and the Iraq war, versus Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, which he chronicled in an award-winning film series.

Both wars threatened to tear the country apart, Burns said.

"Steel yourselves. Your generation must repair this damage, and it will not be easy," Burns told the seniors.

Burns quoted famed jurist Learned Hand as saying, "Liberty is never being too sure you're right."

"Somehow recently, though, we have replaced our usual and healthy doubt with an arrogance and belligerence that resembles more the ancient and now fallen empires of our history books than a modern compassionate democracy," Burns said, to applause from the 1,300 graduates and their families and friends.

…But I wonder if she noted the protesters outside the home of the University president (where the Bushes were staying for a while this week-end)? And who exactly was protesting? From the AP release:

The crowd was a mix of students and older Yale graduates.

Anne Tyler Calabresi, 69, of Woodbridge, said she was protesting on behalf of herself and her husband, Federal Appeals Judge Guido Calabresi, a Yale graduate and former dean of the Yale School of Law.

"I'm profoundly worried about the way this country is going," she said. "And I'm furious about the lies George Bush has told to us again and again. He has led us into a war that is destroying our reputation around the world and creating implacable enemies around the world that we didn't have one year ago."

TORNADO WARNING AND OTHER WEATHER-RELATED DIRECTIVES

A message from the local weather radio station (currently appearing on my computer):

While driving tonight... do not enter flooded roads... underpasses and intersections. Stay away from flooded rivers... creeks and culverts. Remember... turn around... don’t drown.

I appreciate the good intention behind this advice. Moreover, I should not be the one to comment, since I am sitting safely home rather than being on a road where creeks and culverts are flooding. Here, the only danger of flooding is in the solarium… Of course, I am at the moment in the solarium… Does the warning thus apply to me as well? Should I turn around and type backwards, with an eye toward avoiding a rush of water from underneath? If they're telling me not to drown, I most certainly want to be a good citizen and do my part to keep my head above any rushing waters.

HOW CAN SO MANY PEOPLE CONFIDENTLY MAKE UP LISTS?

Everyone does lists: favorite books, movies, names, favorite everything! Even the new blogger format asks this of you: name this, describe yourself thus. To me, this is an impossibility. My favorites, my personals, they’re always in a state of flux.

Take movies: when I was 15, I saw Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet 45 times (I counted), paying each time the requisite Polish zloty (I lived in Warsaw then) over and over to sit through it. The colors, that youthful, zesty Juliet, Mercutio’s stunning movements, I could not get enough of it all. [Oh! I see that John McEnery, who played Mercutio, is currently appearing in a very minor role in “Girl with a Pear Earring!” I should see if he still evokes the same rapture, in his, ahem, slightly older countenance.]

But not for long. “R&J” got dumped once I discovered Lelouche’s ‘A Man and a Woman.’ [God, remember when he sings in the background ‘A l’ombre de nous’ – in the shadow of us; or when they come together but neither is ready, each lost in the death of their former love; oh, such a film! It was, btw, the Grand Prize winner at Cannes, in the 1960s… I can see it now, the cinematography is so slow, their love develops through the minutia of small, improvised gestures, glances; nuanced, gentle, hesitant, with exceptional acting; such a brilliantly artful film.]

That lasted until I went through my movies-in-the-shadow-of-WW II phase – especially ‘The Garden of Finzi-Continis,’ a 1971 film that blew me away. I dream about scenes from that movie still. [It was the winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Even Pauline Kael liked it! Again, a contemplative, initially subtle movie, that takes you through the lush Italian gardens slowly, and then plunges you into the horror of Fascist persecution of Italian Jews.]

And so on. A favorite? No favorite. It doesn’t work that way. A favorite may be defined by the context, or by the state of readiness to be mesmerized, to fall in love, to be driven insane. Often it has more to do with me, than with the movie itself.

I KNOW THAT SOME OF MY GOOD FRIENDS AND CLOSE FAMILY MEMBERS ARE VEGETARIAN BUT…

This guy is dinner!-->

The brazenness, the audacity, I mean, come on! That patch of ground is decimated as a result of his shenanigans.






<--I found this rabbit dish on the Net: "Brochettes de lapin au fenouil et aux herbes de Provence." A few cubes of red pepper, cucumber, a dash of olive oil and we're set.


One more leap into the dianthus patch and I am sharpening the knives.

TO DUST

A week ago I was sitting at terminal 2E at the Paris airport thinking how nice it is that all Air France flights to and from the States arrive and depart from this brand new structure. (To and from Tokyo as well.) It is (was) amazing: all glass and air and space, curved into a hall that muffles sound and creates (created) a feeling of a contained universe: expansive, but not overwhelming.

I have another series of flights coming up this summer and I was looking forward to again being routed through there: 2E, the terminal of choice. But it is no more (see story here).

IT’S RAINING, SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

The tile floor of the un-solarium has suspiciously dark-looking grout. Normally it is not dark. It is dark on the rare, rare occasions when the ground underneath is so saturated that the water has nowhere to go but up, right through the cement, into the grout, eventually flooding the room. It has happened twice before in the 17 years I have lived here. I am near that stage again. Dark grout = wet grout. I WANT THE RAIN TO STOP! Enough already.

FAHRENHEIT 9/11: TOO HOT?

Alright, it is official: Michael Moore’s movie picks up the top prize at Cannes. Is it really because (as is suggested in the WashPost article here) no other movie stood out of the pack of contenders? Or because of the popularity of Moore’s political message in Cannes? Or is it the case that movies arousing controversy are almost always more likely to win at Cannes even as they have trouble being distributed in this country?

It took almost fifty years for a documentary to again walk away with a first place finish at the Cannes Festival (the last documentary to do so was, according to WashPost, Cousteau’s “The Silent World’). Are documentaries ever successful if their political message is disfavored?

I find it humorously ironic that insofar as release here will occur anytime soon, it is likely to be around the Fourth of July.