Thanksgiving

To be thankful requires some distance. A hangnail can derail the most mindful existence and most of us face more hardships than that on a daily basis. To be able to ignore the worst and appreciate the best in our lives is something of a gift in itself. The oldest and best advice humans have been sharing with each other always involves some variation on how to do this:

Be in the moment. Count your blessings. Don't sweat the small stuff. Live, laugh, love, learn.

We are approaching that particular time of the year when many of us take inventory. My inventory is looking pretty good.  I have work that I enjoy doing. I have loving arms to come home to attached to a head and a heart that keep me entertained and inspired. I have a mam and a brother who are as devoted to me as I am to them. And my friends are a constant delight. King Dutch teaches me every day how optimism works. And I have a safe and happy home thanks to a very generous soul.

Thanksgiving is often the beginning of a season many people would rather skip. Family dynamics, logistics, money, travel, stress. It can be horrible. I see people I dearly love who are frankly about ready to kill themselves and everyone they know because of this. I wish I could take them to where I am today.

I want for nothing. I am enormously lucky. I love you all. Thank you. You make each day a blessing.

Worker Bees and Beasts

For a brief time, I worked for one of those soulless corporate giants that returns to its shareholders a very pretty profit which ensures that the executives will get a big fat bonus and that its clients and employees will regret their relationship with them. Or some will, anyway. I did. Ours was the highest-earning store in a very high-earning region. And I was one of their highest earners (I had a friendly competition with another girl for top sales every month which was funny for us since we all shared our passwords and often closed for each other when we were ready to go out back and smoke.) We had a FU attitude toward most of the rule book because we could. They were actually a little afraid of us. HQ was in one of those parts of the country that is about 17 years behind the times, and their edicts reflected that. But for the most part, they left us alone.

Some of the rules were just laughable: gentlemen associates could not have hair that touched their collars and lady associates could not wear a skirt higher than three inches from their knee. Mind you, we were selling glasses. In the early 90s. To men with long hair and women with hardly any fabric covering their crotches.

Some of the other rules were just awful: we could be terminated for meeting outside of work if more than three of us were present. We were denied lawful compensation for travel times to mandatory conferences that we went to from the store. But the worst of all was that we were asked to lie to our patients. We were told to sell them things they didn't need, and that were not in their best interest. It was horrible.

Our parent company purchased stock in a company that made equipment to process a particular lens that is medically appropriate in a few cases but only a few. We were told to sell it to everybody. It's a shitty lens. It causes halos and distortion and visual anomalies, but that was where the company saw its profit, despite the fact that we refused to sell it and made them more money by selling designer frames. They had a business model and they were sticking to it. And we were very naughty. They swooped down on us with exhortations, bonuses, displays, demonstrations, and punishments for the reluctant. And yet we refused to sell it. We still made them a ton of money, but all they could see was lost revenue because we weren't selling this one product. What they didn't see, and what few corporations ever see, was that we had a relationship with our customers. They trusted us. Our subculture was to make sure that our clients walked out of our store looking amazing but more importantly, seeing well. That's why they came back to us and brought the people they cared about in with them. But our corporate culture was 180° in the opposite direction and they won. They fired our General Manager, replaced her with a lovely but terrified young woman who could no more handle our patients (some of Hollywood's biggest names) than she could handle us (a group of really pissed off sales people.)

She was forced to fire a bunch of us. She cried when she terminated me. I ended up comforting her.

It was an interesting lesson in just how bad the corporate world can get. When the people at the top really have no idea what the people at the bottom are doing, they get suspicious and nasty. They start to assume that their employees are up to no good, because that's their MO. (To be fair, one of ours was stealing designer sunglasses to sell on Venice Beach, but Loss Prevention went after the Latino lab rat and not the white sales guy who was actually walking off with bag after bag of frames.) Can you say "projection"?

I recently Googled my old employer, and let's just say the news isn't good. I'm not particularly happy about this. They have a lot of lives in their hands and I would rather those people be secure and happy. But little seems to have changed since those days.

I can say that they are better than these folk.

I don't even know what to make of them. Halloween is a foul mess this year.

I learned a few things about a certain cowboy that I shared on Prose Before Hos. Surprised the heck outta me!

Such a Stain

My heart tonight is with the family and with that man who had to murder his brother for a paycheck.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Les Enfants Terribles Say the Darndest Things!

My latest piece for Prose Before Hos on Galliano and bigotry in France is up.

Meanwhile

I have a new piece up over at Prose Before Hos on the GOP and their voter suppression: What’s Behind The Right’s War On Voting The research for it was really a little depressing but there are some bright spots on the horizon.

The Macaroni That Came Out of My Brother's Nose and His Bunk Bed Which Pepermint Patty and I Broke

I collect people. And I hang onto them. I am, in fact, a people-hoarder. I own almost nothing but my friends are almost too numerous to count at this stage in my life. According to my various social networks, I am in regular contact with well over 1,000 people. That's either a sign that I have a serious problem or a sign that I will live really long. Opinions vary.

One of these friends is a girl I have known since I was 9 years old. She was and is a carrot top with a wicked sense of humor. We called her Peppermint Patty since the freckle situation and hair were beyond amazing. We keep reconnecting and remembering why we connected in the first place. (Well, I know why I do. She's smart, hilarious, generous, and fascinating. I have no idea what she gets out of it.) And we recently reconnected again after more than twenty years. She has a wonderful husband, two incredibly engaging imps, a lunatic dog, and a lovely home from which she does important work.

We got to spend a day together last week and yes, I snorted. Several times in fact. I was quite sure I was going to get my giggle on but I really wasn't expecting to find in her memory a wealth of anecdotes from my early years that I had lost in a sea of slights and follies. She actually remembers the best parts of my childhood while I apparently clung to a whole lot of sibling rivalry and latchkey woe-is-me moments.

We both remember the macaroni that shot of of my brother's nose though. That was epic. It was accompanied by a rather large quantity of milk. And it sent the three of us into the kind of hysteria that only children know. I would die tomorrow if I could find that level of pure joy today. Although I came close reliving that moment with PP last week hearing her tale of how we both climbed onto the second bunk of my brother's bed and began rocking it while he sat beneath us egging us on until the entire structure came crashing down upon him from which pile of debris he shouted "GET OFF ME!!!!" while PP and I inquired whether the other had heard something as we jumped up and down. How do I not remember this?

Watching her children, the eldest of whom is the age now that her mother and I were when we met, I see before them a whole strange road of hijinks and low points. They are both as pretty, smart, and funny as their mother and they have their father's handsome carriage, seriousness, and focus as well. I have been worried about the future of this country, and I am worried for them. Although the fact that they are our future is a great relief to me. I am perfectly willing to hand over the reins to these two little creatures as soon as they can handle the ride. I just wish they were getting a better deal.

Neither one got the freckles though.

Tickled Pink

I am very proud to announce that I have joined the hilarious, provocative, and fascinating site, Prose Before Hos. My first piece inspired by the MLK Memorial and his legacy went up today.

The Unelectable Eating the Unpalatable

Apologies to Wilde, but watching the GOP field of candidates chasing their party's nomination this season has me remembering his famous quote about fox hunting, "The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable" The entire debacle has taken on the surreal quality of a modern day hunt, where a bag of fox urine is dragged around some hills and dales for a pack of overbred dogs to chase, followed by a pack of overbred horses, carrying a pack of inbred elites.

Of course, I do not mean to imply that any of the GOP hopefuls are the products of the kind of close coupling that wiped out the Hapsburgs (A chin, a chin! My kingdom for a smaller chin!) but they were raised in insular, culturally incestuous environments that have left them so far outside the mainstream as to appear unreal to the rest of us.

Exhibit A in the cabinet of curiosities is Michele Bachmann. Mesmerized and mesmerizing, it is hard to look away as she launches herself at fence after gate after ditch after hedge and lands flat on her ass over and over and over again. And mounts back up. While her supporters egg her on, the media and those of us on the left are exchanging those horrified but gleeful glances that parents trapped at a school play trade when someone else's child does something truly awful.

Did she really just wish Elvis Presley happy birthday on the 34th anniversary of his death? Why yes, yes she did. Did she really solicit an interview with Kathy Griffin and does she even know who that is? Yes, and obviously no. These are just the two latest moments in what has became our long national funniest nightmare ever.

The level of schadenfreude Bachmann delivers is delicious although the fear one develops of her true believers puts a bit of a damper on it.

Scarier, is exhibit B: Rick Perry. He appears to be all sociopath all the time. Governor Goodhair hates in a big Texas way. He hates gays, he hates the poor, he hates clean air, and he hates the government he aspires to lead, although he likes the money it hands out. He has used his gerrymandered votes to ratchet up the power of his office which had been rather weak before him, turning Texas into one of the most polluted and most corrupt states in the country. Texas is dirty, y'all.

And as for that oft-touted Texas Miracle? Myth. In fact, Governor Perry has been leading the race to the bottom. One out of four children in Texas is now living in poverty. Texas: Leaving the Children Behind.

Perhaps this is why most Texans would rather vote for Greyhair than Goodhair.

Rounding out the unelectables, we have Rick Santorum of Google fame, and Karl Rove's current crush, the very hungry Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie. Neither Exhibit C nor Exhibit D has been able to appeal much to the nation's voters despite the attention of Dan Savage and Mr. Toad.

As for the unpalatables, we have Exhibit E who doesn't count, Exhibit F who finally exited stage right utterly confused, and Exhibit G who actually has a shot at coming close to almost beating the incumbent.

I can't explain what happened to exhibit E, F is no longer of interest, so let's move right along to Mitt Romney. Romney has two very large problems:

1) He's sane.
2) He's honest.

The rabidly enraged voters who will bother to vote in the primary have no discernible interest in sanity. And even if Bachmann pulls out (very likely given how exhausted she is beginning to look) and Perry's secessionist self makes Northern voters too uncomfortable to vote for him, Romney can't win the general election.

He and Obama have virtually identical politics, with some exceptions like abortion, but single issue voters cancel each other out. Both men are fatherly, both men are calm, both men seem reasonable. They are virtually interchangeable and Romney won't tell distort his record or his opponent's. We are too nervous as a nation to trade one daddy for another, so we'll keep the one we have even if the other kids don't think he's the cool dad.

A Death

My heart broke a little to learn of this shockingly talented and terribly sad child's death. I can't say I was particularly surprised. She seems to have been trying to erase herself for the longest time in between moments when she found a reason to stick around, mostly for her art, for that incredible toe-curling voice that could take a song and turn it inside out. She was raw, as though she had no skin.

The French have a phrase for this (of course they do, who better to describe malaise?): ne pas être bien dans sa peau. I first encountered it in my HS French class reading Camus or a North African author whom I have forgotten in a ridiculous bout of shallow callowness.

"Je ne suis pas bien dans ma peau."

I can just hear her saying that. "My skin hurts."  I think Joplin had the same pain, and Hendrix. Morrison as well. And Cobain. All dead at 27. Such a fucking waste.

Rest in peace little girl. I am choosing to imagine you and Pearl with your arms thrown around each other, open-throated and comfortable in your skin.

A Battle, a Monument, and a Bridge.

It's Bunker Hill Day! Most of us have retained some glancing acquaintance with the more notable episodes of the American Revolution from our school days. Except a certain lady visitor to Boston who ran into a spot of bother even after a refresher course on the Freedom Trail. But oh well, not everyone can be facty and she made up for her gaffes by leaving quickly.

There was a parade, held the Sunday before as (a newish) tradition dictates, that ended at the Bunker Hill Monument. And the Monument is where our story begins.

There almost wasn't one. It turns out revolutions are pricey things. Ours was no exception. The Continental Congress began to print its own money starting with plates engraved by that very same gentleman engraver who managed not only to get captured by the British, but to lose his borrowed horse on his famous ride. A better rider was Sybil Ludington who went twice as far at half his age and managed to keep her horse.

The Continentals were printed on the same presses that spread the news of the Revolution by some well-known inkers and some we have forgotten. The British promptly enlisted the help of counterfeiters and managed to ruin the upstart economy which was admittedly stressed already by debt and lack of revenue. Start as you mean to go on, I suppose.

So the founding fathers took off their tricorns and went begging. They had a particularly generous benefactor in Haym Solomon. So generous was he that he died penniless after fighting as a Patriot, being captured twice, and surviving torture because the government couldn't pay off its loans. Or he may have been involved in market speculation. His wife, née Rachel Franks, came from one of the most prominent Jewish families of the Revolution, the Levys. It was her uncle, Nathan Levy, who started the Mickveh Israel in Philadelphia, home to Jewish Patriots fleeing British occupation. The Hazan was Gershom Mendes Seixas of the equally important Seixas family. It was in response to his brother, Moses Seixas, that President Washington wrote the moving letter To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport:


For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.


And now we come full circle, for it was Judah Touro, son of Touro Synagogue's Hazan, whose donation of $10,000 allowed for the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument. 

Copyright Andy Ryan

This history is largely unknown to the residents of Charlestown who live near Breed's Hill, the actual site of the monument. Their ignorance was hardly noteworthy until news broke that the bridge that connects their town to Boston was to be named after not just the monument but a local Jewish civil rights activist, Lenny Zakim. A small group of Townies opposed the decision to honor this incredible man and did so with rhetoric unworthy of the legacy of those who died for freedom on that day. But, to paraphrase our first president,

Happily, the Government of Boston gave to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.

A great way to celebrate our Jewish Patriots after touring Beantown, is to head over to Zaftigs Deli in Brookline. The hot corned beef sandwich is a delicious nod to two of the heritages that helped shape this country. 

Update

OH YOU STUPID IDIOT!

A High-Tech Schmear

What's a guy named Weiner to do? Mostly rise above the pokes and jokes and try not to erupt when things come to a head.


But what do you do when several determined forces align to actually try to take you down? Especially when the normal arbiters of what stories have legs and will lead have lost any sense of professionalism? And have decided to follow the absolute lowest scum to call itself a journalist since Pulitzer and Hearst sold their souls for a penny a paper? It turns out taking the high road doesn't always work.


On Friday night, a seemingly deeply-disturbed individual who had been obsessed with Rep. Anthony Weiner for quite some time, tweeted that he had evidence that the member of Congress had sent a picture of his member to a young woman follower via Twitter.


To whom did he release this screenshot of the tumescent tweet? Why to said aforementioned scum. Said scum began an assault to lower the Member's standing in the eyes of the public that ought to have fizzled prematurely over a long holiday weekend, but oddly, it just got bigger.


Instead of practicing their craft, the pillars of the Fourth Estate braced themselves and dove right in.

Pundits like Alexandra Petri on WaPo had no qualms about describing some of the women who were following Weiner as "nubile out-of-state houris" as though all young women are breathless Monica Lewinskys hoping for the chance to service a powerful pervert. Even NPR, whom Weiner had forcefully defended against defunding, succumbed to the salacious. Did no one have the common sense to question this story from its dubious origins to its despicable mouthpiece?


Actually, some people did. As seems to be the case more and more often, MSM with all of its resources, experience, and access finds itself getting shamed by handfuls of people with laptops and questions. Firedoglake did this during the Scooter Libby trial. CAAFlog caught a major error in the SCOTUS ruling Kennedy v. Louisiana. Tiger Woods, etc. etc.


Add to that growing list of important impotence, the case of Weiner's wiener. When the Representative of New York's 9th District said he had been hacked, the basic questions of who, what, how, why, where, and when were not asked by those who get paid to ask them, but by bloggers. The most likely answers came from Cannonfire.


I was on Fark when someone linked to the Cannonfire post. Several of us thought the work that Joseph and milowent had done was pretty damn convincing, so we tried it ourselves. In fact, we hacked my Twitter. We got pretty much the same results. Without getting too technical, I'll just say that the only way we could get an image that looked like the screen shot of the one supposedly sent by the Member of his member, was if it was sent by someone else to my yfrog account:

NO URL information.

With URL information.
The URL did not show up until after the image had posted to my Twitter feed. So whoever took the screen shot off Weiner's yfrog account knew it was there before it was published. In other words, they put it there.


To give credit where credit is due, Rachel Maddow did a fine segment last night on how a hack would be possible. They seem to have missed the implications of the URLess image, but I'm sure that will get out soon.
Update: Another account of the Fark hack can be found here with a better technical description of what we did.


How does one recover after a long day of being an e-dick? With a bagel and lox from So's Your Mom. The closest I can get to a NY deli.

When Good Cooks Go Bad

This is what it looks like when you drop a knife on your foot. Every cook is taught to wear smart footgear at work. I wore steel-toed clogs and boots. And I never dropped a knife. Not once. I did slice off the top of my middle finger on my left hand cleaning the meat slicer the lazy way. (Grab a rag and turn it on and you will join the ranks of every prep cook who has the same injury along with the multiple burn marks up and down your fore arm from reaching into a hot oven to grab a sheet pan.) Welcome to the professional kitchen!

But I finally did drop a knife, and I did it at home where I was wearing flip flops.

It landed between my second and third toes and hit an artery. That was fascinating. I got to watch the blood pump as I tried to elevate my foot and staunch the bleeding. Utter failure. So I called 911 and went to the ER for stitches and a tetanus shot and now I am lying in bed with a hot swollen trotter that wants to bathe in the salty healing waters of the Pacific and rest atop a cushioned ledge beside me as I recline to recuperate on a chaise longue in a garden filled with citrus flowers and jasmine.

FML.

It's sort of a miracle that I haven't done this before now. My first gig in a kitchen was cooking once a week for Mr & Mrs WASP. I adored them. Mr WASP had been the chef de maison until he lost his eyesight too late in life to relearn his way around the kitchen. Mrs WASP hated cooking and put an ad in the Boston Globe back before Craigslist. I answered that ad and the rest was history. I cooked the oddest things for them. At least to my mind. Prune souffles and chicken diablo (this dish I cooked for Julia Child, a friend of Mrs WASP, who loved it and I am so grateful I had no idea I was cooking for her at the time or I might have had a stroke.) One of the strangest moments was when I was asked to prepare an eggplant Parmesan without garlic because Mr WASP found the taste too strong. I made it with shallots.

My life with the WASPs was hilarious. Besides cooking for La Julia, I had multiple moments that I will never forget. Once Mrs WASP realized that she could throw almost anything at me and I would reproduce it with the energy and enthusiasm of an apprentice in a 5 star restaurant, she began to have me come in for dinner parties. We collaborated on dainty hors d'œuvres and hearty entres. I learned to cook for a child's table in the kitchen while rolling out course after course for the adults in the dining room. I learned that beef Stroganoff was not to be made from hamburger meat but was a delicate and complicated specialty worthy of my keenest attention. I very quickly gained a working knowledge of some of the most important dishes from the best kitchens circa 1958. A very good year for food. I learned how to please a palate and fill a belly.

But my favorite moments in the cuisine des WASPs were rather more incidental. The time their eldest boy brought a girl home. She was, we discovered after all the ingredients for dinner had been purchased and each course had been prepared, a vegetarian. Mrs WASP was not pleased. She came flying back into the kitchen and unleashed a series of invectives the likes of which I had never heard.

"Can I help you, Mrs WASP?" I asked, alarmed by her rare presence in what I had come to view as MY kitchen.

"No, Opti. That fucking girl that Mark brought home is a fucking vegetarian. I will not have you do one ounce more work on this dinner, She can eat a fucking carrot."

So she threw open the door of the fridge, pulled out the crisper, grabbed an unwashed, unpeeled, filthy carrot, and slapped it on a plate. There was dinner for the fucking vegetarian. I believe young Master Mark never brought her home again.

Another rare moment when Mrs WASP invaded my kitchen was on one particularly fine Saturday morning. She had opened pretty much every cupboard in the joint and was swearing as each door swung open.

"Mrs WASP, what on earth are you looking for?"

"Oh GODDAMIT, Opti! Muffy is running late for our matinee and we don't have time for our martinis before the show, so I'm going to have to pack a fucking thermos of them to take with me and I can't find the Goddamn thermos!"

I found the thermos and watched, enthralled as Mrs WASP poured straight gin from the freezer into the coveted vessel and departed to go see her show. There may have been a whisper of vermouth but if there was it was so slight that it disappeared in my memory.

Me, Mam, and Three Aunties.

My mother has been known to flit about the country (and other countries) ISO good art. I have had the extraordinary privilege of learning how to look at paintings by watching her look at paintings. She was herself a very accomplished visual artist but her eyesight is wanting and she never drew or painted after I was about ten as best I remember. She also loves drawings and some sculpture, but my devotion to photography and architecture is a sort of grandchild to her love of the broad and beautiful brush. My brother took our visual education and incorporated his own love of the Shakeresque reverence for function to become one of the best landscape architects I have ever seen. We are truly her children. There is a quickening pulse that anyone who knows how to "read" art gets in front of some pieces, or on a particular patch of land, or in a perfectly-proportioned room that we owe her. It is a very pure joy.

She taught me many other things. I know how to cook because she made me sort and clean dried pinto beans and stood behind me as we refried them. I know a well-made piece of clothing because she made me a black watch plaid shirt with mother of pearl snaps and a yoke with the prettiest collar a girl ever had. She taught us how to iron. From the smallest piece to the largest. She grew Shirley poppies in our garden because I loved their papery frivolity.

She taught me to recognize quality. And beauty.

So she decided to come to DC and drag one of my aunties, a distinguished artist in her own right, to come see the Gauguin exhibit at the National Gallery. It drove my poor auntie Papier to distraction. "Utterly unorgnized." But the show was deemed worthy and we met up after to catch up and enjoy each other.

Painting by Mario Andres Robinson

I herded them to Locolat for baguettes which the Belgian owner, Neil, has flown in from France, and an almond truffle and then we hit up the Morton Fine Art Gallery next door as well as their PopUp Project gallery just down the street. Phenomenal.

After that we headed off to dinner at Radius, one of my favorite DC restaurants, which features a tightly-edited wine list to accompany a spectacular menu focused on local seasonal ingredients and a shockingly creative but always honest technique. We were there for three hours and I got to see two of my other favorite aunties: La Tia and La Lizzie who joined us to feast on springy splendor and a whole lot of green. (I highly recommend the pickled veg. Carrots, potatoes, and ramps (I think) in a sweet-tangy brine that turns everything a gaudy, Gauguin pink and tastes like a summer sunset.)

The Dance

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.  ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

This video recently found its way to me and reminded me of all things I love about being human.

I very much needed that lesson. It came on a rather unpleasant day that peaked with me taking the wrong bus home which meant I had to walk. A lot. I had to stop several times and try not to faint. Frustrating, embarrassing, infuriating, and terrifying. I used to love walking. The dog and I would often wander for four hours. We once were out for eight. It was sensational. There is a rhythm and transcendence that sets in on a long walk that is like nothing else I have ever done. Except dancing. Dancing is the quickest path I know to both leave the world and anchor yourself to it. 

Lil Buck and Yo-Yo Ma were dancing (and yes, Yo-Yo Ma and his cello dance) to advocate for funding for the arts in schools. To anyone who has studied the issue, the cuts to music, art, theater, and dance are shocking. The arts are one of the most powerful tools educators have to reach the most at risk students. Better than sports. And this impact continues beyond the school year. It is the second largest income generator after tourism for many cities. The arts give back:

5.7 million full-time equivalent jobs
$104.2 billion in household income
$7.9 billion in local government tax revenues
$9.1 billion in state government tax revenues
$12.6 billion in federal income tax revenues
(2009 figures which have obviously gone up since then.)


And sports? One tenth of one percent. 


Don't get me wrong. I love sports. I'm from Boston. The Celtics, the Red Sox, the Pats and the Bruins pretty much dominated my waking life well into adulthood. But my first love and most enduring will always be the arts. And they loved me back. Sports were that cute guy that called twice a month when his other plans fell through. The arts were a quiet companion who was always there for me and the one I always remember on quiet nights when there is no one in the room except me and my heart.


DC, my current home and beloved city, is not exactly famous for either its sports or its arts. We, the denizens, make do. The Verizon Center, a behemoth of spectacle, offers up concerts and hockey, the ghosts of what might have been a great Chinatown, and a Capitol tradition of extreme eating. 


Just down the street, however, is a real jewel. It was designed by G. Albert Lansburgh. Lansburgh is the architect responsible for the Shrine Auditorium and El Capitan in LA as well as the Al Hirschfeld Theatre (formerly the Martin Beck Theatre) in NY. The Lansburgh is lovely. There isn't a bad seat in the house and the gracious welcome you receive when entering more than makes up for the somewhat reserved decor. The modern draw is that it is home to DC's Shakespeare Theatre Company. Plus the concession stand is first rate. The best I've ever seen. I would come here for a meal in the fine lobby even if I weren't going to a show. But the shows are reason enough to go. It's not the best theater you will see in your life, but it is quite possibly the best theater in Washington.

Another treasure is the Tivoli, home of the GALA Hispanic Theatre. The Tivoli was designed by Thomas W. Lamb, the architect of Madison Square Garden. It is gorgeous. And GALA offer some wonderful performances including a youth series, Paso Nuevo, and some seriously fantástico flamenco.

But the pinnacle of performing arts in DC is the Kennedy Center. The building, from Edward Durell Stone, is not to everyone's taste. Much like its neighbor, the Watergate. But I swoon for both. It glitters, overwhelms, enchants, and entrances. It is the most visited performing arts facility in the country. And on September 8th of this year, it will celebrate its 40th birthday.

To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak.  ~Hopi Indian Saying

Updates

Where to begin? Here, I guess. I was struck by this story making the rounds yesterday about Professor William Cronon, who published a blog post critical of a little-known group, ALEC, from his personal computer, using his personal email, and suddenly found himself on the receiving end of an Open Records request (the Wisconsin State version of  FOIA) from the state's Republican Party.

The Party had no obligation to identify itself in their request, nor reveal their motivation. That is as it should be. Citizens should be able to demand of their government and government functionaries some accountability without fear of reprisal. And most "sunshine" laws are written to favor this transparency. In Wisconsin, for instance, most state agencies have very clear guidelines about what information must be provided, to whom, and how quickly. Professor Cronon's employer, the University of Wisconsin, has a succinct FAQ to assist those attempting to honor these requests to the full letter of the law. The rules are pretty simple:
         1. Usually open records:

agendas and official minutes of open public meetings university employee names, titles and salaries travel vouchers and reimbursement information other official records maintained by University offices, unless expressly exempted by law 

2. Usually closed records:

investigation records which pertain to possible employee discipline student education records employee and student social security numbers trade secrets medical records 

3. Records which are not "open records":

notes prepared by the originator for the originator's own use.

And what did the WI GOP request? Why door three, of course! They asked for:

". . . e-mails from Cronon's state e-mail account that 'reference any of the following terms: Republican, Scott Walker, recall, collective bargaining, AFSCME, WEAC, rally, union, Alberta Darling, Randy Hopper, Dan Kapanke, Rob Cowles, Scott Fitzgerald, Sheila Harsdorf, Luther Olsen, Glenn Grothman, Mary Lazich, Jeff Fitzgerald, Marty Beil, or Mary Bell.'"

Senator Joe McCarthy came from Wisconsin. I imagine he would be very proud.

But there is joy in Mudville! On the hot heels of my post about local, sustainable food in the DMV, comes the news that the Neighborhood Restaurant Group has a new project. I am just thrilled to read about the Food Bus. Congratulations and good luck on your capital campaign. It's nice to know that there are good people out there doing good things. 

Front and Center

If you've ever taken Psych 101, you know how incredibly attracted humans are to faces. Dogs like bums, and cats like, well, who knows what cats like. But simians, and we are simian, like faces. We also, or so we are told, like symmetry. I'm not entirely convinced of this. Some of the most beautiful faces that we as a species admire are decidedly lopsided. Babies spend significantly more time looking at symmetrical faces than non. But as we age, I suspect, we develop a slightly more twisted aesthetic. Take Botticelli's favorite model for instance. There is an exercise you are taught in photography where you print a face as a mirror image: either the right or left sides of a face is made one. It turns out, most faces have two sides to them. A happy side and a sad side. The composite of either side is called a mirror composite. In most people, the right side is the more animated and expressive and is often chosen by others as the more attractive. Botticelli's Venus had a face so asymmetrical that early critics suggested he actually used two different models.

Copyright Chris Derecola

A friend of mine has recently undertaken a photographic project. He intends to capture 100 Strangers by December 31st. He announced this on his blog and I'm kind of interested in the outcome. I'm simian and I like faces. But I'm also face blind. This is a rather rare condition that prevents one from recognizing and remembering faces. Those of us with prosopagnosia tend to seek out oddities as they are more memorable. I dislike and actually somewhat fear the suburbs as the conformity makes it almost impossible for me to tell one person from another. The strangest thing though, is that I can absolutely recognize and remember photographs of faces. I seem to process them in a different part of my brain. Because of this, as much as I like faces, I love photographs of faces.

I have been a little more attuned to the faces around me than I usually am since I read about Chris' project. Normally, I am focussed on dress, hair, gait, and build. These are the things that I can absorb and use later. But I can "see" a face, at least in it's bits and pieces. The tight eye of happiness, the rigid mouth of anger, the crooked nostrils of bemusement. In my newly-heightened state of awareness, I found myself riveted by the faces of the Ethiopians around me. This isn't the first time I have noticed just how lovely and unique their faces are, but living in DC, I have many more of them to fall in love with. We are second only to NY in the number of Ethiopian residents and we are blessed to have access to some of the best Ethiopian restaurants in the world. (Not to mention the fact that almost all of our cab drivers are Ethiopian which, as a former taxi driver myself, is enough to endear me to just about anyone).

So on Sunday, I was particularly excited when my good friend, Atlanta Hotwheels (the friend formerly known as Atlanta has indicated that he prefers the name Hotwheels and who am I to argue with that since his wheels are, in fact, hot?), suggested we go to Dukem for lunch. I had been meaning to go there forever. The same family owns my beloved Habesha Market as well as Madjet (all on the U Street Corridor). Dukem is regularly touted as "the best Ethiopian in DC." Well, it's not. Don't get me wrong. It was great. But the fact that the only Ethiopians in the joint were servers is telling. If you have never experienced this amazing cuisine, than this is probably a good place to start. But if you know your kitfo from your minchet-abesh, than you should probably go elsewhere.

For now, I'm probably going to stick with Habesha Market and their whole fried fish, meat sambusas, and veggie wots. I love watching the gorgeous women in their Sunday best and the darling children, polite and engaging. And if I'm the only white woman in there, so wot? Sometimes that's how you know you're in the right place.

Spring

The high today in DC reached 78°. It's supposed to plummet back down to the 50s this weekend. But it was a surprising reminder that winter is, like all things, finite. I actually hate the heat. I have discovered over the years that 63° is my ideal temperature. What was called "jacket weather" by my elders. The heat exacerbates my condition and leaves me feeling rather punky. 

But I do love fresh produce.

DC, by virtue of its proximity to several climatically-endowed areas, is blessed with some great outdoor markets. FRESHFARM Markets organizes several of the most important and their Chefs at Market series is already loaded with names of interest including: Brian McBride of Blue Duck Tavern, Pedro Matamoros of 8407, Kevin Villalovos of Cure Bar & Bistro, and Allison Sosna of DC Central Kitchen. (DC Central Kitchen is one of the best community responses to hunger and homelessness in the country.) Eastern Market is an institution, dating back to 1873. It has recovered from a terrible fire in 2007 and is back in full swing, although perhaps a bit tidier. There are also many other markets as well as CSAs and milk shares available. This is excellent news for a town that was a little slow to jump on the Eat Local wagon. There are many shops that carry local product, La Fromagerie in Old Town, Alexandria, VA being one of my favorites for farm eggs, fresh milk, Virginia ham, and of course, cheese!

The markets here are not quite on par with some of the truly outstanding ones in other cities across the US. Still, it's amazing how far the farm to table movement has come. And unlike most European markets, ours are filled with novelty and history from strange fruit to heirloom potatoes. I was rather well-known at the Mercato Trionfale in my Roman neighborhood of Prati. The vendors flanking the gate always shouted a cheery greeting, "E, l'Americana!" as I entered. It wasn't until my fidanzato came with me one time that I realized this was to let everyone know to lean on the scales. He was outraged. I thought the tomatoes were a bargain at any price. 


Many restaurants in the DMV have embraced this love affair with eating your backyard. One of my favorites, EatBar in VA, has partnered with a local farm and agricultural students to offer up some wickedly good food. They also offer movie nights and cartoon brunches as well stellar libations all in a really comfortable but pretty location with a ridiculously nice staff. EatBar is part of The Neighborhood Restaurant Group and shares a kitchen with Tallula. (If you ask nicely, they let you order veggies from the Tallula menu which is a little richer in that department. Vegetables not being, apparently, most people's idea of bar food.) I am checking their menus with a scary compulsion to make sure I don't miss the first real signs of spring. 

Divided

I am mostly Irish among a multitude of other heritages. I belong, therefore, to a divided people. North and South, Catholic and Protestant. Native and diaspora. Conquerors and conquered. In ancient times, we held sway over much of Europe, Asia Minor, and Africa. Where did you think the Black Irish came from? We were also slaves. In the 17th century, England sold more than 300,000 of us into slavery. Among them were: " . . . over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 . . . . taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers." Until the famine, which never was, we were the tallest, most long-lived, and healthiest population in Europe.

And who are we today? We are the lace curtain Irish and plastic Paddies, with our March 17th green. We are the descendants of the other saviors of Western civilization (the Arabs had a better library). We are alcoholics with a gifted tongue. We are aging revolutionaries with a guilty conscience and aging cheerleaders with no conscience whatsoever.

We are the origin for the Southern accent in the US and the reason African-American female house slaves were called Mammy. Hello Mam! Tá grá agam duit. We are behind some of the worst race wars in this country. We are a complicated people.


But mostly, we're just Irish. Exported all over. Excellent wherever we landed. Full of wit and melancholy. Wordy and worldly. And wise.

Tomorrow everyone will celebrate us. I probably won't. It's amateur hour for those of us that have actually lived it.

But if I do go out tomorrow, I will most certainly head to Duffy's.

Beware

Well, the Ides of March have come.                                       

So said Caesar. And we all know how well that worked out for him. I am hoping that Mars favors me more than he did Julius since tomorrow I am undergoing my two big tests. The first involves being strapped to a table and slowly tilted upright in which position I get to remain for up to an hour. Unless I faint. Then I get a hall pass. The second involves having a catheter inserted in my thigh up to my heart which will elucidate the electrical activity while the doctor tries to induce arrhythmia as I enjoy a "twilight sleep." This will go on anywhere from one hour to four should the team find some errant conductors they wish to destroy while they're in there.


How fun.


After these exciting events, I am to lie immobilized for up to four hours waiting for a clot to form at the insertion site. I am advised not to bring any thing of value so, no laptop. What is a mildly-sedated blogger to do? The ceilings at Washington Hospital Center had better be very interesting, I tell you.


The worst part of all of this? I have no idea when I will be eating again. 


I do hope that once I am finally allowed to move enough to eat, the food is as good as it was at Providence Hospital, the scene of my first visit to the ER last May. I had a nicely-seasoned meatloaf entrée with very fresh haricots verts and fluffy mashed potatoes with a delicious gravy.


If it's as bad as the food I received at the scene of my second ER trip at George Washington University Hospital, then I will curse the seer and her reply to Caesar:

Ay, they have come, but they are not gone.

Sex

One of my friends, Yes Ma'am, is about to start teaching sex ed to sixth graders. She is not allowed to actually discuss sex. Neither is she allowed to talk about STDs or prevention. She shared this with a group of us at dinner and because we're pathetically immature, she never got a chance to share with us  her planned curriculum. We immediately wanted to know if she would be dressing like Gwyneth Paltrow in Glee. Her husband seemed particularly curious about this and a little crushed when Yes Ma'am said no. We made bawdy with our fried plantains and traded stories about our own sex ed experiences. My Quaker grammar school was by far the most progressive it turns out, although I'm fairly certain most of my classmates already knew everything. (It was the 70s, a decade of little mystery, and Cambridge, a city of little reticence.)

Our boisterous party had gathered at La Union in Arlington, VA, my favorite Salvadoran/Mexican restaurant in the DMV which would be a better compliment were it not also the only really good Tex-Mex food in the DMV. The restaurant is owned by one of the most amiable families you could ever hope to meet. Soyla, the wife, does most of the cooking with help from her husband, David, unless she kicks him out of the kitchen. Their son, José, runs the front of house and is completely charming. He actually gave me and mi novio a ride because we couldn't get a cab during one of our "blizzards" (two inches of snow). Soyla has been a professional chef for years and her background and training come through in the exquisite dishes that keep me crossing the big waters like one of Chaucer's more decadent pilgrims. Especially sinful are the beef enchiladas, the chiles rellnos de queso (the latter are not on the menu, but they are usually available if you ask), and the pupusas revueltas with pork and cheese accompanied by a great curtido.

José and his wife are expecting their second child and at the end of our ribald repast I inquired about the newest addition. Everything was perfect, but when they went in for the latest sonogram, the smallest member of this clan crossed its legs and hid its sex.