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Sight for sore eyes
I have terrible glasses. I have terrible vision—Bush Sr. reigned the last time I saw the big “E”—and since extreme nearsightedness means terribly expensive lenses that make my eyes* look small, my prescription dates to 1997 and frames to when the East Village was an affordable dump.
* Reputedly my best feature. 2004 chat with friend re. his friend/my new love interest:
Guy: I told him you were crazy.
D: GEE, THANKS.
Guy: Well, I also told him he could get lost for hours in your big brown eyes.
D: [mollified, trying not to show it]
Think owlish. Think Harry Potter. Remember I am not a boy wizard. I have had entire relationships where the dude never saw these ugly things. Through the “sexy glasses” trend, years in which I have not dated a single man who did NOT wear them,** I have worn contacts. Peripheral vision. Dry nose. “Big brown eyes”!
** Last dude without full-time glasses: 2005. Also, the infamous Mr. Northern NY r’shp started going south when he switched to contacts.
To cap it off, hip rectangular frames make me look like square-jawed Superman.
But, you know, what if I get pinkeye. Imagine my shock to discover, late, the online world of insanely cheap glasses. Nearly all the frames are hip/rectangular and they don’t have superultrathin lenses (sounds like a tampon), but it’s not like I’d wear them out/about anyway. So I IM’d a few marginally ovoid candidates to Homeboy.
Who responded with umbrage. Predictably. Why?
Homeboy loves my hideous glasses.
“You OWN glasses,” he pointed out. That are, he thinks, classy, “ensmartening,” flattering, and hot.
Over his flurry of vociferous protest, I emailed my oldest friends, my mom, my sister, and Georgia-who-stayed-here-last-fall for backup: Don’t you think my glasses are hideous?
Responses:
- “I think they make you look very writerly and are especially awesome when your hair is a tumbly curly mess and you look sleepy and are tripping over the cat. Which come to think of it, is the only time I’ve seen you wear them.”
- “I also picture you sleepy in something flannel and tripping over the cat in them…. That makes me smile.”
- “They remind me of sleepovers.”
- [pphr.] “It’s time for stylish new specs. Call me—there’s a sale and we need to book the flight for your sister’s wedding today.” (Mom.)
Aw. Guys. Warm flannel fuzzies. Given my conviction that even $50 spent on glasses is $50 I can’t spend on more important matters like rent, tonight’s Longknives show, or a funnel to get this ginger syrup into a pretty bottle… yeah. Who am I kidding.
Now, my dearest fellow cheapskate, a man who will never send me pink sea salt, hazelnut spread, or secondhand KitchenAid mixers (the shipping alone!), has a different problem. He found perfect glasses. Real wood.
They triggered, even, a rhapsody to explain why he loves these glasses. Not that I needed one. Without further ado, I bring you a poem by Matt-L. Line breaks courtesy of instant messenger.
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listen here is how it is
i regard eyeglasses like my taste in clothes, see
i expect at any time to be hit by a truck, or fall off a cliff
and then on that day when the seraphim carry me away
they will carry me to a place where it is 1961 forever
and there I shall stay
so
if I show up in a Charlotte Hornets Starter jacket and a pair of glowing Reeboks
I just won’t fit in
so
I’m just trying to be set up for the Rapture, you know?
–
Homeboy wears his glasses right.
xx
djd
p.s. My hideous glasses are held together by one screw and one unfurled paper clip.
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Joanne Kyger
Continuing my long history of reading writers’ memoirs and not their formal work, I returned to poet Joanne Kyger’s 1960–4 Japan and India Journals. Borrowed Kate’s copy a few years ago and have never been able to forget it. I finally got a cheap copy for myself.
I bought the 1981 version not the 2000 repub., caught up by the idea of buying the old one. So there is absolutely no context—not her age, not why she decided to move to Japan. (Anne Waldman’s intro to the 2000 book fills some of the gaps.)
Fascinating:
a) They almost never eat Japanese food.
b) Along with being a poet and a cautious, occasional Zen student, she is a housewife (?politically progressive people in 1960 still weren’t all that progressive?) so she spends a lot of time cleaning.
Not that I suggest bugging random 75-year-old writers (ask Julie about the time I called Tom Lehrer) but she’s in the phonebook.
The few docs online imply that her marriage to Gary Snyder was a formality, undertaken merely to satisfy the Zen Institute leader’s sense of propriety. No matter the impetus, she didn’t experience it as a shell. As the book went on it reminded me, again, of a particularly terrible boyfriend whose usually accurate criticism made me more and more shaky as months went on.
Here’s the 12/31/63 note from Snyder Kyger pasted into her journal. Shortly afterward, she left Japan and they got divorced.
(Note I have no idea whether this is really a letter from Snyder. That’s how Kyger presents it in the journals. The brief intro mentions a postcard he sent her in 1981, and she has given presentations on his poetry, so I assume that everything’s under the bridge.)
–
Someday you ought to really try :
to sew up the hole in the shikibuton.
to learn Japanese. Or give up planning to live in Japan.
Fold your clothes in your drawer.
Don’t save everything.
Quit reading so much trash.
What about history and prosody ?
Genius means hard work too.
Halfhearted scaredy-cat flower arrangement isn’t ENOUGH.
It would be nice if you could get up early and make breakfast while I did soji or worked in the garden.
Why can’t you ever have a meal ready on time ? ?
And wash the dishes soon after. And pay attention.
Listening to stupid radio programs without even listening.
Bad careless habits, like others, don’t really exist.
Learn to take criticism when it’s fair without getting nasty in return / / humility.
—Gary
–
[sharp inhale]
xx
djd
p.s. Saw a book yesterday called The Writing Life. I’ve seen it before and I would officially like to call bullshit. The writing life consists largely of guilty procrastination and misery with occasional flashes of great satisfaction, which are themselves sometimes later tempered by others’ response.
p.p.s. Kyger and Snyder acted in a few trashy movies. Would be fun to get hands on?
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A Mother’s Day tale (read it)
Lee Hill Kavanaugh, my co-mentee at the Mike Levine Workshop earlier this month, published her story today in the Kansas City Star.
Her editor, perhaps joking, called it “the anti-Mother’s Day” article. I think it’s the opposite.
Dryly titled: “Raytown woman takes in homeless young mother.”
See why we need journalists? Beautiful work, Lee.
xx
djd
Filed under: my brilliant friends | 1 Comment
Half-baked
Appropriately, I wrote this reintroduction six weeks ago. OH GOOD LORD, DRELL.
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Appropriately, I wrote this six weeks ago, yanked it to re-edit, and never went back. It’s oddly mushy. I’m only posting it because the Skillet Doux food blogger is moving to Boston soonish and it struck me that I haven’t written about food in monthhhhhs. [Ed., 5/14: I'd forgotten about the Globe mozzarella story.]
Random-weeknight complicated dinner menu for tonight: From Leah and homeboy: fresh ricotta with olive oil on ciabatta; “risi e bisi of sorts (rice with peas, fresh favas, and basil)”; roasted cauliflower with honey, maras pepper, and frisee; maybe lamb merguez sausage. From me: lemon blueberry-bottom soufflés. No, I don’t know what maras peppers are either.
—
I am a totally half-assed cook. Homeboy chiffonades basil, I slice cabbage too coarsely for slaw and suffer my crunchy way through it.
(It is 100% true that a mutual friend’s primary appeal to me re. homeboy was: he’s a great cook. My response: “Isn’t he a pretentious twit?” The only reason we re-met [long story] in person was that he decided, on the fly, to throw a random fancy dinner party and I, being sorta on the lookout for a new prospect and hungry to boot, got my RSVP in early. It so happens that party occurred one year ago yesterday. Somewhere around the time he fed me lamb juice from the pot I decided the dude was cute.
His writeup of the menu:
Course 1: Butternut squash and parsnip soup with croutons and fried sage and parsley leaves. Heavy on the coconut milk. I didn’t really think it was so hot but everybody told me it was delicious because they are good people. [Ed.: It was delicious.]
Course 2: Shrimp and tilapia tacos. With pineapple and radishes, cilantro and lime. Very fine for one’s circulation on a cold day.
Course 3: Braised lamb shanks, horseradish mashed potatoes, and apple cider cabbage. Successful.
Dessert: Sweet ricotta and beet crepes. With clementine segments and chiffonaded basil. Sweet ricotta cheese may catch up to crack yet.)
But yeah, me? Half-assed. E.g., I got Jeffrey Hamelman’s book Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes from the library. (Note, one, I didn’t buy it.) You cannot imagine a more precise tome. Think Harold McGee if he wrote recipes and concentrated on one foodstuff. We’re talking adjusting bread temperature, the precise ways tight vs. loose pre-shaping will affect your final rise time, calculating the friction/heat factor of your standing mixer. Of course you need to weigh your goods out proper; that’s elementary.
Befuddled. Totally befuddled. It seemed impossibly complicated. For the first time I wanted a standing mixer (what, you think I can’t hold a handheld for the five minutes it takes to make meringue? Bah).
However, I bake bread all the time (albeit the no-knead and food processor versions… thanks, Mr. Bittman! mwah!) and the baker who recommended the book told me to chill out. So I started baguettes this morning. And even though I know I really should get a scale and a thermometer… I don’t have them and I didn’t want to wait so I just went ahead.
I consider myself a decent home cook with a serious lazy streak. (You may think baking crackers from scratch takes effort and ambition, but no: I’m too lazy to put on clothes and run out to the store.) My presentation and knife skills suuuck.
Yet I love to cook. I suppose? When you’ve already put up poolish before work, figuring that with your cold apartment you’ll get the bread into the oven at 1 a.m., and a friend sends you a recipe for Nova Scotia oatcakes and you immediately want to make them tonight, you have everything you need, what does it matter that you’re already baking four baguettes (and going to karate and writing news briefs)… you must love it, right? Or you’re a really terrible procrastinator? (I made Reuben pupusas yesterday with leftover pastrami, pickles, cheese, and masa. Ate with coleslaw, more pickles, and Russian. Oh man. So good. I skipped dinner out so I could eat more of them at 1 a.m.)
Next step: As a freelance writer, naturally I think: how can I parlay this passion into work? Read Orangette for the first time today, or the first time I remember. She got a book deal from starting a blog (hi, Mom). Her FAQ says write about what you love. Ergo, I should write about food? Exclusively?
Not so fast. Because I love music, and I wrote about that exclusively for a few years. Contrary to popular opinion, it didn’t ruin my love to think critically about music. I started writing about music because I had so many critical thoughts on the subject.
What wore me out was the (perceived) need for a music critic to be a completist. Like a whale with maw wide open for vast volumes of sea water, to swallow plankton. Band of the month. Founding bands of the genre. Band of the month’s previous work. Band other critics compare that band to. Everything started to sound the same.
Though I had a decent critical mind and ear (I hope), I always felt somewhat like a fake next to the critics who spent their teenage years plugged into the hi-fi. I’d never listened to music that way. I’d put P.J. Harvey’s Four-Track Demos into my car tape deck (dubbed copy) and listen to it for months.
In the end, the exclusive music critic focus got dull. I ran out of adjectives. I remembered everything else I love to do.
These days I write about all sorts of things, including music and food and my town. I like that. It’s the positive side of freelancing. I submit that I’m meant to have many obsessions and feel, somewhat happy somewhat guilty, like a half-assed semi-flunky at them all.
xx
djd
p.s. 5/14 After spattering flour and water all over the library copy, I bought the Hamelman book and asked my parents for a birthday kitchen scale and oven thermometer. Why are my loaves scorching and sticking to the pan?
Filed under: it's what's for dinner | Leave a Comment
Tags: deep philosophical thoughts HA, fava beans, food, orangette, skillet doux, writing
YOUTHQUAKE (2004)
Since I’m not moving, I’m cleaning. Grabbed a notebook from the milk crate o’ notebooks. Remembered it immediately. In April 2004 I drove to the Dream Away Lodge in Western Mass. to interview the Mammals, an up-and-coming string band. I don’t think I knew at the time that the inn housed the Rolling Thunder Revue (great credentials I had for reviewing folk music, some might say). Listened to the Yankees because the Sox game wouldn’t come in. Got caught in Easter traffic and grumbled that Northeast Performer wouldn’t even toss me 10 bucks for gas.
A month later, I drafted this story in a front booth at the Middle East, then went in to see Okkervil River for the first time. Missed Shearwater and the Stairs to write. Later they too became my favorite bands. Arrggh.
“YOUTHQUAKE” is scribbled at the top of the page.
Granted, they don’t like PPM [ed.: Peter Paul and Mary?] and they don’t really know BDB [ed.: no clue]. It points to “this gap, this generational gap that is slowly being filled in by I guess people like us. But you see how people are just desperate, grappling for the right words to explain what’s going on because it isn’t, it hasn’t happened before quite like this.” The Ms value older fans, who after all have more money to spend, and respect their forebears, but younger crowds are more fun. “I didn’t play music as a kid [socially], you know, it was all my parents and their friends, whatever, and it was their thing….”
… Ticket prices are a problem. “Rock clubs are really fun, especially when they’re packed with teenagers, but they don’t pay,” Ungar explains. Rodriguez loves “the Fugazi philosophy,” but “it’s a harder row to hoe.” … The Ms bought a larger van and would be living semi-comfortably were it not for the decision to bring on two new members. “We’re sort of artistically living beyond our means,” comments M. These new guys feed into the band’s goals, though—their new label pres says they lower the band’s audience by 15 years.
[more?] I wrote at the bottom.
xx
djd
Filed under: sounds | 1 Comment
This was SUPPOSED to be Serious Songwriter week here on the ol’ Daily Reason, but [friend who wishes to remain nameless] came through with a bravura installment in his Futility Watch email series. Since he dislikes the internet, he’s graciously allowed me to repost here.
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i’m speechless.
better to just let the participants in yesterday’s nats v. astros debacle discuss.
in the interest of being fair and balanced…i’ll alternate spokespeople:
astros manager cecil cooper: “One of the weirdest situations I’ve ever seen. We go from pitching really great [for] one, two days, and then just the opposite. I don’t know what the heck to do. I don’t know how to explain it. How many did we walk today? 10?”
nats manager manny acta: ” “A couple plays that we didn’t make cost us six runs total. When your pitching is struggling, you have to catch the ball.”
astros reliever chris sampson: “I had a bad day. I’m human. Everybody out there’s human.”
nats GM mike rizzo: “We need to play better defense, and we need the bullpen to perform.”
astros reliever latroy hawkins: “Just very, very ugly.”
ok..ok…you get the idea.
i can’t even begin to describe how pathetic this game was.
i mean… normally i’d cite old friend julian tavares (1/3 inning, 3 earned runs) or chris “i’m human” sampson (7 batters, four walks, 3 runs forced in)
sadly, that only begins to give you the flavor of this one.
houston took the lead, then washington took the lead (i mean houston gave away the lead), then houston took the lead again (i mean washington gave away the lead), then washington took the lead again (i mean houston gave away the lead again), then houston took the lead again (i mean washington gave away the lead again), then washington took the lead again (i mean houston gave away the lead again), then houston tied it (i mean washington gave away the lead again).
then…the rain came and the poor saps who had sat at nationals park watching this crap for over 3 hours were told (after another 75 minutes sitting in the rain) that the game was being suspended.
the nats had a man on first with one out in the bottom of the 11th.
any nats fans who want to see if the hometown nine can push across the winning run will have to wait until july 9th when the game is resumed.
oh…one caveat…the nats fans will have to travel to houston because that’s where they are finishing the game.
i kinda doubt anyone will make the trip.
nats 10 astros 10
–
It was getting a little too somber around here.
xx
djd
Filed under: my brilliant friends, sox | Leave a Comment
