So I am listening to Joni Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon on Spotify and googling photographs of Laurel Canyon to see if it really looks the way I imagine from, oh, Weetzie Bat and Diane di Prima’s memoir.

NYT, 4/20/1969, Susan Gordon Lydon:

“Joni Mitchell lives in Laurel Canyon, in a small, pine-paneled house lovingly cluttered with two cats, a stuffed elk’s head, stained glass windows, a grandfather clock given her by Leonard Cohen, a king’s head with a jeweled crown sticking out from the brick fireplace, votive candles, blooming azaleas, a turkey made of pine cones, dried flowers, old dolls, Victorian shadow boxes, colored glass, an ornamental plate from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where she grew up, an art nouveau lamp in the shape of a frog holding a lily pad, a collection of cloisonné boxes, bowls and ashtrays, patchwork quilts, Maxfield Parrish pictures, various musical instruments, and Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash.”

xx
djd
p.s. Isn’t Nash’s appearance at the end of that paragraph an unfortunate shoe-dropping >thunk<? In context, who cares about his presence in this scene?
p.p.s. Recommended: Emma Forrest's memoir Your Voice in My Head.

I try to be compassionate about the frustrations of customer support. I know that the reps are required to shill all sorts of dumb products, and that they’re sitting somewhere with headsets on in (I imagine) a room with terrible lighting, and they just want to pay the rent, and it’s not their fault I can’t find out on my Comcast account page what internet bandwidth I have. Or that the email rep wasn’t allowed to answer the question over email. But still, world, did this really have to take 15 minutes?

–
analyst NAME has entered room

NAME: Hello Danielle, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is [NAME]. Please give me one moment to review your information.

Danielle: My Issue: Hi– I have a reference number for this case. It is 6467466.

NAME: I am looking forward to help you this time because our customer guarantee is our promise to you. Learn more about the Comcast Customer Guarantee by clicking the link below. http://www.comcast.com/Corporate/Customers/CustomerGuarantee.html

NAME: How may I help you this time, Danielle?

Danielle: I have a reference number for this case. It is 6467466.

NAME: Please give me a minute or two to check of that reference number.

NAME: For the integrity and security of your account information, please fill in the following information ask below: Account Holder’s Name: Full Service Address: Phone number: Zipcode: SSN# last 4 digits:

Danielle: You mean mostly the information I filled in to get to this chat in the first place?

Danielle: [NAME], [ADDRESS], [PHONE], ####.

NAME: Yes, Daniele, but this is to prevent social engineering and possible hackers.

NAME: Thank you so much.

NAME: While you are waiting why not check out www.comcast.com/Corporate/Learn/DigitalCable/digitalcable.html and see how to take advantage of the full value of your Digital Video service.* If you have any questions once we are done with this, I’ll be more than happy to answer them for you.
[* I don't have Digital Video service.]

NAME: Just to let you know, at the end of this chat there will be a short survey. I would appreciate it if you would take a moment to complete it so we can continue to improve the service we provide to you.

[long pause]
Danielle: All I want to know is what service I currently have.

Danielle: In particular I want to know what internet bandwidth I have.

NAME: Yes, I certinly can, please let me check if first in here,

[long pause]
NAME: Please bear with me while I am still checking the the internet package for you.

[long pause]
Danielle: It is ridiculous that I can’t find this out on my account page in the Comcast website, but don’t respond to this because I know you can’t do anything about it and responding will just take more time.

[long pause]
NAME: Danielle, please give me a chance to let you know the internet package that you’ve signed up.

[long pause]
NAME: You have signed up to Online- performance with an internet speed of 12Mb/2Mb for upload and download.

Danielle: Thank you.

NAME: You are most welcome.

NAME: It has been my pleasure serving you today and I truly appreciate your understanding and cooperation. Do you have other concerns for me today? I will be glad to assist you further.

Danielle: No that’s it. Thanks.
–

Seriously. Fifteen minutes. At least I resisted the urge to tell the rep how ridiculous this was. I vented at the survey instead. And now, to you.
xx
djd
p.s. New England SPJ social media training Thursday night.
p.p.s. How fortunate it is that I have a “grouching” category. Good foresight, self.

Sept. 29: I read (v. short excerpt) from my memoir-in-progress at the Enormous Room to celebrate the end of 826 Boston’s Write-a-thon fundraiser. You still have a few hours to contribute to free tutoring and writing sessions for city kids.

Oct. 17: I read (longer excerpt) from said memoir-in-progress in Cambridge as part of Literary Firsts. This book thing is starting to get really real.

Oct. 20: New England Society of Professional Journalists and Associated Hangers-On holds our next workshop, “The Entire Conversation: Using Social Tools to Reach the World.” At the Globe, an outlet for which I will no longer be writing at that time.

Oct. 11: I join WGBH as an f/t web content person for the news team. In honor of this genuinely thrilling turn of events, I have changed the Daily Reason’s tagline.
xx
djd
p.s. I am very confused about all these emails coming in, as they always do, full of Somerville goings-on. It seems impossible that I would not be there with a notebook. Apparently I have been doing this Somerville Globe thing for nearly four years. How did that happen.

But first, housekeeping in three parts. I’m giving a reading next month in Cambridge, and you should come; the fantastic youth writing org. 826 Boston is raising $15,000 so inner-city kids can learn to express themselves, and you should help; my karate dojo has started yoga classes on Tuesdays (vigorous) and Sundays (yin), and you should join me there.

1. Virginia Woolf, diary, Nov. 10, 1917, after a party:

“The usual people were there, the usual sensation of being in a familiar but stimulating atmosphere, in which all the people one’s in the habit of thinking of, were there in the body.”

2. My CSA last week gave us onions, green peppers, and celery, no carrots. So I thought of New Orleans cuisine(s) and turned to the great John Thorne, who has what seems the right mindset for regional cooking: After a discussion of why a menu designed for the original Creole cookbook to be economical costs a fortune today, he writes, “If we wish to understand their inherent economy, we must reimagine what a good Creole cook would do when confronted with our larder… and our appetite… today.”

Serious Pig, p. 232 in the pbk.:

“The Creoles, of course, are not the only French in Louisiana; the Acadians—the Cajuns—are there, too. Creole and Cajun cooking have much in common, which is not surprising. What is interesting is the subtle but distinct manner in which they stand part. The common explanation for this difference is that the Creoles were wealthier than the Cajuns, more cultured, more attuned to culinary finesse.

“This is so and also not so. The Creoles, many of them, struggled to keep up an appearance of gentility that their means were increasingly unable to support, while the Cajuns, though long poor in coin, had the advantage of the naturally abundant culinary resources of the Louisiana bayous. If you discount the cooking of the true Creole elite and the elaborate preparations of Creole restaurants and consider only la cuisine Créole à l’usage des petits ménages, you’ll find the Cajun cook as artful in the kitchen as any of her Creole sisters.

“What, then, is the difference? Well, there is more to a cuisine than the taste of its dishes: the imagination has its hunger, too. People who eat the same food may still conceive it in very disparate contexts and taste it accordingly…. while the Cajuns eat and smack their lips and think themselves fine fellows for making a feast out of what the servants of the plantation house up the road toss to the pigs, Creoles taste and then sigh for a past when such meals were an act of virtue as much as of necessity. The Creole cook must create the illusion that while things change, nothing has changed; for the Cajun, it is enough that today is today, and today is good.

“In short, the Cajun culinary world is one drenched in bright Louisiana sunlight, boisterous, noisy, and, despite its French accent, extraordinarily American; Creole culture, while it lasted, was self-consciously crepuscular—eternally waning, nostalgically clinging to an image of itself as not only forever French but remaining, in some mystical if vestigial way, part of France itself.”

xx
djd
p.s. Matt-L informed me that if I say my jambalaya is good but it isn’t, then I’m a… jambaliar.

How to Land a Book Deal, July 14
A free panel discussion for journalists presented by the Society of Professional Journalists, New England chapter (board member yours truly)
6:30–8:30 p.m. at the Globe
Feat. agents Esmond Harmsworth and Albert LaFarge, author/columnist Michele McPhee, and Globe editor of book development Janice Page
Great opportunity to learn how the publishing system works. If you show up I’ll ask if my mom was right.

–> Reserve your seat!

xx
djd

Many of you don’t know that when I was pretentious [cough] so long ago [cough] I wrote with a cheap Sheaffer fountain pen. Translucent plastic barrel. I put in office supply requests for replacement cartridges. This was the ideal pen, because it was both fountain (literary) and cheap (bohemian/unassuming/humble/Yankee/The Right Thing to Do), thus hitting the Danielle J. Dreilinger Perfect Git Balance: the sweet fulcrum whereat you are superior to everyone. It was basically the pen version of founding Between C & D.

It clogged a lot.

While ransacking my desk for stationery last month I found one of my two Sheaffers but no cartridges. Upon checking online for refills (great timing, getting into stationery three months after the the Cambridge stationer closed) I discovered—well. I emailed a U.S. specialty pen shop. Proprietor:

I know exactly which pen you are talking about, but like all good things this pen is no longer made.

BAH to the HUMBUG.

p.s. There is no longer any cheap option in the Sheaffer (now Bic) line.

I figured well, I am totally happy with the Pilot Precise V5 (have rejected the V7; in 2013 I predict the pendulum will swing back), happier than with the Sheaffer in fact. Then I read a randomly tweeted Guardian column about schmancy notebooks and it led me to this particular British shop and lo:

“The classic children’s first fountain pen”—£1.52.

Le sigh! Guys, I am a classic child. I’m rereading Anne of Windy Poplars for the 200th time. But that’s not the only cheap option. We also have…

- Kaweco Ice Sport Fountain Pen. I can hear the sleek schussing of blades on the speed-skating ring. It is relatively pricey though: $24 US.

- The Rainbow-Brite of fountain pens! Which color would I choose? $7.64. Or the same pen with…

- COWS. I know exactly the person to give it to. $7.16. Oh, but then I saw:

- the Platinum Preppy, a “lovely example of Japanese pen design.” Colored nibs! Japanese design! Extra-fine 0.3mm! $6.50.

I love the idea of owning the basic Euro kid starter fountain pen—so Continental! so immediately recognizable to any Euro I meet, thus starting up a wonderful conversation! so conducive to my childhood imaginings of being a character in Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates! so apologizing to my readers for all the exclamation points!—but that Platinum Preppy is one pretty pen. I think that’s my choice.

HowEVer, international shipping is a whopping 10 quid, meaning this potential purchase will require hours no weeks of thought, consideration, daydreams, revisits to the links (cleverly archived in this post), rethought, reconsideration, lollygagging, waiting, delay, dithering, perhaps buying nothing at all: the delectable anticipation-extension mindstate absolutely necessary to a pleasurable acquisition experience. If you haven’t waited it’s not worth it.
xx
djd

p.s. Yes I could buy some of these off Amazon for much lower shipping, but I’m inclined to support a nutso craver website obsessed with cult pens. If you don’t shop somewhere you like it may shut down (R.I.P. again Bob Slate).

p.p.s. If you’re in the UK and want to jury-rig a cheaper shipping option, hey, let me know. If you live near me and want to bulk together an order since the shipping’s flat-rate, same.