i like this.

Concha Buika. Niña de Fuego.
my favorite CD to listen to at the moment.
perfect for: late night work sessions, early morning cleaning sessions, cooking, folding laundry, sipping cocktails, all essential domestic activities.

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teaching myself a lesson

Isn't it funny how hate turns so quietly to love?
As part of 2010, I am going to figure out what Future Me will tell Present Me ten years down the road. Part of this quest is reaching back into the depths of my past, to figure out my mistakes and learn from them. I *really* hate to admit this, but maybe my constant badmouthing of Baton Rouge and LSU was one of them. Qualification: I don't feel like I missed out on (too many) opportunities, I just think I created a sort of mental roadblock in myself to squeezing every tiny bit of life out of that experience. So, in summary, no regrets, just a newfound and determined appreciation. And a lesson learned.
My penance:
-Cafe ECA, from the ridiculous furnishing (thanks for putting up with us, Shanelle and LeeAnn) to the even more ridiculous parties (sock hops and sit-ins I'm pretty sure hadn't happened in BR for several decades)
-the sidewalks lining Highland from campus to downtown, including that extra large bump by that mental institution type place
-Sunday mornings at Capitol Grocery
-that feeling that we alone were discovering the town, because a) we were literally the only people around and b) we clocked a lot of miles driving out to a bunch of crazy places
-extreme studying
-that neighborhood of magic right off campus
-the spanish architecture and spanish moss that retained their original charm when everything else about LSU had worn off
-Chelsea's hummus and artichoke dip and general awesomeness
-Allen Hall, the most beautiful, most English student building around
-beautiful muggy sunsets around the lakes
-late night drives to Laurel and NOLA
-dorm beds in all their various incarnations
-gingerbread tea in St. Francisville
-the loophole in the system that allowed me to purchase wine with my scholarship money
-sitting on the back roof of the Pi Phi house
-Hotel Lexia
-Mardi Gras mansions filled with people, alcohol, and gumbo
-nights before deadline in the Reveille basement with some of the coolest folks around
-playing piano in the Herget lobby
-misty mornings in Cajun country
-that freakin' fieldgoal to win the Kentucky game freshman year
-blue drinks and bar sofas in Lafayette
-living for four years in what is basically a foreign country with foreign peoples (and only a 6 hour drive from home)

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music and life.

It's an easily intuited truth that music for my generation is as much about proclaiming your sense of self as it is about melodies and lyrics. This creates a situation where the newness and obscurity of a band is, unfortunately, sometimes its most admirable quality.

This phenomena has been studied by psychologists from various angles.

Most people's music preferences fall into one of four broad categories: "reflective and complex," "intense and rebellious," "upbeat and conventional" and "energetic and rhythmic," according to a 2003 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The categories include various genres of music. "Reflective and complex," for example, covered classical, jazz, blues and folk, while "upbeat and conventional" covered country, religious, soundtrack and pop. They correlated significantly with a variety of personal traits. People who listen to "reflective and complex" music were shown to be more open to new experiences, and have a higher verbal ability, self-perceived intelligence and political liberalism, while people who listen to "upbeat and conventional" music score highly on extraversion, self-perceived physical attractiveness, athleticism and political conservatism.

People also use music to inform others about themselves. This was the subject of a more recent study from last year that showed people's perception of you can change based on what's on your iPod.

It's just so interesting how, now more than ever due to the omnipresence of media and music, what you listen to defines you. It changes how people see you. It changes how you feel. It changes how you act. It's a powerful, powerful tool.

So this is why depressed teens shouldn't listen to Bright Eyes.
And why people straining to stay true to their moral compass should avoid T-Pain.
And why Nickelback should be locked up for life.

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we are in so far over our heads.

"If you can understand how fluency influences judgment, you can understand many, many, many different kinds of judgments better than we do at the moment,” -Adam Alter, NYU psychologist


In high school and college, I used to always feel a little indignant at writing teachers that crossed out every single word they deemed 'cliche', invoking a rule that simply because a word or phrase was overused, it should never be used again. I felt, but never articulated, that there was a time and a place for certain well-worn phrases, as long as the writer was completely aware of what they were doing.

And the idea of cognitive fluency would suggest that my position is worth, at the least, a little consideration.
Its basic premise is that humans gravitate to things that don't challenge them. Example: Stocks of easier-to-pronounce companies significantly outperform those of hard-to-pronounce companies. And not only do people prefer to think about easy things, they also prefer to believe them. Example: Studies show that when presenting people with a factual statement, certain alterations (such as use of a cleaner font, a rhyme, or repetition) can increase people's perception of it as truthful.

We all are ruled by cognitive fluency, whether we know it or not. It's all the more powerful, in fact, because we do not recognize or control it. Pyschologists have an easy time of fooling people into thinking that a feeling of cognitive fluency is actual familiarity, as when a recipe was rated as much easier when written in a clearer font. The feeling of disfluency can put people on guard, making the wary and even less honest. Some believe this to be an evolutionary trait (if it's familiar, then it hasn't harmed you, ostensibly). Whether or not that's true, marketers and politicians are certainly evolving along with it, using the sense of fluency and disfluency to manipulate those who still do not have a grasp on the concept. Disfluency isn't all bad...it can make its employer seem innovative, or it can engage the receiver more fully and lessen mistakes.

Most interesting here is the opportunity to take this concept and try to figure out how it controls you. I would think that artists and creative thinkers would be especially interested in this as an innate boundary that can influence the creative work you make before you even lay pen to paper or brush to canvas.

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El País interview with Ferran Adriá (english)

I felt compelled to translate this interview with Ferran Adriá to English for anyone who may be interested. There's lots of great questions from internet posters for the chef, who announced yesterday that he would be closing his restaurant, El Bullí, for two years.

Q: Some of my friends and I set aside money to go someday to your restaurant. What do you recommend, to go before you close or wait for the reopening? Will the new season arrive full of new, delicious flavors and exquisite sensations? Will we see each other in 2011 or is it worth the trouble to wait? Thanks.
FA: I would try to come in 2010 and 2011 and again in 2015. By trying to come you won't lose anything.

Q: I'm a cook in a high school, what kind of food would you make for children, modifying the secondary ingredients like side items, salads, etc?
FA: In the high schools, you have to check with nutritionists to see what is the healthiest for children. And be sure that you add a lot of love.

Q: Are you afraid that you will not acheive the same success that you have now when you return in 2014?
FA: No, we've decided that success will be measured in another way, and above all our happiness will be the true success.

Q:Would you consider being a politician in the future to better the public cooking schools in this country?
FA: No, with Valentí Fusté we are doing interesting work with the cuisine, but the politicians have to do the politics.

Q: First of all, congratulations on your success. When will we be able to enjoy your dishes in the US? Any plans?
FA: José Andres is one of my best friends, and in Washington you can eat marvelous food in his restaurant with the philosophy of El Bulli.


Q:How was the experience with the Spanish Navy in the publicity announcement?
FA: I did it with all the love in the world, without any economic interest, and I hope to have helped people see the Navy as it is today in a democracy.

Q: Good afternoon. Where will the new paths of investigation that you want to open go? Will it be a novel break from everything in the past, o will you perhaps try to perfect even further certain culinary techniques that are still not giving you the desired result?
FA: There will be two paths: on one hand, all the techniques that we have developed have a large trajectory that needs to be explored. And we don't rule out going to live three months in China, or getting to know Japan or Peruvian cuisine better. But these two years will allow us to do things that if we didn't close would be very difficult.

Q: Hi Ferran, three questions if you would be so kind: To what point can restaurants of this level not yield a profit? What cost ratio do you think each plate should have? What system do you use to price wine?
FA: The avant-garde, en whatever discipline, is not a business, but thanks to it it is possible to generate business. The cost ratio is 40% raw material, 50% service/staff, and 20% general costs. As you see, this is %110, not 100. For wine, we manage to be the most consistent with the understanding that a cup of wine can cost 25 euros. When one part of this formula breaks down....

Q: Hi Ferran. Are you happy?
FA: I've made this decision to continue being happy, because as you know, I have always been able to be happy.

Q: What do you look for in your providers. And what do you not tolerate from them?
FA: The providers live in a complicated world because they work with living material. When one sells dead material, it's easier. To put it simply, they have to be honest.

Q: Is it true that in Spain they care more about gastronomy than in other countries, or is this just a coincidence. Why don't, I don't know, the Polish triumph? How much of it is culture and how much is politics?
FA: Spain has a centuries-old culture and gastronomic history, an incredible climate that makes the highest level of product possible, an important traditional cuisine and an avant garde cuisine that sets trends. It's the perfect mix.

Q:What other restaurant would you recommend in the absence of El Bullí?
FA: Thanks to God not in absence, but being in el Bullí... we have great restaurants in Spain, from simple tapas places up to the six starred restaurants not including El Bullí. Eating is eating whether in El Bullí or not in El Bullí.

Q: Hi, I'm twelve and I really love your cuisine. I would like to know if you ever think of creating a chef school for young people?
FA. One of the things we can do now is in the theme of training, and we are going to see what possibilities there are and see where we can help.

Q: What is the oldest knife you keep? I am referring to the type (paring, boning...)
FA: I used to have a knife from when I started, and I lost it, and now I have a ceramic knife that was given to me ten years ago that is pretty much "my knife."

Q: Ferran, congratulations for being so great! How many hours do you devote to work every day?
FA: We are here for however many hours are necessary, between 12 and 15. But it's not something that tires me, but something that I enjoy. Just as in everything, there are days where I become overloaded, but I manage to enjoy it.

Q: We began with Apicio and we are now with Ferran. Do you feel vertigo from being part of the universal history?
FA: Our idea in El Bullí has been to help and share. We can't control the consequences.

Q: What was the time when you felt you ate better than ever?
FA: Being a cook has a privilege, which is eating well many times. Because to be a cook first you have to be a good table companion.

Q: Is this closing to reinvent El Bullí or simply about a broadening of your collection of recipes?
FA: The word is reinventing. Our intention is a step forward, which happens by reinventing oneself in the way of understanding cuisine and life, but the challenge is taking a big step forward.

Q: Hi Ferran, your art is always reaching greater heights, but perhaps the nobodies of the middle class like me will never be able to eat in your restaurant. Maybe a "museum" of your creations so that your communication with the public will be more global...but if your creations were within the reach of everyone, of course they would lose their "mojo" and their purity. What is the balance? Because I would love to eat one night in El Bullí!
FA: The balance is helping people to eat better at home and in general, however we can. It's what we can do for society.

Q: From Mexico, What are the most important qualities or virtues for a shef to have to collaborate in your restaurant. What are you most drawn to?
FA: Passion. Passion gives motion to life. And in work it must be the main motive.

Q: I'm studying in the Castellón School of Hospitality, and I finish this year. Currently I work in a restaurant on weekends, and I've already sent you my resume (as, I imagine have 30,00 others, but okay). I would love if you would share with me a little bit what steps to take now. I am 20 and I have great admiration for your work.
FA: You have to do your training in the proper progression. Knowing everything, from a tapas place to a catering business, a hotel and avant garde restaurants, and once you've seen everything, deciding what you find most to your liking.

Q: What do you think about the critiques made to you about not using raw materials, but rather chemistry?
FA: In life you have to live with the good and the bad, the elegies and the criticisms. I can only tell you that we manage to be the most honest and ethical possible.

Q: Ferran, tell us a good combination for nourishing people in Haiti, in small kitchens with the following ingredients: rice, beans, plantains, chicken and pineapple.
FA: The Haiti problem is very serious and has to be taken so. As a person, not as a cook, I manage to help how I can. Haiti is an example of human injustice.

Q: Is your molecular cuisine worn out?
FA: For sure, because I never have done molecular cuisine that I know of. But if you want to say that the cuisine of El Bullí has a path, I think that explaining what we have done these 15 years would take a good bit of time to go back and explain.

Q: I would like to say I am a big fan, and I would like to know what Ferran is going to do the two years that El Bullí will be closed and what we can expect for 2014. Also, I wonder if the next key date is 2020 (it's in the web site of el Bullí 2010-2020). I would also like to know how many years El Bullí will be open starting in 2014.
FA: The plan is 2010-2020, it's a plan of the future, the most of which one can is think about. The two years will serve to consolidate what we have been thinking the past two years about how 2014 will be, and to learn, learn, learn. We would like to spend several months living in China and learning everything possible.

Q: Is there still much to discover regarding gastronomy? Because if not, I just don't understand the decision to close the restaurant for two years to devote oneself exclusively to investigating. By the way, when you are at home, what do you usually cook for dinner?
FA: Without a doubt, we would be naive if we thought that everything was already invented. And not only naive, but arrogant. The question is whether it will be our generation that is able to keep creating or whether we wait for the next. For dinner, something very simple. Boiled artichokes and grilled sole, tomato salad with extra virgin olive oil and some sauteed goat ribs with a little oil. At home you have to cook very simple so you don't get lazy.

Q: First, congratulations on the decision to close to the public and continue investigating, something unprecedented in business logic, which is why you keep being the leader. When you visited New York, you almost promised not to return here, don't you think that this period of closing the restaurant could be a great opportunity to open something here? I know, I know...
FA:I love New York. I merely said that it was very apparent that it was a moment to rest, but I'm sure that I will return this year to New York.

Q: How would you define your legacy for future generations? Why or how would you like them to remember you?
FA: Our intention has been to help and share, since all our generation has lived a historic moment for Spanish cuisine. Our job now is to help the next generations.

Q: Is a haute-cuisine restaurant economically sustainably at your current prices?
FA: Although it can seem incredible, it's very difficult, but the examples of haute couture or Formula One serve us well. I know it's unpopular, but that's how it is?

Q: I'm 33 and I like cuisine. I have a good job, but sometimes I think about studying hospitality and trying the world of the kitchen. Do you think, as a professional, that is very difficult to catch the train to the professional kitchen from these heights?
FA: I recommend that you go do a trial of a month in a restaurant and later make the decision. It's a passionate world, but very hard.

Q: Ferran, please explain what you are going to do at Harvard. And if you think that innovative cuisine also has a mission of sharing knowledge and giving happiness.
FA:With Harvard we are going to do a course of science and cooking that will last 4 months. I think it's very important, since a collaboration like this with Harvard is not normal. The avant garde always has the mission to share, if it's not negative.

Q: How much does a seat cost at El Bullí, approximately?
FA: The menu without wine is 235 euros, the same as a ticket to the last game of Barça-Madrid cost me, and at the end it's just a matter of priorities.

Q: Closing El Bullí two years seems to break barriers, including in the world of economy. What do you think?
FA: More than a barrier, it's a challenge at a business level. But El Bullí is made of challenges, and this is the latest.

Q: Ferran, I'm a waitress studying to be floor manager. What is Juli Soler going to do during this time, what hospitality school do you recommend?
FA: Juli Soler will stay with me, reinventing El Bullí. En El Bullí there is no front of the house and kitchen, just people with a passion for what they do.

Q: What will people eat in 100 years?
FA: Questions that have never been asked...haha. I hope the food will still be a pleasure.

Q: How do you see the ancient culinary theme of stew, that has practically disappeared from the avant-garde? Could it not also be reinvented somehow?
FA: Sushi, lentils and an avant-garde dish are all compatible. There are 365 days in a year and enough days for everything.

Q: Is a restaurant an experimental laboratory?
FA: No, there are restaurants that search for the avant-garde, but we are speaking of very few in the world. A restaurant is a place where you go to have a good time and eat the best possible. But something is always missing, in whatever discipline, for places that search for it within the limit of its discipline.


GOODBYE MESSAGE.
Just wanted to tell you all that eating well nourishes the soul. This is the phrase that the marvelous people of Disney allowed me to put in Ratatouille when Remí tells this to his father.

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1963: a good year for crazy Italian men

I love autonomous communities, even if they're just wannabes.

So imagine my delight upon discovering Seborga, a town of five square miles and 2,000 people in the Ligurian region of Italy. In 1963, Giorgio Carbone was elected the Prince of Seborga, despite the fact that Italy doesn't recognize it as sovereign. Giorgio, who died late last year, is awesome because
1) he drove a horse and buggy before he switched to a black Mercedes with Seborgan plates
2)he demanded to be called His Tremendousness
3) he installed a standing army (of one man)
4)he held court in a local bar
5) he forsook marriage because he loved all his female subjects equally
6)he had an all you can eat meat and cheese deal with a local shop as salary
7) he made ALL OF THIS UP out of nowhere and converted it into a REALITY. If that doesn't prove the power of positive thinking, I don't know what does.



This Prince reminded me instantly of Marcovaldo, a fictional character of Italo Calvino's, seen here in an illustration by Claudia Bettinardi. I thought surely that either reality inspired the fiction or vice-versa. Marcovaldo is equally quirky and equally wishful, if a bit less effective at actualizing his farfetched plans. The coincidence is that Marcovaldo was published in 1963, the year Giorgio took his throne in the dirty old Bianca Azzura bar. While some of the stories were written in the 50s, it's highly doubtful that they found their way to the backwater of Seborga. I guess Italy is just chockful of crazy, seccesionistly minded old men.
And I love that.

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tennis- live, broadcasted, transcribed

Here we are, in the heat of another Grand Slam, fourth round and counting. There's nothing like being several thousand miles removed, with only broadband and computer screens to connect you to the action at odd hours of the night, to make you yearn to be closer to the action. If watching tennis on TV is a sort of sacrilege, then watching tennis pixelate on the Internet is downright blasphemous. Is that Gael Monfils setting up a crazy shot, slamming it down the baseline and--oh, crap, my connection froze up again. Then it resumes movement and the players are pacing the courts, preparing calmly for the next point. Or there's Federer, advancing towards the net, reaching his racket between his legs, and--you get the picture. It's like listening to the world's most beautiful music on a radio signal that keeps fading in and out.
But if you can't afford a ticket to Australia, much less the cost of entry into the stadium, then TV/espn360 is your only option. So you deal with it. I console myself by watching it with hot cups of tea curled up in the purple dream sack on our sofa. I supplement my viewing experience with some reading, because I definitely believe you can gain a more varied perspective that way, too. I particularly like Forty Deuce for the latest tennis "news"...parody that rings dangerously close to truth. Then there's this article, by the late David Foster Wallace, that surely comes closest in aesthetic perfection to the live and in-person version of the game it describes. It's a great read, and still interesting and applicable nearly four years after publication. You get the feeling that a lot of what is typically written these days about Federer, Nadal, and tennis is lifted straight from this, the original. Give it a look-see between sets.

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stairs and life

This is an article that was recently printed in Diario Vasco. It immediately felt like a footnote in the book "My Attempt to Figure Out Life". I like the emphasis on gaining perspective in this metaphorical outlook...it's definitely not about the despair found in Plath's fig tree. This is my translation from the Spanish. So, a look at another metaphor in hopes it may give us a grasp on the real thing.


"Those that have arrived to the seventh floor tell us that, although their feet are heavy, the view was worth the journey. If you peer out and look below the ground goes blurry but if you search along the horizon you see a beautiful and calm landscape.
We learn to climb stairs before we learn to walk. We advance with insecure steps, propelled by innocence, until the first floor, and upon arriving and looking backwards, we discover that the stairway has been erased, that the only way out is up. Each floor is painted a different color, each landing is a different meeting place. Between the first and second floor there is, thrown on the ground, a white album. You go on completing it with the experiences you run into on the stairwell. At first we have so much curiosity that we would climb the huge steps two by two but, after the second floor, we aren't in as much of a hurry to arrive. From the third the stairs seem taller. It's a stretch in which it is easy to trip up because each step implies a decision. On the fourth floor there is a wooden bench. You sit and confirm that your soles have begun to wear out. Then you discover that, any day, one of these doors can be opened. You jump up and for the first time you help yourself up with the banister to be able to continue.
Of all the floors of this building I don't know which is the best. We are all only concerned with reaching the top floor, but a neighbor told me that once you arrive on the seventh floor, the only thing that you regret is not having enjoyed more each step."

*guille viglione, translated from the Spanish article in the Diario Vasco

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marcovaldo by italo calvino

Finished yet another book that made me give thanks for my ability to read...this time the award goes to Italo Calvino's Marcovaldo, or The seasons in the city.

It's a must read. A collection of twenty short stories, each is set in a consecutive season in a small town of northern Italy. They follow a poor laborer named Marcovaldo who has an eye for the fantastic and a disdain for his surroundings. There are fantastical touches, like a plane bound for India accidentally boarded, a breath that clears a yard of snow, a plant with an astounding rate of growth...but this book doesn't ask you to confirm it as factual, but merely to enjoy it.

The book is divided by a decade or so down the middle, and the first half is set in the poorer yet more innocent Italy of the 50s while the second deals with the illusions of prosperity in the 60s. Of course, it's not nearly as didactic as it sounds...these exterior facts are not explicitly stated, but merely offer a bit more explanation as to what the characters go through.

Furthermore, the book is divided into self-contained chapters, each bearing a title and a label of either Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter. In a reflection of the interconnectedness of life and the way days and years often unfold, Calvino weaves shadows of the previous season into the most recent. In the first tale, Marcovaldo finds mushrooms sprouting up in the cracks of the city. Although he tries to hoard them for himself, everyone finds out and gathers them up....and the whole town ends up in the hospital. Three stories later, next Spring finds Marcovaldo treating his fellow citizens for rheumatism using wasp stings, which goes awry with a huge wasp attack. The following Spring's story opens with a doctor prescribing a some good air as treatment for Marcovaldo's children, and they end up in the countryside on the grounds of a sanitorium. These little threads he weaves attaching each story make a cohesive unit of the collection.

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figs and life

I saw Curiouser, a play from Skin Horse theater, at the New Orleans Fringe Festival last weekend. It was a lovely side-by-side of two lives that were not as disparate as they initially seem: Lewis Carroll and Sylvia Plath. A quote from The Bell Jar was used in the play, and I think it impacted all the twentysomethings in the group, including myself. So, a look at a metaphor in hopes it may give us a grasp on the real thing.

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig-tree in the story.
From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and off-beat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

*sylvia plath, the bell jar

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how to spot true genius, part II

"However, one trait of the ancestral personality persists in our aesthetic cravings: the pleasure we take in admiring skilled performances. Human beings have a permanent, innate taste for virtuoso displays in the arts."

Okay, so I'm still struggling with this question, and today I'm thinking about it in terms of art. Art art. Fine art. It's such a loaded question...what makes good art, and who decides on good art, is a question laden with assumptions, prejudice, and snobbery.

One viewpoint suggests there are two schools in which you must separate art to be able to judge its merit: skill and concept.

A recent editorial in the Times pointed out that perhaps we are wired to emotionally respond to skilled works of beauty. What if all this discussion and all this controversy deferred to what people actually felt? I mean, really felt when they looked at a picture/sculpture/objet? Maybe the question would become moot. But I don't think it's possible to expect the many people who analyze for a living to be able to step down from their pedestal. And good art has come from the sanctioned 'movements' of art that have been ordained by the Deciders. It just may not last when the constructs of its value pass into history and all that's left is a skull made of waaaay too many diamonds.

This excerpt from the editorial says it best:



We ought, then, to stop kidding ourselves that painstakingly developed artistic technique is passé, a value left over from our grandparents’ culture. Evidence is all around us. Even when we have lost contact with the social or religious ideas behind the arts of bygone civilizations, we are still able, as with the great bronzes or temples of Greece or ancient China, to respond directly to craftsmanship.....

The appreciation of contemporary conceptual art, on the other hand, depends not on immediately recognizable skill, but on how the work is situated in today’s intellectual zeitgeist. That’s why looking through the history of conceptual art after Duchamp reminds me of paging through old New Yorker cartoons. Jokes about Cadillac tailfins and early fax machines were once amusing, and the same can be said of conceptual works like Piero Manzoni’s 1962 declaration that Earth was his art work, Joseph Kosuth’s 1965 “One and Three Chairs” (a chair, a photo of the chair and a definition of “chair”) or Mr. Hirst’s medicine cabinets. Future generations, no longer engaged by our art “concepts” and unable to divine any special skill or emotional expression in the work, may lose interest in it as a medium for financial speculation and relegate it to the realm of historical curiosity.

In this respect, I can’t help regarding medicine cabinets, vacuum cleaners and dead sharks as reckless investments. Somewhere out there in collectorland is the unlucky guy who will be the last one holding the vacuum cleaner, and wondering why.-Denis Dutton,The New York Times, October 15, 2009


For me, this begs the question of where is the happy medium? Are enough artists making things of beauty that are still original? Yet another impressionist rendering of a sunset on a small village is just as bad as the Hirst pieces Dutton rails against. Perhaps the measure of a true work of art must take into account originality, skill, and beauty, and acknowledge that the three must be linked.

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my special bookshelf

A pause to confirm the excellence of Orhan Pamuk's latest book. It has now been placed on my special bookshelf, whose unofficial title could be 'shelf for the best books I've read and own'. It sits, collecting its first precious dust particles, next to if on a winter's night a traveler (italo calvino), a moveable feast (hemingway), 2666 (roberto bolaño), history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters (julian barnes), confederacy of dunces (john kennedy o'toole), and the bell jar (sylvia plath) among others....not bad company.

So what's the fuss, what enables the 532-page novel to claim such exclusive company? In Museum of Innocence Pamuk continues weaving his interconnect Istanbul world, this time through the eyes of the obsessed Kemal. Kemal's two-month affair with his distant, distant relative stops his current life dead in its tracks and sustains him for almost a decade until happiness flits by him once again. Kemal runs in wealthy socialite circles, and Pamuk explores this world in his ever-luscious detail, with words piling up on each other in sentence after sentence. The eyes of a German model on a soda billboard follow Kemal around for ten years, reminding us of his Gatsby-esque upbringing and potential fate. This book is far-reaching in its plumbing of cultural mores and pieces of Istanbuli history, collecting them as avidly as Kemal collects every particle of his existence with Fusun. If the museum conceit was a bit strained in the more action-packed middle of the novel, it proved its worth as the end approached. The tragic end.

It was every bit as good as those bookkeepers promised me. Perhaps I will thank them as I am returning this weekend to New Orleans...

please read this!

Oh, and quickly I feel I must say Maureen Freely (translator) is amazing at what she does.

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how to spot true genius, part I

This past week, a topic that I think circles around appeared twice in the Times, prompting me to come back to it once again. It's the eternal battle in the field of the arts: that of raw skill versus intellectuality, as seen through the lens of the question of what makes a truly great work of art.

Whether talking about a movie or a dish, the question of value is often dependent on which of these lenses you use to view the work. To make matters more complex, the motive of the creator and the reaction of the participant are both criteria for judging, inextricably intertwined, and yet totally separate.

Take cinema, for example. Deciding where to place a movie on the spectrum of greatness can be tough...go to any summer cinema, and chances are you will find it easy to see a completely entertaining yet wholly unoriginal and forgettable piece of fluff. So was it good? Well, it wasn't bad....and maybe it was kind of good, like Titanic, perhaps. But you don't even care, because you enjoyed it.

Then there's the movies that pretend to greatness, that relish the opportunity to be classified as festival, or art house, films. We all know them. They're beautiful and paced slowly to give you time to enjoy that beauty (so vain!). They work hard at representing certain cinematic ideals or fashions. They touch on "deep" topics, and often focus on dialogue or landscape. You can't not see these types of films sitting in the halls of any film festival. A few modern day examples? One I saw at Zinemaldia was 10 to 11. Beautiful, artistic, but kind of opaque and boring. A few other art for the sake of art and NOT for your sake- Tuvalu. Brokeback Mountain. Margot at the Wedding. Don't believe me? A google search for 'boring art house films' returns over five million web pages.

Then there are movies like Citizen Kane, Pulp Fiction, Synechdoche New York, to name a few, that manage to combine the entertainment and immediate likeability of a blockbuster with the originality, quality, and stamp of its maker that typify art house cinema.

So that leaves us still with the question of what makes a truly great movie. Our reaction to a film, our visceral response, is important! But it is far from all. And some of those art house movies carry import, whether it be due to their place in the evolution of cinema or another factor. It's all so relative it makes your head spin trying to take in the opposing sides. I like this quote as a point in the debate because it makes concrete the arguing factions, those would-be determiners of greatness: profit, art criticism, popularity.

"Many studio executives argue that films can't objectively be categorized as "good" or "bad": either they appeal to a given demographic--and make the studio at least a ten-per-cent profit--or they don't. 'most critics are not the target audience for most of the films being made today, so they're not going to respond to them," sony screen Gems' Clint Clupepper says. "How a fifty-six-year-old man feels about a movie aimed at teen-age girls is irrelevant." -The New Yorker, January 19, 2009

I feel motivated enough to wrestle with this question a bit more, and in writing, so I will be approaching it with regards to food, art, and music over the next few posts. Trying to make a little bit of sense out of it all.

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museum of innocence day, 2009

"It was the happiest moment of my life, but I didn't know it."






Today marks the release of Orhan Pamuk's latest English translation, The Museum of Innocence. Touted by some as his greatest achievement, this novel is a tale of lifelong, obsessive love.

Having spoken with the estimable bookkeepers on Pirate's Alley, I can say with full confidence that it's a work of literary art. So get yourself to the bookstore, roast some chickpeas, and curl up with this latest gem.

I'm so excited.

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it's complicated

How can this one moment make me feel so many emotions?
First, and most pure, happiness.
Second, guilt. A part of my mind actually belittling that first, most pure part of my mind for feeling that tiny spark. That first part of my mind feeling like it shouldn't have felt that about some dumb mug with some dumb tea on some dumb rainy day.
Third, confusion. I just wanted some tea. And I became happy. And now I feel confused.
Fourth, introspection. And here's where I try to figure out what brought me to this point. Why did my brain take this tiny act to such a level? Does it have a greater application to my life? What does the fact that I am even thinking these thoughts say about me? It's amazing, because I feel like for each thought I grasp, I lose nine because my consciousness moves so quickly.

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itsasaro

I like untranslatable words.
Take itsasaro.
It's Basque. And it's translation is 'a condition of the ocean ideal for going out to sea.'
Good. I'm glad someone has a word for this.

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excerpt....guess where?

Snow coming hard from the sky, long enough to render the mountain path impassable. With cold seeping through his garments the priest grumbled silently. Always the one old man, rain, shine, torment or snow, always waiting. The same cold inside, a dark body huddled beneath fur, waiting for the same words, the same motions. Read. Grasp the chalice. Raise it into the frigid air. Recite words of prayer. Wait. Repeat, and always the same but then a drop of blood on the cloth. And the bread no longer bread, but soft and firm like human flesh. His heart beating so fast, the old main raising his clasped hands to heaven. All on this darkest and coldest of nights. The wind screamed through cracks in the slate walls.

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US Open derailed!

A semifinal with an unexpected result in today's US Open...Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina dominated Rafael Nadal of Spain, 6-2, 6-2, 6-2.
The announcers had basically been looking past him to a Federer-Nadal final. Now it's possible that we may even have a Del Potro-Djokovic final.
How cute was little del Potro in his post-match interview?

About beating Rafa, he said, "I"m sorry."
And, not content to beat Rafa in tennis, he started a humility contest as well: "I'm not strong, but I do my best." Yeah. Yeah you do.

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The Art of Living in the Moment

Breathe.
We are living in a world that is distraction and fragmentation.
The only way to drown it out is to channel all your mind's energy to the present.
The pace and the hurry and the way things are never enough disappear when you actively focus on each passing moment.
Forget the future.
Forget the past.
You are where you are and comparisons only take away from that.
Luxuriate in and savor your passing seconds.
Look at the world with a beginner's mind.
You don't know what's around you, no matter how many times you've seen it. Trust me.
It's not about rewards. There is no end product.
Just being mindful.
Breathe.

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kings of leon genealogy

i found this letter walking the streets of nashville. it was folded up in a little square, with hearts and arrows all over it in a purple ballpoint. pretty crazy!


dear stevey,

thank you for everything you have done for me and my career.
i love your voice and i spend much of my time emulating its edgy and screechy nature.
and so far, it's working quite well.
i can only hope to age as gracefully as you have.

love,
caleb

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