have these changed significantly in the last 150 years? 

Okay, so you saw a neighborhood at peace. That can be rewarding as well.

In the doorway of a Synagogue 

What’s the Snooty district all about?
Don’t make me sound off about the rudeness of people that live and shop in and around Madison Avenue between 59th and 79th. Just don’t make me go there. Even though I had to go there. To make an exchange of a bag (not mine!) purchased from one of the snooty stores.

Oh, they weren’t cooperative?
They looked at it and they looked at me and they didn’t they say it, but they were thinking: "oh, she would try to repair a broken bag rather than throwing it away!" The second snooty exchange I had was of a political nature. You can imagine how that went. Ah well. I am about to embark on a Sunday in New York. That, btw, is a movie title as well.

(*for explanation of post title, see first post from September 22)

Thirty-ninth street pre-election diary*

Moving from the forties to the thirties (to be precise: 39th street, 39 days) is disconcerting: the streets change character, the election is getting closer. We are in a gray and grave area of town and a gray and grave period in time.

somber tones, somber times 

“An 1881 New York Times article refers to a tenement on this block as 'Hell's Kitchen': "Vice in its most repulsive form thrives here, despite efforts of the police to root out the horde of vagrants, petty thieves, and utterly depraved prostitutes who make the locality their headquarters." The name seems to have spread from the tenement to the entire neighborhood.”

One notable difference between the economic policies of the two presidential candidates is that Kerry is adamant in pushing for a 36% hike in federal minimum wage. I am reminded of 1938, when President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, setting, for the first time a minimum wage for labor.

Variously called the fashion district or the garment district, you see store after store with rolls of fabric, button displays, sewing equipment.

store after store of wholesale and retail fabric 

an old-timer in the neighborhood 

Why are we still concerned today, in 2004, about working conditions and wage violations in the garment industry? Has it something to do with the fact that the recent administration has cut the number of federal inspectors, so that there are now some 800 wage and hour inspectors working for the Department of Labor, policing some 6 million sites? The DOL estimates that 4,500 of NYC’s 7,000 garment factories are sweatshops.

Diversions and excursions:

Everyone needs a break occasionally. A night at the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy does the trick. Hey, what’s the difference between this and the Taste of Madison? Take a look and draw your own conclusions:

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post title)

now that's Italian! 

supremely sweet 

you gotta love that Italian sausage! 

what part of town am I in? 

Italian sweets 

the best dessert! 

I heard it from the horse's mouth: I am NOT a New Yorker!

I went to Grace's Market this afternoon. It's a great place: you want to eat right then and there most everything on display. I was standing at a counter that had lox and olives. Many varieties of lox and olives. It was a bit chaotic -- no one paid attention to order, people were pushing to get their requests in -- a typical NY scene.

I stood next to an older guy who was intent on explaining to the seller which lox should be sliced in what way. I asked him about his preferences and before you know it, we were talking abou his impressions of salmon and my take on the economic climate in Poland.

His final words to me: "you're not a New Yorker, are you?" I said no, not at all and certainly not anymore. But I chastised him for blowing my cover: first day in the city and already branded an outsider! Upon finding out that I was from Madison, Wisconsin, he said -- "figures: I pegged you as living somewhere between Minneapolis and Madison."

Can you understand the annoying stereotype here? Not that Midwesterners are friendly, I can live with that, but that they are more friendly than Poles! I have been the way I am before moving to "between Minneapolis and Madison." But this was never even considered.

Ah well, in truth, he'd never been to Poland or to the Midwest. Figures. New Yorkers are so provincial.

Fortieth street pre-election diary*

East 40th Street 

Forty days before the election and things are getting ugly. Did I really read that Deputy Secretary Armitage chose Warsaw as the place to announce that he, too, thought that “terrorists prefer Kerry?” Of course, it’s not the line itself that is repugnant (indeed, one may hypothesize how it could even, in a perverse and not-too-complimentary to the current administration way, be true). Rather, it’s the electrifying fear that grips the listening public, as voters struggle to assess which leader will best protect the country during the next four years.

Will I find a distraction in the Manhattan grid of streets?

On 40th, you can still catch a glimpse of the Empire State Bldg. 

Walking along any city block, I stare at older buildings and wonder how many incarnations they have “lived” through. If you look on 40th street, not too far from fifth avenue, you’ll find the Daytop Village, which is the country’s oldest drug counseling service (founded in 1963). What was housed there prior to that? The building was the former home of the Republican Club. And, on the far west side of 40th, there stands the Metro Baptist Church. This used to be a Polish Catholic church, but it is now a progressive Baptist mission. Indeed, this is where Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter lived while working on their first Habitat for Humanity project. Poland, politics, presidents, poverty: the interconnectedness can be astonishing.

Next to the United Nations 

Is there nothing pleasing to the senses here on this narrow street that runs from the garment district on the west side to the smoke stacks on First Avenue? Money can, of course, buy the finest retreat into luxury. And here, on east 40th, I can take my Wisconsin-residing American Water Spaniel, Ollie, for a stay at the Ritzy Canine Carriage House. Inside, he can overnight either in Luxury quarters for a mere $65 per night (if he’d lose some weight, damn it, we could sneak him into the $60 per night category, but he’d have to shed 5 pounds and the dog refuses to take Atkins seriously, being utterly devoted to baguettes), or if I am feeling generous, I may let him stay at the Presidential Suite for $175 per night (there he’ll have custom bedding, toy chests, his own TV and VCR with a special selection from the video library).

A luxury escape -- for my dog. 

I would be slightly concerned that Ollie, not used to TV, may not fully appreciate the options made available to him. Not to worry, they reassure me. He can have his own private dog massage. The cost? $50 per hour. I have to wonder how they manage to work over a Chihuahua for a full hour – is there enough ‘dog’ there for the masseuse to tackle? But Ollie’s not a problem. He’s got a tendency to puff out on all that French bread. And, a massage might do wonders for his sometimes nervous disposition.

Though there is a lot to be nervous about these days. Approaching the east corner (oh! This was my “permanent home address” for one year out of my life, back in 1974), I am so close to the UN, so close, but not close enough to catch a glimpse. There are barricades. You cannot walk within 2 blocks of the UN on any side. The General Assembly is still in session. Bush is heading for Crawford, Kerry to Wisconsin, but the heads of state from other countries are still meeting to discuss the future. Perhaps they should hold off for 40 days?

*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of title

Go ahead, take my picture. I’m retiring tomorrow! I’ve had enough of this job. 

I am living a capitalist dream

Not only did I strike gold with the Polack's Profiles idea yesterday --it'll make me rich! (see post below), but I found in my mailbox an envelope from L'Etoile asking if I would accept a 100% salary increase and a bonus. Would I accept it? Would I accept it? I gave myself a few hours to consider and then I said yes -- unfortunately I said this during the same phone conversation where I told them I would be a no-show this week-end. I explained that the Chef de Cuisine and I had cut a deal: he'll cover for me at the Market as forager (that is my job) and I will cover for him in the kitchen as Chef de Cuisine any tme he wants me to! However, I do fear that the management at l'Etoile was a little taken aback when I said "Thanks! I'll take the raise and now I am going to save you some money because I wont be there this Saturday."

Of course, I cannot work at l'Etoile this week because I am at this moment flying to my second home for the year -- in New York City.

On the flight over, I was getting into the groove by reading New York Magazine and by dollar-bill-golly, I had another Capitalist Cacophony go off in my head. Amy Sohn's column described the miserable "friendship scene" in the city. It appears to be difficult, nay, impossible for new transplants to NYC to find friends. If you think you'll make friends just because you are social and nice -- forget it! And if you are the shy type -- pack your bags and go back to your friends back home, because you wont find any here. The only way, THE ONLY WAY anyone will consider you for a friend is if you pack a good "friendship resume" with something that marks you as a standout.

Where there is a need, there is a service that will cater to it and so if you are a New Yorker, you can indeed sign up for friendship-searching services. But those can be expensive. Socialcircles.com charges $1,275 just for the initiation fee. After that, it's $600 per match. If the friendship falters -- you do NOT get your money back. A user complains in the article that she is out the initiation fee and two $600 shots an has yet to find someone who'll munch popcorn and watch a DVD with her on a farily regular basis.

Worse off are people past their twenties: their friendship pool is quite limited as people in the more "advanced years" are either married and not particularly interested in meeting strangers, or searching to be coupled. No one in that demographic wants to waste time on being your friend.

A 35-year old newcomer to NY states:
I thought it would be easier to make friends here than in Chicago...I was completely wrong. Now I go back home and when people ask how it is, I say 'Love New York. Have no friends.' And I'm not even shy.

So here's my pitch: I move to New York and offer my services. I will be a friend to all the 'losers' who have failed to secure one. I'll be good for a bunch of emails per week to check up on things, a call here and there, and then a meet-up every so often, to do dim sum and maybe go to a movie. I'll listen to whiners, I'll tell stories from my varied past, I'll even do karaoke if the need arises. At, say, a $500 per friend per month fee and a six month commitment on my part, I'll be better than the going rate by a mile.

Now, if only I could think of a good name. Polack's Pals maybe?

Forty-first street pre-election diary*

A student at the U of Warsaw wrote this about politics and the Polish immigrant in the early decades of the XX century:

The early Polish immigrant … had little opportunity to participate actively in local politics. They were handicapped by their lack of knowledge of the English language and especially by their lack of American education. ...most of all, they were strangers to the American system of government and did knot know or understand American politics.

I feel for them. Now, 100 years later, I sometimes do not comprehend how or why politics proceed in the way that they do here as well.

Back then, Poles established a bridge of sorts – The Polish Democratic Club. The purpose? To help with the election of Democratic candidates. They were successful, too, from what I can tell. If you walk along the far west blocks of 41st street in New York, you’ll pass the building that was once the home of the West Side Polish Democratic Club.

Leafing through the stories in the news...

I read today’s papers and the attention is still on an analysis of whether Kerry has turned the corner. In 41 days we will know. In the meantime, is anyone else paying attention to the fact that we have a hefty 150,000 troops in Iraq while the next biggest force – from Britain – is even now being cut by a third from its paltry by comparison 7,000 (acc. to the London Observer, cited in the NYT)?

In what has to be a moment of perverse gladness, I was pleased to see that the second most e-mailed article from the NYTimes in the past 24 hour hours was the one about how the current administration is seeking cuts in housing aid to the urban poor (okay, the third most emailed article was about the new mozzarella bar in Rome; I almost emailed that one to a friend as well! Yes, we are clinging to our colorful diversions and distractions!). We need to be reading this! Housing projects… Walking toward the east side of 41st street, you hit Tudor City – a residential community that was built before the days of the United Nations [United Nations – that’s the number one emailed article from the Times – the one about how Bush yesterday issued a scolding to the UN, a scolding, at a time when the US desperately needs to be reaching out to the international community]. When Tudor City went up, there wasn’t a UN there, on the other side of the street, just slaughterhouses and glue factories. It was an area of such ugliness that most of the buildings in Tudor City don’t have windows facing east, to avoid the then horrid view. In the Times, Dowd again refers today to the Bush administration “castrating the flaccid UN.” I want to ask, is the next step a return to the slaughter-houses? It would be an interesting statement to make, from peace to slaughter. Or, have we made that statement already?

I’m off to New York this afternoon. Obviously the city is much on my mind – I see the grid of the blocks and I count down the days. Forty-one to go.

*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of title

Forty-second street pre-election diary, part 2

(see first post today, below, for explanation)

The President hates the campaign hoopla already!

A reading pal sent me the clip from the Wisconsin State Journal (here) describing the reaction to Kerry’s impending visit to Spring Green, where he will spend some time preparing for the forthcoming debate.

I just want to say to the President (okay, of the Village of Spring Green) that even if a Republican candidate were coming to my town with his entourage to prepare a speech, I would have the good grace to show courtesy and politeness and I would not go on record and say things like this:

Spring Green Village President Greg Prem was less enthusiastic about Kerry's visit. He said he's already overloaded by all the political commercials and campaign appearances hitting Wisconsin - and the election is still six weeks away.
"I guess to be perfectly honest with you," Prem said, "I'm kind of burnt out on the whole race."

After all, his visitor may be the next president of the US. No cabinet post for you, Mr. Prem!
Besides, it’s not that your town, Mr. Prem, is such a gem to lodge in for all those days. Taliesen, APT, the River – that’s fine and well, but my friend, who is not especially fussy, says this about the place where Kerry will be residing (having herself stayed there): “the "resort" they chose is that one on the golf course… It's okay but not especially great. The campaign people must have been reading too many glossy brochures.” And the food? She writes: “Where will they eat? The restaurant there is blah. That round barn restaurant is worse. There is always the A & W drive-in in Mazomanie.”

An eye-to-eye exchange

Minutes ago, I went walking in Owen Woods. I am going to be in NYC tomorrow and so I need to take in the smell of dry grass and forest before I face an onslaught of that ‘stale NYC air.’

Just at the edge of the prairie, I met up with a deer. She stood, not more than ten feet away, looking at me. I stood. She stood. I waited for her to run, she did not. Maybe she was captivated by my bright yellow “Museum of Soy Sauce Art” t-shirt. I said to her:

“Why don’t you vote on November 2nd? Don’t you realize that your habitat is being endangered? You have a high stake in this!”

I thought I heard her say:

“I cannot vote. You have to do that for me.” Of course, she’s just a deer.
Doe, a deer, a female deer. [So why the whiskers and beard-like hairs on her chin if it’s a female deer? Animals are strange.]

She stood a long time, unafraid. Eventually she turned and ran. So I ran too. Except not as fast. Obviously. I felt like I was a character that should adopt an Indian name, like “Tries to Run with Deer but Fails Miserably.” (A reader gave me an Indian name just last week; what was it?)
Close encounters with deer always make you feel like something profound has just happened. Or like you’re on the stage perhaps. Yeah, on the stage of 42nd Street (forty-one blocks away from the off-off-off Broadway Theater of the Absurd). The count-down continues.

People, take stock! We are becoming a nation of eating eccentrics!

I would bet that these days, for the 294,338,341 Americans (confirmed here), there are 294,338,341 ways to cook dinner right and an infinite number of ways of doing it wrong.

In the last 24 hours (I promise, no blog exaggeration here) I have had the following exchanges with readers and friends, through email, phone and otherwise:
Responses to my question – “can’t talk now, but do you want to have dinner sometime?”:

- oh yes, but keep it informal; formal dinner parties scare us away (you know who you are!);
- oh yes, but we don’t do more than 1 or so per week otherwise we get cranky (you know who you are!);
- oh yes, so long as it’s not in restaurants; haven’t you read Kitchen Confidential (you know who you are!)?
- oh yes, but not in any week where I have work deadlines, for chrissake… (and you especially know who you are!)

I have to add these to my lists of vegans, pescatarians, vegetarians, Atkinsians, lactose-intolerants, and all sorts of food-dislikes -- ohh, it's all swimming, swimming... I know I have stored this information somewhere… yes, I'm sure of it...

But where? Where did I put all these, collected over the years food fears and fancies?

Eureka! Capitalism is rubbing off and onto my once-socialist-Eastern European shoulders! I have discovered an entrepreneurial opportunity and niche! This is how it will work:

I will collect and store your food profile for a flat fee. You can update your own profile anytime. If you get invited to someone’s house I will send them YOUR profile, to warn your future host of your peculiarities and preferences. Or, if you yourself are having a dinner party, you can, for a fee of course, request profiles on potential candidates for the evening. That way, if you really want to cook fish and serve it on Aunt Cristabelle’s gold-plated china or left-over-from-Labor-Day-picnic-paper plates, you can check first if your potential guest will be repulsed before you invite her or him.

I will add this bit of nostalgia to my “It is different now” Monday post. Because I remember the days (these may have been back in Poland) when a dinner suggestion was a gift, a source of delight, and whatever the hosts did was fantabulous and the evening was never long enough, and if it glittered with silver –that was great, and if it was on folding chairs –who cares, and if it was take out –hell, so what?

I WANT THOSE DAYS BACK! In the absence of which, I’m setting up my newly created and hereby copyrighted (maybe not in the eyes of the law but in the eyes of blogdom) “Polack’s Profiles.” Catchy name, huh?

Forty-second street pre-election diary

[While friends and colleagues are engaging in a pre-election pundit-o-mania, replete with predictions, ballyhoos and attacks on the Enemy Candidate, I thought I’d retreat to the sidelines and comment on what’s it like to go through this process as a non-pundit. More than ever before, I believe this election to be a defining moment in history and I want to remember what it was like in the days immediately preceding it, in the same way that historians now analyze what it was like in Poland on the days before September 1, 1939. How was it then, when we still had Hope?
The way to identify my pre-election posts is to look at the title, of course. It will always have the name of the street which actually also happens to be the number of days remaining before the election.]

Today, I am on 42nd street. The day started off with great equanimity. A friend down the street has organized an election day party for Democrats only (hey, if you can arrest a person wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt to a Bush rally, you can hold a Democrats-only party, right?) and he sent forth invitations early in the morning. That may have been the high point. Immediately after, I get this email from another friend who writes that the state bearing my initials (NC) “now appears certain to go for Bush.”

Thanks, pal, for the note of cheer.

Not to despair. I am on 42nd street. Didn’t this place get a face-lift not too long ago? Still, it’ll always bring to mind the days of seedy movie houses. Which reminds me of another upbeat moment (yes it does!) from this morning. I read another email from a friend who refers me to his most recent post (here), all about strange bedfellows. Notice in it a plea for sanity in the way we pick our leaders. Of course, it recalls for me of my own post before the primaries when (on February 3rd) I wrote the following:

How can you explain the slanderous reporting that blasts away at the warm and fuzzy traits of tall people?? The NYT today says this about Kerry: “He will still never be cuddly. He is too tall, too gaunt, too lantern-jawed, too serious for that. His Iowa caucuses victory speech was solemn and windy, and he sat watching the Super Bowl on Sunday night with a band of firefighters from Fargo, N.D., whose union has endorsed him, tapping his right thumb and forefinger nervously against his teeth without making much effort to converse or connect.”Is there an expectation that he should have been warm and cuddly with the firefighters?

Already I am thinking, those were the good old days when one bickered about Kerry and Edwards and Dean and Clark and Sharpton and Lieberman and… who was that other guy? Kucinich! Once so memorable, now so forgotten.

Such Nostalgia!
I’ll have to end with another nostalgic recollection from the Ocean blog, this one from January 23 when I wrote:

(from a list of important presidential traits identified by the voting public):
He must be someone most Americans would enjoy having over for dinner. [Time after time I have this conversation: “why don’t you like him?” I ask. “I don’t know, he’s just not someone I would feel comfortable with; I wouldn’t enjoy having dinner with him” goes the answer. Is this an outgrowth of viewing this country as a land of opportunity? For the record, Americans please take note: 99.999999999999% of you will NEVER HAVE DINNER WITH THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 99.98 % will never even see him eat on national television.]

The day is bright, so bright, great weather. But it can turn nasty pretty quickly. After all, look at what seems to have happened in North Carolina.

Finally, I am special

Today I got my super exclusive rouge elite card stating that I have risen above bleu medium elite status and have now joined the ranks of the super exclusive elite members of Frequence Plus, Air France’s frequent flyer program. This is not surprising. I use Air France for everything outside of this country. If I go visit family in Poland – it’s on Air France. If I have to go to Japan for work purposes – it’s on Air France. I will take Air France to hell and back just to rise to the top of the elite heap of flyers. And today I made it.

This is what I receive in exchange for my loyalty (and I quote, in their order of priority):

You have access to an exclusive reservation service (don’t people use Expedia, travel agents, or, among the exclusive set – their secretaries?)

Air France ticket offices are waiting to serve you (only me? They turn away others? That doesn’t seem fair…)

Choose your seat before your day of departure (oh come on, even Polish Airlines let you do THAT!)

We give you priority for your vaccinations (now halt right here: is there a line? Does ANYONE wait until they get to the airport to get vaccinated?)

Oh sure, then there are pages and pages with what I really want to see: that the rich get richer! Yes! Now I get 50% more miles each time I fly economy, just by being elite and wealthy in miles already, and even more if I fly upwards of economy! And my luggage gets special plastic coating to protect the Gucci leather (?) from the bumps it would otherwise receive from lesser bags. And it will roll out first on belt, and there’ll be lounges all over the world where I will rub shoulders with other super super elite members, just like me.

Now if I can only afford another ticket so that I could reap all these super elite benefits (they only last a year; cheapskates!) and, of course, cash in on my priority shots.

At the bottom of the Ocean

In a few minutes, law students are meeting with several blogging members of the faculty to talk about the phenomenon of weblogs. I’ll be there, but I’ll probably lay low. Because I’m not sure I want to reveal the truth behind Ocean. Nor do I want to tell them that a certain blogger with deeply embedded European roots, residing in Madison, Wisconsin, regards keeping a blog as akin to dancing a complicated tango or taking a photograph of a Thanksgiving dinner: it’s not all as it appears to be.

Raised on Polish literature that developed the art of allegorical writing to the highest standards, I can’t help but take that devious layering right back with me into the blog. That Saturday post about freezing tomatoes? Maybe a person or two recognized that it wasn’t really about tomatoes. I was involved in a writing project over the week-end and I got perversely stalled – frozen, as it were. Hence the post.

The texts and subtexts of a blog – so deliciously evil in their veiled meaning. Song lyrics thrown out to ones who may remember their import many years past, allusions, references, all nicely tucked into a plain text of a story. For there has to be a story as well.

Is it always like that? Is it one big inside joke? Of course not. For me, the greatest challenge in writing this (and elsewhere for that matter) is to find and develop a reason for writing any particular entry. There may be anger, passion, hope, joy, remembrance – all have prompted a post at one point or another. But it has to be a really dry day before I succumb and write anything, just to get something posted.

So, this is what I wont reveal to the group this morning. I appreciate everyone’s sudden desire to post thoughts about the political process, interspersed with comments on daily life. But for me, blogging is all about story writing. I take it seriously. It is hard hard hard to put forth something twice a day (that is my goal) given that it is only a hobby, to be sandwiched into all the other things that need to be attended to. The product may appear at times crude, insufficiently edited (I fired my staff of editors and fact-checkers -- oddly, they wanted to be paid, refusing to work for the sheer glory of it), lacking in grace and wit and humor, but it is here that I practice the craft of writing and story telling. Between you and me – and not for the audience today – that is what Ocean is all about.

It’s different now..

I had begun clipping favorite lines to post from Cohen’s article yesterday in the Times about the “Good Old Days,” until I decided, in the end, that the tenor of the piece was not one I could endorse and so then I dropped the project. But today, driving in to work, my mind started spinning. Gosh, there were some innocent moments way back when! I have no desire to go back to those days for all the political and social reasons that are so obvious as not to require enumeration, but gosh! Do you remember when one could actually say gosh repeatedly and not seem weird (or “strange” because as Cohen says, one didn’t used to say “weird”)?

Much of what is now only nostalgia can be said to have been lost because we’ve wizened up a bit. And so I notice that any list of revered past icons and habits and expressions, contains a salute to ignorance. And how much of what we do now will one day be lost because we will understand that it is causing everyone, ourselves included, great harm?

Everyone should occasionally sit back and recall a thing or two that was wonderfully sweet and benign – for a period in time. I remember when I could pick up a doughnut and a cup of coffee on the way to class and use the term “clogged artery” only to describe traffic congestion… I say this as I eat some disgustingly healthy whole grain-bar, rushing to write this so that I could meet someone for a ‘healthy’ spin around the neighborhood. Yes, sweet innocent treats of the past – joining the Union of Socialist Youth in Poland during the 60s to save our future, thinking that “going all the way” meant holding hands with a boy, kicking a soccer ball around with kids of many ages and stages amidst cow dung on the meadow where cows grazed and later gave us milk for the supper table, with plenty of buttered bread to go around. Sweet days indeed.

The word's just in: they got the sound right!

This afternoon I spoke to friends who had attended the opening night performance at the Overture Center for the Arts. After reading rave reviews all morning, I was not surprised to hear them say that it was “beautiful” “spectacular” “etc” “etc.” And, they said “the sound is magnificent!”

I am glad about that. It would be terrible, terrible to invest so much in this project and not get the sound right, even though it was a gift and you can more readily forgive a gifted Center that turns out to be a clunker, in the same way you can forgive a calendar that you get as a gift for the New Year that has absolutely the worst possible motif running through it (say cats, and you hate cats, or a-joke-a-day and you fail to laugh a single time for the 365 times you turn a page).

Of course, I marvel at the ingenuity of it all: to know in advance of such a construction project that you will get the sound right. I was sitting with a group of people last week and we were marveling about things that are incomprehensible to us – like sending a fax or writing a WiFi message (choosing to ignore the fact that, of course, sending a fax is more imaginable than creating a baby that has your horrid jaw out of invisible-to-the-naked-eye genetic material) – but I think this, too deserves inclusion into the world of marvels.

Or, maybe it was tested as it was being built? Perhaps someone was hired to drop a needle every so often to see how it echoed as it fell to the concrete. Or, better yet, an opera singer came in during construction and belted out a few lines of an aria to see how it was going. Maybe the ceiling had to be tilted differently again and again until Nessun dorma! sounded exactly right – how do I know, I’m no sound expert.

And herein lies the sad truth: neither are most of the people who attend the performances at the Arts Center (unless after you pass into some strata of refinement you develop audio-sensory skills that the rest of us down there haven’t even aspired to). But I want to find out: how DO things sound in the great new hall? Does it bounce of the walls? Does it resound? Is there an echo? I am a music buff. I have attended orchestral performances since I was a pipsqueak. But I could never tell if Alice Tully Hall was an improvement over Carnegie Hall or not. It struck me as the same.

The odd thing is, it can’t matter to the younger-than-me generation of concert goers. They have their ear drums completely warped and distorted through years of attending rock concerts. And if sound mattered so much in the Orchestra Hall, why does it not matter at all at the conerts where it’s all about Volume rather than Quality? So perhaps this new Orchestra Hall is not only for those of refined pocket book, but also of refined age. I almost qualify there!

In any event, I am looking forward to listening for the new improved sound and I hope I can tell, at least as much as all these enthused non-musician patrons say they can tell. I do not really remember what it sounded like before, but famous guest artists kept coming anyway and I suspect the capacity crowds they drew couldn’t tell how horrid the sound was, marveling obtusely at the gifts and talents of the performing artists instead. How odd of us all to have done so. Now we know better. Or – at least we think we do (I’m sure I will too!!) and that’s good enough, isn’t it?

Frozen solid: nc - yes; the tomatoes - no.

Yesterday at the market I bought a box of stunningly gorgeous Harmony Valley Roma tomatoes. They are in a moment of perfection, just waiting to be par-boiled, skinned and zip-locked into the freezer for winter use. My freezer already boasts bags of Ruth’s blueberries, Blue Valley asparagus, Harmony Valley strawberries, plus organic white peach slices for the future moment when I just have to make a batch of Bellinis for a crowd of people.

Here is a twenty-four hour photo-blog progress report on the tomato project:

Waiting for inspiration. Hoping for some such moment to arrive today. So far: not yet evident on the horizon. 

Little boxes, all the same

I’ll just put forth a few quotes from an article in today’s NYT Week in Review and try hard to refrain from commenting. I am aiming for a cheerful day. No need to start a downward spiral with writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about what’s wrong with this world, or at least with what is described as our world.

(From “Kerry’s Lesson: Lambeau Rhymes With Rambo”)

The key interview in this year’s presidential campaign was not with any of the big national newspapers or newsweeklies. It was for the October issue of Field & Stream magazine. John Kerry, the Democratic challenger, gave the magazine a half-hour phone interview. [well okay, big deal] President Bush went further, granting a private tour of his Texas ranch, and a long sit-down to the editor, Sid Evans. [oh brother.]

The candidates are…courting the newest niche demographic: the rod-and-gun voter. [great.]
(They are also) after something much more basic: proving their manliness. [that just thrills me no end.]

The Republicans are working hard to portray (Kerry) as.. a “girlie man.” It seems to be working. Sports Illustrated readers overwhelmingly voted Mr. Bush the better athlete and sports fan [dumb dumb dumb readers, for this reason:], a conclusion the magazine’s managing editor, Terry McDonell, finds baffling. “Clearly Kerry is the a much much much much better athlete,” he said, noting that Mr. Kerry has long played competitive hockey and also regularly snowboards, Rollerblades, windsurfs and kite-surfs. “Kite-surfing…is the hardest, most radical thing to do…” Mr. Bush, in contrast, was a cheerleader, and not, Mr. McDonnell notes, the kind that did flips.
[then we have this long stretch of writing about the Lambeau field thing again; enough already!]

Mr. McDonnell puzzled over what all this shooting and fishing had to do with being leader of the free world….Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers (says) [watch now, here come the boxes, little boxes, And they're all made out of ticky-tacky, And they all look just the same] “Bush wants to be seen as masculine…because masculinity is associated with assertiveness and competence and judgment and team-playing and a host of traits that men aspire to and women adore.” [No comment. Really, I just can’t. Grrrrr.]

Signs of the Times

So, another Saturday of foraging for L’Etoile at the Farmers Market. You’re lookin’ pretty tired!
No, not exactly (yawn).. and this week was spectacular: lots of activities at the Square and at L’Etoile (yawn).

Oh? What about L’Etoile?
We had a visit from a former NYT bureau chief and now food writer for the paper…. I’m not sure I should be so open about who he is and what he said…

Just give him a blog nickname…
I would use one of the letters of the alphabet, which actually belongs to his initials -- W, but I was told recently that even in Wisconsin, if you say W, you mean GWB. I am greatly miffed at how the letter has been hijacked. Today on the Square I saw a sign that said (against a background of an American flag) “W stands for Women!” I was pretty infuriated by it actually. So, our great writer cannot be referred to as W. He has been called “larger than life” in a recent piece in the New Yorker, and if you scroll down below where I’ve included a photo, you may indeed believe that this not an inappropriate characterization. Why don’t I call him Johnny. Most of his friends do, even though J does not appear in his monogram. That way I can equally pretend he is my friend, forgetting about the fact that this is not the case.

So, you chatted with Johnny?
Oh yes. I can tell you this much. Johnny does not regularly read the blog, JFW, because he said: “You know, I love being here! Only in Madison Wisconsin would you have the front page headline of the paper be about bike locks!” I mean, if he read JFW, he would not be surprised about this very important story, detailed in a post here.

You talked about bike locks?
No, he was actually taking notes for a story and so he asked about my work for L’Etoile. In trying to fully understand the duties of a forager, he said “so… maybe I can refer to you as Chef O’s personal shopper?” I said if he did, he would be dead meat. Watch him do it anyway.

You know, he’s written quite a number of pieces a few years back predicting an Iraqi quagmire. Did you talk politics at all?
When he and I were at the Market, he told me that he was impressed how the Asian farmers have influenced the type of food that is being sold at the Market. He talked about the various places he lived in in South East Asia, Europe, etc. He said he has always told his children that they have to spend time in different cultures – it is a prerequisite to moving forward intelligently today. In this context he said that one of the things he cannot abide about GWB is his lack of knowledge about and indifference to the countries outside the US.

Larger than life and fascinating… So, other Market news?
This post is getting long, but I did want to mention a few things:

** Today was the day that marks my 5-year involvement with L’Etoile. As Madison was hosting another “Food for Thought” Festival, I was reminded that it was during this Festival 5 years ago that I approached Chef O. and told her she should hire me as a cook.

** During today’s Festival, I listened to Eliot Coleman speak on behalf of the small family farm. He’s a brilliant organic farmer from Maine. (I am a big-time champion of small family farms, preferably organic, and so this was a happy hour of listening for me). After giving up on academia, he bought some rugged gravel and forest-land and turned it into something he could cultivate, just by using the residue nature provided: clam shells for calcium, sea weed, manure, etc. He is phenomenally successful at growing things, with very limited use of fossil fuels and against all obstacles. He told of how he recently traveled to Iowa and proclaimed: my God, you guys actually have SOIL here – 6 feet deep! In Maine, there is none.

** Gifts: The Artesian Trout farmer gave me a gift of a smoked trout and Fantome Farms gave me a gift of pepper chevre. They suggested that I play around with combining the two and create a heavenly mousse.

So, how could I ever get tired of the Market when the people I encounter inspire with their generosity and teach me to fight rocky soil with seaweed rather than give up and move to Iowa? There’s nothing wrong with Iowa, mind you, but one should never move there just for the easier life and good soil.

Cef O. at the Food for Thought Festival today, unchanged from when I first cornered her here 5 years ago. 

Johnny at the Café, taking notes, enjoying the people and the food. 

Purple cauliflower and romanesco. What’s romanesco? Chef O. describes it as “cauliflower on acid.” 

Maybe the most rewarding thing about getting up so early is that you can look up and see this sky.
 

Parking lot effervescence

I am in my truck, about to turn on the engine, ready to leave the parking lot of Whole Foods when I hear, coming from the car alongside mine, a pounding on the window. An old old man with a substantial beard is obviously asking that I roll down the window. I do so. And so we talk:

u: Excuse me, but I just wanted to know. You have a sticker on the back of your car with the letters MV. What does it stand for?
n: It could actually be many things: Mini Van (for it is indeed a minivan), Mercury Villager (it is that as well), Martha’s Vineyard..

u: Naturally. It could also be Moravia.
n: Are you from Moravia (there is a tinge of an accent there)?

u: Me? Moravia? No, no.. so which is it? What does it stand for?
n: I picked it up long ago on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. So where are you from if not Moravia?

u: Italy. But I have lived in Madison for 46 years. But I am from Milano.
n: I love that place, you know! Just got back from a trip there this summer..

u: Yes, but you would go nuts if you lived there. Here, in America, you wait two months to get your tax refund back. In Italy? Maybe three years. If you’re lucky!
n: But you have now had a prime minister in place for longer that at any time since World War II -- two years!

u: And he’s a bastard! Listen, I don’t travel there anymore because it is so humiliating to go in a plane these days. I don’t like it. They treat you like animals.
n: What’s your name, btw? I’m nc.

u: I’m uc. (we shake hands through our car windows) I am the only physics professor on the faculty here who does not have a Ph.D.! Of course, I am now retired..

And so it continued for a long while. I could hear myself laughing louder and louder. I thought of inviting him to dinner some day. God, Italians are friendly.

Notes from the tail end of a summer season

One evening, many realities:

I am amazed at my previous posts. Newspaper links? With political overtones? What has become of this Ocean blog? Let me compensate by flipping the channel back to the here-and-now of this particular blogger’s take on life: I had in a five-hour evening stretch no fewer than five encounters (email and face-to-face) that positively shook me to the core. And so, to deal expressively with the onslaught of drama, I decided to look on the Internet for a translation of a genuinelly mournful Polish poem. I did not succeed, but trust me, it's beautiful and full of pathos and drama, in the truest Eastern European fashion. Searching for poetry on the Net is a good distraction -- I would recommend it to anyone in the (momentary, because if it's enduring, go see a shrink instead) depths of despair.

Next morning, looking to others:

I visited the blogs of people I know who live in far away places. One such person resides on the Virgin Islands. She hasn’t posted in the past few days and I would be concerned that she has suffered as a result of the hurricanes, but on the other hand she comes in and out of contact, occasionally sending messages such as this:

A.W.O.L.*
*Apathetic While On Liquor
Okay.So I've been drinking instead of posting for the last month.

An ordinary person might worry when they see a note like this. Not me. She explained that rum is cheaper than water on the islands and so life sometimes takes her in that direction. Hmmm. Not exactly a cheerful route, but definitely interesting.

I also got some interesting mail from my pals in Kyoto who had been traveling in the US this past month. They write: “Thank you for telling us about American air conditioning. I took a warm shirt. My friend did not and had to buy one it was so cold.” See (Tonya!), it’s not only me. Others find this to be a chilly nation as well.

Finally, looking outside, I am in love with the bright crisp fall day. By contrast, someone said this yesterday about living in New York: “the air is so stale that even if I open all doors and windows I cannot get enough of the fresh stuff.” Now, I happen to like the particular smell that belongs to New York. It’s a combination of subway-air-creeping-up-through-the-grillwork, food stands, vents from air conditioning units and the East River. But, looking out now at the Madison sky, I am thinking that I am not appreciative enough of the Fall season in the Midwest. So, count this as a note of deep appreciation and great joy at being able to go out and sit in my favorite outdoor spot and look at the fall flowers and take in a whiff of that clear crisp air (I will choose to ignore the fact that this particular neighborhood is less than pristine as it rests on a landfill, but whatever you want to say about the garbage of the previous generation, all those additives and preservatives certainly have made the trees grow with great abandon).

Each year these come back to liven up the end of the summer 

In contrast to the busy bee, this one is so lethargic, she can hardly find the center of the flower. 

At least two people I know will remember this poem: "..the rose is out of town." 

Behind the Times

Yes, I admit it, I did not read this op-ed article in the NYTimes until today. I am certain most regard it as a dated thing of the past (it is from the week-end), but in case you, like me, are behind in every aspect of life at the moment, you may have missed the Brooks-ian analysis of who is voting D versus R this year. What is neat about reading with a delay is that you can immediately click onto responses (full text here) to the article. I am including fragments of the Brooks piece and snippets from the four letters published a few days later. Emphases are my own.

From Brooks:

There are two sorts of people in the information-age elite, spreadsheet people and paragraph people. Spreadsheet people work with numbers, wear loafers and support Republicans. Paragraph people work with prose, don't shine their shoes as often as they should and back Democrats.

C.E.O.'s are classic spreadsheet people. According to a sample gathered by PoliticalMoneyLine in July, the number of C.E.O.'s donating funds to Bush's campaign is five times the number donating to Kerry's.

Professors, on the other hand, are classic paragraph people and lean Democratic. Eleven academics gave to the Kerry campaign for every 1 who gave to Bush's. Actors like paragraphs, too, albeit short ones. Almost 18 actors gave to Kerry for every 1 who gave to Bush. For self-described authors, the ratio was about 36 to 1. Among journalists, there were 93 Kerry donors for every Bush donor. For librarians, who must like Faulknerian, sprawling paragraphs, the ratio of Kerry to Bush donations was a whopping 223 to 1.

… Accountants, whose relationship with numbers verges on the erotic, are now heavily Republican. Back in the early 1990's, accountants gave mostly to Democrats, but now they give twice as much to the party of Lincoln.

…[as for academics:] University of California employees make up the single biggest block of Kerry donors …All but 1 percent of the campaign donations made by employees of William & Mary College went to Democrats. In the Harvard crowd, Democrats got 96 percent of the dollars. At M.I.T., it was 94 percent. Yale is a beacon of freethinking by comparison; 8 percent of its employee donations went to Republicans.

Readers’ comments:

[from Mass:] … It seems to me that the statistics show a correlation between education and political support regardless of numeracy or literacy. The fact that corporate chief executives and accountants are more likely to support George Bush is consistent with this observation: they are probably best educated that a third of his tax cuts go to the richest 1 percent.

[from a Yale astronomy prof:]… David Brooks classifies professors as "paragraph people." But even here at Yale, an institution known for its focus on humanities and arts, the majority of the faculty are scientists, medical doctors or involved with economics or business.

Our non-teaching duties involve fund-raising, personnel management and gigabytes of data, not unlike other "spreadsheet people."

Why, then, is the professoriate so united behind John Kerry (far more so than we were for previous Democratic candidates)?

Perhaps because teaching and research require open-mindedness, reasoning from facts rather than from ideology, nuanced interpretation of complex situations, and the ability to change one's mind - all traits that the Bush team has displayed less of than any administration in my lifetime.

[from a sociology prof and a management consultant:] While "spreadsheet people'' may be Republicans by and large, George W. Bush is not a spreadsheet person; his fiscal policy cannot withstand a quantitative analysis.

Nor is he a paragraph person - one could not find the prose to justify his conflation of Iraq with the war on terror. So what is President Bush?

David Brooks's framework leaves out an important group, what we label the PowerPoint or bullet-point people.

Bullet-point people traffic in the meaningless business-speak of the management consultant, language that eschews equally the nuance and hard numbers of reality...

[from Atlanta:] ...Academia is full of very smart people earning very little money relative to what they could earn. They are curious people, dedicated to pursuing the truth and teaching others.
Business is full of very smart people whose sole responsibility is to make money, for stockholders and themselves. The first group supports Democrats. The second group supports Republicans. Draw your own conclusion.

W on doctors...and love

Thanks to the pal who send me the following clip. After this morning's press tirade about Kerry and the Packers (see post below), this is a welcome antidote. Do click on it -- it's not a propaganda piece, just a little slice of a real newsclip.

From MSNBC (give it a minute to load after you click on it and choose movie media setting if a screen doesn't automatically pop up or else you'll miss the wonderful moment of stunned confusion on the part of the newscaster):

obgyn.wmv

Goat-mail

Here I am, in the middle of the month, in the middle of the day. Perfect time to respond to some emails, especially from those who are forever doubting the veracity of some of my statements.

1. Re: Fiona Apple: I now know who she is! No need to make fun of me there. I’ve known for a while, actually. Someone once gave me a CD of hers in one of their many attempts to educate me in the music of the last two centuries.

2. Re: On where to throw your money if you have no idea how to spend money and still want to show your support of this free blog: when I proposed “Save the Goat” I meant it! And I would not have suggested it had I myself not done things to support the Goat. Alright, so initially I got interested in it because of the quirky name. I like goats. I like several people who call themselves goats. Goats are good. Then, having inquired about saving THE Goat, I found that it is a legitimate effort to create a protected area out of the Goat River Valley in British Columbia. Studying the literature has instilled a great urge in me to go there and explore it myself. What’s stopping me?

- There’s quite a bit of logging going on there (hence the problem), but there are limited blogging opportunities: the region doesn’t seem to have WiFi. I’m not sure it has much in the way of electrical outlets either. The amazing red cedar trees appear to be completely unwired.

- Bears: the materials state: “As this is bear country, hikers should educate themselves on bear safety and practice bear-safe camping to avoid confrontations.” CONFRONTATIONS? What does that mean? Further, I read: “Hikers can camp on gravel bars along the river. A few sites have bear poles with hoisting poles.” What on earth is that all about? You hoist bears on poles? What?

- Safety issues in general: The whole thing sounds fraught with dangers. For example, I read: “After crossing a logging bridge over the Milk River [‘Goat’ and ‘Milk’! How cute! No wonder I was initially charmed!], the trail follows the Goat River upstream for 4 km, where a cable car ferries hikers across the river. Use the cable car at your own risk; it is potentially hazardous.” And if you get hurt? “The Goat River Valley is a wilderness area and access to emergency services is extremely limited. Hikers must be self-sufficient…”

Does anyone else think that this sounds positively terrifying? Still, it’s the Goat…

My correspondence with the Goat people up in B.C. 

Let’s count the number of ways this article insults Wisconsinites

Possibly in anticipation of Kerry’s visit to Madison today, the Washington Post ran a story (again!) on Kerry’s fumble over the name of the Packer stadium. Perhaps you should skip this one (here) if you do not want to suffer acute frustration and anger at the paper for feeding into the Wisconsin stereotype with such gusto:

This is a place where Packers jackets often outnumber sports coats in church [WP emphasis] and thousands of fans wear a big chunk of yellow foam cheese atop their head with the pride of a new parent. President Bush's warning to terrorists is apropos to the passions of Packers fans -- you are either with 'em or against 'em.

I got news for the news writers: I’m neither with ‘em or against ‘em, in fact I don’t know much about ‘em. And I doubt that I stand alone [n.b. the article states that the race is so tight in Wisconsin that even a few thousand votes may make or break a candidate (remember 'a few thousand in 2000'? That was our final count in favor of Gore)].

And here’s another paragraph that just packs it in to Wisconsinites:

Not only did he [Cheney] speak to the biggest issue in the state -- the Packers [nc emphasis]-- he did so with Bart Starr, the Hall of Fame quarterback, by his side. "I've never been around someone I was more impressed with," Starr said of Cheney.

I suppose that I have to take heart in the final paragraph (forgetting the fact that, by inserting that last little jibe at the end, the paper plays right into GWB’s desire to make big of something so trivial), which throws it all up to the stars – both the ones on the field and the ones up above. Here is the key predictor of who will be the next president:

In the end, it's the Packers' score -- more than the Packers vote -- that could determine Kerry's fate. In the past 18 presidential elections, if the Redskins lost or tied the last game before the election, the party in the White House lost, too. The Redskins' opponent Oct. 31: the Packers, but not at Lambert, er, Lambeau Field.

A Personal Call from the Democrats

There was an urgent message on my machine when I got home: "Tomorrow: Kerry! At the Alliant Center! He will be there! We would like to know if you can come. Please give us a call so that we can coordinate.”

Coordinate what?? Is this a personal invitation? Is it like being a delegate to the convention? Do I get to be in the front rows, applauding wildly (is it because they heard my loud cheers on Karaoke night yesterday?)? Do I act as a protector of the Kerry spirit, boo-hissing loud protesters, interveners and disrupters of the democratic process? Do I act as body guard too, jumping up to shield him from rowdy types that occasionally leap to the stage (did they read my post of outrage at the Barrymore for not carrying out a rowdy type from last week’s concert?)? How SPECIAL am I anyway?

Not very, I’m afraid. I’ll go there and I will be just one of thousands. They will have called every listed democrat this side of Milwaukee. I did this for Clinton and Gore when they rolled into Madison. I was a face in the crowd.

For a minute, I had believed that I was on their hot list. Then I remembered the size of my contribution to the party and reality set in.

The Kid in me

There are a number of bloggers who will provide excellent recaps of last night’s gathering of sociologists and tag-alongs at the Karaoke Kid (later in the day you may check here, here and here). I will not be one of them. I am about the last person on earth who should ever write about Karaoke. I never pay attention to rock groups and artists any more and it took me a long time to understand that a reference to Fiona Apple was not a comment about a brand of fruit from the Farmers' Market. But since I pick up songs easily, even as I am not listening to them, I do know words and melodies to the strangest collection of songs and so the urge to join up at the Kid is always strong. But no summaries: I do not know who sang what and when – it’s all a blur of TV monitors and different combinations of people standing up, sometimes falling down and dying (yes, there was a reenactment of a death performed with painful accuracy by the author of JFW), often singing with eyes closed as if their (okay, our) life depended on it.

So how is it that this pop-cultural ignoramus gets herself to the Kid so faithfully and shamelessly each time the trumpet sounds? Well, isn’t there an ancient song out there about Fools Rushing In Where Wise Men Never Go?