Notes from the Weekend

It's 5 a.m. and I'm wide awake. My back is bothering me a bit this morning -- just some muscle aches, maybe because I went running yesterday morning, or maybe because of the way I slept. Anyway, I decided to get up and write a bit. I'm at Dave's and Ernie is lying next to me on the couch, looking thoroughly puzzled about why I'm up before the sun.

Anyway, it's been a great weekend. I came out to Dave's on Friday night and we've pretty much been homebodies. Dave cooked Saturday night, making trout en papillote, in which fish fillets are cooked inside a parchment paper shell. It was a DELICIOUS meal, maybe my favorite of all the things he's made so far. (Admittedly that's a tough call, though!) Our friend Adam came over and we drank wine and watched "Top Secret!" which may be one of the funniest dumb movies ever made. It's a Val Kilmer spy farce from about 1984 -- I remember going to see it at a drive-in with my high school girlfriend. We thought it was a hoot then, too!

Yesterday, after I ran, Dave and I drove over to a neighboring town to shoot some more graffiti I saw from the train. It's always a fun challenge after seeing graffiti along the tracks to try to figure out how to get to it by car and on foot. In this case, we had to drive into an industrial area in Edison, wind back through some factories and walk along a rail spur until we got to the back wall of a shipping facility. But there it all was -- nice, bright new pieces, too. I don't have my cable to upload the photos -- that will have to wait until I get back to the city today.

Then we went to see Ang Lee's movie "Taking Woodstock," which I'm sorry to say I didn't enjoy as much as I thought I would. Ang Lee's movies are notoriously slow-paced, and sometimes that technique works ("The Ice Storm," "Brokeback Mountain"). In this case, though, it just seemed a little tedious, and it's pretty tough to make a subject like Woodstock tedious. There was a great scene where the protagonist has a psychedelic acid trip in a van, but there were also a few too many '60s cliches (burning bras, burning draft cards), some scenes that sort of went nowhere, and some characters that were seriously underdeveloped. Lee was very faithful to the music, though, and you could hear famous Woodstock performances by Richie Havens, Melanie, Joan Baez and Janis Joplin in the background as the action unfolds. (He never shows the musicians or the stage, except from afar -- the focus is all on the young people organizing and attending the concert.) Anyway, I wouldn't discourage anyone from seeing it, but be prepared for potential disappointment.

Ernie is now crashed and snoring -- which makes me think I should go back to bed.

(Photo: Arabic-style calligraphy (but not really Arabic) -- a sticker on Fifth Avenue, Aug. 2009)

Hoarders

As I mentioned the other day, Dave is introducing me to the wide world of television. Dave is not an indiscriminate TV watcher, so I’m learning about pretty good shows -- I like several on the Food Network like Iron Chef (“Fukosan!”) and Barefoot Contessa, for example.

But my favorite show so far is on A&E. It’s called “Hoarders.”

This show is FASCINATING. It’s about people who amass such huge quantities of disorganized stuff that they literally are in danger of losing their homes and children. They often have bedrooms stuffed to the rafters with boxes and bags, kitchens full of decaying food, and living rooms that are so crowded there’s nowhere to sit. As for bathrooms, well, I’m not even going to go there.

These people are not merely messy. They’re ill. Their approach to possessions is often tied up with personal feelings of unhappiness or emptiness, or control issues, or fears of losing what little money and independence they have. They save everything, and they save it badly.

The show brings teams of organizers into their homes, and usually within a few days conditions are livable. But the task is never easy, and it’s always a spectacle.

Sure, the show is partly a gross-out fest. You can’t help but go “Eeeeew!” at the rotting pumpkin buried beneath debris in the woman’s kitchen, or the piles of used toilet paper on the guy’s bathroom floor. (Sorry -- I went there after all.)

But the creators go to great pains to show the audience that hoarders are afflicted with a disorder, and they are always respectful. The hoarders themselves make all the decisions about what stays and what goes, while the organizers try to help them understand the nature of their condition.

I love this show because, first of all, it’s so NOT me. I live at the opposite extreme of this spectrum -- I am preternaturally organized, a condition that, come to think of it, is symptomatic of its own mental baggage!

I am also fascinated by extremes in behavior. I'm generally a person of very even, moderate demeanor. Anything about addictions, obsessions and the like just captivates me.

I often think I would make an excellent professional organizer. Maybe if journalism goes bust, that can be my second career choice. Wonder if “Hoarders” would hire me?

(Photo: Lexington Avenue, Aug. 2009)

Confessions

Joni Mitchell is often thought of as a “confessional” songwriter, one who reveals details of her emotional life and experience through her music. Likewise, many poets are considered “confessional” – Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell.

I realize as I’m reading this Joni Mitchell book, “Will You Take Me As I Am” by Michelle Mercer, that I enjoy confessional writers. I’m sure that’s what appealed to me about Mitchell when I first heard her music years ago; likewise, it’s what I enjoy about Plath, who is one of my favorite poets. (And who is unfairly considered dreary and morbid because of her untimely end.)

But the term puzzles me a bit. I wonder what distinguishes “confessional” writing from any kind of first-person writing. It seems to me that whenever you write about yourself, you draw on the material of your life. Even fiction writers, working with imaginary characters, do that. What’s the line between confessing and not?

I enjoy reading about people’s inner lives, and the ways they confront the difficulties of daily experience. I think many of us do – hence the explosion in the popularity of memoirs. (And as we’ve seen in recent years, with books like James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces” and Augusten Burroughs’ “Running with Scissors,” the line between fiction and memoir can also be somewhat vague.)

I’m impressed with writers who take on life’s issues honestly, and maintain a truthful tone. Mercer, in her book, points to Dan Fogelberg as an example of a songwriter who deals dishonestly with such issues, and uses his song “The Leader of the Band” as an example. She’s right – that song is pure sentimental pablum. I never liked it, and I never really thought about why I didn’t, but Mercer hit the nail on the head. It just isn’t truthful.

A lack of truthfulness is one of the flaws I detect in my own writing. I have a deeply ingrained need to maintain a façade of happiness and equilibrium, an “everything’s OK” perspective. It’s so deeply ingrained that I often don’t recognize when things aren’t OK in my own life. My writing often reflects that sort of shallow happiness that comes of not examining life too closely.

I certainly have confessional tendencies, which isn’t surprising, since it’s the type of writing I enjoy. (And what blogger doesn’t, after all?) But I think I need to work on exposing more of myself, being more brave, being more truthful. Not sure how to go about it. Perhaps Joni will inspire!

(Photo: IHOP parking lot, Elizabeth, N.J., August 2009)

Learning about "Blue"

I’ve been reading Michelle Mercer’s book “Will You Take Me As I Am,” about Joni Mitchell and the years of her “Blue” period, when she recorded her best-known and most acclaimed albums.

The centerpiece of those years, stretching from the late ‘60s through 1976, is the album “Blue,” which came out in 1971. “Blue” has long been one of my favorite albums, and I’m hardly alone in this – it’s often cited as one of the best and most influential recordings of the last 50 years. (On Rolling Stone’s list of the top 500 albums of all time, it’s number 30.)

I’ve learned a lot about Joni from reading this book. For example, I knew she had polio as a child, but I didn’t know how it affected her guitar playing. Apparently she devised some of her unusual chords partly because her left hand has nerve damage, and those chords were easier for her to play.

I also learned that many of Joni’s earlier songs -- such as “The Gallery” and “That Song About the Midway” from the album “Clouds,” “Rainy Night House” and “The Priest” from “Ladies of the Canyon,” and “A Case of You” from “Blue” -- are about Leonard Cohen, with whom Joni had a brief but powerful relationship in the late 1960s.

One of my favorite songs, “The Last Time I Saw Richard,” also from “Blue,” was inspired by a conversation Joni had with a fellow folk singer named Patrick Sky. He said to her one night in a bar in New York, “Oh, Joni, you’re a hopeless romantic. There’s only one way for you to go. Hopeless cynicism.” That comment was the germ of the song.

I also learned that my favorite Led Zeppelin song, "Going to California," was inspired by Joni. The book cites the line, "To find a queen without a king, they say she plays guitar and cries and sings." Sometimes, after singing that line in concert, Robert Plant would say, "Joni." Who knew?

There’s always a risk in reading about your personal idols – you sometimes learn a little too much about them, which makes them human and thus harder to idolize. But so far I'm still in awe of Joni. It’s a fascinating book!

(Photo: Rug store in Manhattan, August 2009)

Lockerbie Bomber

There’s been a lot of controversy over the compassionate release of one of the bombers of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The bomber, a Libyan who has been in prison in Scotland since his conviction, is dying of prostate cancer. The Scottish justice secretary recently decided to allow him to go home to Libya to die.

This decision outraged politicians and many of the 270 victims' family members, who think he should have remained in prison. The images of the bomber disembarking from a plane in Libya to cheering crowds didn’t help the situation. In fact, I’m not sure the controversy would exist were it not for the fact that he received such a jubilant reception.

Here’s my take on it -- I think releasing him was the right thing to do. It showed mercy and compassion, which is ideally a strength of our Western societies and humanity as a whole. Turning away from anger and the urge for revenge, and toward compassion and kindness, is the solution that most religious leaders would endorse and that I think serves as a sound model for justice. That’s not to say there should be no punishment, but we should be able to acknowledge when punishment has been served and circumstances require a new course of action.

Where everything went wrong was in Libya’s reception of the bomber. The Libyan government should have ushered him into the country quietly, without fanfare. The fact that he got a hero’s welcome reminds us that we must continue to explore the reasons that some in the Arab world maintain such anger toward the West. We will never overcome that hatred until we understand it and learn to address it in a productive way.

(Photo: Shadows on the old Casino, Asbury Park, N.J., Aug. 2009)

Figs and Aliens

Have you seen "District 9" yet? It's a terrific movie -- definitely not for the faint-hearted, because it contains some bloody violence, but well-made and relevant. Dave and I went yesterday without knowing a thing about the plot, and we were stunned. We couldn't stop talking about it.

Briefly -- and I won't give too much away -- it's about aliens who come to earth near Johannesburg, and then can't leave. They're housed in their own district in the city, and become subject to discrimination and disenfranchisement -- drawing interesting parallels with South Africa's real political history. The film explores the interaction between the aliens and humans, and the ways they treat each other and come to identify with each other -- or not.

I had a good weekend. I spent Friday and Saturday here in the city, going to the gym, cleaning the apartment and hanging out with the cat. Then I took the train to New Jersey and Dave and I cooked dinner on Saturday. I made this fig recipe from my blog pal Barbara, and enjoyed it -- we served it as a side dish, but Dave wondered what it would be like with a protein (meat? chicken? tofu?), which is an interesting idea.

Our friend Adam came over and we spent the evening with him, watching "Project Runway," which I'd never seen before. It was pretty fun, I have to admit. Watching TV with Dave is giving me a cultural education -- I know more about the Food Network now than I ever thought I would!

I finally finished "Guns, Germs and Steel." I wouldn't say I loved it. I thought it was long and repetitive, though some of the ideas are interesting. For example, the author asserts that dominant civilizations arose in Europe not because Europeans were smarter or more innovative, but because they had better resources at their disposal -- nutritious varieties of native food crops, easily domesticated animals. That, in turn, was due partly to the positioning of the Eurasian continent, on an east-west axis where crops were more easily shared among societies than on north-south continents with many different climatic zones. It definitely provided some food for thought, but I'm glad to be done with it!

(Photo: Cyclops smiley face in Asbury Park, N.J., August 2009)

Gin in Asbury Park

I spent a wonderful afternoon with Dave on Thursday in Asbury Park, where we later met my friend Mark for dinner. Asbury Park, you may remember, is a somewhat faded but resurgent tourist town on the Jersey Shore, and Mark lives nearby.


Dave and I drove down that afternoon (I actually drove -- a rarity for this New York City boy!) and parked near the beach. Mark gave us some ideas about places to check out, so we walked along Cookman Avenue, which is lined with quaint little stores. I bought Ernie and Ruby some dog biscuits at a shop called “Asbury Bark” (how cute is THAT?) and we found some funky little antique stores full of everything from modernist furniture to feather boas. We also explored the adjacent community of Ocean Grove, which is bursting with quaint, colorful gingerbread and Victorian architecture. We walked back along the boardwalk, where kids were playing in fountains near the great looming skeleton of the old Asbury Park Casino.

We’d agreed to meet Mark for a drink before dinner, so we went to a bar near the beach. I was starving and we’d been walking in the sun for a while, but nonetheless, I ordered a martini. Dave quite sensibly ordered wine. Mark arrived, we talked some more, and eventually got another round -- which meant a second martini for me. On an empty stomach.

I’m sure you can see where this is going, and trust me, it wasn’t pretty. We eventually had to leave dinner early so I could just get home and into bed. (I did not drive back!)


I woke up this morning feeling fine, though embarrassed and self-critical. (“What kind of a lazy pathetic Buddhist am I? How mindful was that, for Pete’s sake?”) Eventually I tempered the self-criticism with the recognition that I’m a human being, and sometimes I screw up. C’est la vie.

But as you know, I've had these conversations with myself before, always prompted by a cocktail or two. So I am making a solemn vow: No more hard liquor. I was never much of a drinker, but as I get older I just can’t tolerate that stuff anymore. From now on, I’m sticking to beer or wine.

Aside from that little mishap, it was a great day!

(Top: The Asbury Park Casino, from inside. Middle: A shop on Cookman Avenue. Bottom: The Casino, from the outside on the boardwalk.)