RWF Eyes, Part One

New York is such a crazy place. From the food to the parking to the daily living, it really can be quite insane; the upside of all this is that it provides great material.

A long time ago I once wrote a story entitled “Rainer Werner Fassbinder Eyes” about a woman who worked at a local bakery in my neighborhood. Bakeries are big in Gotham as we have every type of bread and cake known to humankind, from the crispily-crusted San Francisco sourdough and smoothly sublime petite-four, to the perfectly fluffy cheesecake and beyond, very beyond. . . .  If it weren’t for the fact that the city affords miles and miles of walking it off, the effects of this situation would be truly devastating.

Aaaah, love it or leave it.

But back to the simple specter of the kaiser roll and seeded rye from which emerged my tale. The acronym of the story’s title actually had to do not merely with a corner bakery, but with the eyes and point of view of a certain formerly touted German film maker. The title also was meant to remind of the many artsy foreign films and retrospectives that once showed at the city’s movie houses, though of course many of these venues have all but disappeared. In those days however, when Fassbinder roamed the big screens with his bleak vision of humanity, there were lots more large and dark yet cozy spaces featuring foreign and what we now call “indie” movies from around the world; people did not have to huddle as much in front of their little home screens to stay connected, whether by fact for fiction.

Fassbinder was a bit of a downer, even in the universe of intensely thought provoking “art films,” and that’s putting it mildly. In addition to his especially grim world view, he had an incredibly long, harsh and self important sounding Teutonic name that took some real effort and concentration to utter: Rainer Werner Fassbinder; in addition, there was the sticky problem of which way to pronounce the “W”- do you pretend you’re a linguistic purist and give it the ol “vee” treatment or simply admit your no-nothing American status and opt for the wubble-yoo sound? But for a while several decades back the guy was quite popular with the urban avant-garde, even though he tended to make you feel somewhat more than slightly suicidal after ingesting one of his unremitting, dismal takes on the nature of modern decadence and the horror of humanity in general. On the other hand, what would be the point of all that intellectual posturing anyway if you could not exit the theater ready to do away with yourself over the sheer awfulness of things??? The world sucks! Enjoy it! Have some babka while you’re at it, that is, if Molly Bloom will let you out of the bakery. . . .

It Can't be 2015!

It can’t be 2015!
It can’t, it won’t,

It’s just too mean!!!

I cannot be this old!

I’m not, it’s clear,

A story still untold!!!

Have I really spanned two centuries?

It’s strange, it’s weird,

I think I am a’feard!!!

And where did the millennium fly?

A decade and a half (ago)?

This makes me laugh, ho ho (oh no)!!!

It can’t be 2015. . . .

It’s not, it won’t,

This has to be a dream!!!

Darn it. Whatever.

Never say never.

It’s 2015 and oh how clever (is time).

          

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Blogton Two

January 16^th, “This sounds very much like the boy talk that I do not allow.”- Carson to the footmen

And boy oh boy, is there indeed “boy” (or as it were, “boy-butler”) talk in Episode Numero Uno. . .  and girl talk too!!! Sex, sex and more sex, well, sort of anyway, at least with lots of intimations of naughtiness, post-Edwardian style if nothing too graphic or visceral, as Downton gloriously swept into its miraculous fifth season. How is it possible that a mere soap can remain so shamelessly compelling and continue to retain its highfalutin demeanor??? 

I was in near tears when the last scene faded just a brief hour and what looked like maybe eight minutes or so into the evening, give or take a couple of seconds, at the thought of waiting another week for the second episode and yet another window into the world of those sumptuous gowns and smart daytime outfits. Along with my immense sadness at having to wait seven days for the next installment, naturally came the conflicting emotions: would Mary join the modern world and liberate herself already for goddsake? Why must Edith continue to suffer, and to such a maudlin degree? Will she ever muster the gumption to flaunt social convention and stand up for herself, and do we care? She's becoming annoying. And what evil retribution if any does Thomas have planned for the much beleaguered, guilt-ridden lady’s maid with the sad, soulful eyes and questionable hairdo? Perhaps most significantly, how do I really feel about that mere school teacher infiltrating and dissing- yes dissing, your heard right!- the esteemed halls of well dressed nobility with her crazy socialist talk??? Does this mean I am something akin to a federalist at heart? What's a federalist? I'm not sure I know, but it sounds right for some reason.

January 19^th

When Lady Mary says “I’ve been tarnished and I won’t be tarnished again,” regarding her attempt at a barely discreet sex tryst with Lord Gillingham, we all know what she means; there’s danger in them there hills, at least socially speaking for Lady Mary. However when she jokingly comments later on of the Lady Dowager that “Granny has a past (!),” this said after a former and now elderly prince admirer from the deposed Russian aristocracy pops into the frame- that line is a bit harder to swallow; I always pictured granny springing fully armed from the head of H.L. Mencken, or perhaps Joan Rivers, Brit style of course.

And thus concludes Episode three of the Fifth Season of “Downton,” just prior to the moment when Bates, once again under deep suspicion (honestly, that guy was not born under a lucky star!), barely makes a pretense of limping his way down the hall, though he still uses the cane for effect; the thing is, I’m not certain he had any physical therapy as we know it today and so we are left to believe that somehow it really is mind over matter, either that or the cane was a scam to begin with. In truth, I’m ready to say hang Bates! (Oops, you know I didn’t really mean that).

However it’s Daisy, ineffably impish second cook, who puts the cap on it when she exclaims in the earlier episode, “Why do they call it a wireless when there are so many wires?” Somehow her reaction to seeing a radio for the first time seemed almost an anachronism in that it reminded me of my own jungle of wires, that horrible tangle of cords underneath the computer desk supposedly designed to enable wireless transmission. . . .  And to top things off, amid all his beneficence and noblesse oblige in agreeing to allow the darn contraption into the house in the first place- purportedly to hear an amazingly stilted and boring speech by the king that leaves the residents of the manor awestruck- Lord Grantham, the familiar “Robert,” and formerly a man of very cool and lah-dee-dah demeanor, is turning into a grouch!

Tell me, please, what is a devoted watcher of the series, a member in good standing of this inimitable soap opera cult, ever supposed to think?

Blogton, the Run-up, 2015

January 1^st

While everyone on the frozen ground below was joyously- nay, jubilantly!-  (to say nothing of somewhat idiotically) waiting for the giant, magic ball of crystals to finally come down in Times Square and announce the start of 2015 (an almost science fictiony sort of number for all it will be worth, you think?), I could not help but hearken back to the twelve months that had alternately crept or sped by at times- depending on which cliché comes to mind- while awaiting Season Five of Downton Abbey. In addition, I honestly could not understand what the hell everyone packed into those icy, roped off streets in mid-Manhattan was so happy about- Anderson Cooper et al, the politicos, the tourists, the plebes, the cops assigned to the detail, the media crew, the teenagers, the gawkers, the pickpockets and pedophiles no doubt infiltrating the crowd- didn’t they realize they still would have to wait another almost four full days or, to put it less dispiritingly, 96 hours, before the first episode of the new season aired for the masses or those unlucky enough not to have had early access to the DVD??? I have to admit the rape episode in Season Four gave pause for thought and was more than a bit off putting, not really fitting in so seamlessly with all that luscious Edwardian fairy tale splendor to which we’ve become so accustomed; however I was just not ready to give up on the whole thing. It seemed possible that with a little effort they could redeem themselves handily over at gorgeous, drafty old Highclere.

January 3^rd

In that interminable interim between the official start of the New Year and ads for the new PBS season, suddenly I was reminded that I still really cared, even though I had tried to banish all thoughts of the series during much of the previous year and was still smarting from the baddie incident that so beset Anna. During the run-up right before the new season aired I tried not to watch the trailers that were hitting the pixel waves like tantalizing shooting stars for fear of even the slightest hint-of-a-hint of a spoiler, and yet of course I had no choice but to become transfixed each time one of the inhabitants of the venerable Abbey, whether upstairs or down, suddenly flashed across the screen in some particularly captivating pose of abject angst for a mere second or two, snatches of scenes that served as part of the shameless titillation to the fifth season of Downton; and could that really have been a fire they were rather unsubtly hinting at in those agonized mini-moments of enforced viewing on the PBS website?  Did the producers and writers actually have the temerity even to suggest such a horrific occurrence, in that time, in that hallowed place, in that single family structure bigger than my apartment building??? Since I watch the show for the visual splendor and historical detail no less than the entrancing soap opera shenanigans, my rage and indignance at the very thought of yet one, single pillow tassel being corrupted, one square of oriental carpet spoiled, whether by actual singe damage or a mere waft of dark, sooty smoke, was almost too intense to bear. Basically I did not wish to think about it.

January 4^th, 5:33 pm, 3 hours and 27 minutes to go. . . .

Well, all comes to she who waits, and much in the way Mary eventually got Matthew after years of patient turmoil and a lollapalooza of a world war, tonight I finally get to see Episode One of Season Five. Yes, tonight! I know I cannot possibly be disappointed because even if that awful negativity of mind that occasionally creeps in regarding some of the less than stupendous PBS offerings rears its critical little self, I would fight this off strenuously with all the denial I could possibly muster! Furthermore, I could always fall back on that very first hypnotic season as a means of keeping the memory of the series’ debut alive, forever. And if I take issue with any of the new plot lines I also know that eventually I will come not only to accept, but to embrace them, if only because the show still endures and where there’s life there’s hope. But still, one can wonder. . . . I have planned an early, easy dinner and then some meditation before the program begins, to allow enough time to “get ready” so to speak, to assume the optimal frame of relaxation mind and alertness, and will return to this blogton with my take on the new episodes as the season gets seriously underway.

Beautiful Things, Part One

The shop “Beautiful Things" had been a fixture on Sycamore for as long as anyone could remember and was one of those old fashioned anchors that fix time in a fast changing neighborhood. The street on which the store stood actually was not called Sycamore but merely had a number; these nondescript numerals however did no justice to the long rows of large trees with peeling barks that lined the sidewalk, so I decided to change the name. “Sycamore” was only one block long, a winding and steep incline connecting two broader commercial avenues and had a kind of mid-century appeal that made this part of the city feel more like a village than an urban grid of humorless red brick buildings. The street housed just four small “ma & pa” businesses alongside the two-family houses and pre-war apartments: a bakery, a tiny beauty salon, a shoe repair and the gift shop; together these comprised a small town fantasy in the midst of a large, noisy and increasingly annoying residential area that slowly had been taken over by the usual gang of chain stores and an influx of tacky merchandise. The chain stores sold things like plastic serving trays with strange Santa motifs, fuzzy red stockings of unidentifiable fabric for hanging on your non-existent fireplace, suspiciously out of date shiny bags of Ghiradelli chocolate and big, ugly rubber skeletons that during the earlier October holiday seemed to kick off the whole seasonal madness.

Beautiful Things was wedged in between the shoe repair and pastry shop about halfway up the hill, its hall mark a display window that though quite small was nothing less than mesmerizing. It was impossible to resist gazing into this semi-precious cave of wonders while out doing the chores or running from one mind numbing, mundane errand to the next without stopping. On rich, black velvet jewelry pads carefully placed for optimum viewing sat marcasite pins that blazed like diamonds, glittering ovals of amber and polished stones of blue topaz sharing the reflected glow of the overhead track lights with pewter letter openers and miniature Tiffany-style lamps; semi-precious objects totally unnecessary for survival but succeeding in prompting all sorts of forgotten longings and desires for small luxuries. The window itself faced southwest, and when the afternoon sun bounced off the glass the whole sparkling collage became addictively hypnotic. 

The interior of the store was no larger than fifteen by twenty feet or so, with a kind of closet-office in the back hidden behind a flowery curtain. Once inside one immediately was bedazzled by the jewelry boxes- some of them musical with slowly turning ballerinas- as well as a colorful selection of silk scarves and ties, one-of-a-kind tea pots, ceramic vases, hand-painted dishes and of course piles of rings, bracelets and chokers, all neatly stacked inside the three-tiered glass case behind which the proprietors ruled their little kingdom of chotchkas. There were also a few obligatory gag gifts such as miniature slot machines and sleek, tiny clocks with sun dials that went all the way up to the year of infinity, but everything was tastefully arranged and carefully selected at the “shows” which Mel and Ruby always seemed to be attending. I know just what you’re looking for, Ruby would assure you after the better part of an hour spent considering a of shiny array of objects, none of which exactly did the trick; You want something smaller, daintier, perhaps with an amethyst in the center, right? They’ll probably have them at the show we’re going to next week- come back then. And she acted very much like she meant it. She would find this for you. Her mission was not to stoke the embers of your flagging, mindless consumerism, that vague yen that left you succumbing to ads trying to convince you that what you really required were seven different kinds of bathroom cleaners or a thirty-eight different face creams, but actually to locate that one special object that would totally change your life, or at least this was what she wanted you to believe. Ruby wasn’t really being helpful at such moments, even though she appeared to be holding out the carrot of finding “exactly the right thing,” this mainly having to do with her insane anxiety. She was so incredibly anxiety-ridden she could barely conceal her maniacal sense of impending doom for fear that perhaps one of the display “trees” of dangly earrings might just topple over with the customer’s next sneeze; this nervousness of manner comprising a kind of existential tick tended to upset the whole tight little sense of controlled cordiality she tried so hard to maintain in the store. . . .

The Works

It’s clear that this food thing that's taken hold of me is a kind of run up to Thanksgiving and probably will not desist until the last kale chip has been crunched. . . . Yet even as I continued to complain bitterly about the plethora of weird veggie dishes lurking far, far west of the New England border, as it turned out my shock and awe at being thrown on the mercy of SoCal cuisine paled next to the realization that there are things even worse than braised broccolini twists, and that everything is indeed relative. . .

Amid the unrelenting blaze of a sun an hour or so south of LA, with rays so trenchant and searing they actually burned through your clothes, in my ultra violet haze I had all but forgotten that another “country” existed in the Golden State too, the ultra cool Bay Area, and that this part of the land had its own particular set of trendy horrors as well.

It all started a few years before when I had occasion to visit San Francisco and wound up having dinner in Berkeley one evening. Almost everything in the area, every business, every eatery, every yogurt stand, had a tendency to give itself a name that ended in “collective” or  “works,” or worse, “worx,” with a dive called Wok Werx being the last straw; eventually we’d had enough and were looking for something a tad more grown up. Through word-of-mouth we found a restaurant located on the main street of a quiet residential neighborhood; a modest store front that led us into a small, squarish dining room, with a tiny bar at the front used mainly for waiting. There was however a lovely little garden in the back visible through a floor to ceiling window wall and the effect was one of space yet intimacy; needless to say, every table was taken and the chatter was the proverbial lively yet subdued. Had we finally struck pay dirt?

It was late in June and the days were long, though thin shadows already were forming at the dinner hour. Ravenna was the type of place that struck you as low key and unassuming and yet quizzically reminded in some way of the Italian Riviera or perhaps an exclusive English club peopled entirely by the Energetically Hip and Environmentally Enmeshed. The wait staff was efficient and professional, almost to the point f making you feel as if you didn't quite measure up, though they stopped just short of that, leaving you dangling on the precipice of insecurity and self-doubt. The menu- the essence of nouvelle cuisine- took itself tres seriously, and the diners albeit casual in attire were anything but cavalier about their vittles; they read their menus intently and there was a quiet insistence in the way they grilled their servers about the special nuances of each and every ingredient. The end result for me was one of hesitancy about ordering anything for fear of making a mistake; it was clear no one would help if you faltered and the atmosphere could best be described as hipster-formal. I recall sitting rather stiffly on my chair with a half smile plastered to my lips, hoping not to reveal my total ignorance of the culinary refinements and eccentricities of NoCal cuisine, either to our waiter or the nearby diners with their impeccably perky yet knowing restaurant deportment, lest I be found out as the uninformed east coast naïf that I was. . . .

To make matters worse, after putting in our prosaic request for two poached salmons and a salad, we noticed the couple next to us had self-devised a kind of intricate tasting menu, wherein they would share each mysterious little dish that was successively placed before them in the middle of the table for sharing, then comment to each other with a kind of thumbs up/ thumbs down action before signaling the waiter to bring on the next delicacy. This obvious display of expert knowledge and discernment made us feel even more clueless and callow. What kind of cave people soothed their palates with two slabs of fish amid such esoteric choices? We continued however to bravely nurse our wine- thin stems with giant bowls and about an inch of chardonnay at the bottom- and were much relieved when the house mesclun salads finally appeared, determined as we were to get through the evening with egos somewhat intact.

It was just after our entrees arrived and the neighbors were up to their tenth or so tiny tasting dish that the first rumblings began. The sound was like distant thunder but much deeper in pitch and a bit longer lasting. The diners momentarily ceased their activity for a second or two with a kind of brief and fleeting suspended animation almost like an afterthought before the clatter of cutlery noisily started up again. A couple of minutes later the rumblings began anew, only this time louder and more persistent with eerie echoes in the background, and everyone more or less froze in place, forks in hand. All eyes shot to the garden for some strange reason, which suddenly had taken on a vaguely sinister air. It was as if these belching tremors of the earth were making an announcement over a cosmic PA system: Look at me goddammit!!! Stop with the gourmet shtick already and drop your butter knives! I am here to introduce the coming of the Big One! Hey everyone, it’s the Big One, the Big One!! The one you’ve all been dreading. . . .

The terror was palpable on people’s faces even as they attempted to tamp it down by pretending to be merely mildly concerned. With this latest round of roaring kabooms all the activity in the room instantly had propelled itself into a kind of terse, silent pantomime that lasted at least ten agonizing seconds, after which the tension spontaneously dissipated into a mildly hysterical collective buzz, and the whole uptight atmosphere turned into one giant Love In. Everyone suddenly was consumed with the desire to make small talk with their neighbor. Cheese Doodle lovers were hangin’ with coq10 addicts and Wise potato chip aficionados schmoozed with the au gratin set. The tasting twosome next to us insisted on knowing our names while politely averting their gaze from our poached salmons. It was party time! The Big One had been forestalled yet again, at least for one more day.  And this was a way to live??? An entire population of flax seed aficionados swam before my eyes as I pictured them slowly downing that last strip of gently marinated rhubarb before the earth opened and swallowed them, for good. 

We passed on dessert as the portions were fairly large, and honestly we felt as if we could not digest another morsel. All in all probably not the most relaxing ambiance, but I will say that the place was clean and the food fresh, if a tad overpriced.

I give it three and half stars mainly because of the location, a major fault. . . . 

Dinner Mexicano at the SoCal Corral

I am screaming.

Those around me are screaming.

One of my table companions has just stopped screaming- I know this because his lips are no longer moving- and I am attempting to scream back.

I scream ‘till I am hoarse but it’s of no avail as no one can hear me and no one ever will, not here anyway. The “acoustics” in this cave-like rotunda that opens onto to the street are non-existent; it’s just a long space with some tables nearer the sidewalk and others way back in the heart of darkness or should I say el corazon oscuro at this “SoCal” eatery that specializes in something called “Mexican Fusion” even though all the dishes have beans and guacamole and look like tacos and are hot. So there are no acoustics, just silent screams amid the deafening din and collective roar of a hungry crowd.

The place, a bit like a patch of the rodeo, sort of rumbles and can best be described as “all the rage” since both the patrons and servers seem to be in various states of fury. After several minutes of mouthing screams and engaging in other futile pantomimes our waiter finally appears, suddenly and rather startlingly, contentiously aiming a small flashlight at one of the menus, the very one in fact which I am holding every which way in an attempt to decipher the words in the near pitch blackness but with little success; however this almost too sharp beam of LED illumination does not do much to clarify a list of arcane ingredients and dishes which I am having exceptional difficulty in comprehending. The truth is I have never heard of most of these concoctions and suspect that the reason is they do not actually exist, nor have they ever existed prior to the fashioning of this complicated list of “authentic” fare that really is comprised of old dishes with new names. This is of no matter though, as the guy makes it painfully clear that if I do not decide within the next three and a half seconds he simply will move on to a nearby table of screamers and we may never see him again and certainly not until hell freezes over. He seems anxious, petulant and on the verge of bolting, so in a moment of induced hysteria I point frantically to something under the category of “salad” that has the world “tomato” next to it along with some other letters that I cannot make out.

When my plate eventually arrives abut a forty-five minutes later it seems that everything on it is chopped into miniscule pieces and piled up perilously high into a kind of pyramid of diced shards; ironically I am not able to discern anything that resembles tomato. When I tentatively stick my fork into the side of this small, fragile mountain of hotness and tension, the whole thing shudders and shakes somewhat violently and then comes tumbling down like the bric-a-brac off a shelf during a small California earthquake.

I make a small meal of little chunks of bread that taste suspiciously like A & P and hunt for a door frame under which to stand while the others finish their meal. . . .