Parenting 101
Overheard tonight:
A young mother climbs on the bus, leading her toddler son by the hand. The little boy has a band-aid on his cheek.
Mother: Look at your face! It look like somebody socked the shit out of you!
Boy: It look like somebody sopped the shit out of me!
Mother: [laughs] No, baby. Not sopped—socked.
Boy: It look like somebody socked the shit out of me!
Mother: Watch your mouth.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
From bison to String Theory and beyond
Warning: lost post ahead!
So I went to Fordham yesterday for a long day of orientations and introductions and meetings and preparation for the next few years of doctoral work, and I don’t know what else to say at the moment beyond the fact that I am just downright delighted with all I saw and heard. Of course I didn’t feel delighted while I was there. Frenzied with nervous energy is a more apt description. My resolve to be honest and direct about my feelings about grad school had amounted to me walking around the house all weekend muttering the phrase, “I feel nervous” at regular intervals. To rally my spirits on orientation day, I wore my red platform sandals (see earlier post). I had hoped to shock at least one tweed-wearing person, but not a soul was in tweed, corduroy or even a patched-elbowed blazer, though a few girls wore the requisite lit department whimsical earrings and poetess blouses. A few of the older kids (I mean, the more advanced PhD students) even sported tattoos and bleached blond hair. (Speaking of tattoos, did anyone read David Brooks's silly, irrelevant piece about tattoos in the Times this weekend? I guess there really isn’t anything else going on in the way of global news. Dumb globe.)
Focus, Jane.
The last time I visited Fordham had been at the height of the summer, when the leafy campus was a good ten degrees cooler than the surrounding area. Yesterday it was as foggy, cool and gray as the setting for a Bronte novel. At 8 am, I arrived at the appointed building and found the registration table, where I was given a large Fordham tote bag and a pile of handbooks. I helped myself to some Continental breakfast and proceeded to stand around awkwardly, pretending it was perfectly natural to be spearing grapes from a tiny plastic plate while wearing an oversized red tote bag. Luckily, I soon noticed a woman I sort of know from Hunter, and we hung together happily for the rest of the orientation, talking about Faulkner and school and life and how she secretly doesn’t care much for Jane Austen (“Make up your mind already, Elizabeth!”). She’s entering the program this year also and already knows her dissertation topic: Faulkner through the lens of quantum physics and string theory.
Quelle coincidence! That’s my topic, too!
Err, yeah.
After breakfast, the university president, Fr. McShane, spoke about the school’s history and threw in some juicy factoids about the campus and the surrounding neighborhood, which includes the real Little Italy and the Bronx Zoo. I’ll tell you one very cool piece of trivia, so grab a pen and give it a test run at your next cocktail party: In 1899 after the U.S. had wiped out most of the 50 million bison on the Great Plains, a crew from the Bronx Zoo put together a small herd at the zoo, which was later released into the wild to repopulate the species. Even today, many of the bison you see in western states are descendents of those original Bronx bison!
Fr. McShane then spoke eloquently about the meaning of a Jesuit education, which might be summed up as 1) academic rigor, 2) ethics in and outside the classroom, and 3) respect for the whole person. Not having started classes, I can’t yet attest to the rigor or the ethics, but I am thrilled with how the last factor has played out already. There have been courtesy and sympathy in even in the smallest interactions—from the many faculty members who have offered to answer any question I might have and actually mean it (I’ve already put them to the test) to one of the professors who spoke affectionately of his family and how much he enjoys spending his summers with them. I file away these little moments of humanity, especially after the bureaucracy of CUNY, where individuality amounted to a social security number and a pile of passwords. “Whole person?” I was just another whole person taking up space in an already- crowded elevator or a long line at the registrar’s office (and usually the wrong line, knowing Hunter's helpful, sensitive signage).
The last meeting of the day was the most useful, when the seven or eight of us new PhDs met with the graduate director and the director of job placement, who explained that we should view our graduate work as career preparation, pure and simple. I appreciated this. By this point, we all know books are awesome and reading them is great! We don’t need to sigh over the fate of Tess to remember why we’re here. What I did need to hear— and what I heard to my satisfaction—is that the program will do everything it can to urge (read: boot) me swiftly through the process of courses, comps, and dissertation and, most importantly, help me land a job at the end. Recently, they’ve had a 100 percent job placement rate! Along the way are conferences and research grants, faculty-student reading groups, and the reassuring fact that I’ll be getting a paycheck every two weeks.
So, I’m glad and nervous. The little voice demanding that I justify my decision to go to graduate school has been quieter than usual. He must have heard that I'm now in full possession of a tote-- and I’m prepared to use it.
Warning: lost post ahead!
So I went to Fordham yesterday for a long day of orientations and introductions and meetings and preparation for the next few years of doctoral work, and I don’t know what else to say at the moment beyond the fact that I am just downright delighted with all I saw and heard. Of course I didn’t feel delighted while I was there. Frenzied with nervous energy is a more apt description. My resolve to be honest and direct about my feelings about grad school had amounted to me walking around the house all weekend muttering the phrase, “I feel nervous” at regular intervals. To rally my spirits on orientation day, I wore my red platform sandals (see earlier post). I had hoped to shock at least one tweed-wearing person, but not a soul was in tweed, corduroy or even a patched-elbowed blazer, though a few girls wore the requisite lit department whimsical earrings and poetess blouses. A few of the older kids (I mean, the more advanced PhD students) even sported tattoos and bleached blond hair. (Speaking of tattoos, did anyone read David Brooks's silly, irrelevant piece about tattoos in the Times this weekend? I guess there really isn’t anything else going on in the way of global news. Dumb globe.)
Focus, Jane.
The last time I visited Fordham had been at the height of the summer, when the leafy campus was a good ten degrees cooler than the surrounding area. Yesterday it was as foggy, cool and gray as the setting for a Bronte novel. At 8 am, I arrived at the appointed building and found the registration table, where I was given a large Fordham tote bag and a pile of handbooks. I helped myself to some Continental breakfast and proceeded to stand around awkwardly, pretending it was perfectly natural to be spearing grapes from a tiny plastic plate while wearing an oversized red tote bag. Luckily, I soon noticed a woman I sort of know from Hunter, and we hung together happily for the rest of the orientation, talking about Faulkner and school and life and how she secretly doesn’t care much for Jane Austen (“Make up your mind already, Elizabeth!”). She’s entering the program this year also and already knows her dissertation topic: Faulkner through the lens of quantum physics and string theory.
Quelle coincidence! That’s my topic, too!
Err, yeah.
After breakfast, the university president, Fr. McShane, spoke about the school’s history and threw in some juicy factoids about the campus and the surrounding neighborhood, which includes the real Little Italy and the Bronx Zoo. I’ll tell you one very cool piece of trivia, so grab a pen and give it a test run at your next cocktail party: In 1899 after the U.S. had wiped out most of the 50 million bison on the Great Plains, a crew from the Bronx Zoo put together a small herd at the zoo, which was later released into the wild to repopulate the species. Even today, many of the bison you see in western states are descendents of those original Bronx bison!
Fr. McShane then spoke eloquently about the meaning of a Jesuit education, which might be summed up as 1) academic rigor, 2) ethics in and outside the classroom, and 3) respect for the whole person. Not having started classes, I can’t yet attest to the rigor or the ethics, but I am thrilled with how the last factor has played out already. There have been courtesy and sympathy in even in the smallest interactions—from the many faculty members who have offered to answer any question I might have and actually mean it (I’ve already put them to the test) to one of the professors who spoke affectionately of his family and how much he enjoys spending his summers with them. I file away these little moments of humanity, especially after the bureaucracy of CUNY, where individuality amounted to a social security number and a pile of passwords. “Whole person?” I was just another whole person taking up space in an already- crowded elevator or a long line at the registrar’s office (and usually the wrong line, knowing Hunter's helpful, sensitive signage).
The last meeting of the day was the most useful, when the seven or eight of us new PhDs met with the graduate director and the director of job placement, who explained that we should view our graduate work as career preparation, pure and simple. I appreciated this. By this point, we all know books are awesome and reading them is great! We don’t need to sigh over the fate of Tess to remember why we’re here. What I did need to hear— and what I heard to my satisfaction—is that the program will do everything it can to urge (read: boot) me swiftly through the process of courses, comps, and dissertation and, most importantly, help me land a job at the end. Recently, they’ve had a 100 percent job placement rate! Along the way are conferences and research grants, faculty-student reading groups, and the reassuring fact that I’ll be getting a paycheck every two weeks.
So, I’m glad and nervous. The little voice demanding that I justify my decision to go to graduate school has been quieter than usual. He must have heard that I'm now in full possession of a tote-- and I’m prepared to use it.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Revenge of the day-old bread
When I get the urge to make this summery salad, heaven help me if there’s no old bread handy. I'll hang around the kitchen, staring down at the poor fresh loaf until that precise moment when it is officially on its last legs and I can fall on it and begin tearing it limb from limb--or at least into casual one-inch cubes.
Panzanella is its mellifluous name (and a great name for a cartoon princess, don't you think?), though I prefer the more modest sonics of “Bread Salad.” We had it the other night with HA and V at Diner, a place in Brooklyn that I’d just like to step out and call my favorite restaurant in the city. Ha! Whenever I catch myself talking about my favorite things, I feel like my 10-year-old self again, compiling lists of favorite colors, practicing my signature, and resolving once and for all The Question of Which New Kid on the Block is, in Fact, The Cutest. A quick look at my profile will reveal that I haven’t exactly gotten over this tendency.
But, back to the salad. Yesterday morning I realized that there was half a crusty loaf of bread on the counter, so after teaching, I hauled myself down to the Union Square green market and shelled out way too much money on heirloom tomatoes—fine, if you must know, a shocking $10. Lined up like fat toddlers waiting to be adopted, they were impossible to resist, and I had fun selecting tomato after tomato--the more mishapen and odd the better.
Back home, it took only a few minutes to throw together the salad. We ate it with white wine and miniature farm-fresh strawberries, the latter also purchased in Union Square but at another stand operated by a grim teenage farmer, who accepted my $3.00 skeptically, as if he wasn’t sure he trusted me with his produce. The strawberries look like the kind you see embroidered prettily with leaves and flowers on kitchen curtains, or the ones I remember fondly from this childhood book. Suffice it to say, a single teeny one had more flavor than a bucket of the ordinary kind. Without thinking, I happily exclaimed to Justin, "These strawberries are so small, they're practically the size of berries!" He turned away very slowly, perhaps wistfully thinking what it might be like to be married to a smart person.
Scroll down here for a basic recipe for Bread Salad, which you can adapt as you like. We threw in fresh mozzarella and extra sea salt. Other recipes call for capers, olives or bacon, but that sounded too complex; we wanted to keep it bright--like one of those long, mid-summer evenings.
Buon appetito!
When I get the urge to make this summery salad, heaven help me if there’s no old bread handy. I'll hang around the kitchen, staring down at the poor fresh loaf until that precise moment when it is officially on its last legs and I can fall on it and begin tearing it limb from limb--or at least into casual one-inch cubes.
Panzanella is its mellifluous name (and a great name for a cartoon princess, don't you think?), though I prefer the more modest sonics of “Bread Salad.” We had it the other night with HA and V at Diner, a place in Brooklyn that I’d just like to step out and call my favorite restaurant in the city. Ha! Whenever I catch myself talking about my favorite things, I feel like my 10-year-old self again, compiling lists of favorite colors, practicing my signature, and resolving once and for all The Question of Which New Kid on the Block is, in Fact, The Cutest. A quick look at my profile will reveal that I haven’t exactly gotten over this tendency.
But, back to the salad. Yesterday morning I realized that there was half a crusty loaf of bread on the counter, so after teaching, I hauled myself down to the Union Square green market and shelled out way too much money on heirloom tomatoes—fine, if you must know, a shocking $10. Lined up like fat toddlers waiting to be adopted, they were impossible to resist, and I had fun selecting tomato after tomato--the more mishapen and odd the better.
Back home, it took only a few minutes to throw together the salad. We ate it with white wine and miniature farm-fresh strawberries, the latter also purchased in Union Square but at another stand operated by a grim teenage farmer, who accepted my $3.00 skeptically, as if he wasn’t sure he trusted me with his produce. The strawberries look like the kind you see embroidered prettily with leaves and flowers on kitchen curtains, or the ones I remember fondly from this childhood book. Suffice it to say, a single teeny one had more flavor than a bucket of the ordinary kind. Without thinking, I happily exclaimed to Justin, "These strawberries are so small, they're practically the size of berries!" He turned away very slowly, perhaps wistfully thinking what it might be like to be married to a smart person.
Scroll down here for a basic recipe for Bread Salad, which you can adapt as you like. We threw in fresh mozzarella and extra sea salt. Other recipes call for capers, olives or bacon, but that sounded too complex; we wanted to keep it bright--like one of those long, mid-summer evenings.Buon appetito!
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
In which Jane giddily introduces you to a new blog
Here, friends, is a clever music/recording blog that you should read regularly, even if (and perhaps especially if) you can't tell a ten-channel Yamaha or an Ampex MM1200 from a hole in your head. Studies have shown that ingesting such arcane commentary can build brain cells, forge new neural pathways, and add decades to your life (the equivalent of drinking a quart of wheatgrass and doing a hundred pushups daily).
So read it. Besides, it includes awesome photos of cats!
Aren't you dying now to know who the author is? How'd you like a little hint?
Drumroll, please...
Half the alphabet, no letters repeated, baby!!
You know it! What's up now?
Here, friends, is a clever music/recording blog that you should read regularly, even if (and perhaps especially if) you can't tell a ten-channel Yamaha or an Ampex MM1200 from a hole in your head. Studies have shown that ingesting such arcane commentary can build brain cells, forge new neural pathways, and add decades to your life (the equivalent of drinking a quart of wheatgrass and doing a hundred pushups daily).
So read it. Besides, it includes awesome photos of cats!
Aren't you dying now to know who the author is? How'd you like a little hint?
Drumroll, please...
Half the alphabet, no letters repeated, baby!!
You know it! What's up now?
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Cupcake or Muffin in Disguise? Whatever it is, it's good.
Cupcake Cafe
522 9th Ave
Jane: So you come here a lot, right, because you work in the neighborhood?
Justin: Well, you know this isn't the original Cupcake Cafe. The original one used to be down the street from my work, and this new one's two blocks up, so I don't come here as much.
Jane: Would you say that the cupcakes have changed?
Justin: No.
Jane: How would you describe the cupcakes here, because, to me this is no ordinary cupcake.
Justin: Well, it's not like one of those Magnolia types, topped with sugary frosting.
Jane: Light, spongy...
Justin: Yeah, it's definitely not the kind of cake that falls apart when you take a bite.
Jane: Well, let's talk about the cake first and then the frosting. To be honest, I think the cake, while delicious, is actually more like a muffin.
Justin: I disagree.
Jane: Don't you think it has the density of a muffin?
Justin: Think of a regular muffin. Muffins have a certain set of ingredients...
Jane: Well, it's not a very sweet cupcake, which I think is a point in its favor.
Justin: Right. It doesn't have to be sweet to be a cupcake.
Jane: But don't you think of cupcakes as sweeter and lighter than muffins? Do you want to redefine what a cupcake is?
Justin: No, I don't. I think this definitely qualifies as cake.
Jane: So, it's more about expanding the definition.
Justin:No, listen. This is a walnut cupcake, and so naturally it's a little heartier. You should try the chocolate and yellow cupcakes before making a final judgment.
Jane: No problem. Well, visually anyway, there's no doubt this beautiful thing is a cupcake. Let's talk about the frosting. This frosting is so buttery-- I wonder how much butter they use.
Justin: I'd say it's 90 percent butter.
Jane: Remarkably buttery...
Justin: A lot of people actually complain about that.
Jane: Really? Well, it is a little surprising just how buttery it is.
Justin: Yeah, the cupcakes are all refridgerated right up 'til they're sold, so the flower decorations don't melt.
Jane: So, would you say this is your perfect cupcake?
Justin: I don't know. Maybe the perfect cupcake should always remain elusive.
Jane: Either that, or it's any one that happens to be sitting in front of you.
Stay posted. In our next installment, Justin and Jane tackle the desserts at another NYC bakery.
Cupcake Cafe
522 9th Ave
Jane: So you come here a lot, right, because you work in the neighborhood?
Justin: Well, you know this isn't the original Cupcake Cafe. The original one used to be down the street from my work, and this new one's two blocks up, so I don't come here as much.
Jane: Would you say that the cupcakes have changed?
Justin: No.
Jane: How would you describe the cupcakes here, because, to me this is no ordinary cupcake.
Justin: Well, it's not like one of those Magnolia types, topped with sugary frosting.
Jane: Light, spongy...
Justin: Yeah, it's definitely not the kind of cake that falls apart when you take a bite.
Jane: Well, let's talk about the cake first and then the frosting. To be honest, I think the cake, while delicious, is actually more like a muffin.
Justin: I disagree.
Jane: Don't you think it has the density of a muffin?
Justin: Think of a regular muffin. Muffins have a certain set of ingredients...
Jane: Well, it's not a very sweet cupcake, which I think is a point in its favor.
Justin: Right. It doesn't have to be sweet to be a cupcake.
Jane: But don't you think of cupcakes as sweeter and lighter than muffins? Do you want to redefine what a cupcake is?
Justin: No, I don't. I think this definitely qualifies as cake.
Jane: So, it's more about expanding the definition.
Justin:No, listen. This is a walnut cupcake, and so naturally it's a little heartier. You should try the chocolate and yellow cupcakes before making a final judgment.
Jane: No problem. Well, visually anyway, there's no doubt this beautiful thing is a cupcake. Let's talk about the frosting. This frosting is so buttery-- I wonder how much butter they use.
Justin: I'd say it's 90 percent butter.
Jane: Remarkably buttery...
Justin: A lot of people actually complain about that.
Jane: Really? Well, it is a little surprising just how buttery it is.
Justin: Yeah, the cupcakes are all refridgerated right up 'til they're sold, so the flower decorations don't melt.
Jane: So, would you say this is your perfect cupcake?
Justin: I don't know. Maybe the perfect cupcake should always remain elusive.
Jane: Either that, or it's any one that happens to be sitting in front of you.
Stay posted. In our next installment, Justin and Jane tackle the desserts at another NYC bakery.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
The People's Art
Russian artists Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid polled Americans to find out exactly what we're looking for in a painting, and, apparently what we want is a dishwasher size landscape featuring a famous historical figure. Check out the resulting paintings from the United States and several other countries.
Komar and Melamid's snarky project is already ten years old, but I just discovered it this morning as a quick aside in Amy Hempel's novella Tumble Home. A poet friend recommended Hempel to me, saying, "Every one of her sentences makes me fall on the floor and weep." When I had finished laughing haughtily over what a great workout that must be, I tore out onto the street and made a flying leap for Barnes and Noble.
Russian artists Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid polled Americans to find out exactly what we're looking for in a painting, and, apparently what we want is a dishwasher size landscape featuring a famous historical figure. Check out the resulting paintings from the United States and several other countries.
Komar and Melamid's snarky project is already ten years old, but I just discovered it this morning as a quick aside in Amy Hempel's novella Tumble Home. A poet friend recommended Hempel to me, saying, "Every one of her sentences makes me fall on the floor and weep." When I had finished laughing haughtily over what a great workout that must be, I tore out onto the street and made a flying leap for Barnes and Noble.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Too Wussy to go to Afghanistan?
Leave it to Rory Stewart. A 20-something Scotsman, Stewart does what I would certainly do if I had several weeks of vacation to kill: he crosses Afghanistan on foot in the dead of winter. And then he writes an excellent book about it.
Less a historian than a brave, erudite guy with an abiding love for remote places, Stewart dodges land mines, trudges through shoulder-deep snow, and shakes off occasional hostile villagers and packs of wild dogs as he makes his way across the war-torn country in January 2002, just months after 9-11. The book is structured around his daylong hikes and his nights with the Afghan villagers who give him lodging. (Since I'm a sucker for books with pictures, I love that he includes frequent perceptive line drawings of the people he meets.)
The most exciting passages describe Stewart's encounters with hostile villagers, when his survival rests on his courage and verbal dexterity (yep, he speaks the language). There's a riveting scene toward the end of the book when armed Taliban fighters stop him with questions, and he manages to concoct a story convincing enough to save his life.
Last weekend Justin and I went to Jersey to visit friends and spent a few hours splashing around at the beach before settling in to discuss Stewart's book. (It was a real live book club!) We ate fish tacos and sipped peach Sangria, and the conversation was just as good. Jer pointed out that the author's trip falls into the tradition of the privileged British traveler setting out to see the world. Updated for modern times, that archetypical traveler is still a stoic observer with a keen eye, but he no longer plays up the exoticism of alien landscapes for the benefit of those on the homefront. Stewart's reserve translates into a near ban on emotions, excess self-reflection and analysis. All the focus is on what he sees and hears. If this sort of emotional reticence seems off-putting, well, imagine the alternative: having to read about his hurt feelings whenever someone calls him an infidel or serves him stale bread for supper. There are definitely times when I craved more details about his inner life, but, in the end, I have more respect for a book that leaves me a bit hungry.
Oh! And if you're made of the same sentimental mush as me, you should know that a big, loyal dog figures prominently in the story.
Stewart interviewed on Fresh Air.
Leave it to Rory Stewart. A 20-something Scotsman, Stewart does what I would certainly do if I had several weeks of vacation to kill: he crosses Afghanistan on foot in the dead of winter. And then he writes an excellent book about it.
Less a historian than a brave, erudite guy with an abiding love for remote places, Stewart dodges land mines, trudges through shoulder-deep snow, and shakes off occasional hostile villagers and packs of wild dogs as he makes his way across the war-torn country in January 2002, just months after 9-11. The book is structured around his daylong hikes and his nights with the Afghan villagers who give him lodging. (Since I'm a sucker for books with pictures, I love that he includes frequent perceptive line drawings of the people he meets.)
The most exciting passages describe Stewart's encounters with hostile villagers, when his survival rests on his courage and verbal dexterity (yep, he speaks the language). There's a riveting scene toward the end of the book when armed Taliban fighters stop him with questions, and he manages to concoct a story convincing enough to save his life.
Last weekend Justin and I went to Jersey to visit friends and spent a few hours splashing around at the beach before settling in to discuss Stewart's book. (It was a real live book club!) We ate fish tacos and sipped peach Sangria, and the conversation was just as good. Jer pointed out that the author's trip falls into the tradition of the privileged British traveler setting out to see the world. Updated for modern times, that archetypical traveler is still a stoic observer with a keen eye, but he no longer plays up the exoticism of alien landscapes for the benefit of those on the homefront. Stewart's reserve translates into a near ban on emotions, excess self-reflection and analysis. All the focus is on what he sees and hears. If this sort of emotional reticence seems off-putting, well, imagine the alternative: having to read about his hurt feelings whenever someone calls him an infidel or serves him stale bread for supper. There are definitely times when I craved more details about his inner life, but, in the end, I have more respect for a book that leaves me a bit hungry.
Oh! And if you're made of the same sentimental mush as me, you should know that a big, loyal dog figures prominently in the story.
Stewart interviewed on Fresh Air.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Reading Far Away
The day before we took off for our recent trip to Mexico, a book of poems came in the mail. It was one of those online used book purchases from Amazon that take so long to arrive that when they do show up, you’ve long since forgotten when you ordered them. I’ve had other books take so many weeks that as I crack them open I wonder what could have possibly motivated me to buy them in the first place. This has happened more times than I ought to admit: I look down at the book, and the book stares back haughtily-- “Hey, I don’t know why I’m here either. You’re the one who thought One Hundred Suppers with Lentils would be a good idea. So, here I am. What are you going to do about it?”
I always shelve these books politely. It never occurs to me to send them back.
I didn’t exactly have that reaction to this particular book, The Afterlife of Objects by Dan Chiasson. Ever since I stumbled across one of Chiasson’s poems in a magazine, I’ve wanted to get my hands on the book. The title alone, containing two of my favorite words, “afterlife” and “objects,” would have been enough to sell me. The day we left for Mexico, I threw it in my bag along with a battered copy of The House of Seven Gables. I didn’t have any reason for taking these two particular books except that they interested me at the moment (I wonder if the two of them bothered to get acquainted as they lay squashed together, undignified, in the overhead compartment.) But I also really love these accidental combinations—how books and circumstances can fall together like an unplanned meal. The other night there was nothing else in the house to eat, so we had a supper of Baba Ganoush, roasted red peppers with thyme, and a side of crispy fried tofu with peanuts. Odd, mismatched and too snacky to really count as a meal, but sometimes it works, and it often works well with books. (One notable exception was my idea to pick up Charlie and the Chocolate Factory during a month when I’d decided to give up sugar. I suffered through the book like a martyr but probably gained five pounds anyway just from all the passages about chocolate rivers and candy flowers, etc. )
I wrapped up The House of Seven Gables after we arrived in Oaxaca, and it was—not to gush or anything—really thrilling to read Hawthorne’s long, baroque passages about generational curses and then step into the cramped, pungent aisles of the covered markets. The intricate knots of his characters’ minds, so alien to one another, seemed to hang over my attempts to speak to strangers, and the story’s view of home as a prison you just can’t stand to leave contrasted with a place that eventually seemed familiar and stomach-ache inducing, while home grew more and more elusive, accessible only on the far side of a plane ticket.
By the time I opened Chiasson’s book, we were a few days into our trip, and its cool title had taken on a new significance. The airline had lost our single suitcase somewhere between Houston and Oaxaca, and sitting in our hotel without any of our precious stuff and only a slim volume of poems called The Afterlife of Objects for company, we could appreciate the irony.
Chiasson’s book is fixed on losses, especially ones from long ago. He seems to say that some of the most beautiful objects and moments seem born with their future loss already inscribed in them, like a genetic code. He reaches into the past for objects (kind of like reverse souvenirs), but he avoids any whiff of sentimentality by forfeiting the usual pleasure of nostalgia—that backward-facing soliloquy that allows you to dabble in your old, innocent self, but really, wink, wink, only reveals how much time has passed, how you can never go home again, how you’re a grownup now and you’ve put away childish things but, damn, weren’t things pretty and sparkly back then, and that’s what really matters in the end: the sparkliness of it all.
Thankfully, Chiasson never resorts to this line of thought (which, come to think of it, sort of sums up a lot of Romantic poetry). Instead, he fall into the past in all kinds of odd, jarring and bruise-inducing ways, like a kid who’s had it with the limits of gravity and decides to throw himself backward into a leaf pile, suspecting that it might blow away before he reaches the ground, but not really caring.
Look at how his mind works here:
Spade
I dreamed I was the spade
my mother used
to dig her marigolds in spring,
her bloom and worry.
her digging, throwing, patting to bring
rows to life, each
bloom familiar
to worry, every row perfect, bloom,
rich dirt between, planned
absence and full, superfluous bloom—
I made the trench her hand proposed;
I was the pressure in her palm;
her ache from planting
was
my presence in her life.
Here’s one more. I read this poem several times on the trip and again this morning, and each time it I love it more, and it speaks more fully to the trouble of trying to access the past. It’s a given, I guess, that memories are not fixed places in time that we can visit at will, like points on the map. But the harder thing Chiasson is saying here is that even in the act of speaking or remembering—i.e. writing—the past can’t be retrieved, corralled, explained. At first this seems a blow, a reason for despair, but for me it’s actually unexpectedly reassuring—to think that the past is as itinerant as we are, and as stubbornly resistant to being pinned down.
Poem
When I picture 1940 everyone poses
for me, as though I had the one
camera in the world. I cannot distract them
from their studied, ghoulish jolliness.
My grandmother is posing, yelling
Smile and my grandfather is horsing around
with a tire, making his biceps big. I
can’t know the past, because the past
keeps arranging itself before my lens. People call
out Here and Over here, striking
their prewar, rural, easygoing stances.
That night, when I try again, everyone
is indoors, in parlors, reading quietly.
A woman rocking in and out of lamplight
studies me. The neighbor’s
middle child died this afternoon.
The day before we took off for our recent trip to Mexico, a book of poems came in the mail. It was one of those online used book purchases from Amazon that take so long to arrive that when they do show up, you’ve long since forgotten when you ordered them. I’ve had other books take so many weeks that as I crack them open I wonder what could have possibly motivated me to buy them in the first place. This has happened more times than I ought to admit: I look down at the book, and the book stares back haughtily-- “Hey, I don’t know why I’m here either. You’re the one who thought One Hundred Suppers with Lentils would be a good idea. So, here I am. What are you going to do about it?”
I always shelve these books politely. It never occurs to me to send them back.
I didn’t exactly have that reaction to this particular book, The Afterlife of Objects by Dan Chiasson. Ever since I stumbled across one of Chiasson’s poems in a magazine, I’ve wanted to get my hands on the book. The title alone, containing two of my favorite words, “afterlife” and “objects,” would have been enough to sell me. The day we left for Mexico, I threw it in my bag along with a battered copy of The House of Seven Gables. I didn’t have any reason for taking these two particular books except that they interested me at the moment (I wonder if the two of them bothered to get acquainted as they lay squashed together, undignified, in the overhead compartment.) But I also really love these accidental combinations—how books and circumstances can fall together like an unplanned meal. The other night there was nothing else in the house to eat, so we had a supper of Baba Ganoush, roasted red peppers with thyme, and a side of crispy fried tofu with peanuts. Odd, mismatched and too snacky to really count as a meal, but sometimes it works, and it often works well with books. (One notable exception was my idea to pick up Charlie and the Chocolate Factory during a month when I’d decided to give up sugar. I suffered through the book like a martyr but probably gained five pounds anyway just from all the passages about chocolate rivers and candy flowers, etc. )
I wrapped up The House of Seven Gables after we arrived in Oaxaca, and it was—not to gush or anything—really thrilling to read Hawthorne’s long, baroque passages about generational curses and then step into the cramped, pungent aisles of the covered markets. The intricate knots of his characters’ minds, so alien to one another, seemed to hang over my attempts to speak to strangers, and the story’s view of home as a prison you just can’t stand to leave contrasted with a place that eventually seemed familiar and stomach-ache inducing, while home grew more and more elusive, accessible only on the far side of a plane ticket.
By the time I opened Chiasson’s book, we were a few days into our trip, and its cool title had taken on a new significance. The airline had lost our single suitcase somewhere between Houston and Oaxaca, and sitting in our hotel without any of our precious stuff and only a slim volume of poems called The Afterlife of Objects for company, we could appreciate the irony.
Chiasson’s book is fixed on losses, especially ones from long ago. He seems to say that some of the most beautiful objects and moments seem born with their future loss already inscribed in them, like a genetic code. He reaches into the past for objects (kind of like reverse souvenirs), but he avoids any whiff of sentimentality by forfeiting the usual pleasure of nostalgia—that backward-facing soliloquy that allows you to dabble in your old, innocent self, but really, wink, wink, only reveals how much time has passed, how you can never go home again, how you’re a grownup now and you’ve put away childish things but, damn, weren’t things pretty and sparkly back then, and that’s what really matters in the end: the sparkliness of it all.
Thankfully, Chiasson never resorts to this line of thought (which, come to think of it, sort of sums up a lot of Romantic poetry). Instead, he fall into the past in all kinds of odd, jarring and bruise-inducing ways, like a kid who’s had it with the limits of gravity and decides to throw himself backward into a leaf pile, suspecting that it might blow away before he reaches the ground, but not really caring.
Look at how his mind works here:
Spade
I dreamed I was the spade
my mother used
to dig her marigolds in spring,
her bloom and worry.
her digging, throwing, patting to bring
rows to life, each
bloom familiar
to worry, every row perfect, bloom,
rich dirt between, planned
absence and full, superfluous bloom—
I made the trench her hand proposed;
I was the pressure in her palm;
her ache from planting
was
my presence in her life.
Here’s one more. I read this poem several times on the trip and again this morning, and each time it I love it more, and it speaks more fully to the trouble of trying to access the past. It’s a given, I guess, that memories are not fixed places in time that we can visit at will, like points on the map. But the harder thing Chiasson is saying here is that even in the act of speaking or remembering—i.e. writing—the past can’t be retrieved, corralled, explained. At first this seems a blow, a reason for despair, but for me it’s actually unexpectedly reassuring—to think that the past is as itinerant as we are, and as stubbornly resistant to being pinned down.
Poem
When I picture 1940 everyone poses
for me, as though I had the one
camera in the world. I cannot distract them
from their studied, ghoulish jolliness.
My grandmother is posing, yelling
Smile and my grandfather is horsing around
with a tire, making his biceps big. I
can’t know the past, because the past
keeps arranging itself before my lens. People call
out Here and Over here, striking
their prewar, rural, easygoing stances.
That night, when I try again, everyone
is indoors, in parlors, reading quietly.
A woman rocking in and out of lamplight
studies me. The neighbor’s
middle child died this afternoon.
Friday, August 04, 2006
100 Degrees of Perspiration
WNYC has set up a Flickr photo pool where New Yorkers can post images of the last three days of heat. Here's the slide show. A few of the photos show long lines of coffee lovers waiting for the complimentary iced coffees that Starbucks was handing out yesterday. I left school with a few students to check out the scene at our local S-bucks, but the line was snaking around the block, so we took one look and went back inside. An iced coffee is nice, and a free iced coffee is extra nice, but you only really need one when you've intentionally endured an hour of punishing sunlight and the possibility of heat stroke, waiting for it.
I guess long lines of sweaty people suit Starbucks, since they like to see their customers (myself usually included) falling all over the counter in anticipation; and in the end, it works for the customers, since everybody knows that cold drinks just taste better when you're almost dead. And I can totally understand. Every winter I deliberately try to get frostbite in a few of my toes; it just makes my hot cocoa taste that much better.
WNYC has set up a Flickr photo pool where New Yorkers can post images of the last three days of heat. Here's the slide show. A few of the photos show long lines of coffee lovers waiting for the complimentary iced coffees that Starbucks was handing out yesterday. I left school with a few students to check out the scene at our local S-bucks, but the line was snaking around the block, so we took one look and went back inside. An iced coffee is nice, and a free iced coffee is extra nice, but you only really need one when you've intentionally endured an hour of punishing sunlight and the possibility of heat stroke, waiting for it.
I guess long lines of sweaty people suit Starbucks, since they like to see their customers (myself usually included) falling all over the counter in anticipation; and in the end, it works for the customers, since everybody knows that cold drinks just taste better when you're almost dead. And I can totally understand. Every winter I deliberately try to get frostbite in a few of my toes; it just makes my hot cocoa taste that much better.
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