tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27674984892033343272024-03-18T09:54:48.750-07:00Strawberry Fields WhateverRock-and-Roll Writing by Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane FauldsElizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.comBlogger347125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-54783637970187553132023-12-31T11:55:00.000-08:002023-12-31T12:45:41.747-08:00Things of the Year: Lindsey Buckingham, Black Licorice Ice Cream<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>LAURA'S THING OF THE YEAR: LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM</b></span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">2023 was a really boring year for me. I took a six-month long data analytics course between April and October, so I spent most of my year doing weird computer math and feeling disconnected from my actual personality. In January I went to Arizona, but January doesn’t really count as part of the year. January always has more of a “last year” vibe to it. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The most interesting thing that happened to me in 2023 was that I fell in love with Lindsey Buckingham. I figured out I loved Lindsey Buckingham while walking home from work in the middle of June. I was listening to <i>Tusk</i>, which I first found out existed eighteen years ago, when a girl I used to DJ with played me the first Lindsey song I ever loved, What Makes You Think You’re The One.<br /><br />I loved What Makes You Think You’re The One immediately. Some songs you have to listen to five or six times before they get under your nails, but that one hit straight away. It’s so rowdy, so <i>fresh</i>, like opening up the creaky white front door of your shabby oceanside cottage and being rudely yet invigoratingly smacked in the face by a mean, cold, Novembery breeze.<br /><br />Eighteen years ago, I didn’t understand how it was a Fleetwood Mac song. Back then, I “hated” Fleetwood Mac. I disliked all the popular singles off <i>Rumours</i>, and Stevie Nicks’ genius didn’t speak to me. In the present tense, I think Stevie is <i>fine</i>, though I will always find her witchy aesthetic off-putting. I live in a world of clean lines and brutal honesty, and the art I love reflects it.<br /><br /><i>Why is a boy singing it?</i> I wondered. <i>Since when is there a boy in Fleetwood Mac?</i> I looked at the album cover, which was austere and had a dog on it.<i> I guess on this weird Fleetwood Mac album with a dog on it, a boy sometimes sings.</i> I had no idea who that boy was, or that his name was, of all names, Lindsey. Such a hot name for a dude!<br /><br />But I didn’t care. In that era of my life, all I wanted was a cool song to play to the twelve people that came to my DJ night every Tuesday. I collected 45s, and was enamored by the idea of the physical single: a song as a possession, an artifact, a song that I could hold.<br /> <br /><div style="text-align: center;">**</div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfebnB_ABKlTIFBhQhw-SBwi_uVJrqSqUN5BT0nlTPjpRG7Ofvj6sgROSxqP8x4a53z5eRaTC5iSVJV8YWVDFaEOivuLv9QFcUsPmcKpIOxldn3zaicpK_zBTL5csIYKTke65Ex6xYLaqlH7h-a4YsuGF5DmF12u1QovFFJmmzQMq6XXVLoVzUDXZNSgA/s712/IMG_4963.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="712" data-original-width="585" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfebnB_ABKlTIFBhQhw-SBwi_uVJrqSqUN5BT0nlTPjpRG7Ofvj6sgROSxqP8x4a53z5eRaTC5iSVJV8YWVDFaEOivuLv9QFcUsPmcKpIOxldn3zaicpK_zBTL5csIYKTke65Ex6xYLaqlH7h-a4YsuGF5DmF12u1QovFFJmmzQMq6XXVLoVzUDXZNSgA/w526-h640/IMG_4963.jpg" width="526" /></a><br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">For seventeen years, I was content with loving What Makes You Think You’re The One as a unique object. No part of me was interested in further exploring the austere-looking album with a dog on it.<br /><br />Last year, in 2022, while watching the excellent though terribly named HBO TV show <i>Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty</i> (Honestly, why didn’t they just call it <i>The Lake Show</i>? That name was right there waiting for them), I started loving a second song from <i>Tusk</i>: its title track, Tusk. It played over a montage of the 1979/80 Los Angeles Lakers winning a bunch of games dazzlingly, and was so monstrous and bombastic that I had choice but to Shazam it. It’s so embarrassing to Shazam a song. Everyone is at their personal most vulnerable while Shazaming.<br /><br />I will probably always associate Tusk with vintage basketball, and with athleticism in general. I love listening to Tusk while going ham on the elliptical machine or stomping exuberantly down a city street. This past July, I was soberly walking down Dundas Street behind an obviously drunk girl. The drunk girl was walking alone and clearly going through it: at one point she stopped to smell a flower in someone’s yard, then turned on a dime and rejected the notion of behaving positively toward a flower and ripped it off its stalk. Then she threw it into oncoming traffic. She jumped into the air and tried to smack a way-high-up tree branch with her fingertips. I thought, <i>So many times, I have been you</i>. I hoped she was listening to <i>Tusk</i>.<br /><br /> Tusk is a perfect balance of exactly 50% creepy and 50% celebratory, which is a very Lindsey-y vibe. When I got into it last summer, I intuitively knew that it was written by the same “boy” as my snarling and beloved What Makes You Think You’re The One, a boy who I was by then secure in knowing was named Lindsey Buckingham.</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;">**</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>In May of this year, I was at work, working. I was sitting at the bar, entering some numbers into columns on my laptop. As a function of whatever “70s daytime chill” Spotify playlist someone had indifferently put on, Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain began to play. I’m sure I had some baseline negative reaction to it in my head, then went back to not caring about it, then noticed I was actually sort of liking it. I started involuntarily drumming along to it on the side of the bar, and possibly even grooving a little, like with my shoulders or whatever. Disgusting! I think it’s unsightly to do things like chair-dance in public; you should sit still like a big girl. But, unprecedented as it was, something about The Chain was calling out to me, and I announced to whoever happened to be in my vicinity: “This is the most I’ve ever loved The Chain in my life!”<br /><br />The next day, I walked across the city from my apartment to my dad’s. I was listening to music on headphones, and after about fifteen minutes of listening to boring whatever, I remembered how excellent The Chain had sounded the day before, and started craving it.<br /><br />I gave in, and listened to The Chain on repeat for the remainder of my walk. It was a memorable walk. I walked through three neighbourhoods, and in each neighbourhood, I realized, I looked like something completely different. In my own neighbourhood, I looked like what I was: a sort of cool woman in her late thirties on an off-day. In the next neighbourhood, King West, hordes of generationally wealthy young’uns were dressed up to eat fancy bad brunch by ring-light, and I looked like the scrub of the year. To them I’m sure I came off like a depressing fifty-year-old. Finally, I passed St. Lawrence Market and reached my dad’s neighbourhood, populated by unimaginative tourists and fifty-plus condo dwellers, where I sparkled like a fabulous supermodel. <i>Looks mean nothing</i>, I thought. <i>I look like nothing.</i><br /><br />Formally, The Chain doesn’t count as a Lindsey song: The Chain is the only Fleetwood Mac song co-authored by all five members of the band. When I listen to it now, I wonder which contributions are Lindsey’s, and if the Lindsey-fifth composes the bulk of what calls out to me. The part of The Chain I love most, and think of often, is of course the lyric, “If you don’t love me now, you will never love me again,” which is an endearingly/ irritatingly dramatic thing to say. To me it sounds like a Lindsey lyric, since Lindsey lyrics are often bolstered by an undercurrent of mean-spiritedness. He’s always pettily making some point about how someone else’s bad behaviour is ruining his day, then making a judgment call about it. These are not the most virtuous of vibes, but they’re legitimate vibes we have all experienced, and every real vibe deserves representation.<br /><br />Mostly I like to think about whether or not <i>If you don’t love me now, you will never love me again</i> is universally true. It’s a grand assertion, which I love, but the dark side of a grand assertion is that they very often mean nothing at all. Very often, they’re just some idiotic thing a drama queen said to get a reaction out of somebody else.<br /><br /> I don’t think “If you don’t love me now, you will never love me again” is sometimes true and sometimes isn’t. I think it must either be a universal truth or else complete bullshit. On the one hand, it’s reasonable to think that love is a constant: if you love someone, you love someone, always have and always will. Love, using this logic, will do anything to stay alive. It will float like a vapour outside an airplane window and ooze through tiny crevices like Alex Mack. Severing a love connection is like beheading someone. There is no coming back from it. <br /><br />Or maybe not! Maybe love is indifferent and we all make way too big a deal out of it. I once knew a man who likened sex to playing tennis: “back and forth, back and forth, back and forth,” he said, so blasé, shrugging, like all of it was nothing. Maybe love is like that too.<br /><br />Maybe love isn’t turbulent so much as it’s athletic, one person vs. another, a competitive and constructed state that Lindsey Buckingham entirely deserves to write a defensive lyric about, abruptly ending the game with a cool finality. He wins.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">**</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq5nkyuwpg1yB-Lb_7JSrzur-MHwDMhqZvb6DPXx7HvIIAfJRMYZmDA4OJa5aJqaiBnY4fDnSyPXI4LllFRAvxOlEKqKy3ujsEnYUDUdrh1W9l4IBi3q65UNqXIKwVzVlwo86V-buqjLbpVl1UNj1L061ca5o433WFM7JPNfkhqscVq4QV4M7WIxK7gyE/s712/IMG_4962.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="712" data-original-width="585" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq5nkyuwpg1yB-Lb_7JSrzur-MHwDMhqZvb6DPXx7HvIIAfJRMYZmDA4OJa5aJqaiBnY4fDnSyPXI4LllFRAvxOlEKqKy3ujsEnYUDUdrh1W9l4IBi3q65UNqXIKwVzVlwo86V-buqjLbpVl1UNj1L061ca5o433WFM7JPNfkhqscVq4QV4M7WIxK7gyE/w526-h640/IMG_4962.jpg" width="526" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>I don’t care about <i>Rumours</i>. For the most part, I think it’s tacky. Even the cover is offensive to me, with no Lindsey in sight, just Stevie and Mick Fleetwood looking like the most affected high school theatre nerds you ever met in your life. Mick’s limp little ponytail photographed from that hard side angle makes me feel depressed to share a birthday with him (which I do). <br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">There are three Lindsey songs on <i>Rumours</i>, but one of them is Go Your Own Way, which sounds like twenty thousand car commercials and doesn’t count. So,<br /><br />There are two Lindsey songs on <i>Rumours</i>: Never Going Back Again and Second Hand News. Never Going Back Again is the one I like less of the two, although I do like it. It sounds very fresh and clear, encapsulating a feeling of waking up in the morning, opening your eyes and having an overwhelming feeling of decisiveness about your day. Sorry to harp on the montage thing, but I love a fucking montage, and Never Going Back Again sounds like it should be playing in a Nora Ephron movie montage of the main character cleaning her house, and the cleaning of the house would be a metaphor for the untangling of her soul.<br /><br />Second Hand News, my favourite Lindsey song on <i>Rumours</i>, is a lyrically sadsack-y but sonically jolly romp through the grass featuring Lindsey at his dorkiest, which works. Normally I prefer for Lindsey to be a cool guy, but since <i>Rumours</i> is so intrinsically corny, it’s relevant that he leans in.<br /><br />Many times over the course of this tune, Lindsey sings the non-words, “Doot-doodley-doo.” I’m not a person who would <i>ever</i> respond to any “doot-doodley-doo,” in fact my fear of “doot-doodley-doo -energy is what kept me very far away from Rumours for thirty-eight years, but there is something a little different about a Lindsey “doot-doodley-doo”: it’s a powerful, almost <i>hateful</i>, “doot-doodley-doo.” That nasty/nerdy paradox is intrinsic to the Lindsey Buckingham experience; I can’t think of anyone else in the world who could ever imbue a “doot-doodley-doo” with such palpable, genuine violence.<br /><br />But of course the crown jewel of the Second Hand News lyric is, “Won’t you lay me down in the tall grass and let me do my stuff?” When I first heard Lindsey ask this chill and beautiful question, I interpreted it to mean “Will everybody leave me alone for one goddamned second of my life so I can take refuge in the majestic beauty of the natural environment and, like, make art about it?” But after a few more listens, I realized that Lindsey is likelier talking about sex. The preceding lyric— “When times go bad/ And you can't get enough…”— is the tell. And later in the song, there’s a call-back where he sings: “Oh, couldn’t you just let me go down and do my stuff?” and that kind of spells the sex thing out for you.<br /><br />I like this interpretation too. It’s like, “I know our relationship is in deep trouble at the moment, and I don’t feel great about it, but maybe we could just put it out of our minds for tonight and I’ll put a solid effort into having better-than-usual sex with you, which I feel like you’ll be into.” And I’m sorry, but if you can’t relate to using sex as a band-aid solution to momentarily fix your broken relationship, I don’t think that Lindsey Buckingham and I are the right fit for you.<br /><br />One last thing I’d like to say during the sex portion of this essay is that I would be very interested in holding a round table discussion centred around the topic, “Who is a better lover: Mick Fleetwood or Lindsey Buckingham?” I bet a lot of people would want to make the point that Mick is a better lover because he’s less hot and therefore has more to prove, but I strongly disagree with these hypothetical Mick-supporters, which is saying a lot, because in almost any other situation I would big time stand up for the person who has the same birthday as me being better at sex. But I just think it’s really obvious that Lindsey Buckingham can fuck.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">**</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>In June, I finally bit the bullet and started listening to <i>Tusk</i>, the austere Fleetwood Mac album with a dog on the cover. <i>Tusk</i>, I realized, is the perfect Fleetwood Mac album for me. It’s Lindsey-dominant, and the Lindsey Universe is chilly, earthy, meandering and spare. Emotionally, it’s on the depressing side of neutral; organizationally, it reminds me of two other strange and disjointed albums I love deeply, <i>Sandinista! </i>and <i>The White Album</i>. Let us take a moment to celebrate their adjacent lack of cohesion, and the concept of <i>lack of cohesion</i> in general. I’m over cohesion. I want everything to be oddly shaped and I want all the pointy edges to jut out so everybody’s banging into each other all the time. I want the ambiance to be universally unsettling and I want all the math to stop adding up and I want to revert to the Julian calendar so that it will never be the real day it’s supposed to be again. I want to listen to <i>Tusk</i>.<br /><br />I’ve finally gotten us to the point where I’m walking home from work in the middle of June, the time from the first sentence in this essay, when I figured the whole thing out.<br /><br />I was walking home from work, listening to <i>Tusk</i>. Not That Funny comes after That’s All For Everyone, the first of two times on the album when you get two Lindsey songs in a row. There’s a moment in That’s All when Lindsey sings the words <i>I can’t stay, I can’t deceive</i> in a voice so heart-wrenching it makes you want to get a fucking tattoo about it. Every time I hear it, the I can’t stay makes me feel like someone I’m in love with just told me that they love me— it’s a similar style of feeling seen. I went on a meditation retreat last summer, and this thing happened to me where I stopped being able to understand what my personality is, which was uncomfortable but a win overall, since personalities are pretty futile. Since then, the only thing in the world I can think of as being “my personality” is the sound of Lindsey Buckingham singing <i>I can’t stay. I can’t deceive</i> is beautiful too, but I don’t think I’m <i>I can’t deceive </i>yet. <i>I can’t deceive</i> is my aspiration.<br /><br />The famous thing about Not That Funny is that Lindsey Buckingham sang the entire thing while in a push-up position. I actually don’t know how famous that fact is. I learned it on the Not That Funny Wikipedia entry, my go-to source for all things Lindsey Buckingham. Says the Not That Funny Wikipedia entry, “Retrospectively, Marcello Carlin of Uncut described it as a "disturbing" song on which Buckingham’s near-psychotic guitar and vocal screams approach Pere Ubu territory.” I don’t know anything about Pere Ubu or Pere Ubu territory, but it makes me feel proud of Lindsey Buckingham that this Marcello person called him “disturbing” <i>and</i> “psychotic” in the space of one sentence.<br /><br />Hearing those two songs in a row, it’s very obvious that they were written by the same guy. Standing in the middle of a short little street I walk down almost every night yet have never bothered to learn the name of, a street that kind of reminds me of England, but doesn’t, I opened up the Wikipedia entry for <i>Tusk</i> and saw that every song I loved was written by Lindsey. I thought, “What a hot name for a dude!”<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">**</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiegxZwEjxnngSMlXOQUW1uG79oGT9wKFYH8fx4zAE3q2EPRQ1z7w_pl5C5FZK_4s5ipXqu51vgqM7Mi3xRQn4ey8I7kyvJO9x3-i-isSb0l2uUCfNKL19wmnChSrYIqeQt1EHxGzmycv3jD0FXviMI_Ki8YZ7fsqi_Oa5nvJNwSfiOb-qP6M9GJP-hUAQ/s585/IMG_4961.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="585" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiegxZwEjxnngSMlXOQUW1uG79oGT9wKFYH8fx4zAE3q2EPRQ1z7w_pl5C5FZK_4s5ipXqu51vgqM7Mi3xRQn4ey8I7kyvJO9x3-i-isSb0l2uUCfNKL19wmnChSrYIqeQt1EHxGzmycv3jD0FXviMI_Ki8YZ7fsqi_Oa5nvJNwSfiOb-qP6M9GJP-hUAQ/w400-h394/IMG_4961.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />In the years following my short-lived DJ era, I became a lyrics-centric music-listener, and to truly love a song I needed to love the lyrics. I needed them to express a sentiment that I related to, and I needed them to be written by a person who I believed was similar to myself. I was dependent on music, <i>co</i>-dependent, asked a lot of it. I needed whatever assortment of sounds coming from my headphones to make me feel like I wasn’t alone. But in adulthood, I don’t crave that feeling at all.<br /><br />Every day, I feel both deeply alone and not alone at all, and the music I’m listening to plays no role in either state. I just want to listen to the sound of songs sounding good. It’s a quiet, simple pleasure.<br /><br />On an afternoon in early July, I crossed an imaginary barrier into knowing each Lindsey song on <i>Tusk</i> as an individual entity. Prior to that afternoon, they were all sort of mushed up together, like looking across the street without glasses on. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure which was which. But with time they all came into focus, and I became aware of my relationship to each of them, and I knew when I needed which, and what it might be good for, at what time of day it might sound best. Another six months has since passed, and now I know them even better. I know every word to every one of Lindsey’s songs. I even know all the words that aren’t the words to his songs, though could have been— one morning in August, I was taking an incredibly long subway ride to the go watch a full day of tennis at the National Bank Open (Carlos Alcaraz lost that day, and my dad texted me, <i>Thanks for jinxing Carlos,</i> which I thought was unfair). I was anxious on the subway, anxious about work and school and life and, ultimately, nothing, and I listened to all the Lindsey demos, outtakes, and early versions from the deluxe version of <i>Tusk</i>. The one that hit me hardest was his earliest version of That’s All For Everyone, which features a completely different lyric than the final cut: <i>I’m so broken</i>, he sings, <i>But that’s alright.</i> It’s an unoriginal, unimpressive lyric, something that a teenager would write, but he sings it like a wounded deer wailing, and every time I hear it, I feel something, and now when I listen to the cocky, sober album version, where it’s replaced with the damning I kill for everyone, I can hear the softer sentiment echoing behind it. In an early, punky demo of I Know I’m Not Wrong, he repeatedly wonders, <i>Don’t know why I have to be so strong.</i> This sentiment doesn’t make it to the final version, where it’s replaced with the deflecting <i>Don’t blame me/ Please be strong. </i>I am obsessed with wondering why he might have decided to make the change, if it was an act of self-preservation or if maybe he just didn’t feel like that anymore.<br /><br />My favourite Lindsey song on <i>Tusk</i> is called Walk A Thin Line. It happened on that afternoon in early July, walking down the ugliest street in my neighbourhood, a street that is literally impossible for me to romanticize in writing. I heard the green swirls of it, and I knew something. I left writing about it until the end of this essay because it’s my favourite and for some reason that makes it the most important, but really, because it’s my favourite it’s the one I have the least to say about, or the one that I find loving the hardest to explain. It does contain the lyric “Fate takes time,” which is major. Maybe I’ll get a tattoo of it, but probably not. I take it too seriously. Unlike “If you don’t love me now, you will never love me again,” I knew “Fate takes time” was unequivocally true the second I heard it. I was so proud of Lindsey for thinking up something so smart.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>LIZ'S THING OF THE YEAR: BLACK LICORICE ICE CREAM & OTHER BEAUTIFUL FOODS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's a list of all my favorite things I ate/drank in 2023:</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">i. On December 16 I flew from Los Angeles to Massachusetts for Christmas and then on December 17 I flew to Las Vegas for a wedding on the 18th and then on the morning of the 19th I flew back to Massachusetts. It was a weird move and at first I had major anxiety about making it happen, but then on the first day of December I was driving home listening to "Margaret" by Lana Del Rey and when Lana sang "By the way, the party's December 18" I was like <i>Oh my god you're right.</i> The wedding was at the chapel where Frank Sinatra married Mia Farrow and Ben Affleck married Jennifer Lopez and the minister was an Elvis impersonator and the reception was at the Punk Rock Museum where I took <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C1fJ3qxpLzH/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">this good picture</span></a>. I was going to do an exhaustive food diary for my trip but instead here's a quick little list: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">-cheeseburgers and fries from room service at midnight the night I flew in, plus some sauv blanc in an ice bucket and a few sips of Scott's vanilla milkshake</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">-a Bloody Mary in the lounge at the Peppermill and then banana pancakes with scrambled eggs and sausage links and coffee</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">-a birria quesadilla from the taco truck at the reception and then a piece of confetti wedding cake, plus some champagne </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">-a "Nurse Ginger Greene" smoothie from the hotel lobby (spinach, kale, ginger, avocado, lemon, banana, date, maple), which I drank at like 6:30 in the morning while walking around the Nutcracker-themed display in the Bellagio botanical gardens</span></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigd9PtHphl83VFC0TKON8ZxVdkUpPvO8MAbkNGZILGBnpYWBm8I2HsFm_Dy96nhyKcqg8rFRxWA3Ycdva3gjLYTuQFu2J1uEMeS9Da_5pmR2lgFAPFJtTSq2dXWMibF47JiMd0mjPXAs6zR4guhWcfTgu51Ge8_OXHWLwQYbHLwK9Gc2EpDPcJL8sUcgk/s1800/A33D3909-97A1-454B-8FEF-57DF84F86ACC.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1440" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigd9PtHphl83VFC0TKON8ZxVdkUpPvO8MAbkNGZILGBnpYWBm8I2HsFm_Dy96nhyKcqg8rFRxWA3Ycdva3gjLYTuQFu2J1uEMeS9Da_5pmR2lgFAPFJtTSq2dXWMibF47JiMd0mjPXAs6zR4guhWcfTgu51Ge8_OXHWLwQYbHLwK9Gc2EpDPcJL8sUcgk/w512-h640/A33D3909-97A1-454B-8FEF-57DF84F86ACC.JPG" width="512" /></span></a></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">ii. In May my sister and I went to Egypt to visit my best friend and our first weekend there we stayed at the Old Cataract, which is the hotel where Agatha Christie wrote <i>Death on the Nile</i>. At breakfast there was strawberry juice, lemon mint juice, carrot juice, dried apricots and figs, halva, whole kiwis, pancakes with Nutella, custard-filled donuts, flaky pastries with whole dates inside, a million other magnificent things. I drank strawberry juice almost every day and fell in love with mahalabia (rose water milk pudding), and before our 3 a.m. flight home I got an Oreo McFlurry at the Cairo airport. And on the way to Cairo I met my sister in Miami and we had dinner at a Cuban place in South Beach where they sold Alka-Seltzer and guava pastries by the register and the salad dressing was homemade Italian in a Heinz ketchup bottle. We sat at the counter and I had shrimp and rice and beer and it was heaven.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4B0WgSwevDYenG2FPk1Cbwej8qnELmKfMQpzaJDvmwuuPuT-IHR5XNhygthAzSUv87sxN8aE5nKw2w1SE_9s-MO4quEr1xPsfhUKG6dwXKC2S4AYfarGQ0mOSCDxtL0P9L8dK0-nGnr-Z-H3eBf4ACRB9cpuWg65RLwhCPfmGQ-e5vCGzGFiNLHVy9-w/s1024/miamishrimp.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="822" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4B0WgSwevDYenG2FPk1Cbwej8qnELmKfMQpzaJDvmwuuPuT-IHR5XNhygthAzSUv87sxN8aE5nKw2w1SE_9s-MO4quEr1xPsfhUKG6dwXKC2S4AYfarGQ0mOSCDxtL0P9L8dK0-nGnr-Z-H3eBf4ACRB9cpuWg65RLwhCPfmGQ-e5vCGzGFiNLHVy9-w/w514-h640/miamishrimp.JPG" width="514" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />iii. a cone of black licorice ice cream from Fosselman's in Alhambra, which stained my teeth and tongue and lips black. As an anise experience it's less of a black-jelly-bean scenario and much more akin to Italian cookies on Christmas- a cool little confluence of garish and delicate.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">iv. a cherry and cheese danish from the donut shop in <i>Boogie Nights</i> on a cloudy afternoon in Reseda, where I went to research a short story I had published in <a href="https://www.francescaliablock.com/subscribe" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Lit Angels</span></a> earlier this year. The story is called "A Concept Album About the Feral Cats of Reseda" and I made a playlist to go with it, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4sW1rzU9DcOCgPzqKyX0K0" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">here</span></a>. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">v. Trader Joe's Winter Sangria Seltzer which pairs beautifully with <a href="https://www.marissazappas.com/shop-perfumes-by-marissa/tragedy-oil" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Tragedy Oil</span></a> by Marissa Zappas </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">vi. On a Saturday morning in November my boyfriend and I went to get coffee downtown with a musician guy who's very important to me (I feel weird saying his name but <a href="https://strawberryfieldswhatever.blogspot.com/2013/09/lee-is-free-our-10-favorite-lee-sung_5.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">here's a thing</span></a> Jen May and I wrote 10 years ago, it's really good). I typed coffee just then but really he and my bf split a big French press and I drank an iced matcha made with Earl Grey, essence of pink rose petals, and oat milk, which is exactly the type of floofy drink I only allow myself on special occasions. I wanted to exist in a pink-rose-petal-y state of mind; I wanted to radiate a serene and lovely energy to outshine all my nervousness. I expected the dude to be completely wonderful and he was, and for days afterward I was high on the cute thrill of drinking iced matcha on the sidewalk with someone from one of my favorite bands since I was 14. The big thing I kept thinking about was Christmas morning when I was 16 and my stepdad had bought me that band's third album and after opening presents I went up to my room and put the CD on and got in bed and read <a href="http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/lp/lp4.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Lisa Crystal Carver's liner notes</span></a>, which remain one of the top five most formative literary works of my life. It kinda reminds me of that spoken part in the middle of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTx7KbZFJec" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">"Quest for the Cup"</span></a> that goes: "All your dreams will come true. All my dreams came true, but now I have a bunch of other dreams." </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">vii. I <a href="https://strawberryfieldswhatever.blogspot.com/2023/11/all-our-favorite-beatles-songs-right-now.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">already wrote about</span></a> all my favorite things I cooked this year, but now I feel like showing off some of the cakes I baked:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBImf4DXspQ8DqUyN2Nu50uEmmw9Vz7Smer6-n52R7kf8J48ffGejOHCJcRHTH5NyiQ0ZcmV7paYJ8e4QQo0FiYT5I0y6MEgCWna54DTu3sGqcfHd3xJBbY1rEOXyQ4Wb3ep3nUEa6M4zyGcFKmade6YgqJ23nl-omt3tBVCma9ogZc1OJQkJnivLT2-c/s4032/cake1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBImf4DXspQ8DqUyN2Nu50uEmmw9Vz7Smer6-n52R7kf8J48ffGejOHCJcRHTH5NyiQ0ZcmV7paYJ8e4QQo0FiYT5I0y6MEgCWna54DTu3sGqcfHd3xJBbY1rEOXyQ4Wb3ep3nUEa6M4zyGcFKmade6YgqJ23nl-omt3tBVCma9ogZc1OJQkJnivLT2-c/w480-h640/cake1.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrBfPdwHSvTaYfyM6frkE9qv3MFDksTr60JQv2N760-X9wTE_I8JU00JGdAEjlm1ds4PRVrKyfrdyUYvy6o5acTMbNKQ0lavSCBIlmPs2x_rPCr60paO5aaY_5UA8kXQ6inno5esUxHYChcNaN5Hz4hmjPg8_bGq0rz3F08XqNbEsaZ36Gz-X8Npq-xvs/s3710/cake2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2968" data-original-width="3710" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrBfPdwHSvTaYfyM6frkE9qv3MFDksTr60JQv2N760-X9wTE_I8JU00JGdAEjlm1ds4PRVrKyfrdyUYvy6o5acTMbNKQ0lavSCBIlmPs2x_rPCr60paO5aaY_5UA8kXQ6inno5esUxHYChcNaN5Hz4hmjPg8_bGq0rz3F08XqNbEsaZ36Gz-X8Npq-xvs/w640-h512/cake2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCt2AcBurGeRVRAb3CL0TZL1KuJgq03awyYipjeHemLYNTxPnQ8u2WY92lfkUv72oLmwuWUN_Vjbet4LtWBbO_oN_XZ_3o9Vz2p52o9wNPXUiHvsF1FP5B7t8OqI9HlQ8abqvBTipZ_HnXn5-J2k05Hu8O_-BWTq_O5pc1_R1NNNvnPFtS-M8I3h2U_jw/s1200/pineapple.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1093" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCt2AcBurGeRVRAb3CL0TZL1KuJgq03awyYipjeHemLYNTxPnQ8u2WY92lfkUv72oLmwuWUN_Vjbet4LtWBbO_oN_XZ_3o9Vz2p52o9wNPXUiHvsF1FP5B7t8OqI9HlQ8abqvBTipZ_HnXn5-J2k05Hu8O_-BWTq_O5pc1_R1NNNvnPFtS-M8I3h2U_jw/w582-h640/pineapple.jpg" width="582" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">viii. a Baked Alaska at Lawry's, prepared tableside by a man who spooned blue flames from some sort of magical steel pot, split between me and five of my friends on a Friday night in Beverly Hills </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">ix. a piña colada served in a cracked coconut shell at the Broken Compass, when my sister came to visit in September</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">x. a banana cream pie from Johnny's Pastrami in West Adams, eaten on the ride home from my Friday afternoon writing class in August, in celebration of my 20th anniversary of living in Los Angeles </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">xi. Caesar salad with grilled shrimp + side of fries + a Bloody Mary at the Logan Airport Legal Sea Foods, aka the all-time #1 pre-night-flight airport meal</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">xii. a cute little bottle of Coke at Musso & Frank's, where we got shrimp cocktail to start and I impulse-ordered the avocado cocktail to go with it. I was picturing something archaic and elegant like when Betty Draper orders an avocado stuffed with crabmeat from room service when she and Don stay at the Savoy on Valentine's Day; really it was just an avocado artlessly doused in Thousand Island. It was totally stupid but I felt a great affection for it anyway. Also I just learned that an avocado stuffed with crabmeat is called an avocado mimosa, which is very beautiful and inspiring to me. I love it so much I'm going to make it my entire life concept for 2024. My new year's resolution is avocado mimosa. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVCZrQ9Z2r3_DyiyxFwICf0PZUCS3LuwapD6BqEMN3qQGSDdlASxTNx5OyC6Fs2xBhF-fS0IH2kZ7wK_IdnQKUfxEbhRUiV8N64T8zFhVNVKhkgDh3ExlubC2PYyW5Zp2mUIfdiUhx9cVvb1dUxwTGRgaLMmYWoGFHiP0CyNgi0KTZUDfx7kNDU35tB9E/s3090/musso.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3090" data-original-width="2842" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVCZrQ9Z2r3_DyiyxFwICf0PZUCS3LuwapD6BqEMN3qQGSDdlASxTNx5OyC6Fs2xBhF-fS0IH2kZ7wK_IdnQKUfxEbhRUiV8N64T8zFhVNVKhkgDh3ExlubC2PYyW5Zp2mUIfdiUhx9cVvb1dUxwTGRgaLMmYWoGFHiP0CyNgi0KTZUDfx7kNDU35tB9E/w588-h640/musso.jpg" width="588" /></a></div><br /></div></div>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-21209842843823004142023-11-30T12:08:00.000-08:002023-11-30T12:44:32.214-08:00All Our Favorite Beatles Songs Right Now<p> <span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilhw3iLJ3qf16ZBxZSM_wVLYh4aO_XOdq7VZEkSTH9iGi0XE28lZzsWk_0pTkXMP6ehqOd4ANarXnG6EY6jTIAmOIRo-DO6qRpcjArizrdcht_5iI7kVTrBSnZZGqzbAPXcyZiJIFcqkb0zNA6N4DoG_zUZfbzbP6yeNo-D6i727cYzxbS_A-ur4SHVMs/s1500/Beatles%20in%20Japan.webp" style="clear: left; display: inline; font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="991" data-original-width="1500" height="423" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilhw3iLJ3qf16ZBxZSM_wVLYh4aO_XOdq7VZEkSTH9iGi0XE28lZzsWk_0pTkXMP6ehqOd4ANarXnG6EY6jTIAmOIRo-DO6qRpcjArizrdcht_5iI7kVTrBSnZZGqzbAPXcyZiJIFcqkb0zNA6N4DoG_zUZfbzbP6yeNo-D6i727cYzxbS_A-ur4SHVMs/w640-h423/Beatles%20in%20Japan.webp" width="640" /></a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">BY ELIZABETH BARKER & LAURA JANE FAULDS</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><b>i. CRY BABY CRY (LJ)</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">Cry Baby Cry is a solid second-tier late Beatles song unfairly relegated to the third- or fourth-string due to, in my opinion, poor placement on the White Album tracklist. Cry Baby Cry feels weirdly far away from the group, tucked all the way into the second side of the second record, sandwiched between the convivial but irrelevant Savoy Truffle and the worst vibes Beatles song ever recorded to tape, Revolution 9. Cry Baby Cry and its palpable Side A energy should be up at front with its peers, White Album cool kids Glass Onion and Happiness Is A Warm Gun. It literally hates its life, eternally doomed to hang out with Paul’s most embarrassing wartime ditty and Ringo’s bad lullaby. It’s rare that I stick around long enough to make it to that hidden corner of the White Album, but when I do, stumbling upon Cry Baby Cry feels like finding an exquisite piece of jewelry hidden behind stacks of moth-eaten hand towels in an elderly relative’s hall closet.</span></p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">Cry Baby Cry is charismatic but calm, not too happy/not too sad, slightly creepy, slightly pretty, and distinctly warm. It gives off a low light, like standing in a dark room lit only by the outline of a closed doorframe, which leads to a connected room, in which the lights are on. The lyrics are druggy, but they aren’t psychedelic, although they are surreal. They’re mostly about kings and queens and duchesses doing whatever the fuck thing popped into John Lennon’s mind while he was writing them; I don’t think he really poured his heart and soul into this one, which works. I’d never really noticed or considered the lyric <i>At twelve o’clock a meeting ‘round the table/ For a séance in the dark/ With voices out of nowhere/ Put on specially by the children for a lark </i>until about three minutes before I started writing the preceding paragraph. I was lying on a marshmallowey queen-sized bed in a one-room cabin in the woods, listening to Cry Baby Cry while reading along to the lyrics on Spotify, holding my phone in that embarrassing position where it’s hovering over your face and if you drop it you may legitimately give yourself a black eye.<br /><br />It's very beautiful that no matter how deeply I believe I’ve rinsed every drop of the Beatles out of the Beatles, I am still able to be stunned by their genius. With voices out of nowhere is the most poetic elegant thing and John Lennon just scrawled it down like it was nothing. I might name a novel after it one day.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><b>ii. DIG A PONY (LIZ)</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sometimes people remind me of the part in <i>Confess Fletch </i>when Jon Hamm is interviewing a wannabe influencer and asks her, “Don’t you just hate people who are too poor to afford beauty?” I’ve never seen <i>Confess Fletch </i>but I saw that clip somewhere a few weeks ago, and it felt like a perfect satire of a conversation I’d recently heard that reminded me how sometimes when people make a lot of money they’re not just content with accumulating more — they want to deny other people access to beautiful things, like nature. They want to keep the beautiful nature all to themselves, because they’ve earned it or something, and it’s such a buzzkill when their beautiful-nature consumption is interrupted by the presence of a moneyless person. Which is weird to me, because shouldn’t having lots of money make you <i>more</i> generous? I sound like a dumb hippie but it’s fine.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">A lot of people have way too much money and it grosses me out. I suppose on some level it would be good to transcend complaining about people with too much money ruining the world with their ugly anxieties and bland sensibilities, but I don’t want to transcend it. I hope I hate it more and more. There are moments when I wish I could be soulful about it like George singing “I Me Mine,” but in this situation I’m mostly okay with being a graceless brat.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Once upon a time when I was making an amount of money that possibly qualified me as too poor to afford beauty, I invented this thing where I’d drive three hours up the coast to a hot springs resort where you could rent a hot springs tub for ten bucks an hour. The tubs are in these little wooden huts on a big hill by the ocean; the water is high in sulfur and helps you breathe better and turns your skin all clear and luminous. Post-tub I’d drive to a lost-in-time beach town a few miles away and walk around by the beach and all the groovy beach houses, and sometimes eat an elaborate muffin in a beachside cafe. Then I’d drive the three hours back home, feeling self-contained but in a way that was very lucid and expansive. I first started doing my hot springs trips around the same time Laura and I started writing our Beatles book, so for most of those six hours in the car I’d listen to the Beatles and write Beatles-book stories in my head. It was the era when my LiveJournal was the first result when you googled Starbucks polar bear cookies, which feels poetically correct — my life had the mood of deep secrets colliding with being effusive about something as pointless as a bear-shaped sugar cookie, and the mood sustained for a long time.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>At some point I stopped going up to my hot springs spot. Life got too busy, and I was careless about tending to the part of me that needs to spend at least a day or two a year in a state of uninterrupted devotion to the Beatles and water. A couple years ago I went back again and promised myself I’d start going every two months (I’m a Capricorn, regiment is my best thing), but I slipped up and by the time this fall came around nearly a year had passed since my last visit. The last week of October I finally made the trip, but I had a hard time getting out of my head. I was too horrified by the world to tune it all out, mostly I just felt tired in that heavy-balloon way that rest can’t erase. I left the tubs and went to the ocean and did the cool thing of trying to will myself into a transcendent experience, which of course was a total bust. The closest I got was the realization that one of my new life goals is to see a coyote on a beach.</span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>On the ride home I put on <i>Abbey Road </i>and decided to listen all the way through, as a last-ditch effort to shake myself out of feeling flattened and low. To me <i>Abbey Road</i> is the most reliable shortcut to a Beatlesy state of being, which is physical as well as mental/emotional/spiritual; there’s a lightening and loosening that comes with disengaging from the shit that keeps you on edge in everyday life. It’s like melting but it’s also like snow, like when it’s snowing and you don’t feel inconvenienced or aggrieved by it — you’re fully delighted by watching the world turn all frosted and pillowy and still. It feels like being little and very old at the same time, and if you’re lucky being old means you’ve loved so many people, and now you get to zone out on the falling snow and miss them all but in a way that widens and brightens your heart.</span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">By the time I got to “Oh! Darling” it started working, and there was a big show-offy full moon out that magnified the drama of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)" about ten thousand percent and really brought the whole thing home. It was the first time I’d listened to “You Never Give Me Your Money” in maybe years — it’s my second-favorite Beatles song and I need to withhold it from myself so it hits exactly right at the part when the Beatles all count to seven together, which means more to me than church. After that the whole world warped into a Beatlesy wonderland, and "The End" did the thing where it sounds like the song that plays when you first walk into Heaven.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> I stopped for gas in the middle of nowhere and checked my phone and Matthew Perry had died, and I texted my best friend and then texted Laura and said we should write about our current favorite Beatles songs. Then I drove the rest of the way home listening to the White Album, also known as <i>The Beatles.</i></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I don't remember when or where I listened to "Dig A Pony" that day, but I do know that "Dig A Pony" feels like the opposite of wanting to keep the ocean or a forest or a tree all to yourself. It makes everything feel free like being a coyote on a beach.</span></div><br /><b>iii. REAL LOVE (LJ)</b><br /><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglHhRcCQwfMWOPE-9WL4yy0TzQFCDif-riVfZtabBO0fDSysIYsRhm-jptaVRu093PiVfHqaxgxrv7zTL4vsCgySLlyKHQUldcgh4GylkehwARNXVMs3dM_JHcwP6pS0btGKS20mxT89Jc7rqfaTmeawprky2nlNhGCDlKWVa8pKkXE4yYvxilwZH3d_w/s1170/george.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="738" data-original-width="1170" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglHhRcCQwfMWOPE-9WL4yy0TzQFCDif-riVfZtabBO0fDSysIYsRhm-jptaVRu093PiVfHqaxgxrv7zTL4vsCgySLlyKHQUldcgh4GylkehwARNXVMs3dM_JHcwP6pS0btGKS20mxT89Jc7rqfaTmeawprky2nlNhGCDlKWVa8pKkXE4yYvxilwZH3d_w/w640-h404/george.jpeg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">On my last day of living in a cabin in the woods, the sun came out, and I decided to go for a little walk. I intended to listen to the “new” “Beatles” song, Now & Then, as I walked down a leafy forest trail, but as soon as I put it on, I realized that I didn’t want to know anything about it or acknowledge that it existed. George Harrison is dead, and the world doesn’t need Paul and Ringo scribbling all over some abandoned John Lennon deep cut. John Lennon, as you may know, is also dead.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><br />Instead I put on Real Love, which was also once a “new” Beatles song, released alongside Free as a Bird in 1995 to promote <i>The Beatles Anthology</i>. However, there are a few major differences between Real Love and Now & Then:<br /><br />1) George Harrison was alive during Real Love era and therefore plays on it,<br />2) Real Love slaps, and<br />3) Real Love counts as an actual Beatles song.<br /><br />By the time the Beatles got to White Album era everyone was busy and feuding and growing apart and there are a bunch of songs that all the different combinations of Beatles do and don’t play on, but at that time the Beatles were all alive and active as Beatles. If all the Beatles are alive, a song with only two out of four Beatles playing on it still counts as a Beatles song, but if at least one Beatle is dead, you need three live Beatles to play on the dead Beatle’s abandoned deep cut for it to count as a real Beatles song. If two Beatles are dead, there are no more Beatles songs. QED.<br /><br />All Beatles math aside— Real Love is a sick John deep cut to begin with, only improved by the addition of Paul, George and Ringo. Lyrically the song kicks off with the incredible <i>All my little plans and schemes/Lost like some forgotten dreams</i>, a couplet I relate to so deeply that it is almost physically painful for me. I spent the first thirty years of my life obsessively relating to John, my problematic fav John; I can rarely access those intense feelings of reverence and connection, I really have evolved into more of a George guy. But <i>All my little plans and schemes </i>brings my John complex rushing back: George might have a plan, but George would never have a scheme. I, like John, am a born schemer.<br /><br />The lyric then turns into a more classically annoying solo John vibe. Solo John songs are either about John being a fucked up guy or John being co-dependently in love with Yoko Ono. This is a co-dependently in love with Yoko one. The lovely-dovey lyrics start out early-Beatles bland— <i>Thought I’d been in love before/ But in my heart, I wanted mor</i>e— before evolving into the slightly more compelling <i>Seems like all I really was doing/Was waiting for you</i>, which I like because it sounds like a George Harrison lyric that you think is about a girl but is actually about God.<br /><br />Paul jacks up the melody to a thousand and George slays on guitar while Ringo toddlerishly bangs away. “Feel old yet?” memes are gauche but it’s weird to think that Real Love was as far away from the real Beatles as it is from today.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><b>iv. HEY BULLDOG (LIZ)</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><p style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There was a thing going around earlier this year where someone wrote the prompt: “Make a 20-track comp of your all-time fav tracks, each artist can only feature once. Not the ‘best’ songs, the ones that bring instant joy the second you hear the first note, the ones that give other people the best insight into what stirs your soul.” Which is a sweet idea but doesn’t really work for me, mostly because my favorite songs don’t necessarily give me instant joy: sometimes what I most treasure in a song is its ability to turn me into a weepy little baby even when I’ve already cried all over it a thousand times before. And sometimes the most joy-giving songs aren’t overtly joyful, like how “Atlantis” by Donovan feels super-tragic but always thrills me cuz of <i>Goodfellas</i>, which to me is the vibrational equivalent of Christmas and Fourth of July fireworks happening at the same time — candy-like and explosive and way too much, but it keeps your soul intact on some kind of fundamental level. </span></p><p><span style="color: #444444;">I never answered the prompt but I did make a list of 20 instant-joy songs, compiled </span><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7IoHPbUeWFopRqKDQBuBCV?si=1f09fb2aef0042fd" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">here</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">. It has the Crusaders and the Cars and Bauhaus and but no “Hey Bulldog,” which is one of the most joyful songs I’ve ever known. The deal is that you have to be delicate with “Hey Bulldog,” you can’t just go playing it anytime you need a little pick-me-up. I don’t ever want to get used to John Lennon barking like a dog and Paul cutely encouraging him, or the big riffy piano, or the cracked-open feeling of totally relating on “If you’re lonely you can talk to me.” I’d rather let it be a seasonal treat, like apple-cider donuts or Swiss Miss hot chocolate or a chocolate-covered marshmallow in the shape of a bunny. It's not about deprivation or self-denial; it's about making "Hey Bulldog" into its own little holiday, a holiday about dogs and pianos and whatever a wigwam is.</span></p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="color: #444444;">v. SUN KING (LIZ)<br /></b><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #444444;">At some point in the last year “Sun King” slid into the top five of my all-time fave Beatles songs, which I never saw coming. It has to do with perfume and summertime and the twelve-story staircase built into the hillside two blocks down from my apartment — last summer I kept doing this thing where first thing in the morning I’d put on a grassy perfume like </span><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/72vZiFmdVWJHfTYD6uaQNU?si=6b1ff627a1744813" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">A Boundless and Radiant Aura</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> by Universal Flowering or Petrichor by Marissa Zappas, then go for a nice punishing walk up the big staircase in the terrible August heat. And then I’d walk back down the hill, on a sleepy little side street where you can see all the way to Beverly Hills and one time a woman asked me to walk alongside her and her two tiny dogs so we could form a little pack against the coyote eyeing us all from the other side of the road. After the stairs the walk is easy but the sun and heat would put me in a cool daze magnified by the melting-together of perfume and sweat, and then I’d take 500 pictures of baby peaches on a peach tree and listen to songs like “Sun King,” and zone out on the Beatles singing in Spanish and Italian and the languid guitars that make me want to make metaphors about warm liquid gold, if that’s even a thing. All of that simulates the sensation of lying in a meadow under a cerulean sky, on a magnificently hot but mostly unhumid summer day. I’m pretty sure I've never lain in a meadow in my life, but it feels really right to me to start the day from a place of laze. </span></span></p><b style="color: #444444;">vi. IN SPITE OF ALL THE DANGER (LJ)</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><br />In Spite Of All The Danger is the first Beatles song. They recorded it in a booth in a store in 1958. Ringo wasn’t there yet; in his place were two randoms named John Lowe and Colin Hanton. In 1958 the Beatles weren’t called the Beatles yet (they were called “the Quarrymen,” a band name so bland I’m genuinely shocked John Lennon could sink so low), but using the same logic as applied above, it still counts as a Beatles song, since ¾ Beatles were present.<br /><br />I’ve never existed in a world where you can walk into a store and record a song in a booth for a quarter or whatever, but it sounds like a fun thing to do: a bunch of young lads crammed into a booth with their instruments, “mucking about.” “Having a laugh.” But In Spite Of All The Danger doesn’t sound like very much fun at all. It sounds eerie and sad, like they were singing it to the people who’d be listening to it after they were dead. It’s weird to think that I am those people.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><b>vii. MARTHA MY DEAR (LIZ)</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc1YwQDtAMRDrq6jvnWVsfaUb_k9Fjb6lllkCEcfjo8Zd-Xvem2QhNASM3hz_ePnWabic72YFopcPbTmme0WJM0VKQ0q9qizUqnRl5Fmc82xLRUOuNM0Qe9TgmA-mqeXMUlhUv4uwkQSRBT8cNpUZfF1wXGmPp2_3JfO_KBOveNYMD1x1xpmKO5VQ7q5o/s1630/paul%20cooking%20(1).jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1630" data-original-width="1262" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc1YwQDtAMRDrq6jvnWVsfaUb_k9Fjb6lllkCEcfjo8Zd-Xvem2QhNASM3hz_ePnWabic72YFopcPbTmme0WJM0VKQ0q9qizUqnRl5Fmc82xLRUOuNM0Qe9TgmA-mqeXMUlhUv4uwkQSRBT8cNpUZfF1wXGmPp2_3JfO_KBOveNYMD1x1xpmKO5VQ7q5o/w496-h640/paul%20cooking%20(1).jpeg" width="496" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><p style="color: #444444;"><span>A little while ago I heard Michelle Tea say this thing about how Capricorns get younger and looser and more free with age. I agree a million percent and would add that </span><span>— </span><span>as a Capricorn with her moon in Leo </span><span>—</span><span> aging also means becoming more and more deeply connected to Paul McCartney (a fellow Leo moon, just like Ringo, David Bowie, Lana Del Rey, Jane Fonda, Crispin Glover, Gandhi, and Chace Crawford). For me feeling closer to Paul means hitting a nice balance of competence and ease and infinite curiosity, living a cozy life in which you take a certain level of responsibility for cultivating that coziness. Like how when Paul moved onto his farm in Scotland in the '60s, he learned how to shear the sheep himself. </span></p><p><span><span style="color: #444444;">2023 was the year I got really into cooking. I made ma-po tofu, chicken piccata, shrimp scampi, a lot of pozole, lamb ragu, lasagna, chicken tikka masala, Katharine Hepburn's brownies, chile colorado, </span><span style="color: #444444;">chile verde,</span><span style="color: #444444;"> </span><span style="color: #444444;">caldo verde, shepherd's pie, tres leches, a chocolate cake from scratch for my boyfriend Scott's birthday, chocolate chip banana bread, scones, pineapple upside-down cake, </span><a href="https://eatchofood.com/blog/2021/1/11/tomato-egg?rq=Cantonese" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">Cantonese tomato egg</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">, a meatloaf, rice pilaf, a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting. Next I want to make highbrow green bean casserole and jeweled rice with dried cherries and chicken pot pie, and maybe a ginger poundcake. </span></span><span style="color: #444444;">I included that Paul pic at the top because that's exactly what I look like when I'm cooking, that's the exact vibe I inhabit in the kitchen. I like cooking because it requires a level of attention that leaves little to no room for thinking about anything else; it stills me and makes the whole house smell extravagant and good. I also like that it's the opposite of spending all day typing in a Word document you could make disappear forever in under a half a second.</span></p><p><span><span style="color: #444444;">The Saturday before I flew home for Thanksgiving I drove over to the neighborhood where I lived when Laura and I started writing our Beatles book, then went for a big long all-Beatles walk. It was a gray day but everything had that nice Beatlesy glow that happens when you're feeling particularly Beatles-aligned. I took a lot of pictures of weird flowers and </span><a href="https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.2885-15/359750883_839886333787853_5601158967645841424_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35&efg=eyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6ImltYWdlX3VybGdlbi4xNDQweDE0NDAuc2RyIn0&_nc_ht=scontent.cdninstagram.com&_nc_cat=105&_nc_ohc=h5xKMGgy2XkAX9NUOrP&edm=APs17CUBAAAA&ccb=7-5&ig_cache_key=MzE0MzUzNTcwMDExNjAxMjczOQ%3D%3D.2-ccb7-5&oh=00_AfBaxa1dAWhnbGV2SNG8a4vec292GjvM20Q4UngQQIWwtg&oe=656DE0DC&_nc_sid=10d13b" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">artichokes being way over the top</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">, and wandered into some secret alleyways where you meet cool guys like </span><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fd82fODUcAEDZId?format=jpg&name=medium" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">this</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">. </span></span><span style="color: #444444;">After my walk I went to Baller Hardware to get a roll of Gorilla Tape and ended up impulse-buying a strand of classic multicolored Christmas lights and a Baller Hardware hooded sweatshirt, partly because it was starting to feel spiritually incorrect that Kim Gordon owned a Baller Hardware hoodie and I somehow didn't. I love my Baller Hardware hoodie so much; it smells like Baller Hardware and </span><a href="https://www.universal---flowering.com/product-page/holy-hell" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">Holy Hell</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">. And then I went to Daily Donuts and got a big iced coffee, mostly in tribute to the picture of </span><a href="https://myassbrokethefall.tumblr.com/post/620639886604681216/fiona-apple-around-2000s-by-jin-ohashi" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">Fiona Apple reading the newspaper outside Daily Donuts in 1999</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">. On the ride home it started raining and the </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFYZxHNr_zk" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">"Anthology 3 Version" of "Something"</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> came up on shuffle and made the sunshower a hundred times more evocative, and then later on I decorated the Christmas tree and made spaghetti and meatballs for supper and chocolate chip cookies from scratch.</span></p><p style="color: #444444;">Until recently "Martha My Dear" didn't mean much to me beyond a cute Italian boy I had a crush on in tenth grade singing it to me one day in history class. I love it because it's a song about a dog but not about a dog — it's not about much at all, but it adds a nice little splash to everything if you're already feeling pretty good. It exists in the part of my heart that in some ways just wants my writing to get more and more trifling as I get older<span>, both in the sense of the writing being frivolous/impractical and in that I hope it's something like a trifle:</span><span> a treat made of cake and pudding and cream and extremely cheap things like smashed-up fun-size candy bars, whatever kind of candy bars you love best.</span></p></span></span></div>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-46405554580101429172022-02-03T08:35:00.022-08:002022-02-03T15:03:08.921-08:00To Wander Aimlessly Is Very Unswinging<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmxklokxrInfsFWsQ6PrMrqbYZLriQPx7PwT7BJPa03d_bxqBO6IIn1lyDVopsH5O93cxsXro6u-w61FYQyr_6lfri_Y4DYN6keiuTD_Pq_qHd0mftZKcdE1egpvygeZL9khNmirXzWYzkh6lKZdQX1NObajgRh0Riy_JAFYtYln2XnLR2pHhrjjvS=s2326" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1432" data-original-width="2326" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmxklokxrInfsFWsQ6PrMrqbYZLriQPx7PwT7BJPa03d_bxqBO6IIn1lyDVopsH5O93cxsXro6u-w61FYQyr_6lfri_Y4DYN6keiuTD_Pq_qHd0mftZKcdE1egpvygeZL9khNmirXzWYzkh6lKZdQX1NObajgRh0Riy_JAFYtYln2XnLR2pHhrjjvS=w640-h394" width="640" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Last month Liz and Laura Jane talked on the phone about </i>Get Back<i> for two hours and nine minutes. Here is a transcript of most of our conversation.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Before Omicron, I thought one of our </span><i style="font-family: arial;">Get Back </i><span style="font-family: arial;">talking
points could be which of the Beatles would get COVID.</span></p><div class="Ar Au Ao" id=":2i3"><div aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" g_editable="true" hidefocus="true" id=":2hz" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" style="direction: ltr; min-height: 206px;" tabindex="1">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Oh, wow, that's so fun! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: It would be John and Ringo, right?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: John is the obvious one, because he just wouldn't care. Maybe
he wouldn’t be a brazen anti-vaxxer, but he’d be vaccine-skeptical. My dad and
I had that conversation about Joe Strummer. I feel like he might be an
anti-vaxxer, but not a bad anti-vaxxer - he’d just want you to question what they're
telling you. John Lennon could have that vibe too. And then Ringo’s just kind
of delicate, he was sick as a child. But he's taking good care of himself now. Although
I guess it's like if COVID was in the ‘60s, if <i>Get Back</i> took place during the
COVID pandemic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I'm so glad it didn’t.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Me too. I feel like Paul would be so good at not getting
COVID. But actually, I'm going to come out of left field and say that having
spent a lot of the pandemic deeply immersed in a Buddhist meditation
community, a lot of those people are intense anti-vaxxers. So maybe George
would get COVID ‘cause he’d be like, “I'm not like putting any chemicals or
preservatives into my body.” He’d feel strongly about it from a wellness
standpoint. They’d all get COVID, and then poor Paul who works so hard would be
in the studio with them, so he’d get COVID too. But somehow George Martin would
never get COVID.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: One of the thoughts I kept having during <i>Get Back</i> was,
“Does George Martin like the Beatles?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I feel like during this, not so much. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: He just seems so much older than them and more
sophisticated and kind of detached.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: He’s also not there very much. It’s all Glyn Johns.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Do you like Glyn Johns?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I love him. He’s my favorite. I had this revelation that
in the context of watching this, he’s kind of this nobody. I'm like a Beatles
nerd, I know all the Beatles stuff, and until this I hadn’t really had that big
of an understanding of Glyn Johns. And then I was like, “I bet in other arenas
of Glyn Johns’s life he’s such hot shit.” And then he comes to this studio and
he's just the nerd with the mixing board. But in every other second of Glyn
Johns’s life everyone's like, “Oh my God, have you met Glyn? He works with the
Beatles! He’s so cool and so rich and has such good style." And it really
changed how I felt about Glyn Johns. He’s this hyper-successful dude with such
a sick job.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I love when Heather comes into the studio and she
wears Glyn Johns’s coat. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I like when Heather comes into the studio, period. She really
takes over. It's nice how much she loves Paul.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: He seems like a real good stepdad. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Yeah, he does not shy away from that aspect at all.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I love when he tells her, “You're going back in your box.”
That’s such a cute stepdad thing to say.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjrcNX0fI37pk4rSjRTCxSLboYiRHApqa-kbU1BHdyeTzYuYZpLaX2WTM-80qC0wJEKbjA_UeoHHo0OyptTUZb123rMDda83HlqrioMGT6kSxc7wLOmcog6gFnNtaEpomWDhrbbIFxTUUBzusAvmWcAdgW_rRWp-BM57JNfv1q_-hYCow73A_n8a9_R=s2389" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1329" data-original-width="2389" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjrcNX0fI37pk4rSjRTCxSLboYiRHApqa-kbU1BHdyeTzYuYZpLaX2WTM-80qC0wJEKbjA_UeoHHo0OyptTUZb123rMDda83HlqrioMGT6kSxc7wLOmcog6gFnNtaEpomWDhrbbIFxTUUBzusAvmWcAdgW_rRWp-BM57JNfv1q_-hYCow73A_n8a9_R=w640-h356" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: So did you like <i>Get Back</i>?<br />
<br />
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I did, I loved it. I can't believe we got to have new
Beatles stuff. I wish that would keep happening. Like if they said, “Surprise,
we have one of these for every Beatles album.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Apparently there's an 18-hour director's cut that might
get released. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I would watch it. I don't care. Today I was thinking
about the last time that I was in L.A. and how there was a moment where Jed was
talking about how you watch things over and over and he asked me, “Are you like
that?” So then today I was like, “I'm going to try to watch <i>Get</i> <i>Back </i>like Liz would
watch it.” And I just had it on in my house all day. And it was so nice to have
the white noise of the Beatles for every second that I was doing whatever in my
house, like coming out of the shower and doing the dishes with the din of the
weird Beatles doing their stuff. So I would definitely have a place in my life
for 18 hours of <i>Get Back</i>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: With <i>Mad Men</i>, I always just put it on when I’m doing
makeup or straightening my hair or whatever. So maybe <i>Get Back</i> will be thing that
I just put on all the time now. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: There’s always a lot of small details to uncover. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">What would you say is your biggest takeaway from </span><i style="font-family: arial;">Get
Back</i><span style="font-family: arial;">?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Great question! It really changed the way I feel about
John, more than anything. My first impression of John as a child - he always
kind of scared me.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: He’s not very child-friendly.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: And as an adult, this was the first time he seemed like a
real person to me. He wasn’t like JOHN LENNON, all caps, like everyone always
talks about him. He just seemed like a dude that’s annoying and funny and a
fucking weirdo. I just loved him so much and was just really charmed by how
much he and Paul love each other.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: They loved to goof around. I had a really good chat with
my friend Jack about that part of John and Paul's dynamic, which is sort of never-before-seen.
My takeaway is that I love Paul McCartney and I’m on Paul's side, and I like
John less than I liked him going into it. I was annoyed by how much John’s
always goofing off. It was like, “Dude, can you just play the song, and not in
a fun accent?” Jack is a musician with more insight into what the studio is
like. He was like, “They probably just unfairly weighted the goofing-around
parts in the documentary because if they didn’t, it would have been 19 hours of
them playing 'Two of Us' over and over again." And we were talking about how it’s
weird how John’s funnier than Paul. I feel like it's a very familiar situation,
like when you're hanging out with someone who's slightly funnier than
you, when you're a person who often is the funny person. But I felt really bad for
Paul, just always having to be slightly worse at accents and slightly less on his
feet than the person who he’ll be equated next to for his entire lifetime. I really
feel being in that situation. There are some parts where I couldn't deal with watching
Paul being less funny.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: It made me love Paul more. I mean, I don't know how you
would watch <i>Get Back</i> and not think he's the most wonderful person.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: It really was good PR for Paul McCartney and the
negative belief that he was a control freak and a real dick in the studio. He’s
so obviously not. But I can see how he'd be annoying if you were George
Harrison.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: But it made me love George more too. I just love them
all more than I did before.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Me too. But Paul and Ringo, my love for them skyrocketed.
I guess we’re all really used to seeing line graphs now because of COVID; I’m
really picturing this line graph of how much I’ve loved the Beatles over the
years. Paul and definitely Ringo, it’s a huge and very obvious uptick. George,
it went up a little bit. And John, I'm sorry to say it went down a bit. I still
love John Lennon an inordinately high amount compared to how much I love
everything else except the ocean and the sky. I also don’t like Yoko. I hate
Yoko. Her vibe is so bad. She’s like the opposite of Glyn Johns.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I’d kind of like to know if she was the one who
insisted on being there. Was it John who was like, “You have to sit next to me
the whole entire time,” or was Yoko like, “I have to sit next to you the whole entire time”?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Or was it completely mutual.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: The thing I
liked most about Yoko always being with there was it made me so proud of Paul
for being so chill about it. An opportunity for Paul to shine again. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I would definitely give Paul that 100 percent. He’s so
reasonable.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: The part where he's like, “I have to compromise first
for John to compromise.” That really impressed me. I feel like I just got to
the point of being able to figure that kind of thing out like two years ago. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Is that the same part where he's like, “I know that if
John had to choose between Yoko and the Beatles, he’d choose Yoko”? I hate
that. I feel like John just made it that he had to choose. Everyone else was
just like, “Yeah, I have a girlfriend. Whatever. It’s normal.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yeah, it’s very teenage. It's very adolescent to be
like, “My girlfriend has to sit right next to me every single second.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: It’s like, “Are you really so unsafe?” I wrote some
notes down and one of my notes is that George feels genuinely kind of unsafe in
the Beatles. When he quits and they want to go talk to him for the second time
and Ringo's like, “He’s in Liverpool. We can't go talk to him.” And I was like,
“Oh, that’s so sweet that he went back to Liverpool.” He's having
a bad time at work so he went home to see his parents. And there's also a part in
the first one where he says to Ringo, “It kind of feels like Lime Street
Station.” I feel like he was having this regressive thing of really wanting to
be back in Liverpool, in this cold and nasty situation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I mean George is definitely the most exasperating. But
he’s so young!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: For the first time I really saw that George is younger
than the rest of them. Even when he’s happy and he’s succeeding, he just seems
younger.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I like how he keeps saying “I’m just gonna do me.” So
ahead of his time. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Yeah, George, we know, over here in 2022. I’m also just doing
me. He’s cute. He’s the cutest. I want the best for him. And I want the best
for Paul, he’s perfect and can do no wrong. But going back to John – I just
feel like his presence and Yoko’s presence…Yoko is 100 percent bad vibes. I
don’t think she brings a great energy with her into the studio. I get that
she’s like “It’s their thing, I’m not going to chime in every second.” But she
just seems so over it. Wait, I'm going to make a long-winded point about the
Brooklyn Nets. Right now they’re a really good team. They have like Kevin Durant
and James Harden and Kyrie Irving as the big three. it’s like an NBA
team supergroup kind of vibe. And I love Kyrie Irving, but he decided that he
was going to be an anti-vaxxer and not get vaccinated. So the NBA were like, “Okay,
cool. You’re not going to play.” He’s back now kind of, they rotate him to play
away games in states that don’t have as strict vaccination rules as New York.
But it's like even though the Brooklyn Nets are worse without him and he brings
a lot of value to the team, you can kind of tell they’re having a better time
when he's not there. And it's not because they don’t like him, it’s just
because his presence in the situation takes up a lot of time and energy and
space. And I feel like that sort of is what John Lennon is like throughout the
entirety of the <i>Get Back</i> documentary. Even though he’s great, he’s John Lennon
from the Beatles, we all love him, he brings a lot to the table. His being
there just adds 25 percent more effort to everybody else's job. And I'm just
kind of over that in the world. I just want people to be more like Paul
McCartney and just be kind and do their job. And if you don't want to be like
Paul McCartney, you can be like Ringo Starr and you can do even less. You don't
even really have to do that much work. You can just be nice.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: With Ringo it seems like whatever they want him to do,
he just does it and immediately gets it right, which is cool. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Yeah, he doesn’t fight. But I guess he also doesn’t have
a ton of skin in the game. He just wants to do a good job and not piss anybody
off. Which is really honorable.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I love when Paul’s playing piano and Ringo’s like, “I
could watch him play for hours.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I know! He’s so lovely and so humble. George Harrison
would never be able to say that about Paul. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Julie Klausner said something about how if <i>Let It Be</i> were being made today, then George and John would just be on their phones the whole time. Which I think is a fun point.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Yoko would definitely be on her phone. I wish Yoko had a phone to be on.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: She kind of is on her phone, she’s reading the paper and reading letters.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: One thing that surprised me was I always thought George and John were kind of a team. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I feel like John kind of plays both sides. Maybe he
would be more on George's side when they talked outside of work. But then in
the studio he couldn’t help it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: There’s that part where George is showing them “I Me
Mine” and John is kind of giving him shit about it and George is like, “I don’t
give a fuck.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: What does John say?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I think he says something like, “Do you know what kind
of songs we write?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I don’t remember but that is so bitchy. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I think that’s what happens, I could be misremembering.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I don't care. I never want to know, I just want to
believe that’s what happened. That’s so rude. But like, I get it. That’s such a
weird thing about <i>Get Back</i>, they’re just weird co-workers. When I was watching
the first installment, I was having some work drama, so I
really feel that situation. Of, like, “I don’t fucking care. I’m just
gonna do me.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yeah. And get cheese sauce on your cauliflower.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhN13bwyr_8KKMhEaqmJ-TXmazHYB0k10imlqXTg-ms5y4S5Ks8xvkA7niilYqPoZuoU5dWy42MtdwqpsIk_GpatcZYGOhJGaoWOvX6NY6_Bvd9ZIQ4VoVIVMdRAxxR7A5QhFu_x18NhJVTsnWGfcuQPfi1HVL_d0zNHap6qa1pwNDjs7IgGCc55a3b=s2245" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2245" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhN13bwyr_8KKMhEaqmJ-TXmazHYB0k10imlqXTg-ms5y4S5Ks8xvkA7niilYqPoZuoU5dWy42MtdwqpsIk_GpatcZYGOhJGaoWOvX6NY6_Bvd9ZIQ4VoVIVMdRAxxR7A5QhFu_x18NhJVTsnWGfcuQPfi1HVL_d0zNHap6qa1pwNDjs7IgGCc55a3b=w640-h390" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: There’s that part where Paul says something like “I'm
scared of being the boss” and then - maybe it's not the same scene, but they
have this whole conversation where George is like, “Things have been different ever
since Mr. Epstein died.” That's such a weird way to talk about what’s happening
to them. They’re just speaking out loud exactly what’s written in Beatles history books. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: It's also weird that they're all clearly grieving Brian.
That’s a huge weird thing to have happen to you. But I feel like they weren’t really
given an appropriate amount of time or space to really deal with it. I guess
they dealt with it by going to India.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I guess that's the thing with them, everything happened
in a real compressed span of time.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: There’s that part where they’re showing them some set
designs and John and Paul are like, “This is like <i>Around the Beatles</i>.” And they
cut back to some dumb early Beatles performance and you’re like, “How do they
remember that?” But it’s like, oh it’s just five years ago. I'm pretty
connected to every single thing that was going on in my life five years ago.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yeah 1969 to 1960 would be like now to 2013. That
wasn’t that long ago.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Nine years ago, we went to Martha's Vineyard. That is so
recent. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Nine years ago we wrote <i><a href="http://strawberryfieldswhatever.blogspot.com/2013/07/so-many-beautiful-pictures-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Blurred Lines</span></a></i>. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Which I still think about once a week, I feel like.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yeah, <i>Blurred Lines</i> is so good. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: There’s that day when neither John nor George shows up
to the studio and they're sitting around talking and Paul says, “And then there
were two.” And there’s a close-up on Paul and it looks like he’s tearing up a
little, but I couldn’t tell if he was actually crying or if I just wanted him
to be crying.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I didn’t notice that. But I want Paul to be crying.
There’s a lot of close-ups on Paul where you can see that he’s just going
through something so different than what everybody else is going through. Which
is that he likes this and he doesn’t want it to go away.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: That’s so sad.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I feel like, yeah, things seemed tense and uncomfortable
in moments. Mostly when they were at Twickenham Studios, which of course things
are going to feel bad there; it’s cold and weird. But I really feel like all of
the stuff that was going on, it just doesn’t feel so insurmountably bad that
they really needed to get out of this toxic situation. It seems like they
could’ve gotten through it. If that’s what broke up the Beatles – like, really,
guys? You deprived the entire world that really needed you forever, just
because you were kind of weird and awkward in a studio for three weeks?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: And then once they once go to the other studio they
seem like they're having a great time. And then Billy Preston comes in and
they're having an even better time! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: The best time!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Billy Preston is really, like, whoa – what a presence.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: What a good vibe. And also really good at music. He’s better at music than any of the Beatles. There’s that part where they
have that little toy kind of like a Theremin, and Ringo or George is playing
with it like, “What is this piece of garbage?” And then Billy Preston takes it
and composes this cool, beautiful melody. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: It’s really sweet how George is talking about him in
the beginning of the movie and he’s so excited about him, and then Billy
Preston shows up and everyone loves him. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: What do you think Billy Preston's zodiac sign is? I just
looked it up. I love it for Billy Preston.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Is he a Leo? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: No, he's a Virgo. His birthday is September 2nd. That’s
a really cute birthday for Billy Preston. I have a friend who’s a very Virgo-y
Virgo and his birthday is September 1st and he’s like, “I feel like that’s the perfect
Virgo birthday.” Like, “First day of the month, I’m here. Let’s not complicate
things.” And September 2nd is like that, only like, “I’m a little late. I’m
Billy Preston and I’m an artist.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Something I did in preparation for our conversation is I
looked at all of the Beatles’ moon and rising signs. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Paul’s moon is in Leo.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: And he’s Virgo Rising. Which is cool for me because I'm a
Virgo Moon and Leo Rising. So I like having that little connection with Paul.
John is Aquarius Moon and Aries Rising. That stresses me out.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Aries Rising seems apt in a way.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I wouldn’t want that.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I wouldn’t either.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Wait, what are you? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I'm Gemini Rising and Leo Moon. That's my astrological
connection to Paul. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: George is a Pisces and then double Scorpio. Way to be so
hot, George. Like, who has that? Give me a break. And Ringo also is a Leo Moon.
And then he’s Cancer Sun and Pisces Rising. That’s a nice vibe. That’s a very
gentle person right there. I guess the Leo Moon is why he likes acting. Like
you.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yes. I’m a world-renowned actor.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: How do you feel your Leo Moon?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I feel it at karaoke.
That’s when my Leo Moon really shines. And in that book <i>The Only Astrology Book
You’ll Ever Need </i>there’s a part about how a Leo Moon can always be counted on
to pick up the check, unless they're a Capricorn. Like, yeah - pretty much.
That checks out. David Bowie’s also a Capricorn and Leo Moon.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I was bored at some point
during a lockdown that has happened at some point in the past two years, and I
looked up like which celebrities have my exact Cancer Sun, Virgo Moon, Leo
Rising. You won’t believe who mine is; it’s so good and so awful. It's fucking
Richard Branson.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: That makes sense.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I know, that’s the worst
part.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3O2VYp37uTKA_5vc6GPToK1wPCAvYdVSupbNJjjLW2IdctcD1Ie9HTMX8NYxwXNjNQEa6AueJsDfi6SpT6L2a9bD-lLqJZt5unPG9Jz2s1Q73DoR6-D43MpEfS6BCpjlXQGlObdGPjFjPCvGKv9Jox95-N_Oqo5oMkVK--2RyYdw_v9jt-yVgxvwh=s2432" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1376" data-original-width="2432" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3O2VYp37uTKA_5vc6GPToK1wPCAvYdVSupbNJjjLW2IdctcD1Ie9HTMX8NYxwXNjNQEa6AueJsDfi6SpT6L2a9bD-lLqJZt5unPG9Jz2s1Q73DoR6-D43MpEfS6BCpjlXQGlObdGPjFjPCvGKv9Jox95-N_Oqo5oMkVK--2RyYdw_v9jt-yVgxvwh=w640-h362" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I liked Mal Evans a lot.
He’s really cute. He’s so happy to bang the hammer in “Maxwell’s Silver
Hammer.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I would love to be like
Mal Evans, just ‘cause everyone’s like “Oh, that person’s really reliable and
kind.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I was thinking about when we did the “If Mad Men were
The Beatles” post before the fourth season of <i>Mad Men</i> and –</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Wait, don’t say! I don’t remember who Mal Evans was.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Who do you think it was? It’s pretty obvious - when you
think about early <i>Mad Men</i>, not later seasons. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: It wasn’t Ken. Is it a man? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Does he work at Sterling Cooper?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: He does work there.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Is he nice?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: He <i>was</i> nice.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Oh, Harry Crane! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yes. God, who was Kenny? I mean <a href="http://strawberryfieldswhatever.blogspot.com/2013/07/so-many-beautiful-pictures-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Bob Cosgrove</span></a>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Oh, was he Maureen Cleave? That’s such a deep cut. I
feel like someone was Maureen Cleave but it might’ve been Rachel Menken.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I’m pretty sure Rachel was Yoko. We had weird ideas
back then. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">But I love that Joan was George Martin.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Yeah, that’s really nuanced. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">It would’ve been smart of us to do that again. But we
were too caught up in our recaps. Which was so fun. I feel like I’ll never care
about a show that much again.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: No. And then there was that recap where the title of
the post was <a href="http://strawberryfieldswhatever.blogspot.com/2014/05/peggy-olsons-just-not-in-beatles.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">“Peggy Olson’s Not in The Beatles,”</span></a> but when we did the
NoGoodForMe one, was she Linda? Or George?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I think we made her both Linda and George. Which isn’t
accurate. Peggy’s Paul.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I guess we made Roger Paul. Which he’s not.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Roger’s Derek Taylor. He’s the square who takes acid.
John always has to be Don Draper I think. I was talking to Matt King the other
day and we were fantasizing about a <i>Mad Men</i> reboot. And we got so deep into it
that I kind of convinced myself that it was happening. Like, Matt Weiner’s
semi-canceled, this is the one thing he could do to win us back. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Why did he get canceled?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Because he created toxic workplace environments. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Well you know what else was a toxic workplace? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Exactly.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhNqAp5XqFb6P4HyGusS3epy9_lEGfVawO_ozY1F68Tkb1JGFkq4KX2Ru5ytvCVH2dlHhywFYNpVQuarJ7AN6OHjWgcmpaSwplkjx75kizeW6HKCL4h-rCF4W0vQumG7SIQ6RvvVrfNnzVjsQZgpV0RJQAfHOc6wcw_xswxjVOpqL1QHvCO7Yy5GxbE=s2184" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1382" data-original-width="2184" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhNqAp5XqFb6P4HyGusS3epy9_lEGfVawO_ozY1F68Tkb1JGFkq4KX2Ru5ytvCVH2dlHhywFYNpVQuarJ7AN6OHjWgcmpaSwplkjx75kizeW6HKCL4h-rCF4W0vQumG7SIQ6RvvVrfNnzVjsQZgpV0RJQAfHOc6wcw_xswxjVOpqL1QHvCO7Yy5GxbE=w640-h404" width="640" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I read this tweet the other day that was like, yeah, the
Beatles wrote some of the best songs of all time, but we're all turning a blind
eye to the fact that a bunch of their songs sound also like haunted carnivals. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Oh. I missed that one.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: At first I was like, “No – only ‘Being for the Benefit
of Mr. Kite’ sounds like a haunted carnival, and it was going for that.” But
then I started thinking about it, and I was like, wow, there really are a lot. “Maxwell’s
Silver Hammer” is a haunted carnival. “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da,” kind of. “Bungalow
Bill.” A case could really be made for like half of the White Album. I guess
the <i>Abbey Road</i> medley is kind of haunted carnival.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I listened to <i>Abbey Road</i> all the way through the night
before my birthday and it was really satisfying. I hadn’t done that in a really
long time. I love the part in the movie where Paul’s playing “Carry That
Weight” on the piano and he says, ‘I thought this could be a song for Ringo!”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Does Ringo sing it?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: One bit of trivia I know is that it's the only time in
the whole Beatles catalog where they all sing together.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: That's a cute bit of trivia. I like when they ask Ringo if he liked India and he says,
“No, not really.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: When Paul's talking about the footage of India that he
was looking at and George says his thing, I couldn't tell, like, does that bother
Paul?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Yeah, I think it bothered Paul. Paul’s like, “Okay,
cool, thanks for cutting me down to size.” I wrote that Substack about that
moment and some stranger commented on it and said, “I have a point about this
situation from George's perspective, but I'll only share it with you if you're
comfortable with that.” Which I was like, “Whoa, okay, thanks for respecting
me. I wrote this in like 20 minutes after going for a run, I’m not tied to
these words. Go for it.” And then this person wrote me the best thing I've ever
read, I'm gonna read it to you: <i>Your point about him using his spiritual
learning in an </i></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>aggressive manner is a really interesting one I hadn't
considered before, and I agree Paul's feelings and his experience were totally
valid. However, I really felt for George in that moment. After everything that
had happened in the last week, he was once again in a situation where it seemed
Paul was trying to bond with John at George's expense. They were laughing about
a trip which meant a lot to him in front of both the crew making this film and
potentially the audience watching it, and the whole Maharishi situation had
already caused a hard time for him. I get where Paul was coming from, but it
wasn’t the appropriate time to make that remark, in my opinion. It was also
pretty hypocritical since the Beatles were being filmed and therefore not
actually being themselves then either, which I think is also what George is
getting at. With him only being 25 on the verge of 26 and at the height of his
resentment, I relate to feeling the need to speak up and perhaps letting his emotions
get the better of him.</i> Like, what? That is so smart and cool and I never would
have thought of that. Like, did the ghost of George Harrison somehow leave me a
comment?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yeah I totally hadn’t thought of it that way.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Paul and John are kind of ganging up on George and
making fun of something that meant a lot to him, on film. Although I do really
relate to what Paul was saying, having had recent experiences of being in those
meditation-retreat, super-spiritual, verging-on-religious situations. It's
like, OK, we get it, there is no self. But you feel kind of backed up against a wall, like you really don’t have
a voice in that situation. And you’re supposed to be so loving and welcoming
and supportive. But you also just feel you’re really on someone else’s turf.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Another George thing is I hadn’t listened to “Old Brown
Shoe” in so long and I was like, “Oh my god, it’s so good.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I like when they call it George's rocker.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Why didn’t they put it on <i>Let It Be</i>?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: ‘Cause they released it as a B-side, ‘cause it was too
good for shitty <i>Let It Be</i>. George has a lot of good songs that were B-sides.
Like “It’s All Too Much.” Seeing the crap they were playing in <i>Get Back</i>, the
fact that they’d written “It’s All Too Much” a year before, it’s like, “Guys,
step it up.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I like when John keeps doing that same joke over and
over again about “Your hosts for this evening, The Rolling Stones.” That’s one
of the things that made me understand him more. I was like, “Yeah, I relate to
totally just running a joke into the ground.” That really humanized him for me.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: My favorite John part is when he said he was late
because he was mistreating his body. He’s like “Oh, I was stoned and high. I
was up all night watching films.” And you're just like, wow, that’s what some scrub I had a bad experience dating would do. Like, “Oh,
I was smoking weed and I got some coke and it was 5 a.m. and I was just
watching this Korean film” and you’re just like <i>SHUT UP</i>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: And then Paul says, “Oh, we don’t need that on film,
Mr. Lennon.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: You know what part I think is really cool? When John is
playing some blues song, and then Paul is reading the article about them. If I
was a psychoanalyst, I’d really like hone in on that moment, like “That’s how
they're both coping with this situation in different ways.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yeah they really hated that article, by Housego. Which
is funny because there must have been articles like that all the time.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Housego is the one who wrote them in the newspaper that
they read the most frequently. And also had the last name “Housego.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhHv7ziMyRW7EBAaDejLJtQ4-rJK574s7znAG1SQHepOwJ1mPihy7NKE1sGag7nCT-2iWH07MY-T2k-vDNI0kEVz8lZlR3pPbtw4g-7k7pMwtWpBEhG5btAjo4r2rHwYV6iE_Vq5fU7dPaM65cLQWwFgFzwZGEECt56dnjf2_nsIdMrteh5Pdvb06n8=s2450" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1355" data-original-width="2450" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhHv7ziMyRW7EBAaDejLJtQ4-rJK574s7znAG1SQHepOwJ1mPihy7NKE1sGag7nCT-2iWH07MY-T2k-vDNI0kEVz8lZlR3pPbtw4g-7k7pMwtWpBEhG5btAjo4r2rHwYV6iE_Vq5fU7dPaM65cLQWwFgFzwZGEECt56dnjf2_nsIdMrteh5Pdvb06n8=w640-h354" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: During the rooftop concert, I liked all the
people-on-the-street interviews, or some of them anyway. My favorite was the
older man who's like, “The Beatles are cracking! They have a lovely crowd.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I like that young hotshot in the car, in the backseat
but the wrong way around. He’s like, “I’m just some rich guy. This is nothing
to me but, yeah, I like it.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I felt weirdly bad for the cops. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Did you? I didn’t really.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I just felt like they were so young and brainwashed and
I don't feel like they really believed in what they were saying or what they had
to do. They were just doing it because it was their job and probably inside of
themselves, their inner children were probably dying and just so happy and
excited that the Beatles are playing on a rooftop. I thought that was kind of tragic. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I didn’t think of it that way, but that tracks.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Yeah, I really had their backs. I hated how much the
rooftop concert was in it. I was like, “I can’t listen to ‘Don’t Let Me Down’
another time.” That song in particular, I feel like I won't be able to listen
to for another five years. “Get Back” and “Don’t Let Me Down” got the most play
from start to finish. And “Two of Us.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yeah, a <i>lot</i>
of “Two of Us.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: How do you feel about that Beatles song?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: It was never a fave, but I was always in support of it
existing. A nice little Paul-and-Linda song. But yeah, it definitely wears on
you after the 87th time. And there's the part where they're singing it and they're
both gritting their teeth the whole time. Which was funny but I was also like, “Oh
my god, this fucking song.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: It’s like, “We get it, Paul, you don’t need to be so
committed to the bit.” If you had the comic genius of John Lennon, you’d know to
just do one verse. But no. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Speaking of committing to the bit, I like when they do
that version of “Get Back” that’s all about immigration policy, “Commonwealth,”
and John does the stuffy old British lady accent after every line. He really
didn’t quit on that.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: But he’s funnier than Paul. He gets away with it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: The part after George leaves and Yoko gets on the mike
and they do that crazy freakout thing - I liked that a lot, I liked that Paul
was so into it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: That’s the right way to think about Yoko, as a tool for
making Paul seem better. He does have a weirdly good attitude about Yoko. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Let’s talk about Linda. Linda has a beautiful speaking
voice. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: She does. She’s a breath of fresh air. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: There’s one part where she’s like, “Oh, we were looking
at <i>Help!</i> and <i>A Hard Day's Night</i> last night.” First of all, cool that she says
“looking at.” But that was a real window into what it's like to date Paul
McCartney. “Like, ‘Let’s watch <i>A Hard Day’s Night</i>, in 1969!” And you’re like,
“Okay, whatever, I’m dating Paul McCartney. I can do this.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I like when there’s the Hare Krishnas that George
brought to Twickenham and John’s like, “Who’s that little old man?” It’s cute
that they’re into <i>A Hard Day’s Night</i>. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I feel like George was like, “I'm going to be cool like
John, I'm gonna bring the Hare Krishnas.” And then they only came for one day
and everyone’s like “Yeah, that didn’t really work for us. We hated that.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: There's a part where the band is playing and Linda and
Yoko are talking - I really want to know what they're saying to each other. Like,
what did Linda and Yoko talk about? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I feel like it was pretty surface. I feel like if I were
Linda in that situation, I would be like, “I <i>don't </i>want to bond with Yoko
right now.” But I guess if I were Yoko, I'd be like, “I don't want to bond with
this boring rich American woman.” I like how Pattie Harrison shows up for one
scene and looks amazing and has the most beautiful purse I’ve ever seen in my
life. She just comes in and whispers something in George’s ear and she’s gone
as quick as she came. I don’t like her, but she has the right attitude about having a Beatles
boyfriend, husband, partner, whatever.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I have some idea that Paul McCartney was very fond of
Mo. I'm basing it on like two tiny, split-second interactions, but it seems
like he's really on board with Maureen Starkey.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Like in a sexual way?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: No, just like, “Yeah, that's Ringo's girl.” I just want
it to be true. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiza4Inicb3x_-fZJHyRqTtmHuF63w72bEvHjhWA11SBOoZXdeKR5rs2dzUJKOXygrby8QMDpNyiB_JeKKFop5fE6vHY19dvw5SirMCOlcHj04Vspvv-Q8apOWsWElNj5BRBHb3iCg4pf6iosOqoUK1Eiq669oxcLfvM-CLjYNjntF90FX5IaFXNCfF=s2501" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1329" data-original-width="2501" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiza4Inicb3x_-fZJHyRqTtmHuF63w72bEvHjhWA11SBOoZXdeKR5rs2dzUJKOXygrby8QMDpNyiB_JeKKFop5fE6vHY19dvw5SirMCOlcHj04Vspvv-Q8apOWsWElNj5BRBHb3iCg4pf6iosOqoUK1Eiq669oxcLfvM-CLjYNjntF90FX5IaFXNCfF=w640-h340" width="640" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I wish Paul had brought Martha to the studio. Assuming that
Martha was alive then.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I think Martha lived into Wings days. But maybe Martha
was bad. Maybe it would’ve been problematic and she would've chewed on wires. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: She would’ve been wreaking havoc. She was a big dog.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: But <i>Get Back</i> could’ve used a dog.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I had this revelation
on Christmas Eve night. I was drunk and made my dad watch <i>Get Back </i>with
me. And in my head I had this personal revelation that I'll never be able to know
in the way I knew it in that moment, but I feel like the lyric “Get back
to where you once belonged” is Paul singing to the Beatles. I feel like he may
not even really know that. He probably knows it now. But I think it came about
in a subconscious way. I feel like that's the theme of this whole era and
why Paul McCartney is on such a different journey. He just really wants the Beatles to get back to where they once belonged. And they’re like, “No. We
won’t.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I feel like they all seem pretty into it at the rooftop
concert. I like when Mal Evans comes up with the cops and he turns down the
P.A. and then George turns it back up again. I was like, “Yeah, George.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I just remembered that Mal died because the cops shot
him. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I knew he died tragically, but I didn't know that’s
what happened.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: It was. But yeah, he's such a good person to have to go down and
negotiate with the stupid 20-year-old cops.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: The day that Mike Nesmith died, it really hit me that Paul
McCartney’s going to die someday.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I hate when I think about how Paul McCartney’s going to
die someday. I really hate the way people react to celebrity death. I feel like
I need to work through how negative my reaction to other people reacting to celebrity deaths is. I get so worked up about it. It is tacky and it is
performative, but I feel like I don't give other people the space they need to
grieve the death of artist that meant something to them. I really have to sort
that out before Paul McCartney dies. Because I don’t want to hear everyone
suddenly becoming a fucking Paul McCartney fan. I know who was and who wasn’t.
I think I’ll be very upset by like, “Oh my ex co-worker is so sad suddenly.” And
also, when’s that going to happen? He’s old.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: But he seems like he's in good shape.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: He seems like he's in really good shape. Like almost too
good. Like, chill out. This year he’s gonna turn 80. He could just live to be
103 and we’d have 23 more years of Paul McCartney. That almost feels like too
much.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Watching <i>Get Back </i>I was like, “How could you not think Paul
is the greatest?” But then I saw I saw a picture of him in 1986 and I was like, “Oh
yeah – right.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Yeah, he was tacky for a while.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: But he bounced back.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I was watching the Sparks documentary, and I like that
he <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/paul-mccartney-ron-mael-impression/">impersonated Ron Mael in a music video from the ‘80s.</a> There’s a video for
some irrelevant song from like 1982, where he dresses up as like a bunch of
different famous rock musicians. He dresses up as Buddy Holly and Elvis and his
young self. But then he also dress up as Ron Mael from Sparks. Ron Mael is not
that famous and he never was.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I feel like before we end our conversation, we need to
talk about how much we love Paul McCartney. That’s the throughline of
everything we’ve been saying, that Paul is the obvious hero. Like, I feel like if
God came down to Earth and was like, “Hey, like, you're a pretty big Beatles
fan, who was right in the Beatles?” And I’d be like, “Paul McCartney. He was
right. Let it be known. That is objectively true. He was the best one." He had a
really good work ethic, a frighteningly good work ethic for being 26-years-old.
He just wanted the thing to get done. There’s no ego about it. He’s just like, “This
is our job. And we have this annoying director.” Who, by the way, is so
annoying.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: He’s the worst. I love the part where he's suggesting
that they do the show at a hospital for sick kids and there’s this close-up on John's
face and he’s just like, <i>FUCK MY LIFE</i>. And then Paul makes that joke about, “Yeah,
there's a girl who can't walk, but then when she sees John she can walk again,”
and John’s face breaks into this big smile. That was cute.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: See, Paul knows how to mitigate an awkward situation.
The only time I like Michael Lindsay-Hogg is when they're talking about
something unrelated and he’s like “Just as long as I look thin.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: The part where Paul writes “Get Back,” that was
something I’d heard 8 million people talking about online, but then when it
happened it was like, “That really was impressive as everyone said it would be.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I didn’t hear anyone talking about it. I was like
completely blank when I watched that happen. It’s crazy, you never get to see
that happen. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: It's crazy that he just came up with the line, “Thought
she was a woman, but she was another man.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I know, how did that just show up in his head? I like
when he's having misgivings about whether Loretta's last name should be Marsh.
He’s like, “That's not very nice.” There’s another part soon after that I think
about so much where Mal Evans is doing his sad pathetic job of having to
transcribe their lyrics and he’s like, “What's that word?” And John Lennon's like
“Marrrsh.” Like, yeah, change it, guys. It’s awful.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxs6et4nEqiq99dfcXtaYMEaEflK0OUX_OYA6EksRqSqmVcf6D84mqn835ksloqcqzaksZF82hOMMCkHucswMxIwCBbPImSxJrowvGIavSzUHcy6uh6LvZ1ZllNYXnkemwr2_DapDcs53Q5-eevQlFi3-y5MWu5uWz4NC97fA041kaIwtITlipXa2W=s2404" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1372" data-original-width="2404" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxs6et4nEqiq99dfcXtaYMEaEflK0OUX_OYA6EksRqSqmVcf6D84mqn835ksloqcqzaksZF82hOMMCkHucswMxIwCBbPImSxJrowvGIavSzUHcy6uh6LvZ1ZllNYXnkemwr2_DapDcs53Q5-eevQlFi3-y5MWu5uWz4NC97fA041kaIwtITlipXa2W=w640-h366" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I love all their toast and wine and tea and marmalade.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I love how often they casually drink white wine at the
studio. I think it’s Riesling. Because there's a story about how the weird
sound effects at the beginning of “Long, Long, Long” is there was a bottle of
Blue Nun on the piano and it started vibrating. So maybe that was their vibe,
they just liked to have a bottle of cheap Riesling. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: What is your favorite outfit of the entire <i>Get Back</i>?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I like the day when they were all wearing green and
Paul eats a cupcake. I like Paul’s sweater when he writes “Get Back.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: He’s also having a good hair day the day he writes “Get
Back.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: His hair’s pretty luscious and shiny throughout the
whole movie. I like when Ringo’s wearing his pink button down and jeans.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: That might be my number-one fit of the whole
documentary. John looks really good that day too in his striped shirt. And Paul’s
wearing his orange sweater.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I love George’s boots.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I love Paul’s “Bassman” sticker. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: There’s one point where like George is asking someone, “Oh,
can you bring me some shoes? I just want a pair of black plain shoes, size eight
and a half.” And then a couple of days later, he's wearing them. And you're
just like, “Wow, he’s in the Beatles. He doesn’t have to go to the store.” He
wears Converse All-Stars a couple times and he looks really good in them. He
just looks really good. Paul’s a little unkempt.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: But he looks healthy and happy. He looks great at the
rooftop concert. I like his little suit.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I think he looks the worst of the four. He looks happy though. I
think John looks really good on their rooftop concert. I love John’s fur coat.
John looks so cool the entire movie. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I was listening to some podcast and these guys were
talking about the part where they’re leaving the rooftop and John asks Yoko what's wrong, and the podcast dude's take on that was “Yoko’s scared John’s going
to leave her for the Beatles, and John senses that.” Like – that seems like
kind of a reach, but all right.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Maybe Yoko just shouldn’t have gone to the rooftop
concert. But I guess John wanted emotional support. But was it so hard, John? When
I was younger, I saw all of their behavior as being more normal, because I
didn't realize how weird it was to be in the Beatles. When I was like 23, I just
took the way the Beatles behaved at face value. Now I’m 36 and have been
working really hard for a really long time and I'm sitting in my okay apartment
in the middle of a global pandemic, and I just don't understand why it was so
difficult for them. I guess you're just in the situation you're in. But I do
feel as though John Lennon and George Harrison took being in the Beatles
for granted. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I get George, because it seems like he really was not taken very seriously by them. And that must have been frustrating. He had
really good songs and he had shit to say.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: He does bust out “All Things Must Pass,” and it’s so
much better than like “Dig a Pony.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: But I also get if you're John and you meet Yoko and
you're like, “Oh, there's this whole other thing that I could be doing.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Like what?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Like weird, Yoko-y, avant-garde shit. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: But he wasn’t that avant-garde. John just hated every
situation and that’s kind of the beauty of John. He was just not into the
Beatles music. He’s like, “I hate the avant-garde, I’m just gonna make my
gritty rock-and-roll tunes. All I care about is what’s real.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I liked hearing Paul sing “Gimme Some Truth.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I also can’t believe they rejected “Gimme Some Truth.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: “Let’s just do ‘One After 909’ instead.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: “This song we deemed not good enough when we were
17-years-old.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: They made some weird moves.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: But I kind of like “One After 909.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: It’s a bop.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I never press forward on “One After 909.” But I’m never
like, “Ooh, you know what my vibe is right now?” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I wish “Dig It” went on for like 10 more minutes. I
like the part where they're kind of like doing “Dig It” and John is just saying
the names of the Beatles songs for fucking ever.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I love that part. It’s the songs that are on <i>Let It Be</i>.
They should’ve just put that on the album as track one. That’s a good idea,
Laura. It would’ve been <i>Sgt. Pepper </i>kind of vibe, like we're introducing the album
you’re listening to.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiywx-hY4azGjyD42bcWZ22MpaZ63lZmeM7gYl1s90FztF6OOv3IYjaiW9CYo4z5JbPMHljyXPx_ASVZeRGLWyaXS6uUtmxDDV8JpTjVMoNTUDkTIIQn8RxS_XNPEvZ8daZ9ZPsXCXhCzOtSddq7MCpFWrNA4wXSJZe1zL9Frsg7Kez9H_EYF-LMSFP=s2559" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1361" data-original-width="2559" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiywx-hY4azGjyD42bcWZ22MpaZ63lZmeM7gYl1s90FztF6OOv3IYjaiW9CYo4z5JbPMHljyXPx_ASVZeRGLWyaXS6uUtmxDDV8JpTjVMoNTUDkTIIQn8RxS_XNPEvZ8daZ9ZPsXCXhCzOtSddq7MCpFWrNA4wXSJZe1zL9Frsg7Kez9H_EYF-LMSFP=w640-h340" width="640" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Do we have any closing remarks?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I think Paul McCartney was in the right the whole time. Except...in the first one, when there’s that phone conversation with him and John, I
feel like John makes some solid anti-Paul points. He’s talking about how
Paul is a bit of a control freak and asking everyone to play things the way he wants
them to be played, and Paul needs to chill and let George play the way George
wants to play.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: The part between George and Paul that’s such a big
moment in the movie <i>Let It Be</i>, where Paul's like, “I feel like I'm annoying you”
and George says “You don’t annoy me anymore” – in the context of this movie, it
didn’t seem that dramatic. It just seemed like a conversation they were having.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I think it’s weird that George says “You don't annoy me
anymore.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I like it. I would like to say it to somebody someday.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: It’s really passive-aggressive.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yeah - that’s why I like it. It reminds me of Don Draper
telling Ginsberg, “I don’t think about you at all.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I feel like...it’s mean. I put that in my little pouch of
times when I feel George is being spiritually bankrupt and he needs to come off
his high horse and be a little more loving.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Fair.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Can’t have it both ways, George. Do you want to be
passive aggressive, or do you want to love God and see God in Paul McCartney
and love him? Which is it? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I wonder if they were ever bros.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Like in the future?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yeah, future bros. Like in 1987. They don’t seem like
they’re all about each other in the Anthology stuff.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: They’re maybe the ones who have the least in common of
the whole Beatles. I feel George likes Paul less than Paul likes George. That’s
too bad, George. Because I think Paul’s pretty great. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I think we should pick a Spirit Beatles Song for 2022.
And we have to really commit to it. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Well for as much as this movie made me not want to hear “Two
of Us” again for a very long time, it made me love “The Long and Winding Road”
more than I ever did before. I’m not picking that, but I love when Mal is helping Paul with the lyrics and Paul says something like “There's enough
obstacles without putting them in the song.” I thought that was a good point.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I forgot to say the most important thing of all, which
is it’s the coolest thing of all time when he says “To wander aimlessly is very
unswinging.” Can we have that be the name of the post? I want that to be the name
of everything I ever do. I want to put that on my gravestone. And Paul’s
gravestone.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: I’m torn between between “Here Comes the Sun” and “I Me
Mine” for my Spirit Beatles Song. I’ve just been in a negative place lately so
I feel like “Here Comes the Sun” could be a good vibe for me. Can I have both
of them?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Yes. I’ll allow it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Thanks.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: I don’t know mine. “You Know My Name, Look Up the
Number.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: That’s really bad. What about “The Word”?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: That doesn’t resonate. I’ve been into “The Ballad of
John & Yoko” lately.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: Oh, pick that. You seem to be in a healthy relationship,
it’s a good vibe. You like John more than you did before you watched <i>Get Back</i>.
Oh and it’s an A-side with your new favorite, “Old Brown Shoe”! That’s your
vibe. You’re that whole single. And I’m the two sides of George Harrison as my
2022 life concept. Finally, after all these years, I’ve realized how much I
love Paul McCartney. But it’s not time for me to fully embody that love. Though I do feel like,</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> in my heart, I am the John Lennon
of Strawberry Fields Whatever, forever. That’s the biggest realization
that I had from watching </span><i style="font-family: arial;">Get Back</i><span style="font-family: arial;">. These are my closing statements: in the
context of <i>us</i>, I’ll always be the John. But in the world, I am not a John
anymore. And that’s crazy, but I just have to love it about myself and accept
it. I’m not the weird rebel who’s trying to make things be fucked up, I’m
the person who’s trying to make everything go smoothly for everybody else. And
that’s kind of beautiful. I might not even be the Paul. I might be the Glyn
Johns. I’m a big deal in other arenas of my life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: What a nice revelation. I don’t know who I’ll be. Maybe
Heather McCartney.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LJ: You can be Linda. Let’s have a year of being sub-Beatles
and then we’ll go back to being Beatles when we reconvene in 2023. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">LIZ: Perfect. That's it.</span></p></div></div>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-4884178417067054802021-08-25T12:24:00.233-07:002021-08-26T11:57:52.725-07:00Everything I Know About Los Angeles<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizH4BhpjnSDMZPsU7C6PlVx_7y_tz9tmB3tfD86nA1WVdHxeRHW5gYaWamM3gAvVQqI9g1zESF-hMwEMQgyhO_lms1YriLvQKrrAB7DW4r_-9KxHFCEO9DyrwsQmpu7Ca-d4Y6yeJ_fd8/s750/IMG-9209+%25281%2529.jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="657" data-original-width="750" height="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizH4BhpjnSDMZPsU7C6PlVx_7y_tz9tmB3tfD86nA1WVdHxeRHW5gYaWamM3gAvVQqI9g1zESF-hMwEMQgyhO_lms1YriLvQKrrAB7DW4r_-9KxHFCEO9DyrwsQmpu7Ca-d4Y6yeJ_fd8/w640-h560/IMG-9209+%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">BY ELIZABETH BARKER</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For my 18th anniversary of living in Los Angeles I made a big list of all the L.A. things that mean a lot to me: some are memories and some are observations and some is just trash talk; all are little love stories about this place whose real name is </span><span style="font-family: arial;">El Pueblo de </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Nuestra Señora La Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">At one point the list was 77 items long, because of The Clash, and there was stuff about the candy selection at Laurel Canyon Country Store and Kim Gordon's Black Flag earrings and the time I celeb-spotted Miss Piggy and Kermit shooting a scene in front of the Wiltern - but in the end I decided to keep it to the essential. Also: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">I don't know who painted that painting up above (it's hanging at El Compadre in Echo Park), but I'm so taken with the streak of pink along the mountains and the hazy glow of all the headlights pointed south. Making the freeway beautiful is a delicate and crucial art. </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">---</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">1. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">The dining room with the happiest vibes in all of L.A. is at Patra in Echo Park, where my favorite menu items include the patty melt, chorizo & egg burrito, and cake cone of strawberry ice cream. I'd also like to thank Patra for teaching me that a diagonal cut fried-egg sandwich on toasted white bread with lettuce and mayo is one of the best things this life has to offer.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZi7JwFJniwELO3-37GvYKA-RpH9u0MdkJgDGIAlRmzacNFfIR4o3UUJC4a7hQSG69T_igl9aHZ-7l6qanSyi-YG8osDOBY6i226h0Rv6MattHb0ShR5IGlZPmpGAav3ChnbR9XYRdYuQ/s2839/59550ED0-BDCB-4FA5-B3C5-4DC5267BB395.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2839" data-original-width="2783" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZi7JwFJniwELO3-37GvYKA-RpH9u0MdkJgDGIAlRmzacNFfIR4o3UUJC4a7hQSG69T_igl9aHZ-7l6qanSyi-YG8osDOBY6i226h0Rv6MattHb0ShR5IGlZPmpGAav3ChnbR9XYRdYuQ/w393-h400/59550ED0-BDCB-4FA5-B3C5-4DC5267BB395.jpeg" width="393" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">2. I first moved here around the time <i>Brown Bunny </i>came out, and for a while </span><span style="font-family: arial;">there was a giant billboard of the blowjob scene right outside Chateau Marmont. On the one hand it made me feel like </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Lili Taylor on <i>Six Feet Under</i>, the part where she tells Nate Fisher: "L.A. is such a godless place." On the other hand I thought it was so exciting to live somewhere godless. For my 20th L.A. anniversary I'm totally buying myself this beautiful <a href="https://conradhaberland.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">Conrad Haberland</span></a> painting:</span></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="711" data-original-width="889" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCO27p1Jnd5Xvm3057AEeUO739tV8W-Ep_rkRmot5gcbnQH1mqnPHReMqpB2QHBrK8CTNbRpZDeg18QmCi1ywiQvS4SVAOewCVXaKJxhq9Mu96mfowd09W57B6CvjPPvRVLTDgdlpD36o/w640-h512/conrad-haberland-paintings-Brown+Bunny.jpg" width="640" /></span></span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">3. Forever grateful to Francesca Lia Block for writing about Oki Dog in the Weetzie books, so that now the sight of the swoopy/show-offy cursive on the Oki Dog menu makes everything a fairy tale:</span></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy42XMy0W4zYG69fEe5VRB-6-iEkMtpcARksU1hWzpxWkJkrRkvn62VQZv9ypFN08d7Aw3bOE_37HKQPDVJtTYpNCGQH7ue4vrSKvDWw84xqwIWsp0i2MBfpCow_EdApWlGm3N3aq0e_A/s750/IMG_0440.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="739" data-original-width="750" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy42XMy0W4zYG69fEe5VRB-6-iEkMtpcARksU1hWzpxWkJkrRkvn62VQZv9ypFN08d7Aw3bOE_37HKQPDVJtTYpNCGQH7ue4vrSKvDWw84xqwIWsp0i2MBfpCow_EdApWlGm3N3aq0e_A/w400-h394/IMG_0440.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">4. Durga Chew-Bose has a line about how her favorite time of day is "when the waitress starts coming around with her tray of votive candles," which I think of anytime I'm walking down Echo Park Ave at dusk and there's multiple skater boys skating by with their just-purchased boxes of Little Caesars. That is my favorite time, more elegant and dazzling than ballet. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">5. People who say no one walks in L.A. have either never been to L.A. or don't understand their own city.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">6.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> L.A. nature is my favorite nature because sometimes birds of paradise look like sucking a grape-flavored Super Blow Pop and drinking a Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi at the same time, with a tube of Vamp It Up Wet N Wild in the front pocket of your jeans. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF4EFt3foi2a1ZcPC7YFs5y2JkpexIj9zAJtBmwfDOf_xEb3ro9LIWNhLH1MQLoPn7Pb3wD3kRikZ7JfFRpBQxmS9m0r2TNFGUilGKGoF9drzzCAj5imTYR-oQ1zCwLDmaU_VtNf2wEwA/s600/IMG-9994.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="568" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF4EFt3foi2a1ZcPC7YFs5y2JkpexIj9zAJtBmwfDOf_xEb3ro9LIWNhLH1MQLoPn7Pb3wD3kRikZ7JfFRpBQxmS9m0r2TNFGUilGKGoF9drzzCAj5imTYR-oQ1zCwLDmaU_VtNf2wEwA/w379-h400/IMG-9994.JPG" width="379" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">7. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">When you're walking around in the morning in spring, the jasmine smells just like Froot Loops.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">8. I could never name the single most beautiful place in Los Angeles, but to me the bakery case at Canter's is easily top ten. I can never stop taking pictures of the banana cake with the cursive on top, the way none of us can ever stop taking pictures of sunsets. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWTdo7S9cM-9NnTyYmQTFm32MyuQV9FBWoZfPkQXqPRKXezU21T7YlOHgSpZjm5RRZBWAGYGVk32Tzr-7Mm6cfp47vbxfx49nk4ktc4Wzj66GApApyhBy-NMtw5ucV31kEPmzCj7NQxC4/s846/IMG-0461.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWTdo7S9cM-9NnTyYmQTFm32MyuQV9FBWoZfPkQXqPRKXezU21T7YlOHgSpZjm5RRZBWAGYGVk32Tzr-7Mm6cfp47vbxfx49nk4ktc4Wzj66GApApyhBy-NMtw5ucV31kEPmzCj7NQxC4/w355-h400/IMG-0461.jpg" width="355" /></span></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>9. If the 10 Freeway westbound on a smoggy Friday night in late summer were a sound, it would be the creepy-snaky lead riff to </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsSa89Ckgps" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">"Kettle Whistle"</span></a><span> by Jane's Addiction. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">And if L.A. were a boy, it would be baby Dave Navarro drinking a Slurpee & smoking a cigarette, his nails painted with chipped polish and a cool rip in the knee of his tights.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_va-AC_THLDeTbT1bnmY9Vr7cKr9VoK5CMtKoLqBDNo56tCn-8qV_gIJk1wUI_8-V2Hwz5Dn7XQ2e7yoh-Yps3eOVEDtLRuu-j_Fw5joKiUbZnxW1sr5tMgixlwPyNBxJEYec1Glsz84/s401/dave.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="360" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_va-AC_THLDeTbT1bnmY9Vr7cKr9VoK5CMtKoLqBDNo56tCn-8qV_gIJk1wUI_8-V2Hwz5Dn7XQ2e7yoh-Yps3eOVEDtLRuu-j_Fw5joKiUbZnxW1sr5tMgixlwPyNBxJEYec1Glsz84/w359-h400/dave.jpg" width="359" /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">10. Two of the best days of my life were the time I went to Flea's house and the other time I went to Flea's house. It was March 2007 and the first visit was a Sunday afternoon and I spent a lot of the day on the beach, taking pictures of starfish and sea anemones. It was a breakthrough moment for me as far as becoming eternally obsessed with Malibu, and with sea anemones. You should go to El Matador at least once a year to hang out with the tidepools and caves.</span></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">11. It takes exactly the length of "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus to drive Mulholland from Laurel Canyon to the 101. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">12. If you pull off Mulholland at that sightseeing spot a little west of Runyon, there's a cool view of the Hollywood Bowl and you can stand there and think of The Beatles in 1965, The Doors in 1968, the Go-Go's in 1982. The last time I went to the Bowl was for Lana Del Rey in fall 2019 and at one point I was in the bathroom and this girl went into a stall and then yelled: "I just got my period! LANA MADE ME BLEED." There was a big hullabaloo about how none of her friends had a tampon or change for the dispenser so then I went and bought her one, because that's just what you do. Later on there was the most glorious fireworks display during the encore performance of "Venice Bitch." </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div>13. <b>RIP IN PARADISE HOUSE OF SPIRITS</b>, my fave liquor store where I once bought a bottle of banana schnapps that I never pulled the trigger on. There was always a box of De La Rosa peanut mazapan by the register, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BHOWWIHgnmN/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">the neon was so legendary</span></a>. It burned down the day we found out Lana Del Rey bought a house one street over from ours.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="750" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9WnoByhJw-2EquNH5e52UxI5fUKa32ZdvYPcXsF0f5QzhmQvpsyh4z8JghhL8hTcmI66-je3RVae9Jb4rLtsTvl4vxh7gPTbNfm0yysoUXFbOZFBr5Lcefo51ZYvxICiq6w8ognsvsjM/w640-h424/IMG-9980.jpg" width="640" /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>14. And RIP La Espiga, the bakery near my first L.A. apartment. There was a rooster who'd pace around out front and a massive industrial fan that'd blow crazy gusts of cake-scented air out onto the street. They made dulce de leche empanadas, and these chocolate-strawberry-vanilla cookies dusted in sugar. La Espiga taught me that Neapolitan isn't a flavor, it's a state of mind.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDrye2OfDgJh5czbMv1t88W4LQ96tW6VSzlFHo270Ia57wXLo1ORffLqVBKWMWkxsvUSROz5g6jnz5GaxZ0J84DWiSKMUoA_lPOaHTsRhWSAncrLlkG5IhKsijwr_KhnXrjoULlFYlUH0/s750/IMG-9216.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="750" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDrye2OfDgJh5czbMv1t88W4LQ96tW6VSzlFHo270Ia57wXLo1ORffLqVBKWMWkxsvUSROz5g6jnz5GaxZ0J84DWiSKMUoA_lPOaHTsRhWSAncrLlkG5IhKsijwr_KhnXrjoULlFYlUH0/w400-h390/IMG-9216.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div><br /></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">15. Before </span><a href="https://www.skylightbooks.com/echoparkriseup-booklist" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Echo Park Lake was cursed</span></a><span style="font-family: arial;"> and the paddleboats turned into swans it used to one of my favorite places, especially on Sunday afternoons around dusk when the sky's hot-pink and makes the lake pink too. Bring back</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5g79zfjdts&t=113s" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Mike D's paddleboats please</span></a>!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div>16. Some of the best art in L.A. happens when fallen blossoms collide with crumpled-up trash that's aesthetically/vibrationally appealing. I've had this pic saved on my phone for so long; I want to make a zine again so it can be the cover:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdt2vb9bnCZDJsy7MDRc4rjKuluuRmpST2d7L5hwjzXL3FwdHjErT4WUrcA-DxyY-kgZ0aEC07sDrCjeDiA44k9KfRdFXnmlKCpz9D3rbSaennzfnsC678PfiHwlMq4wf2X4f4Rr9HBFA/s2048/IMG-9986.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1756" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdt2vb9bnCZDJsy7MDRc4rjKuluuRmpST2d7L5hwjzXL3FwdHjErT4WUrcA-DxyY-kgZ0aEC07sDrCjeDiA44k9KfRdFXnmlKCpz9D3rbSaennzfnsC678PfiHwlMq4wf2X4f4Rr9HBFA/w547-h640/IMG-9986.JPG" width="547" /></span></a></div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">17. So here's a tiny rant: my general take on everything is that if you don't love L.A., L.A. will never love you back. But I also love it when people recognize they're incapable of loving L.A., then gracefully remove themselves from the situation (like how on the new Lorde record she makes it clear she's <a href="https://genius.com/Lorde-california-lyrics" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6aa84f;">done with Los Angeles</span></a> - I love that journey for her; I want everyone to live their truth). </span><span style="font-family: arial;">What I'm </span><span style="font-family: arial;">not </span><span style="font-family: arial;">into is people who move here from certain other cities but still harbor a knee-jerk antipathy to Los Angeles, some presumption of being above it all, and then </span><span style="font-family: arial;">limit their experience to drinking at terminally boring wine bars and dining at what Max Silvestri refers to as </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/dopequeens/episodes/2-dope-queens-podcast-episode-24-get-outta-my-window-seat" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">"those weird fake-hip white-people sort-of-fancy-kind-of-not restaurants that we all go to and forget five seconds after</span></a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">."</span>* I mean the people who say things like "I don't go west of La Brea" and mistake that for being so discerning and refined, or the type of person who takes a Milkfarm picnic basket to the Bowl to see a band they discovered on Morning Becomes Eclectic but then spends the whole night loudly talking about Silver Lake real estate. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Lack of curiosity is toxic. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway - I like this line from the introduction Molly Lambert wrote for that Eve Babitz collection, </span><i>I Used to Be Charming</i><span style="font-family: arial;">: "People still ask how we can stand to live in LA, although they tend to do it months before they themselves move here and decide they invented it." <b><span style="font-size: medium;">BOOM</span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">(*From </span><span style="font-family: arial;">his "2 Dope Queens" episode; the bit starts</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> at the 42:58 mark. I think a lot about the $200 pork chop)</span></i></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">18. I love when it's the draggiest gray all day and then the sun comes out right before dusk and gives you the most ravishing and emotionally manipulative magic hour you've ever seen.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi26T1PlPU3wc3_la8poKfTUaXPPRPQQ5h5cWKZJyIc_ei7ANQP5dM4EPYLKx8MDqXnNOvJE9U27nUtDJlEtHlaxmY_Ksfv0iky4RH85p5s6zIi9_Xs_MjXeGBQdo_T8tTtvWQ1ggl6Fcs/s869/IMG-9977.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="869" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi26T1PlPU3wc3_la8poKfTUaXPPRPQQ5h5cWKZJyIc_ei7ANQP5dM4EPYLKx8MDqXnNOvJE9U27nUtDJlEtHlaxmY_Ksfv0iky4RH85p5s6zIi9_Xs_MjXeGBQdo_T8tTtvWQ1ggl6Fcs/w552-h640/IMG-9977.jpg" width="552" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But it's also nice when the gray hangs around for magic hour and everything's all muted and fuzzed. Now that I've been in L.A. all these years I'm starting to appreciate understated scenes like this one:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1663" data-original-width="2048" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1-nuzQjKJVD432z_3qEYEeOkFRpRwy3hBcC5UMxtcP1NItQhpvfn7TJsFs95CnQalGRt2LR0tEXn75954xsCRVadtqCCK5W2H136OrogE9KyLeXl1wZ3ZiyxELo9LT7zrX5t1RBNPgV8/w640-h520/IMG-9985.JPG" width="640" /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><p></p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">19. Sometimes I used to go up to Topanga to do work/writing at Cafe Mimosa and eavesdrop on all the Topanga weirdos. The muffins were tragic but the eavesdropping was so good, like this one time I was sitting next to a handsome man whose look was very "dandy surfer" and the dude said to his friend: "When I first sort of ran away from everything, I went to Venice Beach and fell in with this very cool cat, a gay English batik-maker." I think it's fun when people speak like quintessentially Californian space cadets. I think <a href="https://twitter.com/valerie_tosi/status/1424078768805617669?s=20" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">this tweet</span></a> is pedestrian and uncouth.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">20. I love <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tv/CLm7bNNhMei/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">this semi-recent video of Courtney Love talking about perfume</span></a>, where she says the words "sexy croissant" and also: "I think we can be gothic and bookish at the same time - like a gothic slut, but also lost in a fantastic library full of thousand-year-old books, but also at the Chateau Marmont, and also right after really good sex, and also driving down the PCH."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">21. Speaking of poetry: one time I was at <a href="https://www.iliadbooks.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #38761d;">The Iliad</span></a> in North Hollywood and haphazardly pulled a 1988 issue of the Paris Review off the shelf and opened it to <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/10/13/the-bed/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #38761d;">"The Bed" by Catherine Bowman</span></a>, and now Catherine Bowman is my favorite poet. The Iliad is a wonderland.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">22. Jacaranda + June gloom is also a kind of poem: <br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbft0IA2hoNr7kqESAbZJF6ctyd-G1tcTDpaCSIpFl-ADE4JIZxveSG0Gl7gRA4gtq06u4YLH1W3g7Bz_YUupW1E9d92gdQyHFfnrOwrlrPgZ7QooosoU4ngZ7vccS3zko8xGw4ZVz4nw/s750/IMG-9221.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="735" data-original-width="750" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbft0IA2hoNr7kqESAbZJF6ctyd-G1tcTDpaCSIpFl-ADE4JIZxveSG0Gl7gRA4gtq06u4YLH1W3g7Bz_YUupW1E9d92gdQyHFfnrOwrlrPgZ7QooosoU4ngZ7vccS3zko8xGw4ZVz4nw/w400-h393/IMG-9221.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">23. Wait I have more to say about the walking thing (!!!!). If you're the type of person who walks in L.A., you can do that thing of waiting till close to sundown on a hot summer night, then walking down to the nearest taco truck listening to <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/46SlXAHl9q0eL06d5DAz0U?si=a4dd8ce0dfbc4698" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">good hot-night music</span></a>, then buying yourself a big icy cup of horchata for sipping on the way back. Somehow the first Pavement record works perfect for this.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">24. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">If you've got a crush on someone a cute move is to go down to the arcade at Santa Monica Pier and play a few games of skee-ball and take a pic of your highest score and text it to the person. And then you give away all your tickets to some kid, and then go take pictures of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd1NrLLnqQ4/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">the neon of the ferris wheel reflecting onto the ocean</span></a>, or the waves & the smog & the beach people at night</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFLkHjdODyS1LiT8CETMTBSW4TuRZTLsBAE_178nBOh6kyg3OmOUNpTMOVbl8c8Xtr1gduTaNh_LnS32TT_lk7AiITEPvVVpAlveUIsHac-Rr40J6LBDwWPQr00mbxvgk23stOqdwKxnw/s750/IMG-9979.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="548" data-original-width="750" height="469" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFLkHjdODyS1LiT8CETMTBSW4TuRZTLsBAE_178nBOh6kyg3OmOUNpTMOVbl8c8Xtr1gduTaNh_LnS32TT_lk7AiITEPvVVpAlveUIsHac-Rr40J6LBDwWPQr00mbxvgk23stOqdwKxnw/w640-h469/IMG-9979.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">25. When you come from somewhere else, hearing "Johny Hit & Run Paulene" in L.A. for the first time is another form of virginity-losing. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">26. Like Pee-wee married a bowl of fruit salad, I would like to marry the downtown branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>27. I haven't been to The Smell in 500 years and maybe I'll never go again, but I loved taking a break and going to the gay bar next door, El Jalisco, where they gave everyone little snack bowls full of Fritos doused in hot sauce. The day No Age shot the cover for </span><i>Weirdo Rippers</i><span>, a dude from the bar came out and gave us all free Jello shots at like 10 in the morning. I am a pigtailed brunette in <a href="http://day19.com/blog/0407/noage_familyportrait.jpg" target="_blank"><span style="color: #a64d79;">the photo</span></a>. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>28. Apart from hot-saucy Fritos and Jello shots, some of my favorite things I've ever eaten in L.A. include: spicy sea snails from Dan Sung Sa, laksa from the Singaporean place at Farmers Market, Canter's chocolate rugelach, papaya wings from Jitlada, everything else I've ever had from Jitlada, </span>the Reese's donut at California Donuts, pineapple empanadas at Cuscatleca, <a href="https://www.yelp.com/biz/mrs-sippee-los-angeles-4" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">fried chicken from the gas station</span></a>, Zankou pickles, a foil takeout container of spaghetti & sausage from the real Pizza Buona, mole negro at Guelaguetza, sesame hash browns at Patrick's Roadhouse, a beer + a boat of french fries at Neptune's Net, white chocolate princess cake from Bottega Louie, and the incomparable beauty of a huge-ass coffee + chocolate coconut donut at Ms. Donut in Echo Park:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyPyimcuQotPxPQuDNUimRM7aMBYoFwtvyDs4w97q7oGGOcBjZSs9o9Roq8mRnNkiRNzyi-CEWTp666VPoE2aakYcIYKIP6E1n688e0ylbkVGTdSW8N01gfGGye1fiWLMGGOILbCBo4Ng/s750/IMG-9233.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="737" data-original-width="750" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyPyimcuQotPxPQuDNUimRM7aMBYoFwtvyDs4w97q7oGGOcBjZSs9o9Roq8mRnNkiRNzyi-CEWTp666VPoE2aakYcIYKIP6E1n688e0ylbkVGTdSW8N01gfGGye1fiWLMGGOILbCBo4Ng/w400-h393/IMG-9233.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;">29. Really, sometimes all I need to make everything ok is a meal eaten from a coconut in a Thai restaurant in a strip mall. I deeply miss the Coconut Paradise at the no-longer-with-us Sib Song, where they'd stick a cocktail umbrella into the top of your coconut.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvn2cMdkKfnAGQszBU-HVJG6sdcAxMwSM1XHMNR62oSgoDnbGjD6jGbI3FU04LiSvoWPQ_NXqXll39d5IDqdyW-3P39Aag97FxaXCqlOM-EZ1EALr08fk3bCzX1qrGwwYwyU1xtacgh7E/s750/IMG-9210.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="705" data-original-width="750" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvn2cMdkKfnAGQszBU-HVJG6sdcAxMwSM1XHMNR62oSgoDnbGjD6jGbI3FU04LiSvoWPQ_NXqXll39d5IDqdyW-3P39Aag97FxaXCqlOM-EZ1EALr08fk3bCzX1qrGwwYwyU1xtacgh7E/w400-h376/IMG-9210.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div><span style="font-family: arial;">30. I also miss the original Scoops location (Heliotrope & Melrose) and the blackboard where you could write your flavor suggestions. The Apple Jacks suggestion is so inspired. What the hell kind of lunatic wants French bread gelato :/</span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFJ7eEsIEahGHYdlLi7GR_ii1kZJOguBvtgeZdqaafwS4t2rzc1t5C3FUCaSNCRjCn1DYboN0AAHQwZuVkNyV4VctYAKYa55GJP8Uy2jakLH6KRCPZhmU168MzhIOCJUZU_RT_TWLW1ds/s750/IMG-9218.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="516" data-original-width="750" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFJ7eEsIEahGHYdlLi7GR_ii1kZJOguBvtgeZdqaafwS4t2rzc1t5C3FUCaSNCRjCn1DYboN0AAHQwZuVkNyV4VctYAKYa55GJP8Uy2jakLH6KRCPZhmU168MzhIOCJUZU_RT_TWLW1ds/w400-h275/IMG-9218.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></span></p><div><p>31. Beyond having a favorite restaurant and donut shop and taco stand in Los Angeles, it's important to have a favorite freeway exit, incense vendor, pier, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BSU4bbplhxg/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #a64d79;">bougainvillea blob</span></a>, star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. My favorite star is David Bowie's; I went for the first time the morning after he died, and someone had left him red peppers & milk.</p></div><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXHHN48aIgQ7s1Rp3V3Ln8_rjO7_8I5rzHCwhvKRJVFFON0OnNpMG1W0Zjmep2ZnSf2-QaN_AYv0iLm6hof58XNnuk2xKLd3LSmL_vQ9XQPpk_QiNuW52zUBShR0eydzXLb3d2rsMfW9w/s750/IMG-9225.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="742" data-original-width="750" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXHHN48aIgQ7s1Rp3V3Ln8_rjO7_8I5rzHCwhvKRJVFFON0OnNpMG1W0Zjmep2ZnSf2-QaN_AYv0iLm6hof58XNnuk2xKLd3LSmL_vQ9XQPpk_QiNuW52zUBShR0eydzXLb3d2rsMfW9w/w400-h396/IMG-9225.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></p><div>32. Sometimes if I feel a little disenchanted, I remember the time my friend saw a deer run through the crosswalk in the middle of Hollywood, or the time another friend Insta'd a dude on horseback galloping full speed past a Taco Bell in the Valley: it always puts my head back on straight. And if you ever need a little thrill, I'd suggest driving down Lankershim a little after twilight and hanging around outside the motel with the horse on the roof. </div></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: arial; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="750" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTvWV_besaZ1G3yYtQ-6ayXyV4ylfeQ1HeBPiNAicxpb-3N7X4BFMeA1YYdZ9VzeKcD95A_UxjdPi9zAwyTcH2HBk-tlrDkp06OxnwiWerwqEfF_Zg0UA37WyH_wrOWv9z1idlvf4QBx4/w640-h378/IMG-9981+%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></span></div><div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">33. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Along with Dave Navarro & his Slurpee, one person who fully embodies the spirit of L.A. for me is Christine McVie drinking a glass of white wine on the field at Dodger Stadium in the video for "Tusk":</span></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmhRja0_QByZ8YWyavaO8H0CYY0SCiyx6T709jjNy8zxklJ4FuWoDemjwjaLr3qQQHpDScGLk1_lUqz8UL7Z9wlP-7ggyYFJoxhfbcsm2RyteTqHa8V3QFNlQWaQSoizC2OaRaMJsbSgw/s1883/2A58A3D1-C101-4B3D-9676-017FB9A14FC0.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1423" data-original-width="1883" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmhRja0_QByZ8YWyavaO8H0CYY0SCiyx6T709jjNy8zxklJ4FuWoDemjwjaLr3qQQHpDScGLk1_lUqz8UL7Z9wlP-7ggyYFJoxhfbcsm2RyteTqHa8V3QFNlQWaQSoizC2OaRaMJsbSgw/w400-h303/2A58A3D1-C101-4B3D-9676-017FB9A14FC0.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">34. Over the course of making this post I've started questioning why I'm such a manic proponent of walking in L.A., and I think it's got to do with the experience of deliberate and pleasurable solitude. People who moved here from New York are always giving you that line about how in New York you just walk down the street and run into a friend or somebody you've got the hots for, and then you duck into a bar and end up spending the whole night there and it's such wild serendipitous fun. Which truly sounds wonderful and always makes me envious, but that's not what walking in L.A. does for you. For the most part walking in L.A. means being on your own, and if you work it just right it can ease you into a state of heightened attention and sustained fascination</span><span style="font-family: arial;">. Your brain shuts off a little and you just zone out on the juxtaposition of neon and sky, the coconuts and churros and avocados and mangos for sale on the sidewalk, </span><span style="font-family: arial;">the crazy perfume of jasmine and gasoline and al pastor roasting on the big spit with the pineapple on top. It's a state in which it's</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> spiritually incorrect to listen to a podcast, and I value that more and more all the time. I want my head full of flowers not takes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>35. My all-time fave song with L.A. in the title is <a href="https://vimeo.com/32433014" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">"L.A. Mist" by The Sharp Ease</span></a>. Lately my favorite L.A. music is </span><a href="https://soundcloud.com/paris_texas/heavy-metal" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">"Heavy Metal" by Paris Texas</span></a><span>, who are from Compton. Part of the reason it feels like L.A. is it never stops surprising me, I never get used to it, it always manages to rattle and delight me in equal measure.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">36. <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7aLDFSLopr16Xq0Ms85RLU?si=dbe05e14586943e2" target="_blank"><span style="color: #45818e;">This is a playlist of other songs that feel like Los Angeles to me</span></a>. But it doesn't include the song that feels most like L.A.-like, which is Iggy Pop and David Bowie doing "Funtime" on <i>The Dinah Shore Show</i> in 1977. I love how it obliterates any of the slickness of the original and takes on this off-the-rails energy that's kind of dopey and galumphing but still so glamorous. It makes me want to write a story where at the beginning the main character says "Hey I feel lucky tonight, I'm gonna get stoned and run around" and absolutely means it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/nOQg5AAwRMc" style="background-image: url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nOQg5AAwRMc/hqdefault.jpg);" width="480"></iframe></span></p></div></div>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-74140303860720090372020-12-22T08:35:00.223-08:002020-12-23T10:16:35.125-08:00Weird Women Setting Off Fireworks in Winter: A Story of Listening to 'Pod' by the Breeders All the Time in 2020<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaHpiuIocl35nm1_QMbBhWhqGuVzzJELN-i2sqD3yEQNEL44lDWQ4UQPj_gGAKS0jmbfkfR326TjYvH6XVMGpYgQ0eGxeB4zvyXyYb3TiN4ID5N-lT0mxTdN1XYRrqwjXP4fXLj_HGCBM/s1185/Breeders.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="775" data-original-width="1185" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaHpiuIocl35nm1_QMbBhWhqGuVzzJELN-i2sqD3yEQNEL44lDWQ4UQPj_gGAKS0jmbfkfR326TjYvH6XVMGpYgQ0eGxeB4zvyXyYb3TiN4ID5N-lT0mxTdN1XYRrqwjXP4fXLj_HGCBM/w540-h352/Breeders.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="540" /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><i>(photo by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kevinwestenberg/?hl=en" target="_blank">Kevin Westenberg</a>)</i></span></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">BY ELIZABETH BARKER</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><span><span>One of my favorite stories I've read this year is about how when Tanya Donelly decided to quit the Breeders, Kim Deal locked the two of them in the bathroom of a bar in Ohio to try to talk her out of it - and then by the time they came out the bar had closed for the night, they were locked in, they had to break themselves out and walk home on the highway. The only album Tanya made with the Breeders is<span> </span><i>Pod</i>, which came out 30 years ago last May. Their original idea was to make it a dance record, because they loved dancing, but instead it turned out to be a rock album about bugs, schizophrenia, Sherlock Holmes, a sleepover. They recorded it in Edinburgh in the middle of winter and wore their pajamas all the time, like a never-ending pajama party, although Kim referred to it as "winter camp for a collection of losers." </span></span>After the album came out they gave interviews at the cemetery in the Hollywood Hills and at a hotel in L.A. where they laid out by the pool, tanning, drinking straight bourbon in the middle of the day. They called themselves The Bangles from Hell, and in their cover story for Melody Maker the journalist calls them "mutant Shangri-Las." (Also in that cover story, Kim reveals that her favorite word is<span> </span><i>luscious</i>, and that her parents had a rule that either she or Kelley had to always be wearing nail polish so they could tell the twins apart.) </span></p><p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">Apart from<span> </span><i>Fetch the Bolt Cutters</i>,<span> </span><i>Pod</i><span> </span>is the album I've listened to most in quarantine. I never get sick of it, or even used<i><span> </span></i>to it: it always surprises me. Here are some things I love about it most:</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span style="color: #444444;">i. I think part of the reason<span> </span></span><i style="color: #444444;">Pod</i><span style="color: #444444;"><span> </span>sounds good in quarantine is the scale of it: it feels like being alone in a very dark room, but it also feels like an entire world. A lot of the time I wish it were more than an album; I wish it were a novel or a movie or a limited TV series on a prestige network, rated TV-MA. I would love eight hours of<span> </span></span><i style="color: #444444;">Pod</i><span><span style="color: #444444;">-esque drama onscreen, something moody and racy and enchanted in a warped way,</span><span style="color: #444444;"> </span><i><a href="https://www.criterion.com/films/29635-girlfriends" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Girlfriends</span></a></i><span style="color: #444444;"> </span><span style="color: #444444;">meets the Susan Seidelman-directed episodes of "Sex and the City" meets Faerie Tale Theatre. The plot could tie in little dramatizations of the songs on</span><span style="color: #444444;"> </span><i style="color: #444444;">Pod</i><span style="color: #444444;">, like the sleepover in "Iris," or how in "Glorious" they drink mushroom tea and play Scrabble and take a nap, or how "Fortunately Gone" is about a woman in Heaven waiting for her beloved to die so they can</span></span></span><span style="color: #444444;"> get back together again. And whenever I hear "Oh!" I get this scene in my head, a woman in a lavender leotard doing ballet in her bathroom, using the towel rack for a barre and occasionally taking a sip of a seafoam-colored health shake, slightly hungover on a Saturday afternoon but determined to bring some grace and refinement and dreamy asceticism to her day.</span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span style="color: #444444; font-style: normal;"><span>But really I don't care much about plot; all that matters is that the vibe is true to the psychic atmosphere of<span> </span><i>Pod</i>, which is an album with the lyrics<span> </span><i>And in a kitchen in Kentucky, she thinks she's Peter Pan</i><span> </span>and<span> </span><i>Hay for a bed, with her on my head</i><span> </span>and<span> </span><i>When Iris sleeps over, what a book she'll write</i>. I want a glacially-paced </span></span><span style="color: #444444;">arthouse soap opera, populated by weird women like the Breeders circa <i>Pod</i>: women who never make a big show of being weird, who seem generally indifferent to the ways in which their weirdness imprints on those around them. Most of the time in movies, a woman's weirdness is something for the male protagonist to marvel at and be seduced by and to use as a means of exorcising his own dullness, rekindling his joie de vivre. I want a movie where it's just women being weird for each other, and it lights them up and fortifies them and gives them the courage to live in the full expression of their oddball tendencies. </span></span><span style="color: #444444;">Like<span> </span></span><a href="https://youtu.be/Hkyu2uG1WLQ?t=4123" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Maron told Lorde "Don't medicate your joy,"</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"><span> </span>I think it's kind of crucial not to hide the thing in you that makes you see the world different from everybody else. But in real life it can be so hard not to hide. It's good to have people around who won't let you, who will hold you accountable for having avoided becoming someone who's never not down for a bottomless-mimosa brunch, who won't allow you to squander or bury your very singular strangeness.</span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">There's a part in Durga Chew-Bose's book<span> </span><i>Too Much and Not the Mood</i><span> </span>where she writes about "nook people," which is a term she and a friend invented in order to self-categorize. It goes on for pages and I want to type all of it here but this might be my favorite sentence:</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><i>Nook people fall asleep in their palms; are pacified by tucking their hands in the warm seam of two thighs; are rarely sure how they got good at anything; confront despair with a strong drink or by giving up for months, only writing first sentences or returning to a corrupted love; or converting their bed into a life raft, or wearing a thick cat-eye simply to walk to the store; or making innocent decisions like buying a shower radio to cure a bad day, or finding a friend who is folding her laundry and requesting that you sit on her floor while she pairs socks, or suggesting that you donate your bunch of brown bananas so that she might bake the bread.</i></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span><span style="color: #444444;"><span>There's some overlap between nook people and the type of women who inhabit the world that<span> </span><i>Pod</i><span> </span>puts in my head - nook people collect sea glass, drink wine from mugs, "confuse emotional truth with other varieties of truth" - but I'm </span></span><span style="color: #444444;">mainly </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span>struck by the specificity, the notion of a whole flock of people embodying the same idiosyncrasies. The women in my<span> </span><i>Pod</i><span> </span>movie are kindred like that: they all live in grubby apartments that are sparsely furnished but lavishly cluttered, filled up with things like seashells and tarot decks and wicker-bottomed chianti bottles stuck with candlesticks, tequila bottles full of sand from faraway beaches, ashtrays stolen from Denny's and from a tiki bar in Vegas. There's a bong made out of a water gun shaped like a tropical fish, a tropical fish tank with no water but hunks of neon-pink coral and a figurine of a hot busty mermaid. </span></span><span style="color: #444444;">On the walls there's that<span> </span></span><a href="https://jamaicans.com/7-things-model-jamaicas-most-iconic-poster/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Jamaica Tourist Board poster from 1972</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">, too many mirrors and mall-hippie tapestries, a picture of David Bowie ripped carelessly from a magazine and stuck to the plaster with a sticker from an apple. They're willfully messy women; </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span>every moment has the showy yet earnest chaos of </span><span>Ally Sheedy dumping her bag onto the couch in the third act of</span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"> <i>The</i> <i>Breakfast Club</i>, talking about how you never know when you may have to jam.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; clear: both; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh0cnJ0h1f7t0HXYi6e6B89PK4Ggw_FOhdq5QzcKTdHVLr784UmtMj_7CizxXqlXZeqgfp1kd5Lv1uqGWphQS0bFkRKOzrTDBiU1HPQxbCVicmx6-TRQDOHus8eMu-DL9XAZA3V1qPoy0/s966/allison.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="966" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh0cnJ0h1f7t0HXYi6e6B89PK4Ggw_FOhdq5QzcKTdHVLr784UmtMj_7CizxXqlXZeqgfp1kd5Lv1uqGWphQS0bFkRKOzrTDBiU1HPQxbCVicmx6-TRQDOHus8eMu-DL9XAZA3V1qPoy0/w400-h251/allison.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span style="color: #444444;"><i>Pod</i><span> </span>women probably also dance like </span><span><span style="color: #444444;">Allison in</span><span style="color: #444444;"> </span><i style="color: #444444;">The Breakfast Club</i><span style="color: #444444;">, and do their eye makeup the same, and there's never any Molly Ringwald to come along and priss it up. But instead of the long skirt and leggings and baggy sweater, their fashion sense communicates</span><span style="color: #444444;"> </span><i style="color: #444444;">misfit</i><span style="color: #444444;"> </span><span style="color: #444444;">in a more lighthearted and celebratory way - something like tearing the sleeves off an old </span><a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/636519253/vintage-snoopy-shirt-joe-beach-graphic?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_b-clothing-unisex_adult_clothing-other&utm_custom1=_k_CjwKCAiAt9z-BRBCEiwA_bWv-KE7k-ZeVP3FG53y1NIIbp7bqz0GhC7qFkXjTqRmwvNnq3C-zjD4axoCulAQAvD_BwE_k_&utm_content=go_11756612619_113534569585_483582544276_pla-298745887900_c__636519253_116022032&utm_custom2=11756612619&gclid=CjwKCAiAt9z-BRBCEiwA_bWv-KE7k-ZeVP3FG53y1NIIbp7bqz0GhC7qFkXjTqRmwvNnq3C-zjD4axoCulAQAvD_BwE" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Joe Beach</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> </span><span style="color: #444444;">or</span><span style="color: #444444;"> </span><a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/90s-Snoopy-Joe-Tennis-Vintage-Shirt-/114165395726" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Joe Tennis</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> </span><span style="color: #444444;">shirt and wearing it over a bright crinkly peasant skirt, or going out in a new-wave-y white-vinyl raincoat when it's not even raining, or pairing dangly </span></span><span><span style="color: #444444;">art-teacher earrings with a slouchy brown bomber jacket like Kim does in the </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT6oZGThwis" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">"Safari"</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> video. On occasion they embrace all-out frumpiness, a la </span></span><a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/419890365235308436/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Madonna at a Bryan Ferry concert in 1988</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">. An ideal hair situation would be a high and fountainous pony, or the nest-like hairstyle that </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/t-magazine/fashion/nest-hairstyle-beauty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Christine Smallwood associates with</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> women who "do not control their bodies from above like a ghost in a machine." I also mean the kind of woman who might accessorize by tucking a cocktail umbrella behind her ear, who ties a knee sock around her head in lieu of a sleep mask, whose idea of perfume is </span></span><span style="color: #444444;">roll-on sandalwood oil or a Bath & Body Works deep cut like Velvet Sugar body spray. The kind of woman who's hoping for elegance but still </span><span style="color: #444444;">wearing cutoffs - and, in cold weather, cutoffs with black tights. </span><span style="color: #444444;"><i>Pod</i></span><span style="color: #444444;"> is a very cutoffs-and-black-tights record to me, maybe above all else.</span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; clear: both; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9g5RdxI8hXybH9rx2oa7eblPDVzxvy1fMVR5nyL7vX4GqA6B7Jf0HSV7lGwtlhXFXEzh11gAr_uz9-tLeM1vXN1Udq5ey8ihiD2ODDUhcb16rmI6KY-nwmzLuNyIUI_bC8AMOPWh37Jw/s2048/E0EF04FD-F672-4E89-AB48-E75E29847CA4.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1566" data-original-width="2048" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9g5RdxI8hXybH9rx2oa7eblPDVzxvy1fMVR5nyL7vX4GqA6B7Jf0HSV7lGwtlhXFXEzh11gAr_uz9-tLeM1vXN1Udq5ey8ihiD2ODDUhcb16rmI6KY-nwmzLuNyIUI_bC8AMOPWh37Jw/w400-h306/E0EF04FD-F672-4E89-AB48-E75E29847CA4.JPG" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></span></a></div><p><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />ii. If I were making a <i>Pod</i><span> movie I'd put the two lead women in scenarios like: slipping off to the bathroom together at a party or a bar, keeping up the conversation while one woman's peeing and her friend's fixing her lipstick in the mirror, and then shyly switching off; </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">setting off firecrackers in an empty park covered in filthy snow, at some bullshit time of year like the third week of January; getting ready to go out on a Friday night and sharing a mirror and an eyeshadow palette and a bottle of beer, one woman attempting to tell the other an elaborate story over the roar of a blow dryer. (I love the intensity of concentration it takes for women to understand each other in that blow-drying moment, the exorbitantly serious "I got you" face the listener puts on for her friend: to me that is the look of love.) </span><span style="font-family: arial;">There'd be an almost pathological togetherness to their friendship, like <span>how in college or high school there were those groups of girls who had a physical intimacy that verged on sexual but mostly telegraphed a sort of charmed</span><i> </i><span>clannishness, girls who were always lying around with their heads in each other's laps, who held hands or stroked each other's hair or kissed hello on the lips. Their closeness becomes a kind of glamour because it's so impenetrable. </span></span></span></p><div><span><span style="font-family: arial;"><p><span style="color: #444444;">I think a big reason why I'm infatuated with </span><i style="color: #444444;">Pod</i><span style="color: #444444;"> in 2020 is the making of it seems so romantic: when you go months and months without really ever seeing your friends, it's nice to think about Kim Deal and Tanya Donelly and Josephine Wiggs recording an album in their pajamas and then doing </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXVAssQ4ipQ" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">interviews where they brush their hair in the mirror together</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">. In </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool_the_World" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">that book about the Pixies</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> there's this sweet part where Tanya's talking about Kim and says: "I never had girlfriends like her in high school. She was my first 'I'm gonna braid your hair!' kind of friend. 'Let's paint our nails!' I'd never had that before." I love that they had a friendship that started with painting their nails and braiding each other's hair and then grew into making a record whose only logical cover art is a blurry faceless someone </span><a href="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0105/4542/products/breeders-pod-orange_1800x.jpg?v=1571265064" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">dancing in a belt made of eels</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">. That's what can happen when you share the same fascinations and curiosities, and you're actually committed to seeing that through and making something wild out of it. You get so deep into your own groove together, everything feels possible.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #444444; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNHDTjkeIf-tUdxTeJLhnempsf4oezE9J3usDeKs93nQd3gz54Bg3v8oTcWdgaej2JqJ13hAjKQw9LHLgE3Wx4FW1BMpU2Zy9r21nelEZWVIIsyDKFm0ZFeCvuHsbQvYl0PhyphenhyphenYyiL9HmY/s1776/1A38D465-FD03-4DFC-BC27-D3E158336C3D.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1776" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNHDTjkeIf-tUdxTeJLhnempsf4oezE9J3usDeKs93nQd3gz54Bg3v8oTcWdgaej2JqJ13hAjKQw9LHLgE3Wx4FW1BMpU2Zy9r21nelEZWVIIsyDKFm0ZFeCvuHsbQvYl0PhyphenhyphenYyiL9HmY/w400-h304/1A38D465-FD03-4DFC-BC27-D3E158336C3D.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><span style="color: #444444;">iii. I like this quote from Steve Albini, who engineered <i>Pod</i>:</span></p></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">"There was a simultaneous charm to Kim's presentation to her music that's both childlike and giddy and also completely mature and kind of dirty. And I instantly liked that it had the sort of playful nature of children's music and it had this sort of girlish fascination with things that were pretty but it was also kind of horny."</span></p><p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">I'm happy he used the word horny. People use "horny" all the time these days and it basically means nothing anymore, </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">so now we need another word. Ideally I'd like "lusty" to mean what "lustful" means, but really it means "healthy and strong, full of vigor." The lusty I'm looking for has what horny used to have, which is a little bit of sickness to it. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #444444;">Horny is for people who think it's sweet when Mick Jagger sings "You can come all over me," or who feel seen when Peggy Olson has to go eat a ham sandwich and a big-ass cherry danish after Pete tells her </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p6KC0Yd6TY" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">his hunting fantasy</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">. The last correct expression of horniness in mass culture was the rampant use of the peach emoji in Instagram content related to Timothée Chalamet. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It's kinda hard to point to specific examples of horniness in the lyrics to <i>Pod</i>. </span>"Only in 3s" is about a threesome, and in that Melody Maker article Kim says that "Opened" is soft porn, and the first line to "When I Was a Painter" is "inside legs of corduroy I've been" - which feels like being a teenager and wearing corduroy pants during some slutty makeout sesh in the middle of the afternoon. But for the most part it's an ambient horniness, a low-key aura of wanting and lusting and dreaming of possibly forbidden scenarios, with none of the frustration usually associated with being horny. It's a hot-and-<i>un</i>bothered sort of desire, languid and hazy but more attuned to the tiny pleasures of the world, maybe akin to being turned-on in the grander/psychedelic sense. It's a lovely thing to be turned on, high on your hotness for someone or something, happily suspended in a dreamy state of wanting. I want way more songs made from that moment.</span></p><p><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: arial;">(Also also also, speaking of sex things, in 1992 Kurt Cobain wrote a list of the 10 albums that changed his life and <i>Pod</i> is #10 - he calls it "an epic that will never let you forget your ex-girlfriend." At one point he says: "'Doe,' the song about where a girl gives a boy head and he pats her on the head like a doe, is very funny. They're strong women, but it's not that obvious. They're not militant about it at all. You can sense they love men at the same time." </span>The last couple sentences are a little early-'90s-basic but I don't care: I'll let Kurt get away with anything. According to Kim, "Doe" is about two teenagers with schizophrenia who are in love and on Thorazine and want to burn their town down, but I'm into Kurt's blowjob interpretation. I like the idea of a 23-year-old kid hearing that song and thinking "Hmm, blowjobs," and then bowing down to the art of it. It's cute cuz it's Kurt, who collects dolls and drinks Strawberry Quik and paints his fingernails antagonistic colors, wears multiple mood rings at the same time. I loved when he and Kim wore Christmas tree tinsel like fancy stoles on the cover of Melody Maker in December '93.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #444444;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #444444; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpnJhy-WQ7SbQJQ7r2mpIhmJ4K-4kgF3jCwFc_5oduNsn4kaCrDE8MckSPZdsFKzneIKnhDNbEPBPNqO7unSp1lILKciKfEkXDjys07IOGToUBwiK4W5b_fPh_vRQazag8DkJSl5YgQaA/s960/kim+deal+and+kurt+cobain.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="649" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpnJhy-WQ7SbQJQ7r2mpIhmJ4K-4kgF3jCwFc_5oduNsn4kaCrDE8MckSPZdsFKzneIKnhDNbEPBPNqO7unSp1lILKciKfEkXDjys07IOGToUBwiK4W5b_fPh_vRQazag8DkJSl5YgQaA/w432-h640/kim+deal+and+kurt+cobain.jpg" width="432" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><p><span style="color: #444444;">iv. <span style="font-family: arial;">There's a part in </span>Kristin Hersh's memoir<span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><i>Rat Girl</i><span style="font-family: arial;"> where she describes the diet of each member of Throwing Muses in the mid-'80s, and says how Tanya Donelly eats "party food for very small parties: miniature boxes of petit fours, little jars of Vienna sausages, tiny pieces of toast." I wish every musician I've ever loved had kept a food diary for the duration of whichever era of their existence I'm most fascinated by, but I'd especially love to read a food diary kept by the Breeders during the making of </span><i>Pod</i><span style="font-family: arial;">. Because that wish will likely never come true I'm just going to dream up a list of foods that have a very <i>Pod</i>-like vibe to them, including:</span></span></p><p style="color: #444444;">-McDonald's cherry pies, strawberry sundaes, hotcakes, small fry</p><p style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: arial;">-blackberry Hostess Fruit Pies</span></p><p style="color: #444444;">-a pail of Neapolitan ice cream</p><p style="color: #444444;">-a sloe gin fizz served in one of those curvy Coca-Cola glasses</p><p style="color: #444444;">-an oatmeal cookie dipped in a paper cup of black coffee</p><p style="color: #444444;">-Kraft macaroni & cheese eaten straight from the pot like Cliff Booth</p><p style="color: #444444;">-orange licorice (the soft/sweet kind from Australia)</p><p><span style="color: #444444;">-a platter of potato chips drizzled with honey like at </span><a href="https://www.thegoldentiki.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">the Golden Tiki in Las Vegas</span></a></p><p style="color: #444444;">-the pastel-pink chocolate in the Russell Stover chocolate sampler</p><p style="color: #444444;">-a carafe of white wine & a stainless steel teapot of jasmine oolong tea, consumed simultaneously at an extremely basic Thai restaurant</p><p><span style="color: #444444;">-pineapple fried rice & moo-shi chicken & a flaming pupu platter & a round of mai tais at an underwater Chinese restaurant that's got lazy susans at every table and little silver pots of hot mustard + duck sauce, and looks something like </span><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Al+Mahara&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS756US756&sxsrf=ALeKk00npamlOix7YM5zOCi7zull9UiTKw:1608648690538&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi57ZGu6-HtAhVBGM0KHfzaAuUQ_AUoAXoECBAQAw&biw=1131&bih=620" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Al Mahara in Dubai</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> - only way less classy and with red velvet throne-like chairs, and also you can smoke cigarettes & the ashtrays are seashells</span></p><p><span style="color: #444444;"><span>v. In an earlier version of this post I wrote about every song on <i>Pod</i> individually, and "Metal Man" was about not understanding Kim Deal's brain. With any musician you're obsessed with it's fun to try to figure out where the songs came from - like how you can look at David Bowie and go "Okay - cabaret, Little Richard, sci-fi, kabuki, the Beatles," and so on, and start to get at least a little bit of a sense of how the puzzle pieces come together. But I have no concept of what converged in Kim Deal's head to make her write anything on <i>Pod</i> or a song like "Cannonball," which sounds like a spaceship blasting off and pennies dropping into an ashtray and a grand rollerskating party, and then the chorus lyric is <i>want you, koo-koo, cannonball</i>. Kim was a high-school cheerleader and a lab technician and <i>Pod</i> is full of songs that are strange compact wonderlands that are sometimes quite ghastly ("Hellbound" is about a fetus that survives an abortion, for example). It's a different kind of dreamy compared to lots of other artists who make fantastical music - her sensibility seems uninformed by Kate Bush or fairy tales or 19th century gothic romance, there's nothing ethereal to her presentation. A lot of the music I love comes from the ether, or at least a presumed interaction with it, but </span><i>Pod</i><span> feels completely tethered to the physical world, to the actual earth and dirt and rock, like the album itself is wearing big clunky boots.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #444444;">In that Melody Maker cover story on the Breeders, Kim talks about how "Oh!" is written from the POV of a bug being squashed and makes the point that "If you get stepped on, you bust and glow, not just live a good life." I love the poetry of "bust and glow" and I love the poetry of the line "Your soft belly bossing lows" and the thing that Kim does to her voice the second time she sings it, how it feels like breaking in two. "Oh!" starts off sounding like being quietly in love with the world, carefree and heavy-hearted at the same time, and then at the end it sounds like dying. I love Kim for revealing what it's about: songwriters are always saying how they don't like to talk about the meaning behind their lyrics because it might take away from the listener's interpretation, but knowing that "Oh!" is the story of a squashed bug seems so vital. It gives the narrative a sweetness and innocence that get tangled up with everything else inside the song (the nicely dazed feeling you get from the vocal and rhythm, like falling in love; the lazy ballet of the violin; an overall sensation of gently tumbling in summertime), and it feels so violent once that gets taken away. It makes it devastating, and pleasurable devastation is one of the most wonderful possible outcomes of any kind of art.</span></p></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p><span style="color: #444444;">vi. In quarantine I've gotten really into gelatin art, especially </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/paid.technologies/?hl=en" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Sharona Franklin</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">, who makes jello sculptures filled with flowers, pills, hardware, syringes, toys, fruit, etc. Here's some of her work:</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #444444; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQmXoz2KqrG2gsjE4Gfy0VUbkdrcGVzUcBKyoG8gUJSLntHcnLp5cueYZO6h7xRJbTePhgBU5ynDRUENZYS1ZtyiCqXwq56mjG33ON3VeRcWiUDg50jxhAuttQJslKw7EpsD_yDOMFyw0/s1200/sharona+franklin+hand.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1194" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQmXoz2KqrG2gsjE4Gfy0VUbkdrcGVzUcBKyoG8gUJSLntHcnLp5cueYZO6h7xRJbTePhgBU5ynDRUENZYS1ZtyiCqXwq56mjG33ON3VeRcWiUDg50jxhAuttQJslKw7EpsD_yDOMFyw0/w398-h400/sharona+franklin+hand.png" width="398" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #444444; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #444444; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL8VQZExqXPLJCW9A99gWHiKWZ1TONlM_qD9bwg_WOVWWY8_tYbpfT20nI9i67t5sUi1lFYBW1yLYF9ZibLwfl15Sv-xZ3kWJ5TMW-tHgZTo84CFnDdg_4p2gpbsejEVj0MBGOGiaDnxU/s640/sharona2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="640" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL8VQZExqXPLJCW9A99gWHiKWZ1TONlM_qD9bwg_WOVWWY8_tYbpfT20nI9i67t5sUi1lFYBW1yLYF9ZibLwfl15Sv-xZ3kWJ5TMW-tHgZTo84CFnDdg_4p2gpbsejEVj0MBGOGiaDnxU/w400-h395/sharona2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #444444; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #444444; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlRGUZ0OzAMtMGt6iKiWZRqYAZCBzmUjpac-PXYiv9qet-mB5w5mSahYuCjSlIqqW_hIQQb2wSFXfBrS3FJ3iJAq3o6hHxPizpqiCJu3BdaUY6dqYoXivmWQhOFgV_4IHC5OyrqLdFtVs/s500/sharona.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlRGUZ0OzAMtMGt6iKiWZRqYAZCBzmUjpac-PXYiv9qet-mB5w5mSahYuCjSlIqqW_hIQQb2wSFXfBrS3FJ3iJAq3o6hHxPizpqiCJu3BdaUY6dqYoXivmWQhOFgV_4IHC5OyrqLdFtVs/w400-h400/sharona.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5nkzZljcyDn3R2gZEhUnC-9NiOkWRC6Wb5jBJuSmtVwgW_9i7lxZ2yHQgANOJ1sRexxSW0heH2jiwkfmDOjThyphenhypheniCJ9R2NbuTOEW4cZd5DDgDLJhp8cJRPwdZBLTy1lr2V-fYY81_qyKM/s700/sharona+fish.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5nkzZljcyDn3R2gZEhUnC-9NiOkWRC6Wb5jBJuSmtVwgW_9i7lxZ2yHQgANOJ1sRexxSW0heH2jiwkfmDOjThyphenhypheniCJ9R2NbuTOEW4cZd5DDgDLJhp8cJRPwdZBLTy1lr2V-fYY81_qyKM/w400-h400/sharona+fish.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #444444; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444;">Some albums are snow globes or dioramas or maps or ornately frosted cakes, but to me <i>Pod</i> is a glorious jello sculpture. It's a trapped world full of charmed and ugly things, it's impossible and creepy and gorgeous in a garish way. You can't live inside it but you can look in and tap at the surface, and then watch it shimmy and wobble. Jello sculptures eventually decompose but <i>Pod</i> stays intact; Kim Deal's brain is an eternal mystery. There's nothing to do but be delighted these songs exist, then keep letting them mystify you forever.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/_1t6lcNZkcU" width="480"></iframe></span></div></div></span></span></div>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-42313944150351176412019-12-31T09:25:00.003-08:002020-08-11T10:45:08.442-07:00Thing of the Year 2019<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>LJ'S THING OF THE YEAR: </b>Ego Death & Kyrie </span></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2pU9Hil3VMemPkwlEwRSHZTiXbS979SsTh8QRn0i8c5QDqyAMRpsv8FbqFm1lwEHhnzPpUotmLk2ln2e4fUnSYRnNVY0wQkWfIPEURrsxj6qx7h0MJi5xqxmKUm8sxCxJ5bYCxwYr7RU/s1600/joskoandlaura.jpg" style="color: #0066cc; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2pU9Hil3VMemPkwlEwRSHZTiXbS979SsTh8QRn0i8c5QDqyAMRpsv8FbqFm1lwEHhnzPpUotmLk2ln2e4fUnSYRnNVY0wQkWfIPEURrsxj6qx7h0MJi5xqxmKUm8sxCxJ5bYCxwYr7RU/s400/joskoandlaura.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">The other day I was on the phone with a friend, talking about nothing relevant or interesting, and I said, “A year ago I was having an anorexia relapse, today I’m a fucking <i>CrossFitter</i>”— I don’t think there’s any better way to explain what a moving, wondrous year this has been.</span></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"></span><br /></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">On paper, I didn’t do a whole lot— in 2019, I took a breather from my usual preoccupation with work and career advancement, instead prioritizing the maintenance of a solid work/life balance, focusing on practical introspection and self-mastery.</span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"></span><br /></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">Today, I feel settled inside myself for the very first time, like there is no disconnect between my brain, body and heart; they all move together easily, as one unit, and co-operate. <i>Your body is a picture of your brain</i>, I wrote late this summer, around the time when I started CrossFit, and by late December, I understand this better than I could have then. Every day I feel like a warrior, but am in no way compelled by the violence with which I’ve gotten used to inhabiting a body. <i>What I like about you is that you’re not afraid to slow things down</i>, one of the coaches at my gym told me, and I thought, “This is the first time in my life that sentence could have been true about me.” Time is our life to live inside, and this year, I used it wisely. </span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"></span><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"></span><br /></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">The first four months of my year were basically bullshit. In March, the restaurant I’d been managing for a year closed down. That job had been my everything, and I struggled to define myself without it. Life snuck memorably sweet moments into that otherwise uncomfortable chunk of time— in January, in Los Angeles, I lounged in the sunshine with Liz’s roommate’s dog Josko, content in the knowledge that I had evaded Toronto’s worst snowstorm of the year. At work, Maggie and I cultivated a deranged obsession with the dead blues singer Fats Domino, and entertained ourselves by poring over our restaurant’s menu, speculating as to what Fats might order, giggling to death. Drinking golden-Oreo-flavoured, Meunier-driven Champagne in Portland with Laura at a staggeringly uncool patisserie that boasted one of the world’s best Champagne lists, page after page tucked into laminate sleeves, presented in an ugly plastic binder. The whole place seemed like something that could exist only in a dream. </span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">The summer was golden and glistening. Every morning I lay in my backyard for an entire hour, wearing a swimsuit, suntanning and listening to dub records on my phone. My bartender complained about the heat, and I said “Well, why don’t you just move into an igloo in the middle of an ice rink?” and then laughed so hard at my own insane joke. The Raptors won the NBA Finals, and we processed Kawhi’s leaving using dating/relationship metaphors, which were funny, and soothing.</span></span><br /><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">In 2019 I learned to respect my own boundaries, perhaps ruthlessly so. I felt freed from the pressure I’ve always put on myself to maintain friendships I’m disinterested in out of fear of karmic repercussions; I was, I’m afraid, a terrible friend this year. An unstable and incoherent texter-backer, deprioritizing my relationships to spend my time talking to my typewriter, and lifting heavy weights. A month or so ago, I drank three bottles of wine with a new friend and, over the course of doing so, remembered how to write, or rather, <i>why</i> to write. The next morning, I started writing, and haven’t stopped since. I couldn’t imagine anything making me happier than this: re-learning to write because I love it, not because I feel obliged.</span></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">**</span><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">On the morning of Christmas Eve, I did a workout at my gym. It was: one hundred weighted squats, fifty sit-ups, one hundred lunges, fifty push-ups, and one hundred kettlebell swings, each movement broken up by a set of single-unders, which is what we call skips, with a skipping rope. We were each allotted thirty minutes to complete the workout; this is the kind of thing I love best. Unbound by time, with no coach calling out Stop or Go, you are competing against nothing, no one, barely even yourself. Time, in these moments, disappears, and so do you: your own name, personality, relationships, family, holidays, work, anxiety, problems, <i>everything</i>. It’s all gone. You’re not Laura, you’re not a writer, nor a somm, just a heaving, sweating mass of cells, chanting numbers. “That was real Ego Death!” I realized later, delighted to have found it: “I’m a Lama, on a hill.” </span></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">PS: Also this year I met the love my life, NBA basketball player Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets: </span></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">PPS: I have literally never met him</span></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfcH2q3fUWHDUHbSNmIgFLy7SV__ioyuxCodEUiMS-nUwSrbXXOEBPsXYRoJL8e06kL0IYYS9DFQ4OBM6nCPA61OduDZHqDwW62XV-UD_aXU1K21YNnVS9MR2ITKeVKr0-5qFn6RKrdkg/s1600/kyrie.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="799" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfcH2q3fUWHDUHbSNmIgFLy7SV__ioyuxCodEUiMS-nUwSrbXXOEBPsXYRoJL8e06kL0IYYS9DFQ4OBM6nCPA61OduDZHqDwW62XV-UD_aXU1K21YNnVS9MR2ITKeVKr0-5qFn6RKrdkg/s640/kyrie.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">Happy New Year & all the best vibes from Laura & Kyrie XOXOXOXOXO</span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>LIZ'S THING OF THE YEAR: </b></span></span><span style="font-size: large;">Dan Tana's linguini</span></span><br />
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-leaving Echo Park</span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-Brad Pitt pushing the luggage down the hallway at LAX</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8oGZXcrECsYHhRuRZiYRgawKGNoRgOw4v72pZzWG__bho9toUt71X6e04czPegYO9wnucIgC-YvO0IWsbVdqhv-ribR03ba5bV1ScprD0WrSDPwr3AzRRYe_mAuiZ3ViWrIKEWQUZulk/s1600/brad.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8oGZXcrECsYHhRuRZiYRgawKGNoRgOw4v72pZzWG__bho9toUt71X6e04czPegYO9wnucIgC-YvO0IWsbVdqhv-ribR03ba5bV1ScprD0WrSDPwr3AzRRYe_mAuiZ3ViWrIKEWQUZulk/s640/brad.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-the cheerleader-y gang-vocal part of "Wet" by Bibi Bourelly where all the girls shout <b>GO THE FUCK OFF IF YOU'RE GONNA BE RICH ONE DAY</b></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Eluw6-vVVPg" width="480"></iframe></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY2LUmLw_DQ" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">"servin up god in a burnt coffee pot for the triad"</span></a></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-<a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/031595kwdsLiSl7lgBQymN?si=2Y0jcKYVRUKf6ixVsfqzKA" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">here's a playlist</span> </a>of all my favorite songs that came out this year. It's mostly people I worked for</span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-eating linguini at Dan Tana's with my fave</span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIQdUJ04iNY" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">"Holy Mountain" by Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds</span></a> is my #1 love song</span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-meeting Noel Gallagher </span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-a roadside restaurant on the drive back from Georgia O'Keeffe's house where I ordered Frito pie and the waitress asked "Red chilis, green chilis, or Christmas?"</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-Renée Elise Goldsberry's performance of Dee Dee in <i>Original Cast Album: Co-Op</i></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj64GFuGkMHBmqr-E5ZlRzjvNxQ_dOZPZdtw7F4nU5tDc6MeMGYrQp1NPmZy09xEKq4n36KCV_sLeceSeGl6Su3gBmsIjTrBT8bV81V13FPB_cZe1_UVPLq0Iw3l-2q00H5ppp6NXlhPvY/s1600/deedee.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj64GFuGkMHBmqr-E5ZlRzjvNxQ_dOZPZdtw7F4nU5tDc6MeMGYrQp1NPmZy09xEKq4n36KCV_sLeceSeGl6Su3gBmsIjTrBT8bV81V13FPB_cZe1_UVPLq0Iw3l-2q00H5ppp6NXlhPvY/s640/deedee.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-all the bad skin in <i>Her Smell</i></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-"I wouldn't expect too much from that cat" </span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-Las Vegas</span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-a note in my Notes app that says:</span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">Bonnie Raitt</span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">antique wooden cribbage deck</span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">woven-plastic chaise lounge poolside</span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">gypsy skirt + Clash t-shirt</span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">nest hair</span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">shrimp cocktail</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-when Lana set off fireworks at the end of "Venice Beach" at the Bowl </span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;">-the part in the "Summer Girl" video when Danielle sings into the New Beverly ticket booth microphone <3 <3 <3</span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>JEN'S THING OF THE YEAR: </b></span></span><span style="font-size: large;">Moomins, John Wick 3, etc.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg04VIMT40gKZk-BgMjXsdC8qBhwKaWop8sclSKkrEI9cooOS7pkJRbK3BQgEh1HE4eDz2RDSY1UjmQ_4PkrZBzrc9-MTaQY41uYWTvXStyF5Txj5nTOSWZLLLV58XBSiJqhfAq0hK6wkI/s1600/Jen+Things+of+the+Year.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face="" style="font-family: "arial","helvetica",sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1235" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg04VIMT40gKZk-BgMjXsdC8qBhwKaWop8sclSKkrEI9cooOS7pkJRbK3BQgEh1HE4eDz2RDSY1UjmQ_4PkrZBzrc9-MTaQY41uYWTvXStyF5Txj5nTOSWZLLLV58XBSiJqhfAq0hK6wkI/s640/Jen+Things+of+the+Year.jpg" width="494" /></span></a></div>
<br />Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-54816888192392511962019-12-20T10:24:00.001-08:002019-12-20T10:39:03.518-08:00Whip-Smart by Liz Phair is My Favorite Merry-Go-Round <span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH9bL9AfMatihM9X-0qJvWXxxWTpfzvub7-B3s8VR84OrOjS-Ypv0LNXDi2i9SYRLtQnLQ_IEM0P2v5uIUTVuAXWe30qiGDQI3yFLjZkQnHifnMScU0rrocueKqgBnDxJlSiQunwXA4cU/s1600/IMG_5783.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="441" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH9bL9AfMatihM9X-0qJvWXxxWTpfzvub7-B3s8VR84OrOjS-Ypv0LNXDi2i9SYRLtQnLQ_IEM0P2v5uIUTVuAXWe30qiGDQI3yFLjZkQnHifnMScU0rrocueKqgBnDxJlSiQunwXA4cU/s640/IMG_5783.jpg" width="628" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;">BY ELIZABETH BARKER</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">A little while ago I found </span><a href="https://www.oocities.org/~kenmlee/articles.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">this absolute goldmine of a Geocities site</span></a><span style="color: #666666;">, and read through 37 </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">magazine/newspaper articles written about Liz Phair in the mid-'90s.</span><span style="color: #666666;"> </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I learned that <i>Whip-Smart</i> was nearly titled <i>Jump Rope Songs</i>, and that Liz quit smoking in part </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by eating green apples all the time. I found a thing where she talks about her first kiss (</span>"In freshman year, I had to French-kiss, and it was totally disgusting. It took me a weekend to get over it"), and some dirt about going to summer camp with Julia Roberts ("She was tall and bossy and fun....We stopped speaking because she was always calling me collect, and it pissed me off. I'm like, 'What are you fucking calling me collect for? Your parents are rich enough'"). And I read beautiful Liz quotes like this one, from LA Weekly in '93:</span></span></span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"I got exiled from the indie crowd because I have a lot of mainstream trappings, a lot of obnoxious tendencies for the sake of reacting against indieness, embracing Diet Coke and beaches and convertibles."</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Another good thing I came across was this little bit from a Chicago Tribune article published right after </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Whip-Smart </i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">was released: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>The songs on </i>Exile<i> and </i>Whip-Smart <i>rarely embrace one emotion, their "raw honesty" seldom can be distilled into bumper-sticker platitudes. Instead, the overall mood is one of ambivalence and irresolution, each song like one view from a merry-go-round, the perspective ever-changing. </i></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I agree about Liz Phair being a person of emotional depth and complexity, but what I love most is the idea of <i>Whip-Smart</i> being a merry-go-round. I'm picturing some grandiose carousel, with lighted mirrors and oil paintings and a chariot, </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and the detailing on every horse's mane is like the baroque curlicues of some extravagantly frosted birthday cake. <i>Whip-Smart </i>is a very ornate album, with lots of goodies and treasures and prizes packed inside; I think you could listen forever and still keep noticing some little hidden gem you hadn't picked up on before. Here is everything I love about it right now:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>i. CHOPSTICKS.</b> "Chopsticks" is 110 words long and it's got more drama and intrigue than basically any novel I read this year. The part I want to zoom in on here is when she sings "It was 4 a.m. and the light was gray, like it always is in paperbacks." So much of why I love <i>Whip-Smart</i> has to do with light quality, with the way it lights up the inside of your brain. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The light in "Chopsticks" is drab but for most of the album it's so bright and shiny; it even has the words "shiny old bauble."</span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="color: black; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A while back I had an idea about writing some big thing about the qualities of light I associate with my favorite music. Stuff like: "<i>Murmur</i> by R.E.M. sounds like golden-hour sunlight filtered through a jar of honey left on the windowsill of some rickety old house in the country, on a blessedly non-humid day in late August." But with <i>Whip-Smart</i> it would be hard to land on just one type of light. Sometimes the songs sound like spelling out your name with a burning sparkler, sometimes they're twinkle lights on a Christmas tree long after Christmas is over, sometimes they're the shine of a girl's lips when she's just put lipgloss on. <i>Exile in Guyville</i> sounds like a very dark room almost all the way through, but <i>Whip-Smart </i>feels like every type of light you could imagine, and that's why I love it best.</span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>ii. SUPERNOVA.</b> Freshman year of college my best friend was a poet and mostly listened to suburban-poet-girl music, like [REDACTED]*. My friend had attitude about Liz Phair; I remember her telling me the line "Your lips are sweet and slippery like a cherub's bare wet ass" was uncouth. When you're 17 and your best friend doesn't love the same songs as you, it makes you defensive, you want to prove you're right. Now that I'm way older than 17 I know for certain that Liz Phair is a supreme poet, with her lyrics about playing jacks and gilded grass, Beatle boots and platform shoes, Alice falling down the rabbit hole, Rapunzel as a boy, lions and tigers and panthers and snakes. Liz Phair changed my head about what you're allowed to make poems about, and the answer is: anything that fascinates you. Also I like poems best when they're about the physical experience of being alive.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><i style="color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">*I typed the name of a particular singer/songwriter here but can't bring myself to actually post it, since shit-talking other female singer/songwriters seems contrary to the spirit of Liz Phair. Liz is always </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">sticking</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> up for the ladies.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>iii. SUPPORT SYSTEM.</b> <i>Whip-Smart </i>came out right before I fell into my first-ever love situation, and I listened to "Supernova" all the time and tried to make it about him. </span>I knew the guy I'd gotten wasn't even half as great as the "Supernova" guy, but the rhythm of the riff shook my head up and made it fizzy; it bent my feeling for him into something grand and cinematic. But then the CD moved on to "Support System," and I felt so much more at home in that emotional landscape: frustrated and eye-rolly but still kind of la-la-la about it, if only to propagate the myth of your own self-containment. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVHN-9vSOUK31zNJeuigMDZk4H-zDECMO5WfcLaHaAbCJCYD_fO5fbaAYn6IHleMC2ByVAnbSW3K16jtq2YOrZYCyT3VMiVcqmB7IBHx7dT4cmGFsWfMRTV6qyqGcJmPAAUtWbME9Rcms/s1600/IMG-5759.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVHN-9vSOUK31zNJeuigMDZk4H-zDECMO5WfcLaHaAbCJCYD_fO5fbaAYn6IHleMC2ByVAnbSW3K16jtq2YOrZYCyT3VMiVcqmB7IBHx7dT4cmGFsWfMRTV6qyqGcJmPAAUtWbME9Rcms/s640/IMG-5759.JPG" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>iv. X-RAY MAN.</b> My fave is the way she sings the words "cheap unpleasant desires" in that low goofy voice. The dude in "X-Ray Man" is bad news but he was much less threatening to my 16-year-old self than any of the guys on <i>Guyville</i>, the ones who steal your car and your horse and your house, who tell you you're not worth talking to, who are forever one foot out the door. The disappointment in "X-Ray Man" is very low stakes, almost like testing the waters of being let down. Maybe the reason we love Liz Phair so much is she taught us how to deal with dude-related disappointment with imagination and poise - something that goes beyond just saving face, and moves toward self-transformation.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>v. SHANE.</b> When I was 17 I went through a phase of listening to all of <i>Whip-Smart </i>every single morning before school. It was late winter, and some of the listening happened under the covers, procrastinating getting up and waiting till the last possible second to leave my little blanket cave. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">Hearing Liz Phair sing "You gotta have fear in your heart" 25 times in a row every morning for however many months did something to my head, so now when I hear "Shane" it's like hypnosis - an automatic return to being 17 and totally lazy with almost zero consequence. </span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the things I miss most about being young is the freedom to let life grind to a halt in winter, and some of the songs I value most are the ones with a similar sort of longing. Like Kurt Cobain singing "I miss the comfort in being sad," or Lana Del Rey singing "Miss doin nothin most of all," or like a perfect melting-together of those two kinds of missing. That is where "Shane" exists for me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>vi. NASHVILLE.</b> I used to write a novel about a girl who was in love with her best friend who was married to someone else. The point of view alternated between the girl and the guy, and in one part told from his POV he's lying in bed, listening to his wife getting ready for work very early in the morning (she's a schoolteacher, he's a bartender). He's mostly asleep but tuned into the sounds of her getting ready for the day, like lipstick tubes and compacts clacking against each other as she roots around her makeup bag, and the roar of the hair dryer and the spritz of her hairspray and daytime perfume. I was in love with the idea of a dude being low-key enchanted by those sounds, by all the things women do to make themselves pretty. I like to go around thinking men are so beguiled by things like a lipstick smudge on a styrofoam coffee cup, or the precision it takes to apply mascara in the visor mirror of a moving car.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anyway: the lying-in-bed scene was a total ripoff of the pre-chorus to "Nashville," the line that goes "I can't imagine it in better terms than naked, half-awake, about to shave and go to work." Getting let in on all the little rituals people perform to get themselves ready to go out into the world is one of the sweetest presents. Even if you're a cad like the boy I wrote a book about, you could never take it for granted.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="color: #666666;">vii. GO WEST. </b><span style="color: #666666;">Whenever I hear "Go West" nowadays it sweeps me into that scene from </span><i style="color: #666666;">Walking and Talking </i><span style="color: #666666;">by Nicole Holofcener, the part when Catherine Keener's stalking Kevin Corrigan down the street and "Go West" plays in the background. </span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">In a few of those old magazine articles I found, there's something about how Liz Phair wanted to make </span><i style="color: #666666;">Whip-Smart </i><span style="color: #666666;">into a movie - I'm guessing maybe a visual album, a proto-</span><i style="color: #666666;">Lemonade</i><span style="color: #666666;">. She directed the </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM60GAPIXTY" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">video for "Supernova"</span></a><span style="color: #666666;"> and it's a gas; her ouija-board acting is very on point. </span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In some alternate universe the </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Whip-Smart </i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">movie exists and it's fantastic, and Liz Phair went on to make lots of other movies, possibly with a Nicole Holofcener-y vibe: Jennifer Aniston's character in </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Friends with Money</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> seems very Phair-ian to me, like how she's always stoned and scamming luxury face cream from department-store makeup counters. And I'm constantly trying to find some other movie that feels a least a little bit like <i>Desperately Seeking Susan</i>, and I bet Liz Phair could really knock that out of the park. Something dreamlike and punk-adjacent and glam and slightly screwball, a fantasy for little girls to fall in love with and keep going back to their entire lives.</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-U8T0Hum3-41IxMXd-bAd-bliJJd52cfSO7h7l_gGrFnhrMLXM49GkPiCMW5LFXqDb9JPiX9QZMztcbD-2r7B63bmjlR7XMxZsCa1juD68MPEKBOCHM4SWWppHWSRQOw4QUA2k1dign8/s1600/0FFE072F-60EC-424A-8B8E-9B232DF909ED.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1402" data-original-width="1600" height="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-U8T0Hum3-41IxMXd-bAd-bliJJd52cfSO7h7l_gGrFnhrMLXM49GkPiCMW5LFXqDb9JPiX9QZMztcbD-2r7B63bmjlR7XMxZsCa1juD68MPEKBOCHM4SWWppHWSRQOw4QUA2k1dign8/s640/0FFE072F-60EC-424A-8B8E-9B232DF909ED.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>viii. CINCO DE MAYO.</b> There's that line "I ain't no pleasure hound" but I dunno: I kind of deeply want Liz Phair to skew toward the pleasure-hound side of things. In my exhaustive <i>Whip-Smart </i>research I</span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> found some commentary from an indie-label owner who worked with her pre-</span><i style="color: #666666;">Exile,</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and he says how she reminds him of that "famous Greil Marcus quote about Rod Stewart, something about how he wanted to be a rock star and all that entailed - sitting by the pool, having sex with groupies and snorting coke - and if he had to write great songs to do it, he was perfectly willing to write them."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I think that's supposed to be an insult, but now I just love Liz Phair more (and Rod Stewart too!). One fun detail about the making of <i>Whip-Smart </i>is how when Liz and the band were recording in the Bahamas they spent a lot of time lounging poolside and drinking rum & orange juice. If <i>Whip-Smart </i>were a state of existence it might be lying on a plastic chaise lounge by an in-ground pool when someone's parents are out of town, drinking something terrible like Boone's Farm Blue Hawaiian, happily tanning and totally free.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>ix. DOGS OF L.A.</b> The main thing this song means to me is some memory of walking through Harvard Square on a winter night with my best friend when I'm 16 or 17, and singing the chorus to "Dogs of L.A." together out of nowhere, like you do sometimes when you're a kid. My other major best-friend </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">memory involving Liz Phair has to do with going to see Pearl Jam at the Boston Garden two days after everyone found out Kurt Cobain died, and coming home very late at night and watching </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">120 Minutes </i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in my attic bedroom and Liz Phair was the guest, and </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5l0MasLClA&feature=youtu.be&t=272" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">she talked about starstruck teenage girls coming up to her donut shops</span></a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and how she just wants to tell them </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm you! - </i><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">which is the thing that made me start to love her. It was a cool and intense night and I saw the video for "Miss World" by Hole for the first time and felt like some things were beginning instead of </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">just</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> dying. We drank Diet Cokes at 1 a.m. and watched </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">120 Minutes</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> till the end, and did not go to school the next day. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="color: #666666;">x. WHIP-SMART. </b><span style="color: #666666;">In </span><a href="http://www.oocities.org/~kenmlee/00000136.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #20124d;">this Stranger piece</span></a><span style="color: #666666;"> where Liz gets interviewed by a bunch of 10-year-olds, she says how "Whip-Smart" is a feminist song because it's about raising her son to understand what it's like to be a girl. Speaking of feminism - oh my god there is soooooo much horrifying garbage in all those rock-magazine articles from 25 years ago. Some of the most terrible sentences I've read include:</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">-"It also helped that Phair was bridging a gap between the hairy-armpit sensuality of PJ Harvey and the college girl tetchiness of Juliana Hatfield"</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">-"She is neither a wiggy sexual penitent like Sinéad O'Connor, nor a kohl-eyed tough cookie like Chrissie Hynde, nor a fragile, trembling forest nymph à la Tori Amos, nor just one of the guys like Breeders' Kim and Kelley Deal - and certainly not a self-obsessed cartoon like Madonna."</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">-"Phair is unique among her women-who-rock colleagues, shunning the humorless, man-hating axis of riot-grrrldom as surely as she rejects that of ether-dwelling, confessional folkiehood."</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The same dude who wrote that first sentence referred to Juliana Hatfield as "tetchy" in another article, and after I finished going OK WHAT THE FUCK DOES TETCHY MEAN (it's "irritably or peevishly sensitive"), I dug up some old Courtney Love quote I love. It's from a Spin article in 1994, and it's her telling Dennis Cooper: "Björk is seen as the Icelandic elf child-woman. But </span>Björk wants to be seen as more erotic. And I'm like, 'Why?' Elf child-woman is a good job."</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don't know what point I'm working toward here except that while I'm violently allergic to the idea of categorizing women as cookies or cartoons or nymphs, I do like the idea of women assigning themselves some kind of job and milking that for all its worth. I like it when women take the money and run.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN3s5_IbsgLg_VpoTLVMLtQdlrAnp56SmE3gqbXLb6kUDQMXeuiA4qL3KVLBXWv5obnViomoYSGRDChmIa2Cw0lJnAaqfAcAjg6v_w4AvlUmOs-b4K9wiytEa-GI22CvFaoXnP4-h6S1s/s640/IMG-4743.GIF" width="640" /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>xi. JEALOUSY. </b></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The reason I ended up at that Geocities site is I was looking for </span><a href="https://www.oocities.org/~kenmlee/00000008.html" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">this Details article</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">, where Liz Phair breaks down the meaning of every single line in "Jealousy." She mentions stuff like Puck from The Real World San Francisco, "The Forbidden Drawer," women playing power games in restaurants, a big piece of cake lying in the middle of a road. I remember reading that when it was first published and I've read it dozens of times since then: it's something that I wish more songwriters would do, instead of throwing out that super-generic line about not wanting to reveal the meaning behind their songs, so as not to rob the listener of their own lyrical interpretations. So many artists I work for give me that line, and it seems so short-sighted. Like, I don't know - maybe allow for the possibility that people can hold a number of things in their mind at once? If anything, it just makes me love a song more to know what it means to the person who wrote it. And I agree hugely with what Amanda Petrusich said in </span><a href="https://pitchfork.com/features/article/9611-tired-and-hungry-and-alive-36-hours-with-courtney-barnett/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #274e13;">her big piece on Courtney Barnett</span></a><span style="color: #666666;"> a few years back: "I am often wary of artists who can't understand </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">what</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> their own work means once it's out in the world, the ones who punt on the 'What's this song about?' question, as if answering it might somehow tarnish the listener's experience - as if they are not just a listener themselves now." BOOM. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="color: #666666;">xii. CRATER LAKE.</b><span style="color: #666666;"> Getting back to the </span><a href="https://www.spin.com/2014/04/courtney-love-spin-1994-hole-cover-story-love-conquers-all/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">Dennis Cooper profile on Hole</span></a><span style="color: #666666;">, the last paragraph has a quote that means a lot to me: </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>All I ever wanted, ever, was to make rock music. Whether it was in the back of a Camaro smoking pot and listening to Journey with some guy who was trying to make out with me, or whether it was the first time I heard the Pretenders. Fuck, Chrissie Hynde really saved me, you know, because she manifested it. She was a pragmatist.</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="color: black; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I went back and read the profile I realized I'd gotten that quote messed up in my memory: my brain had scrambled it into something about Courtney Love smoking pot in the back of a Camaro with some guy who's trying to make out with her, and the Pretenders are on the radio and she's just off in her head, wishing she was Chrissie Hynde. Which is more romantic - if a little on-the-nose, in a ham-fisted rock biopic sort of way - but I like her point about pragmatism. Liz Phair's a pragmatist too, even if she pretties it up sometimes, with her nursery-rhymey melodies and her dreamy voice and shiny guitars. "Crater Lake" is my favorite on <i>Whip-Smart</i> cuz it hits this weird balance of pragmatic and self-lionizing, which seems like a very Chrissie Hynde dynamic to me. It's the perfect song to play when you know you're not going to get what you want, but you're still able to twist the narrative to feel at least briefly glorious. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>xiii. ALICE SPRINGS.</b> To me this is a song about being bored with your city. When I lived in Boston and knew I was going to leave, I figured I'd never be bored with a city again. But the truth is Los Angeles is boring too. Every city in the world is boring. "Alice Springs" sounds like lying on my friend Lisa's apartment floor on an obnoxiously beautiful Saturday afternoon when I'm hungover and 25, annoyed about not running into the guy I liked at the bar the night before. It sounds like iced-coffee icemelt & Parliaments ashed in Tecate can or a dead candle, watching movies and falling asleep and then waking up and getting ready to go out and do it all over again, because what else are you going to do? The point is she goes out of her way to find that lame-o pot of gold. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>xiv. MAY QUEEN.</b> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">In the spirit of "May Queen" being a song that gestures toward glory and majesty and a magnificent regalness, I'm going to end with this quote from a </span><a href="https://www.oocities.org/~kenmlee/00000121.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">Details Q&A with Rob Sheffield</span></a><span style="color: #666666;">, where he asks Liz the question "What do you think you owe Madonna?" I love her answer:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"A lot. I think she kicked a huge rough-hewn path through the jungle and we're all tiptoeing behind her saying, 'Look at the pretty flowers.' Madonna made it possible for me to be interpreted correctly. There's nothing I could do now that would be over-the-top. She's like the motorboat and we're all water-skiing like the Go-Go's on the back of it. Maybe PJ's whipping out of the wake and I'm sitting in the back going, [she smokes an imaginary </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">cigarette] 'Yeah, cool.'"</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<i style="color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Exile in Guyville</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> came out when I was 15 so in some ways I take Liz Phair for granted - her music's been there for most of my life. And now there are all these younger songwriters who've never lived in a Liz Phair-less universe, and they </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">don't</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"> have to tiptoe: they just make what they want with this epically wide sense of what's possible. It's really sweet to see and hear Liz Phair talk about how stoked she is about the presence of those </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">songwriters,</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"> like </span><a href="https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/a-candid-conversation-between-liz-phair-and-snail-mails-lindsey-jordan/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">this Pitchfork thing</span></a><span style="color: #666666;"> of her hanging out with Snail Mail, or the time she addressed Halsey as "you diamond girl" on Twitter. So instead of water-skiing behind Madonna on a motorboat it's more like the merry-go-round thing again, the menagerie kind of carousel where it's not just horses but also lions, giraffes, goats, rabbits, seahorses, zebras, tigers, cats - whatever on Earth you feel like riding that day.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUaBalPN58hrseMdPKv2Kr8DIjdOHD70vNFjDfMdYrrOFCrz-Xr-q-rS0-KDVNqUYrZ7cSTGoQAi8uUxj9mZnBLTASL1EqGRFZl_LGqoUs1Q_BaPkwYsR9512GeU8NlwCFguDS0n2F58/s1600/427587F2-DBEF-4888-8CEC-665A8A23724C.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1295" data-original-width="1600" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUaBalPN58hrseMdPKv2Kr8DIjdOHD70vNFjDfMdYrrOFCrz-Xr-q-rS0-KDVNqUYrZ7cSTGoQAi8uUxj9mZnBLTASL1EqGRFZl_LGqoUs1Q_BaPkwYsR9512GeU8NlwCFguDS0n2F58/s640/427587F2-DBEF-4888-8CEC-665A8A23724C.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></span>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-1624621312898868002019-11-15T11:41:00.003-08:002019-11-15T12:30:01.870-08:00Thing of the Week: Narwhal the Puppy, Las Vegas, The Hollow Winter Hair of Deer<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ'S THING OF THE WEEK:</b> Narwhal the Puppy! And puppies in general</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiboKL1bN-tcvuIF0NE4wsf1qUDKaC-iQNPDOZZ04wttnQVXriwmaB5NzzY-luwH6a0BGATMVHttWEjkDA2LbdyAVHh3bhnfWLMqX7J67Z3OVc5wrzSQZ992426KbnFIOUC8aII2y1UHec/s1600/IMG-3281.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="695" data-original-width="695" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiboKL1bN-tcvuIF0NE4wsf1qUDKaC-iQNPDOZZ04wttnQVXriwmaB5NzzY-luwH6a0BGATMVHttWEjkDA2LbdyAVHh3bhnfWLMqX7J67Z3OVc5wrzSQZ992426KbnFIOUC8aII2y1UHec/s320/IMG-3281.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The other day I was talking to my friend on the phone, and he likened his general state of life-optimism to that of "a puppy seeing another puppy, who he didn't know was going to be there"- what a metaphor! Inside my head I imagined the two puppies- my brain immediately conjured up 1) a classic golden retriever pup, and then 2) a scrappier mutt pup, like an Australian Shepherd sort of vibe, although it doesn't<i> have</i> to be an Australian Shepherd- and I lost my fucking<i> mind</i>. Think about how cute that would be!!! How much the 2 puppies would freak out with adorable puppy excitement over the great surprise of seeing another puppy, one of their own, and then they'd kind of look back at you, their human, like, "Can you be<i>lieve </i>what great luck we're having?" and you'd just stand there, crying tears of joy.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've always loved puppies- I mean, that's sort of a dumb sentence. Everyone loves puppies, except people who don't love puppies- I'm not going to sit here and say that people who don't love puppies are "evil" or "heartless" or whatever: we're all entitled to our own preferences. It's okay to not like dogs. I, personally, do not like birds. I am terrified of them. They ruin my life, every day, by existing. I have thrown up from disgust, looking at a pigeon, more than once. If I could have one wish, it would be for there to be no pigeons. That is my number one wish. I think about it so much. But I digress. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My point is, I've always loved puppies, but in the past three months or so, I've started loving puppies more than I ever thought possible. I barf when I see pigeons, but I cry when I see puppies. Even just writing the word "puppy" over and over again is making me want to cry. It's such a cute word! Puppy is the perfect name for a puppy. PUPPY</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The night before I found out about Narwhal, I ate the best chocolate bar I've ever eaten in my life. It was Italian, milk chocolate with pistachio crème in the middle. It was so<i> smooth</i>! I was like, "I feel like I'm some middle-aged rich dude taking a sports car for a test drive, like I finally understand what that experience is like, to be driving, like, a Maserati or whatever, and to just be like, exultant about the smoothness of the engine." And then my friends and I spent a very long time talking about the pros and cons of Beyoncé being with LeBron James <i>vis a vis </i>Jay-Z. Then I told them the "puppy seeing another puppy" thing, and I said, "Thinking about a puppy seeing another puppy is, like, up<i> here</i>," and I reached my hand up very high, "And then, just,<i> puppies</i>, generally, is right here," and I lowered my hand a tiny bit, and then I lowered my hand to the very lowest ground and said "And here's, like, the best sex of my life." </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then I woke up in the morning, and found out about Narwhal, the puppy with a tail in the middle of his face. Fucking fuck YES Narwhal!!!!! Now the best thing I can imagine is Narwhal seeing another puppy that he didn't know was going to be there, and the other puppy<i> also</i> had some sort of charming and adorable deformity, and- I can't go on. This is too much. It is too wonderful to think about. Anyway, Narwhal fucking rules. I know it, you know it, Narwhal knows it. Check out this fake message some person wrote from Narwhal's perspective, which is just SO GOOD, if you imagine Narwhal actually wrote it, which clearly I am:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju9urMfd6_6-v1ndAPEkEd1HW1dhyphenhyphensSgcrJ2GyQCxm-S4Cn4DjEnufvS_73w4j8QnU0ZX0dL6ZemIhEHt4jrAUMEAIhYRFJGuE_18O0zgmE4LTwZEGczFaV7rnXPtS4A7GGJzgz3spxLY/s1600/IMG-3284.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="411" data-original-width="828" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju9urMfd6_6-v1ndAPEkEd1HW1dhyphenhyphensSgcrJ2GyQCxm-S4Cn4DjEnufvS_73w4j8QnU0ZX0dL6ZemIhEHt4jrAUMEAIhYRFJGuE_18O0zgmE4LTwZEGczFaV7rnXPtS4A7GGJzgz3spxLY/s320/IMG-3284.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I love how it starts out with the overenthusiastic "It's me Narwhal!!"- I love how there's no comma between 'me' and 'Narwhal': puppies don't have time for grammar! But the farewell "Sleep tight, k thanks, Narwhally" is clearly the<i> piece de resistance</i> of the fake Narwhal message. The 'k thanks' is so gorgeously blasé! Classic Narwhal: he doesn't give a<i> fuck</i>. Then- twist ending!- he signs off as 'Narwhally': just testing out some new nickname options! It might stick, it might not: who cares? Not Narwhally! That's for goddamned sure. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">God. You wake up one morning, and you think the best thing that's going to happen to you all week is eating a pistachio chocolate bar, and then you find out that an adorable baby puppy from rural Missouri has a tail on his face. Life is a gift. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>LIZ'S THING OF THE WEEK:</b> Las Vegas</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last week Sophie and I went to Vegas to see Madonna. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> show was Thursday night & we left on Wednesday afternoon and stayed at The Cosmopolitan, where there's a Milk Bar and you can get <b>CEREAL-MILK WHITE RUSSIANS TO GO</b>, although we didn't actually do that. Our first Vegas thing was the Neon Museum, which has a collection of hundreds of old/unrestored neon signs from all over Vegas. The exhibition's outdoors and you just kind of wander around and check out the signs and take pix of all the groovy cursive. Here are some of my faves:</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ADznFuFPpEgBSR7FBsiG-sX0InaMIBKn_braDAiSpBiMEbEzD-5T-_lZh1zJP1f87d272Hp_6N9sfE6tqELX0JNXO7-_WmufQ0nEd4JpOvq2Ak1kPr2T8LGA2OK-URSKsjNpE8PGkas/s1600/neon1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1348" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ADznFuFPpEgBSR7FBsiG-sX0InaMIBKn_braDAiSpBiMEbEzD-5T-_lZh1zJP1f87d272Hp_6N9sfE6tqELX0JNXO7-_WmufQ0nEd4JpOvq2Ak1kPr2T8LGA2OK-URSKsjNpE8PGkas/s640/neon1.jpg" width="640" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNiTTYTuOQIrX50ZWjcG_09Um7Nyqr1P5kqE5vgz_lv_Jz534oBhX4ze-OVDPcMmxVo0tN5KLqWxzIrj53e2hyw8yHYgZrZ530cf_kFsOHXsyqZxGhtlpiCCHttQumxAlZMr3AHyqF6k/s1600/neon2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="1454" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNiTTYTuOQIrX50ZWjcG_09Um7Nyqr1P5kqE5vgz_lv_Jz534oBhX4ze-OVDPcMmxVo0tN5KLqWxzIrj53e2hyw8yHYgZrZ530cf_kFsOHXsyqZxGhtlpiCCHttQumxAlZMr3AHyqF6k/s640/neon2.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After the Neon Museum we went to the Peppermill and had Bloody Marys and fried pickles in the lounge, where there are red-velvet booths & opulent flower arrangements & chandeliers & disco-ball-tile ceilings & fire pits inside pools of glowing water & a million TV screens playing music videos. While we were there they played "Been Caught Stealing" and "Andres" by L7 and "Drive" by R.E.M., which is a very deep song to drink a nighttime Bloody Mary to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For dinner we had French dips, served in this special way Sophie invented, with blue cheese crumbles tucked into the sandwich. My favorite Peppermill things are the </span><a href="https://media2.trover.com/T/54b6f83426c48d7d960001fb/fixedw_large_4x.jpg" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">fabulous napkins and the sugar shakers full of rock sugar in all different colors, like confetti</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. When Scott and I went to Vegas in July he asked the waitress for a napkin to take home as a memento and she gave us a whole nice stack and now I keep them on a bench in my room, next to my Lisa Frank tarot cards that </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/local.smoke.press/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #741b47;">Liina</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> sent me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is maybe a good place to tell you that </span>I used to think Vegas was terrible but now I like it: before this summer I hadn't been since 2006, and now I've been three times this year alone. The July trip was for Scott's birthday and it was Fourth of July weekend and for his bday dinner we had the insane buffet at Caesar's Palace. We waited in line two hours & about halfway through Scott went to get me a glass of white wine from the casino bar and while he was gone there was a 7.2 earthquake, which flipped my wig. Also during that trip we went to a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/evelpie/?hl=en" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">rock-and-roll pizza parlor in downtown Vegas</span></a> & I had a slice of rattlesnake pizza: a revelation. And then we went back in August and ate steak at Nobu and crab fried rice at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMT-npz4lM0" target="_blank"><span style="color: #134f5c;">Lotus of Siam</span></a> and I forget what else- a cone of vanilla from a Ben & Jerry's stand on the Strip? I fell hard for the botanical gardens at the Bellagio, which was done up in a La Dolce Vita theme and had all these <a href="https://i2.wp.com/vegaschanges.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/DSC09626.jpg?w=1280&ssl=1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #38761d;">beautiful humungo lemons</span></a>. I hope they do Japan again sometime; <a href="https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8515551-mgm-bellagio-conservatory-botanical-gardens-japan-spring/image/BellagioPhoto3_1553084058933-HR.jpg?p=publish" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">so pretty</span></a>. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anyway here is the video for "Been Caught Stealing" onscreen at the Peppermill Fireside Lounge. <b>FRENCH DIP WITH BLUE CHEESE, GUYS</b>:</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqWHFN1XWd7vaVvG8WDH8pPXPOUJur8Zl0VX7Df174eoVRLdOo_NG2HZJV2nNAHPXCak9pmjdO-jr4bFLsdiApWswvuBCsvze6UPyzS2YhhCrYo_KbD6_TNiSB4zxvzEN_DDBa0tFxy7E/s1600/9DEAA19C-9660-40DE-A988-2245E19013FA.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="835" data-original-width="749" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqWHFN1XWd7vaVvG8WDH8pPXPOUJur8Zl0VX7Df174eoVRLdOo_NG2HZJV2nNAHPXCak9pmjdO-jr4bFLsdiApWswvuBCsvze6UPyzS2YhhCrYo_KbD6_TNiSB4zxvzEN_DDBa0tFxy7E/s640/9DEAA19C-9660-40DE-A988-2245E19013FA.JPG" width="574" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The next day was Madonna Day and we had brunch at the Wicked Spoon. My fave brunch things were the bowls of Dum Dum lollipops & Atomic Fireballs at the dessert station, and the little Chinese-takeout containers of pineapple fried rice, and the glass carafe of mimosas they plunked down at our table. After brunch we went to the Canyon Ranch spa at the Venetian and I got a massage and then we sat in the Wave Room: this big dark dome-like cave with extremely plush chaise lounges all arranged in a circle, and you lie back on the chair in your robe and listen to ocean sounds and watch the ceiling, where there's a reflection of the little mini wave pool set up on the floor- so it feels like waves are breaking above you. If I ever become filthy-rich I'd like my house to have an aquarium very much like the <a href="https://www.neaq.org/exhibit/giant-ocean-tank/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Giant Ocean Tank</span></a> at the New England Aquarium, and then on the level below that there's a Wave Room of my own, only with a glass ceiling so you can watch all the eels & stingrays & sea turtles float by. And instead of ocean sounds, it's just constantly playing <i>Pod</i> by the Breeders and also the <i>Safari</i> EP. Perfect.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That night we met Sophie's friend Dino at a strip-mall bar called The Golden Tiki which was a heavenly paradise. The ceiling's meant to look like the night sky and every few seconds there's fireworks or a shooting star or comet, and the jukebox played a surf-jazz version of "I Saw Her Standing There" and your drinks come lit on fire. I had a piña colada type thing and then a navy grog; for dinner we ate coconut shrimp & orange chicken tenders & crab rangoon & the crowning glory of the whole shebang: a platter of totally basic potato chips drizzled with honey, with a little bowl of sour-creamy dip at the center. The only way it could've been more wonderful would be if they'd served it in the chip-n-dip Pete Campbell got for his wedding. All night long I had Pete saying <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaKaeye5wfU" target="_blank"><span style="color: #674ea7;">"You have your fingers in your ears?"</span></a> stuck in my head and I loved it so much.</span></span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHDUEuNXSgtoyXrL2wfuycsqKf7y2MQB0mgw5CRLJ2awweaEDCBrTXhyy2AhKw1NusccByBYoDLdH72WjqexVIrqJnW06gPwi-JB-bW-JSJtf4IkloImLdZclmo0QhLlShtWea57a1ZvI/s1600/7F012400-27A2-4D1D-8FB7-03552EE66D4C.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1309" data-original-width="1600" height="522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHDUEuNXSgtoyXrL2wfuycsqKf7y2MQB0mgw5CRLJ2awweaEDCBrTXhyy2AhKw1NusccByBYoDLdH72WjqexVIrqJnW06gPwi-JB-bW-JSJtf4IkloImLdZclmo0QhLlShtWea57a1ZvI/s640/7F012400-27A2-4D1D-8FB7-03552EE66D4C.JPG" width="640" /></span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And then Madonna! The show was at Caesar's Palace and they made you lock up your phones in those stupid pouch things. Madonna came on an hour and a half late, aka 2.5 hours after the arrive-by time. It was kind of annoying. The crowd was not stoked. And then they got hostile, and started booing her. People said disgusting things & I hated them. I mean I know it's a drag to wait till midnight for the show to start, but what are you going to do? It's Madonna, you losers. And then she finally came on and started with </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpYDLsJtQbE" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">"God Control"</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> which I'd never heard but I like it, especially when she raps "Each new birth, it gives me hope/That's why I don't smoke that dope!" What a nerd. She was glorious & amazing, the show was a wow. At some point she went into the crowd and drank some dude's beer, and a few other times she talked about how much she loves beer now, ever since she moved to Portugal. I like the idea of Madonna thinking, "Isn't that so fascinating of me, that I drink beer sometimes?", and then making a big spectacle of it. Self-fascination is good. I'm on her side forever.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We got back to the hotel at a million o'clock and checked out in the morning and my last Vegas meal was a chicken sandwich at the airport Shake Shack, where they were playing Ex Hex: bonkers that Mary Timony is fast-food-famous now. I'm going to end with this Madonna pic I recently posted on the semi-new <a href="https://www.instagram.com/strawberryfieldswhatever_/?igshid=14v6of0t6c1sh" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>STRAWBERRY FIELDS WHATEVER INSTAGRAM</b></span></a> which is really knocking it out of the park. Follow for many pix of Joni Mitchell & Serge Ibaka & sometimes paintings of soft-boiled eggs. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZecyLtHhKQ_VcWN9OGJPRMyPb0C2SnaH0GFxlzxboS8oF4zN1lsJKAM10M1aSFh8ntBUqaALyvE7eN4rBr2GJJ7CS7UliYH6k4BTX4EYEB7xM12oNKPvwp_D9IJX2g7LbPQtEOLR72do/s1600/IMG_4919.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="922" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZecyLtHhKQ_VcWN9OGJPRMyPb0C2SnaH0GFxlzxboS8oF4zN1lsJKAM10M1aSFh8ntBUqaALyvE7eN4rBr2GJJ7CS7UliYH6k4BTX4EYEB7xM12oNKPvwp_D9IJX2g7LbPQtEOLR72do/s640/IMG_4919.jpg" width="520" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>JEN'S THING OF THE WEEK:</b> The Hollow Winter Hair of Deer</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiePBp9ykd4Z705qj0868DgI0gt6EIcbdtuL2CLcHn2gjMIcD8dlKYBOXfst2g3bDtwQoF2empIpNzRNVlnKA_o4lpVMWVilKPxS8g1AssQ-1N-GV37Gyjgidd0O4Uk5JhPHKWPHM_uiVI/s1600/image.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="903" data-original-width="1400" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiePBp9ykd4Z705qj0868DgI0gt6EIcbdtuL2CLcHn2gjMIcD8dlKYBOXfst2g3bDtwQoF2empIpNzRNVlnKA_o4lpVMWVilKPxS8g1AssQ-1N-GV37Gyjgidd0O4Uk5JhPHKWPHM_uiVI/s640/image.png" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last weekend I went upstate to go to a <a href="http://woodstocksanctuary.org/" target="_blank">Woodstock Farm Sanctuary </a>Fundraiser with a meal prepared by one of my <a href="https://www.instagram.com/llcommissary/?hl=en" target="_blank">favorite chefs</a>, dessert by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sweetmaresas/" target="_blank">my favorite baker</a>, honoring my favorite vegan activist, <a href="https://foodispower.org/" target="_blank">Lauren Ornelas</a>, and also honoring <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUokmM2e6EJbIHEReGCS7qj4-d1gNypP6xd5dUXa9LstBZO9sLBo4NkTwlnItmK0YWPgS6AAr3drYmGkfRN4BxyN1nKB9yIgKoEqr39G-p1RoM-TI0eovd1tttn2IM979rSI5Fcrz3BgvO/s1600/IMG_0008.JPG" target="_blank">Rob and Sheri Moon Zombie</a>, who I am obsessed with. I met Rob Zombie. This is all a bit too monumental to </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">be a</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> thing of the week. It's so major, right? Where to even begin? My thing is something I learned while I was upstate, freezing cold and wondering how deer keep warm in the winter. The answer is they grow a 'winter coat' which consists of hollow hair that insulates them and keeps them warm in up to (down to?) 30 degrees below freezing Fahrenheit. A winter coat of hollow hair! How elegant. They also bulk up for the winter, reduce movement, huddle together in forest fields and on south facing slopes. I'm most taken with the hollow hair, though. If you spend some time looking up deer's hollow hair on the internet you will find some hunting sites and images. In case you couldn't tell from the deeply vegan fundraiser I attended last weekend I am very much against this. Let the deer's winter coats keep them warm in peace! And then let them completely take over our world come the spring - we deserve it. </span></span></div>
Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-36049151666043917922019-09-25T10:03:00.001-07:002019-09-25T17:17:25.953-07:00The Strawberry Fields Whatever Diet: Everything We Ate for an Entire Week, by Laura Jane Faulds & Elizabeth Barker<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Monday, September 9th</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>I woke up at 8 in the morning and it was chilly in my bedroom and, even indoors, you could feel the autumn in the air. I thought it was romantic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I made myself a Bodum-ful of terrible coffee. I honestly make the worst coffee. It’s a real chore to force it down.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am avoiding gluten right now because my stomach is fucked all the time and it seems like the thing to do. I also already don’t eat dairy, because I’m lactose-intolerant, so that’s fun.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For breakfast I ate two different gluten-free cereals mixed together: one was Nature’s Path vanilla poppyseed grain-free whatever, which is crunchy and seedy and wonderful, and the other one is kinda bullshit, I don’t know its name and never will. It’s nothing. I enjoyed this <i>melange</i> of breakfast cereals with my favourite brand of coconut milk yogurt, “Maison Riviera,” which is a ridiculous name for a dairy-free yogurt brand. It sounds like the name of a drag queen whose schtick is being a parody of a French person.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I always eat breakfast while doing the New York Times crossword. The Monday crossword is so easy a damn cat could do it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I quit smoking and juuling and everything but I’m too lazy to go through nicotine withdrawal so I’m constantly popping nicotine lozenges. I guess I “eat” them. I think it’s very charming of me. I like thinking about the story of my life and flashing back to a picture of my nineteen-year-old self chain-smoking cigarettes, you would see it and think, “Oof, this girl is going to have to quit smoking one day; she’s not doing much to make that very easy on herself,” and then you’d cut to a scene of today me covertly shaking my blue plastic vial of Nicorette things over my palm in the middle of hanging out with someone, or at work, and you’d think, “Oh, wow, she did it. But she’s still that same person.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I ate a stupid protein bar before going for a run. I impulse-bought a box of these “plant-based energy bars” in the flavour “nutbutter superfood with baobab” without having tasted one, and it turned out I didn’t like them, so it’s been a real hassle, getting through the box. But today I ate my last bar, which was a real victory. On the bar wrapper it says “Crashproof your day!”— ridiculous. I do not consider my day “crashproofed” because I absently fed myself that nothing piece of garbage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrcSPSaVqrzElUnbMJ_CgI_pBkUSn3qzgGQ5iAlWcUWKxTtJp9hh2Secg-FXAKd438eqYkixDn4wx8rrkmOejETPzH18MKRvagn8o9A6rM2B6KqdxbUqrCFsbKYGEmCtHVHG9EM6dJwfI/s1600/wholefoods.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrcSPSaVqrzElUnbMJ_CgI_pBkUSn3qzgGQ5iAlWcUWKxTtJp9hh2Secg-FXAKd438eqYkixDn4wx8rrkmOejETPzH18MKRvagn8o9A6rM2B6KqdxbUqrCFsbKYGEmCtHVHG9EM6dJwfI/s320/wholefoods.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the afternoon I had therapy and engaged in my classic post-therapy ritual of going to Whole Foods and spending an absurd amount of money on a salad I’ve thrown together out of an assortment of non-complimentary ingredients from the salad bar. For no reason, today’s salad was moderately more composed than usual. I used arugula as the base and my major takeaway from eating that salad was that arugula is beautiful— so elegant, and very self-confident for a leaf. My cacophonous salad was disrespectful to arugula.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was tired but had missed my coffee-drinking window for that day (I don't drink coffee after 3 PM) so I drank a lemon iced tea and then went to <a href="https://www.pilotcoffeeroasters.com/" target="_blank">Pilot</a> for a Cascara Tea, which is my new fav non-alc. Cascara Tea is also called Coffee Cherry Tea, which is a lovely word-order, and is made out of coffee bean skins. They have it on tap at Pilot and it’s kind of fizzy. Also tannic & floral & caramelly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I got to work and ate a peach. I drank San Pellegrino all night. Near the end of service I ate another stupid all-natural protein bar: it wasn’t very good. What I liked about this protein bar was that its flavour name was Sticky Squirrel, and I am simply not the kind of non-idiot who could ever say no to a thing named Sticky Squirrel. The thing tasted mostly of molasses, a flavour I don’t love.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Before I left work I ate two mini saucisson secs, which are complimentary to my aesthetic. They are a food I would very much like to be seen eating.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I came home and drank a glass of chilled Beaujolais-Villages. I thought Beaujolais was going to be my thing for September but, mid-glass, I’m realizing I’m kind of over it now. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I woke up in the Valley! My boyfriend Scott lives in Lake Balboa and had already left for the day, to meet a friend for breakfast at Lovi's Deli in Calabasas. In a cute kickoff to Strawberry Fields Whatever Diet week, I rolled out of bed to a text from Scott sharing his breakfast order with me: coffee, Greek omelette, sesame bagel, fruit, and "some of my friend's giant blueberry muffin." I drank a glass of water & transcribed an interview </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">with</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> a riot grrrl-ish songwriter woman who told me the touchstones for her new album are "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle, "More Than a Feeling" by Boston, and "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton, all of which I deeply support.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I got myself together and went to get breakfast at a place in Van Nuys called Heart's Coffee Shop, which I found by Googling "old diners in the san fernando valley." Heart's was a ghost town and I sat at the counter. For my breakfast I ordered scrambled eggs & sausage links and asked for a biscuit instead of toast, but you're not allowed to get a plain old biscuit at Heart's- it's biscuits-and-gravy, or no biscuit at all. All I really wanted was to jab my butter knife into the crinkly little packet of Smucker's strawberry preserves and then slather it onto some halfway-decent hunk of biscuit. But I went along with the biscuits-and-gravy plan anyway, because what are you going to do? The biscuits came up first and they were incredibly overwhelming, two fat biscuit-islands in a big sea of gravy. I ate one and then my scrambled eggs & sausage, which were good and greasy and plump and slick. The</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> coffee was weak and blah in that perfect diner-coffee way, I drank 5,000 cups of it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkpFCop-Iwf-coxoJNO_eBvGs2FsjXrsydih4avHKlsL_bFE2U8Rof9rObHa9MJazsrNkTxwunC81x2vhyphenhypheni6b-unlr6QdhZSMozJf4bb6GZcSjV9ons932ZXs30htd72LWhHpNwcXe9Ic/s1600/7742083C-F2C1-4D99-B725-0B3DFB1CAC20.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkpFCop-Iwf-coxoJNO_eBvGs2FsjXrsydih4avHKlsL_bFE2U8Rof9rObHa9MJazsrNkTxwunC81x2vhyphenhypheni6b-unlr6QdhZSMozJf4bb6GZcSjV9ons932ZXs30htd72LWhHpNwcXe9Ic/s640/7742083C-F2C1-4D99-B725-0B3DFB1CAC20.JPG" width="512" /></a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I ate I read that special Charles Manson issue of <i>Life</i>, an impulse purchase at CVS, as part of a half-baked plan to make my Strawberry Fields Whatever Diet vaguely <i>Once Upon a Time in Hollywood</i>-themed (spoiler: I FAILED). </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'd hoped for Heart's to be a weird cozy time-travel-y experience, but there was some creepy undercurrent to the whole situation- which partly had to do with being the lone customer at a creaky old diner in the middle of nowhere, but is mostly my fault for reading murder magazines at breakfast. My bill came to $12.45 for a massive amount of food, and I paid up and went to a Starbucks in Sherman Oaks to do more work. At Starbucks I drank a grande iced coffee, with a splash of half & half.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then I went home and finished a work thing and then I went to the gym, where I drank my bottle of lemon water and listened to Starcrawler and JPEGMAFIA and Plague Vendor and Vanilla Fudge- their "You Keep Me Hangin' On" cover, from the soundtrack to </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After the gym I went to California Market, a humungo Korean grocery store near my apartment. In the seafood section they sell whole octopus and I almost bought one, mostly for the novelty of buying an octopus. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But then I came to my senses, and got a bunch of veggies and lots of the little freshly packaged treats, like lotus root and radish kimchi and those yummers bean sprouts they give you as banchan. I went home and made a stir-fry thing with Chinese broccoli and baby bok choy and shiitake mushrooms and tofu and red onions and some of the kimchi + bean sprouts tossed in. It was fine, a B+ at best. Did you read that thing </span><a href="http://www.grubstreet.com/2019/08/adam-platt-on-salad-chains.html" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Adam Platt wrote about Sweetgreen</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and how everyone in New York is a salad zombie? Sometimes I worry I'm a stir-fry zombie. One day my life will be lovelier and I'll learn to cook grand things like paella and arroz con pollo and coq au vin and carbonara, but for now I'm just slightly a cut above all those Sweetgreen weirdos.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Tuesday, September 10th</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>I woke up too early, very hungry, and ate my same breakfast as yesterday, only the vanilla poppyseed flavour granola has been swapped out for a caramel pecan from the same brand. Breakfast is pretty much the only meal I ever eat at home. What can I say? I'm just a fast-paced CrossFitting sommelier on the go. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGAoQYWAxDzkT3PT5_hwW72RCDxH8eg1xhWnVmbGV-UHiuuta-HuKxir721jmr9rb4Y0NbFnrglu96oQ9x2mLl9ckLBgdveyzpV4lDFnitSf5k4jlsCN5uLuwtfuR2B-XePOhVOs53UvM/s1600/burg.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1312" data-original-width="1600" height="327" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGAoQYWAxDzkT3PT5_hwW72RCDxH8eg1xhWnVmbGV-UHiuuta-HuKxir721jmr9rb4Y0NbFnrglu96oQ9x2mLl9ckLBgdveyzpV4lDFnitSf5k4jlsCN5uLuwtfuR2B-XePOhVOs53UvM/s400/burg.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the early afternoon I went to a white Burgundy tasting at <a href="https://www.parisparis.ca/" target="_blank">Paris Paris</a>. Krysta gave me a cup of filter coffee in a seventies floral mug: it was a perfect cup of coffee. But from a wine person perspective, drinking a cup of coffee right before a wine tasting is not the most sensible move. I swished like sixteen glasses of water around my mouth to fix my numbed-out coffee-tongue and it seemed to do the trick. I tasted a lot of wonderful wine and I spat it all out because I’m a champion and didn’t want to ruin myself for CrossFit later. We had a bunch of Meursault back vintages: one of them reminded me of soggy canned green beans, another was a vanilla cupcake. One of them tasted like the smell of walking into a chain Italian restaurant in the shopping mall closest to my house when I was a kid: “salty Parmesan rind,” I said aloud, so as not to be disrespectful.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The two wines that stuck with me most were a couple of cheapies: a 2016 Haute-Cotes de Beaune that tasted like hot smashed apple, made me think of the word ‘tawny’ and rust-coloured corduroy, going to this apple farm I used to go to on school trips as a child, in early October, a cup of Styrofoam cup of warm apple cider and the air smells like Hallowe’en. And a sweet, humble Bourgogne Aligote: “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride,” is my joke about Aligote. It tasted like Yellow Raspberry Jelly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I ate a piece of prosciutto at the wine tasting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I took myself out for lunch at <a href="https://freshplantpowered.com/" target="_blank">Fresh</a> and wrote the words Yellow Raspberry Jelly down in my notebook and tweeted the words Yellow Raspberry Jelly. I read from a book by Julia Child and it felt a touch sacrilegious eating my yuppie health food while she wrote about “the winey brown promise of rosy dark meat,” and so on. But, you know, whatever. I am a wine writer who is also the sommelier at a French restaurant. There are a lot of people in the world who are doing a way shittier job of honoring Julia Child’s legacy than this guy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdfZMMBk4T8Dhy0mg01GB3NPGTMj9Vj1_Ym8vac2fvndRyQ91mFoS9QYNEsfFWdtzKZj8yywjE0YFpnDLg9K1te1pmtWTnJqQK4_FXipx1a6JbU5BxRHCkOOzot70t2hyphenhyphenntxMl4_nxjMQ/s1600/firstbowl.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdfZMMBk4T8Dhy0mg01GB3NPGTMj9Vj1_Ym8vac2fvndRyQ91mFoS9QYNEsfFWdtzKZj8yywjE0YFpnDLg9K1te1pmtWTnJqQK4_FXipx1a6JbU5BxRHCkOOzot70t2hyphenhyphenntxMl4_nxjMQ/s400/firstbowl.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had a Goddess bowl, which was: steamed baby bok choy, swiss chard, kale & broccoli, house-made taberu rayu (I don’t know what this is. I copy and pasted this description from the Fresh website), ginger chili tempeh, pickled ginger (the pickled ginger I could have lived without, even though I love ginger, it was a bit much here), sunflower nori gomashio (idk), and tahini sauce, on brown rice. I dribbled hot sauce all over everything. It was perfect. I haven’t eaten proper dairy in so long, and the tahini sauce was like this illicit hit of creaminess. It was such a soft, sunny, warm, nourishing meal: it gave my poor, troubled stomach a hug.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I also had a Green Detox smoothie, which was blueberry, apple, lemon, ginger, coconut water, kale, spinach and banana. A+ use of ginger on this one.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqtFzqQybXhtTNMq4x-lmR5bRAVstZ1ZhvfX6eJ3_DoEQ4jufwramtM4OAp6HcXONHCkWwHFnHVHTy_pM0-LQNADhMmsmqIL2TwoocG1I955k-H5N4CX3bmWdCG8nKLvlNMsPVlCMxaZI/s1600/crossfit.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="897" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqtFzqQybXhtTNMq4x-lmR5bRAVstZ1ZhvfX6eJ3_DoEQ4jufwramtM4OAp6HcXONHCkWwHFnHVHTy_pM0-LQNADhMmsmqIL2TwoocG1I955k-H5N4CX3bmWdCG8nKLvlNMsPVlCMxaZI/s320/crossfit.JPG" width="179" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqtFzqQybXhtTNMq4x-lmR5bRAVstZ1ZhvfX6eJ3_DoEQ4jufwramtM4OAp6HcXONHCkWwHFnHVHTy_pM0-LQNADhMmsmqIL2TwoocG1I955k-H5N4CX3bmWdCG8nKLvlNMsPVlCMxaZI/s1600/crossfit.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #0066cc; float: right; font-family: 'times new roman'; font-size: 16px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #b00000; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br /></a><u></u></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the afternoon I had a shot of apple cider vinegar to calm my nightmare stomach. I listened to the last two minutes of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVxEqcwGcOE" target="_blank">Donovan song “Bert’s Blues”</a> over and over again, and went to CrossFit, where I did Russian step-ups and kneeling overhead presses and ran 1 KM and did a Tabata thing of 6 rounds of overhead thrusts, weighted step-ups, and box jumps. Box jumps are my favourite. You squat down deep and your arms help lift you into a nice jump onto a wooden box. You stick your landing like a gymnast, squeeze your glutes, and swagger down off the box like you are a hot shit gangster chewing chewing tobacco. A thing I love about CrossFit is how often it forces you to jump. When you are a kid you jump all the time, but when you’re an adult you never really jump.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqtFzqQybXhtTNMq4x-lmR5bRAVstZ1ZhvfX6eJ3_DoEQ4jufwramtM4OAp6HcXONHCkWwHFnHVHTy_pM0-LQNADhMmsmqIL2TwoocG1I955k-H5N4CX3bmWdCG8nKLvlNMsPVlCMxaZI/s1600/crossfit.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After CrossFit I had a peanut butter banana protein shake with almond milk: you buy them from the CrossFit gym, and they are amazing. Then I went over to my friend’s house and we drank some kooky cider and split a decadent bottle of Franciacorta, which tasted like cream soda and vanilla Juul pods. So much vanilla wine today.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He made us a peach and kale salad. I did not drink enough water.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At home in the morning </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> drank two cups of coffee I made pour-over style, with the gooseneck kettle I bought after I moved into my new apartment. I worked and worked and then went to get food at Sqirl, using the Sqirl gift card Jen May got for me when she came to visit in July. Sqirl is a 100% Strawberry Fields Whatever-beloved institution; when LJ was here in January we got lunch at Sqirl like 2 hours after she landed, and guess who was sitting next to us? Sally Draper! The star of so many Strawberry Fields Whatever <i>Mad Men </i>recaps. On Tuesday I got the Crispy Disco, which was LJ's order on Sally Draper Sqirl Day: a beautiful dish of crispy brown rice and an over-easy egg and mint and cilantro and scallion and "lacto-fermented hot sauce"- and also supposedly avocado and sausage, except there was no avocado and sausage in mine, which didn't really hit me until the moment of typing this sentence? Whatever: it was perfect, punchy and tangy and textually <i>wow</i>. I held off on letting the egg yolk ooze all over the rice and when I finally did it was a real showstopper moment. To drink I got a Ginger Lemon Fizz and it was all fizzy and frothy and the ginger created a cool dust over the big chunky ice cubes. I also bought a piece of vegan coconut loaf to go.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga7BsgItkJNUsFbzZWQY9CU7-f0XW-hm_fvnUFn1Upxzeh9Ssp7RZHizgC2L4vWlN6Y5em58oqFwuhxIOP537IVx1_kGKNpvdAMWnr8Hfr8fd5pjbE-J_xeVqO-ka1yFbW8OBjO-EuByk/s1600/sqirl.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1479" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga7BsgItkJNUsFbzZWQY9CU7-f0XW-hm_fvnUFn1Upxzeh9Ssp7RZHizgC2L4vWlN6Y5em58oqFwuhxIOP537IVx1_kGKNpvdAMWnr8Hfr8fd5pjbE-J_xeVqO-ka1yFbW8OBjO-EuByk/s400/sqirl.JPG" width="368" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then I went to stupid Starbucks, the Atwater Village one, and did some work and drank a hot mint tea and a grapefruit Spindrift. At home I made myself the same stir-fry thing as Monday night, and had a cup of whatever bottle of Sauvignon Blanc happened to be in my fridge at the time. Later in the night I ate my slice of vegan coconut loaf, which had a cute little lineup of caramelized figs along the crust. I wanted to be madly in love with my vegan coconut loaf; I even ate it while reading <i>The King's Daughter Who Could Never Get Enough Figs</i> from Italo Calvino's Italian folk tales collection, in hopes of having some kind of life-changing fig-based revelation. Instead it was just a nice snack. The most exciting part of the whole scene was that my next-door neighbor- who always listens to everything psychotically loud, in a way that I relate to and heavily condone- was blasting the hell out of <i>Norman Fucking Rockwell! </i>all night long. I haven't properly listened to that album yet but it was a good way to absorb it for the first time: shamelessly blaring from the bedroom of someone I've never met, muffled and distorted by the ambient sounds of the L.A. night. I give it a 10.0.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Wednesday, September 11th</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>A rich and wonderful day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I slept in wildly late and booked it to a wine tasting. I drank an iced Yerba Mate on the way. I tasted a bunch of stuff— the standout for me was <a href="https://www.winestyr.com/wine/martha-stoumen-wines/2018-post-flirtation-red" target="_blank">Martha Stoumen’s Post-Flirtation</a>, a wine I’d wrongfully dismissed for being all hype and no hustle, but I was proved wrong. It was vibrant and adorable. I ate some cornichons.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfsuEnfXbnprEhZ14nPGEqNTYaCdOgYkXtQcWWAjHrJkmg-Bf6xBPwyY8nbwMVp8VlwMdHKzSBAaTdnc0ZsO2ELRuakGCbZ3uSIWovo4JPJmtQhEmSioZKDdMVfoTgco58FQ5I4NGVNEk/s1600/steakfrites.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1101" data-original-width="1600" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfsuEnfXbnprEhZ14nPGEqNTYaCdOgYkXtQcWWAjHrJkmg-Bf6xBPwyY8nbwMVp8VlwMdHKzSBAaTdnc0ZsO2ELRuakGCbZ3uSIWovo4JPJmtQhEmSioZKDdMVfoTgco58FQ5I4NGVNEk/s400/steakfrites.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My boss and I went out for a cute lunch at <a href="https://aloetterestaurant.com/" target="_blank">Aloette</a>. I let up on myself a little and ate a tomato salad and steak frites: the steak was gnarly. Gristly & overcooked, but what the fuck did I care? I'm in it for the frites.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had a glass of sparkling Pinot Gris and one of Loire Valley Cabernet Franc, then went to CrossFit with wine-stained teeth. It was no problem. I was looser than usual, made jokes during class, and made a friend. I was very eager to help my friend, who was newer to CrossFit than I am. I went very far out of my way to make her feel supported and comfortable. It is so scary and embarrassing to be new at CrossFit and even though getting yourself through that bleak dark part of it makes you feel like even more of a badass in the end, it is a relief when a benevolent pal chips in to help.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I was walking out of the CrossFit gym I ran into my friend who had a bottle of sake in his pocket. He told me to drink all the water out of my water bottle and then he filled it up with sake for me. I really liked my life at that moment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJUFNlsEqZdxykIaOLBv7590R-O1Fg6f7h4OyvRYyWPMysOlDsPRx-QXT7jsBS1XD02OkDTa2_ZpAxTSgwzYjhroufoPqAMWx2JFRTtSQc3zoJP5uMrYvOu_drRmRg261LGYwuNml5A34/s1600/montys.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1242" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJUFNlsEqZdxykIaOLBv7590R-O1Fg6f7h4OyvRYyWPMysOlDsPRx-QXT7jsBS1XD02OkDTa2_ZpAxTSgwzYjhroufoPqAMWx2JFRTtSQc3zoJP5uMrYvOu_drRmRg261LGYwuNml5A34/s400/montys.JPG" width="310" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had dinner at <a href="https://www.montgomerysrestaurant.com/" target="_blank">Montgomery’s</a>. It is so chic and weird there. The dining room is dark and white-walled with a neon purple altar in one corner, I think there is a plastic ET statue in the altar, and there are bunches of dried herbs and flowers hanging off the ceiling. And the bathroom there is my favourite restaurant bathroom in Toronto: it feels like the bathroom at a haunted summer camp swimming pool, and you push a pedal with your foot to make the sink work.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Erin and I drank a bottle of <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=durrmann+riesling&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwixnauI8t_kAhVjGDQIHVKjBd4Q_AUIESgB&biw=1280&bih=607" target="_blank">Durrmann Riesling de Schistes</a> which was murky & lemonadey while still maintaining palpable varietal character. Also their labels are really just the best-looking labels around.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We ate little pickles and perfect bread with dandelion butter, dairy cow salami, tomato salad (double tomato salad day!), duck breast with daikon, and a beautiful piece of trout, which was so creamy and tasted like sea air. The food was simple and cerebral, peaceful and bizarre.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I bought a sparkling water at 7-11 on my way home and everyone in line at the 7-11 was being goofy: we were all pestering each other to sign up for 7-11 points; the guy behind me was the leader of the joke and said, “Come on! Just get the points!” as I was paying. I said, “Next time!” and the cashier said, “You won’t do it next time” and we were all like “Oooh, shots fired.” Then it turned out the guy who spearheaded the whole joke didn’t have points either, which was a real twist ending.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the morning I drank some coffee and worked on some work, at my kitchen table, where </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> always work when I'm at home. And then in the late morning I went over to Sophie's house and we walked down to The Guest House on Hillhurst for a work date, and I got a tall glass of cold brew. I was hungry but I didn't want to waste my life on some whatever-y avocado toast, even though I like avocado toast, and I'm sure the Guest House avocado toast is totally aces. [A quick avocado-toast digression: when Jen was here in July we went to Moby's restaurant after standing behind Alia Shawkat in line at the Hollywood Farmers Market, and I ordered avocado toast and ate some of Jen's vegan croissant dabbed in vegan maple butter, and I still think about it so much. As Jen pointed out, all the proceeds from Moby's restaurant go toward animal-rights charities, so we don't have to feel gross about eating there, it's fine. Also- remind me to tell you about the time I swiped a jar of weed butter from Moby at a white-elephant party 5,000 years ago.]</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By the time I finished my cold brew I felt like it had corroded my insides and my soul. The amount of coffee I drink is loathsome, I resent it. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> left The Guest House and on the way home I stopped at La Pergoletta and bought a sandwich called "The Tonnarello" (Italian tuna, mayo, capers, olives + lettuce on baguette-type bread), plus a can of Diet Coke and a bag of salt + vinegar chips. I took it home and was charmed by the checkered paper and liked the sandwich just fine: again, nothing revelatory.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpnNNDvpaXY8DTcMf77LdJZB9EaoBcPdxp7OcbqvrST5KJJIpjMBL6fvmVErM2aaEXkSEMeh1g5SEoz0gRaxS4_Y5AOmNgPNJlvSgcuSG90dv5Gykad0TsNQJiLb1Cx7hQ3yFe7Vm8KTU/s1600/tonarello.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1199" data-original-width="1600" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpnNNDvpaXY8DTcMf77LdJZB9EaoBcPdxp7OcbqvrST5KJJIpjMBL6fvmVErM2aaEXkSEMeh1g5SEoz0gRaxS4_Y5AOmNgPNJlvSgcuSG90dv5Gykad0TsNQJiLb1Cx7hQ3yFe7Vm8KTU/s400/tonarello.JPG" width="400" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the afternoon I talked on the phone to a glorious woman who's a pop star and a movie star and a lovely firecracker to boot; later on I went for a run then drove up to the Valley to hang out with Scott, and we got takeout from a Mediterranean place near his house. I picked some combo platter based on the fact that the description included the words </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">chicken tenders shaped like leaves</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and of course I'm going to fall for that- such poetry! Really it was just normal-ass grilled chicken and rice and a wimpy little wilted salad plus some pita bread & hummus, and I loved it. Any chicken + rice scene is a dream in my book. Probably my fave Carole King lyrics of all time are:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>In February it will be</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>My snowman's anniversary</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>With cake for him & soup for me</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Happy once, happy twice</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Happy chicken soup with rice</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Speaking of! Did you know that John Mulaney's next special was partly modeled after <i>Really Rosie</i>?? Also also also: in John Mulaney's cover story in the new issue of <i>Esquire</i> there's a picture of him eating sausage + eggs at the Dominican diner I wrote about in my <a href="http://strawberryfieldswhatever.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-strawberry-fields-whatever-diet.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #351c75;">Wolf Parade Vacation edition of the Strawberry Fields Whatever Diet</span></a> from three springtimes ago, Reben Luncheonette, the place in Brooklyn with the milkshake-y drink whose name means "to die dreaming." Look how dashing he is:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRhMn9Bd3n_bhc6SGRyTYPPKfYFuO_dFXmNfGHp0KhKF6NgNaE0izG71GGTgT_wxfILFi4QZRUt2tuFpiCMNOlkFCvYXrVCws40UQQynlEb6Wo_pv4gr7QhIRRchjinchH9DZ49gcpZOY/s1600/mulaney+reben.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1158" data-original-width="1600" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRhMn9Bd3n_bhc6SGRyTYPPKfYFuO_dFXmNfGHp0KhKF6NgNaE0izG71GGTgT_wxfILFi4QZRUt2tuFpiCMNOlkFCvYXrVCws40UQQynlEb6Wo_pv4gr7QhIRRchjinchH9DZ49gcpZOY/s400/mulaney+reben.jpg" width="400" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So yeah Scott and I also got baklava from the Mediterranean place. It wasn't nearly as good as the baklava we'd gotten as takeout from the Indian place a few nights before, but all baklava is pure delight, like Christmas trees and dogs. I also drank some of the Sauvignon Blanc I'd bought on Sunday night when we went out for pizza at the beautiful basic Italian restaurant in Topanga Canyon, which apparently just closed forever? So tragic & fucked. All beautiful basic Italian restaurants should be protected historic sites from here on out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Thursday, September 12th</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>Back to work! And back on my bullshit, with a gluten-free vegan protein bar cookie for breakfast. And coffee.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had an iced matcha tea on my way to work. I buy them constantly, at a place I will not name, from the rudest, most unpleasant barista on the planet. The drink cost $3.95 and I gave her $4. As she was putting my money in the till I threw some other change into the tip dish. It made an audible clanking sound. She handed me my nickel back, and I pointed at the tip dish to say "Throw it in the tip dish." She said, "I don't want a <i>nickel</i>," and put the nickel back in the till. I think she is a horrible person. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At my restaurant the kitchen is very generous about feeding us whatever whenever. I usually just ask them for “some sort of meat & veg vibes” and try to eat early in the day so I won’t be hungry and cranky when it gets busy. I become very curt and rude to my fellow humans when I want to eat but can’t. The kitchen gave me a seared slice of beef & jalapeno terrine on a piece of toast (the toast I mostly ignored, since my stomach was still a bit jumbled up), and a side of sautéed carrots, green beans and chard. As soon as I lifted the fork to my mouth, the restaurant got fucking LIT. It was one of those days where every time I ever tried to do one thing, another five things would happen, and I never got the first done, ever. It took me two hours to finish my plate of food, and because it was just a bite here and there, I never felt full up. I was hungry all day. I ate two sugar snap peas, and tasted some wine with a wine agent. My friend came in to eat a burger and I had two bites of his burger. At 5 PM I ate six mini saucisson secs because if I didn’t I was going to kill somebody.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I went to CrossFit. Our main workout was twenty minutes to complete four rounds of 10 dumbbell burpees, 10 dumbbell clean and presses, 20 weighted squats, and 10 of these stupid things called Rocking Chairs that I sucked at, where you squat and then roll back into a hollow hold and then roll back up forward and into a squat. I somehow completed the four rounds. (Side note: the other day I was wondering why burpees are called burpees, the ugliest name in the world, and I found out it’s because the guy who invented them had the last name Burpee. True story! His name was Royal H. Burpee. What a horrific, game-changing contribution he made to this world.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9uFAWwkzdnpB1FoE3FIslFNQAfZR9vkL_pcNqh1R0AyRflCD4xmJi2SBscLkKfa_NC7rxDl27C_NEuktAtrW0lgWzKME72NFGPLutbosRw9cCCiQBdBZumZXQmADJt4dX6hODrWe8jt4/s1600/blueb.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9uFAWwkzdnpB1FoE3FIslFNQAfZR9vkL_pcNqh1R0AyRflCD4xmJi2SBscLkKfa_NC7rxDl27C_NEuktAtrW0lgWzKME72NFGPLutbosRw9cCCiQBdBZumZXQmADJt4dX6hODrWe8jt4/s400/blueb.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After CrossFit I went to <a href="https://bunners.ca/" target="_blank">Bunner’s</a>, the gluten-free vegan bakery that just opened up on the corner of Dundas & Oss. I had a double chocolate muffin and a blueberry seltzer/juice thing. I was so excited about the muffin that I immediately started crafting a plan around how I could incorporate eating the highest possible amount of Bunner’s muffins into my life over the course of the next few days. The blueberry drink was a better idea in theory then in practice: it was a bit simpering for an adult’s palate. It was more meant for a child.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I came home and had two glasses of a Verdejo that I feel very strongly about. And a few spoonfuls of chocolate soy yogurt before bed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b></span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> woke up to find the dog had gotten into the bubblegum. Ideally I would've come downstairs to see him lounging on the couch, boredly flipping through a copy of <i>Vanity Fair</i>, blowing bubbles and acting smart. Instead there were just gum wrappers and torn-up gum pieces all over the floor, and I cleaned it all up and</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> went on my merry way. I stopped at Peet's in Tarzana or something and got a coffee and did some work; across from me there was a pack of like 12 or 13 old men all in a big unruly gang, taking up about five tables and loudly talking shit. I loved them. I can't wait till I'm an old man and I just hang out talking shit with my buddies all day, drinking coffee and reading the paper. I was jealous of them but I put my head down and wrote a press release for the glorious woman from yesterday, then I left and drove down Ventura and pulled off into some strip mall cuz I liked this cursive:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ04p7q47ivdXbXxoRGdNDqkvG5jZA2JG3wZ4ZrQFuKmGFAHsyohy63gj1s6M3qyRS1Y6F5R5PmUG9Pk3aJiUnfFCDAbH0SFI3xefPcATTE5wQOSEmSdhEYTxMMbpsFIgmsvc6Ht5Ev9E/s1600/bea%2527s.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: '"arial"', '"helvetica"', sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1247" data-original-width="1600" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ04p7q47ivdXbXxoRGdNDqkvG5jZA2JG3wZ4ZrQFuKmGFAHsyohy63gj1s6M3qyRS1Y6F5R5PmUG9Pk3aJiUnfFCDAbH0SFI3xefPcATTE5wQOSEmSdhEYTxMMbpsFIgmsvc6Ht5Ev9E/s400/bea%2527s.JPG" width="400" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At Bea's I bought a cherry danish, in tribute to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p6KC0Yd6TY" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">the time Peggy Olson was sexually frustrated by Pete Campbell's fantasy of shooting a deer & eating it for supper</span></a>, then I put the danish in my bag and drove off back down Ventura. I really wanted a classic L.A. health-food adventure, in an "alfalfa sprouts & plate of mashed yeast" sort of vein, and ultimately made the questionable decision to get lunch at Native Foods on the UCLA campus, aka the most annoying place in the world. </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">I got the Sesame Kale Macro Bowl, which is seared tempeh and tahini and sauerkraut and brown rice and giant heaps of kale, plus a glass of lavender lemonade. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I was taking writing classes with <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780061986642/witch-baby/" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">my favorite teacher</span></a> seven years ago, I used to always get lunch at Native Foods before driving back to Echo Park. I'd order the Sesame Kale Macro Bowl or the Bangkok Curry Bowl and reread the comments Francesca had left on my pages, and it was equal parts thrilling and chill. On Thursday </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was hoping for a nostalgia trip but it fell flat: I don't miss 2012. I don't miss any year anymore. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After lunch I needed to finish some work but the thought of going to Starbucks hurt my heart so instead I went to Noah's Bagels. I much prefer a bagel restaurant to a coffee place- there's just way more levity; I was the only jerk on a laptop. I got a mango black iced tea and asked for it unsweetened but they sweetened it anyway, who cares. On the way home I stopped at CineFile and the dudes were watching <i>Grease </i>and I'd just missed the part when Kenickie says the words "And a eskimo pie with a knife": possibly my favorite line delivery of all time. I grabbed <i>Out of Sight </i>and <i>Don't Look Back</i> and the movie version of <i>The Group</i> by Mary McCarthy and considered getting <i>Burn After Reading, </i>but couldn't handle the thought of two George Clooney movies at once. I just don't find George Clooney charming. He's way too George Clooney-y. I rented <i>Fletch</i> instead and got the hell out of there, right after the part when Kenickie asks Danny to be his lieutenant at Thunder Road- so tender <3 <3 <3</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Back on the east side I stopped at Silverlake Wine and bought a bottle of some kind of white. It was either a Picpoul or Verdejo or Gruner or something else, I threw the bottle before in recycling before I wrote it down. The Tumaca Truck was parked outside the store and I got the Serrano ham croquettes, then went to Cookbook and bought a little tub of potato salad as a croquette accompaniment. The croquettes were so cute and reminded me of these weird sandwiches they'd give us for school lunch in like first grade: hot ham and melty cheese on hot bread, I think they were called "torpedoes"? And the Cookbook potato salad had fennel and olives that kind of overpowered everything, but I was into it. I drank my forgettable wine and later in the night ate my Peggy Olson cherry danish. The cherry was goopy and gloppy and the danish was totally stale and I loved it all, I loved it so much.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUleyJxZZb7nIfMSb7HWxdhouR6IyW2f2uuUBeZDNqLa0h_Pn7RXQpwUWbvCPaK0fARnOEu8Ah4Ucs7IiiZrQv7EBA8kqKF2A9WcSLWHzbuayDUTXjbguin8yFti2hKUEyJhb_A4U8M7s/s1600/danish.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1544" data-original-width="1600" height="385" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUleyJxZZb7nIfMSb7HWxdhouR6IyW2f2uuUBeZDNqLa0h_Pn7RXQpwUWbvCPaK0fARnOEu8Ah4Ucs7IiiZrQv7EBA8kqKF2A9WcSLWHzbuayDUTXjbguin8yFti2hKUEyJhb_A4U8M7s/s400/danish.JPG" width="400" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Friday, September 13th</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>I woke up in a hideous, furious mood. There was a supermoon and it was the day of the month where there are pictures of thunderclouds on the calendar square in my period tracker app. Also I had lowered my nicotine lozenge dosage the night before. And it was raining. And it was Friday the 13th.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitRO0tPUT1pJQZmrqsk7Tfd5h36pb0f-KVuuBu4HVzLZU-YbCDA_IDxlhogQ9oVJMkXZv-e3sIiJiCpadQBWcz_nPq-CsC5NkwpZ-q2CdWbYsXkcLhX44_-kzba6ux1NLNdaUphUS_hOs/s1600/pumpkinchip.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitRO0tPUT1pJQZmrqsk7Tfd5h36pb0f-KVuuBu4HVzLZU-YbCDA_IDxlhogQ9oVJMkXZv-e3sIiJiCpadQBWcz_nPq-CsC5NkwpZ-q2CdWbYsXkcLhX44_-kzba6ux1NLNdaUphUS_hOs/s320/pumpkinchip.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had coffee and some mango, then a Pumpkin Chip muffin from the yesterday place, and an iced Americano. A few hours into work, somebody gave me a slice of peameal bacon.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfoL4ixOsOoBZY1MhpefoRQh8PnCOOzgk185MvbqfINWqTuef41zS3H8IA2IP64c8MrvCG8rLLQBEoj75zIdMNzeshyNKW55GnJJsOhc6o_ianTw3tvAPU880HE5iTtGujAm6oc1-phhI/s1600/tartare.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfoL4ixOsOoBZY1MhpefoRQh8PnCOOzgk185MvbqfINWqTuef41zS3H8IA2IP64c8MrvCG8rLLQBEoj75zIdMNzeshyNKW55GnJJsOhc6o_ianTw3tvAPU880HE5iTtGujAm6oc1-phhI/s400/tartare.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I ate lunch in the late afternoon: steak tartare with one piece of toast and a salad. The steak tartare at my work is my favourite thing to eat in the entire city of Toronto. I couldn’t have it with <i>no</i> toast— it’s duck fat toast, and I’m obsessed with it— but mostly I used the salad to make myself little steak tartare lettuce wraps. When the night people came into transition the restaurant from day until night I started snacking on some fries from their staff meal, and then felt grossed out, really viscerally grossed out by the act of eating, my stomach was bloated out to here, and I was feeling stressed out by maintaining this journal. I didn’t eat any food for the rest of the day. It was too much. I threw in my towel. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I made the executive decision to spend a lot of money getting drunk on nice wine all night. There was simply no other option. I went to <a href="http://archive909.com/" target="_blank">Archive</a> and had an exceptional glass of Southern Rhone sparkling called ‘<a href="https://www.rawwine.com/wine/la-roteuse-de-landra-2/" target="_blank">La Roteuse de Landra</a>’: there was Clairette in the blend, a kicky nerd grape I always adore. It was chalky, pink lemonadey, and a little bit pudgy. Then, I treated myself to a 3oz glass of Grand Cru Riesling, which was nothing to write home about.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo5hyvUmF2JFAkC5rCgWF04oRTp7EKPEW1dFt7oQ-mwCJfzDr12s6LRM12O0sVB14tYrwfkE0b0Z65dU7aCVZPsbk9UElou22WK545TZLCjSEO156OO1ODoVMIuuCVihm2WdNreFdCbPI/s1600/sparklingbojo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo5hyvUmF2JFAkC5rCgWF04oRTp7EKPEW1dFt7oQ-mwCJfzDr12s6LRM12O0sVB14tYrwfkE0b0Z65dU7aCVZPsbk9UElou22WK545TZLCjSEO156OO1ODoVMIuuCVihm2WdNreFdCbPI/s320/sparklingbojo.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I met Madeleine at <a href="https://www.paradisegrapevine.com/" target="_blank">Paradise Grapevine</a> and we had a bottle of sparkling, off-dry Beaujolais. Whenever Madeleine and I drink wine together we always want something “yummy” and “delicious”: this delivered. Scratchy strawberry jam soda. We were outside on the covered patio and it thunderstormed all around us and that was brilliant. I was an appropriate level of drunk and after we left I did box jumps up the steps outside a church. I went home and cried my eyes out and it felt wonderful, to be my own little thunderstorm.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><br /><span style="color: white;">.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;">.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Morning coffee at my kitchen table!!! And work, and lemon water and tea: Chai Rooibos and Harvest Peach. After a couple hours I took a break and walked down to my 7-Eleven and got a Big Gulp of Diet Coke, plus a stick of jack cheese. Then I went home and made a scramble thing with the cheese and an egg and some broccoli and mushroom and red onion, a little bit of Tapatio when it was all done. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> watched my maybe-#1 all-time most formative YouTube video, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fF8D-qn9CU" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">Britney Spears, Stoned</span></a>, then finished my work & hopped in the shower cuz, guess what, we're going to Joshua Tree. Scott came by and we headed east for like 130 miles, and stopped on the way at Hadley's Fruit Orchards for milkshakes. Scott got a date shake and I got date-banana, and also bought a bottle of Sauv Blanc and a bunch of bananas and a package of cornflake Ritter Sport.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLQviXWGB_FnclWHIH3ig_G7OyCks7q7nTc1GWMS97cvOYqIQsvoyRP5uTqV3R-rbV9kt3vh7nkHPvCtVXCOX5N_uergDmRePRoKESt4VzpQ8ID2Ka_SVOtNY9XJgjLgxI_ytfCifMsG4/s1600/hadleys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="858" data-original-width="982" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLQviXWGB_FnclWHIH3ig_G7OyCks7q7nTc1GWMS97cvOYqIQsvoyRP5uTqV3R-rbV9kt3vh7nkHPvCtVXCOX5N_uergDmRePRoKESt4VzpQ8ID2Ka_SVOtNY9XJgjLgxI_ytfCifMsG4/s400/hadleys.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then we drove to the Airbnb and settled in and then I got ready to go see my girl Mary Timony and her band Ex Hex, at Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace. There was a wait for dinner and I drank a Wolf Pup, sitting at the bar and feeling the groovy vibes of being at a honky-tonk/BBQ restaurant in the middle of the desert, with absolutely zero cell-phone reception. When</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> it was time for dinner I got the grilled chicken + fries + broccoli and Scott got ribs, which I envied on an intellectual level. I always envy anyone who's way into ribs: it seems like such a satisfying eating experience, to gnaw all the way down to the bone and end up with sauce all your fingers and then lick your fingers clean. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Have you seen </span><a href="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/9f/78/da/9f78daf0b1d833b4349134783c06d982.jpg" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #20124d;">that picture of Diana Ross eating ribs on the street</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">? No one else ever looks that good.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For my drink I had a margarita, which came in a little mason jar with a profane amount of salt around the rim. The whole of the ocean right there on my glass.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDG7JwvZIWCF_HjPf3ZGXRkOgqgkSpUZA8kcwC4ugo6KA4dFcbOvqy4lbn9PQoIFWnqps4KluGPg_xuD50E3K12TY28CrNIPJOXvtgeYBwLWEX-Gpp-KzFgZLl2rIixrjQT_Inf3Chobw/s1600/ex+hex.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="801" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDG7JwvZIWCF_HjPf3ZGXRkOgqgkSpUZA8kcwC4ugo6KA4dFcbOvqy4lbn9PQoIFWnqps4KluGPg_xuD50E3K12TY28CrNIPJOXvtgeYBwLWEX-Gpp-KzFgZLl2rIixrjQT_Inf3Chobw/s400/ex+hex.JPG" width="371" /></a></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After dinner we hung around outside a while and then it was showtime! </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here I'm going to reveal an uncomfortable truth about myself, which is that: I'm not in love with Ex Hex. I'll always go see them anytime they're playing, but it's mostly just to be in the presence of Mary Timony. Richard Hell has a theory about how the point of rock & roll is "trying to convince girls to pay money to be near you," and I guess my version of that is paying money to absorb the happy-radiant vibes emitted by Mary Timony when she's onstage with Ex Hex. It's not a bad way to spend the night, but part of me always misses the 8 million other Mary Timony shows I've seen, like when we lived in Boston at the same time and I'd go see her practically every week. One of my favorite depressing memories of my whole life is of being 21-years-old, newly dumped and mostly friendless in the Boston wintertime, walking approximately 1.8 miles from my dumb apartment to the subway stop because I didn't want to take the bus, because buses really don't jibe with my cosmology. I listened to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-6w_UKWbWg" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">"I Fire Myself"</span></a> on my walkman and it was hideously sunny, the kind of blazing-white winter sun that burns your eyes out without bothering to warm you up. It was one of those moments when you become severely aware that you're on a <i>planet</i>, a great big rock just spinning around the sun forever and ever. Mary Timony will always remind you where you stand in the planetary scheme of things.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anyway the show was good, I drank a white wine. My favorite part was when it was over and I went to the back door just as Mary was running offstage and into the dusty Pappy & Harriet's backyard, holding her guitar high above her head with one hand, disappearing in the desert night. Afterward we went back to the house and ate some of the Ritter Sport cornflake bar, in the kitchen with the lights off. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Saturday, September 14th</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>On my six-week Crossfitiversary I ate a bunch of chocolate soy yogurt for breakfast and went to MetCon class at 1. The class was coached by the dude who owns the gym, who I call “CrossFit Andy Samberg”: he’s <i>very</i> Andy Samberg-y. He makes me feel like Andy Samberg should have some sort of "bit" where he plays a CrossFit instructor; I think that would delight many. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The workout was fantastic: lots of rowing on the rower, and then a bunch of kettlebell stuff, which I haven’t done a ton of. CrossFit Andy Samberg gave me some pointers about how to kill it at kettlebell swings and front racks, and in turn, I killed it. I felt so strong and proud.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <i>Your body is a picture of your brain</i>, I wrote, the first or second week I started CrossFitting, high on the excitement of feeling, for the first time, like my brain and body were a team.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I’m a recovered anorexic. I had a low-key relapse last winter and then moved past it and started feeding myself, and feeling like myself, again. But at the end of a boozy, indulgent July, the dick part of my brain that exists to destroy me started telling me I wasn’t skinny enough, which is such a fucking dumb reason to join CrossFit, but it’s why I did it, and the beautiful ending to this story is that, once I joined CrossFit, “being skinny enough” stopped being a part of my life at all. I have never felt at peace with my body like I do right now: it is a revelation to love my body for being strong; it is an honor to connect with my body in an environment where there is no mention of diet or weight loss, where growth and success are measured in terms of what you can do rather than how your body looks.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I left class and felt so perfectly at home inside myself. I’d been feeling weird about writing down what I ate all week: “What will people think? Am I normal?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> That afternoon I thought: “I don’t give a <i>fuck</i>. I’m me, and I will feed myself as I see fit. I’m a recovered anorexic, and joining CrossFit was the most beautiful, important step in crossing that finish line. I’ll eat gluten or not eat gluten or be grossed out by the visceral act of snacking on my co-worker’s French fries and drink wine more days than I don’t and I’ll write it all the fuck down and people can think whatever this is me it’s fucking great I’m in charge and I DON’T CARE!!!!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I wanted to cry tears of joy and dance under a rainbow. I felt like the inside of my body was a sunshower.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH-nFhx4hrpCm8IpWiMxedSS8qmTDT1Yjbf4tyi4VGNKhQ9SsDsawX_TDMJzuXHpQkjL8jF6DyP3Da3uj8x_JkemXyEiFmUp9aWvxnxe530huvSAHrL6KcuC9tlr1PFJsNQCC0isFeAC4/s1600/cafeneon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1385" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH-nFhx4hrpCm8IpWiMxedSS8qmTDT1Yjbf4tyi4VGNKhQ9SsDsawX_TDMJzuXHpQkjL8jF6DyP3Da3uj8x_JkemXyEiFmUp9aWvxnxe530huvSAHrL6KcuC9tlr1PFJsNQCC0isFeAC4/s400/cafeneon.JPG" width="346" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I took myself to this weird café on Queen Street that no one in the world goes to and ordered one of my fav post-Crossfit meals: this big bowl of kale, shredded beets, hummus, quinoa, squash, crispy chickpeas, pickled cabbage and chicken. I had that with a coconut water and it was perfect. I felt clean and clear, like the inside of my body was a non-toxic lake.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> At work I sipped on wine and cider but mostly wasn’t into it. I had a bite of beef carpaccio and two protein bars, one at the beginning of my shift and one at the end. They were both the same protein bar, my favourite brand: they’re called “<a href="https://hornbyorganic.com/" target="_blank">Hornby</a>.” They have a sunflower cranberry flavour but I’m mostly in it for the peanut butter chocolate chip [Editor's Note: 5 days after writing this, I realized there was an entire shelf of other Hornby bars at the organic food store where I buy my Hornby bars. I feel like an entire Universe has opened up for me.] They’re dense and you can tell the chocolate chips are of a higher quality than your average protein bar chocolate. I used to always eat those Clif Builder’s bars but then when I started treating my body with some fucking respect for once in my goddamned life, I stopped being able to eat them. You can tell they’re just a bunch of preservatives pressed into a bar shape. If you’re eating it today, a machine probably made it in a factory like thirteen years ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Saturday breakfast was at JT Country Kitchen, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_D6eRePtao&feature=youtu.be&t=1218" target="_blank"><span style="color: #b45f06;">a restaurant endorsed by Anthony Bourdain and Queens of the Stone Age</span></a>. I went wild and got the corned beef hash with cinnamon toast </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">plus</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> a side of banana pancake, which of course was the star of the show: you slather the butter on and it pools in the little crevices where the banana slices live, and then you excavate the hot buttery banana with your spoon and it's everything and heaven.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlEoW1LF0lxIwkL-RcrAHRns5t_NTqz6urSYDGkzACkA8rQybrhxAsEj_hlE6AP83uNuwpxFVM8JYuuFvLA-nZ_ZNDXp4l5a4xHJO_pNX8gtFUTUWHOgIKhpwcvafGnvm4-xty_SyU9C0/s1600/jt+country+kitchen.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1178" data-original-width="1600" height="467" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlEoW1LF0lxIwkL-RcrAHRns5t_NTqz6urSYDGkzACkA8rQybrhxAsEj_hlE6AP83uNuwpxFVM8JYuuFvLA-nZ_ZNDXp4l5a4xHJO_pNX8gtFUTUWHOgIKhpwcvafGnvm4-xty_SyU9C0/s640/jt+country+kitchen.JPG" width="640" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After breakfast we bopped around the desert and I bought a Van Halen shirt and a necklace at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kbuzzy/?hl=en" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">Kime Buzzelli</span></a>'s beautiful store- this necklace right here:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuewY1w_C3636JIpXCmBT62-G5DECh4SW-8YXlwWD9peczNQlOhjoXsuAsry7-55rB8mX_CAaH9_SOlUNJFZuNxXM-no95Tvd5LjG94m7ViDkSq2cTsvImkRqEtnVlDMhB6HhHFlwJ-OY/s1600/me.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1197" data-original-width="1600" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuewY1w_C3636JIpXCmBT62-G5DECh4SW-8YXlwWD9peczNQlOhjoXsuAsry7-55rB8mX_CAaH9_SOlUNJFZuNxXM-no95Tvd5LjG94m7ViDkSq2cTsvImkRqEtnVlDMhB6HhHFlwJ-OY/s400/me.JPG" width="400" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For dinner that night we scored surprise reservations at <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/la-copine-restaurant-joshua-tree-pioneertown-california" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">La Copine</span></a>, because Scott is people who know people. It's this glamorous restaurant in Flamingo Heights and I'd been hearing about it for years, so Saturday night was my day in the sun. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I got a tall boy of rosé kombucha, and our first food thing was the ceviche nuevo: rockfish + ají amarillo + coconut + avocado + "green bee tomatoes" + red onion + jalapeño + cilantro + tamarind + fried plantains. And we got the</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> pork belly pastrami on rye, and the </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">crispy blackened chicken with cheesy grits and honey drizzle, which was a beauty and a dream:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwyKLtFZlmL65GW-Jhdk63ap-4-L9uASMzX4dPAuiZ2U2EUkfPsxPcoNE4Nrz0koRjZQgH7VyewxBG1xAfjBD1BiTT9fdZ2UcrhPN8hLwhOd3ZzDhwp2gdeLs97E9FmQEet1PtnTajATU/s1600/la+copine+chicken.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1506" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwyKLtFZlmL65GW-Jhdk63ap-4-L9uASMzX4dPAuiZ2U2EUkfPsxPcoNE4Nrz0koRjZQgH7VyewxBG1xAfjBD1BiTT9fdZ2UcrhPN8hLwhOd3ZzDhwp2gdeLs97E9FmQEet1PtnTajATU/s400/la+copine+chicken.JPG" width="376" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But the dish that really knocked my socks off, rang all my bells, put me on cloud nine like a dog with two tails was the La Copine peach salad: lots of fat peach hunks and roasted grapes and lavender chèvre and hazelnuts and tarragon and black currants and baby lettuce and lemon vinaigrette, all smothered together but elegantly so. And I know that Timothée Chalamet owns the rights to all peach-based emotional experiences, but the peaches in the peach salad did something to me, man. The thing that got me was they weren't anything close to perfect. Of all the textures in the world, one of the top 5 most objectionable to me is <i>mealy</i>, especially when it comes to peaches. I can't take a mealy peach, I'm a big princess about it. But these peaches were totally mealy, they were subpar, they were some carelessly selected & way-past-its-prime bruised thing from the farmstand, left in a paper bag all day at the beach and then begrudgingly eaten when there's no better snacks to be had. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was every mediocre peach I ever ate as a kid, all jumbled up with that flashy </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">lavender chèvre & </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">show-offy black currants & <b><i>ROASTED GRAPES ARE YOU KIDDING ME????</i></b> I'm going to miss them all forever, and I look forward to that. I hope </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> never get to have that salad again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBgMEoLrsW17-rW_nXD-DFxt8FtFLLdf4Peg_Q_a0l_n_b1OaheZrV3NqmE_16R-SD45Hl3nmpsYIY2fgUs1xp889t9itnVAZqyFn5XXvgzrNKK02ocdv2OcBWrnXuQxtJ9mkYuOg01Q/s1600/peach+salad.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1462" data-original-width="1600" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBgMEoLrsW17-rW_nXD-DFxt8FtFLLdf4Peg_Q_a0l_n_b1OaheZrV3NqmE_16R-SD45Hl3nmpsYIY2fgUs1xp889t9itnVAZqyFn5XXvgzrNKK02ocdv2OcBWrnXuQxtJ9mkYuOg01Q/s400/peach+salad.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After dinner we went to the brewery in Landers & on the way Waze almost made me drive off a mountain. When we got to the brewery there was a horse outside, parked next to a motorcycle. I ordered a blood orange cider & it was juicy and sour and just my type. The last two times I went to the brewery there were these two mature and cutely fat dogs there, but neither was to be seen this time around. I guess those guys get Saturday night off, and lord do they deserve it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9VS6ViuCAF1wSa4lzf1d0maLYl0_QxO4ktTYq7yZwcS7TI4ISqG7_xTyzNGBl-U3WctQXK89Zp6_B01Uv9KsVQijWijx8EV-G11cvnM5bHMkcck8_1fQVv9v6c0Yt0vjo4xrkADTzXt4/s1600/bar+horse.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9VS6ViuCAF1wSa4lzf1d0maLYl0_QxO4ktTYq7yZwcS7TI4ISqG7_xTyzNGBl-U3WctQXK89Zp6_B01Uv9KsVQijWijx8EV-G11cvnM5bHMkcck8_1fQVv9v6c0Yt0vjo4xrkADTzXt4/s400/bar+horse.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Sunday, September 15th</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b></b><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>I woke up in the morning and did a lame-ass job of frying two eggs in Earth Balance. I broke one yolk and then fucked up flipping them over. I had them with Maldon sea salt and pepper, on a toasted gluten-free millet bun. I’m a fan of gluten-free bread, how dense it is. "Close-baked," as my old friend Paul Hollywood would say. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I had a banana before CrossFit and then went to Fresh again afterward. I’d been planning on going to <a href="http://union72.ca/" target="_blank">Union</a> and having theirsteak tartare for lunch, but then I CrossFitted and didn’t want to anymore. It always sounds like a sensible idea to “treat oneself” after a killer workout, but then you do the workout, and your body stops wanting to eat a weird cylinder of raw meat and salt. It wants to keep the loving itself party going.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinfI-T-dPkwtyAl2KuR8QAWLBUE0E_CkhT62NDckVoG3AkhJnmrQ2JqaquspZixFoDHCNXqgH2WxZp3DmAR1GIpvfa0Lmtm5j1QC5QM7pTQPvJLASIEC1XiMh8TS6XsemOYEcECNyhefU/s1600/ginandflowers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinfI-T-dPkwtyAl2KuR8QAWLBUE0E_CkhT62NDckVoG3AkhJnmrQ2JqaquspZixFoDHCNXqgH2WxZp3DmAR1GIpvfa0Lmtm5j1QC5QM7pTQPvJLASIEC1XiMh8TS6XsemOYEcECNyhefU/s320/ginandflowers.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At Fresh I ate some bowl that I liked considerably less than the bowl I ate on Tuesday, and the same smoothie, which is a lifelong winner. After I was done my food I ordered a cocktail called a Gin & Flowers, which had little edible flowers floating in it. It was fine.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At work I went with the same “two Hornby bars” vibe as last night: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I gave a baby a bite of my pre-shift Hornby bar. A couple hours later, I was craving sugar, so I stole a little hunk of walnut brittle from the kitchen, and sipped some Normandy cider. And— unrelated— I had a bite of someone’s steak.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I came home from work and ate a spoonful of chia seeds because the other day someone told me that chia seed poops are smooth and the best, and that sounded like something worth striving for. Some of the seeds got stuck in my teeth, and got all gelatinous like how they are in a chia seed pudding, while still stuck between my teeth. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">[Editor's Note: the happy ending to this story is that eating a tablespoon of Chia seeds every morning and every night fixed my stomach entirely! I am pleased to report that I now eat gluten again, though I still eat those gluten-free buns, because they're DOPE.] </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b></span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">On Sunday morning we had breakfast at Larry & Milt's Western Cafe, home of the peanut butter pancake. I ordered that, plus a veggie omelette, which is such a bullshit move: like, come on Barker, just make the pancake your main meal- who are you trying to kid? (Although my veggie omelette was kind of exciting, it had goddamn <i>carrots</i> in it, and who saw that coming?) I guess how they make the peanut butter pancake is they pour half the batter on the griddle, then spoon some spoonfuls of peanut butter onto that, then cover it all up with the rest of the batter. And it's really basic peanut butter, crunchy, maybe Skippy or Jif, and by the time it gets to you it's all melty and dreamy and heaven. I realize that's the second time I've used the word <i>heaven</i> to proselytize about pancakes in this post, but I can't be bothered with word variety right now. I'm too committed to the truth. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCm1dqBxYb61b2vXCmL67Ez-JvQYqJ6ueRwoA7M14onQDJGBpyMJwItT-90pOhife9Jyv73cRAUMYAHEadhZAIPrQYImZCQOx1eyoPCRFPPpoK2nnlQJ6nmWtlm4KusVoNaha3e2LyUIk/s1600/larry+%2526+milt%2527s.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: '"arial"', '"helvetica"', sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1473" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCm1dqBxYb61b2vXCmL67Ez-JvQYqJ6ueRwoA7M14onQDJGBpyMJwItT-90pOhife9Jyv73cRAUMYAHEadhZAIPrQYImZCQOx1eyoPCRFPPpoK2nnlQJ6nmWtlm4KusVoNaha3e2LyUIk/s400/larry+%2526+milt%2527s.JPG" width="367" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">After Larry & Milt's we headed back home to L.A. I had a few work things to do and Scott went out to do some errands, then came back with two cases of Arrowhead seltzer (one black cherry, the other lemon-lime), a fabulous surprise. From watching Michael Cera on "Hot Ones" we'd learned about Jitlada and decided to go to Jitlada for dinner, which was a fantastic move. The Jitlada menu is <i>a lot</i>, there's even a section titled "Adventurous Bizarre Foods," which includes chicken feet salad, deep-fried silk worm, Black Sea squid soup, and frog legs in curry. We were at sixes and sevens on what to order and ended up getting the crispy pork with curry and pumpkin, crab fried rice, and chicken wings with papaya salad and sticky rice. Turns out the whole time there was a list of the chef's recommendations right underneath the glass on our table, but neither of us goofs noticed till too late. But it's okay, our food was all amazing and magnificent and overwhelming in the best way. We also got Thai iced tea, served in soda-fountain glasses. Next time we go I want to get dessert, ideally the Thai Banana Split.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHCnLt3uLVY8uSN4xuNnj32kR-0zk5ThyphenhyphennfRcLhplZZzjG96_oKtEOhoAikcSiWJDbT3dRiS_YNzjl7KJWOjENsFsspIbruWC6W46lKDwZEvqCrsVhyphenhyphen4Q4FTDy5fkCGsp0P2lSjm9Zui4/s1600/jitlada+wings.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: '"arial"', '"helvetica"', sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHCnLt3uLVY8uSN4xuNnj32kR-0zk5ThyphenhyphennfRcLhplZZzjG96_oKtEOhoAikcSiWJDbT3dRiS_YNzjl7KJWOjENsFsspIbruWC6W46lKDwZEvqCrsVhyphenhyphen4Q4FTDy5fkCGsp0P2lSjm9Zui4/s400/jitlada+wings.JPG" width="400" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: , , sans-serif;">When we got home I was massively tired and crashed the hell out, and fell asleep to Scott watching <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQXAYN5HCKM" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">a video of Jonathan Gold talking about the jazz burger at Jitlada</span></a>.</span><span style="font-family: , , sans-serif;"> Sometime last year, on a more secluded part of the internet, </span><span style="font-family: , , sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: , , sans-serif;"> wrote a thing about being a little kid and falling asleep in the backseat on the way home from some big night, stretched out and dozing off to whatever's playing on the radio. In the fictional story </span><span style="font-family: , , sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: , , sans-serif;"> was writing, the falling-asleep song was "This Must Be the Place"; </span><span style="font-family: , , sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: , , sans-serif;"> made some point about how being half-asleep while </span><span style="font-family: , , sans-serif;">hearing</span><span style="font-family: , , sans-serif;"> lyrics like "Sing into my mouth" and "You got a face with a view" would do something cool to your head. I feel the exact </span></span><span style="font-family: , , sans-serif;">same way about hearing </span><span style="font-family: "\\22 arial\\22" , "\\22 helvetica\\22" , sans-serif;">the words <i>jazz burger </i>and <i>lunch box </i>and <i>palm sugar</i> and <i>Thai spaghetti </i>while half-asleep; my head is totally changed now. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "\\22 arial\\22" , "\\22 helvetica\\22" , sans-serif;">And </span><span style="font-family: , , sans-serif;">I just watched the video for "This Must Be the Place" for the first time and it's so sweet I cried, I'm still crying. There's tea and cake and potato chips, and David Byrne cutely sneaks a chip before running down to the basement to sing the second half of the song. Everyone's so effusive but in a totally low-key way, which is maybe my favorite mood. I think that's a nice way to go out here:</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "\\22 arial\\22" , "\\22 helvetica\\22" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pVrVY540xdc" width="459"></iframe>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-57708080634675353952019-09-05T18:50:00.001-07:002019-09-06T07:56:56.906-07:00Happiness Is A Neutral State <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVimISjKDNvgtiPAcspqLBoLDxk5AQdLS_XAOmDs4CqKmHw5Z0XkjYwV6XyYlcC27MjgdZNVGMVJxrXrZV8NtFfWT88xftidprx8unJYTcNpxyaGvxoCkLKIRmpic2yLU7SnF7YBid4CE/s1600/LJRockTumbler_lower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="989" data-original-width="700" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVimISjKDNvgtiPAcspqLBoLDxk5AQdLS_XAOmDs4CqKmHw5Z0XkjYwV6XyYlcC27MjgdZNVGMVJxrXrZV8NtFfWT88xftidprx8unJYTcNpxyaGvxoCkLKIRmpic2yLU7SnF7YBid4CE/s640/LJRockTumbler_lower.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>"SOME NOTES ON LOVING REGGAE MUSIC"</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>BY LAURA JANE FAULDS</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>FEATURING AN ILLUSTRATION BY JEN MAY</i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i></i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Eight years ago I loved the Clash and my nails were painted sparkly turquoise. I flew to New York City to sit around in rooms and bars and talk about the Clash with my Clash-friends. It was around Hallowe’en-time, and it snowed in October and on the news they named the snowfall “Snow-tober” and my friend Charlie said “It would have made a lot more sense if they named it Oct-snow-ber” and we all agreed that Yes, it would have.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> On the day it Oct-snow-bered, which might have been actual Hallowe’en, we went to a Hallowe’en party, and I half-assedly and insincerely dressed up as George Harrison. I wore a black & peach floor-length sari I’d cut into a jagged-hemmed minidress, black stockings, and Beatle boots. It was clearly not an outfit that George Harrison would have worn, under any circumstances, ever. I ignored the sign on the front door asking me to take off my boots and when the host called me on it, “They’re part of my costume,” I explained, and she said “Fine. We’ll make an exception if your shoes are part of your costume,” and I thought, “You’re silly,” which is what I thought Joe Strummer would have thought.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I have had no interest in dressing up for Hallowe’en for the entirety of my adult life. The thought of deriving pleasure from engaging with that custom is so unfathomable to me that I cannot help but come across as judgmental of those who do. Because I am.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“All your favourite Clash songs are the ones that sound most like reggae,” said Charlie, and I said, “Yeah, you know, that’s true.” He said, “Maybe you should start listening to reggae,” and I said, “Yeah, you know, I should.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It was before iPhones then, I just had a little aqua Shuffle that clipped onto my jacket collar, and I deleted every song already on it and filled it up with Trojan Ska & Rocksteady compilations from Charlie and Nadine’s computer--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It was a nothing moment, meant to mean nothing, which ended up changing everything.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jPioTM_QQYs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jPioTM_QQYs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Music, for me, is a companion: a beloved puppy, trotting alongside me, perking things up during life’s dullest moments. Reggae has been the most faithful of pets since I first found it, but I never want talk about it, because when I do, people either want to talk about it or not talk about it, and both outcomes are equally annoying. “Vibes are all there is,” I like to say, and reggae’s are the best. And I worry that if I take them outside of myself, they will be either diluted or dismissed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I have been hoarding these precious vibes in my heart for eight years. I am not so brazen to think that these words could match them; I hold myself to a <i>much</i> lower standard than that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> All I want to do here is explain it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I flew on a plane and I was drunk on the plane. Every time I am on a plane and there is one slight jolt in the plane-body’s movement, or if I can hear the wing whirring, or literally any single thing that isn’t absolutely nothing happens, I think, “Well! I guess this is it for me,” and uncomfortably wait to die. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It’s a very bad death- a <i>cheap</i> death- plane death. It has nothing to do with the life you just lived, unless you’re a pilot I guess. It’s just bad luck. You have to die freaking out and screaming alongside a bunch of strangers whose faces and sweatshirts you vaguely recognize from being bored in the airport lounge together a couple hours ago. They are your last vision of life on Earth. Sorry this is so dark. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> This particular flight was the most turbulent flight I’d ever endured (not counting the time I flew through the remnants of Hurricane Katrina, but I was on Xanax that time, so it doesn’t count). At one point the lights flashed on and off, from light to dark, which is the most obvious sign that your plane is about to crash and you’re going to die and you probably should have paid more attention during the part where they teach you how to put the mask on but honestly it doesn’t even matter because you’re about to crash into a cliff and die and- let's be real here- the mask is <i>not</i> gonna save you. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But I didn’t care. I had an iPod shuffle full of rocksteady tunes that sounded like rocks thumping around inside a Rock Tumbler, turning themselves into sparkly aqua gemstones, which you can make into a bracelet. Reggae is a celebration of the truest happiness, which doesn’t need to be balanced out by anything. It exists to remind you that happiness is a neutral state, neither manic nor transcendent, and that goodness is everywhere, and you don’t have to make a very big deal out of it— it just <i>is</i>. You could die in a plane crash listening to reggae and it would honestly be just fine. As far as reggae is concerned, life and death are the exact same thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>1. Desmond Dekker</i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><i></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I remember walking to the bank a few weeks later and I was listening to Desmond Dekker and I could <i>not </i>believe how lucky I was! "What a wonderful life I get to live! Desmond Dekker existed and his name was Desmond Dekker, the best name, and I am a person and I can listen to his songs Any. Time. I. WANT!" Desmond Dekker songs and others like them, “Teardrops Falling” by the Versatiles,“Take It Easy” by Hopeton Lewis, “Engine 54” by the Ethiopians, their lovely loping cadences, crawling guitars, sweet smiles, beeps and boops and bops. Just a little up-down up-down up-down with the shoulders.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I was so broke then, I changed my twenty-six American dollars into whatever-they-were-worth-then CAD. I remember I had all the cash in a little plastic baggie. Now I’m old and have a job and cram all my foreign cash into a little crystal port glass I keep on my desk, then forget it next time I fly internationally, and amass some more. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0wSXTN2EfRo/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0wSXTN2EfRo?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This morning, today, in the present, I was walking to work very early in the morning, which is not something I normally do. I stopped into a Starbucks because I was too goddamned tired to drink a coffee that wasn’t twenty ounces-worth and listened to the same song I listened to on that day with the bank, “The Israelites,” which sounds like the beginning of something- like the sun rising, or the NASDAQ opening for business in a movie about the stock market. I walked through a park I’d walked through a million times and thought, “I’ve never been to this park before!” before realizing that it was a very well-known park that I know about as well as any person could ever know anything, but it was just so <i>early</i>! And “The Israelites” made it feel even earlier. The world was a completely different place.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I focused very intently on thinking of a metaphor for what Desmond Dekker’s voice sounded like, and then I realized: a Junior Caramel! I thought very hard about the word <i>enrobed</i> and I thought about the sheen, a spark of light, hitting the glossy ball of milk chocolate the wad of caramel was enrobed in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>2. King Tubby</i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i></i><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The first time I heard King Tubby I was walking past that Catholic elementary school on Whatever Street that always posts a ‘Virtue of the Month’ up on the sign on their front lawn, one of those signs where they slot the pictures of the letters in the front of it, like a jokey Taco Bell sign in a meme. The Virtue of the Month that month was: Bravery.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> King Tubby is a logical jumping-off point for anyone who is curious about finding out what dub is all about. Falling in love with King Tubby at that moment in my reggae self-education era reminds me of my early days of wine school, tasting a high-quality Cabernet Sauvignon for the first time. You think, “This is the best wine will ever taste,” “This is the best dub could ever sound,” but it really it just tastes or sounds like an extremely classic and on-the-nose example of something even greater, some wonderful world of dub or wine whose stranger, more exhilarating inhabitants you will eventually learn to discern the discreet excellence of without thinking. I loved King Tubby as I did in those days because I love dub, and King Tubby sounds like dub. If an alien who had never heard dub got off a spaceship and asked you, “What does dub sound like?”, it would be intelligent to play the alien a King Tubby recording.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But there is always a degree of remove with King Tubby, a veneer. A dub is a dance of noises, and on a King Tubby dub said dance is choreographed to an almost insincere degree of perfection. Even his “Dub You Can Feel” feels more like an equation than an expression.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VXlby1052FI/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VXlby1052FI?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dub is the coolest and most cryptic reggae sub-genre. I love it more than any other genre of music and when I listen to the dubs I love the most I feel like a little person just climbed down into my heart through my mouth and sat down there, grinning, beaming waves of joy into my blood and bones and coconut meat. I have this statue of a lanky golden frog, kind of a Kermit-inspired guy, meditating and smiling. I bought it at the Salvation Army on a really depressing day and it made me happier than anything; I feel so happy when I look at him. I guess the Kermit statue is the little person I just spoke of. The way dub makes my heart feel.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. Scientist </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjP6i57AYfxY9s_TGYI_pepN216DcZySpZD2vlyNxzPJo12cRElMcTbVhVcxWMS120QNjkw2JR1LQ7Csm4Z_0bgfxDZox-QgH0eNPqRTFI9sCL_vXfwKWwJKWSHIRZMdlOE2ArL3VCzns/s1600/IMG-3540.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1345" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjP6i57AYfxY9s_TGYI_pepN216DcZySpZD2vlyNxzPJo12cRElMcTbVhVcxWMS120QNjkw2JR1LQ7Csm4Z_0bgfxDZox-QgH0eNPqRTFI9sCL_vXfwKWwJKWSHIRZMdlOE2ArL3VCzns/s320/IMG-3540.JPG" width="256" /></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hopeton Overton Brown was King Tubby’s protégé. He named himself Scientist because he is a techie guy. His first album is called <i>Introducing Scientist</i> and the cover is seventies summer orange and in the centre are three thick rows of green, yellow and black circles and in the centre of the circles is a picture of Hopeton Overton Brown looking meek but rich with purpose in a pale blue polo shirt. In the lower left-hand corner of the orange it says “The best Dub album in the World…” in cartoony black. I agree with it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> My father is an audiophile. He constantly builds and tinkers with speakers and amplifiers, fiddling around with knobs and shit, sonic frequencies, ever-searching for some unknowable and addictively unattainable Perfect Sound. When he finds a new configuration of Speaker Stuff he likes, he texts me a bunch of stuff about amp names that I don’t understand, and then a few nights later I go over to his apartment to hear them, and he plays me “Love In Vain.” Mick Jagger sounds like a moonlit troubadour singing outside of your turret bedroom window and you can count every star in the sky. You live inside of Charlie Watts’ bass drum; you are a mite on Keith Richards’ nailbed. Yeah it sounds real good Dad.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> We eat dinner and drink whichever deliriously exciting bottle of wine I brought over. I yell about it for a couple hours, my parallel obsession; you can tell where I got it from: it’s a cute detail; in the movie- you can tell he’s my Dad. Dad gets the wine well enough but doesn’t, same as how I don’t know if “Love In Vain” sounded better tonight or if it did two and a half months ago. I don’t know but I sort of know. We both do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Now dinner is over and I am drunk and sounds sound good and I HAD WINE and I want to listen to all my favourite rocksteady songs on tonight’s new speaker vibe. Thing is: most of it doesn’t sound so hot. Most of these recordings, they were made for cheap, on dated, rudimentary equipment, all the guys playing their hearts out on one single strip of dusty tape. Socio-economic conditions in 1960s Jamaica were not so hot. These men were <i>poor</i>, making art compelled by God. No skeezy Denmark Street moneybags were telling any of these boys he was going to make them a star.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But Scientist on the speakers, you can tell his heart is somewhere different. He’s obsessed by the minutae, the intricacies of sound. His music is as precise as King Tubby’s, <i>poised</i> I would call it, but at the same time it’s floral, aromatic, languid, the mechanical nuance mirrored by an equally sophisticated emotional language, that thing that makes our hearts pang when notes sound nice together, whatever cosmic truths they might express.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> If the greatest rocksteady tunes capture the buzz and provocation of a Beginning, then dub is for the juice of the Middle. It’s for lazing around inside the plain pure honey of a sunny afternoon, the gentle snap of a sugar cone. Smiling at a dog while wearing a baseball cap, putting your phone on Airplane mode. It’s for the easy, gorgeous meat of life. Meat like the meat inside a coconut.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>4. Lee "Scratch" Perry </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHCHeNLEj84lsT_lAovC7wKKZGPnFWOubPYU52HOXoPbaRF-6ekyZHuHBvybOhQOjS5BMz82gNlCPuV788s-5wf8yG8DbYxkdlM9uD7dwaP_E6HYh47Bf8bfDiLP-J09KuYY4M_PNg4IQ/s1600/note_image_175_image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="878" data-original-width="1245" height="449" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHCHeNLEj84lsT_lAovC7wKKZGPnFWOubPYU52HOXoPbaRF-6ekyZHuHBvybOhQOjS5BMz82gNlCPuV788s-5wf8yG8DbYxkdlM9uD7dwaP_E6HYh47Bf8bfDiLP-J09KuYY4M_PNg4IQ/s640/note_image_175_image.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i></i><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I was a little kid I liked small plastic figurines the best. I liked to carry them all around in a plastic grocery store bag and bring it with me everywhere; it was a comfort to me, I felt legitimatized by the proof of ownership. I had a sassy grey kitten wearing a diaper and sucking on a pacifier like it was a cigarette. If you put him in water his diaper would turn blue to say he was a boy. I had all of the Muppet Babies and a fuzzy naked raccoon who would fall over if you tried to stand him up. He was dead, I decided: the only possible explanation. There was a stonery skateboarding Boo Boo Bear and a squishy blushing bunny, Pinky, who was for bathtime. I liked them all as individuals, their cute own faces and distinct vibes, but my deepest pleasure came from gazing down at all of them together, one dazzling aesthetic cacophony, inside the bag.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Right now my phone background is a picture of Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Black Ark Studios in Kingston, Jamaica. It is the only thing that has ever looked as good as looking down into that plastic bag.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> This man is no minimalist. This is his space and it is his. Every inch of the wall is covered in a picture of something. There is a circular plaque of the scales for the Zodiac sign Libra, which is not even Lee Perry’s Zodiac sign. Somebody scribbled all over the plaque. There are Polaroid photographs of the Upsetters, and a wooden statue of a fish, hung north-to-south, mouth to the moon. Several framed portraits of Elie Selassie, and Lions, a ceramic owl, a star of David. Two playing cards: the Nine of Clubs, and the King of Hearts. Everybody wrote all over everything. A book about human anatomy is draped casually over the mixing board, open to a page about the inner workings of the circulatory system. A pamphlet, a zine, is shoved under the book. All of the amps and knobs and shit look like they’re about to fall apart from themselves. The headphones are fat wet goblets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The whole image is thick with humidity, like all of the equipment has mould growing inside of it, and the pages of the books are about to curl up inside of themselves, like little shy flowers saying goodbye to the summer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Every object is alive. Good vibes are palpable to say the least.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/y651C7aNXRc/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y651C7aNXRc?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am watching a video of Lee “Scratch” Perry recording a song at Black Ark on YouTube. It is in early seventies Sesame Street technicolour, and every person in the video is the most beautiful and best-dressed person I have ever seen. Lee Perry’s arms are cut as fuck and he is wearing a yellow tank top & teensy red running shorts. “There seems to be no kind of order or discipline,” notes the documentarian, “Scratch knows exactly what he wants, and the musicians respect that.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Every person is smiling. The way Lee Perry moves, he is kicky and jerky, athletically navigating the knobs. The entire video, he is smiling. His smile is out of sync with his movements; he takes the music seriously, but not himself. It is not some sharp know-it-all grin but rather the softest, most beatific pure SMILE: a smile that designates happiness, and nothing else. It is the colour yellow.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lee Perry is my guy, the one I care about the most. His music is messy and deranged and kooky and fluid and smooth. Loving Lee Perry is sort of like loving wine; he has made so much music that you can spend your entire life hacking away at it and you’ll still barely make a dent. There are glossy clubby Lee Perry dubs from the 80s and chubby good-natured Upsetters instrumentals from the 70s and sad slow Lee Perry dubs from no time or everywhere, faraway overcast sky sounds like you’re sixteen on drugs and time slowed waaaayyyyyy down and you’re worried it’s going to last forever but it didn’t: only seven minutes passed. Sometimes he’s a straight-up freakshow, disfiguring an easy groove with an ugly, guttural grunt; others, he’s more of a textbook swayey reggae guy, his thin dribbly voice bolstered by oscillating melodica. And his mid-sixties singles “People Funny Boy” and “I Am The Upsetter” are simply the most perfect three-minute pop songs ever written: Suck it The Beatles.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> All of these Lee Perrys are very valuable in the moments I need them, but my favourite Lee Perry is singer/songwriter Lee Perry, Joni Mitchell/Todd Rundgren Lee Perry, when he sings songs that sound like they were written by an alone person, alone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I’m a writer, so I have no choice but to do all my shit alone. My roommate is having a party as I write these words down. I can hear the people shouting in the background, and they sound like they’re having a nice time, but at the same time I know there’s no way in the world they’re having as nice of a time me, alone in a room, having all my stupid little writery fun with myself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I like songs that sound like they were written by a writer: supported by no one, backed only by a malignant alphabet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ns2p4EM4hfE/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ns2p4EM4hfE?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the middle of January I thought I was dying of cancer. I went to the doctor’s and changed into a paper gown and a stranger rubbed some goo onto my body and rubbed a little charger over the goo. I left the place and listened to Lee Perry on the subway— it was the same as how the other night, my friend at work and I finished up with a difficult service and sat outside the restaurant and he said, “I just want to see a beautiful person, I hope that some beautiful people walk by us, so I can be reminded that beautiful things still exist in this world”— I understood.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I got off the subway and the cold was a ninety-degree angle, a gritty slice of Comte cheese. Lee Perry started singing “City Too Hot” on my headphones and it felt like a mean joke. Now it is July and we are having a heat wave and I love it. In the morning I do YouTube Pilates workouts in my bedroom and the beads of sweat on my shoulders look like glittering stars in the sky and when I hold a plank my hands leave sweaty handprints on the floor and I slip.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I love sweating. It means that I’m alive.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> In the winter “City Too Hot” bugged me because I thought Lee Perry was complaining about the heat, something I felt he had no right to do. In the cold I feel like a sick shrivelled-up shrimp. The air is my enemy; it makes me feel decrepit and worse. In summer I seek out the sun; I travel to work a half hour early so I can find park my butt down on some curb down the road, splay out in a spot where the sunlight hits me directly. My tall-can of sugar-free Red Bull matches my baby blue sneakers, and the sun to my skin makes me feel like I’m an iPhone charging, with the lightning bolt in the middle of the tube. I think of my dead baby grandfather growing up on the streets of Casablanca, and I feel grateful for the cold-running Maghrebian blood he gave me, which allows me to be this person who has never had to fear the sun, be sunburnt, in her life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> In my safe-space of summertime I listen to the words of “City Too Hot” and realize that they’re not anti-heat; they’re about Lee Perry feeling the way he felt on the day he wrote the song, which is all I want art to ever be about. Mostly, he’s irritated by the dead-inside people he isn’t friends with louding it up on the streets of Kingston that night, all fiery and sexed up by the dirtiest depths of hot summer, and poor Lee Perry just wants to be <i>alone</i>! There is an immediacy and pragmatism to my favourite Lee Perry lyrics: in “Throw Some Water In,” a song that is basically just workout advice, he tells us, <i>Service your body if you want it to function/ Exercise and build up your structure/ Go to sea and learn how to swim/If you can't afford up a gym</i>. “City Too Hot” is similarly results-driven: City too hot? Okay cool fine. I’m going to go cool out on a hilltop. No use making a fuss about it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> He’s just going to go breathe some palmy air and peacefully hang out with himself like a golden frog atop a mountain, sit solo and brainiac up some brilliant new groove that will delight and inspire a Canadian wine writer of French-Moroccan descent some forty-years in the future.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Hot is a word that can mean a million things. You make art for the people you make it for.
</span>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-37393804947049645822019-06-14T11:55:00.000-07:002019-06-19T09:49:57.844-07:00I love my new apartment & Evan Dando & 17th-century Dutch paintings of lobsters & cake<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKqWGj2-iK4bvzm9Pg9ek0j1tTo6gLjY3Nv4EYGGHxTxOrmKo7-3rWA-zbRwXGCC9JxaTvMUGwzHP9hl_G1fcNyYWXdxICWvBXOvMSI5sK6Dnlz5bmzzRF09_qHBBmeJNC3YZJXV1mo2M/s1600/pronk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #666666;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="600" height="516" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKqWGj2-iK4bvzm9Pg9ek0j1tTo6gLjY3Nv4EYGGHxTxOrmKo7-3rWA-zbRwXGCC9JxaTvMUGwzHP9hl_G1fcNyYWXdxICWvBXOvMSI5sK6Dnlz5bmzzRF09_qHBBmeJNC3YZJXV1mo2M/s640/pronk.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Actual footage of the kitchen of my new apartment right at this moment, as painted by Adriaen van Utrecht)</span></i></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>BY LIZ</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i. For a long time I had this dream that the next place I lived would have a lemon tree right outside the kitchen window, so when people came over and I offered them a drink I could go <i>Hang on a sec</i>, and then lean out the window and pull a lemon from the tree and squeeze the juice into their beer, tequila, seltzer, whatever. I love the snap that happens when you pull a piece of fruit from a tree, and then the rustling of leaves that happens in response to that snap: it's a nice little whispery conversation. And I've never seen a lemon tree run out of lemons but I'm sure this one would keep regenerating itself forever, entirely for the purpose of accommodating my whims.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I moved in April, after living in the same house for six years. There's no lemon tree out my kitchen window; I buy lemons at the store like a normal person. In my old neighborhood people would leave little baskets of lemons on the sidewalk in front of their houses, with a sign saying FREE!, but no one really does that around here. My new life is somewhat less luxurious but it's also more luxurious, cuz I lucked out into moving into a place that's fully furnished with <i>rooms upon rooms </i>and nice little touches like a set of gold Moet goblets and a balcony and the complete <i>Best of Soul Train</i> on DVD and 7-inches of songs by Lavender Diamond and Madonna and Lisa Lisa + Cult Jam.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And it's luxurious cuz I get to fill it up with stuff that's mine all mine, pictures & trinkets & bottles & flowers. And I love my bookshelf, and I love my bathroom shelf, and I love the side of my refrigerator. My house is a jewel box or a diorama or a Tumblr from 2009, a collage you made in seventh grade with pages from Rolling Stone and Tiger Beat. The first thing I did when I moved in was tape a picture of mid-'70s Freddie Mercury to my closet door: I wanted him to watch over me as I was unpacking, to keep me on my toes and make sure I stayed true to a very Freddie sense of splendor/kookiness. But then I liked the way it looked, and 2 months 13 days later it’s still up. It's good to get to some guardian angels on your side, some patron saints of living your most splendid and kooky life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDj2qTqzYHo704lQ-frGkUwxrMJg_Q0T1aaDDXjEtHhb8Hcq_aiGo1AE4zGKHwDv-8ZPI38LRDtJyKVMs18vZW_SRgyIV67ZcTiHYtxb-dSx_MTAEDEyJSo0nCr7OeKg2r3fygEKqev_s/s1600/ME.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="775" data-original-width="1244" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDj2qTqzYHo704lQ-frGkUwxrMJg_Q0T1aaDDXjEtHhb8Hcq_aiGo1AE4zGKHwDv-8ZPI38LRDtJyKVMs18vZW_SRgyIV67ZcTiHYtxb-dSx_MTAEDEyJSo0nCr7OeKg2r3fygEKqev_s/s640/ME.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">ii. I deleted my Instagram last month cuz it was making me embarrassed all the time, and what kind of way to live is that. And then I reactivated my Instagram three Fridays ago cuz I took all these </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx4HwlHlC75/" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">pictures of Evan Dando</span></a><span style="color: #666666;"> and it's important for me to effusively communicate my love for Evan Dando to the world: it's an important part of my function or identity as a human being, to love Evan Dando and let everybody know it. At the Lemonheads show there were all these men older than me who loved Evan Dando too, and I didn't like the way they communicated it - there was no glow or softness or openness to their faces. I feel like some men get mad at Evan Dando for being the same age as they are, but still extremely good-looking and obviously untethered to the demands of some boring existence where you go to a job in an office basically every day of your life forever. I feel like men are generally bad at having crushes on other men. I low-key despised those dudes at the show, for harboring some bitchy hostility toward Evan Dando but also standing right in front of me while Evan's singing "Hannah & Gabi" when I'm barely 5'4" and they're all giant mountains made of fleece and flannel. I need to be gazing directly at Evan the entire time he's singing the words </span></span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Though it wasn't hard or far/I walked you to your car.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOLcmAoR7u2R_KTOrQ0n2pgGiJACAWQ8y4NO42XLP4M8LASlpYO_w2l7a7nwzxqvdHhG65w1IYKJg35gt2s27akNcY38c8kEXy1wtWoHoBX8b-gOEVqujDLGA4ORLf3LM6rh1N745swHk/s1600/evvs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="662" data-original-width="1024" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOLcmAoR7u2R_KTOrQ0n2pgGiJACAWQ8y4NO42XLP4M8LASlpYO_w2l7a7nwzxqvdHhG65w1IYKJg35gt2s27akNcY38c8kEXy1wtWoHoBX8b-gOEVqujDLGA4ORLf3LM6rh1N745swHk/s640/evvs.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></i><br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are no men with Evan Dando-y energy in my life right now, although there's a dude who works at the video store who sometimes wears his dirty-blonde hair in a half-up-half-down situation - the same exact boy-princess look as Evan in the "Into Your Arms" video. He's kind of my buddy and a couple weeks ago I walked into the store and told him, "I'm bored! Tell me what to watch." And then he pulled this DVD off the shelf and gave it to me and goes, "It's this made-for-TV movie from the '70s; it's kinda like </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Valley of the Dolls</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, only the protagonist is a dog." </span><b style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">READER, I MARRIED HIM</b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> jk what really happened is I got that movie plus another movie he recommended cuz it's got Nicole Kidman as an '80s pop star and a really great breakfast montage, a montage about making breakfast.</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The dog movie is called <i>Mooch Goes to Hollywood</i>. It's narrated by Zsa Zsa Gabor and follows the titular pup around Los Angeles as she tries to get her big break. On the way she meets Vincent Price, a bunch of actors from the '70s that mean nothing to me, and the guy who voiced Mr. Magoo in the Mr. Magoo cartoons. She also tries on some wigs, and gets a makeover. Five out of five stars.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7d27Hj4XoXMb5_GRwTR0pFse5k2sGdit9oHckjou6HqjXyJzWIx-5g9h5KJ2fBKZoPlQWIsfMTft06szMr_md3zFxCOzSCSoNiwH7f6G4aJYmgLplnFIawzjaHpeSIGu_aju3fpMn62s/s1600/61C298C7-A390-41DB-BDCD-A91C2661A01A.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1381" data-original-width="1600" height="552" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7d27Hj4XoXMb5_GRwTR0pFse5k2sGdit9oHckjou6HqjXyJzWIx-5g9h5KJ2fBKZoPlQWIsfMTft06szMr_md3zFxCOzSCSoNiwH7f6G4aJYmgLplnFIawzjaHpeSIGu_aju3fpMn62s/s640/61C298C7-A390-41DB-BDCD-A91C2661A01A.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">iii. I'm kind of a silly person. My life is a little bit silly. I justify it to myself by arguing that silly is the opposite of uptight & to me uptight's a little godless: I think maybe we're supposed to actually enjoy our lives instead of spending a lot of time being mad or anxious about shit that ultimately matters like 0%. Call me crazy jk again I'm totally onto something here</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last month at a vintage shop/hair salon on Sunset I bought three Moroccan highball glasses, a bundle of palo santo, and a lavender-indigo gypsy skirt with pockets. While I was there the woman who runs the store introduced me to the concept of <i>vanitas</i>, which is "a symbolic work of art showing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death," according to Wikipedia. Since then I've learned that my favorite form of vanitas is <i>pronkstilleven</i>, these 17th-century Dutch still-life paintings of fruit and skulls and lobsters and cakes. <i>Pronk</i> means "showing off" and the paintings are some kind of social commentary (the whole “futility of pleasure” thing), but to me they’re just beautiful. And in my extensive pronkstilleven research I found this book called <i>Luxury: A Rich History</i> by Peter McNeil & Giorgio Riello, and on the first page of the first chapter there's this sentence:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Luxury has a function in society, be it to embellish oneself, to dream of another life, or simply to show that one can afford not just that which is strictly necessary, but also something extra."</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And then in another part of the book they make a point about how luxury is </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“about the </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">extra</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-ordinary, that which goes beyond the everyday, the affordable, and the mundane.”</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don't like the words <i>afford</i> and <i>affordable</i>; I want a definition of luxury that leaves out money and zooms in on <i>embellish</i>, <i>dream</i>, <i>extra</i>, <i>extraordinary</i>, <i>beyond the mundane</i>. I don't know what that word is. It might be my new life's mission to try to invent it.</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwffmy4Xio944hq5gM6YUO80reaiYUlGMNzaJ1IhEtd2yd3xsAfLcAmIb4t-646ZaZuhuAsxclRuHq6zyGuGzkerpIWoFw9qCilihgXV-cvmO8zW3sBofaGN2foiH35SSLHKRWlw7db6M/s1600/IMG-4995.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="778" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwffmy4Xio944hq5gM6YUO80reaiYUlGMNzaJ1IhEtd2yd3xsAfLcAmIb4t-646ZaZuhuAsxclRuHq6zyGuGzkerpIWoFw9qCilihgXV-cvmO8zW3sBofaGN2foiH35SSLHKRWlw7db6M/s640/IMG-4995.JPG" width="616" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">iv. Here are some of my favorite lines for Evan Dando to sing despite not having written those lines: </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-It's irrelevant, I'm an elephant </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-All night long I was howling, I was your barking dog</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-Hack the heads off little girls & put 'em on my wall</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi1b8Wga664"><span style="color: #073763;">-Swallow broken glass, take a Quaalude now, set yourself on fire, take a Quaalude now</span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi1b8Wga664"><span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span></a></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-Lighten up while you still can</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-And where are the flowers for the girl?/She only knew she loved the world</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The older I get, the more I delight in being someone who loves the world & most likely comes off like a total idiot to those who lack the emotional imagination to love the world with a similar degree of gumption, moxie, pluck. I looooove when boring aggro basics think I’m an idiot; it reaffirms my sense of self in a way that nothing else can. Maybe it's unevolved to define yourself by recognizing what you hate in others, or maybe it's just fucking punk rock.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mostly I go back and forth between reminding myself of the part on <i>Mad Men</i> when Megan can't find any acting work and gets all depressed & drunk and Megan's mother says to Don: <i>This is what happens when you have the artistic temperament but you are not an artist</i>, and then the part in <i>Black Swans</i> when Eve Babitz says: "I figured I'd have to be an artist because, unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to be bored, since I was always much too elated to imagine despair." (I think you get to pick which one I remind you of; in the end it's irrelevant like elephants.) And r</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ight now I'm trying to make a list of entirely free-spirited & self-possessed women in movies/TV who are not fools or parodies or toxic assholes, and all I've got so far is: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-Frances McDormand in </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Laurel Canyon</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-Madonna in <i>Desperately Seeking Susan</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666;"><o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-Courtney Love in <i>Basquiat</i> whose character doesn't even have a real name but a</span></o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nother dream I had before moving into my new apartment was to replicate the color scheme of her walking down the street to "Beast of Burden"</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">: bright pink and bright yellow, and the red of her red lips </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhMHD2EDcxN2sLcYjEPJr5pNi2vCX1pxzG5067etdP-a8W6GLEjnP4CdWKuQt3jA1A8ZMMtTsneHTZtUmeDNA46_IYTqlmPaGX0quDfCYFFv4hfXA3FCqb1gksyNJsSlsPrFBrMCQBCWw/s1600/court.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="640" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhMHD2EDcxN2sLcYjEPJr5pNi2vCX1pxzG5067etdP-a8W6GLEjnP4CdWKuQt3jA1A8ZMMtTsneHTZtUmeDNA46_IYTqlmPaGX0quDfCYFFv4hfXA3FCqb1gksyNJsSlsPrFBrMCQBCWw/s640/court.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And it was recently the third-year anniversary of the night Justin Kirk and I were in line for the bathroom together at UCB and I told him how that morning I'd been listening to a song that was on </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Weeds</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and missing the hell out of Andy and Nancy Botwin and their whole tragic dynamic, and as I was talking to him I mimed a jogging motion with my arms and he imitated that motion back to me and said, "So you were exercising, is that what this means?" and I said "Yes!!! I was jogging!!!!!!" And then he offered me his hand and said "My name's Justin, what's yours?" and I said "Hi!!!!! My name's Liz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and we talked a bit more and then the bathroom was free and we parted ways and I burst into a cartoon cloud of hearts and butterflies. Anyway to celebrate our anniversary I started watching </span><i style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Weeds</i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> again & I kind of want to include Nancy Botwin on my Free Women list but I can't. I love Nancy very much, but ultimately I think it's cool that Andy Botwin left her screaming on the sidewalk. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So yeah: that's not a very long list up there. Tell me more women to add to my list. And g</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">etting back to the thing about dudes being annoying about Evan Dando, I wanted to point out that </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">men</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> aren't the only problem in the world: women are weird too. One thing that gets me is how so many women seem to approach dating with this narrative of scarcity, like they're scrounging for scraps in some barren and treacherous wasteland. What a bad way to get by. Just be like Mick Jagger instead: always expect total magnificence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">v. </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here are some of my favorite things I've acquired for my new apartment:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-a robe I bought from Rihanna, </span><a href="https://cdn.savagex.com/media/images/products/LI1829465-4071/CHIFFON-ROBE-LI1829465-4071-LAYDOWN-800x800.jpg" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;">this one</span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-a neverending supply of cherry seltzer, Chock Full O'Nuts coffee, strawberry tea</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-a grapefruit fork tho I keep forgetting to become a person who eats grapefruit<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-a pinkish-gold bowl I keep filled with bananas, like the time Kanye tweeted “Keep fresh flowers in the crib,” only it’s bananas instead<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">-And I also keep fresh flowers, in my bedroom, next to the Lisa Frank tarot deck that </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/leviiojala/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #38761d;">Liina</span></a><span style="color: #666666;"> sent me<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVowPg1p0_R3nTcwkFcsBZvo1tTN90cpTxeM2dCJFhg3Rq6ELFVv0Mx1YN5dtjZQvKzdmrnYVuU5LkfdY3a5e_V3ThB-Mw3p3ISyIEQlsJMq6l8S4MXpQuJ8c4Th9s2Gu76c3n5KpFo5I/s1600/IMG-3990.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1313" data-original-width="1600" height="524" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVowPg1p0_R3nTcwkFcsBZvo1tTN90cpTxeM2dCJFhg3Rq6ELFVv0Mx1YN5dtjZQvKzdmrnYVuU5LkfdY3a5e_V3ThB-Mw3p3ISyIEQlsJMq6l8S4MXpQuJ8c4Th9s2Gu76c3n5KpFo5I/s640/IMG-3990.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- a magnet of a man who asked me out to dinner in 2013; I bought it in a record store in Boston last Christmas<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-Nag Champa incense cones in "Fresh Rose"</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-a giant box of De La Rosa peanut mazapan which I never knew about till I moved to L.A. They sold them at the liquor store in my old neighborhood, and then the store burned down the day we found out Lana Del Rey bought a house a block away from ours<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-the lemon squeezer I bought after waking up one morning with Mick Jagger singing <i>I’m a cold Italian pizza/I could use a lemon squeezer</i> stuck in my head<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And a Queen coffee table book, and an issue of Details from 1990 with John Lurie on the cover, and a hunk of rose quartz with a little space to shove a votive candle in. </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are some more things I want for my new place, like a print of </span><a href="https://chasertheprince.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/img_0268.jpg" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #20124d;">that picture of Rihanna drinking Corona from a straw on the beach</span></a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, and one of </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/at-bostons-museum-of-fine-arts-an-explosive-ori-gersht-exhibition-photos" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4c1130;">Ori Gersht’s exploding-flower photographs</span></a><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and a pepper mill thing so I can make a brie & honey & cracked pepper omelette like I ate one morning at Juniors Café in Portland, Oregon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And I want a carafe, but every time I go to buy a carafe I can't pull the trigger - I think maybe I need to be gifted one, like how some people say you should be gifted a tarot deck. Or maybe I need to steal a carafe, like how once when I was 18 I stole a carafe from Denny's and filled it with gummy bears and set it on the windowsill in my dorm room and eventually the gummy bears all melded into one giant gummy-bear mass and I had to throw the carafe away. </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But at the end of the day I think maybe carafes need to be experienced spontaneously, at a strip-mall Thai place or like when LJ was here in January and we went to Figaro on a Tuesday afternoon and I ordered Coca-Cola and it came in a carafe. It's the same as how there are some songs I never allow myself to play on my own - I need to hear them out in the wild, in a bar or on the radio or someone's stereo at a party. My favorite song in the world is "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" by The Police but I'd never actually play myself that song. Some things just have to happen to you. It's good to stay open to the pleasure of surprise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Also I’m just sick of buying things right now. For 16 years I lived in Echo Park, which keeps getting all mucked up with those boring stores that mostly just sell boring gifts you’d only ever buy someone if you barely knew anything about them. Now the only store close by is 7-Eleven & that's a-okay by me. I recently downloaded the 7-Eleven app which is a <i>delight </i>(every seventh Big Gulp is free!), and the other day I had this idea of doing a "life experiment" where I try to shop exclusively at 7-Eleven for a week or a month or a year or something. But I like vegetables a lot and also I'm not a total loon, so that went out the window real fast. But still: I remain passionate about 7-Eleven, especially my new local, which is close to Koreatown & thus sells lots of Korean candy & banana mochi, peach mochi, green tea Pocky, strawberry Kit-Kats. I have dreams of being brought on as some sort of 'vibes consultant' and expanding their inventory to include things like: flower </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">bouquets, nag champa, baseball cards if they still exist, </span><a href="https://www.spoliatarot.com/shop" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">the Spolia deck</span></a><span style="color: #666666;">, </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="color: #666666;">De La Rosa peanut mazapan. I'd bring the </span><span style="color: #b45f06;"><a href="https://www.candymachines.com/Bubblicious-LeBrons-Lightning-Lemonade-P832.aspx" target="_blank">LeBron's Lightning Lemonade flavor of Bubblicious</a></span><span style="color: #666666;"> back from the dead and also those </span></span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/25692985@N07/9598029635" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">Peanuts-themed fruit pies from the '70s</span></a><span style="color: #666666;">. </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What a wonderful wonderland it would be. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">vi. I have a joke in my head that my L.A. memoir would be titled </span><a href="https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/bf187dd9-4cea-4bb6-a2f6-ede4f15beee8" target="_blank"><span style="color: #274e13;"><i>Costs a Lot to Live This Free</i> </span></a><span style="color: #666666;">but really I'm sort of a cheapskate. </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I like things that are a bunch of little treasures all jumbled up together in a way that's slightly chaotic but somehow still elegant, and none of the treasures is all that high in monetary value. I mostly want everything to remind me of the time Anthony Bourdain ate a cup of halo-halo from the drive-thru at the Jollibee exactly 0.6 miles from my apartment and called it oddly beautiful. I think "It makes no goddamn sense at all. I love it" is a nice way to feel most of the time. The dramatic pause between those two sentences is a perfect universe to live in.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lj6zyqFCc-8" width="480"></iframe></div>
Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-34519708377761474102018-12-31T13:49:00.002-08:002018-12-31T14:38:44.569-08:00Things of the Year: The First 15 Seconds of "Little Miss Sunshine (Little Miss Rain)" by Lee Hazlewood; Being Charming Like Freddie Mercury; Nine Inch Nails & Terrace House<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>LJ'S THING OF THE YEAR: </b>The First 15 Seconds of "Little Miss Sunshine (Little Miss Rain)" by Lee Hazlewood </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyjzazfBmPTKfUic07qbjaBYxitqIeblBv07XxZDgXA8ZuyU-mV0TXqW1lLGrpVHIsojTNcrIxMn0a-i9BLd81fklDLJbH4lsnBsySQJ9k1VSwnE-eJRL847XZeAN5qjXRlTMnSE1rZ-U/s1600/leerequium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyjzazfBmPTKfUic07qbjaBYxitqIeblBv07XxZDgXA8ZuyU-mV0TXqW1lLGrpVHIsojTNcrIxMn0a-i9BLd81fklDLJbH4lsnBsySQJ9k1VSwnE-eJRL847XZeAN5qjXRlTMnSE1rZ-U/s400/leerequium.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">To be honest, I had a really bad 2018. December 31st of last year was the most disgusting & ominous day of my entire life, and as a result of its legendary shittiness my 2018 became a nonstop rollercoaster fireworks explosion of annoying life challenges constantly raining down on me only the rain was made of blood & shrapnel and the rollercoaster car was broken & the track broke into bits & the car derailed and I went flying into the air & flew away forever. Sorry to be dramatic. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I was initially going to write my Thing of the Year about how I had a shit year but it helped me grow as a person or whatever but, you know, I don't really <i>want</i> to write about how my year sucked and here is my little self-help lesson about all the ways in which I grew as a person. Not because it isn't true- it, like, <i>shockingly</i> is- but it just sounds really boring to write about. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">This morning (December 30th, 2018) I was a doing a high intensity interval training workout while listening to <i>Requiem For An Almost Lady </i>by Lee Hazlewood & Liz texted asking if we were still going to post Thing of the Year tomorrow, and at the exact moment she texted, the first fifteen seconds of "Little Miss Sunshine (Little Miss Rain)" were playing, and Lee Hazlewood said-sang, <i>Sometimes it's difficult to remember the good times, but I know there were some. There was your birthday, and Christmases, and rabbits named Friday, and once I start remembering the good times, it seems: there were </i>only<i> good times, </i>and I felt really inspired by that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">So here is a list of all the good times. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">1. On Valentine's Day I went to a job interview and I was in such a terrible mood before the job interview, but then I went to it and liked it, and got the job (though I didn't know it right yet, but, you know- <i>sort of</i> did), and walking home from the job interview I decided I was going to call a man and tell him all about how much I hated him, and then I called and he answered the phone and as it turned out I didn't hate him as much as I thought, and at the end of the conversation I asked, "Can we just go back to the way things were before?" and he said "Yes," and it felt like the end of a movie.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">2. This night at the end of summer I was walking home from my friend Robin's house wearing a cut-up Augustus Pablo t-shirt and a giant gold pendant of a female lion that sort of looks like the drawing of baby Simba Rafiki draws on the wall of a cave, and the heat felt like a cave. It was one of those ravishing summer nights that they wrote the words <i>Endless Summer </i>to describe, when it is TRULY impossible to believe that it won't be summer forever. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I did this thing I periodically do of checking YouTube to see if my favourite song </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ5bVNA0Ako" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">"Black Fjord" by Kaleidoscope</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> has come back on it- it used to be there, the whole song, and then it wasn't there for like seven years, and I couldn't find it anywhere on the entire Internet- and then, that night- it </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">was</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">! It was there! And I got to hear it again! And I just ran around the city drunk like I was twenty-four years old again, mouthing along to the lyrics and punching the air and I swang on a swingset like a maniac, and I was so, so happy, to get to have that song again. (And I still have it! It's still there!) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">3. I was so sad, like two weeks ago, I was so, so sad, and I went to work and I had to say to a bunch of people whose boss I am, "Listen up, I'm really sad. I'm sorry, I know I'm your boss and having a sad boss is sort of like being a little kid and seeing one of your parents cry for the first time, but this is the person I have to be tonight, because it's true." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">At the end of the night, the longest and most atrocious night and my eyes looked all fucked up from crying with giant hot-pink half-moons underneath, we were closing up the restaurant, and one of my servers put on "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," which is a song we usually listen to before service, to rev ourselves up. But we hadn't listened to it before service that night: not because I was sad, but rather for a more boring reason: because my server who's most into it with me started late. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">There's one part of the song that hypes me up particularly; it comes at the very end, approx. two minutes and five seconds into it, where the singer goes "Hup, hup, whoa-oh-oh, whoa-oh-oh," I like to sing along to it, and that night we were cleaning up like crazy because on top of everything we had to do a deep-clean for some reason and my server put the song on and said, "Laura needs to listen to her part!" and it was so sweet and wonderful, so easy but so thoughtful. I felt so cared for and un-alone in that moment, and of everything that happened to me all year this year, that is the moment I will remember deepest hardest and most forever. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">4. The way Willem Dafoe's jeans fit in <i>The Florida Project, </i>and also the way his t-shirts fit him</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">5. Being in love with Nicki Minaj throughout June and July, how exciting it felt when <i>Queen </i>came out a week earlier than we thought it would, walking into this fancy clothing store wearing a cute flouncy denim top with jeans listening to "Chun-Li" and feeling like I'd fully self-actualized, and also the time I was walking down a moving sidewalk at the airport drinking an iced coffee and listening to "I'm The Best" and feeling like I hadn't self-actualized at all, but I was into it</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">6. Sitting in front of a Greek Orthodox church in Brooklyn with a man and these three young women who I felt so much older than walked by and the man I was sitting next to said "Look at those <i>cuties</i>" and it was so funny and weird and I loved it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">7. The time my ex-head chef surprised me with a chocolate & cardamom tarte in the middle of the afternoon and there was pistachio ice cream with lime in it on top and it was late spring and everything in the world felt like pistachio and lime, the colour of the leaves</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">8. This meal Robin & I ate at Bar Raval a few weeks ago: the boldest, most attractively-soggy & garlicky tomato bread, Spanish tinned mackerel in olive oil that was so creamy you could spread it onto bread and make decently successful "like buttah!" jokes about it, and a dish of broken-up morcilla with chickpeas that tasted like the smell of walking past some stranger's house in Spain and they're cooking the most delicious-smelling food inside and you'll never eat it or even know what it is and you wish so bad that you were from that family, but you're not, and if you were you'd probably hate it </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">9. Leaving Madeleine's birthday party early tonight because I knew if I stayed any longer I'd get too drunk to walk home, I'd Uber, and all I wanted to do was walk home drunk listening to Lee Hazlewood, and it had been so long since I'd felt like that- like a song is pulling me toward myself, like a song means anything at all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">I feel so jealous of my twenty-four year old self all the time, how much music used to mean to me, how much the words the people sang used to mean to me, how much they meant about my life. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And it's so nice to know that I can be my now-self, this serious work person, keener, business bitch, answerer of emails and rememberer of things, a </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">good boss who is sometimes sad but still <i>always</i> fixes problems (other people's, and sometimes even my own), but, underneath it all, I'm still the same idiot I always was and always will be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It makes me so happy to realize that, even if I was too dumb to notice it at the time, the happiest moments of my year were just me walking down the street, listening to a song. And it makes me even happier to find out that, as it turns into the last day of the year, I'm the happiest I could ever possibly be: just sitting here writing, alone. (</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But the glass of wine I'm drinking now is so much better than the garbage I used to drink, and if that's what it's all for, then that is FINE.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>LIZ'S THING OF THE YEAR: </b>Being Charming Like Freddie Mercury </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8NV3cFE8WebarzVtmusZjJvNih_XVj2XUh1I-AUE6o-lluNV2narrH144NwcDF2VVlUfqJpkgRSJytpK-dsibkRBTc6zpD9qM_eyU6YMylMbtuCC6wMUAaB6176DMCJCd5OUtHIpgejk/s1600/freddie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="750" height="534" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8NV3cFE8WebarzVtmusZjJvNih_XVj2XUh1I-AUE6o-lluNV2narrH144NwcDF2VVlUfqJpkgRSJytpK-dsibkRBTc6zpD9qM_eyU6YMylMbtuCC6wMUAaB6176DMCJCd5OUtHIpgejk/s640/freddie.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On Saturday, the day after my birthday, my sister </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I went to see <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i> and I loved it and now I can't really think past that, even though I know there was a whole year that happened before two days ago. All I listen to now is Queen; the magnificence of all other music is so insufficient it's almost profane. I just want to bask in the charm of Freddie Mercury, or Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, or both- their totally outlandish and over-the-top charm, more charm than anyone has a right to. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Charm can get you what you want but there's something deeper or simpler happening in </span><i style="font-family: '"arial"', '"helvetica"', sans-serif;">Bohemian Rhapsody</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">: it's charm for charm's sake, because ultimately it's more fun and lovely to be charming. It's just a nicer way of getting around the world, compared to being uptight, aggro, joyless, bitter, and all those other unimaginative moods.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the things that struck me most about <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i> was how sweet the Queen dudes were to each other, which I've chosen to accept as truth rather than something fabricated for cinematic purposes. I like the idea of sweetness being essential to Freddie Mercury's presence in the world, the natural outcome of living in such a splashy and flashy and effervescent way. I believe in that thing of PLEASURE MAKES YOU PLEASANT, and so I don't think it's entirely self-serving or frivolous to do what you can to make life feel good, especially when it feels like the world's getting more and more charmless all the time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>What is the point of living with anything less than a Freddie Mercury level of joie de vivre</i> is a question I emailed myself in line at the airport yesterday. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And part of the reason that people like Freddie Mercury exist is to show you what's possible, so in a way it's rude not to steal from them and put it all back into the world. Like the <a href="https://www.johnlurieart.com/prints/i0xwc1ivi17sbnsrbirnh2ej7gycdx" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">John Lurie painting</span></a> says: Try to give back on what you got.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPjjM6eCOgDArPBVQZVLApoOpMvYoahbaLHCYGvmft_cgb2xu2Yj7aRfpxM6UwK1uRazNXIs9oe6psNJNnwsRpG1cBrnHnuRw9el3Mm6md3o4yNZALwj5VBEEyYvonnoEXobTN0xT6Q60/s1600/IMG-1008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="374" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPjjM6eCOgDArPBVQZVLApoOpMvYoahbaLHCYGvmft_cgb2xu2Yj7aRfpxM6UwK1uRazNXIs9oe6psNJNnwsRpG1cBrnHnuRw9el3Mm6md3o4yNZALwj5VBEEyYvonnoEXobTN0xT6Q60/s640/IMG-1008.JPG" width="446" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anyway- here are some other favorite things from 2018:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-The Saturday my friends and I drove down to San Ysidro and walked across the border and spent the day in Mexico, drinking palomas and beer and eating octopus gorditas and tiger's milk ceviche and crickets and Hostess Cupcakes, and then walked back to America and drove back home</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-When I met up with my brother and his fiancé in Seattle and hung out there a few days and went on a giant solo walk across the city and sat on that bench outside Kurt Cobain's house. And then I took the train to Vancouver and ate pizza with Liina and bought some weird poetry zines from the </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">'</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">70s at the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thepaperhound/?hl=en" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">Paper Hound</span></a>, which is now one of my top 3 fave bookstores of all time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-The time I talked to David Crosby for a half an hour at six in the morning while he was eating an apple in Copenhagen</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-My red satin Adidas track pants which I bought as a treat to myself after working like 47 days in a row; they are so beautiful and never not make me feel like my most amazing self a la Carrie Bradshaw at the Women in the Arts luncheon. My other best purchases from 2018 include a shower radio, a <a href="http://www.cinefilevideo.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">CineFile Video</span></a> membership, a jar of banana body butter & an insane wine glass:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8M_rjM-PL3ZZoccoO2Qv8IIayUEnt5FVpQ6b32y7RDiT1qiqu62oZGUvzvvqyXEwOYbrIriWb78ImjkvvySg_uAZshwYsXFDrYhuuxhx66tUfL27KhtMbsfMf3WnzdYKGSbcfX7px0Qo/s1600/wineglass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8M_rjM-PL3ZZoccoO2Qv8IIayUEnt5FVpQ6b32y7RDiT1qiqu62oZGUvzvvqyXEwOYbrIriWb78ImjkvvySg_uAZshwYsXFDrYhuuxhx66tUfL27KhtMbsfMf3WnzdYKGSbcfX7px0Qo/s640/wineglass.jpg" width="512" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-However the most life-changing thing I bought this year was the <a href="https://www.spoliatarot.com/shop/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">SPOLIA DECK</span></a>, a tarot deck made by Jen May and Jessa Crispin. I also got Jessa's book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Tarot-Modern-Guide-Inspired/dp/1501120239" target="_blank"><i><span style="color: #660000;">The Creative Tarot</span></i></a> and there's so much wisdom in it. It changed my head & I deeply recommend getting your head changed by it too</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-<a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/lizbarker77/playlist/28p38WixBKpRalfcXffHyU?si=09bQ6OaAQFaO2kQojnzgTw" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">Here is a playlist</span></a> of some songs that meant a lot to me in 2018. 14 of the songs are by people I worked for this year; I love them all & love FIDLAR the most</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UyxWkPL_glc" style="font-family: -webkit-standard;" width="480"></iframe></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-The part in <i>Blaze</i> where Alia Shawkat does TV aerobics while smoking a cigarette, the part in <i>Sorry to Bother You</i> where Tessa Thompson gives Lakeith Stanfield a piggyback ride, the part in <i>Tully</i> where Charlize Theron and Mackenzie Davis listen to all of <i>She's So Unusual</i>, and every single part of <i>Won't You Be My Neighbor?</i></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-The Beastie Boys book and the night I went to the Beastie Boys book event, which was so sweet and happy-making and full of love; Mike D and Ad-Rock are the most glorious goofs. Around that time I went through a phase of watching the "So What'cha Want" video every morning just to bask in the weird safety of knowing that </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">"So What'cha Want"</span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;"> will never diminish in coolness to me: the part where MCA kind of backs up slowly so he can jump right into the frame for his first line is as exciting as when I was 14, if not more exciting. That "I love you more today than yesterday" song from the '60s is exactly how I feel about all three Beastie Boys.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ru3gH27Fn6E" style="font-family: -webkit-standard;" width="459"></iframe></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-The night I went to see Keanu Reeves read books in a cemetery and took <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BfurMzIHjJV/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">this amazing photograph of him</span></a> and brought him a present from Jen May and a beautiful cycle of Jen May/Elizabeth Barker/Keanu Reeves cosmic connectedness was set in motion & shall continue for all eternity </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-The night I saw Mary Ruefle read at the Hammer and met her afterward and she did this poem with the line: <i>You have all the colors of October in your hair, come and have a donut in my car</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">-</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The night my brother and sister and </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> went to see Lorde in Boston, + this thing that Lorde said to Tavi which I keep saved on my desktop:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyw6xGTmOQn1JAgltULiVD-nOkv6voSky9pPjJLKRm1MzAXzVS1W6EURvtZ8Fe7BmnkHoDqOqFZaESQj4j7ewwwYBykX_9OEyl2J3YnwWrasXaY9W3GrSR5DpYnNXmtY4afbV3a0xDjAI/s1600/lorde+and+tavi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="861" data-original-width="1200" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyw6xGTmOQn1JAgltULiVD-nOkv6voSky9pPjJLKRm1MzAXzVS1W6EURvtZ8Fe7BmnkHoDqOqFZaESQj4j7ewwwYBykX_9OEyl2J3YnwWrasXaY9W3GrSR5DpYnNXmtY4afbV3a0xDjAI/s640/lorde+and+tavi.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-Seeing <i>Call Me By Your Name </i>for the first time and entering this new state of existence where I just constantly watch <i>Call Me By Your Name</i>, for the love of the delicate galumph Timothee Chalamet and his </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">friendship bracelets</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> notebooks and his goofy moves, like how sometimes he spins in a circle for no reason. I'm excited for when <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i> becomes available for home viewing and I can constantly watch <i>that</i>, and have Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury in the background of my life at all times. I need to move soon and once I'm settled wherever I land I want to get a robe with major <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i> vibes and spend a lot of time lazing about in said robe, drinking tea from an extravagant teapot or wine from my dumb wine glass, being all <a href="http://strawberryfieldswhatever.blogspot.com/2018/06/i-still-love-beatles.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">Nine of Cups-y</span></a> and low-key splendid- charming for no big reason at all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>JEN'S THING OF THE YEAR: </b></span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Nine Inch Nails, Terrace House, etc.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. Nine Inch Nails. I am beyond the beyond obsessed with Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor and there is no end in sight for this. I was lucky to see them live this fall and it was incredible. God is dead and no one cares.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCHkCRlEfuefrbMWn91m7iouHe-Qx8w4JLMmyx-4YoByhLJA0OKSPHB7BSOAXZEjAGPuPj9lR6-IG7CUaCHBFhnPO2A_-FVCAgUVUdIAhVj2rEUEhwdW4GHlZK1IBwq7k5oEGRFwV4nYw/s1600/trent.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1132" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCHkCRlEfuefrbMWn91m7iouHe-Qx8w4JLMmyx-4YoByhLJA0OKSPHB7BSOAXZEjAGPuPj9lR6-IG7CUaCHBFhnPO2A_-FVCAgUVUdIAhVj2rEUEhwdW4GHlZK1IBwq7k5oEGRFwV4nYw/s640/trent.png" width="452" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Also 1: Terrace House Opening New Doors: This Japanese reality show brings me an obscene amount of joy. I consider the panel of commentators to be my closest friends and I am absolutely addicted to it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZSgm8p_KlRaWpaIV_ql-iM6_IrNdeLwYRHbJEZy76_AhflkZJCax-Jj81O4Yu4uo2pw4kEWYXsSssz60dTHz-83qc_WlxQVGHhMjPZTlTKUI3T68-XpL940fJM5Hbz2DMnGUL2SPWytY/s1600/terrace.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="501" data-original-width="813" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZSgm8p_KlRaWpaIV_ql-iM6_IrNdeLwYRHbJEZy76_AhflkZJCax-Jj81O4Yu4uo2pw4kEWYXsSssz60dTHz-83qc_WlxQVGHhMjPZTlTKUI3T68-XpL940fJM5Hbz2DMnGUL2SPWytY/s640/terrace.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">2. A very meaningful and surprising thank you note I received on the full strawberry moon in June.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. <a href="http://www.bloodroot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">Bloodroot</span></a>: After desperately wanting to go for many years, I finally went to Bloodroot, a feminist vegetarian restaurant in Connecticut this Spring. It did not disappoint.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4. The <a href="https://hancockshakervillage.org/whats-new/exhibitions/anything-but-simple-shaker-gift-drawings-and-the-women-who-made-them/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">exhibit of drawings/gifts by Shaker women</span></a> at Hancock Shaker Village. Also the Eileen Myles poem <a href="https://lithub.com/a-prose-poem-by-eileen-myles-ann-lee/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">Ann Lee</span></a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRYqEwv6JX8QD_ioaS4TGSeldqGSNKVez5Aerevbj8nxG3cIjsPAB3_XXMUfJOARIqBeG_g3wms0Mc4UAJ9eN9jo9QfaMMlc58tjaQ0-ELQOUdLDWSTr7z_qT_3hn69xkUoTNvO_AKzYI/s1600/shaker.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="800" height="532" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRYqEwv6JX8QD_ioaS4TGSeldqGSNKVez5Aerevbj8nxG3cIjsPAB3_XXMUfJOARIqBeG_g3wms0Mc4UAJ9eN9jo9QfaMMlc58tjaQ0-ELQOUdLDWSTr7z_qT_3hn69xkUoTNvO_AKzYI/s640/shaker.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5. Being </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">blessed</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> with the publication of a 600 page David Lynch biography</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6. An October trip to Baltimore to see the <a href="https://artbma.org/exhibitions/waters" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">John Waters Exhibit at BMA</span></a>, spend as much time at Club Charles as possible, and to walk by then unfinished Divine Mural by chance.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">7. Black tea and Black Sesame flavored soy milks I had in Tokyo in January</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">8. The socialist sliding scale breakfast soup at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LLCommissary/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">Commissary</span></a> with lots of shichimi togarashi added on multiple New Paltz visits.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">9. LA - I finally visited and I get it. The light David Lynch is obsessed with, kind of creepy vibes, Liz Barker, a super good mushroom pizza at Gjelina, Bob's Big Boy, a dog named Bowie, the balcony at the place we stayed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyMNWuA5BxeKEpernrp6Mwrb1qfaTQoKG1T30i4eUQpP-cD1ouTkRdtYQyDLadWqer_E4y75O9R-bHcvmqfxJvEu2tLFKmDfGqzFLq5zHnB4_HJgwULTOfdKzM2pZ-LH_7M1NvfUmeBZE/s1600/superiority.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyMNWuA5BxeKEpernrp6Mwrb1qfaTQoKG1T30i4eUQpP-cD1ouTkRdtYQyDLadWqer_E4y75O9R-bHcvmqfxJvEu2tLFKmDfGqzFLq5zHnB4_HJgwULTOfdKzM2pZ-LH_7M1NvfUmeBZE/s640/superiority.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">10. Everything I ate from Superiority Burger this year. Special shout out to TFTs (Mondays after 6- go!!!).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">11. Mandy the movie, Mandy the character, Mandy the character's hair, Nicolas Cage in general.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">12. Oh my god, did you see Destination Wedding?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">13. <a href="http://meetmyfriends.libsyn.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">Meet My Friends The Friends</span></a>: Tom Scharpling's Friends recap podcast about friendship, collaboration, podcasts, advertising, many other things. It is brilliant.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">14. Seeing Slayer live on Long Island.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">15. Purple radishes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">16. Seeing Keanu Reeves filming John Wick 3 in Times Square by chance after leaving a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu show.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">17. The fog and tea and sheep of Ireland.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMLIrSOh8XzmRzke11NbB_ZyFVTQ-Pv7qcTqa2IbeoXEXQg8-MPSrHjNoGgjG5Su4zPpfPzdngnpY1IlF5PJYirWL5jQ_ihgTmSbE_m5pC7KrBfixDwySlb3ocrjrNKUlEYpycEDCr-CY/s1600/sheep.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMLIrSOh8XzmRzke11NbB_ZyFVTQ-Pv7qcTqa2IbeoXEXQg8-MPSrHjNoGgjG5Su4zPpfPzdngnpY1IlF5PJYirWL5jQ_ihgTmSbE_m5pC7KrBfixDwySlb3ocrjrNKUlEYpycEDCr-CY/s640/sheep.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-45062209933897471832018-12-05T11:38:00.003-08:002018-12-05T13:12:42.119-08:0010 Essential Food and Drinks by LJ & Liz & Jen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPbk8tQdj8RkiMUZySzIcLwEndOkIZxjb0mXgMUVxo381uqEm_j_l7mHbrDk0oHyZu4pSMC2IcbiwRDEv1NvK-iYTMqSwpzUE6dOENnVO2N_liQaB0RRQyNM7YZZMaSC-6kmB2vd2wkxA/s1600/BeastieBoys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPbk8tQdj8RkiMUZySzIcLwEndOkIZxjb0mXgMUVxo381uqEm_j_l7mHbrDk0oHyZu4pSMC2IcbiwRDEv1NvK-iYTMqSwpzUE6dOENnVO2N_liQaB0RRQyNM7YZZMaSC-6kmB2vd2wkxA/s640/BeastieBoys.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<i>(<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's a <a href="https://beastiebombshell.wordpress.com/about/10-essential-food-and-drinks-by-beastie-boys/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">Beastie Boys thing from '09</span></a> where instead of doing a normal interview, they all talked about what they eat for each meal of the day. This is our version of that, only with dream foods.)</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>1. The First Drink of the Day</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>I hate coffee. In my opinion, nothing about it is good. Sometimes people assume that because I’m into wine I must identify as some sort of coffee-<i>gourmand</i> but the only coffee I have time for is the lowest-brow coffee that exists. I like my coffee weak, black, iced, and full of sugar. I drink iced coffee as far into the winter as I can make it without my fingers falling off; if it’s too cold for iced coffee, my favourite kind of coffee is the kind they give you at a diner, that comes in a clear pot. That is nice coffee.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I don’t like warm beverages in general, or soup even. I don’t like the feeling of warm liquid dribbling down my esophagus, I am offended by its invasive little journey through my body. But the grossest thing of all is coffee with milk in it, mixing milk and water— I just can’t. I can’t understand why people like mixing their bitter acid bean-water with dairy fat. I can’t.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I drink one coffee a day, and I drink it in the morning, and I don’t enjoy it. I do it because I’m addicted to caffeine and I have to, and also I do it to get it over with. If I drink a coffee past noon, my life is over. I have a creepy panic attack and get really sweaty, and then I burn out. I am so excited to reach the point in my life where circumstances are chill enough for me to endure a couple weeks of caffeine withdrawal and never drink a coffee again, but that seems too far away for me to even dream about, so for my first drink of the day I will go with a nice big iced coffee, in a big clear cup, flavoured if possible— ideally vanilla, but hazelnut is fine too— the kind you get from a bodega in New York City, where they kindly put the straw in the hole for you, but then leave a little inch-and-a-half of paper around the top of a straw. Sometimes they even put your coffee in a bag! A cute paper bag. That always blows my mind, as a Canadian, where we’re so hyper-conscious of waste— I’m like, “No no no! No bag, no bag! I don’t need the bag! For this coffee that I’m immediately going to start drinking in one second.” But then, I kind of want the bag, because it’s so cute. I like that the option is there for me. Anyway, then I would dump like seven Splendas in it. It's really hot outside. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b>A single-serving can of Dole's pineapple juice and one of those airplane bottles of champagne, on a flight to some city I'm in love with, like New York or Seattle. You pour the pineapple juice into the plastic cup of ice (in this case, <i>CRUSHED</i>), then you drink the iced pineapple juice and when it's all gone you pour the champagne into the cup. So it's like champagne with essence of pineapple, a little bit of pineapple flash. The plane is blessedly wi-fi-free as all airplanes should be, because airplanes are for reading novels and crying at movies you would ordinarily never even want to watch. On my dream flight I would read some sprawling trashy heartbreaking novel featuring a finely wired character I could picture to look like mid-'80s James Spader, or maybe play solitaire on my tray table: the most elegant thing a woman could ever do while drinking champagne on a solo flight. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>JEN</b>: Matcha latte with cashew milk from Commissary in New Paltz, NY, in their handle-less ceramic mugs on a saucer but in my apartment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>2. Breakfast</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>The first thing is a soft-boiled egg, soft-to-medium, just a perfect stinky glistening little orb on the plate there. I would cut in half with the side of a fork, then leave it for a moment, to be admired.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The second thing would be a wee pyramid of arugula salad, demurely dressed with lemon and olive oil. It could have some nice tomatoes in it, if tomatoes were in season: cherry tomatoes, cut in half. I am weird about tomatoes, but when they’re good, they’re good. But with very few seeds. If there are seeds, I have to take them away. I have to put them in a napkin and then throw the napkin away in another room. They have to be very far away from me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The third thing is the most complicated, and the least realistic component that I would ever, like, chilling in my fridge: sticky rice, the kind you get at dim sum, in a lotus leaf, with stuff in it. But no chicken! That’s my new thing, not being able to eat chicken. I’ve had a recent string of extremely disturbing run-ins with gross chicken, and now I just CAN’T. I can eat a boneless chicken breast, and potentially a high-quality chicken finger, and that’s where my relationship with chicken begins and ends. I can’t eat a nugget, I can’t eat a thigh, I can’t eat a wing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> So, no chicken. This is my dream sticky rice fantasy, so it can have anything I want. Some mushrooms, enoki mushrooms— little cuties! Definitely some shrimp vibes, a little squid perhaps. No, dream bigger Laura- <i>lobster</i>. Can I put truffle oil in it too? You bet I can! And lots of scallion. There would be a little dish on the side, too, with extra chopped raw scallion for me to sprinkle on top.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Then I’d put tons of salt and pepper all over the salad and egg, insane amounts of salt and pepper, which is how I roll when I’m alone but I’m too ashamed to share that part of myself with another person, and in my opinion breakfast should always be eaten alone. Breakfast-time is for realigning your brain and body and you can’t include another person in that process, even if you love them, you have to shoo them away during breakfast, into the other room, with the tomato seeds.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I would mix the salad into the rice, and savour the egg. I would save my perfect bite for last, and it would be the yolk with a chunk of lobster.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b>These banana-cinnamon pancakes I ate at Duke's Coffee Shop on Sunset Strip in March 2003, on my second-ever trip to L.A. I'd gotten flown to Orange County for a work thing and afterward I took the bus up to Hollywood and stayed at the Best Western near the Hollywood Bowl, and the next morning I insanely walked from there to the Strip. Duke's is dead now; it was right next to the Whisky a Go-Go, it was a "rock & roll coffee shop." I barely even remember the pancakes - at this point I've gotten them mixed up with every banana-cinnamon pancake I've ever made for myself, like a few years ago when I won a pot of weed butter in a Yankee swap, after stealing it from a famous musician guy who ended up with a sweater with a cat on it, and then went through a phase of making weed butter </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">banana-cinnamon pancakes. All I really remember of my Duke's pancakes is the banana was so melty and gooey, and there was a ripped poster for <i>River's Edge</i> above my table. I believed the poster meant something about me and Los Angeles and fate and love, and I absolutely </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">still </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">believe that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(P.S. I want to give a shout-out to some of the other great pancakes of my life, including: the dulce de leche panqueques I ate with my brother and sister in Buenos Aires in February 2012, the Snickers pancakes at Snooze in Denver, whatever the hell those pancakes were that I ate at Pancake Pantry when Alissa and I went to Nashville in 2013, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the White Russian pancakes from the Black Dog on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts <3) </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>JEN</b>: Miso soup with greens, seaweed, and mushrooms topped with a decent amount of shichimi togarashi and a tiny bit of tamari. Alternatively, a whole-wheat everything bagel toasted with tofu sun-dried cream cheese from Bergen Bagels. A life of balance.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>3. Elevenses</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>Even on a perfect holiday-day when I’m like “Fuck it, I can eat whatever I want,” it sounds gross and lumpy to spoil my lunch-appetite by eating a snack too soon after my sticky rice breakfast, so I’m going to be a more realistically me-style decadent for my eleven AM snack and have a glass of champagne. I don’t want it to be too weird or old, I want it to be stylish and lithe, and the first sip of it tastes like opening up your eyes. It’s a non-vintage Blanc de Blancs, citric and mineral, a tad severe but fuck it that’s what I’m in the mood for, and it makes me want a couple of oysters, but I already made the stupid decision to not eat at this fake meal, so I don’t have any, but I’m sitting out on a balcony and there’s an ocean nearby, so I can smell the ocean and pretend I’m eating an oyster, and it’s a little bit cold out, and I’m alone still. Just me and my champagne. I write a <a href="http://instagram.com/wine_child" target="_blank">wine_child</a> about it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b>A pot of this cinnamon tea they used to sell at Super King but it's gone now. It was a black tea spiced with cinnamon and it was the exact flavor of "Cinnamon Girl" by Neil Young: slightly cinnamon-bear-y but earthier, more subtle. It'd be served in one of those nice utilitarian silver pots from the Chinese restaurant, which are always the best teapots in town. The tea would happen with a splash of cream and spoonful of white sugar, in a big clunky mug.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>JEN</b>: A slice of vaguely healthy but still delicious spelt banana bread with dark chocolate chunks and pecans and a lil peanut butter spread on it with a cup of genmaicha.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>4 & 5. Lunch & Dessert</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>I am still alone. Lunch, too, should be eaten alone, and never at home. Lunch is the best and worst meal: worst when in, best when out. Home-lunches are an abomination, slack bowlsful of thrown-together odds & ends, consumed, like slop, without fanfare. I like fanfare. I like a long, lazy French lunch; all the best lunches I’ve eaten I’ve eaten either in France or while pretending I’m in France. I’m picturing a cozy-gloomy little bistro with lots of wood, a piano shoved in the back somewhere, and unlit candles (they’ll be lit in time for dinner), framed old newspapers on the wall. I’m shoved in the back somewhere, close to the piano, in a wooden booth with wooden benches; it calls a confession booth to mind. I have a large glass bottle of sparkling water, a brand I’ve never heard of, and a half-carafe of Anjou Rouge. My sweet darling Cab Franc. I can’t decide if I would prefer for it to be chilled to the proper temperature, or a little warmer than it should be, because the people who run the place don’t care.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I’m having steak tartare for lunch, and it’s plated inelegantly: no ring mold. No gaufrette potatoes, no French fries, just a basket of ripped up baguette hunks. No butter. I changed my mind: I want the wine to be chilled. I barely want to touch the bread, it won’t have much to do with the meat, I’ll just use it as a vessel for some egg yolk—that’ll be my first bite— and to mop up the ends of the steak-flav— that’ll be my last. I’ll be doing a crossword while I eat, and then I’ll run into a person I know, someone I like and respect but haven’t seen in awhile, and they’ll think, “That’s some life she leads! Eating steak tartare and doing a crossword in the middle of the day.” I will be so happy and peaceful, I’ll smile warmly and say nothing bad about nobody. Only nice news— “My streak of bad hair days is over,” or, “I got a dog!” “Strawberry Lacroix exists now!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> For dessert I eat a single pristine scoop of yellow vanilla ice cream floating in a chilled tin dish of custard. There is strawberry sauce on top, with gloopy whole strawberries in it, and I eat it with a demi-tasse spoon. The end of the ice cream melts into the custard, and I leave it unfinished, for a cat to lap up.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b>I agree with Ad-Rock when he says "Lunch with a dessert? I don't have dessert with lunch." I don't even eat <i>lunch</i>, if you want the god's honest truth. I eat an extremely late breakfast, and then I'm good till dinner. But I guess this day is happening on vacation, and lunch is for sure a vacation thing. For me the meal that most signifies a vacation-level freedom from responsibility is fish & chips - they mean Ireland and beaches, a loud and cozy pub on Good Friday when you're seven-years-old. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The chips would be nice thick steak fries and the whole deal would be served on newspaper and with a side of cole slaw, from wherever this Clash photo was taken: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFE1TdEnbTtEPsOOaDeTjqiahn5OHPPzvb9xA8K10ceqFxb1SAh4BKDYwAvOGV5lkyyolfVWKJWHLL2DD-N4jCxTaXKN0q_Ml8fA1uNPh0dk5QCLJQQNKuT1-sdABc4BtLwaFKDG93ViA/s1600/the+clash+cole+slaw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFE1TdEnbTtEPsOOaDeTjqiahn5OHPPzvb9xA8K10ceqFxb1SAh4BKDYwAvOGV5lkyyolfVWKJWHLL2DD-N4jCxTaXKN0q_Ml8fA1uNPh0dk5QCLJQQNKuT1-sdABc4BtLwaFKDG93ViA/s640/the+clash+cole+slaw.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And dessert would be a sundae, probably the </span><a href="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/aa/2c/60/aa2c6056d98732fc4d1e7e2f58cdccde.jpg" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Sundae from Friendly's</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, or a butterscotch sundae with Oreo ice cream, or the Madonna's Delight from <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BilZ7CmFIqd/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">the Copper Cafe</span></a> at the Madonna Inn. I've never had the last one but I'm in love with the description on the menu: </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">See how we interpret the traditional banana split. Three flavors of premium ice cream with assorted toppings and all the finishing touches. A delight for the eyes as well as the palate. </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fuck me up, Madonna Inn. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>JEN</b>: Daily set lunch from Brown Rice Cafe in Tokyo which consists of brown rice (duh) + sides of simmered vegetables or seaweed and pickles + more miso soup + the daily main, which according to their <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BpqYmgiAbDR/" target="_blank">Instagram</a> was recently deep-fried tofu with grated radish sauce. A perfect meal. & a <a href="https://lagustasluscious.com/shop/caramels-toffee/salted-galapagos-turtles/" target="_blank">salted galapagos turtle</a> from Lagusta's Luscious as Lunch Dessert.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Afternoon</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>I drink a can of Diet Coke on my way to wherever. At wherever I have an extremely dirty gin martini— that’s how you have to order them— not very, not even very very, only extremely gets the job done— to get them olivey enough. Once I ordered an extremely dirty gin martini and the bartender gave me a little jug of olive juice on the side. That was the nicest thing anybody ever did for me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b>Ice-cold peach + bottle of Gingerade kombucha from Windward Farms in Venice, after surfing for hours with <a href="http://www.natgeotraveller.in/meet-the-woman-whos-been-living-on-a-boat-for-almost-a-decade/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">Emily Richmond</span></a>. Post-surf kombucha is the heaviest buzz.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>JEN</b>: Cape Cod Sea Salt Waffle Cut Potato Chips + celery juniper Pilot Kombucha </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>7, 8, 9. Three-Course Dinner</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>I think five oysters is the perfect amount of oysters to eat. Six is overdoing it, and three is never enough. Four is fine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I like oysters so much that I have already included a little fantasy sequence about myself eating them in this one piece of writing that I could have left out because I knew I’d eventually feed myself oysters for dinner. But fantasizing about oyster-eating is such a big part of my life that I would be misrepresent myself not to write a bit about oyster-related-daydreaming into everything I ever write.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I like foods that come in a little home that nature already made for them. I like foods that you have to eat in a specific way because the physiology of the food demands it. I like oysters and edamame and sunflower seeds.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I like oysters that are big and gnarly and the shells look like they’re a hundred thousand years old and have barnacles growing on them. I like them briny rather than creamy and I want them to taste like olive juice and sea air and saline wine and fish fossils. If I have five I’ll have two of them with horseradish and three of them plain. I do not have time for mignonette, unless it is a pet name some French guy likes to call me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I already drank champagne once today, but now I’m drinking champagne twice. There’s a really good Andy Warhol quote about being sweet-toothed: “I'm only kidding myself when I go through the motions of cooking protein: all I ever really want is sugar. The rest is strictly for appearances.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> That’s how I feel about champagne. Everything else is just for show. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My main course is the shrimp teriyaki I would eat in the shopping mall food court when I was a little kid, out of a styrofoam container, with no vegetables, just the shrimp and white rice and ladle after ladle of thin garlicky teriyaki sauce, which I would watch the man ladle out onto the rice for me, with heart-shaped pupils. That is the happiest eating memory I have of my entire life, the first time I ever ate that shrimp teriyaki in the shopping mall food court, everything all white, under a plastic palm tree. That was the first moment I ever understood that people don't just eat food, they <i>like</i> it, and that what I, <i>I, </i>the six-year-old semi-formed human I was, really <i>liked. </i>The assault of fish and salt and garlic and sugar, and the plastic fork, and the styrofoam container. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I am always happiest while eating out of a take-out container. No plate compares. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For dessert, I would grab a Snickers bar on the way to the ocean, and I'd eat it fast while listening to Queen and texting my friends about how happy I am. Then I’d swim in the ocean, and the fourth course of my dinner would be a tie between the smell of salt and sea in my hair and the Marlboro Menthol 100 I smoked on the beach in a bathing suit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b>Start with the bluefish pâté from the first night of <a href="http://strawberryfieldswhatever.blogspot.com/2014/05/lots-of-things-i-loved-most-about.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">my writers residency at the place on Martha's Vineyard five Aprils ago</span></a>, served on some kind of cracker I'm not sure exists (Stoned Wheat Thin-esque but slimmer and saltier, ideally). That </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">pâté was made by a guy who used to play guitar in Dire Straits and it was total heaven, so rich and smoky and attuned to the drama of the island in the early spring, how it holds onto winter in a way that's super-bitchy but you gotta kinda respect that. We all stood around </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> kitchen for a long time before dinner, eating the pâté and drinking wine, being awkward writers but effusive and sweet. I believe I was wearing blue jeans and a camel-colored v-neck cashmere sweater I bought specifically for the purposes of being a writer on Martha's Vineyard.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Second course: probably my favorite meal I've ever eaten in my life, which is this roast chicken thing from Delux Cafe in Boston. I don't exactly remember the setup but in my mind it was a nice shallow bowl with the chicken + Spanish rice + so many olives and capers and tomato and maybe red onion, all happening together in a very chaotic and boisterous way, like a big loud party. I recently learned the word <a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019328-pasta-tahdig" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">tahdig</span></a> and I feel like there must've been a serious tahdig factor there, a perfect burnt-rice situation going on. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And that dish must've been a special because otherwise I would've eaten it at least a million times, when in reality I only got to have it that once.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My party chicken comes with a sweaty carafe of white wine like we used to always drink at Mae Ploy #RIP</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And in lieu of adding a third course I'd like to just list off some other dream rices of mine, such as: the cherry rice at Raffi's in Glendale; homemade rice pilaf with peppers and onions; this chicken-and-rice thing my mom used to make, all baked together in a big casserole dish; </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">veggie fried rice served in a half-pineapple shell (+ Shirley Temple);</span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">arroz con pollo from El Compadre (+ flaming banana/coconut </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">margarita); just a boring old </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">bold</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> of white minute rice and a dab of butter and so much salt and pepper, all the salt and pepper in the world.</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>JEN</b>: </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-perfect steamed vegetable dumplings</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> -giant pile of garlicky greens</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> -spicy oily hand-pulled noodles - like if Xi'an's N8 noodles were still vegan</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>10. Nightcap</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LJ: </b>About ten more cigarettes, another half-bottle of champagne, the taste of another person’s mouth, the taste of myself on another person’s mouth, and a glass of 1964 Pomerol while listening to I Wanna Hold Your Hand to finish off the night.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b>A piece of cake and some fizzy wine. The cake would be golden supermarket cake, frosted with the most sugary frosting and <a href="https://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdrxl2QR8Y1qa78bho1_500.jpg" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">decorated with droopy frosting-roses in baby-pink and hot-pink, mint-green rose stems</span></a>. If you're lucky lots of frosting clings to the lid, so then you get to drag your finger along the lid's edge and get a little pre-cake frosting hit. Also - </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">know when you're at a birthday party and someone makes a big braggy deal of scraping the frosting off their cake and leaving it to die, claiming it's too sweet? I think those people are just doing a performance of the kind of person who is so above frosting, who believes depriving yourself of frosting means that you are virtuous and evolved. It is so totally joyless, and reminds me of this passage from the book </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Cake: A Global History</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> by Nicola Humble, where she </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">talks about the significance of cake in </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Twelfth Night</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Cakes here stand for pleasure; they belong to a category of entertainment - like plays, circuses, recreational sex - that the Puritans are seeking outlaw. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So frosting deprivation is for Puritans and sex-haters. That's all there is to it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anyway I've been thinking about dream cake scenarios, and the top 5 would include cake in bed and cake on the beach, maybe a <a href="https://twitter.com/shitfoodblogger/status/1049624979518758912" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">slab of fried cake</span></a>. In July I ate a piece of supermarket cake off a paper plate while standing in a heated pool in the desert around midnight; that was good. And one time on a plane I was watching that Martha Stewart + Snoop Dogg show and someone served them pieces of cake in little dishes of milk and Snoop called it "Cake for Cats," which is the name of my new album.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But I think the #1 dream cake scenario would happen </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">sometime around 1 in the morning, when you're nearing the grand finale of some low-key but perfect party - like an hour before you get to </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8j-PqSFHcc" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">Oh how fast the evening passes, cleaning up the champagne glasses</span></a></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. The cake's been sitting out on the kitchen counter for hours and the party's moved to the porch; only the </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">crème de la crème have stuck it out. And then someone goes and gets the cake and you set it on the porch floor and everyone passes a fork around, or just digs their fingers into it like beasts. The speakers play only the best porch-cake songs, like "The Back Seat of My Car" by Paul & Linda McCartney and "Fill Your Heart" by David Bowie. And you almost annihilate the whole thing but there's still a little left, enough for two or three more pieces. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Leave it out all night and then eat it for breakfast, with a spoon, in a big red Solo cup. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">JEN</b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">: </span><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.lagustasluscious.com/shop/bluestocking-bonbons/vandana-shivas&source=gmail&ust=1544063256823000&usg=AFQjCNH7qHPZfw2sqdtX8A_blcg8NUgJzQ" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Lagusta's Vandana Shiva chocolate</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and an herbal tea made from lots of flowers (I'm thinking rose, jasmine, passionflower, chamomile + cool herbs) that makes me feel deeply </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">relaxed</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and instantly fall asleep </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-34480787635429210842018-07-26T13:17:00.002-07:002018-07-26T13:49:04.114-07:00The 75 Most Beautiful Mick Jagger Pictures To Make You Feel Like 'Let It Bleed' Forever<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5qpPjfDH6ShMyXHsvGsP2PRsLAWT1F_kSmSolKUBRalX1gOsjNiMNy4372zr9FiIp08R_G8GjwzVJdkQ75gka8CvSPDl733YIoUeNcXoNx1gODTWHbAdl6aGtatZndSiYPymEzI8aJfw/s1600/wannabeMic1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1224" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5qpPjfDH6ShMyXHsvGsP2PRsLAWT1F_kSmSolKUBRalX1gOsjNiMNy4372zr9FiIp08R_G8GjwzVJdkQ75gka8CvSPDl733YIoUeNcXoNx1gODTWHbAdl6aGtatZndSiYPymEzI8aJfw/s640/wannabeMic1.jpg" width="488" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">BY ELIZABETH BARKER</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Today is Mick Jagger's 75th birthday. Four years ago <a href="https://www.jenjmay.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">Jen May</span></a> made that art up top for a little storybook I wrote called <i>I Wanna Be Your Man</i>. It was partly about Mick being royalty, about the impenetrable grace of Mick, and in the middle there's this paragraph:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>One thing I admire about Mick Jagger is he probably never gets all red-faced and ugly in reaction to someone else's bad behavior. He's cool, calm, collected; he maintains his porcelain complexion and probably can barely be bothered to roll his eyes. If someone does him wrong, he just makes some witheringly funny comment and laughs his big, regal, evil, Mick Jagger-y laugh, and then dashes off a lyric that's bitchy as hell but also kind of lazy. Jonathan Richman writes "Put down the cigarette, and act like a true girl," and when he sings it he shouts it, and he's sort of kidding but sort of not. But Mick Jagger doesn't have time to tell you how to act. You either act right or you don't, and Mick is too busy buying islands or whatever to help those who can't help themselves. It's something to aspire to.</i></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I still agree </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">with 89 percent of</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> that, but today I don't care as much about Mick and meanness: sweetness and Mick seems much more essential to me. One of my favorite qualities in a person is a pure and abiding generosity toward Mick - I love it when people just love him without making some big show of how they find Mick embarrassing, how they're personally offended and deeply put-upon by the ridiculousness of Mick Jagger. I mean - he <i>is</i> embarrassing, sometimes. But he also wrote "Moonlight Mile." And "Sweet Virginia," and "Jigsaw Puzzle" and "Get Off of My Cloud," and at least three dozen other songs that might have a magnanimous effect on your heart. He made <i>Take it easy, babe</i> the last line of "Under My Thumb," and wrote "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in such a way that the movie that plays in my head when I hear it has stayed the same since I was five-years-old, and I still feel too young to watch it. Everything always feels wild and tragic in the most dreamy and thrilling way, whenever "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is in the air. It just gives you this unending wonder.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And Mick wrote "Let It Bleed," which might be the song I always need most? The way it cracks you open and loosens your limbs, pours a warm light into you and makes you sigh the grandest of sighs - to me that means more about love than any other song that's ever been written. If you could sustain the "Let It Bleed" state of mind you'd always be your most generous and unguarded self, totally free of all self-imposed bullshit and rules. And it's the most beautiful balance of dirty and sweet, it's filthy but it's elegant, with that line about the jasmine tea. Sometimes I worry the world's getting less "Let It Bleed"-y by the second, way too clean but also so cold. I don't know what to do about that besides throw your phone in the ocean and start spending all your days lazing about on sumptuous carpets beneath crystal chandeliers, or drinking champagne from the bottle in a magnificent bathtub with the finest of bath oils made of Moroccan rose otto, your eyemakeup perfectly intact. But I can't do that, and I'm guessing you probably can't either. I have no idea what you're supposed to do instead except just listen to "Let It Bleed" whenever you need it, and hopefully it'll never stop working on you.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So in honor of feeling like "Let It Bleed" forever, here are my 75 favorite Mick pictures, with a little commentary here and there.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>MICK & KEITH:</b></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="382" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwAr1VR9MxcwQ3JJgd-6HY2UdpbOS3pRcizwFVvRD9eFflOQXmeSTEJ4dYK6x1hWaqYekBzfJ8FxZV1ktOYbuIBMWIsw3GVt39qVG0NU7jYsdnsW6cHNrfViMYooc5Vmcs5otAh2MBtF0/s640/insta.jpg" width="640" /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="427" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8RYZ30oawI7MHL2eAvWbTxEdkT34LBXm-2SXscz7B3emWwOVH0Tmg8LfQXQSBRelY8LzMKtQPMo3-r1JdHDOoUt5pLWpFvfyzB-7zYQtBZAzBNc8xsAkGFfH6d03Os_5gzpK7XpMVopM/s640/sleepykeith.jpg" width="422" /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's probably true that Mick loves Keith more than Keith loves Mick, right? Or maybe that's just some tragic romance I made up in my head. But I love this picture of Keith sleeping and Mick watching over him, knowing he's loved less and being all right with that. Another cool form of Mick generosity.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBOKIpmnRVvvmGu_X5KEtRmDcsj-BkaAI3o5hVbhGCTLsj7GI7fEgYD__HRp7l9BsvxbR2pysPmyeJ5MCvkWpUNPie7DWlMkQfoZ_gsz0vDIx8jGcCO_d5Bony8IFYdzr7KwUUvLWh1P8/s1600/mickkeithbox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="564" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBOKIpmnRVvvmGu_X5KEtRmDcsj-BkaAI3o5hVbhGCTLsj7GI7fEgYD__HRp7l9BsvxbR2pysPmyeJ5MCvkWpUNPie7DWlMkQfoZ_gsz0vDIx8jGcCO_d5Bony8IFYdzr7KwUUvLWh1P8/s640/mickkeithbox.jpg" width="640" /></a></span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgegu4nNZlurPFqvpeFPM6qr7cymZ2-jvfkEUjGMGcSgsHgeSbII_dUkJ0cowa_EvBbvkPee81crV87nydSyeSnDhR6Cu7dHxZ0gDpAIyfY5i_HBVLHjHYB6VzcWOHkfSE3BLvMME4MygU/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-07-25+at+9.47.40+PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1211" data-original-width="1600" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgegu4nNZlurPFqvpeFPM6qr7cymZ2-jvfkEUjGMGcSgsHgeSbII_dUkJ0cowa_EvBbvkPee81crV87nydSyeSnDhR6Cu7dHxZ0gDpAIyfY5i_HBVLHjHYB6VzcWOHkfSE3BLvMME4MygU/s640/Screen+Shot+2018-07-25+at+9.47.40+PM.jpg" width="640" /></span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is a still from one of my favorite Rolling Stones things to watch on the internet, a press conference they did in 1973. It might be my favorite version of Mick, such a perfect harmony of elegant and goofball. I'm especially passionate about the gesture he makes when saying the word "gesture," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSZ-2LVTRNA&feature=youtu.be&t=1m15s" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">here</span></a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXFd_6HZqJnyha89q42EOirKtpVoTnP97ZVbKHZknkyyV3pqZKSUsrPtw1Hgpu_QsaTOfLyT95iOUbjWjhSr6sr8o9CSWWV15EpAyfdZOFDaRQhktmvwNatoqqahZLGyOEV1SEmotFG5Q/s1600/IMG-5826.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="735" data-original-width="750" height="626" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXFd_6HZqJnyha89q42EOirKtpVoTnP97ZVbKHZknkyyV3pqZKSUsrPtw1Hgpu_QsaTOfLyT95iOUbjWjhSr6sr8o9CSWWV15EpAyfdZOFDaRQhktmvwNatoqqahZLGyOEV1SEmotFG5Q/s640/IMG-5826.JPG" width="640" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC5sL12ozW2OW12q8u6Du2VNZ_bdPchXkAfgYBe4WpP7uf_3x22OqaxsR6nNmin01J4oQ1ALavoYR9ti80yxNKtKoAXrx4jFtvRZmN6_d0WVXBObQvw3VYIR2hGZmfc9Wb2k39qqvFb2M/s1600/mickkeith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC5sL12ozW2OW12q8u6Du2VNZ_bdPchXkAfgYBe4WpP7uf_3x22OqaxsR6nNmin01J4oQ1ALavoYR9ti80yxNKtKoAXrx4jFtvRZmN6_d0WVXBObQvw3VYIR2hGZmfc9Wb2k39qqvFb2M/s640/mickkeith.jpg" width="480" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="563" height="630" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX1ZHOUo5zeGkVyBgjEC95nKWTfNi_BlDO28RPb8Zfy5C6eHNQErRzQx2AGXkcSsdi9paIdHDU-Vmlo1UJaY9UL4W7kCLJjAvCbVQhnS5jEQZ9B41Tzc88rOJUxTduQnueHFxv-INQAv8/s640/Rolling+Stones+Monopoly.jpg" width="640" /></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>MICK & CHARLIE:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNBZ7MkQdk7IYd4fnG4Hqfkrk-NguSNQTvjsmYY1kc8wbSjJendIG_Evga5kfsGsqP63KFG3PO71YMHh2dTDrGpzbb4LIbuswBGRtgSvhSf8JkczKbQF-HoddeZ9YGYl2-97nG3Ucvy3c/s1600/mick%252Bcharlie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="793" data-original-width="800" height="634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNBZ7MkQdk7IYd4fnG4Hqfkrk-NguSNQTvjsmYY1kc8wbSjJendIG_Evga5kfsGsqP63KFG3PO71YMHh2dTDrGpzbb4LIbuswBGRtgSvhSf8JkczKbQF-HoddeZ9YGYl2-97nG3Ucvy3c/s640/mick%252Bcharlie.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">MICK & RONNIE:</span></b><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguikVfJgG5wNeeuL7cmHMeYPKfUJj0lpXWQHaqZxT8Le2K5iyIThfdn8KMK2pWOq_8P5mivCym48aupd5z6fW7pQLsnzL1PzkHWhPyH1GTweeJ2bkfSnf6KFa4TqwUZCLDImYZbbbaWzI/s1600/alamo+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="426" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguikVfJgG5wNeeuL7cmHMeYPKfUJj0lpXWQHaqZxT8Le2K5iyIThfdn8KMK2pWOq_8P5mivCym48aupd5z6fW7pQLsnzL1PzkHWhPyH1GTweeJ2bkfSnf6KFa4TqwUZCLDImYZbbbaWzI/s640/alamo+%25281%2529.jpg" width="628" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>MICK & PAUL:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(I love the way they look at each other. This little photo series is a solid representation of the three key varieties of the Mick/Paul gaze. "Get a man who looks at you the way" blah blah blah blah blah blah)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ape0dmlSKoRAvyHR080WUnGHbWaJUb8jsTStW6ApfOQ3x0Lgx9NOAnFKyZMcRPGXgmFUWybbMC4dkVPBZJW4TAQogn7Ozdvug0YBguoGnLmp6v0DOYTCM0G5UU-aR2QbB1SAgR3iBH0/s1600/mickpaultrain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1088" data-original-width="1600" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ape0dmlSKoRAvyHR080WUnGHbWaJUb8jsTStW6ApfOQ3x0Lgx9NOAnFKyZMcRPGXgmFUWybbMC4dkVPBZJW4TAQogn7Ozdvug0YBguoGnLmp6v0DOYTCM0G5UU-aR2QbB1SAgR3iBH0/s640/mickpaultrain.jpg" width="640" /></span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvAvKbEbICHIx6sW7wHWIlUumNccEBOws-A45y-SATh28M3Mi5gHsiFQrItkS82kvOLXDvJl3SHOzP3_9nmWkqab5rMM0dIIj4SeNnxHmoYZMvNditImf6Fb8HUsJq3g8PXohT_hpSEfU/s1600/IMG-5820.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="309" data-original-width="500" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvAvKbEbICHIx6sW7wHWIlUumNccEBOws-A45y-SATh28M3Mi5gHsiFQrItkS82kvOLXDvJl3SHOzP3_9nmWkqab5rMM0dIIj4SeNnxHmoYZMvNditImf6Fb8HUsJq3g8PXohT_hpSEfU/s640/IMG-5820.JPG" width="640" /></span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZNXU6g9SShwvI1B_Heg7p50thByKwLX8hF6MHdr73esT2wLEN2jJyi2QcOZDrQ_aCWBq62-jQYp_SUhAyvp_xrVpAfdsfUxKQ7HCtOs9yPx3rMH9zV3HhG2Uo7Z44DUP3yXwuKWspovM/s1600/mickpaul.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1003" data-original-width="1600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZNXU6g9SShwvI1B_Heg7p50thByKwLX8hF6MHdr73esT2wLEN2jJyi2QcOZDrQ_aCWBq62-jQYp_SUhAyvp_xrVpAfdsfUxKQ7HCtOs9yPx3rMH9zV3HhG2Uo7Z44DUP3yXwuKWspovM/s640/mickpaul.jpg" width="640" /></a></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>MICK & DAVID BOWIE:</b></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhsUI6qSxReVR77sfm98KLOXVLA_YwdAnHdOYGv3jfgYiUoVUpfR86eoHnrS1EZIhgAH4_e3s9jrg1iJoWzCvVCdueE-XqA-4crmvbfFg7A-2_fqP-eJQuxTF7YF2zXscWzP0QHISCaTI/s1600/f00d34641df1f4a680e4bdb2202faaa3+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="622" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhsUI6qSxReVR77sfm98KLOXVLA_YwdAnHdOYGv3jfgYiUoVUpfR86eoHnrS1EZIhgAH4_e3s9jrg1iJoWzCvVCdueE-XqA-4crmvbfFg7A-2_fqP-eJQuxTF7YF2zXscWzP0QHISCaTI/s640/f00d34641df1f4a680e4bdb2202faaa3+%25281%2529.jpg" width="622" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b> MICK & JADE:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPR6ew6Chwz7tQzlYftPodkU5A7tZNJKHnPjU5nPE1mL9x6U6YnN771gIU1tKvMBb0DO0zzU8OTBoPQME3poO7YZCHrw53AA007vIh51ghlCax7Tba-BmP7JMaYbWf1dHJnugydDGtjUI/s1600/IMG-5787.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="966" data-original-width="736" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPR6ew6Chwz7tQzlYftPodkU5A7tZNJKHnPjU5nPE1mL9x6U6YnN771gIU1tKvMBb0DO0zzU8OTBoPQME3poO7YZCHrw53AA007vIh51ghlCax7Tba-BmP7JMaYbWf1dHJnugydDGtjUI/s640/IMG-5787.JPG" width="486" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>MICK WITH SWEETS:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTw5Kvd5HQa5V9zt73_gO0GoXhBzNhy5MgDjHGtB6K_t5CdEdBrq4ycrZ88XgAkEQeOnrCFcJYm_Kij1ralVb6qwx2hBO5oRn_pxqLoNyOCamyQAo0Qz7A9T0k4enZTfes47ZnqWNfuFM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-07-25+at+9.32.54+PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1023" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTw5Kvd5HQa5V9zt73_gO0GoXhBzNhy5MgDjHGtB6K_t5CdEdBrq4ycrZ88XgAkEQeOnrCFcJYm_Kij1ralVb6qwx2hBO5oRn_pxqLoNyOCamyQAo0Qz7A9T0k4enZTfes47ZnqWNfuFM/s640/Screen+Shot+2018-07-25+at+9.32.54+PM.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="504" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWnT72TuoryB5NKeRt16lR8h_8H5sjFLosDvHU22aEcmfFieSaL7n0-e681AIeC-OKzNoWQxg_kd8J2O4evKTBotQqU3a4IYEV5iVBLsPGIBsOQmkxutlL2tabqKx6rieUAjx2sxxSibw/s640/mickandcake.jpg" width="420" /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVPw0p86gHGq3CRgLTDKuYrpKLNQcIbwOGnbyhJ6vuyEQFgNkBli5owoSkeKz0yErLOxME81TCHCGdQ1vSddGcRlAZqHSnShIEB7lMNt8OGNs8-zatvrI594sqpCcIfbtq_aMnDhL4ByY/s1600/MICKWITHCOTTONCANDY.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1059" data-original-width="1600" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVPw0p86gHGq3CRgLTDKuYrpKLNQcIbwOGnbyhJ6vuyEQFgNkBli5owoSkeKz0yErLOxME81TCHCGdQ1vSddGcRlAZqHSnShIEB7lMNt8OGNs8-zatvrI594sqpCcIfbtq_aMnDhL4ByY/s640/MICKWITHCOTTONCANDY.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq3SGZIyZby4yLGATkf_s33sA937Gzp4rFnMBJVDVj_isqiQfIW4UH4i_A2d9Xy4DUi8eLMxbs0bXUN1kWkz3z3HjH-KBvtdDyAbtvfb90lELl2uECmMei7wEkoyxlPsJAo7dsIN2d-Jk/s1600/micksweets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq3SGZIyZby4yLGATkf_s33sA937Gzp4rFnMBJVDVj_isqiQfIW4UH4i_A2d9Xy4DUi8eLMxbs0bXUN1kWkz3z3HjH-KBvtdDyAbtvfb90lELl2uECmMei7wEkoyxlPsJAo7dsIN2d-Jk/s640/micksweets.jpg" width="636" /></span></a></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>MICK IN NATURE:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRbBdV5r09WYwbItNrvhtKUbU0m1UD6hTQttD8orXe6BU1_3arFJOeLD4wLMxkchRteodL25ErK1bdoPqWav5Je9DPx2lwauIP4A6ZC9g4yaaU7Gp504rektZH-jIwMcGwBzzLu5m2L8A/s1600/mickmontauk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRbBdV5r09WYwbItNrvhtKUbU0m1UD6hTQttD8orXe6BU1_3arFJOeLD4wLMxkchRteodL25ErK1bdoPqWav5Je9DPx2lwauIP4A6ZC9g4yaaU7Gp504rektZH-jIwMcGwBzzLu5m2L8A/s640/mickmontauk.jpg" width="640" /></span></a><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="690" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAisdoNxp-iPCzgFUvqQLLSAUfwbfuDEOHKlGkBXWUMxTKySSkj5J47EzexY83jtyCAqgiBCqSsv7LCbzzbfwvO8JES1b9QBIpowUZgJKla4uJMCrYoOavX9nwuOIsyG-ZUOO7b9dEBGY/s640/IMG-5793.JPG" width="430" /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ1AW2uu6qvDnh2lwvqMg0eIYcIdbcNa7zoLOSyZuqPzkYVSfQwyHT-ptAfe3HOXhuEe74z-anHYY6hCoQo97yn54GzIAuWZRJzWcKbPZy2i9XopcM4rzANFEq6IpwhXintRwXtQDeifc/s1600/IMG-5800.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="500" height="610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ1AW2uu6qvDnh2lwvqMg0eIYcIdbcNa7zoLOSyZuqPzkYVSfQwyHT-ptAfe3HOXhuEe74z-anHYY6hCoQo97yn54GzIAuWZRJzWcKbPZy2i9XopcM4rzANFEq6IpwhXintRwXtQDeifc/s640/IMG-5800.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymZzqhBtKrOLdxwmyObeTki5uLdnUeD8zZ6HQ22GloqL4dz9mAn_o8JKb3ygwBMhA-9kA-vqBG5-wNofMUzYEXEDy58buzUCgF8ZuxBB-CqtzZVIZbLvm1LKh_JTuA7QjPLhZ1939lds/s1600/IMG-5792.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="567" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymZzqhBtKrOLdxwmyObeTki5uLdnUeD8zZ6HQ22GloqL4dz9mAn_o8JKb3ygwBMhA-9kA-vqBG5-wNofMUzYEXEDy58buzUCgF8ZuxBB-CqtzZVIZbLvm1LKh_JTuA7QjPLhZ1939lds/s640/IMG-5792.JPG" width="452" /></span></a></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="550" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi9MIRE0W_BitNsoQOYctE-y47y_WN4loa7FwbNflrjL2hVsT76d6XyXLxx-XW0vxFZxatnXmy9QH_nM4I_BOfaClIvSxlljXXuj22eHFujlnRbJLrMqVRADnqdSWPDB3kDyxVYQhPgpI/s640/IMG-5784.JPG" width="488" /></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This<b> </b>pic is especially important to me because it was taken near my hometown, during the three weeks or something in 1981 when the Rolling Stones lived on a farm in Massachusetts. For a while I was writing a story about some kids driving out to the farm to try to get a look at Mick and Keith, climbing up trees and then hiding in them all night long. At one point someone tells them something about seeing Mick out jogging, and the main dude of my story says, "Who the fuck goes jogging?" He's absolutely one of those generous-about-Mick types, but sometimes he fronts like he's hateful.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>MICK BY THE SEA:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRv0vE_wPW4fEDMqwDCtTMGrdiELAnjHJLOTDIRylw2bthkm3Kdf8MIPylRIqSop4io5SwPNQ21EvGpTpZnvILONRz20B9ctemxbdclOKZ_9xEGDkiYe1UCV62yILzXgGy8mTkN8ft6c/s1600/IMG-5824.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="397" height="542" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRv0vE_wPW4fEDMqwDCtTMGrdiELAnjHJLOTDIRylw2bthkm3Kdf8MIPylRIqSop4io5SwPNQ21EvGpTpZnvILONRz20B9ctemxbdclOKZ_9xEGDkiYe1UCV62yILzXgGy8mTkN8ft6c/s640/IMG-5824.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEa1AY7nrCddSsrhfnkn0IgZ7dwzX2zlNkcNPDRHKJuSqBqNQ5glkHBriq2MH9AbzcWGh7tE55Yg1dGKrqdjJPU8GkgLw2EsEKAVp2MlhD0DsuDp7DitdtEuajP9OgcX6cxsrOtH75j4/s1600/IMG-5789.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="392" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEa1AY7nrCddSsrhfnkn0IgZ7dwzX2zlNkcNPDRHKJuSqBqNQ5glkHBriq2MH9AbzcWGh7tE55Yg1dGKrqdjJPU8GkgLw2EsEKAVp2MlhD0DsuDp7DitdtEuajP9OgcX6cxsrOtH75j4/s640/IMG-5789.JPG" width="602" /></a></span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>MICK & BIANCA:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsR9luTR0IEDTB9Zz44n07MY3Kwxfw_YSjQjhPOrnXI8ZX7UnOthidseH5C3EqpcDKmbFef-gEx184ms5FqjpV62DBUHO_U6clfvksAu-rPr3r2R2XGe2pA26iXsKV_YBSofKSikEZy00/s1600/cricket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1341" data-original-width="1600" height="536" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsR9luTR0IEDTB9Zz44n07MY3Kwxfw_YSjQjhPOrnXI8ZX7UnOthidseH5C3EqpcDKmbFef-gEx184ms5FqjpV62DBUHO_U6clfvksAu-rPr3r2R2XGe2pA26iXsKV_YBSofKSikEZy00/s640/cricket.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy44yQ-gXLHPjYIPkk5JM6KteZfOEbR8hScETbb4XPS2OXAPCqsaIxPrBYdxisTYesy_Xxuvwe1oH1Y2KlGvyqGJlgnY3yo6FiBlO8Hd2GmRWoBgKzuCyjsV02aHhVBGAKiL0gJbDIFxI/s1600/mickbiancacape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="397" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy44yQ-gXLHPjYIPkk5JM6KteZfOEbR8hScETbb4XPS2OXAPCqsaIxPrBYdxisTYesy_Xxuvwe1oH1Y2KlGvyqGJlgnY3yo6FiBlO8Hd2GmRWoBgKzuCyjsV02aHhVBGAKiL0gJbDIFxI/s640/mickbiancacape.jpg" width="330" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixBWCMIzXe_l-EVk_Ln927HbL72BP2fKMBmcFbM1lZcwuynTEEuFNoawVBy1SLEBWJvdO12igpNtMPjXyOI67G_jnepVhG9QS5jE53JUc5_jYkQn4PXXodcJmA2JHIyJ1A_EXYq6Zn9Pc/s1600/IMG-5823.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="500" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixBWCMIzXe_l-EVk_Ln927HbL72BP2fKMBmcFbM1lZcwuynTEEuFNoawVBy1SLEBWJvdO12igpNtMPjXyOI67G_jnepVhG9QS5jE53JUc5_jYkQn4PXXodcJmA2JHIyJ1A_EXYq6Zn9Pc/s640/IMG-5823.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfJ4q7kcejMIXs1QiaQ1VUqiCACAUUW01ebUp3iC-DLEX_xGj075KoEsTWqThyc9Eay9m-5iC6x9tlthjGJt1eoVB5aAcmYoEwa1T5dRaal8w3gF9Z97WutPTEqSAMqZLZRo_vZZMhxCU/s1600/mickbiancahat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="400" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfJ4q7kcejMIXs1QiaQ1VUqiCACAUUW01ebUp3iC-DLEX_xGj075KoEsTWqThyc9Eay9m-5iC6x9tlthjGJt1eoVB5aAcmYoEwa1T5dRaal8w3gF9Z97WutPTEqSAMqZLZRo_vZZMhxCU/s640/mickbiancahat.jpg" width="426" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUjxB92FFIK2FV34WkK2rSspti4IKgAfs4-koCyrRD-qOm_zOzvqND3uuoxmdAjN7keraJJlAyU7hvyVg5-c2Tm-FOc98rcZR0uguNbp7xy-7v3_DvkPQC1lEKzHIrbiBAzUmoFpRuMtc/s1600/IMG-5790.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="541" data-original-width="469" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUjxB92FFIK2FV34WkK2rSspti4IKgAfs4-koCyrRD-qOm_zOzvqND3uuoxmdAjN7keraJJlAyU7hvyVg5-c2Tm-FOc98rcZR0uguNbp7xy-7v3_DvkPQC1lEKzHIrbiBAzUmoFpRuMtc/s640/IMG-5790.JPG" width="554" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNXzOdlWG-PGSxpG3H9lV8iSa1PI1crS40YIt2qKou8d4uR0mwrnSnSXqKKt3Kbrp8Awv5uO6t041sW55g47E8R1uF5XHLSuQDxL3MNMfC4g5tWT9xCseoGT4L_2AcYymHkLzbhvDDRbk/s1600/IMG-5821.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="657" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNXzOdlWG-PGSxpG3H9lV8iSa1PI1crS40YIt2qKou8d4uR0mwrnSnSXqKKt3Kbrp8Awv5uO6t041sW55g47E8R1uF5XHLSuQDxL3MNMfC4g5tWT9xCseoGT4L_2AcYymHkLzbhvDDRbk/s640/IMG-5821.JPG" width="486" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">MICK & JERRY:</span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqveTcEdgVdcP39qzM5WWyuopWt8sE7Fi22iN29HtfL2ryf5hOxWeCEdJk7ceZ499CAkjSuuXO5rm4wDode4vav_0QtDmDeDuxIVRYgN2EEB1op1McLzz_771QYgngD2ocw9wcMUSqBl8/s1600/beardmick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="644" data-original-width="1000" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqveTcEdgVdcP39qzM5WWyuopWt8sE7Fi22iN29HtfL2ryf5hOxWeCEdJk7ceZ499CAkjSuuXO5rm4wDode4vav_0QtDmDeDuxIVRYgN2EEB1op1McLzz_771QYgngD2ocw9wcMUSqBl8/s640/beardmick.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK2XpqkhDpsQH68SooX7HxNQHjLIaQCzYMm1EwiKV2ISib8XoFSSKc9tgDX3tD26Ow1pZPiqx2LPKkLO2IhEOTf62MU-YjH51zwv4lZJkdQwChukpp68HwAMOzXCzmSsmoXP4rXt8w7fk/s1600/IMG-5813.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="543" data-original-width="749" height="462" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK2XpqkhDpsQH68SooX7HxNQHjLIaQCzYMm1EwiKV2ISib8XoFSSKc9tgDX3tD26Ow1pZPiqx2LPKkLO2IhEOTf62MU-YjH51zwv4lZJkdQwChukpp68HwAMOzXCzmSsmoXP4rXt8w7fk/s640/IMG-5813.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MICKS I RELATE TO:</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDHY3dEsKtf9_6OfPdFVIAMocLBzROrDInvyraZtDvkQxTvRNZJtJagp7iTZpFNvRVtc0O4EkprljdnYmtCJFuMrbN_YCfuxTJtejktqhtugOxV-vj0DS82U8W2LfEZz2bkVGXmWo7Ezk/s640/mickglasses.jpg" width="506" /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPq085nuZDK83rSMCkz_WNtAyZPbIqCE8V5ky074b_CVcuEHAqaHR2636Hs6TiXF-iba-b55ci66nNYiOo5lKhHYCcThhdgkgAyB9ZxGL7W6932SeW79jabVQhmRhNxpIWLTk6Jvqx7Sg/s1600/micklinda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="825" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPq085nuZDK83rSMCkz_WNtAyZPbIqCE8V5ky074b_CVcuEHAqaHR2636Hs6TiXF-iba-b55ci66nNYiOo5lKhHYCcThhdgkgAyB9ZxGL7W6932SeW79jabVQhmRhNxpIWLTk6Jvqx7Sg/s640/micklinda.jpg" width="514" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(I have this shirt! <a href="https://twitter.com/elizafishbarker/status/514664447818731520" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">I wore it when I met Marc Maron and Marc Maron was soooooo excited</span></a>.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="483" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL0j-qMQiVHqS_9s_WvRsGSMu-DzeARpLTcJKR3My4hvvYGdUGut_3EjdJUh3xl482q2xLDPR_lHE9bUAvbFL9qhNIm6nk2aDMczM-5rR6YsXlKTTYIAeSz4CNP-1MuJPcev_FFTd4Axo/s640/mickfur.jpg" width="512" /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="983" data-original-width="650" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG1sbzjYUFh91j-r4mdlqJPZFZKFH4_1IhKKnjQy7UJGRLdDDFwcd5w4T-MjksLqSC6rrVISGbRaGjHP50ZjH76sn9B1U4sUunuphPP8h_GQ_tfrWnCp1xGNUdlYGsd5LAAo8xJIgkRfs/s640/IMG-5798.JPG" width="422" /></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(I too find Marianne Faithfull boring! One of my favorite Eve Babitz disses is the part in <i>Eve's Hollywood</i> where she trash-talks Marianne Faithfull by saying "She's the kind of girl who is always carrying books about witchcraft, only they're <i>new</i>." BOOM.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaiSNBh_s0ITKqjO7pt5wyEjiJxvpYopqJ1iCaSL1RqWFKzbxMKS0fkBzCI_u08MuySkzWNLIJE4E0Oh_Ua0ADgNAc-TryEdG7rgCehfo27DSQ1fBIUbUmdh5krlhCTtZPGgvN76b39X8/s1600/micksweater.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="568" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaiSNBh_s0ITKqjO7pt5wyEjiJxvpYopqJ1iCaSL1RqWFKzbxMKS0fkBzCI_u08MuySkzWNLIJE4E0Oh_Ua0ADgNAc-TryEdG7rgCehfo27DSQ1fBIUbUmdh5krlhCTtZPGgvN76b39X8/s640/micksweater.jpg" width="562" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMBH1npLIP3MS-9SCHCR-5x7fogv2lF7vaZ9_z9PU4kkQf5AEbhzfZVddmyYbNG-ES4DYpJeXE3bd8XWGnYHuP-q2f369gbdkXip2JECe5t2SGWpaUxjbTB440YLUAMZGFoMkrh-sKbCM/s1600/IMG-5796.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="745" data-original-width="750" height="634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMBH1npLIP3MS-9SCHCR-5x7fogv2lF7vaZ9_z9PU4kkQf5AEbhzfZVddmyYbNG-ES4DYpJeXE3bd8XWGnYHuP-q2f369gbdkXip2JECe5t2SGWpaUxjbTB440YLUAMZGFoMkrh-sKbCM/s640/IMG-5796.JPG" width="640" /></span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>MICK IN GREEN:</b></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqW4dQ9CaLQ0ty5pkVEWYndoPPf0WsO-rh6FksLledYIvmEpFraoLjEZXvXLsSuYLJ3VJTulWQRoQPwmvu10oI7oAWtGixRarDMhLXnm9qRwrRuVGKD7rIvUCeZQfD4fDqObrRjdKbErM/s1600/IMG-5812.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="400" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqW4dQ9CaLQ0ty5pkVEWYndoPPf0WsO-rh6FksLledYIvmEpFraoLjEZXvXLsSuYLJ3VJTulWQRoQPwmvu10oI7oAWtGixRarDMhLXnm9qRwrRuVGKD7rIvUCeZQfD4fDqObrRjdKbErM/s640/IMG-5812.JPG" width="498" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN8SJ1iv2nd-UmxW_rSEl5BxbVrXlHTAextC-hg83ZsZCXqiHYT-EyQ12K7qVDDgLfkp2LK4c8thl6Lbynv0OFw-E0_6sK0jRr5PwW5-V-XH1Dg-vdut5P-hIx-1bHno1ifU2bVvSptlU/s1600/IMG-5803.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="451" height="630" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN8SJ1iv2nd-UmxW_rSEl5BxbVrXlHTAextC-hg83ZsZCXqiHYT-EyQ12K7qVDDgLfkp2LK4c8thl6Lbynv0OFw-E0_6sK0jRr5PwW5-V-XH1Dg-vdut5P-hIx-1bHno1ifU2bVvSptlU/s640/IMG-5803.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjRgPthEcEStoMMJ6zTBYmLOujSRi8v7WGAl9HlaJIONOsNgR4LHLS2NwJPMCynRVW29ggAchZVyZrc9VJiagAKiqtvB1s0ZaI6pGVT4R8b3ksHBO89XT1bPW3CZTC1ioL8e0ZurC9OdU/s1600/mickgreen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="745" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjRgPthEcEStoMMJ6zTBYmLOujSRi8v7WGAl9HlaJIONOsNgR4LHLS2NwJPMCynRVW29ggAchZVyZrc9VJiagAKiqtvB1s0ZaI6pGVT4R8b3ksHBO89XT1bPW3CZTC1ioL8e0ZurC9OdU/s640/mickgreen.jpg" width="428" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgROrhld85c243Sjh6njMblhWNWAewYSe0vXesY49JWQ-UzDsDzm4OGKuyZ5MtJNwHB1MZt4spJPJZSv8tAF8kK25Snwpsh5UXkAsi5Fg7mWDeTTw7ZLdM6_uq1WwUks4yBXP9hffPfK_o/s1600/IMG-5797.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="405" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgROrhld85c243Sjh6njMblhWNWAewYSe0vXesY49JWQ-UzDsDzm4OGKuyZ5MtJNwHB1MZt4spJPJZSv8tAF8kK25Snwpsh5UXkAsi5Fg7mWDeTTw7ZLdM6_uq1WwUks4yBXP9hffPfK_o/s640/IMG-5797.JPG" width="328" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBPKU11mDGR5Yq0EkeoJfn_GbrXs6QuQwE4Hxe1Jvbo0EagivshMi6OtEYgCXSk4hggBoaqLM7RqJrSPjTM1Zz7ArJibLOu4QRvwKI6Fn8BlaXdDL3MUiI1_8jEBvJR58S4YQNzuvBsCw/s1600/IMG-5816.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="354" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBPKU11mDGR5Yq0EkeoJfn_GbrXs6QuQwE4Hxe1Jvbo0EagivshMi6OtEYgCXSk4hggBoaqLM7RqJrSPjTM1Zz7ArJibLOu4QRvwKI6Fn8BlaXdDL3MUiI1_8jEBvJR58S4YQNzuvBsCw/s640/IMG-5816.JPG" width="418" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>MICK IN A MICK WIG:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9GubbXmr8X3q4fcZpuCST_JjTn8CAzOLYMhBpftTt6dl4mNYHFe-zL5yxzidk3ZNOOazwJq1MbQ6E18jwl9R9uXHP9rLYoK81vJzceCMu2K3x0NcDLXu-K3_7Uw9XjstrD-okff8_NSs/s1600/mickwig.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="500" height="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9GubbXmr8X3q4fcZpuCST_JjTn8CAzOLYMhBpftTt6dl4mNYHFe-zL5yxzidk3ZNOOazwJq1MbQ6E18jwl9R9uXHP9rLYoK81vJzceCMu2K3x0NcDLXu-K3_7Uw9XjstrD-okff8_NSs/s640/mickwig.gif" width="640" /></a></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>CHEEKY MICK:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQk_qQxVT6fpJrsuuxbheTmajFMlitJvXrW0BEcagJuUva7TJhXr5EK6ByEDIC_aUVGNhq2uM-68OiQj_Xuu2QWlbAblabhNb0Wmrih4-mV9qfq5KdQKyTUAsssl48rtwL2t_hjcNiVuY/s1600/sexuallysatisfied.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="859" data-original-width="963" height="570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQk_qQxVT6fpJrsuuxbheTmajFMlitJvXrW0BEcagJuUva7TJhXr5EK6ByEDIC_aUVGNhq2uM-68OiQj_Xuu2QWlbAblabhNb0Wmrih4-mV9qfq5KdQKyTUAsssl48rtwL2t_hjcNiVuY/s640/sexuallysatisfied.jpg" width="640" /></a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>POUTY/CONTEMPLATIVE MICK:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL2sGQDyFFu4NUEpsyst2Zapgbwzit7tdAJtPR3UqAwmzrOe9sGBXBLZf0FSx3biNYes_UvkqxQlhiwXMHIBGm6ulhqTM8A0matzAZNHeTraz8qt4facxJ6_474snAZmqo3ZhHNXInkpU/s1600/IMG-5794.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="734" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL2sGQDyFFu4NUEpsyst2Zapgbwzit7tdAJtPR3UqAwmzrOe9sGBXBLZf0FSx3biNYes_UvkqxQlhiwXMHIBGm6ulhqTM8A0matzAZNHeTraz8qt4facxJ6_474snAZmqo3ZhHNXInkpU/s640/IMG-5794.JPG" width="434" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlRR2yODPZQHyXX6_ZAFbxR7AWzMsFQjZxnnlE9g8pqVoZpPYe34Am3Eau3ttyJqlSBU3rjPtneldQKQ1sjih8YNPLdrPOnhFV8dpOviJgo12sELpVxVKXhtcT3Ho2EBYK3_K4jCMV8F0/s1600/IMG-5788.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="837" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlRR2yODPZQHyXX6_ZAFbxR7AWzMsFQjZxnnlE9g8pqVoZpPYe34Am3Eau3ttyJqlSBU3rjPtneldQKQ1sjih8YNPLdrPOnhFV8dpOviJgo12sELpVxVKXhtcT3Ho2EBYK3_K4jCMV8F0/s640/IMG-5788.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRXlM0tZPM8EF7nGQrIzCH2at4n5FKTukhGuasOFsFYKE5u2pc_z2llTYNk0JR6kO65arfPlJu3UririE3ZQvPM2WibHjsAldmdnm159N0txlANBqn9a4Ftyi7B8ypqqaG1_0reRkAIH8/s1600/mickpants.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRXlM0tZPM8EF7nGQrIzCH2at4n5FKTukhGuasOFsFYKE5u2pc_z2llTYNk0JR6kO65arfPlJu3UririE3ZQvPM2WibHjsAldmdnm159N0txlANBqn9a4Ftyi7B8ypqqaG1_0reRkAIH8/s640/mickpants.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN4vRSVcSA2L2hJz2N2zyIttOe4WHbOFUC1nIuptRyfqwpQlG6grt5mMS-hTaKgy_AnKwnigGcKUXH5BFgIat_qvDcSDcA9n-exOv-OZ-KX0SZfRdTwsEwwQg5aOvxhQg-SqU24blQCCI/s1600/IMG-5827.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="416" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN4vRSVcSA2L2hJz2N2zyIttOe4WHbOFUC1nIuptRyfqwpQlG6grt5mMS-hTaKgy_AnKwnigGcKUXH5BFgIat_qvDcSDcA9n-exOv-OZ-KX0SZfRdTwsEwwQg5aOvxhQg-SqU24blQCCI/s640/IMG-5827.JPG" width="416" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>AND ALL THE OTHER BEAUTIFUL AND/OR TERRIBLE MICKS IN THE WORLD:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="841" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi25vNwza-GjKSi93-hgnLmEoRQQdm3qBlcH7_-dTSSXiib898058okpJosm6Zn23Yv8PRixAuF3poEdfJrF1IGwh3EHmKzkIyMK8I7oY2AQeg9fLWrHJ6cqGJXTpXfSfcKzV39kpcZXwo/s640/IMG-5832.JPG" width="570" /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1144" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifmV2-UJdnNs85jxMW0rOqaZNAV6i85SYZk6JI0KJyFFNTsRQXXSsKruoN3w9RHO6V1u14H2RXzyi6GTVFv07oHYZjvUKYd68jUdZ1SHR5Wc5TM-x9Oe9DGy6u-q7YtPaHZCoXKrH-Dn4/s640/IMG-5799.JPG" width="418" /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNFhkJTAJMAs0jEEHCIQ-K0TTiz9MsjHz-FKMMaNOBT0hhyzHCipgmZrrcSU-qGuu-w1X4Zl2rhW6NlASkkK9vdaeQVkRvhS4-DfBRbGsqaP_mCfr7_E591El4EeunzyeInmrCczPX0HI/s1600/IMG-5802.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="419" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNFhkJTAJMAs0jEEHCIQ-K0TTiz9MsjHz-FKMMaNOBT0hhyzHCipgmZrrcSU-qGuu-w1X4Zl2rhW6NlASkkK9vdaeQVkRvhS4-DfBRbGsqaP_mCfr7_E591El4EeunzyeInmrCczPX0HI/s640/IMG-5802.JPG" width="446" /></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTe58NZTDZHjGfPXLv-MEPICCUhz5okJMl8vQ1MEHXOSlnJz33QRQUlHDTPUucJiWHAapNkwFOznCyReMfj251TnjeJcj4VjSrgmwEMHSMdJV7G-2Q-dYlSkRPhhIfQF_aasJkBYm4fnY/s1600/IMG-5795.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTe58NZTDZHjGfPXLv-MEPICCUhz5okJMl8vQ1MEHXOSlnJz33QRQUlHDTPUucJiWHAapNkwFOznCyReMfj251TnjeJcj4VjSrgmwEMHSMdJV7G-2Q-dYlSkRPhhIfQF_aasJkBYm4fnY/s640/IMG-5795.JPG" width="426" /></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBMDFW7Tzth52MLZ-SCxUyBbeQ_wt8dIR3kNTkKQawk6E2CikmptvoP6PwKl-dzXja00TSsHrZemI9I6aXWbVuC43Hm3lwMbPjftpzJvw9sxtdlJTznPT5-rO9xX8sV_TEFSQx1FtUL08/s1600/leo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="709" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBMDFW7Tzth52MLZ-SCxUyBbeQ_wt8dIR3kNTkKQawk6E2CikmptvoP6PwKl-dzXja00TSsHrZemI9I6aXWbVuC43Hm3lwMbPjftpzJvw9sxtdlJTznPT5-rO9xX8sV_TEFSQx1FtUL08/s640/leo.jpg" width="504" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="490" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhURO_80wTPcVlkHPo4ssfRw5426bAwcrJeVWDJIB29LA7Ttq2FLQQUFJo3kFfSPQCvUUQ210ppfISVCXh9mMyoKVcVHQAA5jCxuiyjdE17koQfTZOo2NqAxCUXRLx5J8i3xDKzX_swY5Y/s640/IMG-5817.JPG" width="448" /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFdxRtqUj4JAYhDlHmicvLlZp_u1sBiFrycM8obmOqAt_s_7kcIQNmPaygCiGilIUtfpfIuem73wfGiGQE3Y7ryTdeiEZkb01mulCqCnLb-4WODPn46rWrYDmD9zZpDhb-vDq_U4iCRVE/s1600/IMG-5828.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="499" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFdxRtqUj4JAYhDlHmicvLlZp_u1sBiFrycM8obmOqAt_s_7kcIQNmPaygCiGilIUtfpfIuem73wfGiGQE3Y7ryTdeiEZkb01mulCqCnLb-4WODPn46rWrYDmD9zZpDhb-vDq_U4iCRVE/s640/IMG-5828.JPG" width="442" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUdMejnyQGzLFonIDvZZykweYyx1UszLh9Ury6qu4faSZhQBUZnse0qJGtSKq5CfeB1tfn45924mBkQv2v603lKENyhRep7XRK0S-ytlfqgQdrV4iSUsbwi7VyJA1ehRpDWEnAE7pzdGg/s1600/IMG-5829.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="580" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUdMejnyQGzLFonIDvZZykweYyx1UszLh9Ury6qu4faSZhQBUZnse0qJGtSKq5CfeB1tfn45924mBkQv2v603lKENyhRep7XRK0S-ytlfqgQdrV4iSUsbwi7VyJA1ehRpDWEnAE7pzdGg/s640/IMG-5829.JPG" width="620" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQFvq2fZulXuPY_usNhAVTEli-VdDvRpYRmtntlaXj6JF9VNaelr7p6Uludlx7Ju3LANaD0wr8t3hJ5jwR3FmPfG1DGmxdrdWr3fKn5_Nc-hZjDpLOp6JJikoQMVCwbupMYKex6gDcR-0/s1600/IMG-5831.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="497" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQFvq2fZulXuPY_usNhAVTEli-VdDvRpYRmtntlaXj6JF9VNaelr7p6Uludlx7Ju3LANaD0wr8t3hJ5jwR3FmPfG1DGmxdrdWr3fKn5_Nc-hZjDpLOp6JJikoQMVCwbupMYKex6gDcR-0/s640/IMG-5831.JPG" width="454" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmnVtGdH06GxiDWYvqsO8Mt7ezVrL57tLVE9woDebV2kLuVnU9n1o1YQ5-NVuOrb2yaJT4O8_i8IpJu4YzumfUMIBWuW_HWRxKlyARX5zxoVkokVfjebbRBLNFxhTI95mI1QGRQxcElm4/s1600/IMG-5814.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="702" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmnVtGdH06GxiDWYvqsO8Mt7ezVrL57tLVE9woDebV2kLuVnU9n1o1YQ5-NVuOrb2yaJT4O8_i8IpJu4YzumfUMIBWuW_HWRxKlyARX5zxoVkokVfjebbRBLNFxhTI95mI1QGRQxcElm4/s640/IMG-5814.JPG" width="560" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJNrvBWxrbcpRHxeFyFvSaSP-a5V9lRnMDRVE0HSRFidobWuvy9wp__2JSzl-SPa22I7QD-3QaNb7bHaWCEXtr5NK_mujRqwz-ei-FwU5p8KygDv765HfweXZt9FXjYWS4j6AsNrNCD8E/s1600/IMG-5815.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="411" data-original-width="362" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJNrvBWxrbcpRHxeFyFvSaSP-a5V9lRnMDRVE0HSRFidobWuvy9wp__2JSzl-SPa22I7QD-3QaNb7bHaWCEXtr5NK_mujRqwz-ei-FwU5p8KygDv765HfweXZt9FXjYWS4j6AsNrNCD8E/s640/IMG-5815.JPG" width="562" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi69FXcUwQUscL0ZYgGDfZx_WqEUdr5R9Ol5uqjtyDH2jgM5FTjroAy7TtC7UieNfDoFhKzXe8b_pZpZIhnjwNzpxzvW4Q_4UDYAgOzAbLZPLrPhj4Sk_BDkqBvfRWH-DgMgca-blHMqe8/s1600/IMG-5818.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi69FXcUwQUscL0ZYgGDfZx_WqEUdr5R9Ol5uqjtyDH2jgM5FTjroAy7TtC7UieNfDoFhKzXe8b_pZpZIhnjwNzpxzvW4Q_4UDYAgOzAbLZPLrPhj4Sk_BDkqBvfRWH-DgMgca-blHMqe8/s640/IMG-5818.JPG" width="456" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVSW1gFaexCu9FFKSZeocJivuM8WJdJZ22ut0G8WmU4gj9n7iIT9Fqa0RjqZQ3oSXfgz3JJKfDERyAXIT-7c7LLtNJbxDunQzry5holSaequBFGszltW9vzIavLUErkDViKbyMNy0nwpc/s1600/IMG-5804.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVSW1gFaexCu9FFKSZeocJivuM8WJdJZ22ut0G8WmU4gj9n7iIT9Fqa0RjqZQ3oSXfgz3JJKfDERyAXIT-7c7LLtNJbxDunQzry5holSaequBFGszltW9vzIavLUErkDViKbyMNy0nwpc/s640/IMG-5804.JPG" width="532" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Ro-94QeHttUjzYkGCHLpYejrt8W83tsSv3SRnL5XyiNjuTLR1XEEWoLKAgFtoBP2mHJegZEQ10gC0MHpMAmhDdAuAUd5SFn6QGrDEZ9c474yJuCuQ8wKskNblfW65VZBH7D0PmRf5zQ/s1600/IMG-5805.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="299" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Ro-94QeHttUjzYkGCHLpYejrt8W83tsSv3SRnL5XyiNjuTLR1XEEWoLKAgFtoBP2mHJegZEQ10gC0MHpMAmhDdAuAUd5SFn6QGrDEZ9c474yJuCuQ8wKskNblfW65VZBH7D0PmRf5zQ/s640/IMG-5805.JPG" width="424" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmdiQIu46-hzrfWlG-svijliJXzwzQfXPPbRE5Y-OmMBctUjb5GESmuingOgZWwCCEwwNaOG1_Oejd3zvgaESM4yDEg6a-p9eetMgppKjRCD53nzACz2bQUkpqWe56ge80p5AgagI6Ds/s1600/IMG-5806.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1009" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmdiQIu46-hzrfWlG-svijliJXzwzQfXPPbRE5Y-OmMBctUjb5GESmuingOgZWwCCEwwNaOG1_Oejd3zvgaESM4yDEg6a-p9eetMgppKjRCD53nzACz2bQUkpqWe56ge80p5AgagI6Ds/s640/IMG-5806.JPG" width="474" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpeMGSG7QUr08-eeJ8lnkSAijlfjRq7_8vUoQb8GpH-rWpERRb_y44CXBx6bsviQjn4ogOQGbrkbFviDfMMcz_5RNFKnTbCtwNDCX2pb5ESSBLIiLVdqhGRo2brL37JU190pfKgJmyIOo/s1600/IMG-5807.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpeMGSG7QUr08-eeJ8lnkSAijlfjRq7_8vUoQb8GpH-rWpERRb_y44CXBx6bsviQjn4ogOQGbrkbFviDfMMcz_5RNFKnTbCtwNDCX2pb5ESSBLIiLVdqhGRo2brL37JU190pfKgJmyIOo/s640/IMG-5807.JPG" width="564" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqdbcicGnVkkOIRsj47rTtKgdYh-XKPNJNxzgw9aHSGdwaVJXHGKpwMGt8f3deRzhnApWBhGytEi3gPFfCG47mHBjXcDPcQ785iLpZblD4eWhdYFPmJzaMTU1NU-tbqU0UV57kkphoylw/s1600/IMG-5808.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="369" data-original-width="500" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqdbcicGnVkkOIRsj47rTtKgdYh-XKPNJNxzgw9aHSGdwaVJXHGKpwMGt8f3deRzhnApWBhGytEi3gPFfCG47mHBjXcDPcQ785iLpZblD4eWhdYFPmJzaMTU1NU-tbqU0UV57kkphoylw/s640/IMG-5808.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidK9ws7X8-_d-aWdxcVEyBQs5mF0kb2vHhbMzqvjprPvsMYkPvF6t5Xat_C83IIAEqVqdArap7yTfc2CWg1WlqUseh-DU5JSGt4IjYHb4os1vy7eS-P8D_lOP5RIcytwrxJAwNGa_cDb8/s1600/IMG-5809.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidK9ws7X8-_d-aWdxcVEyBQs5mF0kb2vHhbMzqvjprPvsMYkPvF6t5Xat_C83IIAEqVqdArap7yTfc2CWg1WlqUseh-DU5JSGt4IjYHb4os1vy7eS-P8D_lOP5RIcytwrxJAwNGa_cDb8/s640/IMG-5809.JPG" width="480" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAWNR89BuAhPF7ShXIXP9xsJwntpABkfl07SabxtG6ZZEkgNpIzw7hV4HDTeQLpWPVOYRJJBD_yyIsL_yzvY072_hyeISI4wV8K_J7vXaSuT8F5yA1MmqV1btV-EbPoY1HAMrjNAgX_gQ/s1600/IMG-5810.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="726" data-original-width="720" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAWNR89BuAhPF7ShXIXP9xsJwntpABkfl07SabxtG6ZZEkgNpIzw7hV4HDTeQLpWPVOYRJJBD_yyIsL_yzvY072_hyeISI4wV8K_J7vXaSuT8F5yA1MmqV1btV-EbPoY1HAMrjNAgX_gQ/s640/IMG-5810.JPG" width="634" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSkHrPwgHBPy0s5FPpijzs6IM3nLMrqZX81bvofM__37HmSN-frS-ymHdLqbtEzcBA-elgUpVSBXR3PUN8fhSx5GUTsvgzQPLDKjIY-640NTlL_uOQqOmv5vhI_078ksYDDprSC0xx0t8/s1600/IMG-5811.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="959" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSkHrPwgHBPy0s5FPpijzs6IM3nLMrqZX81bvofM__37HmSN-frS-ymHdLqbtEzcBA-elgUpVSBXR3PUN8fhSx5GUTsvgzQPLDKjIY-640NTlL_uOQqOmv5vhI_078ksYDDprSC0xx0t8/s640/IMG-5811.JPG" width="426" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIFfauhg651GSAbACzuLtgxZzjrKEcxg-FT90eln9Rxi9XoqW6BrDFKvlrGj7BCE-XfGhHL8Z99S2eKd78SaXSilUxAkj8lxe28U0-12ux9dmLDLf8QiyW_epQ1d62MoYEHlONgUEEyEI/s1600/IMG-5785.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="497" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIFfauhg651GSAbACzuLtgxZzjrKEcxg-FT90eln9Rxi9XoqW6BrDFKvlrGj7BCE-XfGhHL8Z99S2eKd78SaXSilUxAkj8lxe28U0-12ux9dmLDLf8QiyW_epQ1d62MoYEHlONgUEEyEI/s640/IMG-5785.JPG" width="534" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeOj9nLvSiqCoSfUa8-RcPSnKkz7fzM3iJiDLjFrwUDKEeGq6t_g2-GVHDkiFyaiUsVR6jKxxg4HnHr8PG-FK6-gIrXCIl-DVHkFySV3jATPx4NkHFnnSDn6JKWwaJh1vmFtnCILIBaig/s1600/IMG-5825.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="481" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeOj9nLvSiqCoSfUa8-RcPSnKkz7fzM3iJiDLjFrwUDKEeGq6t_g2-GVHDkiFyaiUsVR6jKxxg4HnHr8PG-FK6-gIrXCIl-DVHkFySV3jATPx4NkHFnnSDn6JKWwaJh1vmFtnCILIBaig/s640/IMG-5825.JPG" width="440" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And I love this one best cuz he just looks like some boy. His face is open and his hair is happening in a way where you feel like he's about it to push it from his eyes, clear his throat, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">tell</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> you a little story that will make you love him more. He looks like one of the boys I make up stories about because of romantic notions that Mick Jagger's put in my head - like this story about a guy lighting a cigarette off a Christmas tree on fire in the middle of a field covered in the cruddiest snow, on some depressing Saturday in January when nothing good is happening at all. I really don't know where I'd be without all my Mick Jagger-y notions like that <3</span></div>
Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-13439559020899126662018-07-11T10:38:00.001-07:002018-07-12T10:49:01.641-07:00All the Songs We Loved in June<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Beach Boys, "Don't Worry Baby" (LJ)</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Y-0nWVdBH4" width="459"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was walking to work the weird way, on a Wednesday, past the houses with the purple flowers and the park with the little rock climbing wall. The wall is pale and made of stone and I always think, “One day I should come here and lay the back of my head against it.” I would pile up my hair on top of my head. I think the stone would feel cool against the back of my neck.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I was listening to <i>Endless Summer</i> and Don’t Worry Baby came on. I thought about how on the <a href="https://twitter.com/poetastrologers" target="_blank">Astro Poets Twitter</a> that morning they’d written a list of “Zodiac signs as <i>Clueless</i> characters,” and the whole thing was so bang on except for my Zodiac sign, Cancer, was Mr. Hall— lame— and I took it weirdly personally. I thought that if I were going to write a list of “Zodiac signs as Beach Boys songs” I would write Don’t Worry Baby as Cancer and felt vindicated by my decision. Sometimes Cancers get a good thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Don’t Worry Baby is my favourite Beach Boys song and also the most beautiful. That sentence feels redundant to write down because I can’t imagine any person disagreeing with me, at least not with the second part of the sentence: “Don’t Worry Baby is <i>not</i> a beautiful song!”— that’s wrong. It is a beautiful song.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Tonight I want to write about this song like nobody’s ever heard of it before, like it’s a cool new thing I’m telling you about, this new and beautiful thing that I’m the first person ever to have heard of.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Every time I listen to Don’t Worry Baby that’s how it makes me feel: like I’m the first person ever to realize how beautiful it is, and like all the past versions of me who heard it and figured out it was beautiful have been erased too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It starts off with a bang with the sentence: “Well it’s been building up inside of me for oh I don’t know how long.” “That’s how I feel too!” I think, every time, “That is the first time anyone has ever accurately expressed the way I feel.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> (When I was a teenager and listened to Don’t Worry Baby on a cassette tape in my bedroom I would write a story in my head about bring grown up and something bad would happen to me and I’d come home to the apartment I imagined I’d live in with the man who lived there and he was in love with me and he’d play me Don’t Worry Baby to perk me up and it would fix things. What I didn’t realize when I was a teenager was that I would grow up to be a rude woman who that sort of gesture wouldn’t work on. In real life if some man tried to solve my problem with Don’t Worry Baby I would fume and say, “How could you think you could fix it all with a <i>song</i>?”)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Next it switches to a line where he starts to brag about his car— I like that part because it locks the song in time. The band were starting to evolve and write songs about life instead of surfing or drag-racing but they still felt as though they owed it to their fans to throw a drag-racing into a song that doesn’t want to be about drag-racing. And I like that he feels guilty for bragging about his car. I like that he’s afraid he’s fucked things up. I relate to him again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> For my entire life up until one week ago I thought the drag-racing plotline of the song ended with that lyric, and I only figured out about another drag-racing lyric in this song <i>right now</i>, actual right now, sitting on my bedroom floor at 1 AM next to a trashbag in an apartment I’m about to be moving out of. I am drinking a glass of Muscadet and the floor smells gross because it’s a carpet and the toilet overflowed two nights ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “She makes me come alive, and makes me want to cry,” I thought he was singing, like he felt so strongly toward her that it reduced him to tears, but—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> NO! He says: She makes him want to <i>drive</i>!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> He’s so into driving, this guy. The entire song is about driving. I had to go upstairs and pour myself another splash of wine, soon as I figured that out. I read the lyrics in the part of the Apple Music app where you swipe down and it shows you the lyrics. I can’t believe how much about driving this song is. It’s probably the most beautiful song about driving on Earth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Last week, on the day with the purple flowers, I didn’t know about all the driving stuff yet. I just thought it was a regular song about loving somebody.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I turned the corner next to a red-brick house and it got to the part I like best. The man singing sings, “And if you knew how much I love you baby, nothing could go wrong with you”: but he’s not saying it, he’s repeating what the girl said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I have always loved that lyric. I think it’s a particularly lovely way to say something that a million people have already said. “What a non-boring way to say that you love someone,” it makes me think. Like your love is a spell cast for protection.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> On this particular day, I had a very strange reaction to hearing that lyric, a reaction I was surprised by; I surprised myself. I heard it and thought, “That’s exactly how I feel about every single person I know!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I flashed through a series of photo-flashcards printed with pictures of every person I know’s face and went through them and nodded, “Yup. Yup. Yup.” It wasn’t just people at the forefront of my life that I know I love and care about. It was also, like, weird peripheral co-workers, people who’d eaten at my restaurant recently, the guy who works at the store. The guy from TouchBistro tech support I had to call the other day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I felt overwhelmed and all-consumed by an immense and intense amount of love. It upset me to think that they all don’t know I love them. It was like the time George Harrison said, “With our love, we could save the world. If they only knew…”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> If they only knew!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It’s not the same night anymore; it’s a different night. Now the part of the story that used to be the present— when I got up to pour myself another splash of wine because I found out she made him want to drive— has become the past, and the present is me sitting at a cute bar drinking a purple-colour beer called Mood Ring. My hands stink of laundry detergent because I spilled laundry detergent on my hands.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The part when I’m walking in the sun by the purple flowers is so long ago that I can’t remember it anymore, but that’s the day I’m supposed to be writing about, because that was the day I realized that I’d been procrastinating figuring out what he’s saying in the lyric that precedes “And if you knew how much I loved you…” for, you know, about fifteen years. Maybe closer to twenty.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Here is what I imagined he might be saying: “She told me baby when you wushalaylalayla all my love with you.” I knew he wasn’t saying that. I knew wushalaylalayla wasn’t a thing. But I always forgot to look up what wushalaylalayla was instead of being wushalaylalayla, because then the part about “If you knew how much I loved you baby…” would come on, and I’d get so cuted out and distracted by it. Like seeing a little puppy on the street in the middle of writing a work email, getting up to stratch its ears, and then never finishing the work email. Ever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “She told me ‘Baby, when you race today, just take along my love with you,’” is how the song goes. It’s another driving thing! It’s the prettiest driving thing. I was so happy to find out that the sentence ends “along my love with you” and not “all my love with you.” “All my love” is so basic compared to “along my love.” Take along my love with you. Those are such strange syllables to gulp up. Take along my love… with you. I don’t want to fantasize about someone playing me Don’t Worry Baby to cheer me up; I want to fantasize about living in a world where Don’t Worry Baby didn’t exist, and I’m about to run a race, and somebody says that sentence to me. I wish I’m the man from Don’t Worry Baby, and then I write Don’t Worry Baby about my girlfriend who says weird sentences. “Take along my love with you.” Just take it along.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The morning after the Muscadet, the plumber came. It was Summer Solstice, and I sat in my backyard listening to Don’t Worry Baby on my phone, and as I went to go inside, I heard someone else start listening to Don’t Worry Baby in an adjacent backyard, evidently inspired by me— what a happening! I imagined, for a moment, that the backyard-stranger was hearing Don’t Worry Baby for the first time in her life when I played it just then, and that she’d then ‘Shazam-ed’ it, and she was only the third person of all time ever to find out about it. First was me, and second was the Shazam guy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Ethiopians, “Engine 54” (LJ)</b></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8qnXPwLne7c" width="480"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Ethiopians are my favourite band. That’s a lie. My favourite band is The Beatles. The Ethiopians are my second-favourite band, but that’s not what the algorithm thinks. The algorithm is like, “There’s no way that’s true.” The algorithm <i>knows</i> The Ethiopians are my favourite band, because The Ethiopians are pretty much the only band I listen to, not counting those couple of days last week when I listened to Don’t Worry Baby seventy-five times a day for two days. But I definitely didn’t stop listening to The Ethiopians during Don’t Worry Baby era. I just listened to more music, at more times, to make up for the Ethiopians deficit it triggered.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The Ethiopians are from Jamaica in the nineteen-sixties. I think they self-identified as being a ska act, but I count them more as being rocksteady in my head. Sometimes I find it difficult to designate ska from rocksteady but other day I read this tweet saying that “Ska is the sound of a thirteen year old boy realizing he is about to get more mozzarella sticks,” which is disrespectful to ska, but apt nevertheless. There’s a song by the Ethiopians called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uSm9CRnyQo" target="_blank">“Train to Skaville,”</a> but it doesn’t sound like the mozzarella sticks sound. It’s so beautiful. All the great Ethiopians songs are about trains, taking a train to somewhere. Taking a train around Jamaica.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> When I listen to Ethiopians songs about trains, I don’t think about trains. I imagine that I am in a hut on a beach, and the Ethiopians are in the next room over, recording their song. I imagine myself with my ear up against the wall and in my head I can smell the wet wood of the wall. All their recordings sound a little bit faraway.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Train to Skaville” is useful to me because it is the song I listen to when I am in a phase of depriving myself of “Engine 54,” which is something I have to do from time to time. I am an anxious and high-strung person, and listening “Engine 54” is the most effective and immediate antidote to anxiety I have found. It is so much cheaper than therapy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> When I feel anxious, I think of myself as an X-ray fish. I can feel and see my skeleton lit up with energy inside of me. I feel like the flickering filament of a lightbulb, hot with its own crazy juice. It is necessary for that filament to be on fire, but it’s bad to be the filament. You have to cool yourself down and turn into the light that radiates off of it. Cool light.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Engine 54” does that; it makes me into cool white light. I wish I could write down a list of every time listening to “Engine 54” has saved my life in the past year, but it would be so long and dull, and I can’t even remember. I’m always freaking out about <i>something</i>— now, when it happens, I don’t even mind. I know what to do:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Put my phone on airplane mode, stop moving, sit on a curb and listen to “Engine 54” and either smoke a cigarette or breathe. Usually cigarette. Or, sometimes I don’t even make it that far. Sometimes I’m using the restroom at an establishment I’ve popped into on my way to walking to work, and I can’t even make it long enough to get outside the restroom to begin the “Engine 54” part of my day. I need it <i>now</i>!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The beginning of the song sounds like exhaling. It is a train breathing. The first lyrics to the song go “Beep Beep,” and then someone says “<i>Shhhh</i>” in the background. The person saying “<i>Shhhh</i>” is the unsung hero of that song. I spend my entire life running after the guy saying “<i>Shhhh</i>.” I am picturing myself running down the coast of a beach. I am picturing myself grabbing him by the shoulders and telling him that if he knew how much I loved him baby nothing could go wrong with him.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The rest of the lyrics to the song are equally uncomplicated. It is a list of all the stops the train makes on its journey round Jamaica. They don’t even bother starting the proper lyrics to the song until the song is halfway through.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The train leaves from Kingston, and then goes to a place called Spanish Town, by the wall— and then it goes to Montego Bay. My favourite part of the song used to be when they sing about Montego Bay, but now I prefer Spanish Town.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> After Montego Bay, the train goes to Portland, then back to Kingston. Then the song is over. A simple and easy story.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Sometimes, when I know I have something stressful to do on the horizon, I will— like I said— purposely and purposefully withhold myself from listening to this song, accumulating its potential power for a period of time so that I can unleash it upon an extra-stressful situation in three weeks from now, or whatever. In such situations, I use “Train to Skaville” as a placeholder. It’s not as good.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Spoon, “June's Foreign Spell” (Liz)</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/owpUOzsZHTw" style="font-family: -webkit-standard;" width="459"></iframe></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I think Britt Daniel wrote “June's Foreign Spell” about the record industry or something, but to me it sounds like when you work all week and then get to Saturday and it's a total ripoff: one of those worst-case-scenario summer days that's gray sky and hotter than hell, and the air's so heavy it makes your hair feel like a large cat curled up on your head and took a nap. And the weather's being so passive-aggressive, so deeply pass-agg, it never even bothers to storm. You don't even get the fun or drama of a 4 o'clock thunderstorm with some razzle-dazzle lightning </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the kind of over-the-top thunder that makes you feel like a five-year-old, like a dumb little baby who doesn't understand yet that scary noises can't hurt you. The whole day just drags and mostly you hate everything, but there's also a little satisfaction in being denied your perfect summer day - some residual moody-teen thing of taking pleasure in new proof that the whole world's against you. That's exactly what “June's Foreign Spell” sounds like to me: something like sulking but slightly more thrilling and <i>active</i>, although not fiery enough to be a full-on tantrum. It's radical moping, basking in the unfairness of losing out on some glory or magnificence you'd imagined for yourself, but was never truly promised to you in the first place.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anyway, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/lizbarker77/playlist/4kVOGyFhHlVgDLn27NfrQH?si=OI8XbnkGQN6F08aDdqQVCQ" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">here's a playlist</span></a> of other summer moping songs, because it's important not to waste even the stupidest of energies. These are a few of the songs on that playlist:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">“Perfume-V” by Pavement</b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. I want this song to be about a guy who's caught in some bad-news affair-type thing with a girl who's got a boyfriend, about their late-afternoon rendezvous-ing in her gross apartment, the kind of apartment you have when you're about 22, where you make a coffee table out of milk crates and </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">duct-tape tapestries to the windows instead of hanging curtains</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. But </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was reading things on the internet and apparently the general </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">consensus is that Stephen Malkmus wrote </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Perfume-V” about murdering a sex worker- which, okay, maybe he did. But I don't care what </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stephen Malkmus wrote it</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> about! I care about </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stephen Malkmus's inner life exactly zero percent. Stephen Malkmus is there to write his hot/drab guitar parts and to slant-rhyme <i>Like a docent's lisp</i> with <i>Like a damsel's spit</i>, and the rest of the picture you just color in yourself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>“Calm E” by Culture Abuse</b>. Last week I listened to an interview with a writer for the New Yorker who talked about how, if you're trying to make it as a writer, it's helpful to get a rich husband and have your dad pay your phone bill. And that's probably true but to me it seems like a bad point to make, and also kind of tacky. I love Culture Abuse's new album <i>Bay Dream</i> cuz it sounds like the opposite of getting your dad to pay your phone bill so you can write for the New Yorker; it sounds like the album equivalent of a zine you'd make when you're 19 or 20 or 33, fantastically ramshackle but elegant where it counts. R</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">amshackle/elegant</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is the most unstoppable dynamic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>“Drag Queen” by The Strokes & </b></span><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">“Out of the Blue” by Julian Casablancas</b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. I liked it so much when everyone was mad at Julian Casablancas for saying he doesn't get why Ariel Pink isn't wildly popular, in that Vulture interview from a few months back. I scrolled past all the bores getting worked up about some whatever-y bullshit, and then I Insta-storied a pic of Julian with the words I LIKE YOU, JULES typed in all caps. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In truth, I <i>love</i> Jules, with his acne and his weight fluctuations and his bonkers fashion sense, like a clip I just saw of him playing a recent show wearing a Canadian flag T-shirt and goddamn </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">suspenders</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. What a jerk! He's perfect. The bassline to </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Drag Queen” makes my molars hurt, but exquisitely so.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>“My Curse” by The Afghan Whigs</b>. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“My Curse” is one of those songs you need to listen to very sparingly, so you can preserve its ability to completely destroy you. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Like how when <i>Extraordinary Machine</i> came out I burned myself a copy that excluded </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Parting Gift” because I couldn't deal with it, especially the part that says <i>It is my fault, you see, you never learned that much from me</i>. And then years later </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Parting Gift” came on in a cafe and it was such a beautiful surprise, such a transcendent moment of having my heart shattered on the floor of some bougie coffee place in Los Feliz. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A little while ago I read a thing in Spin where Greg Dulli talks about how he had Marcy Mays do the vocals on </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“My Curse”</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> because the song needed to be sung by a woman, which is so wise. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You totally need a woman to sing the word <i>hyssop</i>, and to drag out the word </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">me</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> on </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">You look like me/And I look like no one else - </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">lthough one time when I was 18 and riding home from a party off-campus, the drunk and hot boy in the passenger's seat sang the hell out of that line, and that was pretty gorgeous too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>“Coming Down Again” by The Rolling Stones</b>. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Coming Down Again</span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">”</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is on </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Goats Head Soup</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, which is the quintessential summer-moping album. It's so listless and languid and </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">lethargic, but with a cool/disgusting veneer of sleaze superimposed onto everything. You can't listen to </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Goats Head Soup </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and not instantly transform into an irredeemable dirtbag; the first notes of </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Dancing with Mr. D</span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">”</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> just automatically sap you of all respectability. But then it's so sweet, like when Mick gets all Van Morrison-y on </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Winter,</span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">” which <a href="http://www.storychord.com/2012/08/issue-53-elizabeth-barker-casper.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">I wrote a short story about six summers ago</span></a>. And </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“100 Years Ago,</span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">”</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> which always reminds me of the kind of story I want to write forever: exorbitantly romantic, nostalgia-addled, heavily focused on cheap wine and constellations. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But yeah: </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Coming Down Again</span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">”</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> falls on a nice warm place on the sweet/sleazy continuum, with a dollop of self-pity to really drive it all home. It </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">feels like drinking whiskey on the floor of an AC-less bedroom on the hottest day of the year, and then switching to some sort of shitty beer after a while, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">because drinking whiskey all day will make you mean (and p</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">eople attuned to the </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Goats Head Soup</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> way of things absolutely understand how to achieve the ideal </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">drunkness</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> texture). It could be argued that the Rolling Stones are indifferent to your temperament or emotional character - but I'd prefer to think they want you to be sweet, even when everything feels gross and terrible. </span>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-84892404300481044312018-06-11T11:33:00.003-07:002018-06-12T07:12:06.377-07:00I Still Love The Beatles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2lgXpENXAxeDNQ1MJLE3jtBxi7V4yZYSiWKdE5tWvlI0BohBtaRY6PfCds-g7zu7P_yRKtucCi8lRD-AlfMGsgLxGRrPt9tesLh_attFYgS8e73kpTfLr-s71Prvy16JrfcDCyb2AaKU/s1600/SFWbday2+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1161" data-original-width="859" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2lgXpENXAxeDNQ1MJLE3jtBxi7V4yZYSiWKdE5tWvlI0BohBtaRY6PfCds-g7zu7P_yRKtucCi8lRD-AlfMGsgLxGRrPt9tesLh_attFYgS8e73kpTfLr-s71Prvy16JrfcDCyb2AaKU/s640/SFWbday2+%25281%2529.jpg" width="472" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">WORDS BY LAURA JANE FAULDS & ELIZABETH BARKER,</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">ART BY JEN MAY</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>(Last week Strawberry Fields Whatever turned six-years-old. LJ and Liz started SFW as a spinoff of </i>Let It Be Beautiful<i>, a book where we took Beatles songs and rewrote them as stories or essays. Here's a post about how we still love The Beatles.)</i></span><br />
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">LJ:</b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I listened to “Hey Diddle” by Paul McCartney while walking to work last week. The sun was out, and the day was yellow.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The yellow light reminded me of the yellow on the cover of <i>RAM</i>. And it reminded me of myself, and of a sentence I’d written a long time ago: <i>I like the sun, and I’m like the sun</i>. I reminded myself of <i>RAM</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I was listening to “Hey Diddle” for a reason. I knew there was a lyric in it I’d loved a long time ago, which I’d loved most of all one night, sitting on a kitchen floor in England, drinking a bottle of sparkling rosé I’d bought at a Tesco on my way home from work. I was in the midst of coming to terms with the fact that I was NOT going to be marrying a crazy Scottish guy I'd met one month prior</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> —</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> he asked me to marry him on the second day he knew me, and I said yes— I knew it was an objectively bad decision, but, regardless, I took him seriously. Call me crazy, but if someone asks me to marry them, I assume that they want to marry me. And I like myself, so if someone says they want to marry me, it makes me think that they’re cool, or smart, and have great taste in wives. And so, I want to marry them too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It didn’t work out, which made me sad, so I drank the rosé while sitting on my kitchen floor and listening to Paul McCartney. What more can a sad person do?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Prior to that night, I’d always held a firm belief that every person who is, you know, an “artist”— or, an artist who makes stuff out of words, at least</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> —</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is obliged to come up with one punchy-yet-hard-hitting sentence explicitly defining their personal stance on What Love Is. I hadn’t come up with mine yet, and on that night, after hearing Paul’s sentence-about-love in “Hey Diddle,” I renounced my responsibility in favour of adopting his as my own forever. I heard it and thought, “I could never do any better than that.” I thought, “I could never agree with myself more.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I remembered that the sentence existed, but I didn’t remember how it goes. I was walking down Dupont Street, the street I work on. I love that street. It’s shabby and s-shaped, serpentine, and the houses look like junk, like the approximation of a city street a child might construct out of cardboard boxes, shoeboxes, then step on. I felt nervous, almost, to hear Paul sing the sentence: I was afraid I wouldn’t like it anymore, though it turned out I had nothing to fear.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Do you want to find out how it goes?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don’t think so much about love these days, this May. These days, I mostly think about work, and when I’m at work I think so hard about work that I forget my whole world and life outside of it, and when I’m not at work I find it difficult to adjust to not thinking about work, and I have to work very hard to do it. It takes me longer than a day to get there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I haven’t been doing much running lately; my body’s too tired from all the working, and I started smoking cigarettes again, and I don’t want to deal with the reality of what that’s done to my lung capacity. The easiest way for me to stop thinking about work is by putting my phone on airplane mode and listening to songs by Paul McCartney. When I listen to songs by Paul McCartney, the only thing I know how to think about is Paul McCartney. I think about the words he wrote, and also I think about Paul McCartney: actual Paul, the guy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Same night as the yellow day, I listened to “Hey Jude” on headphones as I closed up the restaurant. I was alone. There are few things I love more than being alone in an empty restaurant, I love it with the quiet and the lights up, and I feel like I live there. A restaurant is like a home, but better. There’s a better kitchen, better food, cleaner bathrooms, more booze.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> With my phone in my back pocket and my headphones in my ears, I went downstairs to shut the locks. There’s so many locks down there, it drives me crazy. I hate locking doors. I can never remember if I locked them or not, and I always get so worried that I didn’t. I’m always locking doors to places and then walking back to the place ten minutes later to double-check if I did it or not. It’s so dumb. I always locked them. (But, you know, I get why I'm so scared about it: I can be the best General Manager in the world, I can do everything perfect and right all day every day, but if I don't lock the door at night: I didn't do <i>anything</i>.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Hey Jude” sounded the same as it always sounded, which is exactly how I’d wanted it to sound, and it made me feel the same as how it's always made me feel: majestic, and supported. “I’ve lived a million lives,” I thought, “And I can’t believe I’m still so young!” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I thought about myself at that moment, all the things my life is Right Now, the people I care about and the things I like to think about, all the ways that I just </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">am</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. And I thought about all the other Lauras I’ve been: all the different ages, faces, jobs, friends, men, cities, sizes, jeans, houses, tins of lip balm, phones, and spoons, and how I felt about it, <i>it, </i>the biggest thing that all those tiny other things add up to be— my fucking Life, and whatever it happened to be at that moment, on that day— February 17th, 2003, or November 23rd, 2011, or 04/14/14— the way I used to think about things, or how I wore my hair, how I felt about the past and what I dreamed of, or what I ate for breakfast. I used to eat so much pineapple, and Snickers bars.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I’ve lived a thousand different lives, and there’s a thousand more to come. I can’t believe I’m still alive, or how long life lasts. It’s so wild to think that, as all those other thousands of Lauras I once was were born and lived and then turned into vapour or folded back into themselves, or exploded, and as all the future ones do, and as this one does too, one thing has always stayed the same—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Hey Jude” never didn’t sound good. “Hey Jude” never didn’t work.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Love doesn’t care.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> That’s the thing Paul said, his sentence about love that I love so much. I love how it’s as hyper-romantic as it is coolly indifferent, and I am inspired by its easy acknowledgement of the fundamental and unfuckwithable powerlessness of human existence, the ambling and jarring story of a life, any life: this one just happens to be mine. I myself am a hopeless control freak— a writer of to-do lists and an accomplisher of goals, an earner of money and manager of people, places, things— who is paradoxically incapable of staying in one place, committing to any one thing, or of making a relationship work. Thing is, I suck at love for the exact same reasons I kill it so hard at work: work is a game, and so can be played, and I know how to play it (calmly, kindly, and decisively— that’s the answer. Just so you know). Work-life is manageable, controllable and precise in the exact same way love-life isn’t, and I blow every relationship I’m ever in because I can’t accept that. I come up with a plan for exactly how I think a given relationship should play out before it’s even started, then grow angry or frustrated or lose interest whenever it ventures off course.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It is freeing and healthy for a me-style person to think long and hard and often about Love Not Caring: half because it encourages me to let go of my type-A tendencies and more-than-half because it doesn’t: inasmuch as I know that what I’m “supposed” to get out of all this love-not-caring-thinking is learning to Let It Be (or whatever), the cooler and more convenient-for-me part of Love Not Caring is that I don’t have to change <i>anything</i>. Nobody does! If love doesn’t care, than… well, fuck it, right? Let’s all keep doing whatever we want, in any and every love-situation we’re ever in, and either we’ll fuck it up or we won’t, or someone else will, or won’t— it honestly doesn’t matter. Love doesn’t care!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve lived a thousand different lives, and there’s a thousand more to come. It’s so wild to think that, as all those other Lauras were born and died or turned into vapour or folded back up into themselves, or exploded, and as all the future ones do, and as this one does too, one thing has always stayed the same—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I still love the Beatles.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Love doesn’t care if I have time to think about the Beatles, or if I need them, that day. I can turn it on or turn it off, and I don’t even have to choose to turn it on, or think about it, ever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I love The Beatles on rote. On cruise control.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I listened to the Beatles when I walked to manager’s meeting last Thursday. It was a very grey day out, and the air was heavy like grapes about to burst flat open. I listened to an English woman on an app tell me a monologue about confidence-building, and then switched over to the Beatles. I ate a protein bar, a stick of stuff flavoured to taste like other stuff, and shoved a sack of yellow apples into my red canvas backpack. I smoked a bunch of cigarettes, and chewed a bunch of gum. I relished in the happy familiarity of being this singular Laura in a very long line of equally-singular but now-very-different Lauras, loping around the streets of Toronto in the very-early days of summertime, listening to the Beatles the same way I always listen to the Beatles after not having listened to the Beatles for a very long time. Their entire discography, on shuffle—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Disgusting, I know.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “There are certain things about you that are more you than you yourself,” I thought, and liked, but I didn’t write it down, because, like John and Paul used to say: “If it’s <i>that</i> good, you’ll remember it tomorrow.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The way I can wear a brand-new pair of shoes for half a week and scratch and scuff them up so bad they look like I’ve worn them every day for the past twenty years. And I sometimes thought-hallucinate my mother’s laugh in the middle of a crowded room, turn around and look for her, and feel so glum when I realize it didn’t happen. I can’t pronounce “rth”s comfortably, I can’t do accents, and I start crying any time I think too hard about some asshole killing John Lennon. The other day, somebody called me “Kid,” and I reacted by thinking, “I will trust and adore you implicitly forever,” because my Dad calls me Kid, and it makes me feel really cool and safe when he does it, but if anybody ever called me by the pet name my grandmother used to call me, words too sacred and scary to even write down, all the blood would drain from my body, and I’d punch their nose-bones into confetti. And have you ever heard a person accurately describe the way you fuck? It’s bone-chilling. I bought a new white purse six hours ago and there’s already a stain on it. And I still love the Beatles.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I listened to “Savoy Truffle” and realized, “Oh. This is why I write about wine the way I do.” I understood how, and why, I figured out how to write about wine at all. <i>Cool cherry cream, nice apple tart</i>, sang George, and I thought of it as a tasting note. But no wine could ever taste like both those things at once— a lot of wines taste like “nice apple tart”— Cremant d’Alsace springs </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">immediately </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to mind—a</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nd I challenged myself to brainiac up a wine that could be accurately described as tasting of “cool cherry cream”: a medium-bodied Garnacha, perhaps, Spanish and aged in new oak, or else a New World Pinot Noir: cool-climate, fruit-forward, and it, too, would have to have spent time in American oak— really, that’s the ticket: it’s the only way to get the cream in there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <i>A ginger sling with a pineapple heart</i>, sang George, and I thought “I wish I could taste that wine!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I will! One day. It’s going to be a Malvasia.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Are you ever going to write about wine and the Beatles?” people often ask me, meaning wine-and-they-Beatles together, as one thing, because those are the two things everybody who knows me knows I like. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “NO,” I tell them, and then I say something forcefully dramatic like “I’d rather <i>die</i>,” playing it like I don’t want to write about wine-and-the-Beatles because I’m too serious of a wine-writer to write about something so obvious, like it would be regressive, or something, for me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But that’s not true. The reason I don’t want to write about wine & the Beatles is because it would be <i>too </i>earnest; because, I think: The Beatles <i>are</i> wine. <i>That’s</i> how good I think the Beatles are! I don’t think they’re, like, Puligny-Montrachet or St. Emilion or Sauternes or whatever, and I don’t think that “music is wine,” either; I think that music is more like, the concept of eating in drinking in general.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I think the Beatles are wine, and that every Beatles song is a different kind of wine— “Because,” for instance, is a Save</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nni<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2px;">è</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">res, and “I Me Mine” is a lesser </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Save</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nni<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2px;">è</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">res</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, and “Here Comes The Sun” is Madeira, and “Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!” is a juice-boxy Zinfandel, “I Feel Fine” is a Moscato d’Asti, and “Strawberry Fields Forever”— “Strawberry Fields Forever” is a Puligny-Montrachet. No! It’s a <i>Chassagne</i>-Montrachet. (Slightly weirder.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I’m just going to do this, right now, semi-drunk on on-tap Negronis at the wonderful/terrible bar on Bloor Street, the one with the red velvet banquettes. I’m going to bang out “If The Beatles Were Wine” really fast and get it over with, tonight, and from here on out, if anybody ever asks me if I’m going to write about The Beatles-and-wine, I can say, “I already did it.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Okay.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> If John Lennon and Paul McCartney as a collaborative duo were wine grapes, they would NOT be Cabernet Sauvignon & Merlot; Cabernet Sauvignon is <i>much</i> too stately and conventional to be John Lennon. They’re <i>kinda</i> Syrah & Grenache, but mostly they’re Sauvignon Blanc & Sémillon, the white Bordeaux Blend— Sauvignon Blanc is the only grape acidic and acerbic enough to be John. Also, it’s fucking <i>weird</i>. It tastes like lychees and green pepper, but basics weirdly love it, just like John Lennon himself: “Imagine” is the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc of modern pop classics.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> So, yeah. Crazy John Lennon is crazy Sauvignon Blanc, a nervy, acid reflux-inducing and aromatic wine grape as logically unappealing but somehow universally accessible as an aggro freak from the North of England. Paul McCartney is only waxy, glycolic Sémillon when he's part of the Lennon/McCartney duo; Paul </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">solo is either a boozy and strawberryey single-varietal Southern French Grenache or a dusty, Christmas cake-y Merlot-dominant Right Bank Bordeaux— all or any of which Your Mother Should Adore. George is a Burgundian Pinot Noir, thin and infinite, and Ringo is a sparkling rosé— no particular grape, no particular region. Just sparkling rosé, as a concept, in general.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Helter Skelter” is the thickest, richest, meanest, cheek-scraping-est Tannat. “Revolution 9” is a Vin Jaune— they’re equally ungettable. <i>Abbey Road </i>is a study in the aging potential of Loire Valley Chenin Blancs, and <i>Revolver</i> is Beaujolais Nouveau Day. The White Album is the greatest wine list ever written, and the early Beatles are alternately Lambrusco, Clairette, or a sweaty green bottle of Heineken. Solo John is Austrian Blaufrankisch, solo Ringo is… sparkling rosé. <i>All Things Must Pass</i> is Alsatian Pinot Gris, but Living In The Material World is a Spatlese Riesling. George’s “Miss O’Dell,” my favourite song that’s ever been written, is the best wine I ever drank. (I haven’t drank it yet.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Wings aren’t wine, they’re Cherry Coke. Solo Paul records are generally made of Chardonnay: sometimes mind-blowing, sometimes very bland. “Hey Diddle,” the Love Doesn’t Care song, is the wine my father’s neighbour used to make out of apricots while he was growing up in Lethbridge, Alberta. Yoko Ono and Stuart Sutcliffe are both Spatburgunders, and Linda McCartney is a white Sancerre. “Sexy Sadie” is a Sancerre Rouge, the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” reprise is the drug cocaine, George Martin is Chablis, and “Baby You’re A Rich Man” is Champagne.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I honestly can’t believe how good it is, how good life is, how insanely fucking lucky I am to be alive in a world I get to listen to “Hey Jude” in. Even if there was none of the other stuff, “Hey Jude” alone would make it all worthwhile.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The Beatles are wine, but “Hey Jude” is better. “Hey Jude” is water.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>LIZ: </b>My favorite Beatles song lately is <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/4DnyEu7xKDA4Xn54LmQi17?si=gEZHsmt_RgawwWqp2szVig" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">the Anthology version of "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window."</span></a> It's a song about the girls who used to hang around outside Paul McCartney's house, and one girl in particular who took a ladder from the garden, climbed up into the bathroom window, and stole a picture that meant a lot to Paul- a photo of his dad. The Anthology version is more slow and sleepy and stoned than the Abbey Road version, but the essential difference is in the line that goes <i>Now she sucks her thumb and wanders by the banks of her own lagoon</i>. When the girl in the Abbey Road version sucks her thumb she's being a brat, she's pouting about not getting her way. But the thumbsucking in the Anthology version is just some bad habit she never bothered to get rid of. It has nothing to do with sulking, because the "She" in the Anthology version isn't a girl, she's a grown-up, a woman. She's got a self-possession that the Abbey Road girl isn't even close to finding yet, and "by the banks of her own lagoon" is one of her very favorite places to be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Earlier this year I got the <a href="https://www.spoliatarot.com/shop/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">Spolia tarot deck</span></a> (made by Jessa Crispin, and Jen May!!!!), and it's been the life-changing-est thing for me so far in 2018. Writing this post, I listened to the Anthology version of "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" about five thousand times and tried to figure out its corresponding tarot card, and I think it's partly the Queen of Coins* but mostly it's the 9 of cups. Nine of cups is the "alone in your splendor" card, according to Jessa Crispin's book <i>The Creative Tarot</i>, and wandering by the banks of your own lagoon seems like a very alone-in-your-splendor thing to me. It's about existing in a space that belongs to you and indulges you, lets you live according to your own rhythm, rather than the fucked-up and terrible rhythm of the wider world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In my head I have this dream bathroom that I invented a little while after pulling the 9 of cups the first time I opened the Spolia deck. My dream-bathroom tub is cast-iron and lion foot, and somehow there's a bookshelf built up all around it: a wooden bookshelf, and the wood is waterlogged and so are all the books, and the books are mixed up with all these gooey/tropically-scented body scrubs and bubble baths and other ridiculous potions, and there's candles and seashells and candles burning in seashells. And a radio, obvs, and the radio plays lots of lagoon-y music, like late-'70s/early-'80s Joni Mitchell and Rickie Lee Jones, and the beautiful album <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/1w89o5IIzIQoA9BBz65WIb?si=vobB7hMDR-CTOpz4yI6m2A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;"><i>Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow</i> by Bill Fay</span> </a>which I bought a couple years ago cuz this weirdo-genius teenage piano-player told me she loved it. And maybe a potted plant, like a spider plant, because spider plants are extremely early-'80s-Joni Mitchell-chic. And nag champa just burning all the time, everywhere forever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So that's all very messy and cluttered- but I think messy and cluttered can be good for your soul and your heart, if there's a purpose to it. There's too much pristineness in the world nowadays, like how coffee places are all sleek and blonde wood and stainless steel and white walls, when really coffee places are supposed to be full of ratty furniture and bad watercolor paintings and strange muffins in overly ambitious flavors like Pineapple Coconut White Chocolate Chip, and overstuffed bookcases where there's always a copy of <i>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance</i> or whatever the hell. I don't want to ever spend time or money in places that feel like they were made by and for robots on laptops. The Blue Bottle-ization of America grosses me out and worries me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(P.S. also in my bathtub-bookshelf dream house there's a garden that's a total ripoff of this little house down the street from where I live now- the yard's like a cave of flowers, roses and daisies and a million other flower species I can't identify, and sometimes on my morning run I see the owner lady outside watering the flowers in her burgundy velvet housecoat and slippers. I want a flower cave like that, and I want a couch and a coffee table and an easy chair in the backyard, like the yard's a second living room. And in the kitchen there's lots of jars filled with teas made from flower petals, and a raku bowl full of bananas and mangoes, and a blender so I can be like the part in <i>Klute</i> where Jane Fonda makes herself a health shake for breakfast and then drinks the shake right from the blender pitcher while putting on her makeup. It's the kind of kitchen that's made for dinner parties where you drink white wine from a carafe and serve recklessly assembled stir-fries, and maybe use pineapple shells as dishware. And along with the mangoes in the raku bowl there'd be mangoes in the freezer, so you can eat frozen mango whenever you want. I don't know- I just feel like constantly eating mangoes has a really nice effect on your disposition and overall presence in the world.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I think what I'm going for with all this is something like hygge, only kind of trashy and grunge and wacky and groovy. It feels like every day that goes by there's more of a need to have your own little space that lets you hide away from the world for a while, like a grown-up version of a treehouse or a secret fort. You've got to make your own lagoon happen, and find that little space and fill it up with things you love. It's good to love a lot of things and love them too much, to love more and more all the time, and gush about everything so maybe other people will fall in love too. That is the most Strawberry Fields Whatever-y thing to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">*One of my favorite things I've read and reread his year is <a href="https://tinyletter.com/thebookslut/letters/anthony-bourdain-is-the-queen-of-coins" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">Jessa Crispin's tinyletter from 2017 about how Anthony Bourdain is the Queen of Coins</span></a>, which includes these paragraphs:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>The Queen of Coins works from love and expresses it through work, through the body, through pleasure, through presence. And it's easier to copy the form of embodiment (the leather jacket, the forms that pleasure takes) than what is being embodied.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>All Queens come from places of love, empathy, intuition. It's not about gender, it's about the source material. And you see it in Bourdain's show, the way he never tries to make himself look better by humiliating someone else, the quality of his attention given to whoever he is talking to, his sincerity and frankness. He's not trying to make himself look clever or like the expert about something (a Kingly attribute), nor is he a dilettante (a Knightly one). He's a Queen.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I think a lot about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylKr3KQVyp8" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">the segment of the Koreatown episode of <i>Parts Unknown</i> when Dave Choe takes Anthony Bourdain to Sizzler</span></a>, and at the end Anthony Bourdain says something about understanding why Sizzler would be a wonderland to Dave Choe. That's such an advanced form of generosity: to be fascinated by what other people love and to dedicate yourself to trying to understand that love, instead of just automatically dismissing something that doesn't make sense to you or that you've never considered to be of value. It's almost radically open-hearted.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Laura first told me about her idea for Strawberry Fields Whatever when she was visiting L.A. in March or February of 2012, and on that trip we went to <a href="https://www.travelchannel.com/videos/las-koreatown-0173285" target="_blank"><span style="color: #073763;">this restaurant in Koreatown because Anthony Bourdain had gone there on <i>The Layover</i></span></a>, a place called Dan Sung Sa. I remember eating some kind of pancake and drinking blackberry wine and ordering Yellow Peach on Ice for dessert, and when the ice melted we used our spoons to drink the peachy icemelt. We were still doing Beatles-book things back then, and one of the things I remember most fondly about the Beatles-book era of my life is the way that constantly thinking about the Beatles changed my head and gave everything a Beatlesy glow. I don't live in that way anymore, but lately when I listen to the Beatles I notice so much I never noticed in 2010. There are so many song parts I never paid attention to before, like the way George's backing vocals on "The Night Before" rise and fall and go on forever, and so many lyrics I never bothered to care about because I couldn't immediately make them mean something about me. Like on "Penny Lane" when Paul sings <i>He likes to keep his fire engine clean/It's a clean machine</i>- I don't think I even <i>heard</i> that lyric until two Sundays ago, but now I know it's as good as William Carlos Williams. Part of me's like <i>God, Barker, what the hell were you even </i>doing<i> all that time?</i>, but mostly I love that I was so out of it back then, such a spaced-out little jerk, and over the past 8 years or whatever I've gotten a little better at getting out of my own way. Now I get to hear all of Paul's basslines that never meant much to me, and they always work, they always unlock the Beatlesy part of my heart. That's really the only advice I have for anyone: if you're lost just find the bassline, and hopefully it'll do something cool to your head.</span>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-43805161604148413912018-04-24T10:30:00.002-07:002018-04-24T10:38:17.782-07:00The White Wine List Of My Dreams<div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_A87cLJaGD0rqIJDrW818AK1vJVR4U2KPoIFZMicYgKFoUPxK9DWkxRE9AL-3K7F-ukH7pVaNVyrzL6rENAz2hos2xmO6yDtb46sVIhJz9EoH0iNV9Vvu6s4pPpQOFDtU5nKFvA5b6VQ/s1600/fivewhitewines_loewres.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="983" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_A87cLJaGD0rqIJDrW818AK1vJVR4U2KPoIFZMicYgKFoUPxK9DWkxRE9AL-3K7F-ukH7pVaNVyrzL6rENAz2hos2xmO6yDtb46sVIhJz9EoH0iNV9Vvu6s4pPpQOFDtU5nKFvA5b6VQ/s640/fivewhitewines_loewres.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">BY LAURA JANE FAULDS/ ILLUSTRATION BY JEN MAY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are worse things to write than a wine list, but I’d rather write <i>about</i> a wine list, since a wine list doesn’t have enough words. Once I had a wine list where I wrote little descriptions of what the wines tasted like underneath their names, but that still wasn’t enough: when it comes to words, I need at least a thousand to <i>really</i> get me going.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Now, I don’t think wine lists should have descriptions of the wines at all, especially not cutesy or clever ones. It’s pointless: there’s nothing any writer could do to stop the names of the wines from being the most beautiful words on the page. Just try and write a sentence that looks as good as, for instance, <i>Méo-Camuzet Vosne-Romanée Premier</i>— no— <i>1er</i> Cru, or even just ‘1er Cru,’ when you write it like that, with the 1. Imagine opening up a pretty old book to any page and seeing those beautiful words written down in the middle of it. Your eye would be drawn to them. See how ugly the sentence "Your eye would be drawn to them" looks comparatively?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> So that’s the first thing I want to say about the imaginary wine list I'm writing about: it doesn’t have descriptions. And it would be shaped like a book, and bound. It’s alright when wine lists are just one long piece of paper but I hate when they’re something so precious, a clipboard or a duo-tang or whatever. Some “fresh new take” on a wine list being a wine list. Give me a break.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The wine list I'm writing about doesn't exist because, if it did, <i>I</i> would have to write it, it would have to belong to <i>my </i>wine bar, and I don't want to have a wine bar. I’m too lazy, not rich enough, and also, I don’t really like wine bars. I go to them because I have to, because I’m a person who lives in a city in North America and likes to drink good wine— but I also think that <i>no</i> wine can be enjoyed to its fullest at a WINE BAR in a CITY in NORTH AMERICA. Wine tastes first-best on the vineyard where it’s made, second-best in a bar/restaurant close to where it’s made (which would probably never be called a “wine bar,” unless you’re in California), third-best in a person’s home close to where it’s made, a hundredth-best in some drippy wine bar in Cleveland or Vancouver or whatever. Whenever a new wine bar opens up in Toronto and a person tells me it’s “good,” I take it with a grain of salt. You have to assume that every wine bar in your city is necessarily an abomination, and then grade it on a curve.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> If I were ever rich enough to open up a wine bar, I’d also have to be bored. Like, the richest, boredest person you could imagine. If I were just <i>regular</i> rich and bored,
I’d want to go work on a vineyard and do physical labour for the love of the game; if I were <i>very</i> rich and bored, I'd get a job working as a food runner at a restaurant. Food runner is my favourite job— it’s so easy, and you never have to talk to a person. So, in this fake scenario, I would already have had to carry out those two phases of rich person boredom for long enough that I’d have reached a point of no longer being satisfied by my food-running gig, which seems impossible, but, you know. Stranger things have happened, I guess. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> So that’s the back-story. I’d quit my job as a fifty-five year old food runner, move back to Toronto, and open up a wine bar. I’d call it John F. Kennedy International Airport— no, John F. Kennedy <i>Int’l</i> Airport, <i>Int’l</i>, with the apostrophe. Not for any real reason: I just think it’s a solid name. And I hate when wine bar names are so transparent about the wine bar being a wine bar. Like, calm down. If your wine bar is a wine bar, we’ll figure out that it’s a wine bar. You don’t have to name it “Tannin.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> At John F. Kennedy Int’l Airport, the wine by the glass list would be a small slip of paper paper-clipped to the front of the wine-book wine-list. It would be written in inky black Micron pen in my cutesy loopy penmanship, then photocopied using an inky-smelling Xerox machine from twenty-five years ago (or, fifty years ago, since my wine bar is set twenty-five years in the future), and the belly of the machine would overheat, and you could warm your hands on it, and when the paper printed out it would feel hot too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The classic somm blunder of a self-indulgent wine list, swarming with oddities and driven by personal preference, is near-impossible, but not <i>im</i>possible, to avoid. It’s enticing because any wine-list-writer will inevitably end most and/or all of their evenings drinking a glass of whatever-they-want off it; as said wine-list-writer is the number one person in the world guaranteed to engage with her own list most frequently, it’s hard not to stud said list with the wines she'd most like to drink herself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> A good wine list balances wines that will delight fellow wine-nerds with those that will satisfy the other 99%; an excellent wine list features nerd-delighters that have the capacity to blow a non-nerd’s mind, and non-nerd-delighters that that even the snootiest of master sommeliers would be forced to admit are wildly fucking delicious.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> My fantasy wine by the glass list (it’s like a fantasy football league, sort of) is composed of: three sparklings (one Champagne, one-non, and one rosé), two still rosés (one weird, and one normal), six reds, and five whites. Today I want to talk about the whites, all of which I’d like to crush a glass of after service, none of which my mother would make a disgusted face at after sipping.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the centre of the room is a strong wooden table. The lights are so dark, they’re basically off. Imagine whichever candles, wherever you like.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I’m a flighty billionaire with a great ass and a heart of gold. The janky restaurant laptop is open to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and I’m drinking a glass of—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>1. A VERY SPRITZY LITTLE GAVI</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is the cheapest on the list. You’re not supposed to say “cheap”— you’re supposed to say “inexpensive,” or nothing at all. But now I’m thinking of all the good cheap things— energy drinks, Lipsmackers, sour keys— and am thinking that maybe the cheapest wine on the list isn’t necessarily the least expensive, like when Dolly Parton says “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But, the very spritzy little Gavi is the cheapest <i>and</i> the cheapest, and it tastes like all the light green things— apples, grass, and kiwis— and all the emojis about light, about stars. Those plastic fluorescent moon and star-shapes you paste to a little kid’s ceiling. A melting lime Popsicle, a mini-can of apple soda with a picture of the little dragon Yoshi on the front.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> A flirty swishy little skirt, but you have to call it a <i>jupe</i>, like in France. Okay. It tastes like a skirt in France.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>**</i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The official name of Gavi is either ‘Cortese di Gavi’ or ‘Gavi di Gavi,’ if it’s from the centre of the Gavi comune— Gavi is the name of the region, Cortese is the name of the grape, and ‘Gavi di Gavi’ are my favourite words to say out loud. Just say them! You'll seem so cute to yourself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> You never hear of Corteses coming from anywhere but Gavi, which is unfortunate, since Cortese is such a nice grape. It’s so friendly, spring-like, bopping its stupid head around, skipping rope. I think more people would like it if they got to know it. They could like it the way they like Pinot Grigio, although it’s so much better. Cortese is like the best case scenario “basic bitch” you could meet, the kind of basic who would unashamedly admit to being a basic and have a really good sense of humour about it. You’d feel so free around the basic. You could say things like “random” and “self-care” and “literally” to mean “figuratively,” and never feel judged.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Every list needs a crushable and unfuckwithably <i>yummy</i> white. Fruity, zippy, light in body and just acidic enough. A white wine that drinks like the most delightful of late May afternoons, sunny and breezy, a weather-day that no one could find fault with. Gavis are the kind of white wine that even a shitty basic who knows nothing about wine, to a point where she refers to Prosecco as Champagne, would notice was somehow “better” than most.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The most perfectly cheap and cheaply perfect Gavi di Gavi would shine brightest on the late May day it makes you long for, afternoon turning to evening at a vaguely Pinterest-y but still delightful and very long pale-wood picnic table set with milk-jugsful of white hydrangea, repurposed oil lamps holding stout white candles, melting, beneath a fairy-lit canopy of lime green leaves.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>2. A SCRAPPY SCRATCHY SKIN-CONTACT WHITE THAT TASTES LIKE MARZIPAN</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A few years ago, I worked at a natural wine bar in London, England. It was a very Cool place, with a dining room resembling a social media influencer’s loft: spacious, airy, rife with potted plants and comfortably ecru. The wine list itself was nice-looking, a plain slice of white printer paper, the typeface san-serif and pleasantly drab. But the fragile paper could not hold up to the fundamental liquidiness of dinner service, and by the end of every night they were trashed. Wet, dried, reconstituted, covered in unsightly splashes of fermented soy & chilli sauce and red wine, balled up, half-folded, or missing a corner, like a one-eared dog. And the wines themselves were fine: the whites were good and the reds were good, but— herein lies the problem— the list featured something like six or seven orange wines by the glass.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> No! <i>Hard</i> no. You shouldn’t— you <i>can’t</i>— do this.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It’s fine for a wine bar to sneak a modest selection of oranges (five bottles max, hard max) into their full by the bottle list, but as far as glass pours go, you <i>can’t</i> offer more than one, although you <i>should</i> offer one. And it should be a very good one.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> There’s a lot less orange wine produced than there is white or red, and for every hundred mind-blowing whites in existence, there’s probably one great orange— and even that’s being generous. Yes, I’m too much of a traditionalist to fully buy into the Natural Wine Industrial Complex</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">—</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> more of an AOC than a VdF kinda gal, if you will</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">— </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">but my aim is not to diminish the legitimacy of orange wine as a style. Rather, I’d like to put it in its place, highlighting its excellence, not its limitations. Why clog up a list with a bunch of shitty orange wine that tastes like literal dirt? It’s like pouring someone who’s never tried white wine some garbagey swill made in a garage by a retired insurance salesman in Minnesota and saying “Yes, this is it. This is what it tastes like. It simply does not get any better than this.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The best orange wine I ever tasted was from Friuli Venezia-Giulia and tasted like peaty Scotch and caramelized bananas, and I wish I could drink a nip of it out of a bevelled sherry glass before retiring to bed every night. But I would never choose to pour such a wine by the glass— it’s too weird, and thus creates too much work for me. A few months at that natural wine bar ruined me for life; there is no aspect of “being a sommelier” I loathe more than “having to explain what an orange wine is” (FUCKING GOOGLE IT), so The White Wine List Of My Dreams would boast an orange wine that “passes” as a white, and I would shove it in the white section, because orange wine is not important enough to deserve its own section.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The orange wine of my dreams would be gooey, like the viscous middle of a Gusher, but a Gusher-flavour that, in real life, doesn’t exist. Apricot, grass, thyme & orange wine-flavoured Gushers, eaten merrily by the fistful, in a hammock, all day long.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> What I hate most about bad orange wines is that they taste dead, like a dead thing, some ancient artefact—ornate, bejewelled, but tarnished beyond repair. A cracked-open golden vessel stuffed full of dried herbs that smell stale, and cigarettey.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> A good orange wine is awake. <i>Alive</i> not just to mean “not dead,” but also “lively.” It’s aromatic, spicy, perfumed. It should smell like Josephine Baker’s dressing gown, or laundry basket, with only the faintest kiss of oak. There needs to be a little bit of clovey dried orange peel, but mostly lots of apricot; it should taste of all the different ways an apricot can apricot: 1) Fresh and recently fucked by Timothée Chalamet, 2) Overripe, smushy, never-eaten, underneath the tree. Maybe a dog would eat it. 3) The sound of a knife spreading homemade apricot jam across a triangle of exquisitely-burnt toast. <i>Listen</i>! 4) The dried apricot component of a handful of trail mix, accompanied by a shrapnel of raisins, peanuts, hopefully something chocolate, and broken-off shreds of almond skin. 5) And, most importantly, the almond itself, crushed into a paste with sugar and honey and oil, pressed into the shape of an apricot and delightfully-arranged in a golden box with all her little friends, the other cute-fruits, dressed in pleated paper cuplets, standing in a row. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>3. THE DRIEST WHITE IN THE WORLD</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“I’ll have a glass of your <i>driest</i> white,” someone will say, because that’s what people always say, because— for no reason, I think— people have decided that it’s uncool to like wine that tastes like sugar and fruit. Nothing about this makes any sense to me, since I’m sweet-toothed, and the only thing I love more than sugar and fruit is wine that tastes like sugar and fruit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Well, you’re in luck,” I’ll tell them, “The driest white on my list is, if you can believe it, the driest white in the <i>world</i>!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “But: is it <i>dry</i>?” they’ll ask, because that’s what people always ask. For some reason, a sommelier telling them the name of the driest white on their list in response to their asking for it is never good enough. They require a double-confirmation— for no reason, I think.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “It is!” I’ll say, “Like I said, it’s the driest white wine in the entire world. It tastes like a bone, like water, like air. It tastes like the salt that gets stuck in your hair when you sit by the sea, and is so light in body that you can’t even feel it in your mouth; it’s either vapour or nothing, or a slice of white paper. A scrap of white linen. And skinny as a tree.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Did you ever see the watercolour of a tree? The one by Egon Schiele, I mean, that’s hanging up in my Dad’s apartment. God, it’s such a skinny tree, the kind with lots of branches, but no leaves. A November tree. It’s that kind of tree, and it’s also a slice of white toast, and it’s a cream wool sweater, and a plain white t-shirt. The acidity I would describe as being either ‘tense’ or ‘racy’ or ‘nervy’, since those are the words I like to use to describe acidity, which this wine indeed has, and it’s also ‘bracing’—another good one. It’s like, I guess you could say, it’s sort of like, you know the fish called an X-ray fish? It’s sort of like that. Yeah. Either it’s a fish skeleton, or the filament of a lightbulb.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “So, it’s not, like, <i>fruity</i>, is it?” asks the person.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Fruity?” I’ll reply, “<i>Fruity</i>?!? Ha! What a dark and hilarious joke. This wine is so non-fruity, I even forgot what fruit was for a second there. I mean, it’s fruity if you think, like, a fossil is fruity. Do you?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Do I what?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Think a fossil is fruity?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “No?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “It’s like, imagine this: someone squeezing a wedge of lemon, a thousand miles away. Just those few little droplets of lemon juice, hanging in the air, like a mist. <i>That’s</i> about as fruity as this wine gets. Like a whisper about a lemon in another country.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “So, it’s, like <i>dry</i>?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “It’s like sucking on a cotton ball.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “<i>Okay</i>,” the person will sigh, visibly skeptical: I shouldn’t have said the word ‘lemon.’ “I’ll <i>try</i> it.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Mid-glass, I’ll pop back over to check on them. “Dry enough for ya?” I’ll ask, pretending to jab them in the ribcage with my elbow.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “It’s fine,” they’ll reply, then take a sip, look away. They want me to leave, and I don’t really want to stay, either. I can tell they’re wishing they could drink a cup of sand instead</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>4. A ‘BUTTERBOMB’</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The other day at work a guy asked me what wine would pair best with his fish. I told him probably the Chardonnay.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The fish is my favourite thing on the menu. It’s from Iceland. It’s white and shiny and it rests, like a prize, a ring in a box, atop a bed of lumpy grassy swiss chard, and is adorned with skinny flutes of samphire, and the whole thing is steamed inside a half-moon of parchment. I cut it at open at the table with gilded golden scissors, creating a flap. I lift up the flap and pour <i>beurre blanc </i>from a small copper pitcher onto the fish and make a joke about how much I like the <i>beurre blanc</i>. I used to say that I wish I could bathe in it but then I stopped saying that because it’s gross to imagine how that would make a person smell and also I didn’t want strangers to picture me doing so. Now I just say it’s my favourite thing in the world, which is funny enough because it’s obvious that favourite thing in the <i>world</i> is probably <i>not</i> the sauce I pour on top of fish at work. I mean, imagine if it was? Imagine if I liked it better than… dogs? Or cats. My mother! The sun.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The Chardonnay is from the Jura, from an AOC called <i>L’Étoile</i>, which is French for ‘The Star.’ It’s called The Star because the region itself is star-shaped and because there are star-shaped fossils in the soil. But it doesn't taste sparkly, or starry-eyed. It's not a very nice wine; it's somber, and vacant, like the feeling of receiving a dud response to the finely-crafted and flirtatious masterpiece you’ve just texted the dude you’re sweet on, a slap in the face of a solemn, emojiless “Ya.” “K.” or “Fine." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Is it oaked?” asked the man.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Yes, but very gently,” I replied.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “So it’s not a ‘butterbomb’?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> In my head, I was like: “Whoa.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <i>Butterbomb</i>? I knew exactly what he meant, but <i>still</i>: “Is <i>that</i> what we’re calling them now?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “No,” I said, “It’s not a…”
I trailed off. I didn’t want to listen to the sound of my own voice saying that “word.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last Saturday night, I tried to buy a Butterbomb. I went to the liquor store after work with the intention of spending fifty-plus dollars on the most aggressively-oaked California Chardonnay I could find, but failed myself. Why? Well… I bought the bottle with the nicest— or should I say, least offensively-ugly— label. Oh, Laura. What were you <i>thinking</i>?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> After opening the bottle, I realized I’d purchased the most sensibly-oaked California Chard I ever drank, a dead-ringer for a village-level white Burgundy: it was all that lovely label’s fault! A Butterbomb would <i>never</i> have a nice label! A Butterbomb is, by nature, deeply unstylish, a hangover from the mid-eighties SoCal of Wolfgang Puck and LA Story, of aerobics and smoked salmon pizza, a photograph of a young Kris Jenner in a statement hat, flanked by her Laura Ashley-ed daughters on Throwback Thursday.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I am not rich enough to bother with buying another bottle, and so I will describe the Butterbomb of my Dreams from whatever is the opposite of memory, imagining I’m remembering a wine I haven’t yet drank but one day might, and I’m hoping that by writing this I will will it into existence.
I am thinking of one particular particle of popcorn at the bottom of a popcorn bag— movie theatre popcorn, I feel like this should go without saying. It’s not a fully, perfectly-popped kernel, it’s one of those half-popped guys, three-quarters popped, a little bit burnt, and blooming. And it is soaked, or drenched, in thick salty butter-syrup, and it’s so close to being genuinely, inedibly, revolting, but— somehow— it’s the highlight of the bag.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> A scrap of deep-fried coconut chip deep-fried in coconut oil, the sandalwood oil my kindergarten teacher wore as perfume, and all of those long ago school-smells: pencil shavings, somebody else's lunchbox, opening up a small blue carton of white milk.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Fast-food fried chicken and the crème brulée crust of a now-stale, once honey-dunked biscuit. A vanilla bath bead, from the eighties again, the kind of thing your mother would have received as a gift from a clueless acquaintance, a colour-wheel of bath beads in a squidgy plastic cylinder, adorned with a mesh-like jewel-toned bow: I would beg my mom to throw a handful into the bath with me, then spend all of bathtime riddled with fear, incomprehensibly convinced that one would find its way down my trachea, choking me to death.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>5. A DEMI-SEC VOUVRAY</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last November, I went to France. It wasn’t the first time I’d been to France, but it was the <i>only</i> time I’ve been to France. If you know what I mean.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I spent the better part of a week in a small city in the Central Loire called Angers, which is, in my very subjective opinion, the greatest city in the world. The day I left, I cried.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I woke up, cried, and then I ran, and I cried while I ran. I ate lunch at the same brasserie I’d eaten lunch at every day since I’d arrived, which I understood was rather middling in the greater context of French cuisine, but to me, it was, and is, the greatest restaurant in the world. I’m not going to say the name of it, because I don’t want you to Google it, and think a negative thought about it. If I ever found out you were thinking negative thoughts about it, I'd die.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> At that restaurant, I learned how to crack open a crab leg with a crab-cracker, and how to reach into the skinny hollows of its shell and scrape out its guts with a small metal stick. A waiter taught me. The next afternoon, he brought me a glass of Anjou Rouge and another of St. Nicolas de Bourgeouil, and I drank them both. He asked me which I liked better, and I struggled to respond in French. Instead of exasperatedly shifting the conversation into English like a person in Paris would do, he patiently coached me through my long and painful reply. And then I knew how to say it:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I liked them both the same.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> That final afternoon, I had a“petit”-size <i>croque monsieur</i>, two glasses of Savennières, a 750 mL bottle of sparkling water, and the monstrous <i>île flottante</i> I’d had my eye on all week. When I ordered, my waiter laughed sweetly at my gluttony, then patted me chidingly on the shoulder once I was defeated by my psychotic dessert less than halfway through.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> At the train station, a young woman sat at one of those free pianos they have at all the train stations in Europe, and sang a sad Adele song beautifully. I drank a rose-flavoured mini-bottle of Evian, cried, and took a train to Tours.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I hated Tours. I stayed at an Airbnb run by a family with several small children, upwards of ten of them it seemed, sounded like, and all eighty-five of them lived in the bedroom next to mine, and screamed. The house when I walked in smelled like a fresh-baked chocolate cake, and later I saw it out resting on the kitchen table, and when I got home from a depressing night out I noticed that they’d eaten some of it, and the next morning, a little bit more. Nobody ever offered me a slice of it, which was horrible of them. I <i>hate</i> Tours!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Making matters worse— just as I was (finally) about to leave, I accidentally boarded the wrong train to Paris— I took the train the other way, back toward Angers. “It’s a sign!” I thought, and made the decision to follow my heart, return to Angers, and start a new life there. And I did! I did that! Here I am, writing this sentence in Angers!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Just kidding— I didn’t do that; I didn’t even come close. What I did do:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Got off the wrong train at a station I forget the name of, snuck onto a Tours-bound train without bothering to buy a new ticket, game to blame my ineptitude on my foreign-ness if the situation came to blows. Arrived back in garbage Tours, and made the just-as-dumb decision to not bother trying to refund my initial ticket to Paris, just bought myself a new one: first-class, full price. “Fuck it!” I thought. I didn’t want to talk to a person.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> My suitcase was very heavy, full of wine bottles, and my shoulder hurt from all the dragging it around I’d been doing. I had three hours to kill and wanted to get very drunk but didn’t want to walk too far, so I went to a shitty-seeming restaurant called “Brasserie l’Univers,” which was pretty much the French equivalent of an Applebee’s. (Depressingly, the French equivalent of an Applebee’s is still cooler and better than like 98% of all North American restaurants. I’m currently writing this in what is perceived to be a Very Good wine bar in Toronto, and I’m quietly laughing to myself, thinking about how hard this place sucks compared to Le fucking Univers.)
At this point, myself and the entire population of Tours had reached a mutual understanding that neither party was obliged to be polite or respectful to the other. The L’Univers-waiter rolled his eyes at my suitcase, and I shrugged to say, “What the fuck do you want me to do? This is me right now. I <i>have</i> this.” Begrudgingly, he rolled it over to a narrow walkway adjacent to his waiter’s station and miserably jammed it into a corner it didn’t fit into, where every employee and customer who walked by proceeded to trip over it and smash their shins up. I thought, “They deserve it.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Classic fucking Tours. I hated it so much that I was almost disappointed to discover that the L’Univers wine list was fucking phenomenol, a veritable explosion of all the different Vouvrays: <i>Sec</i>! <i>Demi-Sec</i>! <i>Moelleux</i>! <i>Doux</i>! <i>Liquoreux</i>! <i>Pétillant</i>! (Seeing the word “Sec” in print made me nostalgic for when I had navigated my way through buying eyedrops at a pharmacist in Angers the previous day: “<i>Les</i>…” I mimed myself squeezing eyedrops into my eyes, then said the word “Drops” in a French accent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “<i>Pour les yeux</i>…”
I understood that, somewhere inside of me, the word “dry” in French existed. I knew I knew it. I knew I had it somewhere—
And then, it dawned on me: “<i>Sec</i>! It’s Sec! Like <i>Sec</i>! From wine!”)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I ordered a glass of the Demi-Sec— off-dry— because an off-dry Vouvray is, in my opinion, the superlative expression of the Chenin Blanc grape. Chenin Blanc is ruthlessly acidic, and requires a heaping tablespoon of sugar to stay balanced (and don’t we all): dry Vouvrays are nice but scarcely as spectacular as their demi-sec cousins, who taste most like the sound of the word Vouvray, fancy and plump, ANGELIC (in all-caps, and star-lit).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> They are everything about the word soft. The fattest pillow, a lower lip. A peak of meringue on a whisk. There is something about a demi-sec Vouvray that makes you want to close your eyes, smile beatifically, and exhale lightly through your nose— it’s pure pleasure, a dog sleeping in a patch of sunshine. There is something transcendent about taking a sip of a great glass of wine, and there are so few ways to transcend in this life. Some people like to meditate, I like to run, or you could play a piece of music, it seems like that could work. I am always jealous of people who have music as their art; writing, I think, is the opposite of transcendence. Writing is noticing everything, digging your heels even deeper into life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Wine is fun and funny. Sometimes it’s stupid-nothing, a sweetish liquid that you can drink carelessly, to make you feel drunk. I like it when it’s like that; drinking like that, that’s what the spritzy little Gavi is for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> This is the opposite end of the spectrum. A demi-sec Vouvray is for the worst bad day, an embrace from the Universe in the middle of Le Univers. It is for the person who shows up to the wine bar hopeless, dirty, rain-soaked and red-eyed. It is a dog, a cat, your mother, the sun. It is: “Just what the doctor ordered!” you could say, and it would be true.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> A good night’s sleep will never solve the problem, and time doesn’t heal all wounds. But this, <i>this</i>— this will <i>fix</i> you.</span>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-61441274030923303522018-03-30T09:56:00.001-07:002018-03-30T09:56:16.040-07:00Champagne & Egg Yolk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLOuUaGJ0s5b5E5UMgnAN5Pgs1VddPbWWGJkdOMNtBp_dXq186oS-h8GAQnFT4ID24XGRKh4hZIga-Ckru7x1Bc6Fhykq6hMv1EROcOwOX5TRNKjwuGSZCdYt3Fmlvwppt2Uoo9kbNwTQ/s1600/champs_lr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="894" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLOuUaGJ0s5b5E5UMgnAN5Pgs1VddPbWWGJkdOMNtBp_dXq186oS-h8GAQnFT4ID24XGRKh4hZIga-Ckru7x1Bc6Fhykq6hMv1EROcOwOX5TRNKjwuGSZCdYt3Fmlvwppt2Uoo9kbNwTQ/s640/champs_lr.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">WORDS BY LAURA JANE FAULDS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">ILLUSTRATION BY JEN MAY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A cook at my restaurant was experimenting with <i>sous-vide</i>-ing egg yolks; I was polishing wine glasses and watching him. A shell was cracked open, and a white had not set. The gluey white fell dramatically, in ribbons, away from the yolk and into the sink, reminding me of once-melted, now-set candlewax. The clean orbs of yolk, barely-translucent marbles made of sunset, were a greater success. They sat sweetly on a small white plate. They were perfect.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> We ate the egg yolks smeared on ripped-off hunks of baguette with butter and <i>fleur de sel.</i> Oily and plush, fat, almost fudge-like in texture. The salt was spunky, like pop-rocks, and the butter was unnecessary but <i>so</i> necessary: a silky, deafening indulgence, cream on cream—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It was perfect. That bite of food was perfect.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I went downstairs and packed up my things. I put on my coat, and came upstairs to find a runnier execution: this time, the yolk was flat, as if tidily cut out of the middle of a classic fried egg, and its juicy innards were contained only by a thin, frail skin. Pierced with the tip of a butter knife, the yolk oozed out of itself. It was dementedly satisyfing to watch, like one of those zit-popping videos on YouTube.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I walked home, and later received a text message asking me what wine pairs best with runny egg yolk. I knew the answer without having to think of it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Eggs are weird. I eat them almost every day, and if I skip a couple egg-days I start to fiend for them, dream of them. I like my eggs fried in olive oil, a little burnt around the edges, the yolk salted and peppered and cooked a touch past runny, the border gunky over goopy and smushable— but even as I’m loving them, there’s always part of me that thinks: “Should I <i>really</i> be eating this?”— eating an egg is perverse, like eating a kooky fungus from a nature program, a sea anemone or a butterfly’s wing. You’re really living on the edge when you’re eating an egg, opening yourself up to the possibility of accidentally consuming an undercooked, gelatinous egg white. Last summer I ate an egg white so raw I couldn’t see it, it was clear, smeared atop a chunk of roasted eggplant: an unrivalledly repulsive experience.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t eat eggs for a month.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Now I eat two of them with a burnt bagel and half a pot of coffee every morning. The coffee cools down in a mug next to my plate while I eat, I can’t bear the texture of egg yolk and coffee swirling around in my mouth together. I drink my coffee black because I won’t mix milk and water, and egg yolk is even worse, the way it coats your tongue and teeth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> That’s most of why it needs Champagne: its <i>pétillance</i> (that's wine-French for “bubbliness”) would corrode the strange smooth film right off. And, Champagne is high in acid, which would laser beam straight through the yolky unctuousness, doubly cleaning your mouth out, ready for coffee!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I like breakfast. I think it is the most romantic and aesthetically-pleasing of the meals, and also I love the way it is very plain, meals like:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> Bread & butter & jam. Two boiled eggs, shell on, half a grapefruit. Croissant & hunk of cheese. A rose of smoked salmon, smashed avocado, the sound of pepper </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">cracking</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">. Glass of juice. A folded-in-half slice of ham.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> These are things of great beauty. A small ceramic pitcher, a sweet old salt & pepper shaker set. Nice muesli in a scalloped yellow bowl, one tablespoon of peanut butter scraped up against the side. A handful of cute berries, a small igloo made of yoghurt. The mug you like best, which is so much better than all the other mugs. Really! How is it <i>so</i> much better than all the other mugs??</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> When I was young I had a boyfriend who was a breakfast-eater and I thought it was weird for about a minute, and then I became a breakfast-eater. I wake up every morning so jacked to eat breakfast, and I mean <i>breakfast</i>— <i>not</i> brunch. I hate brunch; I think it’s gauche. It’s inconvenient, and I’m always in a bad mood when I eat it. My hair is always dirty, and I wish I was at home. It’s too much food, too rich for that time of day. I hate to think that the concept of Brunch might pop into someone’s head when they look at the words champagne & egg yolk together. Some stupid mimosa— a waste of champagne, as I call it — and some cutesy overwrought take on a “benny” they would call it, this horrible brunch-loving moron I’m making up in my head. I feel like in a brunch place there’s always fogged-up windows. All these dirty people sweating out their hangovers. Stale breath and bloated bellies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> I am not attracted to the idea of champagne & egg yolk because the champagne transforms the pure meek egg into something more luxurious. I like the opposite: I want the eggs to humble up the Champagne, which in itself is too baseline cool to be as extravagant as people want it to be. Champagne isn’t flashy, it’s classic: like a black turtleneck, red lip, gold band. Any well-made simple thing. It’s like an egg!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> The most extravagant circumstance in which I want champagne & egg yolk to be co-consumed would be: in a hotel room, next to a window, the eggs loosely scrambled and garnished with caviar & <i>crème fraiche</i>. And there would be a glass bottle of some weird brand of sparkling water, a silver <i>caf</i></span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">è</i><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">tiere</i><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> of espresso, and you would eat the entire meal like this: bite of egg, sip of champagne, sip of coffee, sip of water, etc. And you would have to be wearing very fine pyjamas. Silk, ideally, and with a monogram.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Otherwise, you should be a regular person, just sitting here, like I am, and it should be a really dull day and time: for instance, a Wednesday afternoon. You should be hungover, your hair should look bad. Wear a sports bra. Don’t bathe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> Earlier today, I googled “how to fry a sunny-side up egg,” hoping I might discover some secret egg-frying “hack” I’ve been missing out on, but, as it turns out, I already know how to perfectly fry a sunny-side up egg. The first result that comes up in the google search is a Jamie Oliver recipe, which reads, essentially:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> Crack the egg into a pan. Fry the egg.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> I am drinking a 200 mL of Moet & Chandon out of a Calgary Olympics-branded champagne flute I once found in a cardboard box on Ossington Avenue while walking to go get a haircut I would quickly come to regret (it was a bob). Moët is a Champagne house I’m largely indifferent toward; I’m drinking it because it was the only champagne at my local liquor store available in mini-bottle form, and, like I said, I’m hungover. And also, I’m broke.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> I sort of appreciate the way Moët is so neutral and inexpressive: if Miller High Life is the Champagne of Beers, then Moët is certainly the Beer of Champagne. It’s floral, it’s pale, and it gets the job done. If someone told me it was their favourite make, I would say: “You need to try more Champagne,” but if anyone ever gave me a glass of it, under any circumstance, on any day, I would say: “Thank you.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> I ate all the egg now. I’m running my finger through the end of the yolk, on the plate, and I’m sad that I don’t have much more of my mediocre Moët left to drink. I was right about everything I already said, the bubbles and the acid and all that; my only new revelation is that, flavourwise, the yolk makes the wine taste more metallic and grapey, and there’s a hit of something nutty and fatty on the back-end, at the beginning or end of your tongue, and now I’m trying to figure out: where does your tongue start? At what point does its tongueiness segue into being, just, the back of your throat?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> I fried the egg in avocado oil. It tasted like popcorn. My Champagne is now finished, and I’m heartbroken. I’m floored by the for-real excellence of that pairing, what a treat it turned out to be. A perfect pocket I sewed into the middle of my strange sunny day— the tiniest, prettiest meal, too profound to call a simple “snack.”</span>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-33365040356153834382018-03-21T07:29:00.000-07:002018-03-21T10:37:01.962-07:00Some Rieslings I Have Known<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9U1aoZ-EZpkwFGFGUFwNXzSvR7tFkfZeNDy6z1cxC24djb_yTe68sX9EY0R8QK5nUn2_-hkOzgHuSSDQ8e4p0mQ1ANdobFcUWopLKhku8ygW6Yl2D81ODUG69JxF0bPIfzx-xnuh4yQw/s1600/reisling1L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="593" data-original-width="883" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9U1aoZ-EZpkwFGFGUFwNXzSvR7tFkfZeNDy6z1cxC24djb_yTe68sX9EY0R8QK5nUn2_-hkOzgHuSSDQ8e4p0mQ1ANdobFcUWopLKhku8ygW6Yl2D81ODUG69JxF0bPIfzx-xnuh4yQw/s640/reisling1L.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">WORDS BY LAURA JANE FAULDS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">ILLUSTRATION BY JEN MAY </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wanted to get a gold nameplate necklace spelling out the name of a wine grape, but I couldn’t decide which one. My two favourites, Cabernet Franc and Chenin Blanc, are each two words long, which posed a problem: I would have to jarringly interrupt the flow of the pendant’s perfect cursive to introduce a capital letter mid-word, CabernetFranc or CheninBlanc, which are both horrible-looking and remind me of names of mid-nineties tech start-ups: HydraSonic, IntraTek, UniCorp. Alternately, I could buy two necklaces (say: one Chenin and one Blanc), with one chain slightly longer, but then the chains would get tangled up in each other, <i>and</i> I’d have to wear two necklaces.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I (truly) spent years mulling over which one-word wine grape I’d most like to champion: Chardonnay was too on-the-nose, and somehow the physicality of the word itself connotes a trash-glam aesthetic I don’t really relate to. Nebbiolo would be too loopy-looking: same goes for Tempranillo. Lord knows I love a single-varietal Carignan, but nobody’s ever heard of it, and I didn’t feel like explaining it to people all the time. Malbec? Sangiovese? Regal, yes, but not in my wheelhouse, non-options. Mourv</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.2px;">è</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">dre I adore, but like Carignan, it’s too niche. Syrah looks like Mynah bird and I don’t even love it; Shiraz I don’t acknowledge as being a real thing. When people talk to me about Shiraz, I assholeishly repeat it as “Syrah” back to them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Viognier, Grenache, Riesling, Dolcetto. These were my last grapes standing.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Late last spring, I co-hosted a staff wine tasting with my ex-wine boss, who was visiting from LA. We tasted a dry, weirdly-minerally Riesling from Piemonte, and he told us the story of the time he’d met an Austrian Riesling producer with a tattoo on his inner forearm of the word “RIESLING” in a garish, fifties-horror-movie style font, surrounded by images of skulls, demons, lightning bolts and the flames of hell.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The staff were delighted, and I asked “Can I date him?” to make them laugh. In my head, I thought, “If someone believes in Riesling enough to ink it onto their body for the entire rest of their life, the <i>least</i> I can do is write it on a necklace,” and the next day I finally purchased my wine-grape-nameplate, off a poorly-designed website called MyNameNecklace.com.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Once it arrived, I never took it of. I wore it every single day for the next eight months— “Is that your <i>name</i>?” people sometimes asked, and I would say “I wish!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Even more frequently, and expectedly, “Is Riesling your favourite?” people would ask, to which I always replied:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “It’s not my favourite wine grape, but it’s certainly the <i>noblest</i>.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One night in January, I was locked in my ex-boyfriend’s bathroom, crying, mid-fight. I went to take my sweater off, and the chain of the necklace attached itself to a thread, snapping the Riesling nameplate clean in half. It fell off my neck and landed on the floor. Looking down at it, I earnestly, helplessly thought of the episode of <i>Sex and the City</i> when Carrie loses her Carrie necklace right before she travels to Paris with the slippery Russian artist, or perhaps she’s already in Paris, I can’t remember, it doesn’t matter: the metaphor remains in tact.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It was a ham-fisted way to communicate that she had lost a piece of herself. But then, so had I.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A few weeks ago, the owner of what would soon become “the restaurant I used to work at” came in to have a few drinks with his buddy at my bar. The restaurant was busy, and I was tired, but immediately after spotting him, I knew that I would shortly have to fulfil an unspoken aspect of my job description, one that often came naturally to me but in that moment I didn't want to deal with: performing the role of (let’s call her a) “witty rock-and-roll sommelier”: an amplified version of my regular self who, when presented with an adoring audience, can sometimes appear unannounced— and I hoped that, once I got myself going, that this would be the case.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I dug deep into the dregs of my energy reserve, and struck up a conversation with the boss. A certain amount of blah-blah words that didn’t mean anything tumbled out of my mouth, and my mouth was dry, and my eyes were dry, but eventually I found my way, and then we were talking about Germany, their recent trip to Berlin, and I said some alright things about my own Berlin-opinions, and I meant them, and I thought, “This is good, Laura, this is good— you are saying words you mean.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I said I’d never been to Berlin, and that I didn’t feel any huge need to go there. I said I didn’t respond to it aesthetically the way I respond to the European cities I <i>do</i> respond to aesthetically, and listened to myself using words I like to use: “baroque,” “sweeping,” “ornate.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The two men picked up what I was putting down, and agreed that Berlin was drab.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I asked them: “Did you get to drink a lot of nice Rieslings, at least?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The one said, “Nah, we’re not really into Rieslings, they’re just a bit too… <i>ehhhh</i>…” He mimed his hands in such a way that I could easily imagine a rich glass of Trockenbeerenauslese sitting heavily and unpleasantly in one’s gut— “I can drink a glass, and then— I’m <i>done</i>.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I was now fully, and happily, “in my zone.” Gazing thoughtfully upward, I said: “A Riesling’s, like, a person at a party with a really big personality who’s, like, kind of drunk and wearing a crazy outfit, and you meet them and you’re like ‘I <i>love</i> this person! They’re hil<i>ar</i>ious!’ and then you talk to them for a few minutes and you’re like, ‘Oh my God. I <i>have</i> to get away from this person’: They’re<i> too much</i>.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The two men laughed, and I understood that what I’d said had been resonant,
which of course it was, since it had been perfectly engineered to underscore the point they were already making.
But, in my heart, I disagreed with myself:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I don’t think Riesling’s like that at all.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Riesling’s not my favourite wine grape, but it’s certainly the most complicated. Hardy and contrastive, it can be anything, so it’s <i>everything</i>— rich candy syrup, melted-down beeswax, ginger chew (Germany), spritzy pale green sunlight, laserbeam acidity (Washington State), fuzzy sweater, barrel of apples at the apple farm, throwing an apple at a wall (Alsace), tinned apple juice in a carpeted basement in 1988 (anywhere, if it's bad), sucking on a peach pit, melted pineapple popsicle (Australia), smashing open a bottle of perfume outside a gas station (Germany again).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Riesling is the most interesting person at the party. You get sucked into a conversation with Riesling at the beginning of the night and then it's suddenly seven hours later and you’re like, “Oh shit I’ve been sitting on a couch for seven hours and desperately have to pee but haven’t yet because every time I’ve thought to myself, ‘Okay, stand up, it’s time to stand up and pee now,’ Riesling has brought some brilliant new topic of conversation to the table and I can’t help myself, I <i>have</i> to keep listening—”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But the Riesling I’m so infatuated with is the exact same Riesling so many wine-drinkers are put off by; irritatingly, they reject it for the same reasons they embrace their beloved California Cabs, SuperTuscans, Amarones, etc: big, rich, alcoholic reds, wines that identifiably taste like <i>something</i>. And wine is hard, and weird, a total understanding of the subject unattainable even to those who devote their entire lives to it, and those wines are simple, but bold, and they spell it out for you: “I am <i>something</i>,” they scream, and, yes, <i>yes</i>, of course: something is <i>always</i> better than nothing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But why must that Something only be this one thing?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Likely because wine has historically been a rich white man's game, and if there's one thing I know about rich white men, it's that they'll </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">arbitrarily assign a traditional gender role to literally fucking <i>anything</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So why not apply this absurd mentality to wine too?
The belief that “white wine is for women, and red wine is for men” has no doubt been propagated by some of history’s grossest wine drinkers, but by 2018 has been ingested</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and is upheld by the less-gross (and sometimes even non-gross!) as well. Like any object, enterprise or art form associated with femininity, white wine is necessarily regarded as an inferior: cheap, uncomplicated, and certainly not meant to be taken seriously.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> To all those who have spent the bulk of their wine-drinking years misperceiving whites as being <i>Real Housewives</i>-y swill that gives you acid reflux, eager to brag to your somm or Tinder date that you “only drink red,” I’m not here to berate you, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’m just here to tell you that you’re wrong, and that you're sort of a tool of the patriarchy, and literally no sommelier in the world agrees with you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And I want more for you than that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My aim is not to diminish the relationship between white wine & woman-ness (however impure its origins may be), but rather to celebrate it. One of the most gratifying moments of my career came about late last spring, when I was running the aforementioned weirdly-minerally Piemontese Riesling by the glass at my old restaurant. It was something like three-thirty in the afternoon, and two middle-aged women sat at the bar, knocking back half-litre after half-litre, either too proud or too ashamed to commit to an entire bottle, in the classic style of people who have not yet come to terms with the fact that they’re about to get day-drunk.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Three half-litres deep, or so, “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon starting playing, and, “Oh my God, it’s <i>Carly</i>, it’s <i>Carly</i>,” one of the Riesling-drunks began to slur. I vaguely remember her kind of banging her fist on the table to emphasize the significance of Carly’s presence, but I could be embellishing: “Get me another <i>Riesling</i>, it’s <i>Carly</i>. It’s <i>Carly</i>, it’s <i>Carly</i>. I need another <i>Riesling</i>.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Never again will I think of either Carly Simon or Riesling without thinking of that woman, that day; what’s more, I will forever associate one with the other, and they seem such a perfect fit that I’m surprised “Carly Simon & Riesling” wasn’t a “thing” (as they, and I, say) before that day. I can’t imagine how delighted I would be if <i>I</i> happened upon a wine bar serving a weirdly-minerally Piemontese Riesling and playing Carly Simon at the same time, and it meant a great deal to me that I was able to curate and provide that experience for another woman. As a sommelier, I deal in frivolity— “This isn’t the <i>fucking</i> United Nations," I try to remind myself, anytime I'm ever stressed at work. The gift I give the world is as useless as it is luxurious: empowering anyone who crosses my path to get drunk as elegantly and memorably as possible. “Carly & Riesling”-woman is my finest work to date.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Early in my career, I watched a mediocre documentary about something wine-related, from which I have retained one extremely vivid memory of a female sommelier talking to the camera about Rieslings from Australia’s Clare Valley, which are stinkily plasticky, she explained: “plastic pool toy” is the classic tasting note.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Naïve and untrained, that soundbite put a pang in my heart, and I felt a great longing, like being trapped inside of something. Terribly as I knew I needed to taste that plastic-tasting wine, I was more than anything terrified that, if I did, I might not be good enough to identify what “plastic pool toy” smelled or tasted like. I might <i>never</i> be good enough.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Once I started studying, it didn’t take too long for me to establish myself as a technically competent taster; what I hadn’t anticipated was how that skill would collide with my pre-existing writery impulse to <i>describe</i>. Yes, my first Clare Valley Riesing tasted of plastic pool toy— I picture a lavender whale floatie, with girlishly long eyelashes— but, more than that, it smelled of jelly sandal, speckled with flakes of glitter suspended in the plastic like the stars in the sky, and of a particular stuffed kitten, pink and muppet-furred and soft everywhere except its Riesling-scented plastic face, which was sewn into its plush head like a freaky mask, some horrible skin graft. My father bought me that kitten at a shopping mall in Florida when I was five, and it came with a baby bottle full of— not milk, but— orange juice, which I rammed uselessly into its useless mouth in the back of a rental car, which smelled Rieslingishly of rental car.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">**</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">First month I lived in London, I went to a wine fair at the Winemaker’s Club, an impossible-to-find brick-walled vault located underneath a bridge on Farringdon Road. I had registered to attend through the wine bar I worked at, and was given a sticker with my name on it to paste to the front of my shirt, which made me feel like I’d really made something of myself in London.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I met up with two of my co-workers, neither of whom I would remain friends with— two men I’d simply deemed “good enough,” good enough to help get me through the terrifying first leg of being friendless in a foreign country.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The three of us ambled around the cave, sipping on things, pretending we knew what we were talking about, and impressing no one: not even each other. We grew garishly drunk, and my friends began to argue. I felt embarrassed for myself: I hated, and still hate, the competitiveness of being a wine person: “<i>I</i> think it tastes like <i>this</i>”— “Well, <i>I</i> don’t think it tastes like that at <i>all</i>.” It’s such a strange accusation: “Your <i>mouth</i> is wrong.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> If I can, I always prefer to taste wine alone before I taste with someone else. I like to taste in quiet, in a dream; sometimes it works better with earphones in, listening to music with no words. In every glass of wine there is one untouchable and unbendable truth, which is my own. Wonderful as it can be to have that truth altered and expanded by another person’s assessment, it’s irritating when the possibility of finding it is precluded by someone opening their mouth before you’ve even had a chance. (Just the other day, I was nosing a 2010 1er Cru Santenay, my snout stuck so deep in the glass it nearly skimmed the surface of the wine— to be honest, I fucking <i>suck</i> at Burgundy— and a very skilled technical taster sauntered up, took an easy swig from a different glass, shrugged “Blood orange,” then walked off, and I never got to find out what<i> I </i>thought it tasted like. All I could taste was fucking blood orange!)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I wandered away from my non-friends and found myself at a table run by an affable couple of dudes who only imported Riesling and Pinot Noir. I said a bland joke-ish “Why bother with anything else??”-y thing, either sort of or barely agreeing with myself, and they said, “Yes, well that’s what <i>we</i> think!” and I thought, “Yes, of course that’s what you think,” because it was true.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I smiled weakly. I wanted them to help me be better.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> One of them asked me if I was more of a Riesling Girl or a Pinot Noir Girl and I said I was a Riesling Girl. He smiled: it was the right answer. (The other man, who I suppose preferred a Pinot Noir Girl, walked away.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> He walked me through a progression of German, Alsatian, Austrian Rieslings— he told me where the grapes were grown— on mountains, on slopes— and what the sun was like, how the sun hit them, and he told me the names of all the soils, and the place names, and he asked me if I’d learned the German wine classifications yet, and I said “Sort of,” and tried to recite them from memory:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Kabinett, Spatlese, Auslese… and then a bunch of hard ones I can’t say."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And he said “Beerenau…”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And I said “Beerenauslese!” and then remembered, “Eiswein!” and he repeated “Eiswein!” and I said, “That’s where I’m from!”— because I’m from Canada, where we make ice wine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I tasted all the wines in my head, and didn’t talk about it. I imagined that I closed my eyes, then sniffed, slurped, opened them, nodded, and smiled. I felt so peaceful, all alone inside myself. Nobody was going to scream at me “Lemon!” when I just said “Lime.” I remember asking him, “Wait, what is the name of this soil?” and he said “Loess,” and I asked, “How do you spell that?” and some person tasting wines next to me asked “What does it matter?” and the man, so wonderfully, said, “That’s how she learns.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> He spelled it out, L-O-E-S-S, and I thought, “This is the taste of L-O-E-S-S, remember it forever or you’re dead to me forever,” and such is the story of how I learned the taste of loess soil. (What does loess taste like? Well. It tastes like <i>that</i>. And dust, a little bit.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The final Riesling we tasted was an old guy, between twelve and twenty-five years old— sometimes I look up charts on wine websites about all the different German vintages, and how they’re drinking, desperately trying to suss out what year that wine was born in, so depressing, like a Craigslist missed connection— all I know for sure is where it was from: <i>Pfalz</i>, which I always remember, because, “That’s the same as my last name!” I exclaimed. The man chuckled, “Ha ha, oh really,” and I said “Sort of,” and didn’t follow up. (I like to pretend in my head that ‘Pfalz’ is ‘Faulds’ in German, but I’ve never looked it up, since I don’t want to know if I am wrong.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Aged Rieslings tend to take on a bit of a petrol character,” said the man, and I said I knew because I knew; I’d already heard about all that at wine school. I felt grateful that I didn’t have to ask him, “What is petrol?”— my boyfriend had already told me. It was British-English for “gasoline.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> As soon as somebody told me old Rieslings taste like gasoline, I was here for them: as a child, I was semi-problematically obsessed with the smell of gasoline, begging my mother not to fill up her car unless I was there with her. I needed to be around it, I needed to be close to it, inside of it. “Please promise me you’ll never sniff gasoline up close,” she once asked me, and I imagined myself holding the gun-shaped nozzle up to one nostril, and it sounded so good, and I thought, “How could I <i>ever</i> promise her that?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Because one day you’ll grow up, and once you’re old there will be Rieslings, and they’ll smell like that smell you couldn’t smell because it killed you, and you’ll get to have it then: that’s how you’ll have it. And, fantastically, it, it—this magic liquid!— will also taste vaguely of honey garlic sauce, remember— <i>honey garlic sauce</i>??? From chicken wings? From dipping your pizza crust in the chicken wing sauce? From how sticky your fingers were? From smearing it all down the front of your t-shirt?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The episode of <i>Sesame Street </i>where they rendered down gold to make one-dollar coins out of and the hot wet gold swirled like batter in a black skillet. It tasted like the very idea of sunlight, a sunset, captured in a photograph and then distilled into a drink: and so what would a sunset taste like?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Like honey, the texture of a melted gemstone, a thick syrup to dip a lobster tail into, something only kings and queens would drink. “I should not be drinking this, I should not be here drinking this,” out of an ISO tasting glass I’d already drunk a thousand other wines out of, stained with a lip-print of lip balm round the rim. I thought of a dead bug, frozen in amber. This wine should be drunk from a silver goblet, or chalice, whatever a goblet or chalice is. Who cares. I’d drink this shit out of a snow-globe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Now, right now, it makes me think now of a warmth washing over and down the tops of my arms, a hot fragment of burnt September light. A crack in the windowpane, waking me up from a nap I hadn’t known I’d taken. I think of that wine every day, and I wish I could trap it, like sunlight, a firefly, in a tiny vial, and rub it all over my face, my shoulders. Melted candlewax, Citronella. I can see it there, a flame at night, burning in the dark.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “It tastes like something that, like, should be drunk by, like, a king from a long time ago,” I told the man. He laughed. I went outside to smoke a roll-up with a stranger, and later on, someone asked me what was my favourite wine I’d tasted that day.
I lied. I made up a lie about a Cataratto, and kept the Riesling as a secret, for myself: a</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> gold nameplate tucked under my skin, invisible to everyone, and unloseable. </span>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-44293751811738223592017-12-22T09:51:00.000-08:002017-12-22T10:52:53.656-08:00Desperately Seeking Susan Taught Me How to Walk Down the Street<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwz-MElQ3s7FOJLgdYbyIjgpc7kmDt9-nBFR0cBmIeAj3sDcg7F2olCGYiYyqrJoVw-NpNWrYhGiJEGQcUNCw7_VBDXfFd5MBGcHqpi26nxEFy90a6AelvW5KfV_Re4Tr6TRh5runkNQE/s1600/Liz+DSS+snacks-lowres.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="913" data-original-width="1267" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwz-MElQ3s7FOJLgdYbyIjgpc7kmDt9-nBFR0cBmIeAj3sDcg7F2olCGYiYyqrJoVw-NpNWrYhGiJEGQcUNCw7_VBDXfFd5MBGcHqpi26nxEFy90a6AelvW5KfV_Re4Tr6TRh5runkNQE/s640/Liz+DSS+snacks-lowres.jpg" width="640" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #e06666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">WORDS BY ELIZABETH BARKER</span></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #e06666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">ART BY JEN MAY</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I was a teenager I read a semi-trashy unauthorized biography of Patti Smith, and there was a story about Patti being a kid and finding a book of Arthur Rimbaud's poetry, in French. Patti said something about how she didn't know French but she knew the book was going to be important to her, and how the words glittered even though she couldn't understand them. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I saw <i>Desperately Seeking Susan</i> for the first time when I was seven, in the theater, with my mom and my best friend. I loved it immediately and continued to love it the 800 times I watched it on VHS throughout my childhood, but now I love it more than ever. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's a glittering poem, or a treasure box whose treasure I couldn't fully appreciate at first</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, because when I was seven I hadn't seen </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stranger Than Paradise</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> or listened to </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Blank Generation. </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All the pieces of treasure are things that I've grown up to love and need, many of them in the last year or so. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Each time I watch it now I notice something new, the most recent catch being </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a copy of </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Adventure</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> by Television on the floor of Dez's apartment. It's infinitely formative, in ways that never stop revealing themselves. So h</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ere's a scattershot </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">little</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> post about my current fave movie, and all the things I love most about it today:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i. Look at this beautiful cast photo. I love that it's bookended by Richard Hell and John Lurie whose song </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQqLQ_aLw9E" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">"Small Car"</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've listened to 500 zillion times since first hearing it this summer. My birthday's in six days and I'd love to be given an exclusive behind-the-scenes video documenting this photo shoot.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<img border="0" data-original-height="728" data-original-width="1000" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVsiTNvnZ_Mz19R9GP6RxCenafhbGNUVCSkG0Ih9G4_h9jsy76kPQUgnrJTymOkvReuF-UqJt4vPYAmYv2zux-bd10N3CxHU_FGplndTvIl9q81Sx2qDX4msIpsgd2Wm50BI3O3e9bAVI/s640/desperately+%25281%2529.jpg" style="font-family: '"arial"', '"helvetica"', sans-serif; text-align: center;" width="640" /></div>
<div>
<div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The only failure of that photo is that Richard Hell doesn't look so great, which makes no sense, because how hard can it be to make Richard Hell look great? The movie calls him a gangster, but I prefer to think of him as a jewel thief- Richard Hell makes me romantic about everything. Let's look at some pictures of him looking good:</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9dbZmYs5qTpe4KD7_Q2y2384ud06-TUZC1mL9uFUT7bZVIWrsGfUVpHOXmPfq2X7ok57mP02nywpUaTx_MXhflPiVQTsoXqK6f5gJyyO24fzkCF9H8thr323-bJnT_tas1GRsegj4sEg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-12-21+at+9.53.03+AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="544" data-original-width="1124" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9dbZmYs5qTpe4KD7_Q2y2384ud06-TUZC1mL9uFUT7bZVIWrsGfUVpHOXmPfq2X7ok57mP02nywpUaTx_MXhflPiVQTsoXqK6f5gJyyO24fzkCF9H8thr323-bJnT_tas1GRsegj4sEg/s640/Screen+Shot+2017-12-21+at+9.53.03+AM.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ever since Richard Hell became one of my favorite people I've wished there were a </span><i style="font-family: '"arial"', '"helvetica"', sans-serif;">Desperately Seeking Susan</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> prequel starring him and Madonna, about all the fun they had till he started getting serious. It would correct the one tragedy of the movie</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, which is that Richard Hell never actually speaks. You know the part on </span><i style="font-family: '"arial"', '"helvetica"', sans-serif;">At Folsom Prison</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> when Johnny Cash tells </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">June Carter</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> "I love to watch you talk"? That's how I feel about Richard Hell. His speech is so loose and lazy but there's still some kind of spark to it, because he's a Roman candle and a comet and 12 other kinds of fireworks. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Give yourself an early Christmas present and spend a few seconds watching Richard Hell talk. </span><a href="https://youtu.be/z4tVJWF6fe8?t=19m6s" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">Watch him say "You know I don't care about money" in 1979</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. </span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="color: black;">
</div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Earlier this year I had a moment of deep clarity and recognized that my all-time favorite song lyric is the part in "Venus" by Television that goes </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Richie said, "Hey man, let's dress up like cops, think of what we could do."</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It's a true story about when Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine lived together and Richard wanted to dress up like cops and go out and raise hell, but Tom wouldn't go </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">along</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> with it. I love the accuracy of Tom Verlaine's Richard Hell impression, his use of the diminutive, his willingness to admit to being the uptight one. You know that movie <i>Let's Be Cops </i>that came out a few years ago? I wish that were a documentary starring Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell, filmed on a night that never happened. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My favorite Richard Hell song this year was <a href="https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/7jpSAt4g5doC9Unfd0aDg6" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">"You Gotta Lose,"</span></a> from that great big Ork Records compilation which I love. It's a poem and a bop, it's a little mean but it never not brightens my head and punches me up: l</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">istening to Richard Hell gives you good attitude. Let's live life like a movie where Richard Hell is forever passed out in our trashed hotel room with the red velvet flocked wallpaper, a bottle of champagne by the bed and a box of chocolates on the floor.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShd2jtNIX8T9kEu9cYOcdbwwVrA1fjv5748V3f-kuYzadp8BrMueB-gUVum4QJNJN0OknP1hoUVZc8lef5ZJaWgpyM7qdt5synrq1hKw0mcQp2TtDnXoPVhKHXIwh8nCKREALYW0Ofdw/s1600/RichardHell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="1600" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShd2jtNIX8T9kEu9cYOcdbwwVrA1fjv5748V3f-kuYzadp8BrMueB-gUVum4QJNJN0OknP1hoUVZc8lef5ZJaWgpyM7qdt5synrq1hKw0mcQp2TtDnXoPVhKHXIwh8nCKREALYW0Ofdw/s640/RichardHell.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(BTW, "anecdotes about when Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine lived together" is my favorite genre of literature. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Richard Hell wasn't the best roommate- the two of them shared a bed, and whenever Richard brought a girl home Tom would have to go sleep on the roof. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's also a story about the time their refrigerator broke and the landlord wouldn't fix it, so then they threw it out the window. You can read all this in the beautiful book <i>I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp</i>, by Richard Hell.)</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAMkEONDqrTIvQKi_QBflImZoYuIXw-5Ddxrl0jgLYanEXdTPJIULFHfXXDjj0xUvMCfaFD_ZRHpC6P2BoDYZuSkLZwxHKR9uQGf_y6KjoguLfQsnMtgdzpWaUPzTssW6JftdRcIcsOks/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-12-21+at+9.45.22+AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="852" data-original-width="1600" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAMkEONDqrTIvQKi_QBflImZoYuIXw-5Ddxrl0jgLYanEXdTPJIULFHfXXDjj0xUvMCfaFD_ZRHpC6P2BoDYZuSkLZwxHKR9uQGf_y6KjoguLfQsnMtgdzpWaUPzTssW6JftdRcIcsOks/s640/Screen+Shot+2017-12-21+at+9.45.22+AM.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ii. Along with the Richard Hell prequel, I'd love a coffee table book of Richard Hell and Madonna's Polaroids from Atlantic City. Mostly I </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">wish the movie were this magical self-regenerating thing, where every time you watched there was a new scene or an entire narrative thread that wasn't there before. I want to see what Susan got up to in Mexico City and Seattle, I want a very intricate subplot about the Neighbor Saxophonist and another about the Cigarette Girl. I want an alternate version of the diner scene in which Dez and Roberta actually get to eat their blueberry blintzes. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'd also love to learn more about the Newspaper Clerk- Arto Lindsay is a babe. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1600" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqy3s6IOnkJji6TREy5WMzR-wLwN9dMfTW2NHVHqGUQXu4vV99q-9b1G6JDvwxtB_WDddLegbKvlYvgmDamy5p8n-UHkw22E00aDpGjp1KSR4PneYm_j7YsmvNPoPqwSjHlZxueFD5KNM/s640/Screen+Shot+2017-12-20+at+10.58.38+PM.jpg" width="640" /></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">iii. In addition to being a glittering poem and a treasure box, <i>Desperately Seeking Susan</i> is a beautiful painting, largely because of the costume and production design. I'm especially passionate about the pink telephone covered in seashells, and Crystal's short-sleeve palm-tree-covered cardigan & lime-green plaid socks, and the dirty knees of Roberta's seamed pink fishnets:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrXCNAC-1q_UHedOPrd5FIiSueERY-ybFeNUZ69qRtBxavC-i3-XVs2vFdCDW5NocU5won401kCNe69eb32_-P3F2s-bUrAJwEfP7lcSgEGoQOFvHN9QKWSZDIrjQq23n0w6x4FuiLc9w/s1600/ShellPhone%252BPizza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="855" data-original-width="1600" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrXCNAC-1q_UHedOPrd5FIiSueERY-ybFeNUZ69qRtBxavC-i3-XVs2vFdCDW5NocU5won401kCNe69eb32_-P3F2s-bUrAJwEfP7lcSgEGoQOFvHN9QKWSZDIrjQq23n0w6x4FuiLc9w/s640/ShellPhone%252BPizza.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgku3aE0kFNtBQ6F1h0oImRtpxv6EdYQLDZeeP0cP_sUO5PNkSNs8ySbo4PxBjCcjX4FeHa9miikAKms3y5ZrgBrzT9Q1bzzie646UOEdtHAiF-rNlRalYbYt5jUuktyOMtZphMFcoqwQU/s1600/Crystal%252BSusan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="946" data-original-width="1600" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgku3aE0kFNtBQ6F1h0oImRtpxv6EdYQLDZeeP0cP_sUO5PNkSNs8ySbo4PxBjCcjX4FeHa9miikAKms3y5ZrgBrzT9Q1bzzie646UOEdtHAiF-rNlRalYbYt5jUuktyOMtZphMFcoqwQU/s640/Crystal%252BSusan.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIB8fl0AS_VuMAaxbKgfZmuv3Nr9Dbost_CijdCMS2TboODqJAcQnKX0PHWGk_wOQA-RmJJcFJZT0nzYI_hqF9h4oA9hQCgBktVZ4YgtvoV5TxPozq7FaJpM382yRi4Cn1q6Qgd27wxjY/s1600/DirtyKnees.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="859" data-original-width="1600" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIB8fl0AS_VuMAaxbKgfZmuv3Nr9Dbost_CijdCMS2TboODqJAcQnKX0PHWGk_wOQA-RmJJcFJZT0nzYI_hqF9h4oA9hQCgBktVZ4YgtvoV5TxPozq7FaJpM382yRi4Cn1q6Qgd27wxjY/s640/DirtyKnees.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And I love how Susan's always got this magnificent sea of trash surrounding her, and so much of the trash is snacks. Like when she's out by the pool and there's a bag of pretzels, six bottles of wine, a bowl of chips, and a bowl of Cheez Doodles. Or when she's smoking in bed and reading Roberta's diary with a package of Chips Ahoy and a package of Oreos and a bag of potato chips. One very important detail I recently noticed is that the Glass family coffee table has a built-in snack tray, and that their chosen snacks are pretzels, Reese's Pieces, and gumdrops. The gumdrops are such an inspired touch. The name of the docx file I'm typing this in is RICHARD HELL GUMDROPS.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="1600" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ReXQ3S4cVQM8AkOyv1CqJeFGQgqJetCq2Uv3uTy_4Q3V3pfqRR9pio4_DxSxsGg3ZRmQHtkv-gQcYOFNxHD2NNYFImJiwMYYrOrRriHP4Wb8tl7UGHWk-d91dO1QdrSGVR_6O4YRvKo/s640/Screen+Shot+2017-12-21+at+9.37.12+AM.jpg" width="640" /></span></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">iv. I just listened to "Into the Groove(y)" by Sonic Youth for the first time in years: it's fine but it's cold. Not "cold" like "mean"- more like <i>frigid</i>, when it's defined as "lacking warmth or ardor." "Into the Groove(y)" sucks most of the fun out of the original and ends up sounding so bored with itself- which is such a boring way to be! To quote Betty Draper: "Only boring people are bored."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Desperately Seeking Susan</i> is a nice foil for Sonic Youth: it's born from New York and no wave, but its temperature is the opposite of frigid. It's tropical, like a triple tequila sunrise, which isn't a tropical drink but I don't care- it's my birthday. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I love Sonic Youth and I'll probably need <i><a href="http://strawberryfieldswhatever.blogspot.com/2012/09/every-summers-endless-summer-with-sonic.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star</span></a></i> forever, but they</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> can </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">be so defensive and reactionary, always with something to prove. But </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Desperately Seeking Susan</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> isn't worried about being above anyone, it's got zero to prove. It exists on its own plane and therefore is free of all rules.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The music that feels most like <i>Desperately Seeking Susan</i> to me is </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the Tom Tom Club album </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Close to the Bone</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> which I will never stop writing about as long as I live. "Pleasure of Love" is so Susan + Jim:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZDedqyVPenM" width="459"></iframe></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I was writing this post I made myself <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/lizbarker77/playlist/7mHUvxKZDsREA08ZVnbG1A" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">a little playlist of songs that are tonally or emotionally similar to <i>Desperately Seeking Susan</i></span></a>, and my favorite is "Stratford-on-Guy" by Liz Phair. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Stratford-on-Guy" feels like Susan at her most serene, like when she's swimming in boxer shorts or standing by the jukebox at Danceteria, really feeling the Madonna song on the stereo. It's self-possessed, low-key mesmerized, dreamy but still slightly cagey. What I admire </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">about</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the character of Susan is how she's so unaffected by everyone else's anxiety and bullshit, which in a way is a form of grace. I like superimposing Liz Phair onto Susan's aura and giving her a rich inner life.</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">v. A little while ago I heard some middle-aged guy argue that <i>Desperately Seeking Susan</i> is only a good movie if you're a ten-year-old girl, because anyone older than ten (and non-female? I guess?) would invariably see right through it: there's no way they could ever think that Susan was cool. But I'm having some crazy milestone birthday soon and I still think Susan's cool, with her neon-yellow nail polish and skull-covered drum case and of course her amazing jacket. Roberta's lavender lace gloves are still cool to me too, and so is Dez's apartment, and so are the punks in the Danceteria elevator.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="862" data-original-width="1600" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJivQS4qjqIPUrrUswqCBmAFoJI2XwGKE1uTYZSy3VDLYkiCmJx7iBpcuKoSdhTf-tX3vyTrUjxvrn5apLa-Ubq8cRNLbi_Mkqd9HT01JJVlnP-ykj-D0LFW8DD6ot_p7ByQNsTaDZm2E/s640/Screen+Shot+2017-12-21+at+9.40.29+AM.jpg" style="color: #0000ee; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline;" width="640" /></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's horridly boring to be proud of yourself for outgrowing something you were once fascinated by- even more boring than worst-case-scenario Sonic Youth. It's way more fun to become even more fascinated; it's like the reverse of that Nick Hornby thing in the New Yorker about how you have to be 16 to love music. Obsession can be so embarrassing, and I'm awed by people who are capable of processing and repurposing their obsessions in a graceful and intentional way. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's why I love listening to people like </span><a href="http://thecanon.wolfpop.com/audio/playlists/3968" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">Amy Nicholson talk about movies</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- I love seeing what they pay attention to, what they notice and what lights them up. It's like that part in </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Lady Bird</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> where the headmaster says how attention is a form of love.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I love<i> Desperately Seeking Susan</i> because it accommodates my infatuations like no other movie. And on top of that it's a movie <i>about</i> infatuation. It's the embodiment of David Bowie singing <i>strange fascination fascinating me</i> in "Changes." It's so nice to live inside a David Bowie lyric for a full 104 minutes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of my favorite things this year was </span><a href="http://www.rookiemag.com/2017/05/the-rookie-podcast-episode-five-protect-your-flame/" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">Tavi's interview with Durga Chew-Bose on the Rookie podcast</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. I listened to it twice and wrote some of it down, including the part where Durga's talking about how she loves young Al Pacino and says: "Nothing makes you more yourself than the person you have a crush on." I think that extends to obsession of any kind, not just with hotshot actors or Richard Hell or people who exist in the actual world. Obsession lets you discover new or hidden parts of yourself, and then you know yourself way better, and you're less likely to go along with shit that feels wrong to you. And then you are free, like Susan swimming.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg7tJxv6GyJ4Goej8-PiUxBoUmfMWZZrJa5eDgKeMtGoj7-rsV67jMdIkhuIuJ31smERIAJsq1X0at0eXyOczqCVhTHubXmGJnu1hWShLrGdOGezvKXiuvMkoxAHHSNdgsFEsjv4OSy80/s1600/Liz+DSS+closeup-lowres.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="857" data-original-width="809" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg7tJxv6GyJ4Goej8-PiUxBoUmfMWZZrJa5eDgKeMtGoj7-rsV67jMdIkhuIuJ31smERIAJsq1X0at0eXyOczqCVhTHubXmGJnu1hWShLrGdOGezvKXiuvMkoxAHHSNdgsFEsjv4OSy80/s640/Liz+DSS+closeup-lowres.jpg" width="604" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">vi. It would be fun to say something like "Everything I know I learned from <i>Desperately Seeking Susan</i>," and have that be the truth. My <i>Desperately Seeking Susan</i> life lessons would include stuff about ordering tequila from room service for breakfast, and turning the Port Authority bathroom into my own personal boudoir. But then I'd be lying about my life, and plus I'd sound like Tom Hanks in <i>You've Got Mail </i>talking about how <i>The Godfather</i> is the I Ching, not that that wouldn't be cool of me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="939" data-original-width="1600" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaKsNLp6q_rjiel8NMi8tQN9fZx46KDMq2gdpW-fZdnKyNB6UQTIVFJSJLbHlk1RtWI2ht020X5scBfC04-45liuOxpHBxzjpmJhRi_czB631Klv0HQSzkiNfMgEvJ-P_mpkEuP8gGgJo/s640/CheezDoodles.jpg" style="color: #0000ee; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline;" width="640" /></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A few weeks ago I read </span><a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/desperately-seeking-susan-turns-30-an-oral-114699999372.html" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #e06666;">this oral history</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> of </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Desperately Seeking Susan</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, and there's a great line about how Madonna walking down St. Marks with her bag of Cheez Doodles is like John Travolta in the opening scene of <i>Saturday Night Fever</i>. I don't ever want to eat Cheez Doodles while </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">wearing lace gloves, but I love how Susan's simultaneously living in her own world and changing the atmosphere of the world around her: she's bending the world to accommodate her weirdo sensibilities. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It reminds me of a scene from </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Paulina & Fran</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> by Rachel B. Glaser, where Fran and the boy she likes are putting </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Wizard of Oz </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">costumes on mice for an art project, and Fran says how she feels like she's "playing with the world in the right way." Susan's a thief and a swindler and probably exasperating to be around, but she absolutely plays with the world in the right way, for the most part. Watching her makes you feel like you can play with the world in the right way too, if you want to. Anyone can walk down the street on that lace-gloves-and-Cheez-Doodles level. </span></div>
Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-53170581181846218102017-08-28T10:16:00.001-07:002017-08-28T11:06:15.916-07:00Reds of Summer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNoCeLHiYGbEOAOEdf0rMZX_8SquIcL7DnXwqljGEsWaAWnajtp5TcroYZeRdaZnZhFEXPSEzMqw0BcfVccCCJTdcrmDjTWDsQcWaz9sXEP5t0vIoEpv75b6eUyu2Sj5uSiGPhRmTV88/s1600/LJSummerReds1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1456" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNoCeLHiYGbEOAOEdf0rMZX_8SquIcL7DnXwqljGEsWaAWnajtp5TcroYZeRdaZnZhFEXPSEzMqw0BcfVccCCJTdcrmDjTWDsQcWaz9sXEP5t0vIoEpv75b6eUyu2Sj5uSiGPhRmTV88/s640/LJSummerReds1.jpg" width="582" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">WORDS BY LJ/ ILLO BY JEN</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>1. Dolcetto (mid-June through mid-July)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The word Dolcetto sounds like it should be the name of a song, a kind of song, or a story about a song. Or a part of an opera or a style of opera or a sort of symphony.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It’s a wine grape: the “lesser Piemontese wine grape,” it’s called, which makes me want to love it, because it’s more interesting to love the thing you’re supposed to love less more. Loving something you’re supposed to love less <i>because</i> of the reasons you’re supposed to love it less is one of the most beautiful things that can happen to a person, but it doesn’t make very much sense when it comes to loving wine grapes. It makes the most sense when it comes to loving one-eyed, or three-legged, dogs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don’t love Dolcettos the wines, mostly I just like them, but I love one Dolcetto, <i>my</i> Dolcetto: My Summer Red. The first time I ever drank it was in the wintertime, but I didn’t like it then: maybe because it didn’t suit the wintertime, or maybe because it needed six more months to age in bottle, or maybe because it was the first Dolcetto I ever tasted, and I was gearing up for myself to love Dolcetto so much more than I love Nebbiolo— the <i>more</i>-er Piemontese wine grape— and was so disappointed to find out that I didn’t that it temporarily blinded me, or my tongue at least.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I was tasting it with a bunch of kids whose boss I am. I was mad at the Dolcetto for not being as good as I wanted it to be: I couldn’t slot it into anywhere, couldn’t figure out if it was serious or gluggable or light-bodied or medium-bodied or fruit-forward or medium-tannin or aromatic or fucking <i>anything</i>, at all, besides being a bottle that looked good on a table, with a matte lipsticky dark pink foil and a swishy little watercolour of a rose on the label, which duped all the children into thinking it tasted like flowers— everyone was saying “It’s kind of <i>floral</i>,” but I couldn’t taste it: I suck at being able to taste the tastes of different flowers in wine— I only know rose, because everyone knows rose, and there’s a certain wine-y taste that I’ve come to know as being “white flower,” but it’s not because I know what white flowers smell like, it’s because I’ve been tasting wines for long enough to know that when certain wines taste like a certain something, it’s “white flower.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I work very closely with another sommelier from a restaurant that is in the same building as mine and is the same restaurant as mine but is not the same restaurant as mine: I am not interested in explaining that particular circumstance any further; just accept it. He & I are constantly forced to deal with the same style of bullshit inconveniences from our in-house wine agency, and whenever the wine people send him extra cases of a wine he doesn’t want he says, “I just got <i>fisted</i> with another seven cases of [Dolcetto, or whatever]” and it’s so crass, something I would <i>never</i> think to say on my own, but at this point I’ve worked alongside him for so long, and heard him say “getting fisted” re: getting sent a billion cases of crap enough times to render myself incapable of defining getting fisted with X amount of cases of anything as <i>anything</i> but “getting fisted” to myself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> In February I got fisted with five cases of Dolcetto and I called it “the stupid Dolcetto” and hated it and when it came time to take it off the list I said “Good Riddance to the stupid Dolcetto” instead of “It’s time to say goodbye to our old friend Dolcetto,” which is what I say when it’s time to say goodbye to any by the glass wine that I love or even like.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I said Good Riddance to the stupid Dolcetto preemptively, at the end of March, because I was bored of it. I arranged the remaining twenty-three bottles into a pattern in the wine cage outside the bathroom, where it could make itself useful: people waiting to use the bathroom could look at it while waiting, take note of its prettiness. That was the best the Dolcetto could ever do, I thought.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The bottles sat there for months, collecting dust, until it was slow one night, and I forced some busser to dust them. In June the Dolcetto came back in stock and I got fisted with another seven cases, so put it back on by the glass, because I had no choice. On the night of that wine list swap-over I shimmied my way through the narrow pathways of the little closet we call the "Harry Potter closet," my shoddy bit-rate wine cellar that one of my servers once told me I “low-key like,” to which I reponded, “No— I high-key <i>love</i> it.” I stacked four cases of the Dolcetto into one row and another three cases into a smaller row next to it. I skulked back upstairs and made a big deal out of how sad I was to have it back on the list.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> A couple days later I helped myself to a splash, to remind myself of whatever garbage it tasted like. And that was my revelatory moment, when I realised…
It tasted fucking GOOD! Like thick strawberry juice, a boldly <i>yummy </i>cheerer-upper that brought nothing but good vibes to the table. It reminded me of all the food-tastes I wish I could only ever be tasting: Strawberries! Strawberries! Strawberries! Strawberry jam, strawberry soda, strawberry ice cream, syrupy strawberry anything submerged in syrupy strawberry everything. Plain white cake dotted with strawberry chips generously iced with strawberry frosting, strawberry candy leather, Fruit Roll-Ups or Fruit-by-the-Foot. Gummy Haribo strawberries shaped like strawberries, dyed in green at the top but the green still tastes like red. Strawberry Lipsmackers, kiddie strawberry perfume. The sweet perfume of a strawberry-scented plastic Strawberry Shortcake doll. And actual strawberry shortcake! It’s like that wonderful Andy Warhol quote about how he wishes he could only eat sugar: “everything else is just for show.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> There was no tannin, no grip, no bite. I thought: I do not give enough credit to wines who only aim to please.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “I love the Dolcetto now,” I told my bartender, and he said: “Provocative!” and I thought, “No wine has ever been <i>less</i> provocative than the Dolcetto,” and I drank a glass for dessert that night, and declared it my Official Summer Red.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We ran out of Dolcetto two nights ago, on July 16th, and I drank a glass to say goodbye. It tasted like what it tasted like, and I shrugged, “I guess summer is over now.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> That’s a lie, but I know it will be a very long time until I find another wine that asks so little of me, whose good-naturedness I am so wholly impressed by.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>2. Grumello (July 20th)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I ordered the Salsiccia for my staff meal and the plate, the physical plate, was my favourite kind, rust-coloured and encircled by a lip, like a pie crust. The food looks so nice all piled up inside of it, but after you start eating, the dish gets sloppy, gloppy, quickly. I don’t like the way the rapini looks with the celery root puree smothered all over it. It’s untidy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I asked my bartender to pour me a taster of a low-end Lombardian Nebbiolo, called “Botonero,” which always makes me think of Beaujolais Day from wine school, when my Wallace Shawn-looking instructor kept saying “cheap & cheerful” to accurately describe the overarching vibe of the Gamay grape, and I thought he was the first person ever to have thought to describe wine like that, but then I realized it’s a thing that British people say. Mostly about Beaujolais.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> He poured me two tasters into one glass, because he knew I was in a mood and needed them. It was cheap & cheerful and tasted like thin fruit juice, dribbly juicebox punch. I ate a bite of the sausage and took a sip of the wine. In my mind I saw a picture of the lid of a tin can, the kind you pull off with a tab.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> My phone rang. Three days later I smashed the face of it: not on purpose, by accident, in the dullest way: I was holding it, and I dropped it, and it broke.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I went outside to hold it and talk. I sat on a cement thing outside of the store called Harvest Wagon that we all call Harvs Wags. Calling it Harvs Wags started out as a joke about something we could call it but probably wouldn’t, because why would we call it something so stupid it as that, but then we started calling it that. And now we only call it that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I went back inside and ate the end of my Salsiccia and I'd been gone for so long I thought the busser would've cleared my plate but she didn't. I mopped up the last of the puree with a piece of bread. I felt shaken, I'd been shook, and since</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I felt as though I’d just endured something, I could permit myself to eat a piece of bread. The bread is not the gift: the permission is.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I knew it before I could define the shape of my discomfort, I knew: <i>you have permission now. You will have it until you don’t. You can drink all the wine now, and eat bread, lots of it, smoke until your tongue’s numb. Run out of wine, run out of smokes— it’s no problem! Just stumble round the corner. Go buy more!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I jogged downstairs to the office, unlocked the door. My office keychain is a grubby reproduction of the cartoon character Stitch, coloured in pink instead of blue. Her body fell off.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I took my debit card out of my wallet, ran back upstairs, and swiftly purchased a bottle of a different Lombardian Nebbiolo: “Grumello,” it’s called. In the description of Grumello on my wine list, I wrote that it’s “[the name of my restaurant] sommelier Laura’s day off go-to,” and whenever I sell it to people I trace the bottom of that sentence with my finger and say “See? <i>I’m</i> Laura! It’s literally my day off go-to!” and then they buy it and it does something to them. Last night we had two bottles left and now we only have one.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I poured myself a glass. I did not measure out a 6 oz pour but am confident that I poured myself 6 ounces. One of the many </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">pointless but practical skills I've acquired over the course of my career— like being able to pour out the remainder of a bottle into X amount of glasses in equal measures, finishing the bottle, without having to go back to any glass and pour again— that I take pride in not because I taught myself to do them, but because I didn’t. They are borne from a corner of the larger concept of time that I rarely remember to be grateful for: <i>repetition</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don’t like drinking wine out of Nebbiolo glasses, which are the same thing as Burgundy glasses, meant to coax out detail and aroma: broad-bowled goblets, narrow at the top, with big fat guts. It’s too much of a production— I find the picking up of the glass and holding it to my lips to be unnecessarily exhausting, and the liquid doesn’t swirl around too neatly when you’re swirling it. And also I figure that if a wine is good enough, and if <i>I’m</i> good enough, neither of us should require any fancy glassware to call attention to what its good about it. If a wine can't tell me why it's good on its own, no Nebbiolo glass is going to save it, and no Nebbiolo glass is going to save a shitty somm who can’t taste wine, either. Really, you should choose to drink wine out of the glass whose weight and shape feels most comfortable in your hand, when you’re using it to gesticulate. I tend to favour a standard white wine glass, but on that night I responded positively to the theatre of the Nebbiolo glass. I became, to myself, a tragic heroine, and required that even something as simple as taking a sip of wine to be as arduous as possible.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The next night I permitted myself to get sloppy-weird drunk off of very cheap Cava and I drank my cheap Cava out of the Nebbiolo glass I took home from work because it had a chip in it. I spent the entire night holding that Nebbiolo glass by its base and began to perceive it as an extension of myself, a new appendage. An appendix.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Grumello is made by the same people who make the Botonero I was talking about earlier, from the Salsiccia bite. Lombardian Nebbiolos are Juicier than Piemontese because it is slightly warmer in Lombardia, which you pronounce, and sound coolest pronouncing, with the accent on the <i>di</i>. I used to run the Grumello on by the glass and at first I didn’t take it seriously because before we sold the Grumello by the glass we sold the same producer’s Sassella by the glass and I didn’t care for the Sassella. And the look of the bottles is nothing to write home about: the labels are somber and dull.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Realizing I loved the Grumello happened like a hypnic jerk, like the time in my dream when I pulled the pin out of the grenade and killed my friend and died myself and then woke up and the air was smooth as granite. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I can see the shape of time and spend my life watching the ribbon of it unroll on top of the air in front of me. There are points and places on the shape, markers, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">where before it something wasn’t there and after now it is, and that's how everything that happens has to happen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> There is no greyscale, no midpoint.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A wine you love so much it tastes like nothing. A wine so perfectly attuned to the needs and desires of my palate that my palate has no need to read it. The Grumello fits into the shape of my mouth the same way my foot fit into the plastic bag of paraffin wax the pedicurist stuck my foot into.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On that night I took one sip of it, behind the bar, alone beneath the strand of lights labelled “Coffee” on the lightswitch. The Coffee lights are like the ones above a movie star’s mirror in her dressing room, in a movie about a movie star. That weekend, I decided, I would be a movie star looking at myself in a mirror underneath a strand of lights called Coffee. I would be the star of a movie about that weekend that I would be the star of.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I forced myself to think harder than I wanted to about the wine because I knew I’d be forcing myself to write about it a few days later. Here I am.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It makes me think of a plastic bunch of grapes frozen into a cube of glass, a fake block of ice: a sweet but expectedly-tacky seventies statue, overpriced ($35?) at a cutesy shop that sells cutesy housewares from a long time ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It doesn’t make me think of that. It makes me think of a <i>real</i> bunch of grapes, frozen into a block of ice. I had to make it into the grape-statue in my head because a bunch of grapes frozen into a block of ice doesn't exist; it doesn’t need to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It makes me think of a candied bunch of grapes, dusted with white sugar. And it makes me think of my own foot, immersed in a plastic bagful of pale pink paraffin wax.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Is that wax?” I asked the pedicurist.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “It’s paraffin,” she said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “What’s the difference between wax and paraffin,” I asked, flat, no question mark, but interrupted myself before she had the chance to answer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I didn’t care. I just liked the sound of the sentence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>3. Gavi (last week of July; not a red)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have spent the past week-and-a-half engineering Summer Red-oriented end-of-the-night wine-drinking situations for myself to exist inside, all of which have been run off course by the unanticipated presence of a half-bottle of Gavi di Gavi: recently de-listed, subsequently unsellable, a wine that I would run by the glass for the rest of my life if I could, a wine that I think— no, <i>believe</i>— should be the house white wine at every single bar, pub, café and/or restaurant in the <i>world</i>. As charming as it is innocuous, delicately juicy, dainty & spritz-y, yet so fucking <i>fun</i>— makes me think of: eating key lime pie in the back of an air-conditioned minivan with the girl who taught me how to smoke a cigarette. It’s a true story! That happened to me once. She was a blonde Eminem fan named Jackie, in the year 1999.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> If the story happened today you could replace both good parts of the story with key lime pie flavour vape juice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> My Gavi, my Summer White that never was, is a wine that at first sip you mindlessly assume should be drunk mindlessly, though joyfully, before seeing that its simplicity has been curated with such deliberation and tact that it in turn becomes as chewy to think about as some rich oaky masterpiece that has been heavy-handedly manipulated to <i>taste</i>, as opposed to <i>be</i>, complicated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>4. Dolcetto, again (August 17th)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Dolcetto returned for a victory lap at the end of summer, on the second day of the second half of August. While I was sitting in my backyard drinking Garnacha with my Dad someone at the restaurant, which somehow still exists when I’m not at it, sold a bottle of Dolcetto to a table, poured them the requisite taste, and their faces soured: they sent it back.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> This pains me. I have no sympathy for people who abuse the ritual of “the taste,” which is not intended to enable the orderer vocalize their personal opinion about the wine, but rather to see if they detect a fault. If you have gotten yourself to a place where you’ve had a conversation with a server or somm about what kind of wine you're into, they’ve suggested a bottle based on the information provided, and you’ve decided to take their advice, the transaction is now complete: if you don’t like the wine, that’s on <i>you</i>. You did your best, your somm or server did her best, you all fucked it up, whatever, it’s not a big deal, learn from your mistake, move on with your life, drink the wine that doesn’t dazzle, pay your bill, go home, and never think about it again, because<i> it’s not a big deal</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I can assess the scope of my personal appreciation for a given wine within one second of sniffing it, think 90% of all wine I drink is either eh, blah or whatever, and barely, or rarely, care. I am deeply offended when I am poured a taste of wine I’ve ordered by the glass or half-litre: to me, this communicates that the restaurant’s sommelier is untrained and cannot determine the smell of corked or oxidized wines on her own.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I don’t care if I like the wine that I buy. Why would I assume that entitlement? It’s like turning on the radio, hearing a song you dislike, and taking the fact that they're playing it as a personal affront.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don’t know what wine those horrible people ended up buying after they rejected the Dolcetto, nor do I care. Those people cannot handle the responsibility of ordering wine in a restaurant, and as far as I’m concerned, should be doomed to drink room-temperature Coors Light or boxed Pinot Grig 'til they die. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The open but undrunk bottle of Dolcetto was returned to the wine fridge, and staff were encouraged to sell it off by the glass, but no one bothered, and no one told me about it, until one day I noticed it and asked “Why is the Dolcetto there?” and someone told me the story, and I sighed, and said: “I guess I’m just going to have to drink it myself.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(All my Reds of Summer:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The chirpy bottle of Beaujolais-Villages, a delightful idiot of a wine, that I shared with my roommate but drank mostly alone out back, chain-smoking in my navy-blue hoodie before accidentally dumping an entire ashtray full of dirty Gauloises butts and murky ash-water all over her sedan. Then I cleaned it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Three biodynamic Sangioveses I hated substantially less than I hate most Sangioveses, and so I loved them: I loved them because I didn’t hate them. Splashes of leafy tarry and ultimately shrug-offable Barolo-after-Barolo the owner of my restaurant treats me to whenever he dines in, black cruel Barbarescos that make me think of men and turn me on, the Boca I blind-tasted as a Chateauneuf, dead-wrong but still… “I would have guessed it as a Chateaneuf,” too breezy to bother with “de Pape”—you <i>know</i> what I mean. A minty and stylish glass of Langhe Nebbiolo at the place across the street, post-therapy on the afternoon of my mother’s birthday. They prescribe to a stupid concept they’ve named “anti-service” at that bar, which means you have to ask for water; they don’t just give it to you. I wasn’t in the mood to ask for water. I left black-tongued and morose.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The last bottle of my father’s favourite Garnacha, soupy and vanilla bean, a strident amphora-aged Valipolicella, one-note yeah but man did that one note sing, loud and hot and cold clear, across the tops of mountains, I thought of mountains, that horn-thing an angel blows into: a story about a song. And Grumello, yes, my winsome Grumello… though when I think back to that night I think more of her kicky little brother, Botonero, and that stupid sausage bite, thin blood in my mouth, and a white: the clarifying glass of bony, yeasty Muscadet I drank when I got home.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I drank my last glass of Dolcetto last Thursday. I felt ill, that night it rained and every pane of glass in the restaurant fogged up with the warmth of people’s breath and bodies, my lungs burnt to shreds and I didn’t even want it, but felt I had to have it. And it tasted just as I’d remembered: thick, wild strawberry juice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Two nights later I poured myself a second glass, sniffed, and sipped. It tasted like sour liquid metal, a dog’s unwashed coat. It had gone off.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I said goodbye to my old friend Dolcetto as I unceremoniously dumped its remnants down the sink and voided it through the system as “Wine expired.”
The rain dried up and the air cooled down.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> That was summer! It was over.</span>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-42487404057871117902017-07-03T08:00:00.001-07:002017-07-03T09:26:59.787-07:00Some Wine I Drank In England <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3cCJQAJSjyEPfbegtm8CBq6pvkDDatPa9oOUlQ9_AUPuJdr74mI2PibrwswCOzeSr7qWdaEXTglpKjOlrYxiofNe8KYXcl2jqzXnVMPP-4I7EfHFNb7rQvscj3agRliSh8pZqOgkIDU0/s1600/wineillo1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="495" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3cCJQAJSjyEPfbegtm8CBq6pvkDDatPa9oOUlQ9_AUPuJdr74mI2PibrwswCOzeSr7qWdaEXTglpKjOlrYxiofNe8KYXcl2jqzXnVMPP-4I7EfHFNb7rQvscj3agRliSh8pZqOgkIDU0/s1600/wineillo1.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">WORDS BY LJ/ DRAWING BY JEN</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>1. 2 $14 glasses of NV Bisol Desiderio e Figli 'Belstar' Prosecco DOC</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am at an airport bar, and sadly, it’s not a very good one. But I am, however, <i>here</i>. So that's something!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> At work yesterday, I told my friend how much I was looking forward to having a drink at an airport bar— “If you’re having a drink at an airport bar,” I told her, “It means you have literally nothing, in the world, to do, except have a drink at an airport bar.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Even being on holiday is higher-stress than being at an airport bar. On holidays you have to go do something, go look at something, see a building, eat a food you can't get at home. You're supposed to be having a very special time and if for whatever reason at whatever moment you're not, it means you're fucking up your holiday and that kind of thing gets me really skittish. No one would ever ask you to be having a very special time at an airport bar. So I feel very safe here.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Here I am, me, at this piece of crap. I have fully committed myself to being here, drinking a glass of Prosecco, which I ordered on an iPad, which is bolstered to a wall. I briefly considered giving Wayne Gretzky Estates’ Chardonnay “No. 99” a go, as a </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">joke about being Canadian to myself, but I needed bubbles. I needed this thing I’m doing to be as close to my romantic ideal of “drinking champagne at an airport bar” as I could get it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Something I often say, and sometimes believe, is that I want it to say <i>It’s only called Champagne if it’s from the Champagne region of France</i> on my tombstone. Drinking a glass of Prosecco at an airport bar and telling someone you drank a glass of Champagne at an airport bar is, sorry, unacceptable. On instinct I just started writing a sentence that began "Calling Prosecco Champagne is like calling...", but really, there's no comparison more coherent, more profound, than Prosecco v. Champagne itself: </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Calling generic-brand club soda Perrier is like calling Prosecco Champagne," you could say, or, "Calling your synthetic velour H&M camisole <i>velvet </i>is like calling Prosecco Champagne" </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">— </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Calling Prosecco Champagne is like calling Prosecco Champagne. Calling Prosecco Champagne is slightly worse than calling Prosecco Cava. Calling Cava Champagne is slightly better than calling Prosecco Champagne. Calling Cava Prosecco is gauche. Calling Champagne Prosecco is literally the gauchest thing a human being could do. If I ever heard a person call Champagne Prosecco, I would literally die, for seemingly no reason, on the spot. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(<i>My tasting note for Belstar Prosecco: </i>Sugar on the nose, plain white sugar, the bad stuff.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And there’s fruit on it, stupid generic fruit flavour— it’s imprecise. Pears? Tangerines. Synthetic tangerine, some tangerine & acacia flower Bath & Body Works-branded bubble bathy body sprayey thing, but I don’t hate it, in fact I love it, it’s an on-the-nose example of its own horribleness, so I appreciate it for that, and also, okay, here's my thing: it’s better than a Fresca! That’s my tagline for Belstar Prosecco, if I were Don Draper pitching to the Belstar people, <i>just get me in a room</i>... "One hundred percent, unfuckwithably, you literally can’t deny it, the taste of it tastes better in your mouth than the taste of a can of Fresca- though not by much! But by a little.") </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I ordered my second glass of Prosecco halfway through my first, on the iPad, nimbly, a seasoned pro by now. An elderly couple sitting nearby were just frustratedly yell-asking line cooks</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">— there's an open kitchen, an island encircled by the bar </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">—</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> how to order off the iPad. The line cooks looked back at them blankly, and the old people kept yelling. I liked everyone in the situation. Everyone was being rude to everyone, but no one really cared. I am interested in situations wherein strangers quietly, sort of elegantly, agree to be fleetingly rude to one another, then hold no grudges, immediately rebound. Like a gentleman's bet. How fly. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> My second glass came in a regular white wine glass rather than a Champagne flute— I am a great champion of drinking sparkling wine out of a regular wine glass, since well-made sparklings should be assessed as still wines first; the bubbles, ideally, should be happenstansical. Maybe on my other tombstone it should say <i>I’d rather die than drink Champagne out of a Champagne coupe</i>— that’s my other Champagne-related thing I’m always going on about. It’s very stupid, really, this recent-ish resurgence of sparkling wine being served in Champagne coupes at, embarrassingly, "good" restaurants, and I use the word “embarrassing” very pointedly here:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Look. If you are a sommelier, or bar manager, or beverage director, or whatever little twist on a job title you have, and you <i>made the choice </i>to serve sparkling wine out of a Champagne coupe at an establishment you stand behind, you should be deeply, <i>deeply</i> embarrassed for yourself. Yikes! You don't understand the point of your own job, which is worse than being bad at it. You should go off somewhere and blush alone, go hide somewhere, and quiver there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Drinking sparkling wine out of a Champagne coupe is a cool idea if you're bored of your own life and into ruining things. If the thought of ruining Champagne really gets you going. Ruins it how you ask? Well!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The large surface area of the glass over-aerates the wine, which is what causes it to a) go flat in five seconds and b) evaporate off a great deal of its aromatic character, which, if it's Champagne, is probably fucking magnificent. Just as importantly, people look c) stupid while lapping from a coupe, like they are d) the snooty white kitten from <i>The Aristocats.</i> Also, you e) spill the entire glass all over your hand if, like, a <i>butterfly</i> breathes fifty feet away from you, which is an even greater waste of the Champagne you already wasted by serving it out of a fucking Champagne coupe. It's not that fucking complicated: f) don’t </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">waste</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Champagne, and g) yeah I always capitalise Champagne, like it's the Internet, or God. (PS: </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Flutes are preferable to coupes but still a bit of a nightmare to drink out of, the bubbles splashing out at you like embers from a firework, and your nose always gets in the way. The only people who need be drinking Champagne out of Champagne flutes are people with very tiny noses. Maybe just pug dogs.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>2. 50 mL of 2015 E. Guigal “La Doriane” Condrieu AOC</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Viognier is a low-acid— almost <i>no</i> acid— white grape; that’s the thing they want you to know about it, the thing they’re most eager to impress upon you. They, they, they. Who's <i>they</i>? My old instructors from wine school, I guess. And me! (One of the strangest parts of getting older, I find, is that you become the <i>they. </i>It happens to me at work all the time. "Can't <i>they</i> get that fixed?" "Can <i>they</i> order more whatever?" "<i>They</i> need to call an exterminator." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> "There is no <i>they</i>!" I'm constantly reminding people, "<i>I'm </i>they!") </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Viognier is a low-acid white wine grape, which makes it a bit of a weirdo, because white wines usually need acid to perform. <i>Acid, </i>or <i>acidity</i>, sounds ugly when you say it to a person, these are words we have negative associations with, they make people think of either psychedelia or heartburn. If you sell wine to people for a living, which I do, you have to build up an arsenal of words that say <i>acid </i>without saying <i>acid</i>. You say <i>lean, </i>and you say <i>tart. </i>You say <i>nervy- </i>I <i>love </i>when wines are nervy. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nervy wines are alive, all the words that relate to being alive: lively, spirited, like a frantic weird girl who is so lit inside of herself it seems like her nerve-endings must be touching the underside of her skin, trying to break out of her body. And I like <i>racy</i> too, <i>racy</i> acidity. So sexy! So fast! It makes me think of drag-racing, a long-legged summer girl from a Beach Boys song.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And then, of course, there's <i>elegant. </i>Lightly touch a hand to the heart, gaze off into the distance, sigh... that's what an elegant white should make you do, and ac</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">id, as a rule, is the bulk of what makes an elegant white as such. White wines </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">can’t coast on tannin for structure like reds; acidity gives them the backbone they need to stand up to food, and I can’t stop thinking… the only way I can put this, that really makes sense: it <i>grows them up</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A word you would use to describe white wines that lack acidity is <i>flabby, </i>a word that when used in any context makes me think of a chunk of a pulpy John Lennon biog I used to read over and over again in high school, in which a woman recounts her experience of giving John Lennon a blow job in the late nineteen-seventies, describing his body as <i>thin, but flabby. Freckled, and pale. </i> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Flabby wines just sit there, dumb and mute, a lump in your mouth like a fat old cat. Bad Viogniers are <i>always</i> flabby; it takes a <i>lot</i> of finesse to get a Viognier to do fucking anything except sit in your mouth and fucking <i>die </i>there. A</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> wine descriptor I am wont to overuse is “like Gena Rowlands in a cream silk pantsuit,” which is a really smart way to describe any wine that is both low in acid <i>and </i>elegant, since Gena Rowlands is mad elegant, but there's just something about her, and everyone who's reading this sentence and has ever seen Gena Rowlands act in any movie understands it. She is <i>not </i>a high-acid woman! She's a Viognier. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The word <i>Condrieu </i>refers to the Central-Southeastern French <i>AOC</i> ("<i>appelation d'origine controlée</i>"/ "controlled designation of origin") where the</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Gena Rowlands in a cream silk pantsuitiest Viogniers in the world are made,</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and that’s what I was going for when I spent ten quid on 50 mL of La Doriane- <i>peak</i> Gena Rowlands in a cream silk pantsuit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But, unfortunately for me, La Doriane was overoaked, which was a drag, but also cool in that I fucking <i>love</i> the particular brand of incensed I get from drinking overoaked wine I derive great satisfaction from putting on my little performance of being over-the-top offended by it, pacing around the room with smoke coming out of my ear, and shouting, it’s like drinking sparkling wine out of a Champagne coupe times a billion-</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Hey! I have a good idea!” I like to yell, “Why don’t you just take your wine, why don’t you just grow the grapes, make the wine, and then, why don’t you just fucking <i>ruin</i> it?” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And then there’s also “It’s <i>disrespectful</i> to the grape,” that’s another really good one. I’m such a freedom fighter, a real activist, for the rights of grapes. But, all joking aside, I am not fucking kidding around here. A Condrieu should NOT (I used capitals rather than italics to communicate that I'm not <i>emphasizing, </i>I'm YELLING) taste like a California Chardonnay! It should taste like a fat white peach, juice dribbling down then wiped off your chin with a white lace hankie by a painter of watercolours in a movie about the summertime. An overripe peach on the pavement, stomped on by a peach-coloured kitten heel, white flowers raining down. It should taste like a garden, but not an English garden: a <i>French</i> garden! And dead ghost girls’ perfume and pink lips. It should NEVER taste of oak. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> E. Guigal overoaked his Condrieu, the idiot, and I think he knows it. And I do believe, in my heart, that he will learn from his mistakes. I believe that he will do a better job next year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>3. 2010 Sylvain Gaudron ‘La Symphonie’, Vouvray AOC / 2014 St. John ‘Bien Autre’ VdP de l'Herault/ some Madeira</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I met Alex at St. John Bread & Wine and we sat at the bar next to a cook on his break and drank a glass of sparkling Vouvray per each of us. I used to believe that every meal should begin with a glass of sparkling wine, but my new thing is having a glass of bone-ass-dry white as my <i>aperitif, </i>then drinking sparkling with my meal until I get bored and want red: either with or for dessert. No disrespect to my that night's decision: t</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">here are few wines in the world that speak as directly to my palate as a sparkling Vouvray, which is vinified in the Champagne style, though drinks more candied, honeyed, than Champagne. Nutty rather than bready, and slightly oxidative, musty-not-dusty. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And with our dinner, which was fucking exceptional, but this isn't about food, it's about wine, we shared a bottle of St. John’s house <i>Bien Autre</i>, which was simply fucking <i>yummy</i>, yumster or yumsville or something, the kind of red I like to call “a house red wine in heaven.” House red wines in heaven are usually made in the south of France or the middle of Italy, are uncomplicated but lovingly-crafted, lightly oaked, with a bit of body- a glass of house red wine must <i>always </i>be medium-bodied-</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">but no discernible acid or tannin, and should taste predominantly of slightly-smokey strawberry jam.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> As far as reds go, my personal preference will always be for a plucky, slinky, aggressively mineral, and translucent Nebbiolo, Pinot Noir, or Nerello Mascalese, but </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the point of a house red is that it should have absolutely nothing to do with a given sommelier’s personal preference; it should be a <i>people’s</i> wine, and the people, in my experience, like Merlot.
Merlot, Sangiovese, Tempranillo, Grenache. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Any house red that isn’t made from at very least a blend of one of these grapes is some sucks-at-her-job sommelier’s masturbatory passion project and literally no one in the entire world cares except your dumb sommelier friend who indulged you in your embarrassing choice of making your house red wine a Blaufrankisch. And I bet you serve your Cremant d'Alsace out of a Champagne coupe too. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The <i>Bien Autre</i> was a Grenache/Syrah blend, a wedding wine, an unobstrusive thickish juice that you could and maybe should blend with ice and slurp out of a bendy straw until you can’t, until your teeth turn black, and go to bed. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For dessert we classily ate some not-that-delicious Fernet-Branca flavoured ice cream, plus a Madeira per each of us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I can’t fucking <i>wait</i> until Madeira comes back into vogue, which— I can feel it— it will. It tastes like a suntan in a glass, cutely-burnt, with a lightly-freckled nose. I’m on a train and I don’t have any Internet so I can’t tell you the exact story of how a bunch of Portuguese sailors once discovered that Madeira existed but it’s something like:
They kept their white wine in big barrels as they sailed across the ocean, and as they journeyed it was baked by sunshine, and turned into Madeira. The sailors tasted it, and thought, "We should keep doing this," and then did. White wine with a suntan! Like your summer vs. winter self: it's <i>that </i>much better. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>4. ½ bottle of NV Gosset Brut Reserve Champagne/ two glasses of Baglio Bianco Cataratto</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I hadn't seen my friend Eli since last July 17th, the day I flew home to Toronto after two years spent living in London. Together we commuted to the airport at six in the morning, hungry and hungover on the Heathrow Express, and a woman sitting across from us had the ugliest highest-pitched voice, breathy and babyish and every time she spoke it made my head bleed. We smoked a cigarette in the Smoker’s Area and as we said goodbye I told her, “The next time we see each other, it will feel like no time has passed.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Yesterday she called me a cab from the train station, in Margate, where she lives now, and I stood outside her flat and she walked up to me and we saw each other for the first time in ten months, two weeks, and six days, and it was true. I was right.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> We walked to the sea and shared a paper box of fish & chips. Part of the fish & chips was a pickle: it was the best pickle I’d ever eaten in my life. In February, I was on the phone with a man on a Monday and he asked me what my yesterday had been like; it had snowed the day before, and I told him, “It was the most perfect snow day I’ve ever seen.” He got a bit sassy with me for saying that, because he didn’t believe me. He assumed I was being hyperbolic for the sake of it, which is a reasonable thing to assume, since I’m hyperbolic, but that time, I wasn’t. I said, “Dude, no, it really was the <i>prettiest</i> snow I’ve ever seen,” and that’s just how life has to be sometimes. You’re alive for a certain amount of years, and over the course of them you’ll see a lot of snowfalls, eat a lot of pickles, and out of all of those snowfalls and pickles, there’s got to be a prettiest or best of either one of them, and in 2017, when I was thirty-one, I experienced both.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We came back to Eli’s from the sea and drank a bottle of Gosset champagne, which we drank out of Champagne coupes, and I trash-talked Champagne coupes, and then we trash-talked Champagne flutes- Eli thought up the thing about the pug dog. We walked up the street to a cute-seeming wine bar named Urchin but it was closed, so we walked down to a street that curved up and around the sea, so if you looked down over a fence you could see where the sea was, and the tide was low. We went to a place. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I ordered a glass of orange wine, a Cataratto, on a whim. It overdelivered. I said, after my second glass, “This will be <i>the</i> wine of my trip"- I peaked early. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It was an herby candy drop, a honey lozenge— what are the names of those things you dip into honey that look like old-timey microphones? A “honey-thing,” I think. There’d be a picture of one of those honey-things, dripping with honey, on the cover of the lozenge box. And because I have to, and because it’s interesting to me, I think a lot about the difference between “herbal” and “herbaceous”- as they relate to wine, I mean. I think of "herbal" as smelling/tasting of something like the inside of a doctor’s medicine bag, all the plants that they boiled down to make the first-ever batch of Coca-Cola. Liquorice, menthol, eucalyptus. And “herbaceous” makes me think of ferns, skinny-leaved, fresh not dry, <i>alive</i>, the cute nervy plants exuberant home cooks grow out of flowerpots on their kitchen windowsills.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The Cataratto was herbal on the nose, but when Eli ordered a plate of blistered Padron peppers, seasoned with sea salt, the wine woke up, and all the dried herbs came back to life, like a time-lapse video of their life-cycle shown in rewind. And the fruit is rarely so ripe on orange wines, usually it's trail mix-y, but this guy drank like someone squeezed a bit of fresh lemon onto a spoonful of apricot jam. And then there was hazelnut, macadamia nut, like biting halfway into a nut in the middle of a chomp of chocolate bar, but without the chocolate, I just mean the surprise of it. What a treat. I’m so bored of orange wine always tasting of whiskey & muesli & farm, like all the dead things.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>5. A bunch of stuff at Sager & Wilde</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had a very nice evening here! I drank a bunch of different wines, and all of them were nice, I liked them. They tasted like another person’s idea of what cool or good wine should taste like, and I like being given the opportunity to taste through another person’s palate, another person’s tongue. I am here right now, I’m still here, sitting by a window looking out onto an ugly little patch of grass off Hackney Road, sniffing my glass of skin-contact Alicante: it smells like a hospital, a pharmacy in a hospital. There’s a chalkiness to it that makes me wonder if maybe it wasn’t aged in oak <i>or</i> steel; maybe it was aged in “amphora.” It smells like the chalky candy Rockets, there’s a candy called Rockets in every country I’ve lived in, and in every country it means a different thing. But I’m talking about the Canadian Rockets: a cylinder of chalky fruit-flavoured discs, smaller in diameter than a dime, coloured in pastel. They’re really just the worst candy. Mean old people who don't care about kids having a nice Halloween would pass them out to trick-or-treaters, what a mediocre childhood memory: having eaten my way through my Mars & Twix & Snickers, I'd be left with a plastic bowlful of shitty Rockets (and maybe some plain lollipops, green and yellow) that I didn’t particularly want to eat, but did, because they were sweet, and there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am consciously and thoughtfully not writing about the lunch I ate at Eli’s restaurant by the sea this morning, double-fisting a black coffee and Bloody Mary, our four oysters, two apiece, which tasted only of the sea. It was today, this exact same day I'm currently living, and I'm shocked to discover how quickly, sharply, this <i>missing</i> can set in, the absence of a Something that this place is trying so keenly to provide: <i>excellence</i>, really, and that’s what I love about restaurants, I think it’s such a wonderful concept: it’s never <i>really</i> about food, or wine, or service. It’s about a place, an environment, an ecosystem, which has been constructed to turn one's life, for a couple of hours, into somebody else’s idea of what your favourite night might feel like. Sometimes it succeeds; often it fails. All this place is making me think is, “This is <i>not</i> my favourite night.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It’s an okay place. It’s dark, and I’m sitting on a barstool at a wooden table, and there's a candle on the table. Both the bartender and the server are VERY (I'm yelling) attractive men, and one of them, I can tell, is charmed by me, which is part of it. And I don’t want to condemn this place for being synthetic, or inorganic, I’ve been here a bunch of times in my life and I’ve liked it, often loved it; I drank a glass of wine that changed my life here, a Chilean Carignan that on the night I drank it I didn’t know how to describe yet, I wasn't good enough at wine yet. So all I remember that I loved it, how terribly I wished I could be a person who knew how to describe exactly why, which I am now. Which is a gift, but not one that I’ve been given. It’s something that can only come with time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And, another day, a couple weeks after I first moved to London, I took a bus to this place in the middle of the afternoon, on my break from work, to drink a glass of twenty-year-old Crozes-Hermitage, because I saw on this place’s Instagram that they were pouring it. It was thick and brown and heavy and I liked it but didn’t <i>love</i> it, and my not loving it taught me more than whatever I’d’ve learned the other way. You have to mentally and emotionally prepare yourself to be let down by wine, because it <i>will</i> let you down. Just like everything, it’s bad more often than it’s good, and average more often than it’s bad.</span><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-61691429940276824862017-02-17T12:46:00.001-08:002017-02-20T11:52:37.524-08:00Infinitely Stunned with a Pail of Rainbow Sherbet: A 2017 Thing About Kurt Cobain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD1eL2A2pjkc_w_mMlVV9xzuxBBqBpVpO9UDiDZowZy8sZCIpWEVBC2v-yn4K9xaLOdiXZdWD-2hypuZ0lRcWvxKFIQuf22RrpTvIcSVBwa4oV5mNNJ2IbHNIL7zEJ1Q3l07EQOd0WArQ/s1600/MoodRing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD1eL2A2pjkc_w_mMlVV9xzuxBBqBpVpO9UDiDZowZy8sZCIpWEVBC2v-yn4K9xaLOdiXZdWD-2hypuZ0lRcWvxKFIQuf22RrpTvIcSVBwa4oV5mNNJ2IbHNIL7zEJ1Q3l07EQOd0WArQ/s640/MoodRing.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><b>BY LIZ</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If Kurt Cobain were alive he’d be turning 50 on Monday. Here are some Kurt things I’ve been thinking about lately:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">i.</span></b> Last month I listened to a bad recording of the Nirvana show I went to when I was 15. One of the first times Kurt talks to the crowd he says “<i>Please</i> don’t throw shoes” with this great big sigh in his voice - it’s only a few songs in, and he’s already so exasperated with us. He sounds like a sulky babysitter, and in a way he kind of is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There’s some other good commentary during the show, about gin and AC/DC and the Buzzcocks and being addicted to cigarettes, but I was mostly listening for this thing that happened after “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and before “All Apologies.” It starts at 1:13:00 of the video below, when Krist goes off on some guy in the crowd for groping a girl in the pit. He’s yelling and cursing in his big dopey Krist voice, and then Kurt comes in and just serenely eviscerates the guy. I loved him so much for that, and played that moment over and over in my head for so long after that night. I will never get over Kurt Cobain’s speaking voice, how he could be both deeply calm and totally withering at the same time. Some withering stage banter from Kurt Cobain would be so good in 2017.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CHN6POwc67k" style="font-family: Times;" width="459"></iframe></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Sunday of the weekend Kurt died, I went out for my usual Sunday-morning breakfast with my dad and his girlfriend. I wore the shirt I bought the night I went to see Nirvana, and I ordered pancakes and made a big show of being sad about Kurt being dead. While we waited for our food my dad mansplained to me about how Kurt Cobain was the John Lennon of my generation, which I hated: I thought it was a lazy opinion lifted from a lazy description in the local newspaper, and I still feel that way. Kurt Cobain and John Lennon each had his own job to do in this world, and they were both very good at those jobs, but neither has all that much to do with the other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">HOWEVER, one thing that connects Kurt Cobain and John Lennon in my mind now is the likelihood that they’d both be fantastically hateful of the current president of the United States. They’d talk the most amazing shit about that person, and it would comfort us and make us feel cool. One of the qualities I most value in a rock-and-roll musician is the ability to make me feel temporarily protected from the ugly bullshit of the world but also in on some secret way to rise above it, and I suppose John Lennon and Kurt Cobain have each got that in spades.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijeDtwR7t7SCaDID56QTbifo6uqDrWqlHqKZoR8ArSG6GfwdFZdxEgPCsUIK1GNd9dnU7Cz7TIH08_DlzgALMTpRvAAlTh28-AOenvgNyxL_VSsVG51vqjheVtOuAvilgRPgH3DF4AuFY/s1600/kurthood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijeDtwR7t7SCaDID56QTbifo6uqDrWqlHqKZoR8ArSG6GfwdFZdxEgPCsUIK1GNd9dnU7Cz7TIH08_DlzgALMTpRvAAlTh28-AOenvgNyxL_VSsVG51vqjheVtOuAvilgRPgH3DF4AuFY/s640/kurthood.jpg" width="498" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">ii.</span></b> Once upon a time when I was still a journalist and got paid to go to extravagant places and write about them, I spent a few days at a resort on a mountain by the ocean in Central California. During my stay I went on a hike with one of the guys who ran the resort, whose name was Jonah. Jonah was from Israel and served in the Israeli army and then came to America and got into the wellness industry. On our hike up the mountain and down to the beach he told me how, at some point in the last year of Kurt Cobain’s life, Kurt’s handlers had sent him to stay at the health spa where Jonah used to work. He talked about how he’d met with Kurt and how Kurt was this quiet kid, and how he wished they hadn’t pushed him back out into the world so quickly. He said something like, “They should have just let him be for a while. He was a poet.” I think that's maybe the loveliest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about Kurt Cobain. Kurt doesn't get nearly enough loveliness spoken about him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve been listening to <i>Bleach</i> and <i>Incesticide</i> a lot lately and you can really feel Kurt being an unhealthy kid, with his weird stomach disease and all that. And there’s this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGd40Rwig8s" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">video of the band practicing at Krist’s mom’s house in 1988</span></a>, and they all remind me of the depressed metalhead boy who sat at my lunch table in ninth grade and always ate the worst lunches. They seem like they take terrible care of themselves, and eat the worst food all the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I remember watching a clip of that video when I was about 17 and thinking, “Nirvana are kind of gross.” But now we’re far away enough from their era that the grossness has become romantic. Nirvana makes me miss all the bad food I never eat anymore: foods from being a kid in 1988, like SpaghettiOs and Devil Dogs, ambrosia salad and strawberry Quik, a bologna sandwich on Wonder Bread, rainbow sherbet by the pail. Or how sometimes in school our snack would be a big slice of government cheese, served with a tiny carton of chocolate milk. I never even knew government cheese was called government cheese until I heard Krist say “government cheese” in an interview in 1993. No other band in the world had ever happened on a government-cheese level. Nirvana was the only one who knew those mundane/shitty details of your life, and now they make me remember parts of my life that I might have forgotten otherwise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wonder what Kurt ate when he was at the health spa with Jonah. I feel like some miso soup and brown rice and roasted barley tea would have been good for him. I wonder if he would have ever quit smoking or just kept at it forever. I wonder if he would have made an album with Michael Stipe like he talked about, or made a new wave record and brought back breakdancing like </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDgP4hN4OA4" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">he also talked about</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. I wonder what his hair situation would be these days, and also his facial-hair situation. I wonder if he’d be into music like Grimes or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgNYcJeiOg" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Torres</span></a> or Sheer Mag, and where he’d exist in relation to Kanye. Part of me thinks that by now he would've just gone off to live in a house in the woods in the middle of nowhere - but that might be because when I was 15 and listened to Nirvana all the time, my main dream was to go off and live in a house </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I wrote stories about that, and in the stories the kids listened to so much Nirvana, despite having got exactly what they wanted.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTdZtkF19NwsTVI0fP38pJmu-eo6qqZGPQmAUeUC3GiJrVSCpNKqZFReYg-e55lx9jcVFb2Qc323Sw2nuA0p7pSumW7oQ66ZJf6_oep96ZIzabSDIhMSTKtVcQxWamwGj8Ii0d_MlQTzw/s1600/KurtWithGirls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTdZtkF19NwsTVI0fP38pJmu-eo6qqZGPQmAUeUC3GiJrVSCpNKqZFReYg-e55lx9jcVFb2Qc323Sw2nuA0p7pSumW7oQ66ZJf6_oep96ZIzabSDIhMSTKtVcQxWamwGj8Ii0d_MlQTzw/s640/KurtWithGirls.jpg" width="448" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">iii.</span></b> On Sunday I went to look at the building where Kurt and Courtney lived in 1991/1992. It’s a nice place on a nice quiet street, a few blocks from Canter’s. Someone was playing piano inside and there was a Little Tikes basketball hoop on the front lawn. I took some pictures and walked down to Farmers Market, and on my way I passed the newsstand where there was a chubby little girl in a bathing suit and some ridiculous Pomeranians. At Farmers Market I bought a pint of strawberries and a cup of fountain Diet Coke and wrote for a few hours in my secret writing space, then walked back up Fairfax a little after dusk.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To me the stretch of Fairfax between Beverly and Melrose is one of the most reliably exciting places in Los Angeles. It’s always got this crazy energy that I don't really feel anywhere else in town. There’s Canter’s and a bunch of old bakeries and antique shops, but there’s also Undefeated and Supreme and the sidewalk's always packed with skater kids: they all look like the future, and like they’re having more fun than anyone else in the world.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On Sunday night I stopped at the Canter’s bakery and got a piece of chocolate rugelach, then walked back to my car at Kurt & Courtney's house. All the kids were smoking weed and one of the coffee shops was <a href="http://www.whiskeypaper.com/whiskeypaper/like-the-girl-patti-smith-loved-in-gloria-by-elizabeth-barker" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">blasting the Patti Smith version of “Gloria” so that it spilled out onto the street and took over everything</span></a>. It felt like being in 7 different decades at once, which is my favorite way for a city to feel. I ate my rugelach and thought some deep thoughts like, “I wonder if Kurt Cobain liked to walk down the street.” The air was electric and the rugelach was so super-buttery, it was heavier than heaven.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGHP7rCe9oBOeQMYtPnFbM3vklSAqcvtQAWCDXACPKhrlYfh4qUbxiwVu2XIC4KdPhCxPadcc1fZmXjUFVzAR1owextve9eS4-cRd0BWcov8LB7rarRE8mLFE7Y0oLyMpJklohK3R3YQ/s1600/kurt-courtney-kiss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGHP7rCe9oBOeQMYtPnFbM3vklSAqcvtQAWCDXACPKhrlYfh4qUbxiwVu2XIC4KdPhCxPadcc1fZmXjUFVzAR1owextve9eS4-cRd0BWcov8LB7rarRE8mLFE7Y0oLyMpJklohK3R3YQ/s640/kurt-courtney-kiss.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don’t know what that stretch of Fairfax was like in 1991 and 1992, or if Kurt liked it there or liked L.A. in general. For the most part I don’t feel much of Kurt in Los Angeles, though some of the guitar parts on Nevermind sound like certain parts of the city – like the snarly riff thing at the intro to “Breed,” and then the fuzzed-up bassline that comes in alongside it. It sounds like going fast on some ugly road in the Valley where there’s nothing but auto shops and donut shops and hamburger stands about 40 years past their prime. You feel Nirvana in the most falling-apart places: falling-apart but totally magic.</span><br />
<div class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I guess it's weird that it matters to me to be able to feel the presence of a guy who died 23 years when I’m walking down the street in my own city. It’s like that part in High Fidelity when John Cusack says, “Some people never got over Vietnam, or the night their band opened for Nirvana” -- but for me it’s that I just never got over Nirvana, period. I’m still fascinated by them, and I don’t want to ever get over that fascination. Fascination is useful: it keeps you unbored and unboring. The point is to keep fitting the fascination into your life even as your life changes, to use your idols in a new way so that they can accommodate you forever.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lately my favorite song for walking around L.A. and thinking about Nirvana is “Drive” by R.E.M. To me that song is about Kurt, and what he did to the world and to the kids, with <i>Nevermind</i>. It sounds a million years old, in a dignified/butterfly-trapped-in-amber sort of way, but it still sounds like it’s all happening right now. I love how serious it is, and how it's somehow graceful about being completely over-the-top. But mostly I love it for sounding quietly stunned. Usually <i>stunned</i> is very fleeting, but listening to "Drive" makes me feel like you can go on being stunned forever. Infinitely stunned is a lovely way to be.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-UE7tXDKIus" width="459"></iframe></span></span>Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-64882618363383286982016-12-31T14:33:00.001-08:002016-12-31T15:02:25.770-08:00Things of the Year: LJ's Wine of the Year, 5 Important Songs, "Planets of the Universe"<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;">LJ'S THING OF THE YEAR</b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">: My Wine of the Year </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCVJxGgbcbMIzbyGclmJmgorxkEWL8Ubi2QEhXXDZu5sKqZbXydNWos4qU4G1OTgvvXdXKH2uNevOpClFURs4bZBhyphenhyphenGAbPBKFYAOQYLYg8EzCJMdPXYceCC_vUhDyWj-BADRd-WZd8DP8/s1600/paSO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCVJxGgbcbMIzbyGclmJmgorxkEWL8Ubi2QEhXXDZu5sKqZbXydNWos4qU4G1OTgvvXdXKH2uNevOpClFURs4bZBhyphenhyphenGAbPBKFYAOQYLYg8EzCJMdPXYceCC_vUhDyWj-BADRd-WZd8DP8/s640/paSO.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At my restaurant I sell a wine called Passopisciaro. It is made out of grapes grown on the slope of an active volcano, in Sicily, in the year 2012. It is a crazy wine that reminds me of myself, but it also doesn’t remind me of myself. Sometimes it reminds me of not-myself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It’s weird, but not intimidatingly so. It’s not a “somm wine,” which is how sommeliers refer to crazy wines that anyone in the world who isn’t a somm or at least a nerd would hate because they taste like things you’re not supposed to eat, such as dirt. Passopisciaro tastes predominantly of fruit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But it also doesn’t taste like fruit. Sometimes it tastes of not-fruit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The first time I tried it it reminded me of the ocean— “but, like, <i>gross</i> ocean,” said my bartender, who is insightful. It made me think of a grey day at a beach, but not a <i>good </i>beach, a <i>bad </i>beach: a beach that people don’t go to, a beach with stones instead of sand. It reminded me of the feeling of slurpy seaweed slurping around your bare feet and the water being unpleasantly too cold. Mushy gritty underwater-ground. A “smoothie wine,” my bartender called it, referring to its odd density, the strange thickness of it: a murky, opaque wine that you couldn’t look through a drop of.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> That was two months ago. Two months ago, I rejected the Passopisciaro: I thought it was cool, but I didn’t think people would buy it. But last week I was forced to put it on my by the glass list out of desperation; I needed a high-end Etna to round things out, and it was the only one I had enough of in stock.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(“All I care about is wine,” I so often hear myself say.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I say it out loud, and I say it in my head. It has at this point usurped everything. It’s the lens through which I view the situation I’m in, as the Beatles used to be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Wine is first now, I’m an artist second.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> All I care about is wine. Here it is, here is the magic of it:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Something happened to that wine over the course of those two extra months it spent aging in bottle. There are sommeliers more sciencey than me who could probably explain why it happened, all that shit about chemical reactions that I will never give a fuck about— I may be a sommelier first, but I’m still an artist second, and I don’t <i>care</i> about chemistry, I care about poetry. I don’t care how the crops were grown or how they pruned the vines. What’s a vine even??? I'm just kidding, I know what a vine is, sort of. But mostly I care about what the winemaker’s face looked like, what her house looks like— I <i>always</i> have to Google Maps the vineyard. I care about which of my childhood memories it conjures up the most, and what song I loved best on the morning of the first day I drank it. There’s a Nebbiolo I know that I first tried within an hour of listening to Venus, my favourite Television song. And so that wine will always taste like a picture of that song, rendered in mechanical pencil, 0.5 weight lead. The picture of the song is a picture of a city, hyper-linear at its core, unfurling into calligraphic frills.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> For her birthday I bought my friend Erin a bottle of Carema made from grapes harvested on her birthday five years prior. I remembered what we were doing on that day, that October 20th we spent together. That wine was the beginning and ending of something: a span of five years and the time we spent inside of it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I drank it for the first time last Friday. My wine director came downstairs and told me that whenever I had a spare moment he had some open treats for me up in the cellar. Eventually, I had a spare moment, and I drank the treats. One of them was <i>that</i> wine, the “Erin wine.” I drank it in the room with the map of the mountain on the wall, next to the cellar, which smells like cedar. I wanted to save a sip of it for my bartender to try but I could not. I could not let it go.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It was from Piemonte but it reminded me of Austria. December 1899 or some other month or year. I don’t know what the real December 1899 felt like; maybe I’m thinking of something more like February 1691. A little ballerina kid, graphite smeared across her eyes, a tiny wooden box. A pale pink flower woven through a brown tweed buttonhole. Men always call it <i>feminine </i>and they're right, it's feminine and serious; I took it very seriously. It didn’t ask to be taken very seriously, it didn’t command me to take it very seriously. It did nothing. It was an introvert. A church.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Two months later, the Passopisciaro bloomed. It laid low and grew. It wasn’t a gross ocean anymore; it wasn’t an ocean at all- it was still a smoothie, though.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> On the nose, it’s all brimstone and ash. That’s the volcanic soil talking, the Etna trademark. If you want to understand what “minerality” means, drink a wine grown down the side of Mt. Etna: they are to minerality as a Paul McCartney song is to melody. (You want to know if a given somm is worth her salt? Ask her if she’s ever sniffed a rock.) I usually taste minerality as being very somber, but in this instance it’s… glam, almost. Glitzy! Sparkly! Rock & Roll. It’s like: imagine if you found out the world was ending tomorrow, and then you threw a party.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And then there’s licorice, or <i>liquorice</i> as we used to say in England, licorice so snarky it's a permanent marker almost. It reminds me of how when I was a little kid my grandparents ran a business out of their basement, real estate or something, this was the 1980s: all Filofaxes & fax machines; they even had a car phone. I remember sitting in that office, getting makeshift high by simultaneously spinning around in a spinny-chair and sniffing a permanent marker. <i>That’s</i> the permanent marker the Passopisciaro smells like. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But then— like I said— there is fruit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Here’s what the fruit is like.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Imagine the juice of a thousand— no, twenty thousands— little baskets of berries—blackberries, raspberries, summer cherries— condensed into one single drop. <i>Imagine</i> the <i>intensity</i> of that fruit flavour! It’s literally sort of sexual, as anything operating at that level of intensity is doomed to be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Some wine tastes expensive; this isn’t one of them. It’s better than that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Burgundian Pinot Noir tastes expensive. It makes people who aren’t used to paying a premium for great wine understand why people pay a premium for great wine. But the Passopisciaro makes people who haven’t devoted their entire lives to tasting wine understand why somebody might.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Two months ago it was a scuzzy hunk of pond-scum, and now it’s fucking <i>Ulysses, </i>or maybe it's <i>Finnegan's Wake</i>. I wrote the first draft of this thing eleven days ago and every morning I go back into the document and change <i>Ulysses </i>to <i>Finnegan's Wake, </i>and then the next day I change it back to what it said two days before. But this is me definitively landing on <i>Finnegan's Wake</i>. It's got a good sense of humour. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> If it were music it would be something from a long time ago that I don't know the name of, something a bunch of drunk Middle Ages people played at a pub in Bavaria on instruments that don't exist anymore, or never existed. But if you heard it with your today-ears it would sound almost unfathomably punk rock. Like maybe the pub was burning down at the same time as they played it, but nobody died. Somebody rescued them. The drummer rescued them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It also sounds like Can, the record with with green beans on the cover, or </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ars Vita Longa Brevis </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by the Nice. "Art is long, life is short," that means. That's nice. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It’s smoking cigars, a Scorpio, the corner of Sesame Street inhabited by Oscar the Grouch. It’s the patron saint of every genius who ever broke out of prison using cunning. If it were a person it’d be Ludwig von Beethoven, Mata Hari, or the Marquis de Sade.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The Passopisciaro is without a shadow of a doubt the most impressive wine I drank in 2016, but that’s not why it’s my Thing of the Year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It’s my Thing of the Year because whatever happened to it over the course of those two extra months it spent transforming into some greater, perfect version of itself, whatever cosmic event or chemical reaction occurred—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> In 2016, the same thing happened to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b style="color: #444444; font-size: xx-large;">LIZ'S THING OF THE YEAR</b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">: </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">All of These Songs</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's a list of songs that were important to me in 2016:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>i. THE WINTERLAND 1978 VERSION OF "BECAUSE THE NIGHT" BY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z1Wps5T-SyY" style="font-family: Times;" width="480"></iframe></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The first week of October I got sick and read Bruce Springsteen’s memoir in six days. All I really wanted from the book was fun stories about Bruce growing up in New Jersey, about girls and Asbury Park and the beach and the boardwalk and all the scuzzy bars he played in back in the day - like this sentence, about the girlfriend he lived with in 1972:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“She was Italian, funny, a beatific tomboy, with just the hint of a lazy eye, and wore a pair of glasses that made me think of the wonders of the library.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I could live on sentences like that, and on stories like the one about 14-year-old Bruce walking to the bowling alley after school, drinking a Coke and eating a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, then going to the bowling-alley phone booth to call his girlfriend and talk about the Beatles. But then there’s all this <i>wisdom</i> to the book - he writes a lot about how his inclination is to disappear into his work, and how he recognizes how damaging that is, and how he’s tried to manage it and be present for the people who need him. It seems like something he hasn’t quite figured out yet, like an ongoing tension: how to go about building a good and full and happy life despite his lone-wolf tendencies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, that got to me. My favorite Bruce song right now and maybe forever, apart from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIVbLsU9IR8" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">the Bruce song I have tattooed on my right shoulder</span></a>, is the version of "Because the Night" from Winterland Ballroom in 1978. Not even the whole song: just the intro, which is this big sprawlingly gorgeous guitar solo that feels like climbing and falling and falling, or just going nowhere but feeling like everywhere. The guitar solo is so much more romantic to me than the words. To me it beats "Desire and hunger is the fire I breathe" a thousand times over, at least.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>ii. "VELOURIA" BY THE PIXIES</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NX0JWhASLsk" style="font-family: Times;" width="480"></iframe></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's a scene in the penultimate episode of the most recent season of <i>Halt and Catch Fire</i> where the show's two most damaged and semi-tragically-in-love characters reunite after years apart, and then get drunk and dance to "Velouria" by the Pixies in a hotel room in Vegas. They're total goofs and not very good dancers; I feel like they both dance exactly like me. I love how they mirror each other, especially with the shoulder-shaking, but my favorite is when Cameron is dancing alone for a little bit: she does that dumb hopping thing and she's so palpably blissed out on making a big splash with her cool riot-grrrl-y video game and then having this magic night with someone who's equally perfect and terrible for her. When she spins around, you can feel the spinning. I want to see and make more things that feel like spinning like that.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>iii. "UNDER PRESSURE" BY DAVID BOWIE & QUEEN</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje7Zdw9fPjjcp8srOwTiKcPSQip1utlCY1SYa87hCqWEwri5vWUoSjunejpgLPf72XLWShBWRQ__ZvJvb2iujmigErF0E5kzexZhNRVgXacJG7_kdgvMOCpHZ_QdqOj7rFWs75TROpK64/s1600/DAVIDBOWIESTAR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="622" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje7Zdw9fPjjcp8srOwTiKcPSQip1utlCY1SYa87hCqWEwri5vWUoSjunejpgLPf72XLWShBWRQ__ZvJvb2iujmigErF0E5kzexZhNRVgXacJG7_kdgvMOCpHZ_QdqOj7rFWs75TROpK64/s640/DAVIDBOWIESTAR.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The day after David Bowie died I went to his Walk of Fame star twice. On the second visit, late at night, there was a little "Under Pressure" singalong and it was beautiful and ridiculous. The last minute and a half of "Under Pressure" is the most important music to me of this year; I want it to be important to everyone. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Earlier this month I got invited to a birthday party at a karaoke bar and my main plan was to make everybody sing "Under Pressure" and have the last minute and a half be so intense and cathartic - but then by the time the party came around I'd gotten sick and lost my voice. AIN'T THAT JUST LIKE 2016, hahaha</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>iv. "IT'S A CURSE" BY WOLF PARADE</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u9WRoNMKYUc" width="480"></iframe></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The dumbest yet most emotionally intelligent thing I did this year was take a week off work to go to New York to see Wolf Parade at Bowery Ballroom. They opened with "It's a Curse," so whenever I listen now it's that night again and the lights just went down and the band just walked out to "Magnificent Seven" and then there's that hot clunky guitar intro kind of knifing into the dark and everyone in the room's heart's exploding into a billion shining stars, all in the very same instant!!!! I'm a teenager. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When Dan yells that line about "We walked five whole minutes to the dark edge of town/Took a long look at nothing and then turned back around," it sounds like every book I've ever wanted to write.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>v. "THE BEAST AND DRAGON, ADORED" BY SPOON</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hwf5uRr4iOI" width="459"></iframe></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"The Beast and Dragon, Adored" has lived on my computer for a long time but I didn't really pay attention until I read <a href="http://www.fluxblog.org/2015/06/when-you-believe-they-call-it-rock-roll/" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">this thing by Matthew Perpetua</span></a>, about how people pay to see others believe in themselves. The most important lyrics are: </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"When you don't feel it, it shows, they tear out your soul" and "And when you believe they call it rock and roll"; they happen in succession and I hear the second lyric as a response to the first, like vanquishing the hell out of any self-doubt and deciding to be totally glorious, because you can. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's so deeply corny, and the corniness is 1,000 percent earned. This song and those lyrics mean more and more to me every single crazy day.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Also:</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-<a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3s7o2z" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">the SNL performance of "Ultralight Beam"</span></a></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-"Vincent" by Car Seat Headrest, which was playing when I totaled my car on election night</span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-all of <i>Lemonade</i> obviously</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3Y1O9eVKRs" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">"Hello Stranger"</span></a> because of <i>Moonlight</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span><span style="color: magenta; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMA4vDwP7n4" target="_blank"><span style="color: magenta;">"Blood in the Cut" by K.Flay</span></a> </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-the new album by my best friends the Red Hot Chili Peppers</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-"Down on the Street" by the Stooges because of <i>Diary of a Teenage Girl </i>which was my favorite movie I watched this year by a longshot</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSIaHdsmBGvv7X6ZB8EYq45LVnzrEl_I_l3qRB2DxyUEqeCByQG9qHB5YI9TSdVKzwISP7CRdZLZksO3GgOpZAOXNuQjZzseyhhKHPEx4w1hbgESAwxj8edsw07NH2E7CXaFeoFbl3cQY/s1600/DiaryofaTeenageGirl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="574" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSIaHdsmBGvv7X6ZB8EYq45LVnzrEl_I_l3qRB2DxyUEqeCByQG9qHB5YI9TSdVKzwISP7CRdZLZksO3GgOpZAOXNuQjZzseyhhKHPEx4w1hbgESAwxj8edsw07NH2E7CXaFeoFbl3cQY/s640/DiaryofaTeenageGirl.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="color: #444444; font-size: x-large;">JEN'S THING OF THE YEAR</b><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">: "Planets of the Universe" (Early Demo Version) by Fleetwood Mac on Repeat Forever</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ebEv9QejMp8" style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: medium;" width="480"></iframe></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I heard this song for the first time this year performed by Justin
Vivian Bond. It's devastatingly beautiful and one of Stevie's best
songs, for sure. According to JVB's introduction Lindsey Buckingham kept
it off of Rumours because he believed it to be a hex. What an asshole. I
recommend avoiding Stevie's recent recording of it and listening to
this specific recording on repeat for the rest of your life.</span><span class="sew6i54kra5y441"></span><span class="sew6i54kra5y441"></span></div>
Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2767498489203334327.post-4600845176973714332016-11-17T09:40:00.000-08:002016-11-19T06:50:59.295-08:00Eating Highlights From My Holy Grail of New York Trips<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1fLkwvgbPVt0xM4oqjWAU_Ip8C8mniEHLHKvbq7GErOf0trRJyj8CwQnAVNAe3Fx1vxxXV2RjWOpx8JO3eBjvahU10rotBO4LOuauqsqzM78U1z5ODddEktD8CSeUWD6GpeqMRkv3sp8/s1600/IMG_7290.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1fLkwvgbPVt0xM4oqjWAU_Ip8C8mniEHLHKvbq7GErOf0trRJyj8CwQnAVNAe3Fx1vxxXV2RjWOpx8JO3eBjvahU10rotBO4LOuauqsqzM78U1z5ODddEktD8CSeUWD6GpeqMRkv3sp8/s640/IMG_7290.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>(above: me w/ Lexy, my Holy Grail of beloved pals. </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>I don't think I've ever gazed so adoringly at another person) </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>BY LAURA JANE </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Friday</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I woke up early in a hotel room on Wall Street, well <i>off</i> Wall Street, but it sounds nicer to say Wall Street than the actual name of the street, which was: William (boring). My mother and I went downstairs to eat continental breakfast in the restaurant attached to the hotel but it was a terrible vibe. The only free thing was cereal and the entire operation seemed to be entirely unmanned. I saw a Dunkin Donuts sign flashing outside the window and snapped/sighed, “Let’s just go to Dunkin; you can get a bagel there.” I said the thing about a bagel like an accusation, ragged capitals carved into a speech bubble made of metal. I am a stone cold bitch before coffee and also after. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyiCqkfpGUXN0BIp0FusNiQVCujCb2Rd9fcp8mFcK25xq1iqYN5YDp42khfAQIHRBsbDLJM1rjbveOQiVFgXvBd5i7i4MEnStfaGbEEd-l7R9ZR1Kgv7igqO9BCzQrbPy8rn8j63SPA88/s1600/IMG_7084.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyiCqkfpGUXN0BIp0FusNiQVCujCb2Rd9fcp8mFcK25xq1iqYN5YDp42khfAQIHRBsbDLJM1rjbveOQiVFgXvBd5i7i4MEnStfaGbEEd-l7R9ZR1Kgv7igqO9BCzQrbPy8rn8j63SPA88/s400/IMG_7084.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We did not go to Dunkin. We went to the place next door to it, which was one of the classic New York deli-bodega hybrids that serves like hundreds of different types of sandwiches on assorted New Yorky breads and also boasts a hot buffet and salad bar. I ate the same breakfast every morning of my trip: an everything bagel toasted with two fried eggs. On the second day I started asking for a bit of salt & pepper on the eggs but I dared not desecrate that sacrosanct breakfast with any further </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">accoutrements</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. I am feeling aesthetically austere this November and I prefer for my food choices to compliment my life concept.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We ate lunch at the Moma café. I actively loathed it. It was small and phony-Yoko white and I felt like the whole thing was jammed into an awkward place, physically an awkward location at the museum, like they built the entire Moma and then it was a couple days before it was set to open and someone realized that they forgot to build a café so they just crammed one in wherever they could find. The waitstaff were all wearing Keith Haring t-shirts and I thought, “If I never had to see a picture of one of those fingerless faceless Keith Haring little guys again in my life, I would not shed a tear.” I ate a dessert for lunch, a moderately-tacky dessert that was lush as fuck and I adored the act of eating it, I loved assembling all the different parts into different-tasting bites. I love eating with a dessert fork, so delicate, it’s like hugging a thin dog.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_y7pfA0Zk9L6kOOIHDZfb8ttIT82VKT8EacWTcHIeWdpDFUnsjv3_OwOjktVDoutRnmv84D3q9IJov2U5S-tAmbOBupIOOnQpo-08bByS6U4YEvHvou_TXmbJ2HR63qM0NsQvfHfl2x8/s1600/IMG_7118.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_y7pfA0Zk9L6kOOIHDZfb8ttIT82VKT8EacWTcHIeWdpDFUnsjv3_OwOjktVDoutRnmv84D3q9IJov2U5S-tAmbOBupIOOnQpo-08bByS6U4YEvHvou_TXmbJ2HR63qM0NsQvfHfl2x8/s640/IMG_7118.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The only downside of my dessert is it was a bit too on-the-nose about its having an autumnal flavour profile: pumpkin tart, ricotta cream, toasted marshmallow, praline. Like we <i>get</i> it, pal: you are a campfire, a mitten, a burnt leaf. The pumpkin filling and the ricotta cream were oddly, awesomely savoury— they had a dullness to them, a cardboardy thump. I hadn’t been needing to taste sugar too terribly, it was just that nothing else on the menu sounded very worth eating and dessert tends to be a safer bet than non-dessert if deliciousness is what you're chasing. Whenever people come into restaurants I run and order dessert to eat at the same time as the person they’re dining with has their regular main, I think: <i>You are my people</i>. I feel the same way about any person drinking a glass of white wine alone, or a woman crying across the table from her boyfriend. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Asking for the bill early and storming out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I didn’t take any pictures of anything I drank or ate that night because at any given moment over the course of it I was either 1) too drunk to remember what phones are, 2) too hype on spending time with my beloved Lexy to give one one thousandth of a fuck about documenting the excellence of that time on social media because who the hell even cared about any person who wasn’t Lexy knowing anything about my life, not I, not I, or 3) my phone was being really fucked that day and I kept having to ask restaurant and bar employees to charge it for me. My phone is dying of dementia. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8YdfmLwSDlmbCFuJ6Zp3Ty-wBe66oE98hILVAUNE0OUSNs8u2aZoEpqabBe2vJYqHnA_KMoMZIcVZ9WeBQpgnAJIpcYLpjbwG8pgX9j47gfA5q1gLSzajywPjTPpkic-XKSxTi3a5oOI/s1600/delmano.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8YdfmLwSDlmbCFuJ6Zp3Ty-wBe66oE98hILVAUNE0OUSNs8u2aZoEpqabBe2vJYqHnA_KMoMZIcVZ9WeBQpgnAJIpcYLpjbwG8pgX9j47gfA5q1gLSzajywPjTPpkic-XKSxTi3a5oOI/s400/delmano.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>(Above: a picture of Hotel Delmano that I did not take) </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">First we went to <a href="http://www.hoteldelmano.com/" target="_blank">Hotel Delmano</a>, which is one of our Places, and I drank one cocktail, a "Smoke & Flowers". It had everything in the world I like in it: peaty Scotch, St. Germain, fino sherry, & dry vermouth. I mean, I don’t know, I don’t like St. Germain <i>that</i> much. I mean, it’s fine. But I really like those other three things. It tasted like an ill-fated romance from the Victorian era. Sallow and hollow Virginia Woolf-y-looking widow holding a bouquet of dead flowers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghKnWSLm4tszgIw5D0KVkRcjgbwXY_JS6kBagqtB2-aoYVa5NuVo2i5MehibH80aB8nBZlJYDyDvTdWmufCrE2LteYgEvwHgYG1ywDHTQSjqH3RGiNrrMRjpEjJxz9-zVgCh8gT2Vd8SM/s1600/barric.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghKnWSLm4tszgIw5D0KVkRcjgbwXY_JS6kBagqtB2-aoYVa5NuVo2i5MehibH80aB8nBZlJYDyDvTdWmufCrE2LteYgEvwHgYG1ywDHTQSjqH3RGiNrrMRjpEjJxz9-zVgCh8gT2Vd8SM/s400/barric.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">(And here is a picture of Le Barricou that I did not take) </i></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wanted to drink a hundred of them and never leave, but we had to go to the restaurant, <a href="http://lebarricouny.com/" target="_blank">Le Barricou</a>, another one of our Places. Usually we go there for brunch, but this time for dinner. When I was like twenty-four through twenty-six, I always used to think, “I would get <i>married</i> here”— but now I hold myself to a higher standard than that. I would NEVER get married at a French restaurant in Brooklyn established in the year 2005. I would only get married at a French restaurant in France, established in the year 1949 at the absolute LATEST.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmvkfBw0B_v4Ocd4M7KidXLyY1mx5PcOhexwss52DZ4LALrC-8Ta_QP0DHdWzXRwLj3umFx0xqsim1UbztSZyD7H34DMRHhrbaUvjQQUYDf-hXDzG0Mzqm-c6XYeXgXgyoUUKJTtql3PU/s1600/IMG_7127.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmvkfBw0B_v4Ocd4M7KidXLyY1mx5PcOhexwss52DZ4LALrC-8Ta_QP0DHdWzXRwLj3umFx0xqsim1UbztSZyD7H34DMRHhrbaUvjQQUYDf-hXDzG0Mzqm-c6XYeXgXgyoUUKJTtql3PU/s400/IMG_7127.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>(Beautiful weird drunkos, only photographic evidence of that night)</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We drank a sparkling Loire Valley Chenin that tasted like hazelnuts and coconuts. It was a dream wine, heaven wine, a Laura wine, as ideally-suited to my personal tastes as a wine could be, but I didn’t really notice. Everything about that night was so wildly well-suited to my personal tastes that it seemed completely normal, having a thing be so perfect. Of course it was. It couldn’t not have been.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sometimes I think I only like things that are new but it’s not true. Sometimes I like things that are old, doing the same perfect things over and over. Sitting at the same restaurant with the same person talking about the same other person. That night I decided: from now on, I only want to engage with holy grails of things. Holy grails of people, places, wine, restaurants, songs. I just looked up Holy Grail in the dictionary and the example it used, to explain what a Holy Grail is in a sentence, was: “the holy grail of infrared astronomy.”
I even want that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Saturday</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I took my mother to a restaurant on Sullivan Street named <a href="http://www.navynyc.com/" target="_blank">Navy</a>. I found it by clicking absently around the<i> New York </i>magazine website but can’t remember why I made the final decision of picking that restaurant over every other single restaurant in New York. I just did.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It hadn’t occurred to me that the restaurant might be named Navy to reflect a vaguely nautical-themed interior. It was, though. I am always game for a vague nautical theme, or even a non-vague one. The restroom was sensational, a little cubby wallpapered in nautical flags. The sink was heavy steel and folded into itself, back up into the wall. It was my favourite sink, the only sink I’ve ever loved.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbsoJUeVZhnjFuy0u7VhCVYluHvV30GkFvQs89P4lRGSQPIrjtCiMR_CDrTvxPx76ztF8jOjmaD386ie8ylk-uIm22nBDnTBkscZiwMqvBiHOLlhuiyzjIOvly2KmZaesrwqqAHC1khss/s1600/IMG_7133.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbsoJUeVZhnjFuy0u7VhCVYluHvV30GkFvQs89P4lRGSQPIrjtCiMR_CDrTvxPx76ztF8jOjmaD386ie8ylk-uIm22nBDnTBkscZiwMqvBiHOLlhuiyzjIOvly2KmZaesrwqqAHC1khss/s400/IMG_7133.jpg" width="297" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Our waiter was hot. We immediately fell in love with one another, so that’s always nice. He was dressed like a 1981 punk, kind of no wave, and all his clothes looked like they were made from very thin burlap. His hairstyle was: “bedhead.” It was pretty bleached out which normally I wouldn’t go in for but it looked honest on him. I had a glass of sparkling Vouvray. Sparkling wine from the Loire Valley is 100% my thing and it’s all over by the glass menus in New York City which was so convenient for me. Our food order got fucked up so the hot waiter kept pouring more sparkling wine into my glass as an apology. It was a terribly well-handled restaurant fuck-up situation and my hot no wave waiter is a hero in my mind forever. I ate a bowl of greens & grains with some roasted purple carrots & yoghurt & a poached egg. I would eat that meal three times a week minimum if I lived or worked nearby. I would go to that restaurant and sit there pretending to read my nerd wine book but really just killing time between spurts of looking at my phone. In my imagination the hot waiter’s name is either Harrison or Edward. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I napped all afternoon, bought myself three records at Generation Records on Thompson Street, & then met Jen May of Strawberry Fields Whatever fame for dinner at a restaurant named <a href="https://motrya-tomycz-nr5l.squarespace.com/ladybird/" target="_blank">Ladybird</a> on MacDougal Street. When I first moved to New York I used to say that one day I want to have three sons and name them Thompson, Sullivan and MacDougal after my three favourite streets in the West Village, which is a cute idea but the names Thompson and MacDougal clearly suck compared to the name Sullivan, so I would probably favour my son Sullivan over the other two, and everyone would call crappy MacDougal, the worst son, either Mac or Doug, which are both disgusting options. Also I’m not even sure if I want to have kids.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiddixIxa4RPkxLPJCUwaey0SnVokkT-7kn3o0LjQ6dy1lBoES7arU30RcftSDv1sy7wpPGxXNK7u3OzssVwKCWhrCnCOn_trma_QpQ5dsf6oRZdh5HnrMo-Boob5Hjhrs_Dre-q2ybRqs/s1600/IMG_7143.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiddixIxa4RPkxLPJCUwaey0SnVokkT-7kn3o0LjQ6dy1lBoES7arU30RcftSDv1sy7wpPGxXNK7u3OzssVwKCWhrCnCOn_trma_QpQ5dsf6oRZdh5HnrMo-Boob5Hjhrs_Dre-q2ybRqs/s640/IMG_7143.JPG" width="512" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I love restaurants because they are rooms. Weird gorgeous rooms that are <i>only</i> meant to be weird and gorgeous- they don’t succumb to convention or defer to practicality like rooms in houses. Restaurants are rococo. They suck you in and hold you there. When you’re at the right restaurant, your entire life disappears. Great food is an asset but it’s one of the least important things about a restaurant. But Ladybird was my favourite food <i>and</i> my favourite room.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ladybird’s main aesthetic vibe was Green Velvet Everything, which was very timely, since I’ve recently been in a phase of devoting a quite frankly exorbitant amount of mental energy to appreciating the fabric green velvet. So walking in there made me feel like maybe I was either dead or that my brain is in control of the entire Universe. There was also crystal & gold & copper & marble.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ladybird was a vegan restaurant but I am not going to make the incredibly fucking boring point people who aren’t vegan love making about great vegan food which is that “It’s so good, you don’t even have to be vegan to enjoy it!” Like I’m sorry but if you’re so hung up on needing to always be consuming milk and meat that the thought of enjoying a meal not containing those two ingredients is farfetched or surprising to you, maybe you should just lock yourself in your own house and never contaminate the world with your gauche frat boy energy ever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_aOArf_ejg5JtPKf4NrGRUNTMIGnlHh9ez59Ec-7xh-34CZjwM0QfIMJQZxzl7XMHhzLMeGpF1aBhY-r8tuSYTaUbR1ogMO9KGxmNiT1ro3zWRkR06Ew8OqSp3HFPFsEWi16Hle9OZ0E/s1600/IMG_7137.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_aOArf_ejg5JtPKf4NrGRUNTMIGnlHh9ez59Ec-7xh-34CZjwM0QfIMJQZxzl7XMHhzLMeGpF1aBhY-r8tuSYTaUbR1ogMO9KGxmNiT1ro3zWRkR06Ew8OqSp3HFPFsEWi16Hle9OZ0E/s400/IMG_7137.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Jen & I ate and drank a lot of beautiful things on Ladybird Saturday but I think I’d like to ignore all of them except for our vegan Chardonnay fondue. The concept of “vegan Chardonnay fondue” is so perfectly suited to my autumn 2016 aesthetic that the idea of eating any food that isn't vegan Chardonnay fondue has since become deeply offensive to me. It’s like the food equivalent of why I think it’s important to always wear beautiful pyjamas:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You don’t want some person you know to randomly show up at your house and you’re wearing, like, faded pilling pj bottoms printed with pictures of non-cute teddy bears wearing Santa hats and a size XL t-shirt advertising a chain of fitness centres, and they’re like “What the fuck? She wears <i>that</i>?” Nope. Same goes for eating. I just don’t think it’s conceptually appropriate for me to eat non-beautiful foods such as Taco Bell or flavoured mayonnaise that comes in a squeezy bottle. When people randomly show up at my house, they should <i>always</i> find me sitting boredly at my kitchen table wearing a silk Agent Provocateur dressing gown, reading a book about Bordeaux, lazily eating vegan Chardonnay fondue. And that's on, like, a <i>Wednesday. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Sunday</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I went to Hotel Delmano again. Lexy & Katie, my New York Girls, were there, but so was Charlotte, one of my great friends from London who happened to be in New York at the same time as me. The Universe is so nice to us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There was a wine I’d seen on the list on Friday that I’d become obsessed with needing to try— it’s called a “Baby Savennieres.” Savennieres is my favourite wine region, so I <i>always</i> want a Savennieres, but a <i>Baby</i> Savennieres? It’s like, the Baby Lemonade by Syd Barrett of Old World Chenin Blancs. I am in love with the sound and the appearance of those two words together and I wish someone would write a song called Baby Savennieres about me. However I can 100% guarantee you right now that the person who ends up writing a song called Baby Savennieres about me is going to be me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPpAmxkspXl6AgQia9yoAn55MWf0K0KMsUJF492CxgG3_k7xW2celG_5B8f1qEtoVBFSGrxBb6HuPR3rEzRYVACSgz0PZM7cTBH355VvgXh1jbB3a_oi-n0hhFILDULxbkJXxP7JLpeC4/s1600/IMG_7182.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPpAmxkspXl6AgQia9yoAn55MWf0K0KMsUJF492CxgG3_k7xW2celG_5B8f1qEtoVBFSGrxBb6HuPR3rEzRYVACSgz0PZM7cTBH355VvgXh1jbB3a_oi-n0hhFILDULxbkJXxP7JLpeC4/s400/IMG_7182.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Oh, right, so Hotel Delmano was out of Baby Savennieres. I ordered us another Loire Chenin, from Anjou, which was mediocre but then again so are most things. But it came in a such a stunning castle-y-looking bottle… you know how it is. You win some and you lose some.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lexy ordered ricotta toast which weirdly ended up being one of my favourite things I ate in New York so I thought I’d shout it out even though I only have boring things to say about it. But then again earlier today I was reading a review of my friend’s boyfriend’s restaurant that just opened up in London, which contained the sentences “…baby gem crumples and gives up under a swathe of bacon gremolata. A shame, since bacon gremolata is such a cunning notion,” and I was just like “Holy fucking shit, is this what food writing’s actually like?” Non-boring, I suppose, but what a fucking joke. If I ever wrote a sentence as straight up fucking pointless as “Bacon gremolata is such a cunning notion” I would immediately die of a broken heart. Anyway, the ricotta toast was a swathe of crostini accompanied by a swathe of ricotta and a smaller swathe of coarse sea salt and you assembled yourself your perfect little ricotta-salt-toasts and it was not a cunning notion because food is never cunning. QED. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We said goodbye to lovely Charlotte and her lovely husband Richard. Lexy & Katie & I had a dinner reservation at a natural wine bar called <a href="http://www.fourhorsemenbk.com/" target="_blank">The Four Horsemen</a>, which for a second I was angry about: I only wanted to eat more ricotta toast. I wanted to order a thing of ricotta toast to go and take it to the Four Horsemen with me and eat it like a boxed lunch. The Four Horsemen is owned by the guy from LCD Soundsystem which I didn’t know when I first decided to go there but whatever; it's <i>sort of</i> gross, but not gross enough to stop me from going there. I’m sure a lot of restaurant owners out there are a lot grosser than the guy from LCD Soundsystem but I don’t know about it because they’re not famous.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A thing that annoyed me about The Four Horsemen is that every time you ordered a glass of wine they’d come to the table with the bottle and pour you a taste to see if you liked it or not but...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">THE POINT OF POURING A TASTE AT THE TABLE IS NOT TO FIND OUT IF THE CUSTOMER LIKES THE WINE OR NOT IT’S MEANT TO FIND OUT WHETHER THE BOTTLE IS CORKED OR NOT AND IF THE BOTTLE IS ALREADY OPEN AND HAS BEEN POURED FROM IT’S NOT CORKED SO BASICALLY EVERYTHING ABOUT THAT ACT IS FUCKING POINTLESS AND IS GOING TO FURTHER CONFUSE RESTAURANT DINERS INTO THINKING THE POINT OF A TASTE IS SOMETHING IT ISN’T THEREFORE FURTHER ENABLING THEM TO SEND BACK EXCELLENT WINE BECAUSE IT DOESN’T SUIT THEIR OWN PERSONAL TASTES AND THAT IS SO FUCKING ANNOYING FOR ALL THE SOMMELIERS OF THE WORLD</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and also goes to show you that the guy from LCD Soundsystem is stupider about wine than me, which should come as a surprise to absolutely fucking no one.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My first glass of wine from Four Horsemen was a good old Loire Valley sparkler. But this guy had some Cabernet Franc, a red grape, blended into the Chenin, like Pinot Noir in Champagne, A <i>Blanc de Noirs</i>. I always like the idea of a <i>Blanc de Noirs</i> more than a <i>Blanc de Blancs</i>, <i>Blanc de Noirs</i> is the sultry brunette, the Veronica Lodge of the duo. I wonder if Cabernet Franc might be my favourite grape. It’s certainly the grape I’m best at, the grape I would best be able to correctly identify blindfolded and from ten feet away. It smells like cinnamon and stalkiness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was a trip, drinking a sparkling white that tasted of a beloved still red. There was only just a sigh of it, an echo of it, but I was obsessed with finding it, saving it, stashing it in my pocket. Nobody cares about this but me. I like calling it Cab Franc, not Cabernet Franc— Cabernet Sauvignon can keep the formal “Cabernet” for itself. Big boss man Bordeaux. Cab Franc’s the scrappy little brother, skinny with his knees all scraped up. He’s terrible at baseball. I liked that wine, the amount of time I devoted to smelling it. That was a well-utilized chunk of time in my life. I will never regret those minutes.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvlgZGuXiy-3tLz4RBHMbjw4aMqrKF-v9cMr-MFLyuvh09F04uBCfEcvLiIMsrNt9BJ5UyHpLc1CcYP2AQ2BcxBSCzhWYWmqHWBX3lbWhnpb7lqlOT3ssUWcuYh3E3O1w48VpfBOO4mL8/s1600/IMG_7288.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvlgZGuXiy-3tLz4RBHMbjw4aMqrKF-v9cMr-MFLyuvh09F04uBCfEcvLiIMsrNt9BJ5UyHpLc1CcYP2AQ2BcxBSCzhWYWmqHWBX3lbWhnpb7lqlOT3ssUWcuYh3E3O1w48VpfBOO4mL8/s400/IMG_7288.JPG" width="365" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>(Above: Laura Jane & Katie Rose being the least gauche babes evs)</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For dinner I ate a weird skillet of kabocha squash, stracciatella cheese, and black seaweed in hot seaweed oil. It had a kooky modernist feel to it. It was a meal that would most appropriately be eaten by members of the bands Can or Neu. I loved it but after three or four bites it lumped into a hideously ugly pile of blackish mush in a Halloween-inspired colour palette, which was off-brand. For dessert we drank seven hundred thousand bottles of a Calabrian rosé made from a grape named Greco Nero; it was the Holy Grail of rosés, easily the easiest wine I’ve ever loved. Real laid-back, low maintenance, no drama. Majorly funky on the nose but all snippy zingy watermelon pomegranate pop on the palate. I could sit there drinking it til I died, like how dogs will eat themselves to death if nobody stops them. We pretty much did. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfkK7hJ6idhrdf1rk2B_xHuSaZfyqLYrok_dXhR8RBngWWd5pIZHSegl8sRW-L4tGirU-Vjb8XRzGNJDRDfhip7rL3GM1xSfFCNydTAy9paxTigM1FUd9VCiAZqS7D_xwZrZ3bWy7bnxo/s1600/IMG_7291.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfkK7hJ6idhrdf1rk2B_xHuSaZfyqLYrok_dXhR8RBngWWd5pIZHSegl8sRW-L4tGirU-Vjb8XRzGNJDRDfhip7rL3GM1xSfFCNydTAy9paxTigM1FUd9VCiAZqS7D_xwZrZ3bWy7bnxo/s400/IMG_7291.JPG" width="397" /></a></div>
<br />Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Fauldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12130486571539054085noreply@blogger.com1