NYCweboy

If, On A Winter's Night

I managed to get in four hours of work today at the 'bucks, and still made it into Manhattan to hear a coworker sing at a church service (well, I got there late, but what I hears was lovely).

There was something wonderfully WASPy about the whole trip - from the train ride through Central Westchester to the nice Manhattanites at the Presbyterian church. And walking to the church from the subway, I felt very much in my element, as I do every so often wandering around Manhattan these days; the familiar feel of a place Iused to live, and in some ways have never quite left behind.

After the concert, walking to a little coffee shop (well, I do drink our product, too), I had a chance to see the city on a winter night, and take in some window shopping.

I've come back to window shopping; for a while there, it seemed frivolous, inconsequential, unrealistic. But a couple of weeks ago, I got to wander along Madison Avenue in the seventies - the highest of high end shopping - and I was reminded of the simple pleasures of taking in the pretty sights of the windows.  The fun of Dior and Valentino, not to mention Dennis Basso's over the top furs. The serious style of Ralph Lauren's Polo mansion. The luxe appeal of Tom Ford's new shop. All that and more (did I mention window shopping for a Mercedes?), just by walking briskly to Grand Central Station.

It's easy to forget that hard times do not require denying oneself every joy or pleasure in life. No, I can't buy a $200 shirt (as if I ever could, or did), but I can look at them, take them in, and figure out styles that will do what I need at a lower price point. Visual stimulation, the pleasure of seeing beautiful things... these belong to all of us, not just the select few.

As hard as the times are, I find myself looking up, not down, seeing the good and not the bad, and finding simple joys in the simplest things - a free music concert, a leisurely stroll by the beautiful windows, a moment to savor an inexpensive cup of coffee. Life is still full of possibilities, and the holiday season still provides surprises and wonders. Keeping faith in that... could make the best of a cold winter's night.

Two Princes

Tonight, I realized how humbled I am in the presence of my nephews. I mean, just dumbstruck by their fascination with the simplest, smallest things, their inquisitive minds, their wide open acceptance. They are miraculous, and I am entirely small in a universe that could bring their existence into being.

This came to me, sitting on the floor of the front hall at my sister's, as my younger one - the little star - used a pair of electric mixer beaters to teach himself drums. While doing a little dance. And learning to sing. I was helpoing and encouraging... and then I just stopped... as I said, dumbstruck. I am humbled in the presence of a two year old.

The older one (MANU, The Most Adorable Nephew in the Universe) had some sort of stomach bug, and nearly missed out on Turducken #2 (#1 was last year), but since he seemed to keep down soup, it seemed mean to tempt him with a full table. The Little Star, meanwhile, was content with sweet potatoes and a little chicken... but he got mad when he saw that everyone else's sweet potato dish had marshmallows (he's developed an intolerance to eggs). That, and the brussel sprouts were his enemy.

Some years I worry about the balance of things - we've gone way overboard in food, some years there's the uncomfortable silences - but this year we got the balance right. The food was good... but it wasn't all about the food. The family gathering was enjoyable, never uncomfortable. And the conversation was political at times, childlike at times, but always free and easy and relaxed.

But in the end, my day and evening were about two awesome little boys, in all their wondrous youth.  I am one lucky Uncle. And that's way more better than Turducken and pie.

No Thanks (To You, Or To Me)

This Thanksgiving seems to have unleashed a particularly strong strain of sincere, slightly maudlin sentiments along the lines of "what I'm thankful for" meant, I think, to be a reminder that we have, you know, so much to hang onto in these tough times. You know... let's be thankful for family, our health, our great golden retriever, Barky... and on and on.

All due respect to Mom and Apple Pie, but I think no one should be allowed to get off so easy.

As nice as it is to step back and take a moment to be grateful for, you know, all we have, it's also, you know, not really what Thanksgiving is, as a national holiday. Thanksgiving is, really, a story of survival, about being thankful not for our individual good fortune, but for the power of a community to hang together through incredible adversity and manage something quite so basic as to live and see another year.

It's the kind of desperation that makes stuff like being thankful for that new Kindle we just got (Karen Tumulty, via twitter) seem a bit, well, shallow.

I don't want to seem sour or (too) churlish, but I feel like as a nation we really need to be shaken out of especially self interested, self satisfied complacencies just now. More than ever, it seems, we need a reminder that this isn't about just us, or our immediate circles of friends and family. And part of that, I think, is someone saying, enough with the "thanks for all I still have." Try and think about the people who don't.

This year, more people are unemployed than in the past 25 years (among black men, unemployment is the worst since the Great Depression). People are still losing their homes, their jobs, wondering how they will put food on the table and care for their kids. We are losing more people in Afghanistan than ever, with the likelihood of sending yet more troops there. This isn't about you, or me, or all that we have.

It's insidious, the way we have moved from seeing something as simple as a day to be reminded of the struggle that came with settling in a new land has become an easy, self-satisfied moment of personal gratification. So much of what we have lost - our sense of community, our sense of valuing not what we have, but what we give away to others - hasn't been taken from us... it's been set aside, made easy by celebrating ourselves first, and worrying about others less. And less. And less.

Today, my boss will spend her day working in a soup kitchen giving food to others, as she has for many years. I am humbled by the simplicity of the act, by the fact that she does it, by herself, just because she feels she should. It is the highlight of her day. Her act reminds me that I don't do nearly enough, and makes me wonder why I don't do more.

And yes, today I will be grateful to spend time with my nephews, to be with my family, to share in a wonderful meal. I'm thankful that we have survived another year, and have the chance to go on, and do more. But this isn't a day for cheap, easy sentiment; or to just eat without abandon. We've survived... but we won't survive a whole lot longer if we don't figure out how to think less about ourselves, think more about others, and do something for people who need help. Those are the values, and the America, I'd like to be thankful for. And proud of. And we're so not there... no thanks to me. Or to us.

A Whole New World

Mom and I had some time to kill yesterday before Julie and Julia, and we spent it... at the mall.

It's almost quaint, now, to remember how the mall culture was... back then. Back before. Walking around the mall, I said to Mom that I thought the economic downturn would be a massive shock to the system - a sudden reordering of our economic realities... and I'd failed to realize that the change would actually be slow and gradual.

We are, really, in a whole new world. You can see it at the mall, though I don't know if most people look at what's not happening rather than what is. Still, it's not hard to feel the energy level that's changed, the way Shopping as Entertainment has become, already, a thing of our past. The stores aren't crowded. The halls of the mall aren't crowded. People have errands to run, things to do... they really don't just stay and linger... hence, I think, why some of the earliest indications of struggle at the mall turns out to be in the food courts.

Sale signs are everywhere. Sales people have that mixed look of desperation and boredom; when we needed an umbrella (it started to pour as we prepared to leave), a woman in the fragrance department of Nordstrom practically tackled us to make the sale. Not in her department. (I know, that's part of the Nordy way, but still; you could sense her eagerness to make a sale, any sale.)

And this was the high end mall - the one with Neiman's and Nordstrom and 60 upscale stores... and as I said to Mom, might be a salvageable mall if it had about half the square footage and stores. 

Let's be clear: people are shopping. The world has not ended. There were people with bags, there were, clearly, some folks a little late on getting the memo that the party's over on shop til you drop. But the world has changed. Less shopping. Less need for stuff. Less interest in spending the day wandering the mall. Get what you need, get it on sale... and then go home.

This is what I'm keeping in mind as people talk about a "mild recovery" or some sign of "bottoming out" - we may have reached the bottom of... something (though I'd keep an eye on whether anything imrpoves in housing foreclosures and loan refinances... because so far, that mess seems as bad as ever). But "Bottoming out" doesn't mean "it's over." It means we have to figure out what's salvageable from the wreckage. And it means we'll still see a lot of continuing pain - stores closing, more layoffs, more people facing a job market that shows no sign of turning around soon. All the things that drove our crazy consumerist economy - the advertsing in the glossy mags, the mags themselves, the unneeded clothes and computers and toys in all those unneeded stores... all of that is grinding down. And it's not done. Not by a long shot.

I don't mind this new world, though - the mall wasn't so crowded, window shopping was as amusing as ever, and I did get a nice umbrella out of it. It is, though, a new world. And I don't think we really know where to even begin mapping it out, or make sense of it. Not yet, anyway.

What's More, Baby, They Can Cook

Julie and Julia is superb. Indeed, the more it marinates in one's brain, the better I think it gets. Deftly balancing two completely separate stories, Julie and Julia finds the shared highs and lows of writing as a process, of food and cooking, and life in general, specifically, lives of women.

The sense of accomplishment is nothing short of inspiring. Of course there is Meryl Streep doing the uncanniest channeling of Julia Child ever, but there is much, much more.

Julie and Julia is actually the adaptation of the story of Julie Powell, a  worker at the Lower Manhattan Dvelopment Corporation who cooks to escape the dreariness and sadness (she works in the LMDC support center in the months after 9/11), who decides to start a blog built around the idea of cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering The Art of French Cooking.

Over the course of film, we see not only Julie's journey through the cookbook... but Julia's in creating it.

It's easy to get lost in the Julia Child biopic that's going on here; Streep is radiant, with one of the real cappers for her career. But there's also Stanley Tucci as Julia's supportive husband Paul, and a number of great character actresses in supporting roles. There's also postwar Paris, and the joys of watching Julia's transformation into The French Chef role that defined her after the cookbook was published.

But what caught me short was the power of Julie Powell's journey. Director Nora Ephron has the right instinct for this material (including the deft, respectful way to reflect the recovery of New York in the aftermath of 9/11), and she imbues the modern day story with great feeling and style. In showing such respect for writers, and telling what I think may be the first really heroic tale of blogging on film, Ephron rescues and confers dignity on the blogger's work, and brings blogging into the mainstream of writing.

After years of auditioning for the kind of leading lady stardom she seems capable of, Amy Adams has found the right role for her talents. Shedding her tentative qualities and that "slightly smaller than the film" quality she'd been carrying, Adams plays Powell as determined, yet vulnerable, capable of greatness, but only beginning to find her voice. Conveying the frustrations of both cooking and writing, Adams manages to show the work involved... but also the payoffs in pursuing the things you love. And Powell's journey with her husband (a supportive and generous Chris Messina) as part of the story, adds the key personal dimension of seeing your partner through the hard parts for the possibility of what can happen as a result.

What is ultimately moving about Julie and Julia is the very universality Ephron finds in bringing both these women's journeys together. There's a timelessness to the struggles that each endures, so similarly, and yet so individually. Julia Child was an amazing woman, with the strength and sense of purpose required to not only change her own life, but to have such an enormous cultural impact. What she conveyed about cooking - that it was hard, but worth it, and with a great payoff at the finish - is really the whole metaphor about taking risks in life, and not being afraid to fall down and get back up. Julie and Julia finds the power and unexpected grace in just such an approach, celebrates it, then puts it on the table and lets us savor it. Delicious. Just delicious.

Look Into Their Eyes, And You'll See What They Know (Everybody Dies)

Living in the suburbs, you can see a much more full picture of our driving culture; when I lived in the city, no car, easy public transportation (yea NYC)... I didn't care about car and driving stories. Now, as a near daily commuter by car, I do.

Still, even I was a little caught off guard by the depth of feeling that came out after the terrible accident on the Taconic State Parkway, where a woman with several kids (hers and her brother's) went the wrong way on an off ramp, careened down the highway and eventually crashed head-on into another car, killing nearly everyone. Something about the story - the sense, here in Westchester, that we all use and like the Taconic, or the severity of the accident - really caught people short. And for a moment, the whole thing seemed inexplicable - who drives the wrong way on a major highway without noticing? How do you mistake an exit for an entrance? The whole thing made minds reel.

Well, yesterday, we got out explanation - toxicology reports from the autopsy of Diane Schuler, the driver, revealed a .19 level of alcohol in her system and concentrations of THC suggesting recent marijuana use. The sense that Shuster was drunk and high explained a lot about the accident (there's a general once a month story from Long Island of some drunk driver going the wrong way down a major highway to a major accident), and suggested that initial stories of a "woman full of life and vitality and devoted to her kids" perhaps left a few key details out.

While we don't know the whole story yet, what strikes me, just now, is how, yet again, a story of alcohol or drug use leading to death will become an easy answer for our media fascination, and the story will drift away... before we ask some hard questions about how alcohol and drug abuse, and mental illness, tied together and left unchecked and untreated, are leading to disastrous, preventable incidents. Consider, in recent weeks, in addition to Shuster:

• Michael Jackson, whose death has led to revelations of doctor shopping, excessive prescriptions, and an addiction to a narcotic that pretty much has to be administered by doctors so you don't stop breathing, leading Jackson to set up an entire IV monitoring setup in his home
• or the recent events in Pittsburgh, where a killer hunting women noted in his diaries that he needed to stop his drinking so he could be "clear headed" for the mass murder he was about to commit a day later.

It's a part of the healthcare crisis that we really don't discuss at all - the way mental illness is essentially ignored, left untreated and often improperly medicated. Many addicts, it turns out, are turning to alcohol and drugs for relief from depression, or bipolar disorders, or other problems that could, with proper care, be dealt with and managed.

I don't know what we'll find out about Diane Schuler, but this much seems clear: a woman, drunk and high at 10 in the morning, driving her kids home, vodka bottle sloshing around her minivan (a broken bottle recovered after the accident)... isn't someone just waiting for the party to start. And then too, I feel compelled to say this isn't about some judgment about who's good or bad in these situations, or about judging everyone who takes a drink or a uses a drug. The point here is simpler, and harder: when we see so much evidence about links between drinks and drugs, mental illness and life threatening behavior... why aren't we more convinced that we need to do more to stop it?

Eat It

The blogosphere, I expect, will all have to weigh in on Michael Pollan's musings in this week's New York Times Magazine - it's a thin week, and there's little else to do at the beach house or the country house... or wherever upscale yuppies drive to just outside the city. Myself, I think Pollan's finally given himself away, and offered little in the way of useful rethinking about food and cooking.

Up to a point. I think my main objection to Pollan's sour take - that we don't cook anymnore and the culture encourages us not to - is just that so many of us try to fight against just such certainties. I like to cok, I always have. When I was 12, I had to fight the traditional gendered expectations of my junior high teachers and Administration to get a place taking Home Economics, rather than shop. I wasn't likely to do carprentry... but I did have to cook weekly meals for my family since my mom worked.

Although I'm not a huge cooking fan of Julia Child (I've never made a French Chef recipe, and I tend to agree the kind of French cooking she espoused is somewhat passe), I watched the show and I agree with the assessment of others - and the coming Julie and Julia movie - that The French Chef made you feel good about wanting to cook. Listening to Julia Child's passion and her enthusiasm... who didn't want to at least try?

At the same time, though, I think Pollan is laboring through some dull preconceptions that one doesn't have to share - his sense that Child pushed creative cooking on the "Feminine Mystique" generation of early second wave feminists feels forced. I don't remember it that way, and I think, as both my mom and her sister noted, the complexities of cooking in their day was as much involved as any sense of dawning feminism; and Pollan undercuts himself by admitting that most of us, not just women, and not even just women working outside the home, take much less time to cook than we have in the past.

I agree with Pollan that the Food Channel has moved away from celebrating cooking to celebrating eating, with similarly disastrous results; and that its selling of "celebrity chefs" is weird and off putting (though I think his generous descriptions of Emeril Legasse as genius are a stretch; I've eaten in Emeril's restaurants, and they're okay, but not overwhelming). But who's watching? As much as my foodie friends know the Food Network shows... they're cooking lives come from other sources and inspirations. Pollan says nothing about the interest in cookbooks or the success of an outlet like Williams Sonoma, key indicators of the culture of cooking, I think, is still out there.

Yes, we have a culture focused on quick cook colutions, fast eating, and often unhealthy options. But, as Pollan is quick to lecture us, we have a corporate dominated food production complex to congratulate for that, and while all the negative aspects need to be shown, it's also the case that Pollan's arguments for local growing and sustainable food policies don't sell well, partly because they seem superior and classist. We didn't all grow up in a home where Mom stayed home, watched the French Chef and followed Julia Child. And our food realities kind of have to accept that, like it or not, we have a culture bias to seeing cooking as cumbersome and time consuming... and a function, often, of class.

Fixing our food issues- getting better agricultural policies, helping to encourage more people to cook their own food (it actually helps diet) more and with more natural ingredients - are important, and worthwhile goals. How we do it, I think, is indeed embodied in Julia Child - it's passionate, it's positive, and it leaves room for people to mess up and go their own way. That Pollan can't quite see that - or can't quiet figure out how to encourage it - is, I think, indicative of where the "food movement" is going wrong. And as long as he's here to harangue us about not being good enough... I suspect a ;lot of people will just want to stay on the couch that much longer, eating it.

When I Want It, I'll Ask For It

After a fairly hellacious three days of coffee mongering, I was relieved to discover that my diet hadn't been drastically up-ended...

Yes, I am on a diet.

Being in a wedding this fall, and deciding that I had to do something different, I've made some changes. No fast food. Lots of salads and soups. So far, it's working, and, as I said, it seems to hold up even during the stressful moments. We'll see what develops.

But a funny thing has happened on the way to living my diet - a lot of advice and commentary, some solicited, some not, on whether it is the "right" diet. I've had tons of "helpful" suggestions, thoughts on calories and meal planning and specific food choices and food groups and nutrients and so much more.

And frankly... I'm a little weary of the input. But all the commentary has got me thinking about what all the "dietary expertise" says about our culture and our food politics, just now.

Deserts... Oases... And Other Fantastic Lands

I finally bit the bullet this week and registered over at Change.org; I encourage you to do the same (though a certain regular reader/writer got there well before me). As a result, I've been, er, exposed to a lot of new ideas, people, and discussions, now that I can comment to my little heart's content (plus, I need a new conversation place... Ezra's just not doing it like he used to).

One of Red's fellow guest posters, Greg Plotkin, has been taking up the topic of food and poverty. In a fairly provocative post, he recently suggested that, despite serious misgivings, it might be worth considering that Wal Mart's foray into the Chicago city market might not be a bad thing, given the problem with "food deserts" in an urban area like Chicago, where access to fresh groceries is very limited.

This has led to an interesting discussion of the various ways to look at Wal Mart... but it got me wondering... just what are we dealing with in this notion of food deserts? I said as much to Greg:

I also have to be honest: I'm skeptical of the "food desert" issue; while I've seen some indication of challenges finding groceries in some neighborhoods, when I lived in New York, I also find it overstated - Manhattan lacks large grocery stores all over, because of space limitations; only in the past 15 years or so did I see new building construction really adapt to the need for groceries anywhere. In Harlem, much as anywhere, there are places to get groceries. They're not all great, they're not all great on price... but they are there. And they were there.

Greg replied:

Weboy, if you want to read the whole Chicago "food desert" report you can find it here:  http://www.marigallagher.com/projects/

So I went... and that led to some interesting avenues.

Doobie Doobie Do... Er, Don't

Since I gave into discussing the Phelps story, I suppose its worth mentioning two recent developments.

First, angry potheads have launched a boycott of Kellogg's, for dropping Phelps, the only company to do so. That seems fair, after all, since Kellogg's is calling pot smoking incompatible with representing wholesome cereals (part of a complete breakfast... if you eat a lot of other actually nutritional stuff). Still, I'm not quite sure eliminating the munchie market for late night gobbling of Froot Loops or Apple Jacks constitutes an impactful boycott... and, well, have you ever seen potheads follow through on this sort of thing? Okay, have you ever seen potheads follow through on... hey, are those brownies? In fact, have you really seen a lot of angry potheads? ("You're bringing me down, man.") I'm trying to take it seriously, honest... but I can't stop giggling. Or maybe that's the weed.

Second, the South Carolina sheriff who threatened to prosecute Phelps has followed through, sort of; so far, there have been eight arrests, many for possession and one for intent to distribute, and the guy who was the owner of the bong had it confiscated and was arrested, even though wasn't at the party (but apparently tried to sell the thing on e-Bay). Many of the "live free or die" legalization folks hope this sideshow will underscore the needless prosecution of drug possession... I'm not so sure; though I think we waste a lot of time and money and resources chasing down drug offenses, I think the pro-legalization arguments are simply shot through with flaws that can't be surmounted (and pot legalization types struggle to separate their case from heroin and cocaine, which are much dicier arguments). Better, I think, if the Phelps sideshow can reinvigorate the larger discussion of drug use and abuse in America, and get us to focus more seriously on treatment rather than prosecution for people caught using. I'm not sure some college dude caught with pounds of pot is going to evoke a lot of sympathy for legalization. Unfortunately, I think a lot of partying college students also don't create the right frame for looking at people with drug problems who desperately need help, either.

In sum I think all we've got is an entertaining evening of bong hits, froot loops, and Court TV. And so it goes.